Coriander had taken a seat on an old stone bench, the hewed stone smooth with age. Peppermint joined her while Rue, Verbena, and Sorrel stood by, all watching her in wait.
“So, how come you were allowed to come here while we aren’t?” Verbena shot.
Coriander shook her head.
“I wasn’t allowed to come here either.”Sorrel pouted. “That just makes it worse. Why are we even here anyway? We haven’t seen a sign of Cassia at all!”
“Well, I just figured I knew where he was, but I didn’t want you guys to know I’d been here, so I had to make it look natural.”“You didn’t do a good job,” Rue murmured, tongue sticking out a bit.
“How do you know where he is?” Peppermint wondered.
Coriander was silent for a moment, kicking her feet as she tried to find the words.
“I can’t be too mad at you guys, because it was my fault too. I’ve been trying to watch over your guys and with Cassia...I messed up.” Taking a deep breath, she began,
“You guys are lucky, because you all have each other. But after me, the next oldest person in the whole town is Caraway, and he’s been spending a lot of time working hard learning how to build ships in the Conch Archipelago, so it’s not like he could babysit me. Even when you guys were born it’s not like we could really play or anything. When I was 5 or 6 like Cassia, it was only adults and babies. I spent a lot of time doing chores and stuff, or reading, but Mother Basil hadn’t showed up yet so I didn’t have church to occupy my time. So I wandered around the island a lot, even Tacet City. When I heard that he wasn’t anywhere back in town, I guessed he might have gone there because that’s where I would go. Then I found out we were all busy when he tried to find us, it became more than a guess.” Finally looking up, Coriander saw that the kids were still a bit confused, the connections Coriander made still not clicking with them. Standing from the bench, she looked at the sky, starting to get a shade darker as the sun behind the clouds slipped away. Putting a hand on Verbena’s head, she said,
“Do you think you can get everyone home before it gets dark? We’ve only been on the main roads so, as long as you follow the biggest roads you should make it just fine.”Verbena’s nostrils flared. “Of course I can! Just watch me.” A domineering hand shot up as he waved the others along, turning back around. Coriander watched them go, Rue and Peppermint both stealing worried glances her way. Once they were just out of sight, Coriander turned her eyes upward, scanning the horizon until she saw a tower piercing the sky, partly crumbled away. Her hasty steps pattered throughout the city of silence.
Face dried with tears turned skyward, Cassia watched the clouds closer than he’d ever been to that sky. He imagined being sucked into that sky, never to return. Where would he go? What would he see? The young boy could never know, but as his face cringed in pain, glancing down to his skinned knee, he knew he didn’t want to be here.
Gray walls crumbling slowly around him, wooden floor mucked with refuse, the top of the tower had long since fallen away. Cassia rubbed his arms as the temperature dropped in the approaching spring night, the short sleeves of his black shirt largely suitable for day, not the night. His breath started to come on harder, a low whine coming out. Then, there was the sound of footsteps on stone. Cassia silenced himself, looking about for anything to hide behind, but it was too late. From the doorway came Coriander, a slight expression of recognition passing by her face once she saw him. Cassia huddled up, shirking away, but Coriander didn’t pause. Entering the room, she went to the wall, sitting down next to Cassia and leaning against it. “S-sorry,” Cassia muttered.
“Was it scary?” Coriander wondered.
Cassia swallowed. “At first…”
A light smile came to Coriander’s face.
“But then it stopped, right? When you realized that even the ghosts were long gone. That the rats and crows weren’t going to hurt you. But it’s different from being out in the woods, where there are animals everywhere you look. Here, it’s like you’re the only one in the world. It has all the things we use as people, but none of the people, except you. Right?” Cassia stared, his mouth hanging open for a moment before tears started to form at the edges of his eyes. Raising her hand, Coriander ran it through Cassia’s red hair.
“It’s not like you want to be alone, it’s just you feel like...you are alone, no matter how many people are around, sometimes. And when it’s like that, if it’s true, it doesn’t feel as bad.”Cassia continued to beat back his tears, but he did give a slow nod.
“Ready to go home?”Cassia brought a hand to his skinned knee, where some bruising was forming. Looking to a fallen chair, the leg snapped, he said, “I was trying to look out of the window and…”
Without hesitation, Coriander started to stand, helping Cassia to his good leg. Hoisting him up with a grunt, she was able to help him to the windowsill. Once he was sitting, one leg hanging out into the room, the two looked over the large city, the framework of roads and buildings, even lighting of the overcast day rendering the shadows soft. In the fallout of a destruction long since passed, there was only peace and quiet. Coriander met Cassia’s eyes and grinned.
“It’s not scary when you look at it all from up here, huh?” Coriander mused. Leaning over a bit, she added,
“It’s like the whole world is sleeping. Maybe we should call it ‘Lullaby City’ instead?”Cassia glanced over. “How do come up with embarrassing things to say like that?”
Coriander gawked. Cassia hadn’t strung that many words together that quickly in at least a week.
“Why do you guys gotta bully me all the time!?” she moaned. Once the air left her body from her long groan, her blue eyes met Cassia’s red, and the two cracked smiles, joining together in a fit of giggles.
Hands held onto Cassia’s thighs, the boy holding on to her back, Coriander frowned as she saw the lantern-light ahead of her on the dirt road back to Melody.
“Oh boy, here we go...”Sure enough, once she was in earshot, she was met with the greatest wielder of the weapon she’d brandished earlier today. “CATHERINE CORIANDER YOU BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXPLANATION FOR THIS!” Cori could feel Cassia’s grip tighten on her back as he flinched away from Marjoram’s howl, but Cori stood her ground. The parents moved in, Dill relieving Coriander of Cassia’s weight. In the transfer process, Cassia’s knee brushed against his dad’s arm, the boy letting out a gasp of pain. “You’re hurt? What happened!?” Dill blurted, his words carrying an accusatory tone.
Coriander growled,
“This is why I didn’t want to tell you guys anything! You guys suck at this!” Marjoram’s stunned glare was visible even in the low light, her eyes boring holes through Coriander.
“Well, she inherited her mother’s mouth,” said a lanky man in a white button up shirt and slacks [C-Semy; Archaeologist, Sorrel’s father]. Dodging a jab from Marjoram, he realigned his indigo bangs saying, “I’ve made it quite clear that it’s not safe to wander around Tacet. The city deteriorates more every day. We don’t want to do more damage to it.”
“Oh, you didn’t hear about what Cori said it was okay to do to the big gate into the city,” Marjoram hissed. “Peppermint said you were taking full responsibility, so out with it!”
Coriander stamped her foot.
“I know you guys are mad but this is why the kids don’t want to tell anyone when something’s wrong!” Cori burst out.
“They wouldn’t even tell me that Cassia was missing until I twisted it out of them. If they’re always afraid of being in trouble they’re just going to hide what they do instead of owning up to their mistakes and learning from them!”The parents were struck silent from Coriander’s words. A portly man with a stiff mustache rubbed his balding head, “I must admit, Verbena and Rue have only grown more anti-authority lately…” [Borage; Butcher, Verbena’s dad]
“They’re not going to feel like they’ve made a mistake unless we say something!” Marjoram insisted.
“Not if you don’t know they’re doing wrong. I’ve been wandering around Tacet since I was little. I knew what I was doing!”“Then explain the busted gate,” Marjoram countered.
“I’m going to go get my kid to Mrs. Poppy, actually,” Dill interrupted, excusing himself and Cassia.
Buckling under the chaos of words flying every which way, Coriander cried,
“I didn’t want the kids to find out about me knowing about Tacet, and I didn’t want them to find out about the tunnels, so I wanted Peppermint to open the hole in the gate a bit more. I didn’t think the whole thing would come down.”“Th-the whole thing? Wait, tunnels? Do tell,” C-Semy asked, leaning in.
“You almost got crushed! Peppermint got a nasty bruise from hitting the ground after that, and if that girl gets hurt, that means it was real danger. You all could have been killed from the sounds of it!”
Corinader’s fists clenched, but even if she was only being indignant, it was out of rejection that she was wrong, her anger only bubbling because she knew her mother was right, even as she refused to admit it, even to herself.
“I never got hurt when I went there before and I went there a bunch of times! Cassia only got hurt because a chair broke, that could have happened even back in Melody.”“Huh? Those sound like weak excuses to me. What about Rue, huh?”
“I was watching her! I said I was taking responsibility!” A smack rang out, Marjoram’s hand moving before her mouth. Coriander didn’t cry out, as much as it hurt both inside and out, instead reaffirming her gaze.
“Do you think you could have shouldered that burden if one of them had died?” Coriander winced at Marjoram’s words, eyes glancing away.
Coriander bit her lip, eyes blinking rapidly as she fought back any tears.
“I-it doesn’t matter if I can or can’t. I said I would, so I will.”Marjoram’s hands massaged the side of her temples. “That’s not your responsibility to take! You should have just let us handle this from the start!”
“No,” Coriander refuted.
“I shouldn’t have brought the kids into it, but I don’t think anything else I did was wrong!”“That’s easy for you to say now! I can’t
believe you don’t even think you’re in the wrong here! Did I raise you wrong? Was-”
“YOU’RE IN THE WRONG!” Coriander screeched, her throat tearing in her raised voice.
Marjoram stared, struck by a side of her daughter she’d never seen before. C-Semy and Borage were dead silent, knowing full well not to get on Marjoram’s bad side. Back straightening, Marjoram held her ground, following up those stretched seconds of silence with a simple question. “And how am I in the wrong?”
Coriander stared, catching her breath, before she huffed,
“It doesn’t matter.”Marjoram’s anger flared again. “How am I supposed to understand if you won’t tell me then?”
“Even if I tell you it’s not like you’ll listen anyway!” Foot stomping on the dirt, Coriander’s face became tight.
“When have you ever listened to me!? I know I’m still just a kid! I’ll always be way younger than everyone else on the island except the other kids! But to them I’m no different than an adult! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I don’t know what I’m supposed to be!” Her voice cracked under her words, which grew wet as tears flowed. Even as she stood here in the middle of the island, in some ways, her heart was back in Tacet City, where she’d never had anyone to reach out to her like she’d done for Cassia. Where she’d suffered alone in silence for so long, lost in soul more than body.
“I can’t help you understand if you don’t ask!”A rare distraught expression flashed over Marjoram’s face as her daughter wept. Coriander sobbed openly, hands still clutched into fists at her side. Marjoram had never been good at asking, always telling. Everyone else had always been soft on Coriander, so Marjoram felt like it had been her duty to be firm. Tough, but fair. And yet now, as she watched her daughter pushed to her wits end, she wasn’t sure who it was being unfair.
Raising a hand, Borage left a lantern on the ground. “I think we’ll leave you two be.” The two men took their leave, the two ladies alone in the dark of night, moonlight illuminating a patch of thin cloud.
It took some time before Marjoram finally found the words. “Why...would you go to Tacet City alone?”
Coriander’s sobs started to slow. Raising her sleeves, she wiped at her face, shoulders still shaking with every strained breath.
“B-because there was no one there,” she sniffled.
Marjoram shook her head lightly, mystified. “Did you like being alone?” Coriander shook her head. Marjoram only felt further from the truth. “So why did you have to be alone?”
Coriander shook her head,
“I didn’t kn-know what else to do when no one else could be b-bothered.”Marjoram’s mouth opened, but she couldn’t say what she wanted. She’d always said she’d be there for her if she needed it, but as her own hand stung, she couldn’t exactly repeat that in good faith. Coriander had always been such a bright and cheery girl that this girl...no, this young woman in front of her was almost unrecognizable. The shadow from the lantern stretched back far into the night, as though it might return to Tacet City, Marjoram wondering how many tears of Coriander’s had dried there. Clearly it was at once too many, and not enough. Marjoram had questioned the burden Coriander took onto herself, but she hadn’t considered the burden she bore alone, with not one peer or friend to share it with.
“I’m sorry,” Marjoram replied. “I said something I shouldn’t have. I didn’t raise you wrong at all. I raised a wonderful young lady, who stood her ground for what she believed in even against me.” Coriander blinked, processing her mother’s words. “I think I understand now. I can’t really blame you that much when it was my fault in the first place for not noticing. And if you really think you’re ready for the responsibility you want, then I’ll let you have it. But just because you got lucky this time-” Marjoram began, stopping herself, much to Coriander’s surprise. Letting out a sigh, she said, “At least try to think a little more next time.”
Sniffling away the last of her tears, Coriander nodded in compliance. “Are you hungry?”
“Y-yeah,” Coriander mumbled. Taking her arm around her daughter’s shoulder, her other lifting the lantern, the two started back towards Melody, just as moonlight started to shine from above, the clouds clearing up, if only just a little.
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