“This is an example of the circumstances that strengthened the alliance of energy between our living and our dead, forming the tradition we call Rootcraft.”
A chill runs through me, even with the fireplace cooking the room. “We’re inside a memory?”
No one of the Order has ever mentioned anything like this. Sel is an illusionist and a caster, and he can manipulate memories with his mesmer, but traveling into them?
“Yes,” Patricia affirms. “I know this one well, actually. This is early June, 1865. A couple months after the Battle of Appomattox, but before Juneteenth. We need to move closer. Mary is almost here.” She takes a step forward, but I hang back, shaking my head, because I can guess the source of the suffocating, terrifying copper smell: blood. Lots of it.
When Patricia notices that I’m not behind her, she takes in my expression, and sympathy falls across her face. “It’s all right to be scared, Bree. Like many true things, this is awful, and hard. If it helps, Abby endures, with the help of Mary. She lives a long life after this night.”
It does help, some.
“Won’t they see us?” I ask, watching as Louisa squeezes a wet cloth into a nearby bucket, worry etched across her brown face. Even in crisis, her hands are steady.
“No. Louisa’s spirit brought us here, but what’s past is past. We are observers only. She can’t see or hear us, and neither can anyone else.”
I gnaw on my cheek. “But why did she choose this memory?”
“You’ll see. Come.” Patricia offers me her hand, and I take it.
As we approach, the rickety door of the cabin swings inward and a young, dark-skinned woman wearing a deep beige dress sweeps into the room, focus pulling her elegant features tight. “What happened?”
Louisa exhales in relief, pushing herself to standing. The whole front of her dress is streaked with drying blood. “That rat-faced boy Carr got to her.”
Louisa moves back as Mary steps forward. She has a bag made from cloth in one hand, and as she kneels, she starts working on the knot at the top. “What’d he say she do?”
A sneer mars Louisa’s pretty features. “Same old mistruths. Gettin’ uppity with some white woman on the street, talking back to her or some such nonsense.”
Mary’s got the bag open now and spreads it out over the dirt. Inside are bundled herbs, small green glass bottles of murky liquids, and some plants freshly pulled from the ground, moist soil still clinging to their spindly roots. Her mouth twists in a grimace. “Bet you that boy’s got a different story every time he tells it.”
Louisa’s so furious her fists shake at her sides. “Chloe said she ran to the garrison for help when I told this girl over and over that they ain’t here to protect us, they here to keep us in line. Carr dragged her out.” Louisa’s eyes turn hard as flint. “Left her there on the ground, passed out from the whip. Me and Chloe carried her back here, and she woke up halfway. I been keeping her calm, but—”
“Mary?” Abby’s voice is a reedy whisper.
“I’m here, Abby,” Mary assures the other woman while her hands work at the materials on the floor.
Patricia has been pulling me forward slowly. We’re at the hearth now, and I can finally see what’s happened to Abby.
Her back is torn open like a great cat has used her spine for a scratching post. Long stripes of split flesh crisscross from shoulder to hip, some thin as a razor, others open wide enough to reveal folds of tissue in pinks and reds that I’ve only seen at the butcher. The whip took skin and cloth, leaving both her body and dress in shreds.
A human did this to another human. Some boy did this to Abby over some perceived slight. She ran for help and no one gave it to her. They handed her over to a boy who tore her body open and left her for dead.
Fury builds in me like venom. A sharp, dangerous feeling I’ve never felt about someone I haven’t met. “Carr.”
Patricia nods. “His monument is on the quad.”
“His monument?” I turn to her, enraged that this monster is honored at Carolina or anywhere else.
She sighs heavily. “Everything has two histories. Especially in the South.”
I search her features for the anger that I’m feeling, but her face is a tired mask. She must feel it. She must.
Patricia stares back as if she knows what I’m thinking. “Never forget. Be angry. And channel it.” She reaches for my hand and grips it tight, and it’s the only thing keeping me from swaying to the ground. “Watch. This is the heart of Rootcraft, Bree. Protection from those who would harm us, and, if they do, healing so that we can survive, resist, and thrive.”
I watch Mary settle on her knees, palms facing up on her lap. I watch as she begins chanting beneath her breath, a low pulse that feels like warm drums beating in my feet, in my belly, my heart. Then, I watch as those drums become more than a feeling, as they take shape and become visible.
Light curls up from Mary’s knuckles and coats her palms and wrists, as yellow flames grow and pulse along her skin.
“Mage flame,” I whisper in awe. Patricia startles beside me, but somehow, that doesn’t feel like it matters. Not when I see Mary lean forward over Abby’s back until her glowing golden hands hover over the injuries and the wounds begin to slowly, slowly close. Not when Mary’s breathing and Abby’s ragged breaths come together until their chests rise and fall in the same rhythm, and the root knits muscle to muscle, muscle to fascia, skin to skin.
The smells of honey and blood mix together in my nose and mouth.
The two women breathe together for a long, long time, while the blood of Mary’s ancestors comes forward to heal wounds wrought by a horse whip in the hands of an evil man.
Finally, Mary leans back, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead.
But Abby’s wounds have not fully closed. “She’s not done, is she?”
“She is.”
“But Abby’s still bleeding!”
“Look at the herbs.”
Beside Mary’s knees, the bundles of plants and herbs have turned withered and black. The moist roots have dried and curled into small, sooty fists. “I don’t understand.”
“Wildcrafters borrow power from their ancestors in order to use the energy of the plants. That power is finite, and so is the living energy of plants, as is Mary’s ability to operate as a vessel, as with all crafters of her branch.” Illustrating Patricia’s words, Mary herself sways on her knees. Louisa rushes to her side to help steady her.
I shake my head. This is not what I’ve seen William do. He can close wounds fully, seal them up and heal them almost overnight. When I think of him and Sel and the other Awakened Scions, their power seems to have no limit. Why? Why not Mary’s? “But Abby’s still in pain.”
“She’s saved Abby from deadly infection. Abby’s body will heal the rest of the way. Perhaps if another Wildcrafter were nearby, but even then, the ancestors may not allow a double treatment. We can’t turn them on and off like a tap. They allow us to use their power, after all.”
“Bless you, Mary,” Abby whispers, her voice drowsy with exhaustion. “Bless you.”
“Of course,” Mary soothes as Louisa helps her to her feet. “Rest now.”