Do any of us really control anything? But I only said, “Half a lifetime doesn’t heal in a night. Nothing’s that easy. But the worst is over, like you said. And I’ll—we’ll be here, to show her how much good she can find in . . .” Something in Jule’s face made me stop. But I didn’t ask. With my heart beating too quickly, I let my mind go loose, trying to feel what was wrong. And got nothing. Nothing.
“Cat? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I mean—nothing,” feeling my face collapse; feeling my mind as tight and hard as a fist. “Did you—was there anything?”
She looked at me, confused. Then, “Oh.” No.
“It didn’t last.” Didn’t last, didn’t last, didn’t, . . . Echoes, was that all she’d left me? (Jule, feel it, for God’s sake, feel it!)
She blinked, twitched.
I leaned forward, tilting my stool. “Did you . . . ?”
She nodded slowly, starting to smile. “I felt something. I felt something.”
“Yeah?” I settled back; knowing I should have realized that Ineh wasn’t the only one whose healing wouldn’t finish in a night. . . . “At least there’s something. Hope.” A crack in the wall. A beginning, now that I’d finally accepted that guilt would only die when I did. I sighed, looking back at Jule. “What did I say wrong about helping Ineh?” Asking; just asking.
Jule stood up, turning away from me. “She doesn’t want to see you again.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t want to see you.” Her voice got weaker instead of stronger.
“Why? Why not?” I stood up, following her. “We shared—everything.’’
“That’s why.” She turned to face me, finally. “She isn’t ready, she isn’t strong enough to deal with what that meant to both of you. You saw things about her that made her wish she was dead, Cat. Things she’ll be working to forget for the rest of her life.”
“But she knows things about me—” things that made me wish I was dead, “things even you don’t know. She doesn’t need to feel any shame with me. What she knows about me—”
“Is more than she can bear. Not added to her own problems. Not right now.” She frowned, not with anger, not at me.
“So she needs time, you mean. In time she’ll want to see me again. ... A long time?”
She nodded.
“I see.” A long time before a Hydran could face a halfbreed who couldn’t face himself. A long time before he’d ever be able to do even that. A long time, a long cure, a lot of memories like bandages ... a lot of proving I had a right to be alive. “I can’t stay here anymore.” Jule didn’t say anything. I went to the window, stared through the dark ghost trapped there in the dirty pane. “At least I’ll know she’s got you—at least she’ll have the best friends anybody could ask for, to help her through if I can’t.” I traced lines in the dust on the deep sill. Glancing down, I saw that I’d written C-A-T.
“You’ve already done the most important part, alone. You saved her sanity, Cat.”
I shook my head, wiped my name out in the dust. “You’ve got it backwards. She saved mine. I thought I could handle it, I thought I could make her believe in herself. But I couldn’t. I was the one who broke. And she had to come after me and drag me out of my own death wish.”
“But you showed her she could use her talent in ways that were healing, not degrading. And then you gave her a chance to prove it. You showed her that she isn’t the only one who’s suffered . . . and survived.” Her voice touched me softly.
I glanced over my shoulder. “How much did you—did you—?”
She shook her head. “None of it. I couldn’t. We’re all afraid of something in our lives ... of meeting the past head-on. But Ineh knows that, and I understand it, now. We’ve begun to find common ground. She showed me enough . . . she showed me how much you gave back to her.”
I took a long breath, leaning against the casement. I could hear Oldcity’s voice through the window: feel its reality gritty under my hands. I looked out and up, seeing nothing but walls. Somewhere up there was a garden where the sweet breath of spring moved silver crescent leaves; farther above two moons, hanging in the sky like lanterns…“She’s got a gift, Jule. For healing, for reaching even somebody like me. She could help her people here, who’ve lost everything. Maybe she could give them back some of what they lost—not their life, but maybe their pride. Make her believe that, will you?”
“I’ll try. And so will Ardan.”
I remembered his first wife, his own common ground, and nodded. “Yeah. That’s fine. She’ll do fine. ...” I turned around, to look back at the room Ineh and I had gone through hell in together: Cracked, cramped, peeling; with a couple of cheap holos of somewhere better on the walls to make it even more depressing. Only one thing in the room that was beautiful, besides Jule; one thing that was beautiful and mine—a small Hydran crystal globe sitting on the bookshelf table, that Siebeling had given to me. An image of a nightflower bush lay inside it, black petals striped with silver repeating like a starry night.
I went to it and covered it with my hand. It was warm, not cool; it always was. I closed my eyes and felt for it with all my mind, felt it tingle and stir with the psi-tuned energy I was calling…But when I opened my eyes the nightflower was still there. Once I’d only needed to touch the warm surface and wish, to change the image inside. The nightflower had been there for most of a year, ever since Siebeling had given it to me. A promise, he’d called it. “Give this to Ineh for me. Say it’s—a promise.” I cupped the ball in my hands.
Jule came to my side, put her arm around my shoulders. Dimly I knew that she was trying to reach me. I held my mind as loose as I could…felt warmth belief hope sorrow trust love; a drop of nectar, a whisper of a poem where before there had only been the silence of the grave. Feeling what they had only been able to tell me: that they loved me, that they wanted to help me; that they were responsible for the way I was, and they would be responsible for making it right again.
“But it’s not your responsibility.” I moved away from her, gently. “It was my choice; I killed a man. I have to pay for it, I have to make it right with myself.’’
“You can’t give up now, Cat, just when you’ve—”
“Jule,” I said; she stopped. “You don’t understand. You want to help me; I know that. You tried—you did help. But now I know I’m the only one who can make the trip. You can’t carry me; you don’t need to: I’m not a cripple. I can walk.” Someday I’ll run. I looked down. “And I guess it’s about time I got started.”
“You’re really going to leave here, then.” Not a question; a dim barb of dismay caught in my mind.
I nodded, not really sure of the answer until I’d made it; realizing then that I’d been certain all along. “It’s better if I do. Better for Ineh. Better for me. Better for everyone.”
She shook her head, but she didn’t deny it. I moved back to her and put my arms around her. We held each other for a while, not saying anything. Her body was warm against mine, made real by the touch of her mind. “I’m sorry. ...” she said finally; but I wasn’t sure why.
I let her go at last and moved back to the window; looking out again because I had to.
“Where will you go?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Maybe it doesn’t even matter.” I shrugged. “I mean, what have I got to lose?” Up there somewhere two moons were hanging like lanterns in the sky; and beyond them were the stars.