‘A few minutes?’ he cried. ‘You’ve been there three days! What’s going on? Are you all right?’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ She started to come to her feet, then sat back, stunned by the sight of a naked woman with long blond hair curled up in a corner not ten feet away, nestled so close to the cavity wall that the tips of leaves half-covered her body and obscured her face.
‘Catherine!’ Mauldry shouted. ‘Answer me!’
‘I . . . I’m all right! Just a minute!’
The woman stirred and made a complaining noise.
‘Catherine!’
‘I said I’m all right!’
The woman stretched out her legs; on her right hip was a fine pink scar, hook-shaped, identical to the scar on Catherine’s hip, evidence of a childhood fall. And on the back of the right knee, a patch of raw, puckered skin, the product of an acid burn she’d suffered the year before. She was astonished by the sight of these markings, but when the woman sat up and Catherine understood that she was staring at her twin – identical not only in feature, but also in expression, wearing a resigned look that she had glimpsed many times in her mirror – her astonishment turned to fright. She could have sworn she felt the muscles of the woman’s face shifting as the expression changed into one of pleased recognition, and in spite of her fear, she had a vague sense of the woman’s emotions, of her burgeoning hope and elation.
‘Sister,’ said the woman; she glanced down at her body, and Catherine had a momentary flash of doubled vision, watching the woman’s head decline and seeing as well naked breasts and belly from the perspective of the woman’s eyes. Her vision returned to normal, and she looked at the woman’s face . . . her face. Though she had studied herself in the mirror each morning for years, she had never had such a clear perception of the changes that life inside the dragon had wrought upon her. Fine lines bracketed her lips, and the beginnings of crow’s-feet radiated from the corners of her eyes. Her cheeks had hollowed, and this made her cheekbones appear sharper; the set of her mouth seemed harder, more determined. The high gloss and perfection of her youthful beauty had been marred far more than she had thought, and this dismayed her. However, the most remarkable change – the one that most struck her – was not embodied by any one detail but in the overall character of the face, in that it exhibited character, for – she realized – prior to entering the dragon it had displayed very little, and what little it had displayed had been evidence of indulgence. It troubled her to have this knowledge of the fool she had been thrust upon her with such poignancy.
As if the woman had been listening to her thoughts, she held out her hand and said, ‘Don’t punish yourself, sister. We are all victims of our past.’
‘What are you?’ Catherine asked, pulling back. She felt the woman was a danger to her, though she was not sure why.
‘I am you.’ Again the woman reached out to touch her, and again Catherine shifted away. The woman’s face was smiling, but Catherine felt the wash of her frustration and noticed that the woman had leaned forward only a few degrees, remaining in contact with the leaves of the vines as if there were some attachment between them that she could not break.
‘I doubt that.’ Catherine was fascinated, but she was beginning to be swayed by the intuition that the woman’s touch would harm her.
‘But I am!’ the woman insisted. ‘And something more, besides.’
‘What more?’
‘The plant extracts essences,’ said the woman. ‘Infinitely small constructs of the flesh from which it creates a likeness free of the imperfections of your body. And since the seeds of your future are embodied by these essences, though they are unknown to you, I know them . . . for now.’
‘For now?’
The woman’s tone had become desperate. ‘There’s a connection between us . . . surely you feel it?’
‘Yes.’
‘To live, to complete that connection, I must touch you. And once I do, this knowledge of the future will be lost to me. I will be as you . . . though separate. But don’t worry. I won’t interfere with you, I’ll live my own life.’ She leaned forward again, and Catherine saw that some of the leaves were affixed to her back, the hollow tubes at their tips adhering to the skin. Once again she had an awareness of danger, a growing apprehension that the woman’s touch would drain her of some vital substance.
‘If you know my future,’ she said, ‘then tell me . . . will I ever escape Griaule?’
Mauldry chose this moment to call out to her, and she soothed him by saying that she was taking some cuttings, that she would be down soon. She repeated her question, and the woman said, ‘Yes, yes, you will leave the dragon,’ and tried to grasp her hand. ‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t harm you.’
The woman’s flesh was sagging, and Catherine felt the eddying of her fear.
‘Please!’ she said, holding out both hands. ‘Only your touch will sustain me. Without it, I’ll die!’
But Catherine refused to trust her.
‘You must believe me!’ cried the woman. ‘I am your sister! My blood is yours, my memories!’ The flesh upon her arms had sagged into billows like the flesh of an old woman, and her face was becoming jowly, grossly distorted. ‘Oh, please! Remember the time with Stel below the wing . . . you were a maiden. The wind was blowing thistles down from Griaule’s back like a rain of silver. And remember the gala in Teocinte? Your sixteenth birthday. You wore a mask of orange blossoms and gold wire, and three men asked for your hand. For God’s sake, Catherine! Listen to me! The major . . . don’t you remember him? The young major? You were in love with him, but you didn’t follow your heart. You were afraid of love, you didn’t trust what you felt because you never trusted yourself in those days.’
The connection between them was fading, and Catherine steeled herself against the woman’s entreaties, which had begun to move her more than a little bit. The woman slumped down, her features blurring, a horrid sight, like the melting of a wax figure, and then, an even more horrid sight, she smiled, her lips appearing to dissolve away from teeth that were themselves dissolving.
‘I understand,’ said the woman in a frail voice, and gave a husky, glutinous laugh. ‘Now I see.’
‘What is it?’ Catherine asked. But the woman collapsed, rolling onto her side, and the process of deterioration grew more rapid; within the span of a few minutes she had dissipated into a gelatinous grayish white puddle that retained the rough outline of her form. Catherine was both appalled and relieved; however, she couldn’t help feeling some remorse, uncertain whether she had acted in self-defense or through cowardice had damned a creature who was by nature no more reprehensible than herself. While the woman had been alive – if that was the proper word – Catherine had been mostly afraid, but now she marveled at the apparition, at the complexity of a plant that could produce even the semblance of a human. And the woman had been, she thought, something more vital than mere likeness. How else could she have known her memories? Or could memory, she wondered, have a physiological basis? She forced herself to take samples of the woman’s remains, of the vines, with an eye toward exploring the mystery. But she doubted that the heart of such an intricate mystery would be accessible to her primitive instruments. This was to prove a self-fulfilling prophecy, because she really did not want to know the secrets of the ghostvine, leery as to what might be brought to light concerning her own nature, and with the passage of time, although she thought of it often and sometimes discussed the phenomena with Mauldry, she eventually let the matter drop.