Sunshine and Starlight

I shift in my seat, watching as people pour into the train. A man sits beside me, his sun necklace—a larger, more intricate version of mine—bumping against his tie. I don’t notice the train start to move—I’m too busy ticking off a list in my mind. Did I leave food stamps for Kalum? Did I tell him which workbook pages to do? Did I remind him not to leave our apartment? Check, check, check. I exhale and look outside. There’s the candy store Kalum loves. There’s the flower field we always visit.

Used to visit. We haven’t gone in months, with my terrible work schedule and all. Ten hours a day. But what can I do? Who’s going to put food on the table if I slack off? I sigh, lean against the window. The family-run shops are replaced with crowded buildings as the train enters Sol, our kingdom’s capital city, and jerks to a stop. I’m swept through the doors with a wave of people getting off in Sol. Everything mixes into a crash of color and sound: vendors advertising apples and tarts, elders gossiping about the latest Night victim. Work is a blur of pots, pans, and malfunctioning faucets. I take the same train home, buy dinner from the eatery across the street, and then climb the rusty stairs to our door.

“I’m back!” I say to our empty apartment. Oh no. I flick on the lights. Kalum’s workbooks are open, their pages untouched. I set the food down. My brother wouldn’t just leave—he’s played tricks before, but nothing that serious. I check the bathroom, bedroom, living room. Nothing. I look through the closets. Still nothing. I shout his name a couple times. No Kalum.

I step outside to ask our neighbors, and then I see it. Taped to the door is a note in Kalum’s messy handwriting, explaining he has a cold and has gone to the Healer’s. At the end are about ten sorry’s. I should be mad, but I’m relieved. Kalum isn’t lost. He must have left right before I came.

The Healer is outside when I arrive. When he sees me, his eyes light up with recognition.

“Are you Avis?” he says. I nod. “Your brother is ill. He must stay in my tent tonight.”

“What?” I ask, unsure whether I’d heard him right. “It’s only a cold.”

“No, not a cold. Come.”

I frown but follow the Healer to his nest. Kalum is sick? No biggie. He’ll come home tomorrow. But when the Healer lifts the tent flap and I see my brother, my heart stops. Kalum is sprawled out, sweating and coughing. Tears spring to my eyes as I remember someone in his place, someone who is long gone.

Kalum and I wait outside the Healer’s tent, silent and scared. Mom coughs again, a long, shuddering cough, and I open the flap to see her lying there, pallid and weak. My chest tightens. The Healer is making another herb paste, muttering under his breath—I catch not working and Night and new herbs.

“Will Mom be okay?” Kalum asks from behind me. His hand trembles in mine.

“She’ll be fine,” the Healer says as Mom rasps, “Darling—”

“Don’t speak. You two, don’t interrupt me.”

Mom coughs again, and I take Kalum and duck outside for my own good.

“Avis, she’s going to be okay, right?” Kalum asks, and I know he wants me to say yes. But I just pull him into a hug, feeling his heart race against mine.

“Mom will be fine,” I say, but we both know that it’s not true.

Then Kalum coughs and the Healer closes the tent and leads me away. No. My voice quivers as I say, “Kalum can stay.” Then I drag myself home, wondering how this could have happened. I tell myself Kalum will get better. There is a new Healer. Kalum is young. His body will fight back, and he will be fine. He will be fine.

“Mom will be fine,” I say.

The next few days are mindless routine. Get up, breakfast, train, work, train, dinner, sleep. But each day, the apartment, with all of Kalum’s things and no Kalum, unnerves me. I’m struck by how empty it seems. And there’s no telling when he’ll come back. I swallow. He might never come back, unless…

Unless someone brings new herbs. I remember the Healer’s words and shiver. New herbs from Night. If I want Kalum to live, I have to go into Night. Suddenly I am wondering if the Elders’ rumors are true—the creatures and the pitch-blackness. I am wondering whether I’ll even make it out of there alive. But if Kalum got worse and…

I don’t finish that thought. I don’t have much time. A sudden, fierce impulse courses through me, and before I really know what I am doing, I grab food and clothes and my bag. Not wanting to lose that burst of courage. I run down the stairs and I don’t look back.

Night stands open before me, a dark scar in the golden skin of Day. I gulp. A small part of me was hoping the Gates would be locked, so I wouldn’t have to go. But now…

I take a deep breath. It’ll be quick. In and out. And Kalum will come home. I lift my chin. Steel myself. And I plunge into the inky air of Night.

Immediately, damp darkness engulfs me. My shoes sink into the marshy ground. The little daylight the Gates lets in is hardly enough to see anything—I already feel lost. And it’s so, so cold. But Kalum is waiting. I rub my hands together and get to work filling my bag with plants. Any of them could cure my brother, and the more I get the better. I venture deeper into Night, my every breath magnified. There are no rustling leaves or chittering squirrels—the forest is eerily still. The undergrowth moves by itself, the shivering shadows and dark leaves impossible to tell apart. Outside of the wood, I am prey to the moonlight, tongues of white flame that singe my skin. The rivers run sleek and silent, glinting silver like the edge of a knife. Twice a shape flits ahead of me, but I blink and it’s gone. The Elders say the moonlight does things to your eyes—I’m starting to believe it.

I remind myself to breathe. Just a few more herbs.

In and out.

A minute later—or five, I can’t tell—I see the shape again. This time, I am sure I’m not imagining it. I squint and my breath leaves me. It’s a man. A human.

Too late I realize the man is coming toward me. I stand there frozen, awash in the half-light, my bag slipping down my shoulder. And then the man shoves something in my mouth, something small and sweet. I’m reminded faintly of strawberries before I fall limp.

When I wake, my head feels foggy and my limbs heavy. There is movement all around me—quiet chatter and soft footsteps. I sit up in a bed of furs. They are all spangled and patched and spotted, and I realize I am looking at the pelts of Night animals. Animals that these people killed. I shudder, but then I remember my bag. I reach for it, and my fingers grasp air. My heart drops. My herbs!

“Hey!” I shout hoarsely, standing and waving my arms. I must look like a Night creature myself, with my hair and clothes matted and muddy. “Hey! You creeps!” A few heads turn toward me, and then the whole clearing goes silent and I’m wondering whether I’ve just gotten myself killed. Then there is shuffling, and the crowd parts to let a broad-shouldered man through. The leader.

“You,” the man says, sharp and light. “You take Night plants?”

So they did take my bag. I gather myself and say, “Yes. I would like my bag back, please.”

The people murmur among themselves, probably surprised to hear a girl speak to their leader like this. I’m surprised at myself, too. But I need those herbs. My voice wavers as I repeat, “My bag, please.”

The leader waves a dismissive hand. “Those plants? What you need them for?”

I grit my teeth. “A cure—”

The leader stares at me. Then he lets out a strange, high-pitched wheeze, and it takes me a moment to realize he is laughing. “Those plants—cure? Cure? They cure nothing.”

What. I don’t hear what he says next.

They cure nothing.

A breeze shifts the branches and starlight falls across me, illuminating the stark truth. I am back at the beginning. Emptyhanded. Powerless. I clench my fists. No. I have to save Kalum somehow. I ignore my situation and think. The leader certainly knows Night herbs. Maybe…

“Wait,” I say. The leader raises his eyebrows, gestures for me to continue. “My…cousin is a Healer, and her patient is really sick. He’s coughing and sweating and—”

“The Sun sickness,” the leader interrupts me, eyebrows furrowed.

I don’t ask him how he knows. Hope blossoms in me—I might have a chance. “Do you know how to cure it?” Please say yes. Please say yes. Please say—

“Yes.”

My heart leaps with joy. Kalum is going to live. I want to cheer, to cry, to dance around and throw my arms in the air, but I allow myself only the smallest smile as I ask, “How?”

But then I look up, and my heart stops. The leader is smiling too, but it is a dangerous smile, an expectant smile. “You give us something first.” At us, the crowd closes in like a pack of wolves, their anticipation electrifying.

I swallow and say quietly, “What?”

“You stay here,” he says, and leans close. “Forever.”

The breath leaves my lungs. The crowd goes crazy, howling their approval. I look around in despair, but all I see are wild grins. They aren’t joking. They want me to live in Night. With the dead trees, the sludgy rivers, the creatures, the moonlight, the cold. Forever. The word is heavy, final, and I suppress a shiver. I would never see sunlight again. I would never see my coworkers at the kitchens, or the eatery owners, or Kalum. Kalum. I imagine him healed. Free of sickness, free of pain, happy. That bright, dimply grin back on his face.

“I accept.” The clearing goes still. I take a breath and continue, “I will stay here, forever, in exchange for the cure.”

The leader stares at me for a second, and I look firmly back at him. And then he says, “The torc,” and a woman steps forward with a necklace-looking thing in her hands. It shines faintly, as if infused with moonlight, and the pendant is pure ebony. It is beautiful. But when the leader slips it around my neck, my throat tightens. The torc is a collar, a sign that I am his. The leader smiles again and says, “The pact is sealed.”

A man escorts me to my nest, a fur-lined bowl carved into the rock face. It is far from other nests, except a few smaller ones probably meant for guards. I am a strange specimen in a lab—a girl of Day in this Night tribe, sorrowful and lonelier than ever. It is a long time before sleep takes me.

Surrounded by darkness instead of daylight, I wake later than usual. My torc hangs cold and uncomfortable around my neck, and I resist the urge to take it off. I need the cure. Outside, people are eating with their hands, throwing bones and meat scraps all over the place, arguing loudly—I am reminded again of wolves. The leader is sitting on a higher stone, observing them. I think I see a look of disgust pass across his face, but then it is gone. I walk up to him and tap on the rock.

“Yes?” he says with an undertone of irritation, as if he is speaking to a child.

“The cure,” I say. He doesn’t say anything, so I ask, “When will you give me the cure?”

He leaps down. “When you have proved your loyalty.”

 I return to my nest seething. The leader thinks I am going to escape. Why hadn’t I just been obedient? Why had I spoken so brashly before? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Kalum is running out of time. I swallow and brush my fingers almost unconsciously over my torc’s stone. I can do this. I just need to stay perhaps another day, prove my loyalty as the leader said, and then I will have the cure and everything will be fine.

I don’t have the cure. Not after a day, or two days, or three. The people either ignore me or make fun of me. The leader dances away from my every mention of the cure. The darn guards won’t leave me alone. Alone in my nest, the frustration bites me, takes my breath, punches me in the chest. I should have known. These people are wild—of course they don’t keep their promises. So I do what I can.

I pray for Kalum’s life. I picture him fighting against the sickness. I imagine him taking the Healer’s herbs, hoping along with me that he might live. That he might, one day, be out of the Healer’s tent. It fills me with guilt, knowing those herbs will never work.

But on the fourth day, deep in my furs, there is something new. Something terrifying. Instead of Kalum coughing, I see an empty tent and glassy eyes and stiff hands. The images are so vivid, they are almost real. A breeze steals through the wood, soundless and sorrowful in its chill, and I shiver. Those images could be real. Kalum could be dead. The intensity of it hits me, so sudden and so painful that I gasp for breath. Kalum. Dead. I am biting back tears, rushing out of my nest to find the leader.

The moonlight bounces off me, the darkness dancing out of my way as I run. I find the leader in the largest nest, in the center of all the others. He glares at me and points in the direction of my nest, but I drop to my knees and say hoarsely, “Please.”

His torc, silver like mine, catches the light as he shifts closer. “What you want, girl?”

“The cure,” I say, and then quickly, “I’ll do anything. Please.”

“Desperate, are you?” he says cruelly, and my hope shrivels to a crumb.

“Please, we had an agreement. I’m staying here for good. You have to give me the cure.” I repeat it over and over. “The cure, please, the cure.” Kalum’s life is slipping away by the second. I look up into wide eyes.

The leader says, “Your torc.”

I take off my torc and push it into his cold hands. “You can have it. I—”

“It not faded,” he says, running his fingers over the ebony stone in the center. I stare at him, bewildered. I don’t care about the stupid torc. I just need the cure to the Sun sickness. I just need Kalum alive and well again.

“Yes,” I say quickly, “But—”

“The moon no turn it white?” He gestures to his own torc, its stone a lifeless white. I look at him, awash in the half-light. Something about him reminds me of Sol’s old statues. Of their gray eyes, their blank expressions. The leader stares at me, and I realize why. His eyes have no light. The moonlight does change things. This man is only a shell of a person.

Then I remember his question and shake my head, tearing my gaze away from his eyes. “I need the cure,” I say softly. “My brother—” I clamp my mouth shut. I said brother. The leader will know I lied. But he is only looking at me with a strange expression, and the breeze rushes in and it makes me vulnerable. All of a sudden everything is spilling out. “My brother has the Sun sickness. He’s dying. My mom died before.” I pause and swallow tears. “He needs the cure. Please.”

“Brother?” says a voice, so tiny, so weak, that at first I can’t tell whose it is. The leader’s eyes are glistening, dark and deep and human. Sorrow and regret and guilt flicker over his face, and for a second I wonder if this is a dream. But the breeze is whipping against our faces, and the leader is sobbing for his brother. He says, “I give you cure. You go.” I nod and murmur thank you. As the leader gives me the herb, his fingers brush my palm—they are warm.

The journey back, thankfully, isn’t hard. My feet find the right path, and though I can’t remember whether I’ve passed this rock or skirted this copse, I am soon back at the Gates. They are thrown wide open as always, but this time they are welcoming rather than warning. I look back into Night, one last time, and then I step into Day. The sunshine and the familiar bustle embrace me, and I smile and breathe in the warmth and joy.

Two weeks later, I arrive at the Healer’s tent, exhausted and relieved and ecstatic. Kalum is outside of the Healer’s tent, eyes bright, breath normal. He’s okay. Tears prick my eyes. My brother is okay. Kalum jumps on me and hugs me tight and shouts in my ear, and I am stunned by how much I’ve missed him. We take the train to the flower field, and we weave dandelion crowns and watch butterflies. We climb the ridge and sit together on top, looking out across the swathes of flowers and counting the camellias, and a serene warmth fills my chest. I am home.