The Roots of Secrets Passed

There was a singular root growing in Sadie Arria’s ear beneath the surface of her skin.

When she’d discovered the bump under the touch of her cold fingers, she’d jumped out of bed and sprinted to the top of the tallest tower in the Academy to get a view of the cityline. It was the only thing that calmed her. The flickering orange streetlights in the distance on some days, were like thousands of swaying candle flames and on others, were dots of paint across the night sky. She often traced them in the air, following the curve of roads she could see and the peaks of roofs among the trees.

The only light from the Academy came from the lanterns around its perimeter. At night, it almost seemed like the place itself was one big grave in the middle of a forest Sadie had not mustered the courage to venture out to. It would upset her grandmother too much if she did. So, she settled for watching the lights go out in the windows of homes not too far away and gazing at the life of a city she sometimes thought she could touch whenever she stood at the top of the tallest tower.

Tonight, however, when the scratch of the root became unbearable as it grew, Sadie only glared into the distance.

Someone was whispering a secret this time of the night. And its truth was watering her root. It was no use covering her ears. It did not shield the truth of secrets whispered like rumours and it would not seize the pain that would continue to grow in her body.

She turned away from the glowing city life and made her way into the dark, down the tower, and back into the halls of Arria Academy. The sound of her bare feet on the stone floors seemed to echo in the emptiness. On the other side of the building was the faint trickle of a fountain and she followed it. Down cold steps and through heavy mahogany doors, each of which was engraved with Arria’s crest, past notice boards of voting for sports captains, club meetings and extramural activities, and classrooms with curtains drawn over windows for watchful eyes, Sadie padded through the foyer to the headmistress’ room. Beneath the closed door, flames flickered across the stone and her grandmother called her to enter.

---

The women in the Arria family were cursed.

Perhaps it was punishment from God for the sins they built their legacy upon. Or punishment for not believing they were sins to begin with. The women in Sadie’s family had done what was necessary to build a home for themselves. And perhaps that was exactly why they never left it. The world outside would crucify her; an accursed woman from a family that grew nature from their bodies like they were from the ground itself, animals next to human, property for destruction and possession; this world would burn Sadie and the women before her for the seeds of their becoming.

She knelt down in front of her grandmother’s rickety rocking chair next to the soaring fire, took her feet into stiff fingers and warmed the overgrown roots with her palms. With a sigh, her grandmother patted the tiny pearl brooch on Sadie’s head. Try as she might, Sadie could not imagine the relief; was it a cold drink on a day it seemed the Academy walls would melt from the heat? Warm soup while the snow gathered outside her bedroom window? The pain of their roots could not be coaxed away by a gentle hand. The pain of their roots only knew death as its saviour.

“Your mother was not strong enough to weather the storms,” her grandmother had told her.

Sadie’s mother had cut herself away from the ground and let the winds carry her higher than even the tallest trees, where no root could reach. Sadie’s mother had been her own saviour. And all she’d left behind was one pearl brooch.

In the dim room, shaking, crooked fingers curled around Sadie’s cheek to graze the shell of her ear. Her grandmother did not speak much on days when they both felt the presence of those whispered truths. Next to them, the fire soared with a crackle, like the licks of flames could taste the secret floating through the air, roaring at the stench from the blackened feet Sadie massaged. She rubbed her grandmother’s calves, pale and transparent above where flowers had bloomed for decades, a well-kept grave of spoken secrets that tied her to this school like unbreakable chains.

Every night, Sadie studied them. Like they were maps to her grandmother’s sins, a tracing of every wrong footstep and choice the headmistress of Arria Academy had made to keep them afloat. For the women who would be eaten outside, generations of the Arria women chose to eat instead.

“They are bigger today,” Sadie whispered.

Her grandmother did not respond. Some days it seemed like the roots were shrinking and other days, they swelled like they’d been given too much water. Sadie pressed her finger into a visible pocket of skin and watched the dent of her touch remain. For someone who should have been staying off of her feet, her grandmother’s body knew no alleviation from her life’s work.

“Better than my old back,” her grandmother croaked, passing a pair of clippers to Sadie.

Better than my old back.

Most nights, despite her decaying feet where roots led to flourishing flowers, her grandmother was grateful their growth was anywhere but her back. Watching her own mother, who had spent motherhood running the Academy with children attached to her back and hunched over a desk, Sadie’s grandmother wanted anything but the reality she grew up witnessing--much like Sadie was adamant she would follow her mother to salvation if she ever had to endure the sight of a root on her feet. She supposed that was the only way the Arria women persisted. Born to suffer the same fate, at least each of them were not as bad as their predecessor. Or so they believed.

Sadie placed the clippers around one, dried out, black root along her grandmother’s heel and snipped away. Every flinch was a reminder, a zap from God.

This was a punishment.

This was their curse.

They could describe it however they liked; battle scars of labour or remnants of clawing their way through a jungle. This was the roots of secrets they buried to survive.

---

The next day, in her history class, Joan Miller whispered, “There’s probably another dead body in the forest.”

And Sadie’s root grew just a little more.

Joan’s friends were skeptical. The Academy had already experienced a scandal due to one corpse buried in the forbidden forest at the back. The chances of another were low. The headmistress would not allow that. Except the truth was making itself a part of her body.

Sadie almost turned in her seat to shut them up. But that would only bring suspicion. Soon, the rumor would die down and her grandmother would warn her not to go to the forest for the millionth time.

Sadie released a sigh, Mr Woo’s monologuing at the front of the class drowning out. He was handing out mini, foil-wrapped kimbap from his mother’s tteokbokki shop at the front of their house in the city. For what, Sadie had not been paying enough attention to know. She leaned against one of the massive windows lining the room on the right. From here, she had a view of the entire entrance to the Academy. A way too long brick driveway. Way too much neatly trimmed grass that no one was allowed to step foot on. A too big fountain trickling water at the perfect pressure with the perfect little gargoyle poised at its centre with a smile on its face like it actually had a purpose to serve.

There was a body buried beneath it. A teacher who had witnessed what Sadie’s mother had done. She supposed its purpose was akin to the Academy’s. This place kept them sheltered as much as it did their secrets.

A head peeked around the gargoyle and only then did Sadie notice the girl. In the Academy’s blue skirt and white shirt with long dark hair much like her own, the girl splashed from one side of the fountain to the other. She grabbed a handful of coins at her feet and tossed them into the air. Sadie could not remember the last time she had seen someone look so filled with joy. Indescribable, enviable, unnatural joy. Rays of the warm afternoon sun streaked across her brown skin, painting it gold like her eyes. Sadie almost gasped. Her eyes were pools of glimmering, flickering gold.

The girl twirled in the fountain’s water, tilting her head to the sky with a grin that drank in every last drop of light. Around her, the dark of night enrobed the towers of the Academy and threw shadows across the walls. Alone, Sadie sat, wondering if the city view really was that special when the simple joy of a golden-eyed girl was all she needed. Not the life inside homes along roads with street lights, or restaurants where friends gathered or the shop around the corner where a bag of candy was a walk away on a bad day.

The girl titled her face to the window and Sadie ripped her gaze away. Mr Woo was back at the front, waving the last mini kimbap in the air and the night had disappeared. Down at the fountain, so had the golden-eyed girl.

---

The next time Sadie saw the golden-eyed girl, every student had either retired to their dormitories or been picked up by parents at the front gates. It was at the very back of the Academy, in front of the doors that led to the forest.

“You can’t be here,” Sadie told her. “Students aren’t allowed back here.”

When the girl only smiled in return, Sadie should have known. Nothing about the sheen over her skin nor the lure of her stare was human. Those gold eyes, despite its imploring nature, shone with a hunger that reverberated through Sadie’s bones like thousands of roots wanting to burst free. Those eyes were chasms into secrets yearning to be passed.

“You are here,” the girl said.

Her voice reached Sadie’s ears from everywhere, caressing her root with a loving, familiar touch.

“I’m looking for something.”

The girl held up the pearl brooch. Sadie’s heart was in her throat. It had gone missing in history class just the day before.

“Where did you get that?” Sadie demanded.

A high-pitched laugh came from the girl’s mouth, a cacophony of deep, genuine amusement that required laboured breaths to calm.

“You must come here a lot if this is where you search for it.” The girl heaved a sigh of relief. She turned around and pushed open the back door. “Isn’t this what you want?” She pointed to the forest beyond.

“You are not allowed back here.”

The girl drew back her hair and clipped her mother’s brooch around it. “So you say.”

Then she was out of the door and Sadie was watching it swing closed with panic at the edges of her vision.

Do not go into the forbidden forest.

Do not leave the Academy.

You belong inside to follow in the footsteps of the women in our family. This is how it has been for generations.

Sadie did not realise she was pushing the door open to breathe air into her lungs. She could not unsee the dimly lit windows of the homes in the city. She wanted the street lights flickering above her along curved roads. She wanted the whir of cars and the laugh of neighbours. She needed the joy of golden eyes.

She needed to breathe and breathe and breathe.

Even through the forest, where she followed without care, she crunched brown, dead leaves beneath her stumbling feet. Into what was forbidden, she would wade to fill herself because she could not breathe. Because what she truly needed was in the hands of a girl with gold eyes that promised it all.

Sadie seemed to walk for hours. She walked and walked, days passing but the sun never set, nor did anyone come after her. Even as her lungs struggled for air, she never faltered and her legs never tired. Sadie set out to retrieve the remnants of her mother only to find the silence of the outside world instead.

She was far from the Academy now, she was sure of it. So far, in fact, that she was no longer bothered by the pain of her root. She had already forgotten the sound of her grandmother’s voice and the feel of her feet in her hands.

Sadie poked the inside of her ear.

The root had disappeared.

She dug in deeper for confirmation, but tears had already begun to spill from her eyes.

She was in the forbidden forest and her root had disappeared.

Up ahead, she caught a glimpse of her mother’s brooch on the back of the girl’s head and picked up her stride. One foot after the next, Sadie marched forward. She sobbed, she wailed, she cried as the first taste of losing herself in the unknown coated her tongue.

And when her footsteps finally slowed, her vision cleared from the blur of her tears to present that perfect fountain to her with that perfect gargoyle poised at its centre.

Sadie’s breath seized.

Glistening beneath the water at her feet was a tiny pearl brooch and when she reached for it, she felt the slight growth of the root in her ear.

Someone was whispering the truth this time of the day.

Sadie looked beyond the fountain where the doors to the Arria Academy stood wide open like arms awaiting her return. Back to the walls she was raised within, to the world she was shaped for. Like the women before her, she returned. Because it was all she knew