The River Has Roots

by Amal El-Mohtar

For Hoda Nassim, who taught me to play, and for my sister Dounya, who taught me to sing.

What is magic but a change in the world? What is conjugation but a transformation, one thing into another? She runs; she ran; she will run again.

Taste is a kind of language, and siblings speak it with a forked tongue. As entwined as Esther and Ysabel were, there came a point in their childhood where their interests diverged,

what she grasped in images and feelings was glint of frost on the long grasses in a winter dawn. Rin was a feeling, a lightness in her step, a burr in her throat; some days she thought she’d made them up inside her head, so difficult was it to put words to them.

She couldn’t put words to the look on Rin’s face. She only knew, very sharply and deeply, that she wanted to go on being the cause of it.

“Esther,” said Ysabel, softly, “I want to ask you something, but you have to promise not to get angry.” Esther drew a long breath in, and let a long breath out. “I can’t promise that. But I promise I’ll try not to stay that way long.”