The River Has Roots

by Amal El-Mohtar

The River Liss runs north to south, and its waters brim with grammar. Children muttering over their schoolbooks today think little of grammar.

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.

The river may conjugate everything it touches, but the willows translate its grammar into their growth, and hold it slow and steady in their bark.

the sweep of their twisted crowns, reminds you of something, or someone, you’ve lost—something, or someone, you would break the world to have again. Something, you might think, happened here, long, long ago; something, you might think, is on the cusp of happening again.

But that is the nature of grammar—it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will.

there are always things lost in translation, and curious things gained.

Ysabel loved pickles where Esther couldn’t abide the smell of vinegar; Esther took to foraging while Ysabel preferred gardening; Ysabel was fascinated by boys and their company while Esther found them tedious and enjoyed being alone.

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.

Their voice made Esther think of weather, of winter, of woodsmoke: something cold but bright, burning and fragrant, curling into the air before vanishing. They were utterly strange and utterly beautiful, in a way that Esther yearned towards because she didn’t understand it, the way she yearned towards horizons and untrodden secret paths in unfamiliar woods.

This is beautifully written

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.

“Bel,” she said helplessly, around the fire in her throat. “Queen of ducks and angels. You shall have poems written to you with a quill on fire. You shall have songs sung to you by enchanted harps. Whole branches of grammar will be invented only to praise you.”

“Ysabel Hawthorn,” she said, and she could not keep the heat from her voice, “demand better than to be worshipped by a crumb.”

YEAH

When Rin’s runner came to pick up the goods, they were laughing together like children, and took no notice of Samuel Pollard lurking at a nearby stall. But he took notice of them.

don’t know, Bel,” she said, sighing. “You’re all the family I need.” “But,” said Ysabel, “I’m not all the family you want.”

Somehow, through the thrashing of her limbs and the rushing of water around her, she heard Pollard say, clear as glass, “Don’t worry,” in a whisper all the more grotesque for being sincere. “I’ll take good care of Ysabel.”

It looked for a moment as if their voices had shape and purpose, rippling in the air like a flock of starlings or a swarm of bees. Those shapes followed the sweep of the walking stick downwards, poured down into the ground, and as Esther and Ysabel sang a path bloomed into white-gold light beneath their feet, humming softly and leading back the way the woman had come.

The grammarian said, “Keep singing and follow the path; you’ll soon be out. Tell your parents that Agnes Crow sends her regards, and thanks them for their work.”

They built a song together to have their own version of the songs they were learning, and they never shared it with anyone but the willows while they both lived.

“He did drown you. You died, on the other side of the Refrain. Your ring, the bond between us—that allowed the River Liss to bring you here, because part of you belongs to Arcadia. I’d hoped … I’d hoped you’d have to make this choice in fifty years. But it’s here now. So, you can either remain here in this shape, with me, forever—or you can go back through the gate, and die as soon as you step beyond the bounds of the Refrain.”

“That isn’t quite right, Rin,” said Agnes, carefully. “Be clear. She came here in the shape of a swan; she could live as a swan on the other side. It’s your human body, my dear, that can only live here now.”

“She’s my sister, Rin!” “And you,” they said, as the air crackled around them, “are my wife, and I don’t wish to lose any more of you.”

“I would die for her. If I’ve really died … I want to have died for her.” “And I,” said Rin, softly, “only want you to live for me.” “Rin,” she said, “I’m sorry. I want to be with you. But I was an elder sister before I was a wife, and for longer, and that’s a shape I can’t easily shake.” She looked at Agnes. “I can’t be alive on the other side unless I’m a swan. But can I be dead, and have a voice?”

“Make me into a harp,” she said. “Can you do that? Make me into a harp, and call it by my name, and take me home to my sister.”

Most music is the result of some intimacy with an instrument. One wraps one’s mouth around a whistle and pours one’s breath into it; one all but lays one’s cheek against a violin; and skin to skin is holy drummer’s kiss. But a harp is played most like a lover: you learn to lean its body against your breast, find those places of deepest, stiffest tension with your hands and finger them into quivering release.

That silenced Ysabel, who knew that of course she could, that Esther, her Esther would never have left her—but

“I understand this to be a merry occasion, and that songs of celebration would be most appropriate. But I’ve heard it said that the young mistress of the house favours murder ballads.”

If the river has roots, it has branches, too; learn to climb them, and find your sister.