Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 5 of 19

Sienna woke with the sun already high. Her cheek rested on rough bark. For a moment she thought Clementine had shifted in her sleep, that the robe had gathered stiff between them. Then she opened her eyes and saw the trunk beside her, wide as a doorway, and the canopy above it dark green with small blue flowers she had not seen last night. The bricks under her legs were the same bricks. The grove was the same grove. Clementine was the tree. Sienna did not move for a long time. She pressed her palm flat against the bark and waited. Nothing pressed back. She said Clementine's name. The leaves did not stir. She said it again, louder, and heard how thin her voice sounded in the empty grove. She had known this would happen. Knowing did not help. She curled against the roots and cried until her throat hurt, then lay quiet with her ear on the trunk, listening for anything. There was only wind. Four days ago she had run from a palace to find one quiet place in the world, and now the one person who knew her true name could not answer her. People came through the grove all afternoon. Sienna kept still against the roots and watched them. A woman laid a bundle of white cloth at the base and bowed until her forehead touched the bricks. Two farmers came with their hats in their hands and thanked the tree for the border it would hold. A child left a wooden bead in the crook of a root. None of them looked at Sienna for long. They took her for a mourner, or a pilgrim, and let her be. She listened to what they said to the tree. They spoke to it like it could hear. By the time the light turned gold, she understood she could do the same. She could come every day. She could tell Clementine about the mill, about the forewoman, about the sister she had run from. Clementine had sat awake for her last night. Sienna could sit awake for her now, for as long as the tree stood. It was not friendship the way she had wanted it. It was what she had. Near dusk a man in a plain gray coat stopped at the edge of the bricks and stood there a long time before he spoke. "You were with her," he said. It was not a question. Sienna sat up. He had Clementine's mouth, and her way of waiting before a sentence. "I was," Sienna said. He nodded once. "She told me a girl had been coming.