Whichwood(47)

She remembers staring at a wall.

She remembers, vaguely, the terrified look on Oliver’s face. She remembers him taking her hand; she remembers staring at his fingers as he said good-bye.

She doesn’t remember Alice and Oliver leaving.

Laylee cannot remember what anything else looked like that afternoon. She says she sat down and did not move or even cry. She says the hours she spent waiting for Baba to die were the longest hours she’s ever lived. And though she went to see her father later that evening, she cannot remember how her feet got her there.





Baba was not unhappy when he died.

Laylee watched him as he waved at her, a deep resignation rounding his shoulders. He was lost in conversation just before it happened, speaking animatedly with a spirit no one but she and he could see. Death stood beside him, gentle and tall, and held Baba close as Baba’s eyes went wide and—with a sudden, choking gasp—he lost the ability to speak. Only then did Death finally, patiently, answer all of Baba’s questions.

Not long before it ended, Baba smiled.

Laylee watched on silently, stone-faced, as her father’s knees buckled, his body folding into itself like a series of closing doors. She would not speak, not even as her skin seemed to turn inside out in agony. She didn’t shed a single tear as the people booed and threw old food at the broken body of a man who’d raised her on a diet of honey and poetry. She would not betray a single emotion as the mob shouted obscenities at her, as they rushed around her, yanking at her cloak, making fun of her bones, spitting on her boots and bloody clothes.

She wouldn’t miss a moment of her father’s last day.

This, she would remember.




Just before, Baba had held her hand through the bars of his cell and cried. He said, “Laylee it’s happening—he’s near—can you feel him?”

“Yes, Baba,” she’d whispered, squeezing his fingers. “He’s just outside.”

“You saw him?” Baba said anxiously. “What did you think?”

“He seems kind and very sad,” said Laylee. “But I think he likes you.”

Baba beamed and sat back on his bench, eyes filled with wonder.

No one spoke for a while after that. Baba was lost in his thoughts, and Laylee was just—lost. Untethered.

Finally, Baba said, “He said he would take me to your mother.”

Laylee looked up.

Baba’s eyes had filled with tears. “It would be so good to see her,” he said, choking on the words. “Heaven knows, I miss her so much. I miss her every day.”

And Laylee fought back a wave of pain so unbearable it nearly took her breath away.

Had he not missed her?

Laylee had been at home, quietly surviving and hardly alive all these years he’d been gone, and her father had never returned. She did not seem to be enough—she knew now that Baba would never love her as much as he loved her mother—and she felt the pain of this realization torch a path down her throat, unshed tears singeing the whites of her eyes.

Oh, reader, if only you knew how dearly Laylee loved him—if only you could understand how she adored this flawed, broken man who knew not how to father. She’d loved him in spite of himself; she’d loved him for reasons impractical and unreasonable. She’d loved, you see, and loving was an action nearly impossible to undo, and so, with her broken heart she grieved: first, for herself, for the child whose parent loved his spouse more than his kin, and second, for Baba, for the man who’d lost his way, his self, and the love of his life too soon.

The guards came, then. Baba’s time was up.

Laylee grabbed for him one last time, a desperate attempt to hold him here, in this world, where even she knew he no longer belonged. Baba was so calm. He took her little hand in his and smiled his big, gummy smile. He then reached into his pocket and poured, into her outstretched hand, the remainder of his teeth.

Laylee looked at him.

“If you plant them, they will grow,” was all he said, and closed her fist around the gift.

In the end, the guards were forced to drag her away.

She does not remember screaming.




Now Death had fallen to his knees and wrapped his arms around her father’s withered limbs the way a parent might comfort a child—it was a tender, careful gesture, an embrace that begged the body to be unafraid. And when Laylee saw the final breath leave her father’s lungs, she froze.

Laylee Layla Fenjoon was still a mordeshoor, after all. She watched, with bated breath, as Baba’s spirit separated from his skin. She knew that soon—very soon—he would follow her back to the castle, so she turned suddenly on her heel, her red cloak whipping around her in a perfect circle, and walked tall, shoulders back, head held high even as screams built homes inside her, and headed in the direction of home.

The Elders had promised to send Baba’s body back to her, which meant that tonight she would prepare a coffin for her father.





Maman had not bothered to say good-bye.

In fact, Maman had not said anything at all to her after Baba arrived in the castle. She and Baba were so overjoyed to have found each other again that Laylee, who had come to accept the unpalatable truth that her parents had loved each other far more than they’d ever loved her, could no longer find the energy to be upset. Maman and Baba were finally at peace, and Laylee could see now that it was not that they did not like her—it was just that their own happiness was so large it had left little room in their hearts for others. So when Laylee awoke the next morning to perfect silence, she knew, instinctively, that Maman had followed Baba into the Otherwhere. The wailing spirit was gone—which meant the book of her mother’s life had finally, peacefully closed—and Laylee, who was too close to death to ever purposely misunderstand it, was running out of excuses to be angry.