The Voice

4.

The journey to Vision took two days of steady travel, the only breaks being those required to rest the team of horses. At times, the hills were so steep, we had to get out and walk, because it was all the horses could do to pull the weight of the coach and our luggage up the incline. But when we reached the crest of the last, gentler hill, we looked down on the strange glory that was Vision.

It was a patchwork city that spread out across a vast plain, backed by old, rounded mountains cloaked in the restful green of living things. Some parts of the city dazzled the eye, while others seemed lost in shadow—and still other places must have been farmland and pastures. Not one city, but many. And so much more than I could have imagined the first time I saw it.

So we descended the hill, passing the last crossroad that would lead to other places. After that, there was no destination but the city, which was reached by a bridge that had a peculiar but carefully made sign posted a coach’s length before the bridge itself: ASK YOUR HEART ITS DESTINATION.

Upon seeing the sign, Tahnee’s father muttered about the need to avoid the “peculiar” folks that inhabited the city. Then, in a heartier voice, he reassured his three ladies that we would not be visiting any of the peculiar places.

But I looked at the sign and, even though I thought it was foolish, shaped my answer as the horses stepped onto the bridge: Escape. Freedom. Answers. If my heart had a destination, it was shaped by those three words.

At the other end of the bridge was another peculiar sign: WELCOME TO VISION. YOU CAN FIND ONLY WHAT YOU CAN SEE.

As I read the sign, the sun went behind a bank of clouds and everything turned dark and chilling. Then the sun returned and the world looked fresh and dazzling—and not quite the same.

Since I was on this journey because of my lack of mental health, I didn’t ask if any of my companions had witnessed those same moments of dark and light. I just watched the city as we journeyed for another day to reach its center, barely listening to the comments of the other people in the coach. And while we journeyed, I considered the significance of the words if that sign meant exactly what it said.

The first two days, I found nothing of interest and tried not to resent the hearty comments that came too often about how a change of scenery could do a person good. I wanted a change of scenery. I had been searching for that change for two days.

And I almost missed it when it finally appeared on the third afternoon of our visit.

The bazaar in the center of the city took up entire blocks, almost ending on the doorstep of the rooming house where we were staying. Having tramped through it with us the first two days, Tahnee’s parents left us on our own that third afternoon, convinced that two girls from a small village would come to no harm despite the cacophony of sights and sounds. And no harm would come to us, because the white-robed Shamans walked the crowded streets. Their pace steady, their faces serene, they walked among the buyers and sellers, sometimes stopping to accept a slice of fruit or a cup of cool water. They seldom spoke to the people around them, but when they smiled and said “Travel lightly,” it always sounded like a blessing.

So on the afternoon that changed so many things, Tahnee was cheerfully haggling with the son of a merchant, more to have a reason to remain close to the handsome boy than because she was seriously interested in whatever she had found to haggle over that day. I wandered down the row of booths just for something to do while I waited. Then I saw a flash of white disappearing between two booths. No, more than that. In a place that was crowded and where every merchant jealously guarded his allotted space down to the last finger length, there shouldn’t have been a space that would have easily fit four booths.

That was the moment I realized I had passed that gap in the booths more than once each day without really seeing it—or wondering about it.

I stepped into that gap and saw something else that had eluded my eye during those first two days.

The bazaar backed up against a white wall. The gap in the booths matched the width of the archway leading into . . . The streets, gardens, courtyards, and buildings might have been another world. For all I know, they were. The place was white and clean, and with every breath I breathed in peace. And with every step I took, a pain grew inside me, as if a Black Pustule had formed deep within my body and was festering.

Still within sight of the archway, I stopped moving. Then I looked up and something shivered through me, as if I were a bell that had been struck and somehow retuned to match the resonance of the building in front of me.

THE TEMPLE OF SORROW.

I walked up the steps and pulled the rope beside the door. Heard the bell calling, calling.

A Shaman opened the door. His hair was grizzled, his face unlined. I have never seen anything before or since that matched the beauty of his eyes.

He smiled and stood aside to let me enter.

“Is this your first visit?” he asked.

I just nodded, struck dumb by the odd sensation of feeling too gaudy and too plain at the same time. It was my first experience with having a crush on a man, and I didn’t know what to do or say.

Then I remembered I was wifely plump rather than maidenly sleek, and there was something festering inside me.

“I see,” he said softly, and I was terrified that, somehow, he had. Then he said, “This way,” and led me to a pair of doors on the left side of the building.

He opened the doors and the sound . . . “No,” I gasped. “No. I can’t. That is—” Obscene. A violation.

Something that sang in my limbs.

He closed the doors. “That is sorrow.” His voice was quiet, gentle. “That is why this temple is here. To give it voice. To set it free. Sorrow should not be swallowed. It will linger in the body, cleave to the flesh, long after the mind and heart have forgotten the cause.”

Each word was a delicate blow, a butterfly tap that reverberated through my heart.

“What do I do?” I asked.

He opened the doors again and we stepped into the room.

It sounded like the entire city was in that room, but in truth, there was no more than a double handful of people, and the room could have held twice that many. Some were wearing a hooded robe that had a veil over the face, which allowed them to see and breathe but obscured their identity. Others sat with their faces exposed to the world.

The sound in the room rose and fell, sometimes barely a hum and other times crescendoing to be the voice of sky and earth and all living things.

In one of the quieter moments, the Shaman whispered, “The gongs provide a tone. If the first one you try does not fit the voice you need today, try another.”

“Then what do I do?”

His hand rested on my shoulder for a moment, the warmth of it a staggering comfort. He smiled and said, “Then you release sorrow.”

Too self-conscious to really try the available gongs to test their sound, I chose one based on the pleasing simplicity of the frame that held it. It did not produce a sound quite as deep as what I wanted, but having timidly struck it once, I wasn’t about to get up and move to another place in the room.

I kept my eyes fixed on the floor just in front of my cushions, sure that it would be terribly rude to look at the other people in the room. I hummed, fearful of being heard, while something inside me swelled and swelled until it was ready to burst.

The voices around me rose and fell. Sometimes a gong would sound and one voice would be raised in a wordless cry. Other times each gong was rung and the accompanying voices filled the room. Over and over until, at last, there was only one voice still keening, only one heart not yet purged of sorrow.

Mine.

But I, too, fell silent, too exhausted and hollowed out to go on. I had lanced my well of sorrow, but I had not extracted the core.

One by one, the other people stood up and left. I was the last person in the room, and by the time I reached the door, the Shaman stood there, a question in his beautiful eyes.

“If you need us, we are always here,” he said. Then he escorted me to the outer door and added, “Travel lightly.”

“Oh, my friends and I are staying in the city for a few more days,” I said, wondering if that was considered flirting or too bold—and wondering if Shamans even had such interests in the flesh.

His eyes smiled, though his expression remained serious. “Some journeys can be made without setting a foot outside your own room.” He paused. “If you need us, we are here. Remember that.”

It wasn’t until I returned to the friendly cacophony of the bazaar that I noticed the sign above the archway. It said THE TEMPLES, as if nothing more was required in identifying that island of peace.

“Nalah!” Tahnee rushed up to me. “Where have you been? I almost went back to the rooming house without you, but . . .”

The day before I might have stammered something or become defensive because I was unwilling to tell anyone where I had been. But that day, I saw something in Tahnee’s face, in her eyes.

“We’ve spent the afternoon wandering around the bazaar, looking at so many things.”

“Yes,” Tahnee said, wary but willing to hear me out. “We have. But . . . you haven’t bought anything.”

“I don’t have as much spending money as you, so—”

“Oh, I can give you some if—”

“I’m looking very carefully before deciding what gifts to purchase for my parents and brother as a way of thanking them for allowing me to see Vision.”

“Oh.” Tahnee nibbled her lower lip. “It would be better if we both came to the bazaar, don’t you think? Safer that way. Ah . . . how much longer will you need to decide on your purchases?”

“There is still so much to see, I think it will take at least another day or two,” I said, linking arms with Tahnee as we headed in the direction of the rooming house.

She gave me a sidelong look. “You are all right, though, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I replied honestly. “I feel better than I’ve felt in a very long time. Perhaps the best ever.”

“I feel the same.”

I didn’t think we had the same reason for the feeling, but I was glad to hear her say it. And for me, it was true. I felt better. Much better.

I felt the same way I used to feel after making a moody cake and bringing it to The Voice. But that was something I didn’t want to think about. Not yet. So Tahnee and I returned to the rooming house and endured a mild scold from her mother about almost being late for the evening meal. But her father looked at us and said with a wink, “Had a little adventure, did you? Nothing wrong with a little adventure—as long as it doesn’t go too far.”

Too far? I thought about what the Shaman had said about making a journey without leaving your room and realized I already had gone too far—because now there was no going back.

The next two days were deceptions tacitly permitted by Tahnee’s father, since he knew we were up to something but figured that being together, neither of us would go too far in our little adventures. And there was a tacit agreement between me and Tahnee that neither of us would go too far and put the other’s “little adventure” at risk.

I don’t know where she went, but I guessed that a handsome young man had been given some time off from work in his father’s booth. I went to the Temple of Sorrow.

The gongs reverberated in the air. Voices rose and fell. And the sounds and the tears lanced a pain deep inside me that had been growing and festering since the first time I had eaten a moody cake and had gained an inkling of what it meant to be The Voice.

I lanced the pain, knowing there would be scars. But I wasn’t able to extract the core of that pain until later that evening when Tahnee and I were in our room, not saying much as each of us contemplated how to spend our last day in the city.

“The boys at home,” Tahnee said, curling up on the bed and fixing her gaze on the wall rather than look at me. “I mean no criticism of your brother. He seems nice enough, although it will be years yet before he is considered of marrying age. The ones who are of marrying age . . . They’re all like Chayne, and I don’t want to live with a man like Chayne. Kobbi . . .” Tahnee licked her lips, a nervous gesture. “Kobbi thinks Chayne is doing something to her when he wants to do the marriage thing. You know. In bed.”

Since she seemed to expect it, I nodded to indicate I understood.

“She’s not sure, and it isn’t every time they . . . do things. But sometimes she doesn’t feel right in the head the next day. Chayne was real worried the day she had a bad spell after one of those nights, and that’s when she began thinking that maybe he was doing something. Before she could get up the nerve to tell her father, Chayne began making cutting little remarks, especially around her father, saying that a good wife would not begrudge giving her husband little pleasures when he had to work hard to provide her with a home and clothes and food. So when Kobbi finally got scared enough to tell her father . . .”

“What did he say?” I whispered, feeling as if the world itself held its breath while waiting for the answer.

“He hit her.” Tahnee’s face had a bewildered expression, as if everything she had known and trusted had changed suddenly and betrayed her. “He said she shamed him by being a poor wife and he would denounce her as his daughter if Chayne continued to have cause to complain.”

In the silence, I heard the patter of rain. I looked out the window and watched the sky weep. Lulled by the sound, Tahnee fell asleep. I stayed awake much longer, letting thoughts drift and form patterns.

Honor your parents. Give thanks for them every day. Because an orphan’s life is one of sorrow.

There was no ingredient used in the moody cakes that wasn’t used in other foods. So what made the cakes a vessel for feelings we didn’t want? And who had decided that one person would be sacrificed for the health of the village? Who had decided that the people in my village would not have to carry the weight of their own sorrows?

Maybe there was no one left to blame. Maybe no one truly knew anymore.

But the Elders continue it, my heart whispered. They see her; others care for her. Are there Black Pustules festering all over her body, always hidden because she had been trained to keep her body covered? Someone stripped a child of the ability to speak and scarred her so she would be ashamed to reveal the reason for her silence. The people who did this still live in the village.

We all did this. Day after day, year after year, we handed someone a plate of sorrow disguised as a treat and expected her to swallow it so that we could feel better instead of carrying the weight—and the scars—ourselves.

Welcome to Vision. You can find only what you can see.

As something inside me continued shifting and forming new patterns, I wondered if I had changed enough to see what I needed to find.

The following afternoon, I turned a corner. It was that easy.

The Apothecary was on a street that is one of Vision’s shadow places—neither Dark nor Light, since it is a street that can be reached by hearts that resonate with either.

On another day, the looks of the man standing behind the counter at the back of the shop would have scared me enough to abandon my plan. That day, I studied him in what light came in through his grimy windows and decided if looks were a measure of a man, this one could do what I needed.

So I told him what I wanted, and I paid him what he asked, relieved I had enough coins for the purchase and a little left over so that Tahnee would not end up paying for my family gifts completely out of her own pocket.

“Enough for three people, you said?” he asked when he returned from the curtained back room and handed me a small bottle.

“Yes, three.” I was almost sure that there was only one caretaker in the later hours, but I had to be certain I could deal with whomever was there. Because there would be only one chance.

“I am curious,” he said as I turned to leave. “Do you seek revenge?”

I slipped the bottle in my pocket and carefully buttoned the pocket flap. Then I looked at him. “I seek another’s freedom.”

He studied me a moment longer, then raised his hand and scribed a sign in the air. I didn’t know if it was a blessing or black magic—and I didn’t care.

The next day, we began the journey back to our village. Tahnee and I gave each other sly looks and pokes in the ribs that were followed by giggles, which confirmed to her parents that we had gotten up to some mischief. It also made them relax, confident that nothing much had happened during our visit.

My parents, too, were relieved by the sly looks and the giggling. I was once again the daughter they knew.

Only my brother noticed something different. Or maybe it was just envy trying to bare its fangs.

“You look good, Nalah,” he said. “Rested. Almost like a different person.”

I just smiled. I didn’t tell him he was right. I was a different person.

Now I was dangerous.