Rivers of Ivy
Book One of the Addicted to Heaven: Next Generation Series
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Whence the fever came, no one knew. But like a river running to the falls, when the sickness appeared, her mother’s choices spilled, braided, propelled them all toward an unsought channel. Into a river with the power to erode earth, even settle stone into Ivy’s heart.
After, when Mama burned the bedding and linens and scrubbed every inch of their small home, she also pried Ivy’s doll from her fingers and threw it into the bonfire. Ivy—how old? Six? Younger?—wept bitterly for that doll. More bitterly, perhaps than for her brother and sister. But then, she’d been too young to understand.
The doll was a miracle, a gift from her aunt for her birthday, bought with real coins from a merchant traveling through Kandenton, or so Ivy was told. Its white porcelain face was smooth and shiny, with blue glass eyes, and a tiny, smiling mouth painted between full pink cheeks. The hair was a pouf of fluff, and the clothes were unlike anything worn by Mama or her aunt. “This doll’s come all the way from the capital,” Aunt Kynna said when Ivy opened the small wooden box. “Maybe even as far as Aadi-of-the-Valley.”
But the most remarkable thing about the doll was the cloth from which it was made. Cotton, everyone had surmised. And not woven by human hands at all, but by a machine, if that could be believed. Every thread was as fine as a strand of hair, and nary a variation in thickness. And the weave, Mama pointed out—so even. Perfection.
But the fever. Only a few days after Ivy’s birthday, her older sister had begun to cough.
How long had it been? Three days, maybe four? Those few days were a jumble in Ivy’s mind, and yet years later, she would remember moments as intensely as if she’d materialized by those sick beds to live them again. But then, her memory always did have flashes of keen acuity.
When it started…Papa just arrived home in the winter twilight with the horse and sled. The long shadows of late afternoon filled their yard with dusk as he trudged through the snow. Mama came to the door in her thin dress, a blaze on the hearth at her back, her words sharp with fear. “Don’t come in.” She’d tried to nudge Ivy back into the house, but Ivy joined her in the doorway.
Her brother, Heath, had jumped from the sled to run toward the house despite his exhaustion from the trek to town, and Mama had almost screamed at him. “Stay back!”
Jarol, eldest and as tall as Papa, carrying a sack of flour—food—on his broad shoulders, stopped in the lane, his breath white in the wintery air. Aimee, who’d soon be old enough to marry, pulled her winter cloak close. “Mama? Why?”
Ivy still remembered the picture. Papa, Jarol, Aimee, and Heath in the snow before the wagon as sunset faded. Shock, confusion, worry, dismay.
And Mama beside her, hair in disarray with sweat, had pulled Ivy close. “It’s the plague your Aunt Kynna told us of. It’s in the house,” she said to Aimee. She turned to Papa. “Jack, you must take the children. Stay away.”
And Papa, dropping his burdens from town in the snow, had taken a step closer before stopping. “You’re ill.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Ivy—” And Papa looked down at her with a dread in his eyes that Ivy would never forget.
“Ivy’s not sick, not yet,” Mama said, her hand pulling Ivy into a tight hug at her side. “But the twins…”
Ivy looked up at her mama and saw her lips pressed tightly together like she would cry.
Papa took another step.
“They’re fighting,” Mama said. “They’ll make it.” Then she shivered a little. “Go. Go to Kynna’s, if they’re not sick, or your brother’s. Go, take the children, before it gets dark.”
Jarol and Aimee looked to Papa, their faces tight, and Heath’s lip began to tremble.
“Do you need anything?” Papa asked. “Herbs?”
Mama shivered again, a spasm pulling Ivy more tightly to her side. “I’ve made medicines. As strong as I can make, without…”
Papa gave a sharp nod. “If anyone can…” He swallowed. “I know you can.”
“We’ll pray to the One God, Mama,” Jarol said.
But the twins…
Didn’t survive.
Ivy must have taken the fever after all, because those next few days were a welter of confusion, instants of sharp focus in a tangle of sleep, and dark, and brilliant sunshine through the cabin’s small windows, nights with blazing hearths, and cold dawns with glowing red coals.
And Mama. Tending, always tending to one twin or the other.
Ivy’s older sister died first. Ada. It was morning, and snow was falling outside, soft and silent beyond the window. Ivy remembered the distant screech of an orum, flying overhead, hunting. An inexplicable cold fog had gathered around Ada, lasting for candle marks.
Mama cradled Ada in her bed by the hearth, crooned and wept as Ivy huddled in a quilt despite the crackle in the fireplace. Mama untied the band at her own neck and unfolding it, revealed a pale disc, the size a coin. Mama placed it in Ada’s mouth and closed her lips. Closed her eyes.
But Ivy’s brother coughed, a hoarse bark, and Mama rose wearily to slide from one makeshift bed by the fire, to the other. Omris had visited a friend’s farm only the week before, and plague had come to them, as well. Her brother’s cheeks were red with fever, and he whimpered in his sleep. Mama bathed his face in water, tried to get him to swallow the medicine she’d made. Worldling magic, as all healers made with their spell books, remedies Mama created from herbs and oddments she collected in the woods.
“Ivy.”
Ivy pulled her quilt tighter. Her throat scratched as if it was scalded, and she couldn’t stop shivering.
“Come here, Ivy.”
Ivy didn’t want to come closer. The sickness that stilled her sister’s face, that burned in her brother’s cheeks, was an evil warning her away.
Mama reached out, her face pale with sorrow. “Come, Love. It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t all right. Mama coughed and spat into a rag, and her hair and clothes were limp and damp.
Mama’s eyes closed in exhaustion. “Ivy. Please. It needs both of us. You can help.”
And somehow, Ivy found herself crawling to her brother’s bed by the fireplace.
“Here.” Mama took her hand and placed it on her brother’s neck. “Do you feel?” she whispered. “Feel his throat, feel the hardness?”
She did. Her brother’s breath wheezed through a narrowing within. “Yes.”
“Can you find a time, maybe yesterday or a week ago, when it was wider?”
Ivy closed her eyes. Yes, she could. It was easy.
“Bring that time to now.” Her mother’s voice was soft, encouraging, her hand on Ivy’s. “Bring it so he can breathe. We’ll do it together. Can you do that, Ivy?”
She tried. She found a healthy throat, yes, there, maybe two days ago or more. She and Mama brought it forward…
And her brother’s breath eased. The tightness in his body gave way, and he was better. Ivy opened her eyes and looked in wonderment at her mother.
Mama smiled, her eyes closing as if the effort had drained her. “I knew you could. Come, help me. Let’s find some of his blood that was untainted and bring it to now.”
And they worked together, Mama and Ivy. Worked, bathed his hot face with cloth, gave him medicines and soup. But the work became endless and tiring, and Mama flagged more and more. Ivy cried and slept.
In the night, she woke to her mother’s sobs.
When Papa returned on a brilliant, breathless day, it was to two small bundles kept cold in the shed awaiting his strength to force the earth open, to yield a holy place for a grave, and Mama with dark circles under her eyes, scrubbing every inch of their home.
Ivy had never seen her father cry. He and Mama held each other and grieved while Jarol and Aimee wept, and Heath shook his head and asked why.
But in time a coolness came between Ivy’s parents. You’re a healer. Her father’s words. You’re a daughter of the Gods. You should have saved them.
And Mama. There are lines, Jack. Lines no one can cross.
But still Ivy heard his whispers in the dark of night as she and her sister and brothers feigned sleep. Why did Ada get our Death Token, and not Omris? You gave Heaven to the girl, but not to my son? My heir?
Mama tried to tell him. Tried to say Ada went first, that Omris seemed stronger, that she’d broken her promise and used magic. Even Ivy’s magic.
Ivy’s…magic? She didn’t understand what Mama meant.
But as the days and weeks went by, Papa grew pale with anger. He’s not in Heaven, he’d mumble, over and over, unable to rest. He’s not in Heaven.
In time, Mama could say no more, shriveled to shadow.
He’s been cursed to wander this plane forever. Papa’s words, persistent, no longer kept to whispers. You knew that, but you gave your Death Token to her.
On he went until Mama’s muteness became his, and the silence in their family—a river running underground—grew. Grew, until it became a palpable being that filled all the space at their table, filled their home, filled their farm, created canyons between them, made islands of them.
So big, it pushed Papa away.
He said it was because coal mining had crippled the charcoal business. He said it was because they needed the money to be had in the city. He said it was because he had to earn coins working on the new weaving machines.
Maybe so.
But Ivy never saw him again.