I wander through darkness without wondering where I am. It seems completely natural to be without sight. I wonder if I have a body. I touch my hands together. It seems like I do, but how can I really be sure?
The dark is restful and calm. I feel relief, but I don't know what I've been relieved of. Whatever it was, it must have been exhausting. I must have come from somewhere else. I don't think I want to go back.
I don't realize I've been without sound until a faint but familiar melody fills the heavy silence surrounding me. I turn my head, trying to locate its source. It seems to come from everywhere...and nowhere. I am nowhere.
"I will tell you fairy tales
and sing you little songs
but now you must slumber,
with your little eyes closed
bayushki bayu."
I know the words. I know the voice. And once I know that, I know myself again.
"Babulya!" I yell. "Baba Nadia, where are you?"
I cast around in the dark until I smack my head on something hard. I reel backwards and trip over something else. I throw my hand out and hit something, and suddenly light flares overhead, blinding me all over again. Somewhere above me, the song continues.
"There will be a time, after you will learn about life,
When with courage you will place your foot into the stirrup
And take your rifle
Throw your saddle across your horse
I will sew this saddle from silk.
Sleep now, my dear little child, my little one.
Bayushki bayu."
I look around with watering eyes and gasp. I'm in my own kitchen, and the hard thing that attacked me was an open cabinet. I run for the stairs, calling hysterically for my grandmother.
"I will fear for your troubles
far away in a foreign land
Sleep now, as long as you don't know sorrows,
bayushki bayu.
When preparing yourself for the dangerous fight
please remember your mother
Sleep, little one, my beautiful
bayushki bayu."
I burst into my childhood bedroom, tripping over my own feet in my hurry, and fall onto the old rug where I used to play with my toys. My grandmother sits in a shabby armchair next to my bed. Baba Nadia gazes tenderly at something in the bed as she sings. I look closer and realize that the thing in the bed...is me. A younger me, maybe ten.
"Baba Nadia," I say uncertainly.
"Sasha," she says, turning to me with a radiant smile. "Oh, Sashka, kotik, I've been waiting for you."
"But..." I put a hand out to touch her knee. "Baba Nadia, am I dead?"
"No, kitten," she says. "I'm dead."
"But you're here," I say. "I don't understand. You're right here with me. How?"
"Nevermind that," she says. "There's a more important question to be answered."
There is, but I think I've been avoiding asking it.
"What am I doing here?"
"You're here to choose," Baba Nadia tells me.
"Choose?" I say. "What..."
"Come here," she says, beckoning me with a gnarled, spotty hand.
I move closer, taking her hand and pressing it against my cheek. She turns my head so that I'm looking down at my own sleeping face. I touch her--my--cheek and everything falls away like a crumbling sandcastle. Once again my mind splinters, trying to take in two--no, three--realities. I snatch my hand away and look at my grandmother.
"You have to choose," she says gently.
"But how?" I ask. "How do I know what's real?"
"You're asking the wrong questions," she says, shaking her head.
"What if I don't want to choose?" I ask, though I'm sure this isn't the 'right' question either. "What if I choose to stay here with you?"
"It would break my heart," Baba Nadia tells me seriously. "It would break my heart to know that neither of my children lived to know all the joys and terrors of living."
"I don't want to leave you," I whisper tearfully.
"Sashka," Baba Nadia chides. "Wherever you go, I go with you. Silly child."
"What's the question I should be asking, then?" I ask. "How do I go home?"
"Well," Baba Nadia says. "Where is home?"
I look at the sleeping me and back at my grandmother. She reaches out to stroke my hair.
"Go on, kitten," she urges.
I take my grandmother's hand in one of my own and reach out with the other to touch the sleeping Sasha's cheek. This time, I don't resist the flood of sensory input. Instead, I let it wash over me. I let it drown me.
Sadra pulls me off the mountain cat's back and into Bard's waiting arms. She peers worriedly down at me, demanding that I answer her. Emily calls excitedly for a nurse, shouting that my eyes are open, that I'm awake.
Salt water sprays my face. Sadra tries to shield me but has to lean over the side of the boat to vomit. Emily strokes my hair, begging me in a whisper to answer her. An old man cradles my head in his hands. He mumbles nonsense under his breath. His hands glow.
Luca and Sadra each hold one of my hands, praying for my deliverance. A woman in a white coat shines a light into my eyes and asks me questions I don't understand. It hurts. I don't want to be here. I want to go home.
For a microsecond, I focus on Emily's eyes hovering over the white woman's shoulder. I see her eyes widen. I see her mouth my name. I remember Emily pushing me on a swing and putting band-aids on my scraped knees and tucking me in on the nights my grandmother taught classes.
I remember crying bitterly when she went away to college and squealing with joy when she came back to teach at the studio after graduation. I remember her arm around my waist as they lowered Baba Nadia into the ground.
I try to speak, but my lips refuse to move. I hold Emily's eyes as long as I can and hope that she knows how much I love her...and how sorry I am to leave her. With the tiniest of sighs, I let go.
I feel like I'm floating--or falling, but gently, as if through water. Above me, I see a strange picture that I can't make sense of until I realize that it's not above me but below me.
I see my own body covered with a blanket. Luca lies close beside me, twining his long, rough fingers with my limp ones and murmuring something I can't hear. Someone has taken my necklace from the little pouch I sewed into my shirt and put it back around my neck. Sadra lies on a pallet by the fire, staring into the flames and stroking Kirit absently. Gradually, they all both fall asleep.
I look at them and I know I made the right choice. Maybe this is insanity. Maybe this strange world exists only inside me, maybe not. But I know my grandmother was right when she said I was asking the wrong question.
Real, imaginary--does it matter? I think it doesn't. What matters is that I have a good life waiting for me, if I'm strong enough to take it, among people I like and respect. What matters is that I love Luca and Sadra, and they love me. If that's not real, I don't know what is.
It's no more or less real than Emily's love for me, and it hurts to know I'll never see her again. But I've been without Emily and Tara and Melanie and everyone from my old life for over two years. Somewhere along the line, I think I let them go without even realizing it.
For better or worse and whether it's "real" or not, this is my home now and Sadra and Luca are my family. I wish I'd realized it sooner. It would have saved us a lot of needless angst. But I know it now, and I don't want to wait any longer. I open my eyes.
"Luca," I whisper. I lay a hand on his cheek. "Luca, wake up."
His eyes snap open and he bolts upright so violently that he falls off the narrow cot. He scrambles upright, calling for Sadra to wake up. In seconds, both of them are kneeling at my side, their faces alight with joy and relief.
"I don't want to go back," I tell them simply. "I want to stay here with you."
No one says anything. There aren't any words. Kirit jumps onto the bed and wiggles his way through the tangle of clasped hands. He stands on my chest and sticks his nose in my face with a small whine. I kiss Kirit's nose and he turns around and around, licking the tears from our cheeks.