An exasperated, bitter cry shook the air. A book followed, landing unceremoniously upside down on the hard wooden floor. The source of both the cry and the book was evident. A young teenage girl stood by a simple wooden table, her hand outstretched, as if even through her tears she wished she had not thrown the book and could will it back to her by force. Instead, the book remained where it had come to rest; already some of its precious pages had been wrinkled. The girl made no movement towards the book, but twirled around from the table and abruptly disappeared behind a bookcase.
This was always her escape: her own hidden passage in her bedroom wall. A ladder aided her impassioned flight until she found herself standing at its bottom, the sun glaring down onto her face. For a moment, the warmth of the beams calmed her tormented soul as she closed her eyes against them, allowing the new sensation to cradle her. It had been so dark in the room. Here it was light. It was warmth and comfort.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She was standing on a plain wooden platform that rested only inches above a large pool of water. She loved that pool. It had been her playground for thirteen years. She'd explored every inch, all its depths. She had even performed experiments on its water and the simple organisms that inhabited it. Now, she looked down into it and instead of seeing the pool, she saw her own reflection staring back. Her heart ached as it cried out a taunting question, "Is this who I am?"
The reflection that stared at her revealed a skinny frame and a haunted face. It was her face that spoke to her now. She met her own wrinkled forehead, her own teary eyes. Those eyes—it was as if they wanted to speak the words she could not. They wanted to tell her the secret of who she was. She tried to listen...no answer came.
Exhausted, she collapsed onto the deck and put her head in her hands. She wondered if she would ever be anything more than the awkward girl she had become. She felt she was unworthy to carry the burdens pressed upon her. Oh, her parents never said they expected anything from her, but it permeated their every attempt to teach her. Though nothing was said, all was said. By saying nothing, their loud silence cried out all the more for her to be the one they wanted. The one who would somehow restore what D'ni had lost.
"I'm nothing. I'm just a desert bird," the girl whispered. She felt hot tears come back unbidden.
"Yeesha?" She heard a voice speak her name softly behind her. Turning to look, she saw her mother, Catherine, standing by the ladder. Yeesha had been so caught up in her own thoughts that she hadn't heard her mother's cautious entrance.
Instead of responding, Yeesha turned her head and stared across the pool of water. She gazed at what once had been the resting place of her brothers' prison books. She wondered for a fleeting moment what might have been had they never fallen. If pride and greed had never taken them, would one of them have carried her parents' burdens? Could her brothers have spared her?
Catherine came to the edge of the deck. She removed her shoes and gingerly put her feet into the water, sitting next to Yeesha.
Yeesha hadn't dared look at her mother yet. She glanced up at the kitchen building that jutted out from the cliff above her. She had been too loud. She was sure her mother had heard her exasperated cry from there.
Yeesha felt gentle hands on her back, massaging her tense shoulders. Gratefully, she relaxed into the feeling, letting her tightened muscles give in. After a time, her mother turned her attention to Yeesha's long brown hair. She gently combed through it.
"So much like Eti's," Catherine said.
Yeesha knew Eti had been her mother's closest friend before Catherine had escaped her own world with Yeesha's father. Yeesha's family had been through so much. She had experienced her brothers, but she heard only stories of her grandfather. A man that was cruel, eaten up by his own anger and pride. He had tried to become a god, a terrible god that devoured others. He had failed. Her father had stopped him, had trapped his own father. What would my grandfather have done if he hadn't been trapped?
And yet, wasn't she trapped? She wasn't in a prison book, but she felt like she was in a prison of her own heart. She did not want this destiny that weighed on her. Still it persisted, continually drawing her in with every passing moment.
"What is in your heart?" Catherine spoke ever so softly.
Yeesha wanted to keep her mother out. She didn't want to speak of it. But as always, her mother's tender ways broke through her barriers. How could she not talk to her?
"I can't do it." Fresh tears welled up. Angrily, Yeesha rubbed them away.
"The Art?" Catherine asked.
Yeesha nodded.
"I once thought that. It seemed so much to remember. But step by step it came."
Yeesha turned on her mother. "For you! And for father! It came for you. But me, nothing works. I can't write the words in the right order. It's always a failure."
Catherine smiled tenderly. She spoke in the calm, reassuring voice that Yeesha had come to rely upon. It disarmed her sudden anger.
"You require too much of yourself. Your father isn't a hard man. He does not expect perfection."
How was it that her mother always knew just what was in her heart, even if she hadn't given voice to it? Yeesha was jarred by the truthfulness in her mother's words. She turned her eyes toward her father's workroom situated above the pool at the far end. He was there even now. Yeesha saw him in her mind just as she'd seen him so often in the flesh. He would be bent over some new contraption or some innovative experiment. She admired him…and she feared him. She feared she could never be like him…could never live up to what he was. He had faced so much, had lost so much and yet he'd still managed to remain untainted. He did not use the Art for his own power. He used it only to help, to cure old wounds. She wanted to be what he was, to write like he wrote…but it never came that way.
If I never write like him, I will never be enough to take his burdens. And I can't write like him. The words don't come for me like they come for him.
Tears welled up again. Yeesha looked to her mother, her heart beating rapidly. "I can't write like him…it never comes as easily as it does for him."
Catherine looked deep into Yeesha's eyes. "You will never write like him. You are not him. Think…What do you want to write?"
Yeesha was taken aback. She had never thought to ask herself this question. What did she want to write? She considered. In her mind, she always saw possibilities, but the page never shaped the way she thought. If only thoughts could become ink, she thought. She looked back at her mother.
"I want to write what I see in my head. I want to create links to worlds beyond possibility, beyond time. I want to create change, life, freedom. I want to go beyond probability and make these dreams in my head reality."
Catherine laughed softly. "I see the problem now."
Yeesha cocked her head quizzically.
Catherine smiled gently. "You are not your father. You are not me. You are both of us." She looked at Atrus' workroom. "You have your father's logic and desire for perfection." She looked back to Yeesha. "And you have my dreams that break the physical realm. In having both of us, you are blessed and you are cursed. I am afraid our points-of-view have often been in conflict. And yet, they make us strong."
Yeesha felt this new revelation break upon her like a wave. For the first time, she saw the truth of who she was. Yes, she was both father and mother. Her mind flowed with each of them. She knew what her mother said was accurate. She had watched her parents argue and she had watched them unify. It was their differences that tied them together, that bound them to one another. Without those differences they would have been less than they were. They would never have done the things that they did—trapping Gehn, saving the D'ni—they were better together than apart.
She had both of her parents in her. With sudden clarity, she felt words come into her mind, garo-hevtee words that combined in ways she thought impossible. Her father would think it disorganized. Her mother would understand only the surface possibilities. Yet, Yeesha knew that these words were who she was. She was born to write in a way no other ever had. It would be her glory and her burden.
She turned back to her mother. "I understand now."
Catherine embraced her daughter in a hug, then stood. "Perhaps now the pages will not seem so intimidating."
Yeesha nodded. She watched her mother ascend the ladder. When her mother had gone, she stood, took one last look at the pool and followed. She climbed the ladder and found herself back in her solitary bedroom. Slowly, and yet deliberately, she walked over to the place the book lay. She picked it up and sat down at her desk.
As she dipped her pen in the inkwell and looked at the page, she smiled. It really wasn't all that bad, what she had written. But now she knew it could be more. Her heart was satisfied and yet, there was an element of uncertainty. If she walked down this path, the path of writing beyond time and mere words, where would it take her? Could she take the burden of her father then? Would his burden of writing ages pass to her?
In those questions, Yeesha perceived a special destiny across time. She was tied to D'ni, tied to it in ways no one else was. Although she could write words on a page, this she could not put words to. This knowledge drew her and it hid from her. It was like seeing into her future, but only getting the dimmest glimpse.
Yeesha put her pen to the page, pausing only a moment to glance outside her bedroom door. She could just barely see the sky and the mountains peeking above her family's hidden sanctuary. Out there, something waited for her. What it was, she could not say. Only time would tell. For now, she would write…she would leave time to itself and begin to be who she was meant to be.