"Do you know what special day it is?" She woke him up with a kiss on his cheek. Levi squirmed under the blankets, rubbing a fist into his eye. "I'll tell you. It's exactly halfway to your birthday."
Kuchel had lit the oven early, so that it was nice and warm in their room. A waste of oil, to be sure, but there were so few special days left to her now.
"My birthday?" Levi blinked owlishly at her, his black hair mussed and sticking up on his right side. He stood on the mattress, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was alert this morning, which was good. Kuchel had had a client a few months before who'd…
He'd been rough, and since then Levi had been unnaturally quiet. He'd always been a shy child, but after that night he'd often sit in the corner all day hugging his knees, unresponsive to anything but a kiss.
"Your half birthday. Do you know what that means?" She pulled him onto her lap, hugged him close. Levi snuggled into her shoulder, and wrapped his arms tight around her in return. Good. He was doing so well today that she had to fight the sting of tears. "It means we're going on a picnic." She kissed the crown of his head. "We're going to the above."
"The above?" Levi bolted upright, a genuine smile blooming on his lips. If Kuchel could have preserved that moment and carried it in a locket around her neck, she would have. "Really? We gonna go?"
"Levi, don't put your fingers in your mouth when you talk," she said, gently removing his hand. "Remember? Big boys use clear words."
"Kay." He trailed after her as she moved around the room. He didn't like to let her out of his sight these days, butting against her knee while she tied up the meager picnic in a kerchief. A few shriveled apples, half a loaf of bread, and one slice of cheese were all she'd been able to save. She'd have loved a cake, but the toll to get aboveground even for a few hours was so expensive. Kuchel had saved and saved for those passes.
Their earthen-walled room and single, cramped bed felt even smaller now that she could picture the outside. Her laundry basket with its soiled garments waited by the stove like a neglected animal. Levi loved laundry day more than anything. Sometimes he'd dive into the freshly scrubbed linens and coo himself to sleep.
If you think soap is a good smell, just wait until you breathe fresh air, she thought.
When Kuchel squatted over the chamber pot to piss, she nearly sobbed from the burning pain of it. It's like there's acid in me, she thought, her legs shaking. She always had a headache now, thumping at the back of her mind. The sickness was getting worse.
Their picnic had to be today. There might not be another chance.
"One more thing," she said cheerfully as she slopped out the urine. Levi watched, sucking his thumb, while she wrote a quick letter.
"Whassat?"
"Levi, take your fingers out of your mouth," she said, folding the paper and tucking it into the kerchief. His hand was gummy, but she squeezed it tight.
"Where d'you think you're goin'?" Luther sneered at her as Kuchel waited for Levi to follow her down the stairs. The brothel keeper's face was one she could never quite get used to, even after all these years. His teeth were gapped, his head hairless, his eyes ugly. There were a few girls lounging at the tables this hour of the day, plucking at their feathers and sequins with boredom. The work would pick up in the evening.
Kuchel prayed she didn't cough in front of Luther. If he knew she was contagious…
She probably shouldn't be taking on any more clients, but she needed the money. They all infected one another down here. It was how things worked.
"We're going on a picnic." Kuchel tried smiling. Smile and be pretty, those were Luther's only requirements. Now that she'd passed thirty, she had to be especially pleasing; he swore her "good years" were done.
"Hmmph." Luther spat at her feet, missing the spittoon on purpose. Levi poked his head out from around her skirt, and hissed like a cornered animal.
"Levi," she gasped, pressing his head to her thigh. Her heart beat fast. Levi had always been so shy and sweet, but after that…that night…he'd started behaving oddly, especially around men. He wanted only to be held and have her stroke his hair. He didn't want to play. She'd started begging Cecile to take him into her room when she wasn't with clients. Half the time Kuchel had a customer these days, Levi would start kicking at the closet door and scream.
He was four and a half now. She'd been a dangerous idiot to think her…her work…wouldn't cause him any troubles.
"Gonna start charging you extra to keep that brat." Luther grinned, displaying the gaps in his smile. "Unless you wanna put him to work here. Got a few clients with partic'lar tastes."
Smile. Kuchel forced herself not to claw at him. This wouldn't last much longer.
"I'll be back to start work before it gets dark."
"Yeah, like you're still a prime piece of ass." Luther spat again, and Levi growled. "Starting tomorrow, you're on the afternoon shifts."
The dead hours. No money in that. Cecile and Penelope looked over at her from their tables. They had sympathetic eyes, but tired expressions. Everyone looked out for herself down here. They wouldn't go out of their way to help.
"Starting tomorrow," she said, breath shaky. Kuchel guided Levi out the brothel doors, and walked him through the twisting alleys of the underground. Above them, the cavernous ceiling loomed, an expanse of airless dark. Dirt clung to their shoes, to the trailing hem of her skirt. There wasn't a clean breath to be had in this city. Kuchel had grown pale in her years underground while Levi resembled a ghost, his skin unwholesomely white and translucent, his black mop of hair a shocking contrast. He gripped her hand, rubbing his face against her palm.
"Love you, mommy," he mumbled. She didn't tell him to take his fingers from his mouth.
"I love you so, so much. My little half-birthday boy."
Kuchel paid for their passes at the toll gate, and took the stairs with Levi swinging by her side. It smelled like stale urine in here, and their shoes splashed through something unsavory. Levi dragged his feet, making urgent, panicked noises as the light grew brighter and the sounds of the outdoors echoed in the corridor. Kuchel closed her eyes, breathed deeply as the scent of pine wafted over them. She wanted to pick Levi up so she could rush towards the light, but he was a big boy now. He clung to her—mama's boy, the girls at the brothel would sniff. He wasn't rowdy like other little boys; he was perfectly content to sit on her lap for hours and listen to her sing. Levi was so sensitive. Girly, that's what they called him with a sneer. This place'll swallow him whole.
Kuchel agreed.
"Here we go," Kuchel whispered, and guided her son over the threshold and into the sunlight. Levi squealed.
"Mommy, it hurts! Ow, ow! No!" He backed away, running for the doorway like a field mouse tearing for its burrow. Kuchel grabbed him under the armpits and swung him around.
Coming into the sunlight after so long underground stung her eyes, sent the arrow shaft of a headache into the side of her skull. For Levi, who'd only known the dark, this had to be hellish.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Look. Shade!" Kuchel rushed her fussing son into the embrace of the forest. Levi sniffled as she set him down on a log. The pines blocked out the worst of the sun, leaving them in cool, dappled light. "Breathe that. Mmm. Isn't it yummy?" she whispered. The wind was heavy with summer. White and blue wildflowers swayed in a patch of sunlight. A bee darted from bloom to bloom.
Levi toddled after the bee, reaching for it with an amazed expression.
"No, no, no! No touch! It bites!" Kuchel picked him up and laughed as she carried him back to their shady spot. Levi giggled, tearing up fistfuls of grass and blowing the green off his palms.
"Tickles!"
They waited for their eyes to adjust, and then took cautious steps into the light. Levi squinted and whined, but when he got used to it he lay on his belly and luxuriated in the sun.
"You sleepy, sweetie?" Kuchel ruffled his hair. It was getting so long in the back. She'd have liked to cut it before today.
"Mommy? How big is the above?" He got up and ran to a tree trunk, plastering himself against it and hugging it.
"It's very big. There's nothing bigger." Kuchel untied the kerchief and laid out their picnic. "Here. Eat, and then we'll play a game."
Levi kept hugging the tree. Kuchel giggled.
"Do you like the tree?" she whispered.
"I love you, tree," Levi cooed, looking up into the swaying branches. He grinned.
He hadn't looked so animated, so happy, in such a long time…
Kuchel bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from sobbing, and waved him over. They sliced their bread and cheese, and nibbled at their apples. Levi tried giving a piece of their food to a passing squirrel. It twitched its bushy tail and scampered up Levi's favorite tree. He ran over to the trunk and shook it—rather, the tree shook him.
"Come down, puppy!" Levi yelled. Kuchel laughed until she could barely breathe. She sat by the trunk and sang a song to call down the squirrel at Levi's request. She sang songs that her mother had taught her. Her mother had always been singing, no matter how poor they were or how many times someone banged on their door in the middle of the night, forcing them to move. Move, because no one wanted an Ackerman around. No matter where they went in Wall Sina, someone would be at their heels telling them to go somewhere else. Her mother always sang, no matter what.
Then the Military Police came into their home one night while Kuchel's father was out, and slit her mother's throat. Kuchel had been nine; Kenny, thirteen, hadn't been home. Kuchel could remember her mother's dying words, the hysterical pitch of her voice as she screamed I'm not an Ackerman!
The police hadn't cared. They'd cut. Then they'd told Kuchel that her daddy had been starting trouble, and no one liked the Ackermans, and she should tell her daddy what she'd seen tonight. When her father came home, she threw herself sobbing into his arms. Her father had sworn over her mother's cooling body. When Kenny came home (where were you? their father screamed, like this was Kenny's fault) her brother had sat at the kitchen table with quiet eyes. Kuchel never understood what her brother was thinking.
I love him, but he scares me sometimes, her mother said once. Her father had sighed.
He's had to grow up like an animal, her father said. Her mother had murmured while the kids pretended to be asleep. Kuchel lay beside Kenny, watching the back of his head.
I think he was born wrong, her mother said.
When Kuchel saw the distant look in her brother's eyes as he beheld their mother's corpse, she knew it was true.
Their father took them to their grandpa, and argued with the older man for a few days before he finally left with a slam of the door. Maybe he ran away. Maybe he was killed fighting to avenge his wife. Whatever happened, Kuchel never saw him again.
She never knew what he'd done to bring the police down on their heads. Chances were he'd never done anything. He'd just had the wrong last name.
She stayed with her grandfather for seven more years. Kenny was in and out for three of them, until he disappeared for good. Kuchel should have missed him more than she did.
When she was sixteen, the Military Police came while her grandfather was out. This time, they were more interested in her. She was an Ackerman, and all Ackermans needed to be taught a lesson. They'd tried forcing her down, and ripped at her skirt. By some miracle, Kuchel managed to get away from them and bolted out the door. She ran sobbing through the streets, ran until she reached the entrance to the underground. She plunged into the darkness, and was happy to stay there. She didn't know why the police hated her name so much, so from that day on she was Kuchel. Just Kuchel.
Until she met Luther and became Olympia.
Until she had Levi and became Mommy, her favorite name by far.
"Mommy, let's play." Levi ran around and around the tree, humming to himself. He wanted to play. The words were a relief to her.
So Kuchel taught him hide and seek, huddling herself behind trees and acting shocked when he found her. Levi giggled raucously every time. She played tag with him, chasing him deeper and deeper into the woods. Every time she caught him, he had to give her a kiss as a reward. He always gave three. Kuchel looked over her shoulder; she knew that underground dwellers had to be back at the stairs by a certain time, or the police would hunt them down.
She had to be fast.
"I have one more game. Come on." She took his hand and they wandered along the path, the earth soft under their shoes.
"Can we stay, mommy? Can we?" Levi sucked his thumb.
"We'll have to see." Kuchel glanced around, waiting and hoping. The woods grew darker. The sun moved closer to the west. She was running out of time.
Then, the path began to grow wider ahead of them. Kuchel led Levi towards a break in the forest, and gazed down a hill. At the bottom of the hill sat a house, and a red barn. Smoke billowed out of the chimney. In the green pasture, spotted cows swished their tails and grazed.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Kuchel whispered. Her heart beat faster, and she slipped the piece of paper out of her pocket. "Here. Our last game. Ready?" She made Levi take the paper. "You have to run down the hill, and knock on the door. Then, give this to whoever answers."
"Why?" Levi blinked at her.
"There's a magic spell on it. When the person reads it, they'll be enchanted."
Kuchel stared at the note. On it, she'd written, My name is Levi. I have no mother or father. Please take me in.
Hopefully, the farmer who lived in the house below would be someone good and kind. She could imagine Levi growing up tending the cows in the pasture, learning to milk them. She thought of him growing strong and healthy on sunshine and meat, playing with other farm children down by the river, getting a tanned face and a sunburned nose. If she were lucky, in a few years he'd forget her. She'd be a face in his dreams sometimes, an imaginary friend he made up.
The idea of it ripped her heart from her chest, smashed it against a tree. But she smiled. This was her one chance.
"Come on." Levi tugged at her hand.
"If I'm there, the spell won't work. I'll wait right here. Okay?" She knelt down and hugged him, kissed him. She wanted to devour him with kisses, hold his little face in her hands and memorize every detail of his eyes and nose and ears, but if she did he'd know something was wrong.
"Go on. Go. Before it gets dark." She shooed him down the hill. Levi bounced along, the letter crinkled in his grip. He looked over his shoulder. Kuchel smiled and waved him along. He bounded down, running towards the pasture with the cows and the house beyond it.
Kuchel couldn't watch. Once he was a good distance away, she stole back into the forest. There, she let herself curl up against a tree and cry.
I did the right thing. I know it was the right thing. He'll thank me one day.
No. He won't even remember me.
Kuchel put her hands over her mouth to smother her wails. Rocking back and forth, she tried to make it hurt less. At least she wouldn't have to suffer long.
With Levi gone, there'd be no reason for her to keep whoring. No reason to let this disease rot her from the inside out.
"How long do I have?" She'd asked the doctor this only one month ago, trying to put her world back together after receiving the news. He'd sniffed, washed his hands thoroughly.
"Half a year, if you're lucky. This strain moves quickly." He'd glared at her, lips downturned. Filthy whore, that's what his gaze said. "All right. Come on." He unbuttoned his pants. "Your cunt's rotten, but your mouth should be fine."
Tonight, she'd go back to the brothel and lie down on the bed and open her veins. Let Luther find her there, peaceful at last.
How did I get here?
Kuchel didn't spend an awful lot of time thinking about the why's and the how's; she had a child to feed, after all. But now, with her child gone and a lot of eternity waiting for her underground, she asked the question.
How? Why?
Maybe, as Kenny had once told her, the world had two types: the weak, and the strong. He was strong. Kuchel was weak. Always had been.
As a little girl, she'd dreamed of marrying a man she loved and filling a house with children. She wasn't bold like Kenny. She didn't have any great plans or ambitions. Her parents had praised her daintiness, her delicate features, her sweet manners. You were born to be a lady, her mother told her once, when Kuchel was playing with her dolls. We don't live so grand now, but your father's family used to be noble. If they hadn't made the king angry, you'd live in a fine house with servants.
All Kuchel had ever wanted was love. But no man had ever said the words I love you to her. No one had ever held her tenderly. No man had ever given her a pet name, other than "sweetheart" or "you dirty fucking whore." She didn't know who the father of her only son was.
Was it because she was simply unlucky? Or had she been too weak to fight for the life she truly wanted? Too weak to come back up from underground? Too weak to turn away from Luther when he offered her a bed for the night when she was nineteen and penniless? Too weak to say no when he said her virginity would fetch a good price? Too weak to argue when he said she belonged to him now, because who would want a used-up girl like her?
"You're weak, Chel." Kenny said that with his back to her, hands fisted in his coat pockets. "You're so damn weak, and you don't have to be."
She sat on her bed, knees against her chest. A strap of her red velvet gown had slipped off her shoulder from when he'd started undressing her. After all these years, this was how she met her brother again. He'd been sent to her room as a client, looking for pussy. She'd had her back to the door when he entered, and heard him get into bed behind her. He'd grabbed her shoulders, kissed her neck…and then they'd seen each other.
Kuchel had never screamed so loud in her life. Kenny had jumped off the mattress and made hurking noises like he was about to be sick.
When they'd both calmed down, they got to talking. Things had been all right, actually…until she told him she was pregnant.
"You gotta get rid of it." Kenny crossed his arms and sneered. "I know a guy who'll do a scrape job for not too much money."
Kuchel grabbed her stomach, protecting it with her hands. "It's my child. I'm not going to kill it," she breathed.
"Oh, 'cause you're just so much fuckin' holier than the rest of us?" he snapped.
"We're going to be fine, Kenny. I've done all right on my own for a long time now." Tears popped into her eyes. "I don't need you telling me my business."
"You'll be doin' it a favor. Kids don't do well down here, Chel. If you have it, you'll be bringin' it into hell."
"I want it, and you won't convince me otherwise. So drop it."
Kenny tched. "Well, you got a little fire, I see. But I know you, Chel. It won't be enough for the two of you."
She noticed how he didn't offer to spring her out of here. Kenny didn't offer to fight Luther to let her out of her "contract", and he didn't say he'd let her live with him. Which was fine. She didn't want to see him, anyway. As children, he'd sometimes twist her arm until it hurt, until he almost pulled it clean out of its socket. There was something in Kenny that liked to hurt people because he could, simple as that. He wanted to hear what kind of noises they'd make.
Her brother had grown up handsome, she'd give him that. He had a long face and chestnut hair, chiseled features and sharp eyes. But there was a tightness at his mouth, and his coat was stained with blood. He wore those stains proudly.
Kenny the Ripper, scourge of the Military Police. She'd been a little proud of that, thought he was avenging their parents. But she got the heavy feeling that he'd have been just as happy killing those police if they'd been the Ackermans' allies.
"You're weak, Chel. You're so damn weak, and you don't have to be."
"I don't, do I?"
She shrank back when he turned to her, a knife in his hand. The blade winked in the lamplight. He strode towards her; Kuchel shrank back against the pillows.
"You said you ran when those MP scum tried to have their way with ya. When that happened, didn't you feel…something? Like power, an absurd amount of it, just floodin' your veins? Didn't you feel some kinda certainty? Like you knew what to do?"
Kuchel swallowed. In truth, when those men had tried to assault her, she'd felt something stir deep inside of her. Her skin had hummed, and she could've sworn she'd seen some kind of yellow lightning streak across the interior of her mind…but that feeling had died. Something inside of her had shut it out.
Been afraid of it.
"If you had the power, Chel, you'd never let shitstains like that guy downstairs whore you out. You'd have control. You'd have strength." He came nearer to her, the knife pointed at her throat. "I could help ya. I'll let that power out for ya."
"Kenny, stop. Stop!" she screamed as he grabbed her bare ankle and dragged her down the bed. He pinned her to the mattress while he laid the knife's edge against her throat. Kuchel bit her lip and tried to breathe shallowly. Her brother leered down at her, madness splintering in his eyes.
"Fight me. When it wakes in ya, Chel, you'll be able to throw me across the room with one hand. C'mon. Fight me. For your kid. For your bastard, Chel. Or." He took the knife to her stomach, the point of it slicing through her dress. She felt it cold against her skin. "Maybe I'll cut that bastard outta ya. My gift to ya. Stop me, if you can. Go on." She felt the knife drawing blood. He was going to cut her baby out of her. "Fight me. Fight. Fight."
Kuchel's entire body tensed; she could hear the blood rushing, her teeth grinding together. She hated him. She wanted to punt him through the damn door, break every bone in his ugly body.
She'd been the sweet one, the good child, yet her grandfather had been distant with her. He'd doted on Kenny, though. Kuchel wondered now if it was because he knew Kenny was a survivor. It was easy to love someone you thought would be around for a while. He'd seen Kuchel as weak, as someone who'd die young, helpless and afraid. Hard to love the helpless in a world like this.
Fight. Fight. Kill him.
That voice echoed in her ears, and lightning crackled in her veins. She could feel something rising to the surface of her soul, something that had lain dormant in the depths…
But again, that feeling died before it broke through. Kuchel wasn't a killer, and she never had been. She whimpered, squeezed her eyes shut. Tears slid down her cheeks.
"Please, not my baby. Please no. Kenny, please don't," she sobbed. She shuddered. Eventually, he took the knife away and got off the bed. She curled into a ball and watched him at the doorway. Sadness and disgust were married in his expression.
"That kid doesn't stand a chance with you."
"Get out of here. I don't want to see you again!" A little fire lit her blood. She threw a hairbrush at him. It missed.
"I'm tellin' ya, killin' it'd be a mercy."
"I'd rather it be dead," she snarled, "than ever grow up to be like you."
Weak.
"That's all I've ever been," Kuchel muttered to herself, rubbing her eyes. The twilight spread out from underneath every tree. She ought to go. Not that there was any real rush. Death would be waiting for her when—
"Mommy? Mommy, where are you?"
Kuchel froze. No. No, it couldn't be.
She watched behind the tree as Levi bumbled into the darkening forest. The letter wasn't in his hand anymore. Had he given it to the farmer, and been turned away? Or had he lost his nerve and come to find her? Levi's lip wobbled; he began to cry.
"Mommy, where are you? Mommy!" He ran forward, nearly tripping over rocks as he searched for her. Kuchel tugged at her hair, cursing herself. Idiot. Idiot.
Just leave him here. Someone will find him. They won't know where he came from. Any life is better than underground.
She had to be strong now. Strong for her son. Even as his every wail punched a fresh hole through her sanity, and broke something inside of her. Kuchel crept along the earth, picking her way back towards the entrance to the underworld. Let him cry now and be happy later. If she brought him back down there, she'd be condemning him to the Luthers of the world, to poverty, to hunger.
Be strong. For once in your life, be strong.
Kuchel could hear him running back and forth along the forest path. Soon he'd hightail it into the woods to look for her, and she'd slip back below ground. Soon she'd be dead, and he'd be free of her forever. She just needed to hold out, even as her lip quivered and tears blinded her. Levi deserved a better life. He needed one.
"Mommy, mommy, mommy." He was howling now, his voice ragged with sobs. "Mommy, please! I'm scared! Mommy!"
She could see him from behind the tree. He sat down in the path, rocking back and forth and wailing with his abandonment. Levi screamed so loud and so long that he turned purple and fell onto his side.
Walk past him. Just a few more steps and it's over. It's the right thing to do.
The right thing would've been getting that abortion, she realized with misery. Kenny had been evil but right. This world wasn't kind to little fatherless children.
She'd brought Levi into this world to suffer so she didn't have to be alone. She was a monster. Kuchel's knees trembled; the headache pounded against her skull. She just had a few more steps to go, and she'd sleep forever…
"Mommy, I love you. Come back," Levi sobbed, bundling into a ball.
If she showed herself right now, his relief would be temporary. She would be dead soon from the disease, and he'd have to live this nightmare all over again.
But…but he didn't have to live it today.
Weak. I'm weak.
"I'm here, baby! Here I am." Kuchel came out from around the tree. Levi tore into her arms, sobbing hysterically. He wrapped his arms and legs around her and clung.
"Mommy, don't ever leave me!" he sobbed. She shushed and rocked him, crying against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."
After a while, he calmed down. The sun had nearly set as they made their way out of the forest, Levi's hand in hers. After she'd appeared, he eventually stopped his crying. Now he looked fine again; in fact, as they passed his favorite tree, he kissed it goodbye. He picked a few blue and white flowers, and tickled them under his chin. He giggled.
"Can we come back, mommy?" he asked. She led him underground, her heart growing heavier with every step.
"Sure, baby," she said listlessly. She tried to smile. Smile and look pretty.
When they returned to the brothel, Luther sneered. "You gonna get ready for work, or what?"
Levi only displayed his flowers, appearing proud. Kuchel glared at Luther.
She was all out of smiles.
"I'm not feeling well. Tomorrow," she said.
"You fucking—"
Whatever other words he had for her would have to wait. Kuchel shut the door to her room. Levi leapt onto the bed and bounced on the mattress, sniffing at his flowers.
"I love you, flowers. I love you, tree," he sang. He grinned at her; all the panic of an hour before was gone. "I love you, mommy."
"I love you, Levi," she whispered. They washed up and got into bed. She lay on her side, and he lay on his. The flowers were given place of honor on the pillow between them. Levi held one to her nose.
"Smell!" he said. She did. "Mmm. Nice."
"Nice," she agreed, and pulled him close to her. For a wild moment, she imagined waiting until he was asleep and putting a knife to both of them. A quick death, instead of a lingering one. But she'd never be able to do it. She couldn't kill her baby. She'd never been strong enough for that.
"No, mommy. Flowers!" He shoved her away and petted the crushed blooms. "Pretty flowers," he soothed. "Night night."
"Night," Kuchel whispered, and watched her son as he slept. The flowers lay wilting in his hands, bright, dying blooms in this sunless place.
I wish I could've been stronger for you, Kuchel thought as she kissed her little boy's forehead. His lips curled in a smile. He snuggled into the blanket. All I could ever do was love you.
She laid the flowers on the pillow, and closed her eyes.
30 years later
He remembered this place.
The sun cooled when he entered the forest, the air scented with pine. Needles crunched beneath his boots. Somewhere, a bee droned lazily.
He'd just spent a few hours underground, and he couldn't get out of that shithole fast enough. If Levi hadn't been on orders from the queen, he'd have preferred to stay away. Just give the order to start looking for orphans, kids to be brought up topside, to be raised on farms with clean air and sunlight and spotted cows.
Nah, that was bullshit. He'd gone down there to find the kids, and also to look for Luther. Turns out the asshole was dead over ten years by now. Levi'd gone into the brothel—he remembered its location—and he'd been holding a knife. Just in case. Just in case that monster had still been alive.
He didn't even bother looking for her body. There were mass graves in the deepest parts of the underground. If they hadn't burned her, they'd have tossed her in there, somewhere. He'd never know which bones had been hers.
At least those kids'll grow up here, under the sky. Levi didn't have a lot of comfort these days, but that was something. Historia was good and true to her word like that.
He didn't even mind that she'd punched him.
A small smile tugged at his mouth. He walked down the path, looking for that one tree.
He knew it instantly.
It'd been cut down, the stump already growing mossy. Of all the trees in this damn forest, of course that one had been chopped. Maybe lightning had struck it years ago. Maybe it fell over.
"Of fucking course," Levi growled, standing over the stump. The sun cast his shadow upon it. A few stray ants crawled across the many rings in its open face. A ring for every year, that's what Hange said. This tree'd stood for hundreds of years, easy.
And even gone, a trace of it remained rooted to the earth. Hard to kill.
What is it with me and trees? he thought. All the people he loved…
Petra, smashed against one.
Kenny, dead against one.
His mother, hiding behind one while she debated abandoning him for a better life.
He wasn't stupid. He'd pieced it together as the years passed. After she'd died and left him starving in that underground hell, he'd been too numb to know how to feel. As a teenager and a young man, he'd taken to hating her.
Now he was old enough to miss her, and forgive her, and understand her. Her weakness had brought him into this world. Her love had nourished him underground.
If it hadn't been for Kenny, Levi would be dead. He knew that. Kenny—his uncle, what a weird revelation that had been. Whatever was strong and powerful in Levi came from Kenny.
Whatever was worth loving and saving in Levi came from Kuchel.
He knew that now. Maybe he'd always known it.
You're Levi. Just Levi, she'd told him when he asked about his last name, and why he didn't have one when every other person did. She'd tried to protect him from persecution. She'd denied herself her own identity for his sake.
He took out his knife, knelt, and carved letters into the stump. A K, and a C, and another C, and another K.
Levi stood, and studied his handiwork.
Kuchel Ackerman. For all the world to see. A name that'd last another hundred years.
In a patch of sunlight, bees buzzed around white and blue flowers. He picked a few—no one here to see him, no one to make fun of him. He laid them on the stump's face, alongside her name.
The flowers would die soon. The name would live on.
What should he say? What could he say? That he loved her, missed her, forgave her, cherished her? That she'd been as brave as she was weak, as strong as she was afraid?
That she was the strongest person he'd ever known, to try to bring life and love into hell itself?
Levi wasn't much of a word guy. Never had been.
So he sheathed his knife, and left her among the flowers.