Page 131 of Cast in Atonement

“The green is sentient. It is sentient in a way that the elements are; it is older by far than mortals, and it is unconstrained in its activities within the folds of the ether that circumscribe it. Helen is constrained, as are the Towers; the green was not constructed in the same fashion.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew this. She wasn’t even certain she wanted to know.

“The Keeper’s garden was constructed in a fashion that was similar to the green—but Keepers understand the function, the necessity, of the garden. We are like, and unlike, the captains of the Towers—the last things created, to my knowledge, by the Ancients. I do not bespeak the elements in the fashion Helen bespeaks you. Helen is the core of the sentient building. All of the buildings of your acquaintance were built with a living being at their heart. The same can be said of the garden, in a fashion, but the being is not one of the races with which you are—or should be—familiar.

“More than that, I do not feel it wise to say.” He turned as a breeze started in the clearing; Kaylin heard the whisper of leaves against leaves, rising and falling as if attempting to be heard. Leaves fell, as leaves do—not all at once, and not in any discernible pattern; they scudded across the flowers and grass.

One such leaf stopped at her feet; she bent without thought to retrieve it.

In her hand, the leaf was warm; it felt almost like skin beneath her fingers. It was green, as green as her dress, as green as sunlight through emerald.

It did not speak; it was a leaf. But as she held it, she thought she could hear words being spoken, the syllables oddly familiar, the language unknown.

“I think—I think the green is trying to speak,” she whispered.

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Evanton frowned. “The green always speaks,” he said, his voice very soft, but nonetheless distinct. “Just as the elements do. What we perceive as sleep is not sleep; they do not require sleep. Which is unfortunate, because I do.”

“Can you hear the green?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know? That the green was there?”

“Yes. The presence of the green was the reason I could stand where I stood for as long as I did. The green does not desire the dead to rise, and it has some ability to contain it. But if I cannot move the Ancient to my garden, the green cannot move the Ancient to the green; the distance is far too great, even considering the path in the outlands it might otherwise take.”

“I don’t understand what the Ancients mean—or meant—by death. The Ancient could—and did—speak. He could move. He could reach for the raw material of the outlands and build a forest around himself. He could speak my language—or I could hear his speech as if that’s what he was speaking.

“Nothing about that suggests death to me.”

“No. But you said he spoke of the end of his purpose, or the completion of it. It is possible life and death for the Ancients revolved around purpose; once they had completed their task, they might rest. Death is felt as an absence by those who are not dead. You spoke with Mrs. Erickson’s ghostly children—did they seem dead to you?”

“I knew they were dead.”

“But did they seem dead? Were they walking corpses?”

“No!”

“They appeared as children. They spoke as children. They had the temperament of children. Things familiar with their living existence. Had they lived, they would have aged; they would have acquired knowledge and, one hopes, wisdom. They did not. But to the eyes of Mrs. Erickson—and to your eyes—they did not seem dead. Could they have interacted with the physical world, you would never have known.”

Kaylin nodded, the nod slower.

“How, then, is that death?”

“Being able to interact with others seems important.” She hesitated. She’d been grateful that the dead didn’t look like shambling corpses; that their death didn’t define their appearance. Death meant, for the children, the inability to interact with others. They couldn’t be heard. They couldn’t be seen. Mrs. Erickson had been the exception, and she had become the center of their world—a world transcribed by the walls of a small house. They could see each other; they had at least that.

They couldn’t leave, but that had been Azoria’s fault.

Truth was, Kaylin had liked the children. But she was aware that they’d been trapped in many ways. They couldn’t change. They couldn’t grow. Whatever experience they accumulated left them untouched. The child she had been when she was their age was not the woman she had become. The woman she was was not the woman she would become. Life was about change.

“I see your point. To me, the children seemed alive. To them, it was different. Do you think the Ancient is like that, somehow?”

“Having never conversed with an Ancient before, I do not know. But yes, perhaps. I have never been like Mrs. Erickson, but I could certainly see the Ancient.” He coughed, a type of punctuation he used to emphasize a point. “I do not believe I would have seen him had it not been for your interference.”

“And you don’t think he would be what he is now.”

“His power, much limited, would have been in Azoria’s hands. Before you fall prey to your own gnawing guilt, consider that. My sense was that he was attempting to contain himself in some fashion; he did not fight my attempt to contain him.”

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