Page 53 of Mama Si's Paradise

She didn’t look pissed off. Her colorful eyes searched my face, and if anything, she lookedconcerned.

She was concerned that I’d run away from my job and came out here to hide.

“Talk to me, Fall Doll. Why did you run away?”

Oh, God.

How was it that that made everythingworse?

Lowering my head, I felt the shame climbing like heat in my body, gathering in my cheeks. Fuck it, it was as good as over, wasn’t it? I couldn’t lie, not now. What would even be the point?

“Because I can’t do it.” I forced myself to raise my head and look her in the eye. “I can’t do it, Mama Si. I’m sorry that I agreed to this because I knew I couldn’t from the get-go. I just…I really wanted to stay.”

The way she smiled broke my heart. “Oh, Fall Doll.” She raised her hand as if to frame my cheek, but she never touched me. Instead, she shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s a bit chilly out here, don’t you think?”

The ground moved.

It moved just as it did when it made my piano, and suddenly tree roots and vines were rising in the air around Mama Si, who didn’t even bat an eye, and they climbed on her body, up her back and around her shoulders like they’d done that same thing a million times.

Before the minute was over, the roots had shaped themselves intoacapearound her shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, they turned black. They turned tofabric—to a rich black velvet that covered Mama Si all the way to her ankles.

“That’s better,” she whispered, pulling the velvet closer over her naked arms. “I don’t appreciate you running away from me, but I do understand your fear. Your hesitation.” She sighed. “To be frank, I always knew you couldn’t do it, either, since the very beginning.”

I had no clue what the hell to make of any of this—not Mama Si being here, not the ground giving her a damncape,not her admitting all of that to my face with that defeated sigh.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” I spun around, looking at the trees and the sky and the clearing, the little animals watching us half hidden behind the trunks… “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understandyou.”

Mama Si laughed. “Oh, darling, you’re not the only one. I don’t understand me, either.” And she laughed some more.

To me it didn’t sound funny at all. “What is this, Mama Si? What…what isthis?” And I spread my arms around to show her the clearing, the forest, the damn piano in the middle of it made out of tree roots—and her damn velvet cape!

Mama Si said, “I think you already know.”

I shook my head. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. You asked me about it, remember?”

I swallowed hard, the word coming out of me as if my body was being controlled by someone else. “Ennaris.”

Her smile widened. “Ennaris, yes. A part of it,” she said. “You found it. It opened for you. I didn’t seethatpart coming, but I knew you’re not a doll. I justknew.”

Just the way she said that name.Ennaris—like it was the answer to all her prayers. Like it was her mantra.

“So, it’snota fantasy.” As fucking absurd as it sounded, I was standing right there. I’d seen it all with my own eyes every single night for the whole week. I’d seen the fur of the animals glowing, and I’d played the piano the ground gave me—I’d seen, and I thought I’d made this grand discovery. I thought I’d found something nobody else knew about, something that would make people think I was crazy if I ever told them about it.

But I should have known. Of course, Mama Si would know about this—of course,she would.

“It is to the world at large. Only those connected to it, to the magic in its soil, can see it, nobody else. How did you come out here, Fall Doll?” Mama Si said, and she sounded perfectly calm. Perfectly content to be here now that she wasn’t cold anymore.

“I just…I need to sit down for a moment.” Because I wasnotcalm at all.

I sat down on my bench, back turned to the piano, and she laughed.

“Oh, of course. Silly me. Please, make yourself comfortable.” And the next moment another bench sprouted from the ground, same height and width as mine, just a couple feet in front of me.

Mama Si pulled her cape to the side gracefully and sat down the way she did in chairs, and she didn’t even look at the bench twice. She didn’t flinch, wasn’t surprised—on the contrary. She acted as if all of this was perfectly normal.

Clothes and seats rising from the ground?Pfft.Boring.

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