Would the Universe Unravel
by Madeline Vickers
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
Sōley knew that she would never be able to hold the Sun to the Earth. She took a length of her hair, as long as her waist and curled in vague waves, and sheared it at the base of her neck. Squeezing her fist, each strand rubbing together, she laid them on top of the rest and put the scissors away.
She felt a lump rise in her throat, looking down at her severed hair.
“It doesn’t matter... it would fall out anyway,” Sōley muttered to herself. When the world unraveled... when she failed... she wouldn’t care about her hair then.
Her heart palpitated, making her fingers shake. To calm herself and steady her hands, she told herself the story of the world. Murmuring, she repeated the lines over and over:
“Nothing is untethered. Would you think the dirt holds itself to the ground?” Her voice stuck in her throat. She cleared it. “Contemporary knowledge will tell you it is gravity. The Earth spinning inward and pulling everything together, an invisible string. It’s not entirely wrong. The ancient hearts that beat deep beneath the earth, long recycled into trees and sediment and rock, know differently.
“Once, there was a community, one of the first in this universe, that knew the Sun tethered everything together. Sunlight reached even the deepest crevices. Even the crabs of deep trenches licked molecules of sun-warmed sediment. Compared to the planet entire, the underside of a leaf was not so hidden.
“During the day, the people were rooted. They could move about and speak and breathe, living in the light. When it rained, they felt weary, the Sun rationed through the clouds. At night, they slept, the moon barely strong enough to keep their souls on the ground.”
Her fingers caught. A piece of the braid fell apart. Sōley cursed; the small inconvenience made her want to scream. It bubbled half from her throat.
She took a deep breath, unspooled some of the braid, and began again:
“But the Sun could not tether itself. It flew in the sky, free and dangerously quick. The people of this community knew it was they who must tether it, in return. What neglected Sun wouldn’t float away?
“When they asked themselves how to do this, fearing every sunset that the light would not rise again, it seemed insurmountable. The oldest and youngest and all between gathered in the center of their hamlet and discussed what holds a thing together that could hold the Sun? Rope could not reach, worship would not indebt, law would not hold, and marriage would not sway.
“But then, someone spoke: they were not being honest. What truly had the power to hold two pieces of the universe together? No voice went unheard and, when the answer was spoken from a new mother cradling her babe, it was true: ‘Love’.”
She remembered how Charity used to say it. Slow and thick, like honey over sweets.
“No matter what the distance, it could reach. Despite the incorporeality, the force of love was strong. It would work, the people agreed. But not just any love: a true and honest love.
“And so, every generation, two lovers were anointed as the Anchors, for they held the Sun to the people of the world.”
That was the end to the story, the told one.
Sōley had more to say. “Years passed,” she muttered now, speaking bitterly. “What was once passed from worthy pair to worthy pair became hereditary. It became not only a bond but a weight, and each descendant sank deeper under the strain. The tie between the people and the Sun grew taut and so, too, did the bonds between every other thing.”
Mahoma and Winifred held the Sun, now. Her parents.
Sōley was to hold it next. She shook at night, afraid of the day. Sōley feared she would fail, and all would become untethered when she did. In desperation, she stood before a mirror and severed the hair her mother had given her, twenty years before, and spun it into a rope.
Fingers twisting, Sōley sat on a stool in her room of the Sun House. Her family had lived here for centuries. She twisted the hair strands at a time, chewing on her lip. The morning sun broke through the windowpane, lunging across the floor and spreading onto her thighs and hands, and her pace picked up. The Sun House, this great estate she lived in, caught the first rays of light in the morning. It sat higher than any other building in the city.
Sōley used to love mapping the land. She thought the city infrastructure was fascinating. And beyond the city, the land swelled into rolling hills with red-tinted grass and pink-leafed trees and up to snow-peaked mountains. A river ran from the fallen snow to the lake just north of the city on one side of the mountain range, and down to the ocean on the other.
Her thoughts had turned inward, to this last decade of her life.
Footsteps sounded in the lacquered hall outside her room. Sōley tied the partial rope off, holding her place. Hiding it quickly in a bronze chest at the foot of her bed, she settled herself under her covers just as the door opened.
“Mahoma,” her father spoke, announcing himself as he stepped into her room.
“Sōley,” she greeted in return. Her father’s eyebrows crinkled together when he first spotted her. Several too-long strands of hair made her shoulder itch.
Mahoma schooled his face before he looked around the room. “I heard movement,” he stated, his mahogany eyes finding hers again. Her father slipped into the room, his broad shoulders turning to slip through the partially opened door, and he shut it behind him.
“Chamberpot,” Sōley answered simply.
The man grunted, walking over and sitting beside her on the bed. It sank quietly under his weight. The heir of the Sun Bond wanted for nothing, so they could focus only on finding the love that would tether the Sun. Sōley had all she needed.
“You cut your hair,” Mahoma acknowledged.
Sōley tilted her head to the side away from him, not turning to look. She didn’t care if he saw her chopped hair, she just didn’t want him to know why she’d done it.
The man let out a long sigh. He pulled a knife from a leather sheath, one he kept on a belt loop at all times. Sōley turned away from him, and with delicate, careful movements he cut the ends of her hair to an even length. When he was done, he brushed the small flecks of hair off of her shoulders with callused hands. Her father was a blacksmith, marrying into the responsibility of the Sun Bond. Her mother, Winifred, had the role passed from her father, who’d taken it up after his brother died an untimely death.
The role of Anchors was usually passed from one member of the Amallisol family to another. Occasionally, it would jump to another of the elder families, the Villalobos or the Selinofotos, if there was no one truly eligible in the Amallisols. Such abnormalities happened rarely and typically spawned a period of unease. It was believed that only these families, which were descended from the original community, could hold the Sun Bond. They were meant to be infallible. If they, with their money and prestige and privilege, couldn’t find love, well, it was unsettling. Ominous, even.
“I wanted it to be like Charity’s,” Sōley spoke softly, when all the bits were brushed onto the floor. Charity had been her cousin for thirty-two years. She’d have been thirty-three this year, if she hadn’t fallen victim to the Plague of Flight.
Highly contagious, the Plague of Flight had ravaged the known world for the past decade. Slowing, but never tapering out, the sickness spread silently. Some took to symptoms of fever, shortness of breath, and a deep-set anxiety in their gut that made them feel they were flying or falling. Others showed nothing at all for weeks, the disease slipping in and out of them.
The Plague of Flight took Charity’s life at the turn of the calendars, just before the new year. It would have fallen on her to take the Sun Bond from Mahoma and Winifred. Now, it fell on Sōley. For working aside the plague, the elder families were all but fragments of what they’d been after a series of tragedies.
First, in the Year 4435 of the Bindings, a pleasure cruise hosting over a hundred members of the elder families was shipwrecked. That had occurred twenty-eight years ago. All who were aboard perished.
The second tragedy was a poisoning. Thirteen years ago, the wedding of another of Sōley’s cousins — soft-spoken Iqra to a modest businessman, Reem — had resulted in twenty-six deaths. Anarchists, doomsayers or traitors had been responsible, but never exposed.
The third was a betrayal. Just as the Sun Bond was about to be passed from the previous pair to Winifred’s older sister, it was revealed her lover had been untrue. This was a closely kept secret; eleven years had passed, and no one outside the families and Tethering Priests knew. As far they knew, an untrue lover had never passed the Tethering Priests’ vetting before.
And then, ten years ago, the Plague of Flight had emerged from its malignant nest.
Charity was dead. So many others in the world followed her. The elder family lines had all but gone extinct, their youth extinguished. It fell to Sōley. The last of the elder family’s youth of less than fifty years.
“You miss her. We all do,” Mahoma acknowledged, his arms wrapping around her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. Sōley leaned into it, too old to be held like a child, but too tired to care. “Buttercup, you’ve been... slow to see your suitors. Your mother called several to come today. This... will you be prepared to see them?” Her father finally asked what he came for. He spoke gently, careful, like he was hammering the blade of a rapier. Her shoulders drew in, and she held her breath. In this hug, with her eyes closed and chest still, she could pretend for a few moments that she didn’t have to lie.
But only for a few seconds. “Yes, of course.” She pushed a cheer into her voice. Sōley knew she wanted for nothing. After all the death, her parents were still here, a blessing that they had been the Sun Bond Pair, protected above all others. Unfair, in many ways, but necessary.
And now, for that protection, Sōley owed the city everything. She owed the world everything.
Her father patted her shoulder. “Good!” he chuckled out, relief thick in his voice. Sōley pressed a smile on her face, pulling at the corners in minute adjustments to make it better, crinkling her eyes to make it seem more authentic.
When he left to let her dress, the smile remained. Door shut, alone again, she stared at the wall, smiling so convincingly. It staled and rotted faster than any fruit, and Sōley rubbed her face with her fingers, tired. She wanted to continue making the rope of her hair, but by ‘several’ suitors her father likely meant ‘very, very many.’ And no matter what adornments she wore, Sōley feared that nothing would ever cover up the inherent unloveable quality inside of her.
The fifth tragedy would be that it was Sōley who survived, out of all her family.
She needed to get ready.
Copyright © 2023 by Madeline Vickers
