We Sang Water into Lemonade, on the Eve of Summer, In the Wasteland by Robert Luke Wilkins
We passed the last dandelion by late morning, and by noon, the grass had faded. Nothing grew in the gray, aether-swept deadlands beyond the city’s eastern wall.
“I should bring Martha,” said Ma, her voice cracked with age. “She’d love it.”
My younger sister patted Ma’s shoulder. “I’m here, Ma.”
“Oh, not you, dear. I meant my daughter, Martha.”
The spectre of a girl appeared, matching our slow pace with her skipping walk. This was the Martha that Ma remembered, aged six, not a thirty-year-old woman with children of her own.
The girl shimmered, then vanished.
At least Ma wasn’t screaming today, calling Martha an intruder, terrified until we sang songs to calm her. I patted my hip-bag for the hundredth time, then reached inside for the thousandth, checking the syringe Doctor Oleander had given me.
“We’ll bring her next time,” said Martha. But we both knew there’d never be one.
We slept in the open near a petrified tree, and Martha and I took shifts on watch.
During my watch, oily tendrils crept from the shadows, probing, hungry, eager to drag us into the shadows—but even now, rekindled by the aether, Ma’s powers weren’t what they once had been. These tendrils weren’t truly real, just a nightmare’s shadows.
But folks in the city hadn’t known that.
I wondered if they ever had been real. Maybe I was glad not to know. Ma had always been happy that we hadn’t inherited her powers. “They choose your life for you,” she’d said. Instead of the singer she’d dreamed of being, she’d been the whisperer, the summoner, the guardian. But to us, she’d always been just Ma, singing songs, and playing games.
I saw her stirring uncomfortably, and I went and whispered in her ear.
“We’re safe, Ma. You can sleep.”
She quieted, and the tendrils vanished.
As we ventured further out into the wasteland, Ma’s visions grew stronger, her grip on reality weaker. At times, the visions were like the little girl, and for a time, Pa walked along with us, younger than either Martha or I, and singing songs of his own. In those moments, when the good memories surrounded her, Ma seemed truly happy.
But Ma barely spoke, even then, and always nonsense. And when we rested to eat dried fruit and water, more dark things approached in the daylight, crawling, slithering. Their touches were unfelt by Martha or I, but Ma shrank from their touch, whimpering and wailing as they grew larger and darker.
“We can’t go on,” said Martha. “Any longer, and our song won’t reach her at all. We have to do it here, now.”
I wanted to refuse, to put the moment off—but Martha was right, and I nodded. We sat close to Ma, and sang the song she’d taught us, one she’d made up long ago.
“Goldbird sitting in a green oak tree, singing his summer-song just for me.”
It was just a children’s song, simple and light, but now it was a call for her to return to a happy memory, to find one last, bright moment for us to spend together. Ma’s expression softened into a smile.
“Do it now,” whispered Martha, and as the shadow things crumbled, I held my breath, and reached for the syringe.
The world flooded with color. Grass and dandelions sprung up beneath us, stretching to the horizon, and a familiar oak towered upwards, its leaves thick and vibrant. Beneath, we sat on a checkered pink blanket, with Ma’s large summer picnic-basket at its center.
“Get back here, you two,” called Ma. I looked up, and froze. Ma was young, again, and her hair and dress billowed in the breeze. I followed her gaze to two children—Martha and I, chasing, tumbling in the grass, and laughing. Ma shook her head. “One of them’s going to break something, and I’ll have no sympathy.” She turned back to both of us. “How’s the lemonade?”
I lifted my water glass, drank—and then almost spat. It really was lemonade, or at least, it tasted like it.
“It’s delicious,” I said, as Martha did the same.
“From the lemon-trees in my garden,” she said, and gestured behind me. I turned, and found our old garden with a half-dozen lemon trees bearing their bright yellow fruit, and a stone path leading through it to our red-brick house. “Oh, those two—I said get back over here, now!”
As Ma stormed off toward the children we had once been, I moved closer to Martha, who had turned to look at the house.
“I wonder how real it is, inside,” she said, which left a hundred questions unasked.
“She’s no harm to anyone now, is she?” I paused. “Not out here. And she’s Ma again. Maybe not ours, exactly, but…still Ma.” I paused. “I’m not doing it.”
“No, you can’t,” agreed Martha, and there were tears in her eyes. I wiped them away, and fought back my own. “This might not last, though,” she added. “And I have to go back.”
“I know. But I have to stay. And I’ll sing to her, whenever she needs it.”
“I’ll return with food and water. Every week.”
I lifted my glass. “If we even need it.”
“Are you sure it’s real?”
“Huh.” I took a sip. Was it real? I couldn’t tell. “Well, better safe than sorry.” We sat close, drank our lemonade, and watched as Ma joined in our children’s game, jumping, tumbling, and laughing.
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