The World Above Read Free Page B

present,” she murmured. With determined steps, she began to make her way toward the road.
    “
And that is how we came to dwell in the World Below.”
    With this sentence, my mother always ended her story, blew out the candle, and kissed us good night. But Jack and I both knew what had followed. Our mother had used Rowan’s gold coins to buy a farm not far from where she had first arrived in the World Below. It was close enough to a village that she did not feel all alone, but far enough away to be safe from prying eyes.
    There, almost precisely eight months to the day after the events of her story, Jack and I were born. I was actually the first to put in my appearance, just in case you’re wondering. My mother always said it explained my strange affection for the World Below. And this brings me to the most important difference between my brother and me.
    Jack believed my mother’s tale with his whole heart. He believed in the World Above. But try as I might, I could never quite bring myself to do so. My heart was too tied to the World Below.
    Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not calling my mother a liar. It’s just that I could never make myself take her story for the
literal truth
. After all, she told it as a bedtime story. A way to lull Jack and me to sleep each night, so that we would be inspired when we awoke the next morning.
    Everyone needs to believe that they are special, different from those around them. That’s what my mother’s story always seemed like to me. A charm, a way to get us through hard times. But even as I appreciated the story she told, I never believed that it was true. Not the way Jack did, in my innermost heart of hearts.
    That is, not until the day that Jack set off with Agapanthus and returned with a handful of beans instead of a pocketful of coins. Seven little beans, white with red speckles, the sight of which made my mother sit down abruptly in what was left of the carrot patch, laughing and crying at the same time.
    That was when I realized my mother had meant every word of her bedtime story. It had been true, all of it. And I knew, in that moment, that nothing in our lives was ever going to be the same.
    There would be a beanstalk in our future.
    I could only hope I wouldn’t have to be the one to climb it.

 

T HREE
     
    I needn’t have worried. Jack was always going to be the one to go. It was actually something of a wonder he’d brought the beans home at all and hadn’t simply tossed them over his shoulder immediately after he and the old woman completed their transaction.
    For once in his life, however, Jack used his head. He kept it out of the clouds and squarely on his shoulders. Those beans were
important
. When a thing is important, you have to take extra care to get it right. That meant bringing the beans straight home to our mother.
    “Well, my dears,” my mother said. She dried her eyes but made no move to get up out of the carrot patch. “This is a momentous day, no two ways about it.”
    “That means it’s a big deal,” I said.
    Jack made a rude sound. “I know what it means, Gen, thank you very much. I’m not the simpleton you’d like to make me out to be. I was smart enough to take the old woman’s bargain, wasn’t I?”
    “Children, children,” my mother said. But I could tell from the curve of her lips that she was holding back a smile. She extended a hand. As Jack’s were full of beans, I was the one who reached out and helped her up.
    “What do I have to do to grow a beanstalk?” Jack demanded, as soon as Mama was on her feet. “Just throw it over my left shoulder, right?” He turned and raised one arm as if to complete the action.
    “Jack,” my mother said, her voice like the snap of a whip.
“Stop right now.”
    Jack’s arm jerked to a stop, and his eyes went wide with astonishment. I might have been tempted to laugh if I hadn’t been so surprised myself. Our mother never raised her voice.
    “I’m sorry,” Mama went on, in a