Ever

  Finally she lowers the tunic. We come out from behind the screen. She tells Lesu that I’m “acceptable.”

  Two priests lift me onto the altar. I stiffen. I didn’t realize, but until now I thought something would keep this moment from coming. My ears buzz. My temples pound. I ball my fists—tight, tight, tight—to keep from screaming.

  The priestess places oil lamps around me. I turn my head so I can see Pado.

  He gazes back. I don’t look away and neither does he. Someone lights the lamps. I feel their heat. I smell incense. Lesu chants:

  “Admat, the one, the all,

  Accept this offering and

  Send your blessings to Hyte.

  Accept this oath repayment and

  Send your blessings to Hyte.

  Accept this girl and

  Send your blessings to Hyte.”

  Pado doesn’t blink. He is with me, as I know Olus and Mati and Aunt Fedo are. Olus sees me. He’ll see the knife come down. I won’t. I’ll see only my pado’s eyes.

  69

  OLUS

  THE KNIFE DESCENDS. Kezi’s blood spurts. My own blood throbs in my ears. She moans. I shout. Her aunt and mati clutch each other.

  Kezi continues to stare fixedly at her pado. Has she died? Has Admat—

  No! She still breathes—shallowly. Her chest rises and falls, imperceptibly except to me. She must be in such pain, but after the one moan she is silent.

  The priestess closes her eyes. Lesu takes Senat’s hand and tugs him from the room. The high priest tells Senat, “Her sacred body will be washed. We will pray over it today and . . .”

  They won’t!

  My gusty wind blows open the double doors to the room that holds her. My cradling wind and my gentle wind pick her up and waft her through several small rooms—but not the one we’re crowded in—between the open bronze doors, into the sky, and away to Enshi Rock.

  I say farewell to Merem and Aunt Fedo, although I doubt they hear me. From the temple I walk to the gates of Hyte. All the while, I listen to Kezi’s weak breaths.

  AFTER

  KEZI

  YEARS HAVE PASSED.

  When I reached Enshi Rock after my sacrifice, the goddess of medicine nursed me back to health. The god of forgetfulness offered to mist my sacrifice, but I told him not to. Since my days in Wadir I’ve wanted to remember everything.

  As soon as I was well enough, Olus and I married. The ceremony was performed at Olus’s temple in Akka, so our worshipers could attend. I even coaxed a few mortal women to dance with me. Kudiya was the only mortal man brave enough to dance with Olus and the gods. In the wedding pantomime Puru, of all gods, took the part of Gossip and enthusiastically clapped together the donkey’s jawbones. Nin, the storm goddess, was Storm, naturally, and the war god was War. Hannu and Arduk pretended to be the arguing children.

  Our most unusual wedding guests were Olus’s goats. He says they deserve his gratitude for bringing us together. Arduk provided delicious grass and herbs for them.

  Everything would have been perfect if Mati and Pado and Aunt Fedo could have taken part.

  I often watch and listen to them from the falls of Zago. They suffered, Pado most of all. Mati blamed herself for making so much of her illness. Aunt Fedo blamed herself for forcing her way into our house. Pado blamed himself for everything.

  At first their sole comfort was in the disappearance of my body from the temple. They hoped that the miracle was a sign of Admat’s forgiveness and of my forgiveness.

  I asked the goddess of sleep to send them dreams. She sent dreams of me laughing, dancing, knotting rugs. After my children were born, the goddess sent dreams of them, too. The dreams consoled my parents and Aunt Fedo.

  The priests and priestesses of Hyte also call my disappearance a miracle. Some people believe that Admat took me to Wadir to become his wife, and they worship me!

  Everyone looks on my words about human sacrifice as truth. Even the holy text has been changed.

  I ride Kastu to my temple in Akka every week. The temple has a red door, just as the houses in Hyte do. The walls are hung with rugs. Some rugs I made and some were offerings of other weavers. Hannu sent pots, and Arduk filled them with flowers that never die. Olus’s winds blow in spicy and sweet scents. Musicians and dancers practice their arts in my courtyard. They are welcome, as long as they let the unskilled join in.

  My temple has a quiet room for conversation. People talk more easily to me than to the other gods, because they know I used to be mortal. They tell me their questions, and I tell them mine, and we wonder together.

  Olus and I raised three daughters and three sons. All were born mortal. Ursag says it’s because I was born mortal. Two sons and one daughter chose to drink therka and were able to swallow it. The others chose not to drink and remained mortal. I am glad for those who will live eternally and for those whose lives will be fleeting. Death in old age is often welcome. My mortal children will help populate the earth.

  For one month in twelve I seek Admat. It is a sacred quest, but thus far I haven’t found him. The god of everywhere and everything remains hidden. Olus always accompanies me on my searches. Puru sometimes gives us puzzling advice.

  I know that fate may be thwarted. We strive for happy outcomes.

  Deleted Chapters from Ever

  An Interview with Gail Carson Levine

  A Sneak Peek at Gail Carson Levine’s Next Novel, A Tale of Two Castles

  BEHIND THE BOOK WITH GAIL CARSON LEVINE

  My favorite chapter in Ever is the twenty-first, a quiet chapter told by Olus, god of the winds. The first wave of disaster has struck Kezi. The second wave will descend soon. Waiting for it, Kezi, her father, Senat, her mother, Merem, and her aunt, Fedo, collect in the family eating room to chat and snack. Without their knowledge, Olus watches and listens from a distance with his powerful god’s eyes and ears. The mortals reminisce about Kezi’s childhood, her parents’ courtship, and even Merem’s childhood. Tragedy has afflicted them, but they have a happy day, expressing their love for one another, being freer about it than they would ordinarily.

  Even Olus, the solitary observer, is happy, too, by entering into their joy.

  It’s the saddest kind of happiness. I’ve experienced it myself when people I love have become terminally ill. It pleased me to put this loving interlude into my book. For me, it’s the novel’s truest moment.

  Naturally there’s a lot more love in Ever in addition to this chapter. Ever is as much a love story as it is an exploration of faith. There would be no story if Olus and Kezi didn’t love each other.

  I’ve put romance in many of my books, and each time I’ve had to make the characters fall for each other, which is always interesting. In Ever, Kezi and Olus have to love each other enough to endure horrible trials. So how did I push them into it?

  I made Olus lonely. He calls himself the god of loneliness as well as of the winds. He has staved off boredom and solitude throughout his childhood by watching mortals and attempting to be like them. When he descends to earth to live, he loves them in general. When he spots Kezi dancing gracefully in her home and weaving her beautiful rugs, he is primed to love her in particular. If her personality were unpleasant, if she had tantrums and threw mud bricks at the servants, he wouldn’t. But she’s kind and has strong feelings for her family. Her appeal overwhelms him.

  Kezi, when the action gets underway, has a crush on a young man named Elon, whom she doesn’t know well but hopes to marry. I can’t let her go on mooning over him, so I have him behave first brutally and then despicably, and I have Olus rescue her from him. Thus Kezi is primed to love him, too. And his god’s powers, which she misconstrues, add to his allure. Moreover, because of her death sentence, love and marriage are now out of reach and thus painfully and irresistibly attractive. (Not to mention that Olus is exactly as handsome as a god, since he is one.)

  But when Kezi discovers the truth about him (his immortality, his powers), her love turns to fear. He has to enti
ce and charm her back, which he does by inviting her to kick him! That was fun to write.

  Deleted Chapters from Ever

  3

  OLUS

  IT IS THE anniversary of my birth. I am nine, the only birthday that matters to the Akkan gods. Arduk and Hannu are in my bedroom with me, an unusual bedroom with no walls. My ceiling is the canopy Hannu insisted on putting up to keep out the rain. On fine days I roll the canopy away, and then my ceiling is the sky. Under the scattered rugs, my floor is the gently sloping stone of the temple roof. My smallest wind is stationed under two legs of my bed to make it flat. I have the best bedroom, with the freshest air and nothing to make me feel closed in.

  To mark my birthday, Arduk has created a new vegetable, the turnip, and he has given it to me as my nickname—Turnip. He says my namesake is beneficial to humans for coughs and colds. I think it’s delicious mashed with onions and clarified butter.

  My gift from Hannu is a wide, shallow bowl that she says expresses my winds in pottery. The outside is blue-gray sky colors incised with swirls and whorls. The inside is midnight blue, on which she painted a cedar tree with wind-tossed branches and curling roots.

  “Thank you,” I say into her chest as she hugs me.

  She ties a belt woven with red thread loosely around my waist—red, signifying a great occasion. Arduk hands me a long wooden spoon, the ceremonial spoon. It’s time to go to the amphitheater.

  Almost the entire pantheon is present, except the fourteen gods who have chosen to sleep away the centuries. Everyone who’s come wears something red—a pendant, a tunic, slippers. Puru, wrapped in his orange linen, holds a red peony. He sits at one end of the third row, next to a fluted pillar.

  I take my place on the speaker’s red and black tiles. A servant enters with a silver chalice of therka on a silver plate. Our servants are immortal, but with no powers. She gives me the cup. I see the golden therka lap against the inside of the chalice.

  Therka is the beverage of the Akkan gods. The ingredients are honey, flower juice, Enshi Rock water, and a bit of each god’s and goddess’s power. It is time for me to add my winds to the brew. When I do, I will make a wish. If my contribution improves the therka, my wish will come to pass.

  My winds enter the stadium. The gods’ tunics billow one way, are plastered against their bodies another. Their hair whips across their faces.

  The winds eddy around me. I am the center of a cyclone. “Gods and goddesses,” I yell, “now I will add wind to therka.”

  I separate my winds as they circle, because if I add them all, they will combine to nothing. So I pick a generous pinch of my gentle wind, hoping it will calm the god of war. Next I add my sweet wind for kindness, especially to mortals. I don’t stint on my merry wind, but I keep my clever wind to myself. The gods are clever enough. I add a fistful of my strong wind, because the gods need strength to help people.

  Through the clamor of my winds, I hear the goddess of mural painting say, “What’s taking so long?”

  I add the winds that will cause no trouble: my dry wind, my moist wind, my hot wind, my cold wind, my slow wind, my scent carrier. At the end I add another pinch of my sweet wind.

  I’m finished. I blow my wind gift, no bigger than an acorn, into the therka cup. As I stir with the ceremonial spoon, I repeat over and over in my mind: I wish for a friend.

  6

  KEZI

  THE SUN IS setting. I stand in single file with a hundred or so other nine-year-old girls. We’re all dressed in undyed tunics to show humility. Our hair is hidden under woolen caps. My cap is bigger than anyone else’s, yet my hair still pops out.

  We are outside Admat’s temple. In my opinion, a line of people standing still is a dance wasted. Humming softly, I step to the right, then to the left, although it’s hard to dance while carrying a huge roll of linen, my gift for Admat.

  From behind me, my cousin Belet touches my shoulder. I face around. She is following my dance. The girl behind Belet joins in and then so does the next. The dance spreads until a priestess strides by, looking stern.

  Tonight will be the dreaming ceremony. If we have prophetic dreams, Admat may grant our wishes.

  Belet touches my shoulder again. “Will there be spiders?”

  “Maybe.” I don’t mind spiders.

  The bronze temple doors creak as they open inward. A priestess stands in the doorway, holding a torch. We follow her inside, through small rooms lit by torches. Our procession reaches the main prayer room, where I’ve never been allowed before. The room is the shape of a liver, the most important organ of prophecy. The altar fills the narrowest curve of the walls, straight across from where we come in. Behind the altar is a wooden door.

  A dotted line of small windows skip along the wall just below the ceiling. They let in only a little light now at the end of the day. Straw sleeping mats have been spread out in rows. A priestess takes my offering and leads Belet and me to our mats in the middle of the room.

  “I’m scared,” Belet whispers.

  “The spiders are frightened of us.”

  “Not just spiders.” Belet’s hand on my arm is cold. “Drafts. Shadows.”

  I have my own fears. What if I can’t fall asleep? Or what if I don’t dream?

  A priest glides to the front of the altar. He faces away from us and begins to pray.

  “Admat, the One and All,

  deliver to these girl children

  Hyte’s future in dreams.

  As You wish, so it will be.”

  Priestesses weave through the room, passing out tumblers of mint tea and plates of barley bread soaked in date juice. When my bread is gone, I lick my sticky fingers. I whisper, “Dream true,” to Belet, who echoes my words.

  The priestesses sing, “Admat, the One, the All, sanctifier of sleep, sanctifier of life,” over and over. I lie back. Benevolent Admat, put me to sleep. Send me dreams. As You wish, so it will be. I close my eyes.

  A dream begins.

  I am here in the temple. The other girls are gone. I stand over a loom, looping a design of the hills beyond Hyte. The altar draws me closer until the flame heats my cheek. The temple walls blow away. A mountain rears up beneath my feet. Overhead, the moon is black against the blue sky.

  “Did you dream?”

  I open my eyes. It’s morning.

  Belet squats next to me.

  I nod. “Did you?”

  “I suppose. I remember scrubbing my feet, over and over. That’s all.” She laughs. “They were clean when I started.”

  A priestess bends over me. I tell her my dream while she stares down. She never changes her pose and never looks at me. I’m sure she’s disappointed. My dream is useless to Admat. But when I stop, she nods.

  I take courage. “Will my wish come true?”

  “What is your wish?”

  It comes out in a rush. “Ten children when I grow up and a husband who never needs a wig and likes me to dance and likes my rugs.” I laugh nervously.

  She doesn’t laugh with me. I think her face is more glum than before. “The future is still deep in Admat’s chest. Omens are all we have. Dance now. Make your rugs now.”

  An Interview with Gail Carson Levine

  What was the impetus to write Ever?

  I read the Bible—the Old and New Testaments—for the first time. The section about Jephthah and his daughter, which is quoted at the beginning of Ever, troubled and mystified me. When I adapt any story I look for unanswered questions. Jephthah’s daughter is granted a sixty-day reprieve from her sacrifice. I wondered how she spent her final days—those days cried out for exploration.

  How did your ideas change as you wrote?

  I discussed the Bible story with a few friends, who each offered his or her own interpretation. I began to want to distance my book from the Bible to allow readers to come to it fresh. That’s why I turned my tale into a fantasy of ancient Mesopotamia.

  Originally, I thought Kezi would have to die, and in my earliest draft she does.
At that point the book was intended for an older audience, high school at least. But I’m not comfortable as a writer of tragedy, and my wonderful editor, Rosemary Brosnan, persuaded me that my approach was suited for an older middle-grade audience and would reach up to high school students and beyond. So I moved away from tragedy. Still, I knew the story wasn’t a comedy, although it has comic moments. As I wrote, I considered alternate endings. Gradually, the story evolved.

  What inspired you to create the city of Hyte?

  Mesopotamia was divided into city-states. I read a few books and visited the Mesopotamian exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. My research gave me an idea of what it might be like to live in a Mesopotamian city, what the streets and the houses were made of, the arrangement of rooms in a house. I started to feel comfortable, and then I was able to picture Kezi as part of a family living in a city-state. The lovely part of historical fantasy was that I could dip into both history and my imagination. If the facts didn’t fit my story, I could abandon them. Religion is a good example of this: The major religion in the real Mesopotamia was state religion. Ordinary people worshiped minor deities and changed allegiances often. But a state religion didn’t meet my needs, so I didn’t use it.

  What interested you most about that period?

  How close the very civilized ancient Mesopotamians were to prehistory, even savagery. Documents of the time mention invaders who didn’t cook their food and abandoned their dead. I’ve always been fascinated by early humans, and these encounters thrilled me.

  Did this distant past seem entirely foreign?

  In some ways, yes. I am not an expert, but in my understanding, Mesopotamian medicine was extremely primitive, based more on prophecy than on observation. Some effective remedies were known, but not many. A patient’s prognosis was arrived at by examination, not of the patient, but of the liver of a sacrificed animal.