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It’s a wet winter morning in the Sierra Nevada as Andy and Quỳnh pick their way down the trail. Andy is in the lead, on a bay mare, and Quỳnh follows on a red roan gelding. They’ve been riding for a few days now, long enough to feel like they’ve traveled back in time. Never mind that when they last rode together, neither of them had any idea these mountains even existed; never mind that there are still occasional reminders of cars and planes and electricity. They are Andromache and Quỳnh alone together on horseback, as they were for centuries upon centuries, and when they go to bed in their polyester tent under the open skies they make love as though the world was still new.
Today they’ll reach the first of the groves that are Andy’s destination. Already the composition of the forest is changing. The first sequoia they see, Quỳnh rides around the trunk and looks up in wonder. “That one’s just a baby,” Andy tells her. “Let’s keep going.”
So they do.
The drizzle clears up by the time they’re fully surrounded by giants, although the canopy is still partially obscured by haze. Quỳnh’s reaction is everything Andy hoped it would be: Her breath catches, her eyes are wide and amazed. “Like the Bodhi Tree,” she whispers. “Or Yggdrasil. They hold up the sky.” Andy comes closer and wraps around her from behind, resting her cheek against Quỳnh’s temple. Quỳnh continues, “I didn’t think this world had anything left to be awed by. To be… humbled by. But this…”
They stand there for a few minutes, taking it all in. Then Andy turns her head to kiss Quỳnh’s cheek and murmurs in her ear, “Some of these trees are older than you are.”
“Really?”
“Not many. But a few.” She shifts slightly, presses her cold nose into Quỳnh’s hair. “Since I found you, I haven’t been able to imagine a world without you in it. But they remember; they were here too.”
Quỳnh is still gazing around the grove in wonder, but she squeezes Andy’s arms to show she’s listening. “Are there any that remember the world before you?”
“Any trees? No. Not any plant or animal I’ve ever seen. Booker looked it up once. There’s a thing called a glass sponge, some of them might be over ten thousand years old. No one really knows exactly. But they live deep in the ocean –“ Quỳnh shivers in her arms. “Anyway, that’s it. Nothing else on Earth is older than I am. When I’m gone – “
“Andromache, don’t.”
“When I’m gone, the oldest living thing other than the sponges will be a bristlecone pine named Methuselah. You can go look for it then, if you want. It’s not far from here, just a day’s ride or so.”
Quỳnh sighs and turns in her arms, still looking at the trees but now holding Andy. “How old is it?”
“Almost five thousand, I think.”
Finally, Quỳnh refocuses on Andy, looking shocked and almost offended. She breathes in sharply, as if about to say something, then takes Andy’s face in her hands and kisses her fiercely, desperately. Just as abruptly, she pulls back and hisses, “I will burn it to the ground. I will burn them all. I will allow no more ancient things when you are gone.”
Andy just smiles sadly, and tucks a lock of hair behind Quỳnh’s ear. “Somewhere – maybe in this forest, maybe somewhere else the old trees grow – there is a tree that sprouted the day we met. And it’s been living and growing all this time. All through the years we were separated. If all goes well, it’ll keep growing after me.” She runs the backs of her fingers down Quỳnh’s cheek. “Don’t burn them all.”
They stop for lunch in sight of the General Sherman Tree, put hobbles and feedbags on the horses, and settle down together on a blanket. Some days Quỳnh delights in modern food, and some days she needs the comfort of the familiar. Andy made sure to pack both. Today, Quỳnh opts for a protein bar, a bologna sandwich on white bread, and dried fruit. Processed food, which tells Andy their discussion of her mortality hasn’t caused too much distress. They eat without talking, enjoying the solitude and their otherworldly surroundings. This would be a popular trail in the summer, which is precisely why they’re here now. It’s not as though they mind the weather.
When they finish eating, Andy leans back against the massive trunk behind her, and Quỳnh lies with her head on Andy’s legs. There’s a dreamy expression on her face, and she looks around like she wants to eat the trees with her eyes.
After a few minutes, Quỳnh asks, “If each of these is a world tree, do they all have their own heavens and their own underworlds? Or are they merely different paths all to the same places?”
Andy smirks. “Seems like a waste to me.” She has never cared much about upper or lower planes. “A tree that connects to another Earth, though. I might climb that one.”
“Mmm.” Quỳnh rubs her cheek on Andy’s thigh and looks up at her. “I would like to go to another Earth where cacao grew in the Old World as well as the New, so we always had chocolate.”
The smirk widens to a grin. “That would have been something. Think of all the political and economic changes.”
“Think of all the chocolate we would have eaten!”
“Oh I am,” and Andy pulls a chocolate bar out of her pack, still grinning. She breaks it in two and passes half to Quỳnh, and they each take a bite.
“And which different world would you go to?” Andy barely opens her mouth before Quỳnh interrupts. “Not that one!” She shakes a finger at Andy, which looks frankly ridiculous while she’s lying down. “Nothing that depends on us doing something differently. Life is too short for that.”
“Too short?” Andy laughs incredulously.
“Yes, too short!” Quỳnh sits up, pulls her legs in and turns toward Andy. “Tell me. If each of these was a world tree, and if each one could take you to another world where you did something differently… are there enough trees in this forest for each decision you wish you could undo? All the regrets from all the thousands of years you’ve lived?”
Andy stares at her and whispers, “No.”
Quỳnh leans in as if to kiss her, but just as Andy moves to meet her she stops, their mouths only a few inches apart. She looks Andy straight in the eyes and says, “So let them go.”
Andy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and when she opens them again Quỳnh has gone back to lying in her lap. She wiggles a little as she settles herself and grins up at Andy. “So. Try again. What world?”
What differences would be fun to explore, that don’t involve changing her own actions? She’s worked so hard to accept the world as it is (even if she could never quite extend that to herself); it’s hard to call up a fantasy now. Being alone in a beautiful forest with Quỳnh – a happy and playful Quỳnh – is already more than she’d let herself dream. But she’s done harder things than this, just to keep a smile on Quỳnh’s face. So she tries.
“I’d like to visit an alternate Earth where the land bridge never entirely went away and Siberia stayed connected to Alaska.”
“Oh, that’s a good one!” Quỳnh actually applauds. “And then we could still have had chocolate, so it can be the same world as mine!”
All at once, Andy is so overcome with fondness that she bends over and hugs Quỳnh’s face (but not completely covering her, not blocking all of her vision or restricting her air; she doesn’t even have to think about it consciously anymore.) Quỳnh yelps and struggles, and they spend a few minutes wrestling on the ground. The horses snort disapprovingly.
It’s their last night in the park, and they’re sitting around the fire pit. Nile introduced them to s’mores, which they’ve both enthusiastically adopted. Quỳnh is an expert at getting the marshmallows just right: hot enough to be gooey and melt the chocolate, but never so hot that they burn Andy’s fingers or mouth. In between bites, they talk about where they’ll go next. Copley got them tickets to rejoin the others, but the flight isn’t until next week.
“We’re in California,” Quỳnh muses. “Isn’t that where Disneyland is?”
It’s one of the more unexpected questions she’s asked since she got back. “How’d you hear about Disneyland?”
“I’ve been watching the movies with Nile. She said something about ‘cultural literacy.’ I like them a lot. But she told me I ruined Mulan for her, telling her all the things they got wrong.”
“Mulan?” Andy can’t remember the last movie she watched, but she knows that name. “As in Hua Mulan?” Quỳnh nods. “Disney made a movie about her? Huh.” She notices that Quỳnh is looking at her expectantly. She must be missing something…
“Hey wait a minute!” Quỳnh starts giggling, now that Andy’s caught on. “We were nowhere near China then! Weren’t we mostly operating out of Kush? And… and helping with the plague around Constantinople?” By now Quỳnh is laughing, loudly, and Andy can’t help joining her. “You’re terrible.”
“I know, I know. Don’t tell her. Eventually she’ll figure out that being alive while something happened doesn’t mean knowing anything about it.”
“Yeah, well. She knows, but she’s got no frame of reference for it. She grew up hearing about things as they happened, no matter where they were.” Andy yawns and stretches her legs out toward the fire. “She never had to wait three months in a flea-infested hovel just because a message went astray.”
Quỳnh, who by now has heard more complaints about that incident than she can count, simply rolls her eyes and pokes Andy in the side. “Disneyland?”
There are so many reasons to say no: it’s the opposite direction from where they have to leave the horses; it’s too loud, too crowded, probably too full of surveillance; Los Angeles is a nightmare that Andy would normally chew her own arm off to avoid. Maybe she doesn’t lead the team in the field anymore, but she’s still responsible for them. She looks away from the fire, into the trees. Are there enough trees in this forest for each decision you wish you could undo?
Quỳnh pokes her again. “Andromache? Disneyland?” Her eyes are huge, shining with excitement and mirth. Andy’s hand whips out and grabs her finger in time to prevent another poke. The firelight turns their faces gold, but it’s less bright than Andy’s smile.
“Fuck yes. We’re going to Disneyland.”