LAUREL WINTER

TOMORROW TEA

Last March, Laurel Winter gave us the gentle fantasy story "David's Ashes." She
returns now with a tale of two sisters, a melancholy story, yet one that leaves
a Lingering sweet taste.

Anzy woke me. "Try this," she said, putting a cup to my mouth just as I exhaled
a dream breath. Too hot, but my mouth barely noticed. Summer, I tasted. Being
young. One of the wild cousins of mint. Sun filtered through green leaves.

"Oh, yes," I said, gulping down as much as I could before she took the cup away.
She never let me have a whole cup of any tea. Just tastes, so I would never be
satisfied. A good taster is never satisfied. "What do you call it?"

She smiled. "Seventh Summer. Do you think that's right? Something that evokes
childhood. Actually, I was thinking more of being eight, but I liked the esses."

"Seventh Summer." I tasted the name, too. In my sister's business, the brewing
of names is almost as important as the brewing of teas. "That's good." I coughed
on the last word, and Sister let me have another sip of summer tea. I held it in
my mouth for a moment before I swallowed, savoring youth, wellness, warmth. When
it was gone, though, I shivered.

"Poor darling," she said, pulling the green and gold afghan up to my chin and
tucking me in. "I shouldn't have wakened you, but the tea buyer is coming
tomorrow and I wanted to get this ready. Forgive me."

I just nodded and closed my eyes. The afghan is one I made as a girl and stored
in my wedding chest. Anzy fetched it a few years ago, shook out the cedar chips,
brought it to my bed. Perhaps I should have called the box of hopeful belongings
a funeral chest instead.

"Are you well enough to try another tea?"

Her voice poked a hole in the sleep that was forming around me. I opened my eyes
again. Her long gray hair was pinned back haphazardly, as usual. She envied my
hair, I knew, soft silver curls. I kept it short, because lying on a pillow all
the time would tangle long hair. Anzy cut my hair for me; sometimes I suspected
she cut it crooked out of jealousy, but it still looked good. Hair was such a
small thing to envy, when she had everything else. "Of course, dear sister.
Bring another tea."

When she brought it, I could tell from the scent that it was one of her dark
teas. I almost refused, but she brought it up to my lips firmly and tipped the
cup. If I didn't drink, it would spill on my afghan and the scent would be with
me for days and the stain forever-- or at least for as much of forever as I was
going to be permitted to attend.

I opened my lips and let the tea in. Bitter. Salted with tears. Cool as the
earth at grave depth. But curiously, the flavor lightened as it passed through
my mouth, the bitter and salt transforming into a soft, new flavor that kissed
my tongue and evaporated, leaving pure, cool water to flow down my throat.

She didn't ask me if I liked it. "Does it work?" Her fingers were nervous around
the cup. "It's called 'Beyond.'"

I just nodded, too tired to compliment her further, too tired to taste another
tea. I closed my eyes and let the sleep take me away from the bed and the tea
and the sister with long gray hair.

When I woke up, the tea buyer was there, tasting the new teas, getting
reacquainted with a few old favorites he had almost forgotten. "Ah," he said,
"I'll take as much Night Silk as you have."

"You'll take it if you give enough of the right things," said Anzy, her voice
daring and teasing and coquettish. Which of course the tea buyer didn't notice.
He was young and strong and rakish, even though he wasn't handsome. What
interest would he have in an old woman with untidy gray hair?

I saw him through the sheer curtain that separated my room from the kitchen. He
was sitting on the bench at the side of the table, on the end farthest from my
room. His expression stayed serious and businesslike. "Oh, I'm sure I have
plenty of things to trade. New silks, fine dried seafish, sweet spices and sour,
something for your sister." He looked toward the curtain then, although I'm sure
he couldn't see me in the darkened room. That's another thing my sister envies;
the tea buyer always asks about me and sometimes gives me a small gift: usually
a book. I cannot read the books anymore; my hands tire, and my eyes, and my
mind. But I still treasure the thought of the words I haven't read, what they
might say....

Anzy tossed her head. "You'll have to have all that and more to go away with my
fine new teas."

Ah, so I hadn't slept through the tasting of the new teas. I inched myself up on
the pillow, to see better. Anzy set five stone jars on the table, warm from the
oven, not too close to one another. Into each she put a pinch of a new tea. Then
boiling water from the long-spouted kettle into the first jar and the last. I
shuddered, knowing that would be the dark new tea, the one to drink cool. I
wanted to taste it again, and yet I didn't. The tea buyer bent over the first
stone jar and took in the aroma as it brewed. His eyes closed as he
concentrated.

When the tea was brewed to my sister's satisfaction, she put a net over a clean
cup and poured the tea. I wondered -- as always -- how she could stand to hold
the hot jars in her bare hands, but she is a brewer, and has done it so many
times she doesn't notice anymore. Just as the tea buyer doesn't notice when the
tea is hot enough to scald a lesser tongue.

While he was bringing the cup to his lips, she moved to the end of the table and
poured the last cup, to sit and cool.

I could tell he was curious over this, for most of her teas are for drinking
hot. His eyes followed her as she poured, but then he brought himself back to
the cup in his hands.

I like to try to predict which tea he is tasting by the expression on his face
as it enters his mouth: surprised or pleased or shocked or whatever. This time,
there was just mild satisfaction, so I guessed Twilight Garden, which I found
adequate, but a bit boring. "I call this Twilight Garden," she said, when he
didn't speak.

"Ah," he said, but no more, scooting down the bench to sit before the second
jar. My sister frowned, erased the expression, and poured the second jar.

This time it was Seventh Summer and the tea buyer fell in love with it. "Yes,
yes," he said, "I can sell this tea." He even allowed himself to take a second
sip, and a third. My sister waited, looking smug, until he moved to the third
jar.

Coming Home, it was; a mix of familiar and strange. And the fourth was Rejoice.
The tea buyer liked both of them, although not as well as Seventh Summer.

And then it was time for the last cup. My sister held her hand above the cup,
checking the temperature. "Wait," she said. The tea buyer waited, sniffing the
air above the cup for its dark aroma. I'm sure my sister let him wait longer
than was necessary, to build his anticipation.

He was at the nearest end of the bench now, just beyond the sheer curtain. I
could smell the tea from my bed--or at least imagine that I did. My sister
tested the temperature again, then curled her fingers around the cup and gave it
to him.

I saw the bitterness bite him, the sad saltiness, and then his eyes widened at
the sudden touch of flavor that vanished even as he met it. He looked toward the
curtain; perhaps he saw me, lying in the darkness ready to die.

"Beyond," whispered my sister. He did not take a second taste, but he nodded to
her, to acknowledge the power of the tea.

My sister cleared the jars away while he went out for his goods. She hurried,
spilling some of the Seventh Summer tea; it smelled like life itself. After she
wiped it up, she peeked around the edge of the curtain and saw me lying awake.
"Did you see?" she whispered. "He loved them all."

"Except the Twilight Garden," I said. "He won't buy any of that."

She sniffed. "He'll buy some. Now why don't you nap for a while; you're bound to
be tired."

I wanted to see the trading. "No," I said, although I was. "Open the shutter for
me."

She did, although she dearly didn't want to. When the shutter was open, one
could see in through the door curtain as easily as out. Whenever I was awake,
the tea buyer always came in for a moment and talked with me and gave me a gift.
Anzy banged the shutter to one side and left the room.

The door curtain was still swaying when he entered the kitchen with his bulging
pack. "Greetings," he called to me. "I hope we did not wake you with our dealing
out here."

"No," I said. "No, I was awake."

He smiled and thumped the pack down on the cleared table. "I have something for
you."

"Don't bother giving her a book," said my sister, her voice cold. "She hasn't
read the last ones yet -- and won't ever."

The tea buyer looked at me, and saw the truth of her words. "Oh, it isn't a
book," he said, although I could tell he was lying. "I brought you something
else this time." I could see him thinking fast. "First I must do my trading with
your sister, though."

Her face flushed, and that was gift enough for me. He had business dealings with
my sister; he didn't have to talk to me.

She was angry, so she didn't trade well. The tea buyer tried to tease her out of
it, but she didn't let go. I saw the point where his lips tightened up and he
decided to use her anger against her. She was too angry to see.

I felt a hollow pleasure, watching them. The tea buyer was getting the
advantage, because she couldn't think well with the anger in her head. And the
envy. There is something to be said for being envied, but she was getting less
dried fish -- which I love -- and less of everything else as well. I tried to
think of a way to help her, but I was so tired, and I had to save the energy to
stay awake for my present.

I saw the small book that he had been planning to give to me; he whisked it back
into his pack as soon as it turned up. Was he lingering over the wares as he
traded, deciding what would be my gift?

He did not take any of the Twilight Garden. He took fifty packets each of Coming
Home and Rejoice, all of the Seventh Summer, and all but one of the Beyond, as
well as a good assortment of her older teas. For this he gave silks and spices
and dried fish and meat and fruits and some pressed paper and deep blue ink --
but not as much of any of them as she deserved for her creations. She just
wanted him to pack up and go away, I could tell, and he began to do so. He
packed up the teas in tight bundles and placed them in the far interior, where
there was no chance of them getting wet, even if the pack fell in a river. He
packed up the extra fruits and meats and the rolls of cloth -- except for one.
He put one in his pocket and my heart leaped.

And I was right. After he had his pack tied, he came through the curtain and sat
right on the edge of the bed. "You can't lie there reading all the time," he
said. "It will spoil your eyes." He reached into the pocket and pulled out a
piece of silk, blue and blue and blue, a dozen different colors of blue, and
worked with threads of silver. "This will go with your blue eyes and your silver
hair." He actually lifted my head up with warm hands and tied the silk loosely
around my neck, with the ends trailing down to my hands so I could feel it
between my fingers.

I couldn't do more than smile my thanks. Sleep crept over me and wrapped me in
silk.

When I woke up, the tea buyer was gone. Anzy had put away all the goods she'd
bartered for and was sitting at the table creating a new tea with my silk tied
around her head, hiding her dull, gray hair. She looked almost beautiful, with
the silk accenting her blue eyes.

"It's mine," I said, trying to sit up.

She looked at me through the curtain, and untied the silk. "Of course. You were
asleep. I didn't think you'd mind." She came in, draped the silk over me like a
blanket.

I minded. "You will have it soon enough, when I am dead."

There was a silence deeper than her darkest tea. We did not talk about my dying;
it had been happening so slowly for so long -- since we were girls, really. Now
it was near, and I knew it, and so did she. She had brewed it into her latest
tea. I gathered the silk in my hands. "Let me have it as long as I am able, my
last gift from the tea buyer." I was tired again, my eyelids falling shut as she
nodded.

* * *

My time was spent in sleep, in tiny moments of waking, in sips of tea and my
sister's hands stroking my face with the edge of the silk -- when she wasn't
bathing me, or changing the bedclothes. Or working in the kitchen. She was
brewing a new tea, something difficult; sometimes I would open my eyes for a few
seconds, just in time to see her dump her attempts thus far and start over.
Sometimes she would be crying.

And then she woke me, my head held in the crook of her arm, the other hand
holding a cup of tea. "Taste this," she said. "I made it for you." She held it
to my lips. "Taste it."

The new tea seared my lips, too hot again. It burned my tongue with promise, a
flavor that built up and up and up until you knew there was no end to it, no end
to anything. Sweet and sour and bitter and salt w all of them together, but
mainly sweet. I asked a question with my eyes. "Tomorrow Tea," she said. "I call
it Tomorrow Tea."

"He'll buy it," I whispered. She gave me another sip, and when I had swallowed,
another. The taste built forever in my mouth: cities that would never fall,
infinite gardens, the wind and the sea. She helped me drink the entire cup,
leaving me full of tomorrow. "Wear the silk," I murmured. I moved one hand, to
try and give it to her, but the effort made me sleep again.

I did see the tea buyer again, for just an instant. Did I hang onto life until
he came again? Was I already dead? Did the Tomorrow Tea give me a glimpse of
time yet to come? The tea buyer sat beside my sister at the long table. She wore
the silk on her head. They both drank cool, dark, bitter tea that turned to
water in the back of their throats and left a fleeting taste of wonder. There
was a curtain between us.

And I was there and then gone, with the taste of tomorrow carrying me into
something other than sleep as my eyes closed.