Grim (12 page)

“How much longer?” Erika asked.

“Not very.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Away.”

“Where are we going?”

“No place.”

Every word she spoke made him wince as if there'd been a gunshot, so Erika fought her urge to ask questions and let him go on in silence.

They paused in the middle of a long road, at a cusp where the cobbles began to give way to sand. Erika's fingers were numb from the cold, but she stayed quiet while Jeremiah surveyed the buildings around them. For a moment, she thought that they must be lost, and her panic rose. Then Jeremiah pressed his fingers against her forearm and they started on again.

The sand gave way to dirt and the dirt gave way to mud. The pair sank a little deeper with each step, until Erika had hitched up her coat to keep it safe.

“It won't kill you.”

She started at Jeremiah's voice, since he'd kept silent for so long. He continued along his way, unconcerned.

Erika caught up with him. “But it isn't clean, is it?”

“You're in the land of the dead, Erika Stripling,” he replied. “Are you really worried about staying pretty?”

“Shouldn't I be? Your mother had quite a wardrobe for someone who didn't care about beauty.”

Jeremiah frowned but didn't comment. He nodded to the building ahead of them. “We're here,” he said.

“What is it?”

“A shop.”

“We're shopping?”

“Far from.” He took her hand from his pocket and helped her climb the steep front steps. “Don't say anything,” he whispered against her temple. “Please.” He turned and rapped on the door.

 

Rebecca woke with a cold compress on her forehead and someone else's hand on top of her own. She blinked a few times, realized all over again that she was blind, and jerked back with a whimper. Panic again ripped through her veins. Her throat tightened as a haze of dizziness and nausea descended. When the person beside her reached out again, she shied away.

“It's me” came Shawn's voice. “Becca, it's me.”

Rebecca tried to relax, but felt electric. Every touch shocked her, every sound made her quiver. “Where's Meg?” The desperation in her voice surprised her.

“Meg's fine,” Shawn said. Rebecca noticed his hesitation. He squeezed her hand. “She can't see either, Becca.”

Rebecca turned her face away to hide the flush of self-hate. “Oh God,” she said. It was all she
could
say. Her stomach turned over. She sat up and put a hand over her mouth, telling the bile at the back of her throat to settle. Her guilt tasted sharp and sour.

“It's not your fault,” Shawn said.

“It is,” she breathed through her fingers. “Oh my God.”

Rebecca began shaking. Her eye sockets burned, but she couldn't cry. Shawn climbed onto the small bed and put his arms around his sister's shoulders. “I should've grabbed her,” he said.

“I can't believe that I put her through that.” A silence fell as Rebecca tried to process everything, to quell her nausea, but she could sense Shawn waiting to tell her something else.

“Becca —” He sounded as if he would hate himself for what came next. “We need to get moving.”

Rebecca shook her head, defeated. “Where are we even going?”

“Limbo,” Shawn said. “We're in the land of the dead.” He paused. “And I think that Mom's there. I know that Mom's there.”

“So we
are
dead.”

Shawn got to his feet and made Rebecca lie back down. He rearranged her compress. “West doesn't think so,” he said. “But would it be better than being crazy?”

Rebecca gave him a weak smile and fought down the ache in her stomach. “If I hadn't just lost my eyes to a moving statue,” she said, “I'd kick your ass for that.”

She jerked at the sound of wood scraping stone.

“It's West,” said Shawn. He brushed her hair away from her face. She could hear shifting fabric and felt a bundle unfold itself beside her on the bed.

“Here's your sister,” said West, and brought their hands together.

Both totally blind, they fumbled to hold on to each other's fingers. Rebecca felt a sob seize her chest. “Meg,” she whispered. “Meg, I'm so sorry.”

Megan kissed the back of her sister's hand, and Rebecca knew that all was forgiven.

 

Erika sat quietly in a corner and listened to Jeremiah barter with the shopkeeper, a crookbacked woman who sat on a stool by her cash box and never lifted her fingers from her knitting needles. She tucked and tugged diligently against her roll of black yarn while muttering and shaking her head.

Erika began to wonder why Jeremiah had brought her there at all, as she'd said nothing since entering the shop. After Jeremiah had introduced her and shown her to the only other chair, Erika's name had been dropped. They were talking history. Law. Rules that Erika didn't understand, even when she could make out their whispered conversation. She started to doze.

Jeremiah slammed his fist on the countertop. Erika jerked to attention. For the first time, the old shopkeeper lifted her eyes from her work. She swiveled to the bookshelf behind her.

“See?” she snapped, dropping her knitting in her lap and dragging a thin book from the shelf. “See?” She flipped through the pages and then set it on the counter, jabbing a ragged fingernail at the margin. “It's written.”

“It
is
written,” Jeremiah agreed. “But not in stone.”

“Your loss,” she said, and took back up her work.

“Maybe,” Jeremiah said. “Maybe so. But then, maybe not.”

She kept her lips pinched shut, but tapped an old, shivering clock with the back of one of her needles.

“I know, I know.” He laid his hands flat against the countertop. Jeremiah's voice fell to a murmur. “There used to be whispers, Sara.”

The shopkeeper said nothing.

“They said that you broke through. They said that you learned how. Because of —”

“I don't know what you're talking about, child,” she said, but she picked up the clock and slammed it down at his fingertips.

Jeremiah looked at the crooked arrows, both inching toward the twelve. “Fine,” he said, and waved Erika over. “We have to go.”

The shopkeeper eyed Erika without dropping a stitch. “That's her?”

“I told you so,” Jeremiah said. “I told you when we came in.”

“You're no liar,” Sara said. “That's certainly the face that destroyed my sister.” She shifted her eyes back to the scarf. “But he won't stand for it. Not from you.”

“Better from me than from Michael.”

“The second son?”

“He knows that Michael is selfish.”

“And he knows that you are desperate,” Sara said. “So go. Make your rules and break his. It's your head on the platter.”

“Thank you, Sara,” Jeremiah said, “for your time.”

“I don't want your thanks,” she said. “I just want you gone.”

Jeremiah took Erika's hand. As he opened the door, Sara spoke one last time: “They say that only one woman can read the future, Jeremiah.” He glanced back and saw her staring at him. Her needles, again, were still. “You came to the wrong sort of doorstep.”

Jeremiah gave her a curt nod and led Erika out.

“Was that necessary?” she asked as he closed the door behind them.

“Yes,” he said. “But not as fruitful as we might've hoped.” He stepped off the porch and helped her down. “We came too late and stayed too long. We have to hurry back now.”

“Or what?”

He buttoned his jacket as he walked. “Or they'll catch us,” he said, “and it really will be my head on a platter.”

“Whose platter?”

“Probably my brother's good china.”

 

West stuck an oar into the soft bottom of the lake to keep them steady, while Shawn helped Megan and Rebecca into the rowboat.

Each time someone climbed in, the lake would rush up toward the lip of the hull. Shawn said nothing, but found a seat and fought back the memories of fishing with his father. He kept thinking about the first dream after his mother's death, when he'd drowned in the cold, open waters of a summer lake without even trying to save himself.

Rebecca sat at the back of the boat, Megan on the floor beside her. As they set out, the two sisters held tightly on to each other's hands. Rebecca's eyes were squeezed shut, her forehead creased as if in pain, but Shawn knew that it was for her sister and not for herself. Megan leaned against Rebecca's knee and turned her head every few seconds as she caught new sounds of wind or leaves or water. Shawn didn't want to admit it, but watching her frightened him. She kept her eyes open, but they were empty sockets, cleaned and soothed by West's careful fingers, but horrific nevertheless. Shawn's stomach turned when he looked at her, and that reaction made him feel even worse.

West rowed them out to the middle of the lake, without talking. Water dripped from the oars each time they surfaced, leaving rippling trails in their wake. He kept his eyes on the bottom of the boat as he paddled, and took slow, deep breaths through his nose. Maybe that was why Shawn saw her first.

She was mostly submerged, but her arms and chin were propped against one of the rocks that stuck out above the water's surface. Her skin was dirty gray and dead-looking, her hair a dark seaweed knotted through with moldering leaves. Her eyes were closed when Shawn spotted her, but at his glance, they popped open, yellow with fever. She parted her lips in a slick snake's smile and slipped from her rock, hardly making a ripple as she sank into the lake.

Shawn cleared his throat.

He was debating whether or not to say anything when the boat began to rock. The swells were low at first, hardly noticeable since they were still moving forward. Shawn glanced at West, but he didn't seem to be paying much attention. He pulled the oars from the water and tapped them off, one at a time, with a measured patience. Then he put the pillow of his left thumb, where there was a raised callus, against his teeth and began to nibble at the thick skin. The waves, meanwhile, were growing, and Shawn was getting nervous. The boat tipped from side to side, nearly capsizing several times. When West succeeded in popping his callus, he held his hand over the water and pressed against the base of his thumb, squeezing a few drops of blood into the lake. The water stilled. West picked the oars back up and began to force them round and round once more.

Shawn cleared his throat again.

“I'd offer you some water,” West said calmly, “but we forgot it onshore.”

“Don't worry about me,” Shawn replied.

Rebecca and Megan were nestled together at the back of the boat. If they'd noticed anything, they didn't show it.

 

The clip of Jeremiah's footsteps against cobblestones grew faster as more and more of Limbo's lost souls appeared in the streets. It was past noon, according to the sun. Services had just let out. They were running out of time.

Erika followed close behind as Jeremiah struggled to walk faster while appearing nonchalant.

“Pick up the pace, Jeremiah.”

At the sound of Uriel's voice, Jeremiah grabbed Erika's hand and spun around.

“Up here.”

Uriel and Selaph were perched on the mud-brick rooftop of a two-story house. A basket of apples sat between them, and they each had one of the blood-skinned fruits in hand. Uriel chewed slowly, smirking a salute.

Erika felt Jeremiah tense, like a shock of static through her skin.

“You're just a scared little fox, aren't you, Jeremy?” Uriel chided. “With all the dogs bearing down.”

Selaph slipped from the roof and turned into a cloud of black smoke that drifted, swirling, to the ground. His skin reraveled as he touched the cobbles.

“Hello, Erika Stripling,” he said quietly.

Jeremiah turned on her. “You know him?”

Uriel laughed from his place on the roof. “My God! You didn't tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Erika felt his grip tighten around her fingers. “Erika, tell me what?”

“We dropped by yesterday, Jeremy,” Uriel said. “She's a sweet little hostess. A better one than you,” he added.

“Erika …” Jeremiah dropped her hand.

“I didn't know,” she whispered. “They said that they were your brothers.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“It didn't come up.”

“Oh, Jeremy,” Uriel pleaded with a mock whine, “don't disown us!”

Jeremiah looked back at his blond brother. “What do you want?”

“I think you know.”

“I know that I've been away for a few years,” Jeremiah said, “but when exactly were you demoted to page boys? Was it before or after your mother fell from the High Kingdom?”

Selaph stiffened.

“Calm down,” Uriel said, and his eyes flicked back to Jeremiah. “It was after,” he said, and stepped lightly from the roof. The tips of his feet turned to smoke and re-formed as he landed on the street with a soft patter. Ignoring the fashions set by the council wasn't allowed, but as a prince, Uriel was also one of the few who might be allowed certain indulgences. As always, he had his cloak pinned at the shoulder with a polished crossbow fibula. “But at least our mother didn't kill herself.”