The Everlasting (14 page)

The child turned and walked back, emerging from the girl like her own tired soul taking leave.

“We should move from the doorway,” Nina said. She touched Scott's back and pushed gently, urging him out into the street.

“Do you see this all the time?” he asked.

“You learn to ignore it.”

“How can you
ignore
it?” Scott sidled sideways to avoid the old woman on the pavement. His feet crunched through the glass spilled from the pub's menu board, and he leaned back against the wall.

“Do you worry about stepping on the cracks in the pavement? Stepping on shadow or sunlight?”

“No.”

“Same thing.” Nina crossed the pavement and stood inside the old woman.

Scott cringed.

“They can't feel it, Scott. Especially ones like this,
repeating the same moment again and again. She's just an old echo, a shred of a lost soul. And the others . . . even if they do see us, we can't interact with them, nor they us.”

“There were some in my garden,” he said.

Nina nodded and frowned. “Yes, Lewis had guided them there. To disturb you.”

“It worked. But how can
he
interact with them?”

Nina stared at him without answering.

“You don't know?”

She shrugged.

“But you're immortal. You've lived forever!”

“I've lived for a very long time, Scott. But I don't know everything. If I did . . .”

“You'd have no need of me.”

“Right.”

Scott looked down at his arm and chest. Both were covered, and he was suddenly terrified of opening his shirt and seeing what he had become. He touched his shirt cuff, opened the button, and rolled the sleeve slightly up his arm. His wrist was pale and he could see the veins, crossed like motorways on a road map. Farther up the skin began to turn darker, and when he reached his elbow it suddenly became dark as burned sausage. He touched it with one fingertip. It was cold, and too soft.

Nina looked at him with what could have been sympathy.

“How long do I have?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don't know. But we need to go where I said, to see the man I mentioned.”

“Another immortal. What's his name?”

“He has no name. We just call him Old Man.” She smiled. Then, as a ghost passed between her and Scott, she laughed.

“Old Man?”

“What, you think immortals don't need a sense of humor?”

They walked past the castle and entered the park, and Scott knew that he would never get used to seeing so many ghosts. “What must it be like on old battlefields?” he said. “Or in hospitals?” Nina did not answer, and he supposed it was because the answer was obvious.

They walked across the park and Nina guided them toward a copse of trees. A man hung in midair, swinging from a rope tied to a tree long gone from the here and now. His face was swollen and black, but, like a picture, his eyes seemed to follow Scott as he walked by.

“In here,” Nina said.

“This is where Old Man lives?”

“In a park? Don't be soft. No, this is where we'll leave to go to him.”

“Leave how?” Scott asked. But already he was starting to feel a sense of dread.

“I'll sort that out. Just keep up with me.” Nina was looking around with more than interest, and that worried Scott as well. Here he was in Cardiff, surrounded suddenly by a world he did not know, following a woman who seemed to be immortal, to meet
another immortal who might be able to save him now that he'd been touched by death. . . .

“I think I believe all this,” he said. Nina glanced back, offering only a quirky frown. “I shouldn't, but I do. Papa would have loved this, Nina.”

She stopped and looked back at him again. This time the frown was replaced by a smile. “He did,” she said. “He really did.”

Papa sits on a rock beside the stream while Scott wades into the water. He's wearing his new trainers and socks, and his mother will be mad when he goes home with them soaked. He purposely hasn't turned around in at least ten minutes, scared that he will attract Papa's attention to what he is doing. But really, Scott knows that
he
knows. Papa, as his father so often says when the old man is not present, lets Scott get away with murder.

He wades out farther, catching his breath as he slips on a mossy stone. Something darts past his leg and disappears beneath a spread of stream glaring with sunlight. Stickleback? Scott's not sure, but he'd love to catch one. He'd put it back afterward, of course. But he
really
needs to catch one.

“That's far enough,” Papa says.

“It's not deep.”

“Not there, no. But farther out it is. That's far enough, Scott.”

The memory usually ends here, segueing into an evening spent raking grass cuttings and helping his
father trim a tree at the bottom of the garden. Usually. But this time the memory remains, and it's as fresh as if it is happening right now.

Scott takes another step forward in the stream. He's not sure why; he usually does what Papa says, because he knows how much freedom the old man gives him.

His foot comes down and hovers over nothing.

“Scott!” Papa's voice is thunder, shattering the tranquillity of the scene and darkening the sun.
“Get back!”

Scott turns to see why his grandfather is so angry, and he starts to dip backward into the stream. For a few seconds he balances there, two possibilities juggling and jousting to decide which path he will travel down next. The safer of the two wins. He finds his feet again and picks his way back across the stream, reaching the bank and his red-faced Papa.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, but already Papa is calming down. His hand shakes as he touches the back of Scott's neck and pulls him in for a hug.

“Death's always so close, Scotty. People have drowned in that stream.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” And for the briefest of moments, Scott senses that it's not only him Papa is talking to.

They walk home across a field, and Papa has a smile on his face. Scott darts here and there, picking dandelions, kicking molehills, trying to balance on the crusts of old cow patties without sinking through. He glances at Papa now and then, aware that the old
man is in some other zone, enjoying being in this field in a completely different way from Scott. It's as if he is somewhere else entirely, and his face shows his joy at being there.

“In here,” Nina said. “Sit down.”

“Why are you nervous?”

Nina sat beside him, her back against the tree. “I don't want to be seen.”

“By Lewis?”

“Maybe. I'm not as certain of his capabilities as I once was. It's almost as if he's getting help.”

“Who would help him?”

Nina shrugged. “But I have to help
you
right now. That's the priority. That's the only thing we can concentrate on so that—”

“Helen is the only thing I'm concentrating on here,” Scott said. “Why can't you just go and find her? Why can't you take me with you, and we'll both go?”

“The Wide is endless, Scott. She could be anywhere.
Anywhere
.”

“She's not on your mind, is she? She's not important to you at all.”

“She is.
She is
. Because she's important to you.”

Scott rested his head back against the tree and looked up into the branches. It was a relief to be able to look somewhere where there were no ghosts. If he glanced around where he was sitting he could see none, but he could feel them everywhere. If he looked carefully, he was sure they would reveal themselves. In the tree's canopy birds chirped and hopped invisibly
from branch to branch. A small spider lowered before him, spinning on its invisible line of silk. He reached out and touched the line, moving it left and right and setting the spider swaying.

“What are you doing?” Nina asked.

“Trying to find a moment's peace.”

“Believe me, true peace is not easy.”

He let the spider go and it crawled quickly back up into the tree. “You've had enough time to look for it.”

“The longer you have, the more elusive it becomes. That's why . . .” She trailed off.

“That's why you want to know how to die.”

Nina nodded. “Partly.”

“What is there after death, if you don't become one of those lost souls?” He waved his hand, though there were no ghosts in sight.

“The other side of the Wide.”

“And what's there?”

“That's what I want to find out.”

Scott sighed. “So whatever you're going to do, let's do it.”

Nina edged herself closer to him, their legs touching. She was surprisingly warm.
She's no ghost,
he thought. But he began to wonder. If she truly was immortal, then perhaps she
was
some kind of ghost, a soul trapped in her own body instead of set free to wander or repeat the moment of its death. Maybe there was a lot more to being a ghost than simply being lost. Maybe it had a lot to do with being damned.

“You damned yourself,” Scott said.

Nina looked at him, surprised. “No.”

“You look damned. You feel damned, don't you?”

She glanced past him into the infinity between drooping branches. She was silent for some time. “No,” she said at last. “I don't feel damned. I feel blessed. But I'm not able to accept the blessing, or use it as it should be used.”

“Are any of the other immortals able to do that?”

“That's a difficult one.” She picked a blade of grass and rolled it between her fingers. Picked another blade, tied it around the first. She concentrated hard, then cast them aside. “Old Man has achieved a lot,” she said. “You'll see that soon. But even he doesn't use his immortality as he could.”

“Now I'm worried.”

“Don't be. He's harmless.”

“I'm not sure whether or not you're being ironic.”

Nina smiled fleetingly. “Right. I'll tell you what's going to happen, and you have to listen to me.
Listen
to me, Scott. The Wide is the path from life to what lies after. For those lost souls—the ones who can't even find the start of the path—it's endless, and has no direction. We're going to skirt the very edge of the Wide. But you have to hold on to me. I can find my way through, but you're going to be lost.
Hold on to me, Scott
. If you don't—if you let go, and I lose you—then you'll be lost in there forever.”

“Helen is in there?”

“Don't think about that. Don't even
consider
going to find her, because you never will. Imagine dropping
a penny into the Atlantic, then taking a snorkel to go and look for it. It can never be found, and you don't have the right equipment to look.”

“And you have the right equipment? The knowledge?”

“I've learned a few small facts about the Wide since I've been alive.”

Scott stood and his knees clicked.
Getting old
, he thought.
And here I am, about to get a preview of what is yet to come
.

“But you'll help me find Helen. Once we've got the book, you'll help me get her back from Lewis. Right?”

“Maybe even before then.”

“How?”

“Lewis will be following us every step of the way.”

Following us
. Scott shivered.
It's almost as if he's getting help
, Nina had said.

“Now come and sit back down with me,” Nina said. “We'll link arms.”

Scott sat so that his good arm was linked through Nina's.
Not my dead arm. I won't link that one with hers. It could come off
. He felt a moment of intense giddiness, and the whole world seemed to tip in an attempt to throw him off. Initially he thought it was Nina taking them into the Wide, but then he felt her hands on his face, smelled the spicy mystery of her breath as she brought her face close to his, and he heard her shout as a whisper.

“Scott, hold on.
Fight
it!”

Fight what?
he thought. But then he knew. He felt
something vast and endless opening up around him, and it was the draw of the Wide.

“Not yet, Scott!”

Sound and smell returned slowly, and Nina's voice grew louder.

“That's good, that's good.
Damn it!
” It was her curse more than anything that brought him around. She lost control for a moment, and that scared Scott out of his dance with unconsciousness.

“Nina . . .”

“It's not your time yet, Scott. Come on. Sit up again, hold me, and we'll go to see Old Man. It's been a long time.” She hauled him up beside her, sitting with his back against the tree, and she linked her arm tightly through his.

He still felt dizzy and hazy, but even through that he found time to wonder what a long time was to an immortal.

“Don't hold your breath,” she said. “You can breathe out there. And remember, you're not one of them. You're alive, Scott. You need yourself.”

“Need myself?”

“You'll see. Here we go.” Nina muttered a few words that rose and fell with a singsong lilt. Her voice became deep—almost subaudible—and the phrases so obviously held power. Scott sensed them rumbling in his chest, tickling his heart and the deeper parts of him, and he felt as though he were acting as a tuning fork for the phrase she sang again and again.

He sensed it in the distance first, places he could not see dozens or hundreds of miles away blinking
from existence. The line where reality and unreality blurred closed in quickly, like reverse ripples on the pond of time. The surface was the world he inhabited, and below the surface lay the whole rounded truth of reality. And it had such hidden depths.

Cardiff began to fade. Fields and streets, homes and factories, hospitals and schools and parks, they all flickered away to nothing. He could still see through the trees to the park around them, and in the distance the castle stood defiantly, a huge, ancient edifice that could surely never be humbled or changed. He could also see several shapes wandering across the park, but from beneath the copse of trees he could not make out whether they were people or ghosts, or both.