I probably couldn’t, Ellie thought to say, for she was beginning to suspect that this man, with his talk of chalices and fighting monsters, was similar to Jude somehow.
She glanced at Jude, wondered if he would be able to handle Obadiah Charon, wrestle him into compliance and drag him back to Earth. Jude had not been able to defeat Niles, and Charon seemed experienced. Perhaps age was a factor—though whether this would improve Jude’s chances or lessen them, Ellie did not know.
Jude, without saying a word, looked to be saying: I’ll try.
Ellie could not think of how to answer, except to pull out the shard of the Spindle of Necessity from her pocket. Both hands occupied, she lowered her reaper’s tool and demonstrated the shard, which began to glow brighter in Charon’s presence.
The old man’s eyes widened. He looked afraid.
“You know what this is?” Ellie asked. The shard was warming in her fingers, so she lowered it, slipped it back into a pocket, where it began to cool to lukewarm again. So, she thought, it reacts to Obadiah Charon, same as if he was a shard, too.
Perhaps the demons lied about Charon selling his soul to them. But they did not seem to be lying about Charon’s connection to the Spindle of Necessity.
When Charon did not speak, Ellie continued, “We’ve been collecting the pieces. The Spindle is almost completed.” And Charon jerked, like her words were a slap. He frowned, looked almost ready to protest. But he did not say anything.
Ellie thought: That’s nothing, compared to what I’m about to say.
“We need your help,” she finished. The man’s eyes hooded, guarded, and before he could respond, Ellie pushed harder: “You owe us. You wrecked the world. You don’t just get to be reaped and walk away from all that. You said it yourself: seven billion people and the whole universe besides. You’re going to make this right.”
The last sentence stuck in her throat, just below her scarf. And the small naysayer in her mind said: But sometimes, you can’t make things right no matter how you try.
Charon sighed, interrupting her dark musing, distracting her focus from the bruises on her neck. Yet Ellie was surprised—thrilled, even—to see the lines on his face softening. He said, “You’re right, of course. I caused the end of the world. It’s my responsibility.”
Just like that? Ellie wanted to say. Jude spoke for her: “You don’t know what we need you to do, Mr. Charon. Are you sure you’re ready to take responsibility?”
A wry look smeared over the man’s face. “You’ll hand me over to the demons, yes? They’re the ones who told you about me, no doubt. They would be the ones with the resources and desire to reassemble the Spindle.” He glanced at Ellie. “And they lied to you about me, because they need me to find the last pieces, yes?”
“Yeah,” said Ellie. She hoped that Charon knew this would be unpleasant for him, because she was not explaining that part. She hardly knew what they would do, just that demons were nasty and the mentors preferred to reap Charon rather than use him.
Then again, the mentors were also perfectly happy with the world ending.
“All right,” said Charon. “I know my duty.” Like he was ordering from a restaurant menu—feigned reluctance at the idea that there was something better to choose, but making a decision that he felt best anyway. He continued, “So how do we get out?”
A call of thunder came from far off—but closer than the first peal after the voice’s chant.
“I’d preferably leave soon,” said Charon. And he sounded sure of that, at least. Ellie glanced up at the sky and found it much changed, the wisps of mist having gathered into stripes of clouds, and even then growing darker and more numerous.
“Yikes,” said Jude. He raised a hand to his temple, massaged. “You know how sometimes your ears pop when a storm is coming? That’s our sign.”
“No,” said Ellie, who had never experienced her ears popping for that reason, but still felt the drop in temperature and pressure—or, rather, noticed the change that had already occurred. She said, “Back to the gate, I think. We’ll get out and jump to Earth immediately before we’re noticed.” Or, she revised, before somebody catches us.
She began walking back the way they came, twisting the gears on her pocket-watch to the correct place. Might as well return to Stella’s Café and Bakery, as promised. The three of them took long strides like strutting birds, just a hair away from jogging.
“Is this place really going to be set on fire?” Jude asked Charon, trailing behind her. Ellie supposed that her shorter legs were setting the pace. Her hair whipped her cheeks red.
“Who told you that?” Charon asked, adjusting his hat against the growing wind.
“The voice did,” said Jude. “You know: ‘Fallen, Fallen is Babylon the Great’—and then something about being burned with fire. Just what you’d expect from Hell anyway.”
“I didn’t hear any voice,” said Charon, and Ellie did not think he was lying.
Her mind raced—how was it that she and Jude had heard, but not Obadiah Charon?—but any train following this thought was interrupted by Jude already saying, “Well, then why did you say ‘it’s worse than that,’ if you aren’t talking about the voice?”
“Because you mentioned Hell and fire,” said Charon. “Everyone thinks Hell has fire because they take the metaphors literally. But it’s worse than that.”
“Worse than being burnt alive forever?” Jude said, sounding unconvinced.
“Oh yes,” said Charon. “Pain is just pain. People who fear pain only are ignorant about the difference the inside and outside of a person. When such people hear what Hell actually is, they feel relieved. They think, ‘Oh, is that all? Then I can bear that,’ without thinking deeply about the reality.”
“So what is Hell, then?” said Jude.
Charon looked about to answer, but then there was the sound of glass breaking—and Ellie halted at the noise. She felt all the hairs on her body standing at attention, as though her skin had become bristly and was chafing in her clothes.
“Perhaps it’s better to show you, than tell you,” said Charon, and he reached into his coat and pulled out a machete. Jude took several steps back, eyes wide, and Ellie considered doing the same, but Charon was not looking at either of them.
Just ahead from where they were standing was a storefront—and Ellie saw, as the uptick in wind gusted, the door was open, for it rattled. The sign read: MAMA MOLLY’S CANDIES! SWEET FOR THE HEART! JUST ONE MORE—AND THEN YOU’LL WANT ANOTHER!
Inside, through the poorly lit windows, Ellie could see movement, a shadow lurking among the furniture and candy bins. It seemed to be absolutely enormous in size, but its shape was difficult to pick out in the gloom. It moved slowly, laboriously, but in a frenzied manner, as though it wished it could move much faster.
Charon lowered his weapon. “Perhaps we walk by without being noticed.”
Good idea, Ellie thought, and treading lightly but quickly, she passed the door and windows as quickly and smoothly as possible. As she walked by the door, there came a sound from the open crack—something munching, snorting and hacking, chewing. And a smell of body odor, like rotten meat, which thankfully the wind carried away.
When they were about a block further, the hairs on Ellie’s forearms had settled back into place, though she kept glancing back. Jude spoke, “What was that? A demon?”
“You could call it an ex-human,” said Charon. “Except that I suppose a better term would be an extra-human, a human that is more human than most. A person left to his own devices, and so does what he wants and gets his reward. Every desire filled.”
“Am I to understand,” said Jude, “that this is a case of birthday cake every day? Too much of a good thing? Is that what you meant—Hell is... happiness?”
“No,” said Ellie. “Even a four-year-old knows birthday cake every day will eventually make you sick. These are people who have forgotten that lesson.” Reaching both hands into her pock
ets, gripping her pocket-watch and the shard, she added, “They don’t know anything beyond base desires. The desires remain but never satisfy.” She hesitated, and said the line Niles had said, “That is Hellfire: you burn yourself from the inside out.”
She recalled what Niles had told her, during her training: The people in Hell will make their own heavens, but that is precisely what will make their own Hells. They are separated from God—they are trying to cook a meal without ingredients, breathe deep without air, and enjoy watching a sunrise without light. Of course these things don’t satisfy—and they take out their pain on themselves and others. Often, releasing that pain just involved digging oneself deeper into the hole—like an addict trying to escape the emptiness of his life by using drugs, which of course worsened the problem.
Then she remembered the demons.
In that moment, Keith Smithson came to mind. She had thought his Hell would be the continued unsatisfaction of endlessly fighting for the environment, forever. But that would be only one aspect—because while Keith Smithson fought for the environment, there were souls who would spend eternity being pestered by him, all to no gain for either party, and then demons to chew on everyone...
Hell is other people. Ellie did not remember where the line came from, but is sounded accurate. And yet, at the same time, she also knew: Hell is the absence of people.
Enduring solitary as a reaper had not been any fun, either. There was loneliness in those sepia walls, sitting and thinking about what she had done and who she was. She had no idea how Shawn could possibly endure so many stints there.
She reminded herself: No place is happy.
Or, perhaps more accurately: Happiness is a lie.
And yet, thinking this, she recalled her family, their smiling faces as her brother lied about agreeing to order pizza, her father’s voice saying, You’re all ganging up on me...
That had seemed real. Geniune. But at the same time, fake—because she knew who they had been before, and after her death, how they almost tore each other apart. Yet now they had been together stronger than ever.
And that’s why, came the little dissenting voice. That’s why you don’t want to think they were genuine, you want their happiness to be fake—because you can’t handle the idea they are happier without you.
Her throat tickled, like a trickle of sweat oozing down her skin, but she knew it was the same death reaction as always. Distracting herself, she noted how they were passing the place where she had curb stomped the demon only a few minutes ago.
“Hey,” she said, glancing at Charon. “Do demons eat people, here?”
“Yes,” said Charon. “But they’re under the same principle. It’s one thing to gnaw on a soul for a hundred years, but eventually you get bored. You can eat that soul anytime. It’s not going anywhere. So you drop it and move on to the next, and the next.”
My first runner, thought Ellie. And relief, like muscles relaxing, spread over and through her. She had always thought her runner had been demon chow, for what else could happen to an escaped soul? But now she realized that he had to eventually be let go—if not now, then in the future. Some reaper would come and save him. True, he might go to Hell and get chewed on again, but... at least on earth, he would be rescued.
“We were debating, earlier,” said Jude. “Do you know what happens to demons when they die in Hell? Because Ellie smushed one earlier and it seemed surprised.”
“They disappear, of course,” said Obadiah Charon. “Same as the ones on Earth.”
“Really?” said Jude, and Ellie heard how surprised he was. Turns out we were both wrong, she thought, and they lied about Charon, but they didn’t lie about disappearing.
“Naturally,” said Charon. “Demons aren’t people. They’re forces of nature. Or, more like anti-nature. Little blips in the universe’s coding caused by human error. When you smash a robot, it’s gone forever.”
“Wait...” said Jude. “I thought demons were fallen angels or something.” Then he seemed to recognize that, with Ellie’s claim that there were no angels known, then there could be no fallen angels, either.
“That’s not actually in any scripture,” Obadiah Charon pointed out.
“Speaking of demons,” Ellie said, trying to steer them on topic, “when we hand you over to them, what are the chances that they are going to screw us somehow?”
“One-hundred percent,” said Obadiah Charon. “They are personifications of humanity’s ill-will toward ourselves and exist to harm humanity. They don’t really make choices, any more than a storm chooses to hit a city or not. Their intelligence exists without any free will attached. If there is a way for them to harm you, and gain an upper hand in control over mankind, they will find and exploit it.”
“Thought so,” Jude muttered, to the sound of more thunder. “Do we have to hand you over, then? Couldn’t we use you ourselves to find the rest of the shards?”
“I don’t know,” said Obadiah Charon. “How do find the shards?”
Ellie paused, turned around. She was nearly knocked from her feet by the wind picking up, but she righted herself. Holding up the pocket-watch to Charon, she waited to see if it would react to him like it did to the shards, or at least to the normally reaped soul. But the pocket-watch did nothing. The gears were still, showing the location of the café.
“Looks like we’re turning you over,” she said, unable to think of how else they could find any remaining shards. Unless... “But,” she added, “it might not be working because we’re in Hell. I’ll try this again when we’re on Earth.”
“I see,” said Charon, sounding a bit mystified as to what she was doing.
By the time they reached the alley with the door to Hell, the wind was a long unending howl billowing in their ears and scourging their faces. But—as Ellie knocked on the door, opening it, and glanced upward—the sky was beautiful. The clouds were omnious but shredded through with pockets, beams of light cascading like pearl through the dark.
Bracing a hand against the door, Ellie shouted over the wind: “We’ve got to hurry and jump when we leave, otherwise they’ll stop us.” She did not need to add that the noise of the wind and door opening would attract attention.
Jude nodded, grabbed Ellie’s shoulder, and Charon took her other. As one, she pushed, and they stepped forward through the gate of Hell—backwards, coming out rather than going in. The frenzy of people in lines in upstairs seemed calm comparison to the storm.
Just for a moment, Ellie and the two men stood blinking in the golden glow of uptairs’s pillars. But then Ellie realized that every head in the room was turned toward them, rows of mouths open with surprise. From her left, an outburst—
And Susan, bustle swinging, approached at a jog—
“Ellie!” she said, sounding bewildered. “What are you—Niles has been looking—”
But Ellie clicked the pocket-watch and they were gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The End of the Deal.
They appeared in the middle of a field crisscrossed with ditches, some as deep as Ellie was tall, with only spare mounds of grass. Mostly the dirt was scored and lumpen, like an exposed wound or a scab that had been torn off. Aside from divots pressed into the earth, however, there were no heights to block the view—and so the Rocky Mountains stood tall and beckoning to the west, untouched and eternal.
Observing this, Ellie thought with satisfaction: Nobody can reap the Rockies.
Overhead, the sun was casting orange in disks like the waves in a puddle when a stone has been thrown in, a circumference far wider than itself. The sky looked melted. As if the sky was a dome and the sun was a hand pressing down, flattening.
“That’s no good,” muttered Jude, beside her. He held up his arm and measured. “Takes my whole hand to block out the sun. It’s got to be four, maybe five times bigger.”
“How far away is the sun from Earth?” Ellie whispered.
“Eight light-minutes, roughly,” said
Jude. “Ninety-three million miles, give or take.”
That should take forever to fall, Ellie thought, and then: But time has ended. We have forever. And: How much time did we lose jumping to upstairs, and then jumping back down here? She glanced at her pocket-watch, but it was frozen as usual.
Had they been missing for the equivalent of weeks? Months? Years?
Maybe the loss of time was not based on how many shards she held. Maybe it was cumulative. Each jump leading to larger loss than the last; compounding interest.
There were no buildings left, Ellie realized. She glanced around. There were still trees planted in odd places, but all their leaves and needles missing, not even fallen below like in autumn. The ditches looked the same as the insides of the buildings: dark and gloomy, muted colors, because time had halted without sunlight touching them.
Pulling out the shard, Ellie checked her pocket-watch against it; but the dials did not turn. Must be completed, she thought, reminding herself: the shards only lead to their neighbors. If all the neighboring shards to this one are back in the Spindle, then there is nowhere for this shard to lead me. Maybe the demons have fulfilled their end, as they said. So the Spindle is mostly complete. We could check and see, in Jerusalem...
But if we jump again, how much time will we lose? The sun is so close already...
“Honestly,” Jude said, continuing the prior conversation, “I’m more worried about the moon. It’s much closer than the sun and we’re at a waning phase, so moonrise is in the night. It could be crashing into the other side of the planet right now for all we know.”
This is a distraction, Ellie thought, even as Jude’s words put new fire into her. We’re close, but we need to find the rest of the shards, return this one, get the Spindle completed. We’re cutting this closer than I thought possible.
And she honed in on one question: in Hell, the shard reacted to Charon like he was a shard. Will my pocket-watch do the same? If so, then we can collect the remaining shards. If we have enough time left before the sun burns us all to a crisp.
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