A Myth to the Night

by Cora Choi

  Chapter 14: Drev’s Story

  Drev bit his lower lip as he scanned the cemetery, trying to find something to distract himself as he spoke. “My life is no fairy tale,” he said. He spotted a large, round slab of cracked stone by his side that most likely served as the base of a statue, except the statue was no longer there.

  Over the years, long, wiry, gray-green ivy had woven itself all around it, like a protective seat cover. Drev pulled at it with all the frustration and anger he couldn’t express in words. The branches popped and snapped, sending wooden chunks flying past him. He continued to tear away at the ivy until the flat, smooth stone top revealed itself. Drev then sat on its surface. Demeter sat on one side of him, Yuki on the other. The rest of the group crowded around him, eyes wide with anticipation.

  What did they like so much about him? Certainly, he carried a magnetic aura. I’d felt it the first time I saw him. But he was also angry and cynical—two characteristics repulsive enough to negate anything positive about him.

  “It’s the hero of the tale who determines if there’s a happy ending or not,” encouraged Demeter. The other phantoms nodded.

  Drev sat silent for a few more seconds, as though pondering her words. I thought he wouldn’t continue, but he spoke. “I’m not sure exactly where I was born. I was adopted. But it never bothered me, not knowing. My parents loved me—I think as much as any parents love their kid. And we were well off—at least when I was little. My dad was a landscaper. My granddad passed down the family business to him. And my mom helped my dad.

  “Money was good back then. Since my parents were both busy, they hired a nanny to look after me, the one who told me the story of the crane and the shrike. She looked after me until I was in kindergarten; then my parents adopted my younger sister. My nanny left when my mom decided to stay home to look after both of us.

  “I lived a great life—I mean, there were no worries. I went to school like the other kids, and when I was about twelve, I started helping out my dad after school. I really liked it. It was cool riding with him in his truck.”

  Drev halted and looked at the ground. I could never have imagined him crying, but at that moment, I think he was fighting back tears. He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened—clearly a nervous habit of his.

  He lifted his chin with a defiant air. “But then when I started high school, everything headed south. People in our town were losing their jobs and then losing their homes. Before we knew it, my dad didn’t have any more customers. People who had lived in our town for generations were packing and leaving. My dad traveled farther and farther out of town to find work, but it was the same everywhere.

  “He and my mom started arguing. My dad started drinking. Nothing got better.” He paused and stared blankly in front of him, as though he could visualize the scene he had just described. “And then one night, I went downstairs to get a glass of water. It was real late, but my dad was up. He had half a glass of whiskey in his hand, and he said, ‘Drev, a man’s gotta know when he’s worth more dead than alive.’ I thought he was just drunk. I took the glass out of his hand and told him to get some sleep. I went upstairs, sad but angry, too, that he didn’t have the self-control not to get drunk when things were already tough for us. But had I known that was the last time I was going to see him, I would’ve stayed up with him all night, probably would’ve had a glass with him.”

  “Oh!” cried Aphrodite, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. She had broken her wineglass earlier, when she had accused me of being the Demon of Stauros, but she was now holding it, intact, in her right hand while wiping her tears with her left. Drev stopped.

  “Ignore her; go on,” said someone in the crowd.

  “What happened?” asked the werewolf.

  Drev sighed and looked at the ground. “He got into his truck that night—there was a snowstorm. His truck flew over the divider and ran head-on into a big rig. My mom told my sister and me that it was an accident. But I knew it was suicide, and I knew he had done it to leave us with some money, his life insurance.”

  Drev’s voice changed, almost as though his throat were constricted and he now had to force his words out from his belly. “But it didn’t work out how my dad planned, because the insurance company also claimed it was a suicide. They made it sound like my dad was trying to cheat them by killing himself like that. They didn’t even pay enough to allow us to have a proper funeral for him.

  “Then everything followed that pattern. The credit card companies came after us, right after his funeral, to get what my dad owed. And still those greedy bastards kept mailing applications in my dad’s name. Then the people from the bank showed up to evict us from our house. Their reps told my mom that if she didn’t throw away her own stuff and clean up the house, they would make her pay for a cleaning service. It was like we weren’t human, we were just these things in their way, and since we didn’t have any money, they threw us out into the street like garbage.”

  His voice wobbled with emotion at the end of the last word, and he took a moment to regain his composure. The phantoms and I all held our breath, for Drev’s face was trembling with rage. Not only was his voice tense, but every fiber in his body seemed poised to burst. I would have moved even farther away from this outraged boy, but, for the first time, I saw him differently.

  I was no stranger to anger and rage. I felt indignant at what the Fates had thrown in my path, too. And yet, over time, I had changed my attitude—I had focused on what I could do to make my situation bearable. I didn’t hold on to my anger, as Drev did. I couldn’t, for doing so would force me to become stagnant and feed my soul all the bitterness from the anger that was festering within me.

  Once I let go of the anger, I went through a period where I felt pain, but that pain passed with time. Soon I had freed myself from that spiral of hate and anger. And now, watching Drev and hearing about his past, I saw that his anger and hate were more of a facade. He was in fact fearful of feeling the pain that inevitably comes after anger. He wasn’t afraid of ghosts or vampires or headless knights. He was afraid of his heart suffering.

  I saw him open his mouth to speak again. I moved closer, despite seeing how tense he looked. A battle was raging inside him, but as long as I didn’t provoke him, there was nothing to worry about.

  “With no money and no jobs in our town, we moved out to the coast, where there was a large city, so my mom could find work. We lived in this nasty, filthy hotel, and I went to a school where everyone hated my guts, because I was the new kid. I was beaten up every day. I hated it so much.

  “Within a few months of moving to the city, I turned sixteen and began looking for a job. There was a mortuary two blocks from our hotel, and even though no one else was hiring because the economy was in a shithole, this place was hopping. Sebastian, the owner, hired me on the spot, because he needed to clean and dress up two bodies by that very evening and he wasn’t going to make it. I was worried about him being my boss, because he looked crazy. He wore two gold watches on each arm and had a cheesy old sports car he parked in front of the mortuary, with the license plate GDIGGER.

  “I told him I’d see the work first. So I went to the back of the mortuary, and the first thing I saw were the ghosts of two old, dead ladies, standing beside their corpses. I had seen ghosts before, but I had never told anyone. I always ignored the ghosts, and the ghosts always ignored me. But these two didn’t.

  “They started talking to me right away, telling me how they wanted me to prepare them for their funeral service—the last time their family and friends would see them. I did what they asked me to, and it paid off. Their family members gave me huge tips, telling me they had never seen their grandmother/auntie/mother/sister look so beautiful, like I had brought them back to life.

  “I saved that tip money. And I kept working and saving for the next two years. I eventually saved enough in tips to secure a deposit on an apartment for my family in a decent part of town. I kept the rest of the money I earned, in cas
e I decided to go to college. But I didn’t really want to go, because I didn’t want to leave my sister and mom behind. Besides, I was making pretty good money with all the tips I was getting. It seemed like every year—no, actually, every month—more and more bodies kept coming in. Sebastian tried to tell his customers about other mortuaries—something I thought he would never do. The thing was, we could barely keep up. It was weird, because some of those bodies didn’t have ghosts—and the ones that didn’t, oh my God.” Drev paused, as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know what drugs they had been doing, or what kind of thugs they had run into, because they came in with their eyeballs hanging by a vein from their sockets and their brains spilling out of their heads. Even Sebastian would tell me he had never seen anything like them. I hated dressing those bodies. There was something sad about them, like they hadn’t died properly.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, stepping closer. “Like they were tortured?”

  “No, not tortured,” began Drev, looking away. “Actually, yeah, a lot of them looked like they had been tortured, but like they had tortured themselves, maybe. They were bruised all over and really badly beaten up. There was something heavy about them, too, like a rotting energy. A lot of their faces were twisted like they’d been screaming in pain until the moment they died.”

  Many of the phantoms frowned, and a few grumbled about how odd the world was becoming as people lost their way in life. I mulled over what Drev had said and wondered about what kind of person would die looking like he had been torturing himself. Suddenly, a floating piece of a puzzle in the back of my mind snapped into place—the man in the video that Max had shown his roommates!

  “Did they look like they had been possessed by an evil force?” I blurted.

  Drev paused in his story and shot me an inquisitive glance. I could tell he realized I’d seen Max’s video. He understood what I was referring to. He looked to the ground and said, “I don’t know what happened to those people, but whatever it was, it was like you said.” He nodded at me. “It seemed evil.”

  He let out a long sigh before continuing. “It was bad enough that these people looked like they had been tortured, but what made it worse was that not one of them had a ghost. Usually after a wake, the ghosts of people who had died normally walked out with their bodies when they were being carried to their final resting place. They stood next to their bodies until they were cremated or buried, and then they disappeared. It was bad enough that they looked like that they had been through hell while they were alive—but for a body not to have a ghost next to it made me think that not only did their body die, but their spirit did, too.”

  Drev grabbed his forehead and looked at the ground, speaking in a quieter voice.

  “One of those ghostless bodies was a girl about my age. She came in as a Jane Doe. But right away, I saw that her corpse was in good shape. She wasn’t like the others who didn’t have a ghost. She hadn’t scratched out her eyes or ripped her body into shreds. It looked as though she had just drowned in an accident or something. But I was still disturbed that her ghost wasn’t by her body. It gave me the feeling that even though her body didn’t look like it had been tortured, she had died in a way that had killed her soul, her spirit.

  “‘She belongs to nobody,’ Sebastian had told me. ‘So put her in the metal box. We’ll dump her with the other unknowns in the mass grave tomorrow.’ But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was bad enough that no one knew who she was, but to send her off like a piece of trash—I couldn’t do it.

  “After Sebastian left that night, I stayed with the girl. She had been in the ocean and washed ashore, but her body wasn’t in a state of decomposition. She almost looked as if she could still be alive. She was a really pretty girl. I washed her hair, sponged away all the dirt from her skin. I looked in the chest of extra clothes we kept in back and put her in a fresh dress.

  “When they brought her in, there was a dark blue, withered rose tangled in her hair. I figured she must have braided it in before she died. I was able to comb it out of her hair, and I placed a fresh red rose in her hand.”

  “A blue rose?” I asked. I couldn’t believe this. I saw the other phantoms shake their heads slowly, as though the coincidence was too uncanny.

  “She must’ve been a student from Stauros!” I said. “Blue roses grow only here—on this island.”

  Whispers were flying all around me, as it seemed that everyone found this to be an exciting piece of news. I was more perplexed than excited. Had another student disappeared from the island? Maybe this girl was solid evidence with which I could prove once and for all that I was not the one who had made all those students disappear—I was not the Demon of Stauros.

  “Certainly there would have been headlines about her if she were a student from here,” I mused.

  Drev paused before he shook his head. “No. She was basically a Jane Doe whom no one claimed, a girl without any clues about her life, except for the blue rose.”

  “Oh,” I sighed. The flicker of hope vanished.

  Drev continued with his story. “So instead of doing what Sebastian told me to do—putting her in the metal box to go to the mass grave—I brought out the cherry oak–wood casket with silk lining, the most expensive casket we had, and put her inside. Then I asked a homeless man who was always reading scripture on the street corner to come in and say a prayer on the girl’s behalf. He did a good job, and I thanked him with a bottle of whiskey from Sebastian’s liquor cabinet.

  “After the viewing—the viewing being just me and the homeless guy—I arranged for her to be taken to the crematorium. It was early morning by that time, and Sebastian never came in until noon. I put the bill under the name of the mortuary and then quit that day.”

  There was silence all around. None of us so much as blinked. Many in the crowd were waiting for Drev to continue, their mouths hanging open. I felt a shudder go up my spine when I heard the familiar voice of the Graeae crack the silence: “Find Pamina and bring her here.”

  Others in the crowd immediately began chatting excitedly, and the name Pamina was on everyone’s lips.

  Who is Pamina?

  They had whispered that name earlier. Everyone seemed to know who she was except me.

  Drev didn’t seem to notice the excitement around him and continued to talk. “I never spoke with Sebastian again. I quit right then, a week before leaving for Stauros.

  “I had always studied hard, but when my dad died, I studied like crazy. It helped me keep my mind off of the problems at home. And when I started working, I never went out. My life was school, work, and then homework. Plus, it’s not like I had friends to hang out with anyway.

  “At first I didn’t think I’d get into Stauros. I mean, kids go to special elementary schools from the time they’re five years old to get themselves prepped for this school. I didn’t do that, nor did my dad have clout, and besides, he wasn’t even around anymore.” He frowned but kept speaking. “I didn’t want to apply, but my mom wanted me to try. So I did. And I got in.”

  When he stopped talking, we stared at him, waiting for more. I realized he was finished when a few of the phantoms started clapping. Soon the others followed suit, and then some began cheering for him. Demeter even got to her feet and turned to face Drev and applaud him. His face turned bright red, the most colorful object in the graveyard.

  “That’s an incredible story!” they shouted.

  “If that doesn’t show bravery and honor, I don’t know what story could!”

  “To think he was ashamed of his story!”

  I clapped, too, despite myself. I’d had no idea of the journey Drev had taken before he’d come to this island. I was amazed at how different he looked to me after I knew all this about him.

  He gave us a reluctant grin. His lips were pale and his shoulders drooped. I saw that telling us about his past had drained him.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly. “Thanks for listening.”

  “We
would hear it again if you wanted to tell us again,” said Karkinos.

  “No,” said Drev. He shook his head. “Once is enough.” He got to his feet, and suddenly, everyone bombarded him with questions: How many dead bodies did he take care of? Did he meet any crazy phantoms? Were the ghosts grateful that he sent them off in such a dignified way?

  “He’s tired, can’t you see?” I said, pushing through the group that had circled around him. “Remember, he’s a student here. He has classes tomorrow.”

  “That’s right, I do,” said Drev, looking relieved that I had given him a way out. “I appreciated your company and meeting you all, but I gotta go.” He took a step forward to get out from the crowd, but they cried out.

  “Don’t let him leave! Not until he meets Pamina!”

  The phantoms turned to one another and nodded, whispering, “Yes, Pamina!” They suddenly squeezed together, blocking him from passing.

  “Sorry, but can I get through?” Drev asked, raising an eyebrow.

  They encircled him even more tightly as they said excitedly, “The girl you spoke of—she’s here.”

  “The pretty girl, she’s our Pamina.”

  “She has been looking for you, and you’ve come for her!”

  “Wh-what?” asked Drev, his eyes darting frantically from one phantom’s face to another.

  I looked at the faces around me to see if they were playing a prank of some sort, but everyone was looking intently at Drev. Only Anansi, the great black widow, stirred. Two of his eight eyes stayed on Drev, while the other six looked over the heads of the crowd as if searching for someone or something.

  “C’mon now,” I sighed, exasperated. These characters never seemed to follow any logical course of thought. “Just let him go. It’s been a long night for him.”

  “No, he’s staying,” said the werewolf, his wild eyes flashing from me to Drev. “It’s clear from his story about the girl that he’s the one Pamina has been waiting for.”

  “Who is Pamina?” My last drop of patience had evaporated, and the sternness in my voice was sharp enough to halt their excited whispers.

  “You’ll soon find out,” retorted Siren, with an even sharper tone. “She’s coming now.”

  “Pamina has arrived! Make way for her!” a voice shouted, and several phantoms began to move.

  Up until that moment, I had taken none of them seriously. I had always thought of the other phantoms as a pack of lighthearted fools who had no purpose to their existence other than to tell their stories over and over again, caring little about others and what happened to them. But when Demeter walked through the crowd, her arm around a frail girl in a white dress, clutching a blue rose, I began to see that I had underestimated them.

  “Dear, don’t be afraid,” said Demeter.

  “He has come for you, Pamina!”

  So this was Pamina! She walked with small, hesitant steps. Her pale skin seemed to reflect a bluish light that came from nowhere. The girl looked ethereal—too fragile to be in this world. Her body was as thin as the hair that blew gently around her face. She moved through the crowd of phantoms toward Drev, cautiously. Her eyes were cloudy with a haze of worry. She stopped midway through the crowd, as if uncertain whether to come any closer to him. The phantoms reassured her as best they could.

  “Pamina, why are you being so shy?”

  “Precious, this is your prince—the one you’ve been waiting for.”

  Her prince? I looked at Drev to see what his reaction was. He was mesmerized. He blinked several times, but his eyes never left her face. There wasn’t a smudge of surprise in his eyes, only a look of awe, as though he had witnessed a miracle.

  “You’re her,” he finally uttered.

  At first I was at a loss for words, but then I found my voice. I was curious. “When you threw the rose to her on the balcony earlier, at Mizu, did you know she was the girl you took care of in the mortuary?”

  I thought he hadn’t heard my question, for he didn’t even shift his gaze. But soon his eyelids fluttered as he lowered them and said, “I didn’t know it was her. But when I saw her, something came over me, and I wanted to give her something. I had the rose, so I just threw it to her.”

  He looked at the phantoms, who’d now reverted to their chatter about his being her protector, her rescuer—the one she had been waiting for.

  Pamina stopped a few yards from Drev, and the crowd quieted. Given his sour attitude toward everything else in life, I expected a negative reaction from him. I was stunned when he walked over to her, leaned in, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “Ah!” gushed the delighted spectators.

  Pamina’s eyelashes fluttered a few seconds as she looked away from everyone. When she regained her composure, it was clear that Drev’s kiss had emboldened her.

  “It seems like . . . ,” she said, leaning toward him and peering into his face carefully, “I’ve met you before.” Her voice was as frail and delicate as she was.

  Drev stood motionless for a moment, then said, “Yes.”

  “You gave me this rose earlier,” she said with a small smile.

  Drev swallowed nervously several times before finding his voice: “Yes, but that wasn’t the first time I’ve given you a rose.”