A Myth to the Night

by Cora Choi

  Chapter 15: Pamina

  Pamina brought the blue rose close to her chest and lowered her eyes. “When did you give me a rose before? Was it blue like this one?”

  The phantoms, including me, swung our heads in unison, anticipating Drev’s response. The girl had no recollection of Drev, so she didn’t know the care with which he’d treated her upon her arrival at the mortuary. Would he tell her about it now?

  His eyes searched her face. When he spoke, his tone was serious, but his words were sweet. “I gave it to you in a dream, and the rose was red, like the color of your lips.”

  The situation now went from surprising to bizarre. The gentleness in his voice and the flirtatious way he kept peering into her face were completely out of character for what I knew of him, which, admittedly, was little. Was he really this smitten with her? Or was there something else? After all, he had felt sorry for her in the mortuary, and she did represent a tie to his old life. When I looked around, though, it was clear that I was the only one doubting Drev’s intentions.

  “Listen to those words—pure poetry.”

  “He already gave her a rose!”

  “He’s a genius!”

  Contented sighs hummed through the crowd of phantoms, and a few of them even giggled. However, I was not in the mood to join in the giddy affair. There was another disturbing aspect to this scene: What pressing reason would Pamina have to come back as a phantom? Clearly, she had drowned in the Stauros Sea. Her body had washed up onshore and ended up in the mortuary where Drev had worked.

  I maneuvered through the dense crowd to get closer to the two, only to bump into Sun Wukong, who was directing some of the phantoms to certain areas of the graveyard with specific orders.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. The monkey was always in the midst of concocting a crazy scheme.

  “Creating a mood,” he replied, his eyes halfway closed, his mouth in a dreamy smile.

  I looked back at Drev, still standing with Pamina. The crowd had moved away from them, finally. But just then, a life-size grasshopper in coattails hopped right up to them. He began rubbing a tune out from his violin and danced around the two as he serenaded them. His companion, a ginormous ant with a sweatband around its head, was busily brushing away the dead branches and leaves near them. Siren had grabbed her two other sisters, and they were humming in harmony with the grasshopper’s tune. To top it all off, Anansi, the giant spider, was busily weaving a sparkling, large web that hung from a bare, gnarled branch of an old, weather-beaten oak. It draped like a curtain, shining and glimmering in the light of the night sky.

  The headless knight had spread his gray cape over the round slab of stone that Drev had cleared away earlier. Karkinos and Leo were now pushing and nudging Drev and Pamina to sit down. I had so many questions, and walked toward them. But, not wanting to look obtrusive, I pretended to help the ant, who was brushing away dead bits of ivy.

  “Were you a student here?” Drev asked Pamina. They sat with a foot of space between them, still facing each other. The grasshopper leaned into them as he delved into a climatic trill on his violin. They didn’t speak until he finished.

  “I came here when I was little,” she said. “My parents died in a car accident. My great-uncle is still the chancellor here, the only family I have.”

  “You’re the chancellor’s grandniece?” asked Drev. His eyes widened, and he frowned. I waited for him to make a remark about how her great-uncle had condemned him to the cellar, but he didn’t.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “How old were you when you came here?” asked Drev.

  “Four.”

  “You grew up on this island? Alone?”

  “Um . . .” There was a pensive silence as she chose her words slowly. “Everyone you see here, they’re my family.” She gestured to all the phantoms buzzing about as they transformed the graveyard into a romantic paradise. “I love them, and they love me. They’ve always watched out for me, telling me stories to explain why things are the way they are. From the first night I arrived here on the island, they took me in.”

  “You weren’t frightened of them?”

  “Well, no . . . I was so lonely back then, and I missed my parents. My great-uncle, he means well, but it’s not easy to be close to him.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine,” Drev inserted hurriedly.

  Pamina nodded and continued, “My first night at Stauros Hall, I ran out . . . I just wanted to run away. I got lost and ended up here, in this cemetery. And that’s when sweet Ahura Mazda found me and introduced me to everyone. I told my great-uncle about them the next day, thinking it was good news, but he told me I was full of lies and that if I ever spoke of any of this again, or went outside at night, he would throw me in the old dungeon in Stauros Hall.”

  “But you didn’t listen to him,” Drev smirked.

  “No.” She chuckled. “But now, with the way that I am, I’m afraid to approach him. I’m sure he’s worried about me, wondering what happened to me. I’ve been missing for over a week.”

  There was a heavy silence between them, before Drev carefully asked, “What happened to you? Were you trying to leave the island?”

  She nodded.

  I saw Drev take in a deep, cautious breath before he asked, “Did you try to swim away?”

  “Swim? No, I don’t know how to swim.” She stopped and inhaled deeply. “I never stepped a foot off the island after I arrived. My great-uncle forbade it. But a couple of weeks ago, I told him that I wanted to leave the island and go to a university elsewhere, and he said he wouldn’t let me. He told me I had to go to Stauros. I wanted to run away. I then came across an old book that was about a myth—a type of prophecy—and in the tale, I found a description of a cave in the library. I went down there and saw a boat. I boarded the boat and . . .” She stopped again and looked at her hands resting in her lap.

  I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. The book she was referring to had to be mine. If so, the cave she was referring to was the one the Order of the Shrike had used just before the Massacre of 1615. The cave had been boarded up centuries ago. How could she have gotten in there?

  I stopped helping the ant and moved in closer, not wanting to miss one word of what she would say next. She fidgeted nervously with her fingers, before saying in a quieter voice, “The next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor of the library. I went outside in the daylight, and nobody could hear or see me. Not even my great-uncle. But the phantoms, all of them could—and that’s when I realized that I had become one of them.”

  I sank down onto the round stone next to Pamina. “You said you read about this cave in a book? What color book?”

  “A b-brown book,” she stammered, looking at me with frightened eyes. “Sort of red.”

  “And the title?”

  “The title was The Slayer of the—”

  “The Shadow of Fear,” I interrupted. As I strung together what Pamina had said, a veil of horror fell over me. She had become a phantom by going into a cave that she had read about in my book. My book had led her to her death!

  I stood up suddenly, as revulsion surged through my body. I wanted to ask more questions, but I had a lump in my throat that prevented any words from coming out. I continued to stand there, speechless, until a hand grabbed the back of the collar of my cassock and two other hands grabbed my arms.

  “You’re ruining everything!” Ravana said through gritted teeth. He dragged me away from Pamina and Drev.

  “You two carry on,” the werewolf said, as I was dragged away from earshot. “Pretend that Hugh was never here. Ha! Like he doesn’t exist. Grasshopper! Quick, a melody fit to be Cupid’s anthem!” The grasshopper pounced before the couple and filled the air with the werewolf’s request.

  As soon as Ravana had wrestled me a safe distance from the pair, a half dozen other characters circled around and began scolding me.

  “Don’t you understand that she needs Drev?”

  “Without this chance, the poor girl mi
ght be lost forever!”

  “What are you talking about?” I replied. “Why are you yelling at me? I only asked a few questions.”

  “Wait! Be quiet!” said King Midas suddenly. The phantoms turned their heads to Drev and Pamina. I looked in the same direction. The two had scooted closer together, and Drev was now holding Pamina’s hand. A few phantoms clasped their hands together delightedly.

  “Is it time?” gasped a humanlike creature with a blue face and two horns coming out of its head. It held three blue lanterns in each hand.

  Sun Wukong sprang up out of nowhere in front of the horned creature.

  “You’re on time, my friend. Start hanging the lamps here and here and here,” ordered the Monkey King, pointing around the cemetery with a stick, like a symphony conductor with a baton. “Where is Yue-Lao? He needs to tie Pamina and Drev together. Now.”

  “He’s sleeping,” said the blue horned creature as he hung his lanterns.

  “Wake him up! This is the most important job he’s had for centuries, and he’s not alert! What is this?” the Monkey King asked nervously.

  “You!” Sun Wukong turned to me with a dozen thick, rounded red sticks that smelled of gunpowder. “Set these fireworks off when the last blue lantern is hung; then Yue-Lao will tie a red string around the two kids’ hands that will bind them to one another forever.”

  The Monkey King then turned to the rest of the phantoms and said, “Everyone say your good-byes and well wishes to Pamina now.” Sniffles and flat-out wailing erupted all around me.

  “What is happening?” I asked, tucking the firecrackers under my arm. “Where is Pamina going?”

  “Pamina’s like you, Hugh,” said the giant primate as he busily prepped more fireworks. “Poor thing’s a phantom roaming this earth, searching for the ending to her story, so she can rest in the afterworld.”

  “Yes, I already know! But what pressing issue would bring her back to this world? Surely her mission couldn’t be on par with mine,” I said. Finding the Slayer of the Shadow of Fear was imperative—for all humankind.

  “She died before she could find her true love,” continued the Monkey King.

  “Her reason for coming back was to find her true love?” I winced. The idea was ludicrous; then every unhappy young woman who died without finding true love would be haunting the world. “How does that become a reason for coming back to this world as a phantom?”

  “Don’t be condescending,” chided a woman dressed in a gown of silver and gold threads. The hems were embroidered with tiny pearls. She wore a sparkling tiara on her head. “That’s all she wanted in the end—to find the love of her life so she wouldn’t feel so alone anymore, poor girl.” Her tiara threatened to slide off as she set down a large box of fireworks.

  “More?” asked Sun Wukong, cringing.

  “The God of Fire brought them over,” said the woman, brushing the dust off her hands. “He says there won’t be another occasion for us to use them for at least the next several centuries.”

  “So, then, are you saying that Drev is . . . is her fairy-tale prince? Her Prince Charming?” I asked hesitantly. “I thought all of you were going to make him the Slayer of the Shadow of Fear.”

  The Monkey King scratched his ear and then his chin, clearly contemplating my comment. After several seconds, he responded simply, “He can be both.” He then turned to the woman. “Look, Cinderella, take this box of fireworks back to the God of Fire; if we try to set all these off, it won’t be a celebration. They’ll think we’re starting a war.”

  Cinderella picked up the box and left.

  “Both? How can he be—” I stopped myself. There was no point in pursuing the topic. “So what’s going to happen? Does he have to be dead, too, to join her?”

  Sun Wukong scratched his chin again. “Good question. I don’t know. But we’ll soon see.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, not believing my ears. “And how do you know he’s her . . . her prince?”

  I felt a rough garden glove on my shoulder.

  “We don’t know. We’re making him her prince,” said King Midas, winking at me.

  “You’re all insane!” I wanted to run to Drev to warn him of the phantoms’ plan, but I stopped when I saw him completely captivated by Pamina.

  “If he’s truly the one for her, death won’t matter to him at all,” said King Midas, as though such a comment would be comforting.

  I shook my head. I had to tell Drev—he at least needed to be warned of what awaited him. He had no idea that he was about to become the victim of a dead girl’s amorous longings. If he later chose to die and be with Pamina, then so be it. But at this moment, he needed to know what might happen to him.

  I began marching over to where Drev and Pamina were sitting, when shouting rose from behind me.

  “Where’s Hugh going?”

  “Quick, wrestle him to the ground!”

  Within seconds, Ravana had pinned my arms behind me and was dragging me back.

  Sun Wukong saw the ghost with the blue lanterns hang the sixth and last lantern. The Monkey King then turned to me to give the cue for the fireworks, but when he saw me disheveled and struggling as Ravana’s prisoner, he called for the leprechaun. The leprechaun hopped over to where I had dropped the fireworks. The excitement of the night had rendered him spastic, and I watched with terror as he lit a match and brought it over to the fireworks, lighting them frantically one after the other.

  “Not at the same time!” shouted Sun Wukong. But it was too late. The leprechaun screamed as the explosives shot into the sky. Bursts of reds and greens and oranges and blues bombarded the heavens in rapid-fire succession. The match-made couple sitting on the stone, holding hands, turned their faces toward the sky, their mouths open in wide smiles. As they did, sleepy Yue-Lao crept up behind them and stealthily wrapped a red string around the wrists of their interlocked hands, tying their fates together with that simple thread.

  Drev turned away from the light show and looked at his hand clutching Pamina’s, but the string had already become invisible. He must’ve felt something, though, for he rubbed his wrist with his other hand for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the night sky.

  I held my breath and the phantoms stared anxiously at the couple, as if they would be the next to explode in a blast of colors. But nothing happened. Pamina continued to sit, holding Drev’s hand. When the night faded back to its original violet hue, the couple faced each other and continued talking.

  I sighed with relief and turned to look at Sun Wukong, who was scratching his head and muttering to himself. Many of the phantoms, disappointed and disheartened, began walking away from the Forgotten Cemetery altogether. I had nothing to say, either, but I stayed, wondering if I should warn Drev that he might have to die if he pursued this relationship with Pamina.

  “They don’t need a chaperone, Hugh.” I felt a familiar hand pat my back and turned to see Ahura Mazda beside me. “Their story is unfolding as it should.”

  Several seconds had to pass before Ahura Mazda’s words had an effect on me. Then, for the first time that night, I let my shoulders relax. I let the two be as they were and turned my mind over to my own circumstances and how much they had changed within the last twelve hours. A new chapter of my journey had begun. Where was it leading?

  PART III