by Leo Hunt
“I suppose this is it, love,” Mum says.
“I can’t believe it,” I say.
“Maybe we should say something,” Elza suggests.
They both look at me.
“All right,” I say.
My mouth feels dry. I still expect him to wake up at any moment.
“Ham was our friend,” I say. “We all loved him. Whenever you’d had a bad day, Ham was there. He was one of the cheeriest, kindest dogs I ever knew. I think we gave him a happy life. I hope we did. I know I owe him a lot and I’m going to miss him.”
“He had a wonderful soul,” Mum says softly. “You could see it in his eyes. They were such lovely eyes. I know wherever he’s gone to now, it’s a good place. I feel sure of it.”
I remember the Shrouded Lake, those depths, the darkness and beautiful stars. I don’t know what’s under the lake, what that place even was. But I hope it was something good.
“I think you’re right,” I say to her.
Mum places the wreath of flowers in his grave.
“Ham,” Elza says, “I didn’t know you nearly as long as Luke or Persephone did. But I think we hit it off immediately, and I know Dunbarrow will feel a lot emptier without you. I loved you because you were a big, kind beast who wasn’t afraid to break the rules, and you came through for me and Luke when it counted. We’re all going to miss you, Ham.”
She drops the chew ball into his grave.
“Good-bye, boy,” I say, and shovel the first clump of earth onto his body. It falls with a soft sound on his blanket, the flowers, the toy.
Am Ham, I think as I scoop up another shovel load of earth.
Am Ham.
Mum drinks several toasts to Ham’s memory and goes up to bed by ten thirty, leaving me and Elza the sole attendees of his remembrance party. We’re sitting out in garden chairs, wrapped up in my duvet, with stars overhead and a bonfire burning. It’s clear and cold, and I can see an airplane moving high above us, red lights flashing on its wings.
Elza is a miracle. To feel her sitting next to me, her warmth, to look down and see her face, her freckles, her perfectly arched eyebrows: a miracle. Her eyes, the fire reflected in them: masterpieces.
“So what did they find?” she asks me.
“Who?”
“The doctors. You had your MRI, right?”
“They said my brain activity was unusual. But not, like, diseased. I don’t think they knew what to make of it.”
“That’s about what I expected,” she says.
“How do you feel?” I ask her.
“About what?”
“Being alive again. Everything.”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she says.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” I say. “Like, not even that we could meet again in Deadside. You were gone. Vanished into the nonpareil. I couldn’t deal with that.”
Elza runs her hand over the place where my little finger used to be.
“I told you not to come after me,” she says softly. “I said if something does happen to me, don’t try and bring me back. Let me go.”
“I couldn’t —”
“I did mean it, you know.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Elza,” I say, remembering Ash saying the same thing.
“I knew you’d try and do something. I saw it in your eyes when I was dying,” she replies. “And don’t think I’m not grateful. I like being alive.”
“I like you being alive, too.”
“But I don’t know if you understand why I said that to you. I don’t want you reading the Book of Eight again. I don’t want you using your dad’s sigil, raising a Host, getting deeper into this mess. You brought the Shepherd back into our world, Luke. You gave your finger to this Riverkeeper creature. You lost Ham. I’m not worth that.”
“You are,” I say.
“I’m serious,” she says. “I’m really serious. Black magic, necromancy . . . this stuff will eat you up if you let it. The price is just going to keep getting higher. What happens next time you lose someone?”
“It was my fault,” I say.
“It wasn’t. I made my own choice to help Ash. We both should’ve known better.”
The bonfire spits, sparks rising up into the night air.
“You know this isn’t over, right?” I say.
“Berkley,” she says.
“He says I still owe him. He wants me to have the Book. Whatever’s happening to me . . . it hasn’t stopped yet.”
“So,” Elza says, “we fight back.”
“How?”
“He’s the Devil,” she says. “People have been writing about him since the dawn of time, with one name or another. Someone’s been in this position before.”
“You really think that?”
“Well,” she says quietly, “it’s that or give up and wait for him to come back. Give him what he wants.”
“So don’t you think we’ll need the Book of Eight for this?”
“For all we know,” Elza says, “he wrote it.”
She rests her head against my shoulder, and we sit, watching the fire.
“What do you think Ilana will do?” I ask after a while.
Later on Sunday, we’d had a very awkward group discussion at the stone circle, and then drove to my house to alter our parents’ memories. Ilana didn’t stay long after that. She said she had a plane to catch.
“I really don’t care that much,” Elza says sleepily.
“It’s just her now. Her and Ash. They say they’re happy, but . . . I mean, the Widow’s gone.”
“Honestly?” Elza says. “She’s a young, rich, beautiful girl with an American passport and more money than she could spend in ten lifetimes. I’m not feeling that worried about her.”
“Still not an Ahlgren fan, then?”
She laughs.
“She did kill me.”
“Ash wasn’t evil,” I say. “She had reasons for doing what she did.”
“Everyone is the hero in their own story.”
“Is that a quote from somewhere?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe.”
“So what do we do now?” I ask Elza.
“Well,” she says. “I’m alive. You’re alive. Ham’s gone. We live, I suppose. We try and get on without him. We’ve got exams in a few months. I’m thinking about that.”
“Right. Exams.”
“We should draw up a schedule or something,” she says.
“That’s really what you’re thinking about?”
“What else is there?” Elza says. “It’s important. I can’t skip our exams just because I died. Life isn’t just about the big adventures. It’s all the boring parts as well.”
I lean down and kiss her.
The Shepherd said he didn’t believe love existed, that he couldn’t feel it, and I suppose in a way it’s the same thing. To people like him, me and Elza might look deluded, crippled, like two people who’ve chosen to struggle through our lives lashed together, a weird stumbling animal, drunks in a three-legged race. And in my darker moments, I do think he might have had a point. But here and now? Out here under the stars, with the fire warming my face and Elza breathing against my neck, her fingers playing along my wrist? If our love is selfish, all some big delusion, I think I’m OK with that.
We sit in silence, watching the fire. A log collapses in on itself, sending sparks spiraling up into the darkness. We sit hand in hand, the night drawn around us like a black blanket, until the bonfire is nothing but embers.
First I’d like to thank my agent, Jenny Savill, for her guidance and wisdom, as well as the steak lunches, which are creative stimulants of great potency. I’d like to thank my editors, Kate Fletcher and Jessica Tarrant, for their hard work and sensible suggestions, as well as everyone else at my literary agency and publishing houses who had a hand in bringing this book to you.
I’d like to thank my family for their love and support, and I’d like to thank the many people who read early d
rafts of this novel.
The ancient Greeks only spoke of five rivers that flowed through the Underworld: the Styx, the Lethe, the Acheron, the Phlegethon, and the Cocytus. Since the magic of Luke’s story hinges around the number eight, I’ve fabricated the rivers Apelpsion, Algos, and Elys.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2016 by Leo Hunt
Cover photographs: copyright © 2016 by James Osmond/Getty Images (trees); copyright © 2016 by Enrique Algarra/Media Bakery (figure on left); copyright © 2016 by Tim Robinson/Trevillion Images (figure on right).
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2016
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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