The Girl in the Green Silk Gown
Page 29
Then she crosses her ankles as primly as a schoolmarm, and waits.
The men begin to fidget before the train pulls away from the platform. The one on Pippa’s left begins to sweat, while the one on her right goes clammy and pale. Her smile spreads across her face like blood through cotton until, finally, both men lurch to their feet, moving away from Pippa as fast as they can.
“There you go, ladies,” she says, patting the seats to either side of her. “Come join me, because we’ve got a ways to go before we reach Holborn.”
No one else is taking those seats. I’m not sure any of the people around us can even see Pippa. That doesn’t stop some deep, primal part of them from realizing that those temptingly empty seats are haunted, and they have no interest in joining our ghost story.
I’ve been sitting for the better part of the last day. I’d expect to be done with sitting. But I’m so tired that I feel like I might fall over every time the train lurches on the track, and I sink into a seat with gratitude, resting my backpack on my knees. Laura sits more reluctantly, watching Pippa out of the corner of her eye.
The people around us don’t pay any attention to the little drama playing out right next to them. Pippa is invisible, despite her gothic attire, while Laura and I are just two more tourists in a city full of them, bland and easy to overlook. Invisibility takes many forms. Sometimes it’s supernatural and literal, and other times it’s scruffy clothing and rumpled hair, the vague, jet-lagged stare of a traveler and a bag with the luggage tags still attached. We are irrelevant to their lives, and so they let us go with a glance.
They’ll never know what they shared this train with. That’s probably for the best. Some things are better off overlooked and unconsidered, at least in the daylight. Some of these people will have dark dreams tonight, filled with ghosts and monsters, and they’ll never know why, and it won’t really matter.
We ride for what feels like forever, the names of stations flickering by like a playground jump rope game. Northfields, Hammersmith, Knightsbridge. Hyde Park, Green Park, Covent Garden. There are so many of them that I couldn’t list them all if I tried, and only a few stick in my memory, like thorns reaching out and taking hold. This is a whole world of things I don’t know, places I’ve never been and won’t ever be, and it burns a little, the reminder that I’m limited. It doesn’t matter if I spend the next hundred years on the road, looking and learning and figuring out how to finally be free of Bobby Cross. I won’t ever leave North America again. I won’t ever get to know these places.
As a hitcher, I can grab a ride with anyone who’ll let me. I can borrow flesh by borrowing a jacket, wrap myself in skin and voluntary mortality, which fades as soon as the sun rises or I take the jacket off, whichever one comes first. I can’t be killed by mortal means—I’ve been shot, I’ve been in more accidents than I can count, I was even set on fire once—but I can’t buy a plane ticket, and I can’t cross an ocean. This world, this whole world, is denied to me.
Suddenly, the fact that I’m heading straight for the museum and not even taking a walk around London seems a little shortsighted. Only a little, though. I want to put the world back the way it should be more than I want to see forbidden things. I want to be myself again.
The train pulls into another stop. Pippa stands. People shy away from her without even seeming to realize they’re doing it.
“This is us,” she says, and steps through the opening doors.
Laura and I follow her, out into the hot air of the station, out into London.
* * *
London is a city built upon its own bones, and as such, a city made almost entirely of stairs. At least that’s how it feels as we climb our way out of the bowels of the earth and up into the light, which is the misty gray of late morning, and smells of oil and gasoline and cleaning solutions, the same as any other city, but faintly different at the same time. My feet ache. I wonder what it’s like to be a routewitch here, in a place where the width of the roads was set before we knew what black tar asphalt was, in a place where cobblestones are as common as pavement. What would these streets tell me if I knew how to talk to them, if they cared enough to notice I was here?
Much as it aches to know that I won’t ever have the chance to learn this country the way I’ve learned my own, it aches more to know that Apple—a routewitch born, a queen ascended, who should have had the freedom to go where she wanted, do what she wanted, forever—will never even know America the way I do, much less see England, or Europe, or anything beyond the bounds of the Ocean Lady. She traded her birthright for a crown. I can trade a few places I’ve never seen for the twilight, and the ghostroads, and my friends. I can.
Laura looks around us with unabashed curiosity, gawking like a tourist. It makes me feel better about doing the same. The similarities I saw from the plane are still here, but there are so many differences. I want to see them all. I want to remember them all. I’m never going to see them again, and if this is my only chance, I’m not going to let it go to waste.
Pippa shoots me an amused glance. “Americans,” she says. There’s no malice in her tone. That’s a nice change. “You’d think you’d never seen a curb before.”
“We build ours differently,” I say. “How much farther to the museum?” I want it to be miles. I want to see as much of this city as I possibly can. I want—
“We’re here,” she says.
Oh.
The British Museum is huge, impressive enough that I took it for a cathedral or a seat of government. It looks like a temple. It looks like a testing ground. Once we enter, we’re not going to leave—at least not by the same route. The only way out is through.
“Where do we go,” I say, and it’s not a question, because I don’t have the strength for questions. I’m tired and I’m scared and I’m mortal and it’s finally time for this to end. It’s time to close the door on the possibilities I never asked for and can’t bear the idea of clinging to, and go back to the cold and the neon and the endless road.
“You follow me,” says Pippa, and she turns away from the entrance, making her way toward the side of the building.
Apple told me to follow and so I follow, Laura at my back, London passing by around us. Emma told me to trust and so I trust, letting this Dullahan I barely know lead me into the shadows at the side of the museum, letting her be the one who sets the speed of our journey. I don’t know if this counts as the road to the Underworld, but I don’t want to take any chances, and so I don’t let myself look back.
Maybe that rule is only for Orpheus. Maybe Laura is the one who shouldn’t be looking back, maybe Laura is the one who needs to be careful. But if I look back to tell her that, will I be condemning myself to a mortal lifespan and a roll of the dice when I finally die, shooting for the snake eyes that give me back the ghostroads, knowing that all the world’s odds are against me? I can’t risk it. I won’t risk it.
We reach a stretch of smooth stone wall. The look Pippa gives me is unreadable, too many things all jumbled together in an impossible swirling soup.
“Do you know what comes now?” she asks.
“I will go to the location of the gate,” I say. “I will descend into the Underworld.”
“You will,” Pippa agrees. She touches the wall. The stone ripples.
“The girls like you always do,” she says, voice soft, and steps through the stone, into the darkness on the other side, and is gone.
Laura and I follow her. The wall yields for us like mist, and we, too, are gone.
What else is there?
Book Five
Journeys
Give me the doorway, give me the key,
Show me the shadow of Persephone.
Down in the darkness, under the ground,
Show me the summer by the winter crowned.
Hades remembers, Hades will know;
Show me the silence where the
lost lies go.
Best follow quickly, stay on the track,
You’re lost forever with just one look back.
—common clapping rhyme among the ever-lasters of the twilight
. . . what I’m trying to say is that if the Phantom Prom Date is real (she is), and if ghosts come from living people (they do), she’s a public figure now, like a Kardashian, or Angelina Jolie, or whatever. “Don’t speak ill of the dead” is for your grandmother, not David Bowie. With famous people, sometimes the only time it’s safe to speak ill of them is after they’ve passed away, when they can’t sic their lawyers on you anymore. It’s a little weird with the PPD, because she didn’t become famous until after she was already dead, but whatever, she’s not the only one. Plenty of serial killers, for example, didn’t get found out until they’d passed away. Not that I’m calling her a serial killer. She isn’t. I’m just saying it’s okay to investigate.
So you want to know about the PPD. First, you should read On the Trail of the Phantom Prom Date, by Laura Moorhead. It can be sort of dry, but there’s lots of good stuff in there. Professor Moorhead traveled all over the country, collecting personal accounts from people who had really seen her. It’s a great starting point, and better yet, it includes the broad strokes of all the currently extant variations on the story. It may not be exactly the version that’s told where you are, but it’s a start.
Second, you should read our archives. Lots of people have shared their stories of seeing her, or seeing someone who looks enough like her that we’re still arguing about it. Get involved! We have a great list of highways and rest stops where she’s been seen in the last ten years, and if there’s one of them near you—especially if there’s one of them unclaimed near you—we’d love to have you start going out with your camera to see what you can see.
The only way we’re going to catch her is if we all work together, and only if we catch her can we find out what the truth really is.
—pinned forum post, user hitchhiking_host, real identity unknown
Chapter 18
The Spoils of Thievery
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL is a long hallway, dimly lit, the air smelling of dust and antiquity and orange grease remover. There are hints of spices, and ground stone, and other things I don’t have a name for. Pippa walks a few feet ahead of us before she turns, looking at us with absolute solemnity, and says, “You’re in it now.”
I stop, blinking. Laura takes a few more steps before she does the same. We wait, united by our silence, to see what the Dullahan will say next.
“No one is without sin in this world, and the British, for all that we’ve done wonderful things, might do well to trade Arthur for Robin Hood in our pantheon, because we’re some of the best thieves that have ever lived.” Pippa’s smile is proud. It fades quickly. “We walked the world like gods in our time, and we took whatever caught our fancy. The Earl of Elgin loved his marble, and he loved other people’s marble even more. So when he saw how much they had in Greece, well, can it really be considered a surprise that he went and took all he could carry, and a bit more besides? He never truly understood what he had stolen. He never realized he’d taken the gateway to someone else’s Underworld. We’ve been at war with the ghosts of Greece ever since. They’d like their things back. I can’t say as I really blame them.”
“The Elgin Marbles?” says Laura, disbelieving. “That’s how we’re supposed to get to the Underworld? Through the Elgin Marbles?”
“Did you think we’d have a big door marked ‘this way to face eternal judgment’?” Pippa shakes her head. “That would be the Egyptians, thank you. Luckily for us, none of the people who thought stealing a pyramid would be a great idea actually managed to succeed. The Marbles have enough weight, especially after what the last few wars have done to what’s left in Greece, that they’ll open the door for those who ask. Your katabasis begins here, if you don’t turn back. Turn back. Please, both of you, turn back, and leave this door unopened.”
I cock my head to the side. “You have to say that, don’t you?”
“I do,” Pippa says. “It’s part of the rite no matter what, but in your case . . . you don’t have a lyre and you’re not demigods. You have none of the things those who’ve come before you have used to make this journey successfully. The last three heroes who’ve come here to ask that the doorway be opened have never been seen again. Failure isn’t only an option: it’s a near certainty. I know you want this. I know you think this is the best way. Find another one. Don’t throw your lives away on a legend that wants nothing more than to swallow you whole.”
“This isn’t my life,” I say softly. “This is . . . this is a pretty lie Bobby Cross somehow forced on the universe. I don’t want it. I don’t want to wear it, I don’t want to live it, and most of all, I don’t want to start thinking of it as normal. I died. If I was supposed to have children, or challenge Apple for the Ocean Lady, or see the world, it doesn’t matter, because I died, and what I’m supposed to do now is help the people who crash before their time make it the rest of the way home. I can’t be what I’m supposed to be if I’m trapped inside this skin. I have to go.”
“I made a promise,” says Laura. “I’m going to keep it.”
“Ah,” sighs Pippa. “What fools these mortals be, indeed. Go, then, both of you, if that’s what you’ve set your hearts on doing. Go, and remember that you asked for this.”
“How do we get there?” I ask.
“Keep walking. Keep walking, and know where you want to be. You stink of the grave, Rose. You always will, as long as you’re shuttered in skin. So take that stink and show it to the road that’s meant for you, and walk on—assuming you still want to. You haven’t gone far enough for the way out to take notice of you. You can still turn back.”
“How long?” This time the question is Laura’s. I let her have it. She has so much more to lose on this journey than I do.
Pippa smiles. It’s not a kind expression. “Until you reach the first obstacle. Good luck.” She reaches up and removes the choker from around her neck. Her head tumbles off. She catches it as neatly as if this is something she does every day—which I suppose it probably is—tucking it under her arm. It’s still smiling. She’s still smiling. “You’re going to need it,” she says, and fades away, disappearing like she was never there.
I stare. “Fucker,” I say, a little stunned, and a lot angry. No, Apple never said our guide would go with us the whole way, only that they would know what we were supposed to do, but still. This feels rude and dangerous and unfair. This feels . . .
This feels like a test. I stand up straighter. I resist the urge to stomp my feet in anger. And I start walking, Laura by my side, down this dark hallway where we’re probably not supposed to be, where the threat of discovery has just become a lot more real, now that Pippa has gone and taken her ability to bend human eyes away from us with her.
I walk on.
* * *
Wherever the Elgin Marbles are, it’s not here, not in this back hallway where attendees aren’t supposed to go. But they’re close. They have to be, because as we walk, the hall begins changing around us. The shadows take on more substance, growing heavy as velvet curtains, until the walls disappear completely. The smell of the place changes as well, cleaning fluid giving way to a faint floral scent I can’t quite identify, while the smell of dust and age becomes grass and pomegranate.
I look down. The tile is gone, replaced by grass, thick and heavy with dew. The cool dampness follows on the heels of my recognition, and the last feeling of being enclosed in the museum falls away. We’re still in a narrow place: a tunnel, maybe, or a cave, winding down into the bowels of the world. The London Underground can only dream of descending as deep as this. I look up. Laura is pacing beside me, her mouth set in a thin, grim line, her eyes hidden by the reflecting circles of her glasses. She is unreadable, untouchable, and I’m scared.
“Katabasis,” says Laura. “It means a heroic journey into the Underworld. It was a common theme among the Greeks.”
“Which makes sense, given they apparently had a gateway to the Underworld just sitting around, waiting to be used.” The grass beneath our feet is getting thicker, and small white flowers have started to appear, their petals spread wide despite the subterranean darkness around us. There probably shouldn’t be grass here either. Does grass normally grow in caves? I start to stoop, reaching for one of the flowers.
Laura catches my arm, dragging me back upright. I shoot her a startled, offended look, more than half surprised that her fingers don’t simply pass through my flesh. I’m still getting used to being solid even when I don’t want to be.
“That’s white asphodel,” she hisses.
“Okay . . . ?”
“It grows in the Asphodel Meadows.” At my blank look, she sighs and lets go of my arm. “I don’t know why I bother. We’re both going to die down here.”
“That’s the idea, at least for me. What’s the big deal about a flower?” There are asphodel flowers incorporated into the tattoo on my back. Flowers just like these. They grow all over the twilight. I’ve never seen them in the living world before—assuming this still counts as the living world.