by Shaye Easton
“You’ve said that already.”
“I know. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I have no parents.” The words are out before I’ve even thought them, but now I realise they’re true. “Sara’s father is dead. Kathryn is dead. I can’t see my mum and dad again.” In my head, more things add themselves to the growing pile of disasters: I have no home, I lost my powers, I’m wearing the wrong body and I can’t get mine back. How is it possible for so much tragedy to befall one person in such a small window of time?
I know Caden can see the thoughts speeding around in my mind; I bet they’re reflected in my eyes, on my face, spread out like words in a book, waiting to be read by anyone. I can’t control it. I can’t control anything. All the good things in my life are leaving me. They’ve been flung out just far enough that I can’t reach them, but still close enough for me to be able to see them. They taunt me: a family who lives in the same town but whom I can never visit; a body which resides under the same roof but that I can never return to; a set of powers which were stolen and are now in the hands of someone I’m related to by blood.
When I go to take a breath, I find the air isn’t enough. I gasp, my heart raging in my chest, hungry for oxygen. The cold air bites my mouth is like knives in my throats and lungs. How do people put up with this? How could they not hate me for doing this to them?
“Melissa, you’re spiralling.” In an instant, Caden’s out of the doorway and down with me on the icy front steps.
“I’m fine,” I say, and it’s stupid, because we both know I’m not and why.
“You need to take a deep breath.”
“I’m trying, Caden. Can’t you see I’m trying? There’s just—there’s not enough—”
He takes my hand.
It invokes a knee-jerk reaction. I rip my hand back, horrified by the touch.
“Melissa, it’s fine. You won’t burn me.”
When he takes my hand again, I stare down at it, at the skin against skin. It’s the simplest of things, but it has the biggest of impacts. I’m not burning him. Just like that, I’m calm.
His hand is smooth, strong and warm despite the cold. But the more I stare at it, the more wrong it feels. Because it isn’t my hand in his. It’s Sara’s. It’s Sara’s fingers threaded through his fingers, Sara’s skin against his skin. And I hate it. It makes me sick. I take my hand back and stuff it into the pocket of my hoodie.
He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.” It’s not stupid this time. I can’t tell him.
“It’s me, isn’t it?”
I actually jolt at the suggestion. How could he possibly think—?
“You know what I am now. You’ve seen my abilities.”
His abilities? At once, an image flashes in front of my eyes: Kira, pained and tense, dark spidery veins crawling over her skin, eyes bludging and bleeding, body convulsing and dropping to the ground, dead. I shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the image, but now that I’ve recalled it, it won’t go away.
I swallow. “I’m not afraid of you, Caden.”
“Maybe not. But it sickens you, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t, I—”
“Come on, Melissa. I can see it on your face.”
I look away. I hate to admit it but he’s right. Whenever the image of Kira’s bleeding eyes and dark-veined skin rises, I have to fight to keep the bile out of my throat. Whatever Caden did to her was dark, ugly and horrible. Kira died in terrible pain. Even after all she’d done, I would never have wished it on her.
My voice is quiet when I finally speak. “Your ability—what is it?”
He stares out at the road, self-loathing spread thickly over his features. “It’s revolting, that’s what. It’s like a great cosmic joke. An overwalker who’s built to protect life, with a power that can only take it away.”
“You mean—” I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s too awful.
The world hushes, waiting. When he speaks, it rattles me to my core. “My power is death.”
Suddenly the air feels colder and heavier than before. The snow melting through my socks bites viciously at my toes. The damp concrete step is like ice against my bum. The sunlight, once so bright and cheery, feels pale and weak.
Death. His power is death.
“And the worst part is,” he continues suddenly, “aside from the guilt, I actually like it—I like the way I feel when I kill someone that way. It’s like every inch of light and warmth is drained from the world, and it makes me feel strong. I’m a monster. I make myself sick.”
We’re sitting close enough that I can feel the heat of his body through our clothes. I give him a nudge. “You’re not a monster.”
He shakes his head. “I am. All spectres are. You’re the only one that’s good.”
This again. I laugh and the sound is bitter and full of self-pity. “That’s not true at all. I hurt everyone around me. All those spectres who died in that awful fight, that’s on me. Kathryn’s death is on me. Rand. Sara. You. Everyone’s hurt, that’s all on me too.”
“Why would you e—”
“I did this, Caden,” I say, and guilt clamps down over my heart, making each beat sharp and painful. It hadn’t occurred to me to feel guilty, but now it hits me full force. “Dozens of lives were lost, both overwalkers and underwalkers, because I decided to take a bloody field trip to Underwalker HQ. I did this. It’s my fault.”
Caden stares. “You need to stop blaming yourself for things you can’t control.”
I find the suggestion appalling. “Is that what you do? Just pass off the blame?”
He exhales slowly. “No,” he admits, at last, “but I wish I could.”
I do, too. But our guilt is our humanity—it’s the good in us rebelling against the bad. And even if it kills me, I’m not letting that go. Without it, we really would be monsters.
***
Later, as evening settles over the town and the lights flick on like glow worms in the dark, Elodie pulls me aside to fill me in on what happened while I was unconscious.
She tells me it’s Tuesday, two days since everything went down, and the feeling of disorientation I’d been dragging around with me all day finally clears. Both Sara and I were in a bad state after swapping back. My body was still recovering from nearly being frozen to death, and hers was bruised, broken and burned after I took it for a joy ride through a spectre battleground. Elodie had taken it upon herself to keep an eye on us, even though any one of the Ring’s Summoners could have done it for her. And when our conditions failed to improved, she called in a healer.
With the healer came news of Rand, who’s now apparently healed and well. He’s taking care of some overwalker business elsewhere. Elodie doesn’t elaborate and I don’t want to know. With every morsel of information revealed to me regarding the state of things in the aftermath of that dreadful night, I feel my insides clenching and writhing with nausea. I’m sure Elodie notices the stricken look on my face, but she pushes on anyway, dolling out stats on overwalkers injured, overwalkers killed, overwalkers still missing in the rubble.
Eventually, she turns the full force of her gaze on me and says, “I hope you understand why, now more than ever, we need your help.”
I simply shake my head. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“It’s your visions, Melissa. They’re crucial. How do you think we found you at that godforsaken building? If you hadn’t told me the details of your vision at the convening of the Ring, we’d never have known where you’d gone.”
“And all those people wouldn’t have been killed,” I say quietly.
Elodie doesn’t look even close to sympathetic. “This fight was always going to happen, one way or another. Every spectre who fought this weekend knew there was a chance they wouldn’t make it out alive. Your vision, while contributing to their death, was not the cause of it. That blame belongs to no one but the evil in the underwalkers’ hearts.” She lets this sit w
ith me before asking, “Do we still have a deal? Will you join us?”
I look down at my hands. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
“Of course you can. No one would even think about turning you away.”
I can’t believe she’s missed the mark so spectacularly. “It’s not that. I have no powers. Davion took them.”
Elodie’s eyes widen. Then she smiles, chuckling with amusement.
“Melissa, no one can take someone’s powers, never completely. You’re a spectre, and a spectre is defined by his or her connection to the otherworld. That doesn’t just go away. You may have lost your predisposition to certain abilities, but you still have that connection. You still have power.”
She stands, pushing the chair back from the table. I look up at her, now towering over me. “Then how come I can’t feel it?”
“That’s simple,” she says, tucking the chair back in, collecting her bag off the floor. “You have a block. You can’t access your powers because you believe they aren’t there. All you have to do is get rid of that mindset and we’re back in business.”
She’s started for the door and I follow quickly after her. “What are you doing? You can’t go. I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s something only you can figure out, Melissa.” Elodie swings the door open and stops. “Call me when you’ve got them back. In the meantime, I have places to be. I’ve hung around here long enough.”
I stare at her, mouth flopping open, unable to form words. She can’t leave me like this. She has to help me. She has to fix me.
I run after her down the front path, intent on her telling her this. But when I finally catch up to her at the gate, nothing comes out.
Elodie smiles, her black eyes shining in the glow of the streetlights. “Tell Caden and Sara goodbye for me?”
She steps out into the dark of the evening and is gone.
Chapter Forty-Six
For the next three days, Sara is completely silent and spends most of her time holed up in her room. The loss of her mother has been harsh on her, even if she didn’t seem to have the best relationship with Kathryn. Ever since that first morning after we swapped back, she hasn’t looked at me. She won’t, it seems. I can’t say I blame her; every time I look at her, I see only myself, and it gives me a migraine.
Since Sara is perpetually MIA, Caden and I take care of the household, preparing meals and cleaning dishes and doing laundry. Without an adult around to tell us what to do, none of us are inclined to go back to school. I especially can’t stand the idea, not after everything we’ve been through. Not after all that’s changed. And even if I could get past all that, everyone at Southlake High would take one look at my appearance and think I’m Sara.
It’s a Friday, and we’re all eating lunch in the dining room when Rand returns from wherever he’s been, healed and full of energy like nothing ever happened. He’s in a joking mood, and all his cheerfulness clashes harshly with our despondency, but still, we all sit and talk politely with him. I suspect all the cheer is just for show. Every now and then, his smile will slip, or he’ll have to hide a shaking hand under the table. He’s trying to make us feel better, even as he himself grieves for the loss of his friends. It’s an ungrateful thought, but I really wish he’d stop.
Eventually, he claps his hands together and announces we’re leaving.
Sara, who’s eating a sandwich, freezes mid-bite. “Excuse me?”
“Not forever,” Rand assures, hand raised. “It’s just for tonight.”
“Why?” Caden asks. “What’s happening?”
He ignores the question, telling us instead to get into our warmest clothes and meet him out front. With no opportunity to argue, and with curiosity burning away inside each of us, we do as he says, allowing him to pack us into the black four-wheel drive. Again, Caden asks where we’re going but all Rand says is, “Don’t worry. It’s what we all need.”
We drive away from Kathryn’s house, heading down road after road of suburban houses, squashed in next to each other with little room to breathe, and then off the town’s quiet streets and onto a highway filled with the beeping and revving of travellers. Soon, Corven Lake dwindles behind us, dissolving into the bush and looming hills, the road cutting through red rock as it takes us away from home.
We spend the drive in silence, each of us content to observe the scenery and to try to forget our worries. Everything feels surreal like I’m dreaming, like I’ve somehow tumbled out of my own life and into someone else’s. I suppose I kind of have.
As the afternoon is fading to dusk, we pull off the highway and onto a smaller road that leads deeper into the Australian bush. The setting sun lights up the silver leaves of the gum trees, paints the patchy beige trunks a pale, dusty pink. We soon slow down, coming to a stop on the dirt shoulder of a small turn-off road.
“We walk from here,” Rand says, pushing open his door and stepping out. I do the same, my feet hitting the leaf-littered dirt with a crunch. No snow here. Sara slides out silently, eyes on the clear sky.
The air is bitter and smells strongly of eucalyptus and wet earth. Despite the fact we’re not talking or looking at each other, Sara’s been lending me clothes. Each morning I find a new jacket or jumper laid out for me on the end of my bed. Today she left me a dark, woollen coat, and I wear it above my navy hoodie, my hands in the large pockets. Even with all the layers, I still manage to be cold. I’m always cold, it seems, like nature is trying to make up for the thirteen years of winter I failed to feel. I don’t think I’ll ever be anything else.
Fifteen minutes later, I spot people through the trees, milling in a small clearing by the edge of a cliff. We pass a wooden post that calls it the Valley-Lookout Camping Ground. When we reach them, I see the valley and surrounding hills spread out before us, all of which are covered in a thick green-and-gold forest. The sight lit up by the glow of the dying sun is so incredible that my eyes nearly miss the towering pile of wood and sticks assembled in the centre of the clearing.
“Rand,” someone says as we enter the crowd. Rand smiles, hugs and claps arms, weaving through the people like it’s a family reunion. But the more I look at everyone’s faces, the more I realise that that’s far from the case. Everyone here wears the tell-tale signs of grief: downcast expression, sombre voices and eyes shiny with unshed tears. Snippets of conversation reach my ears and they are all awkward small talks like people are using it to shield themselves from the scarier talking points.
Caden, Sara, and I stop before the unlit bonfire and look up at it in silence. Across the clearing, I spy Elodie, surrounding by other members of the Ring. She steps forward, clearing her throat, grabbing everyone’s attention. When she speaks, her voice is loud, strong and crisp. “If everyone can be quiet, we’ll start.”
Once the talking dies down, she nods at a man to her right. He’s dark-skinned with black-framed glasses and keeps all his weight on one leg. He picks a log up off the ground and says, “This is for Charlotte Gregson.” After solemnly throwing the wood onto the centre pile, he and a few others share some words about Charlotte before the ceremony moves on to someone else.
Now, as my eyes return to the massive tower of logs and kindling, it hits me. This isn’t a bonfire. It’s a pyre. This is a funeral.
More people step forward to speak, tossing more wood onto the pile. I realise a ring of logs has been left out specifically for this purpose and do a quick count. Twenty-eight. The exact same number of casualties from last weekend.
The person beside me finishes speaking and suddenly it’s our turn. I look at Caden and Sara, both staring fixedly ahead. “We should say something, right?”
In the quiet, my voice is particularly strange. Sometimes it shocks me—its tone and cadences so unlike those I’m used to. Sometimes it makes me flinch, thinking someone else has spoken. I know I sound different to how Sara used to sound—I’ve brought with me my own pronunciations and syntax but it still seems so wrong coming from my lips.
“Sara?” Elodie asks once our silence has gone on for some time. “Did you want to say some words for Kathryn?”
Sara swallows and looks down at the dirt, my dark hair falling into her eyes. Except it’s not my dark hair anymore, and I have to stop thinking it is. “She wasn’t even my mum,” she says softly, and her voice is like the wind whispering through the leaves.
“Are you sure you don’t want to say something?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Sarah snaps.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Other people in the crowd chip in, sharing anecdotes and saying kind words, and soon they move on to mourn someone else. For a while, it feels like we’ll never run out of people to grieve. But then, abruptly, the words dry up.
A minute passes during which everyone just stares at the funeral pyre, the shared feeling of grief and solemnity weaving between our figures. Somewhere out there, Kathryn’s form lies silent, her spirit having already departed for whatever lies beyond this realm. It’s crazy to think that this person, who had been living and breathing, who I’d looked at and spoken to, who gave birth to me and raised me for the first four years of my life, is now gone. Her life winked out like a candle’s delicate flame. One moment here and the next—Elsewhere.
I shiver. Everyone seems transfixed, dazed and lost. All thought of setting fire to the wood before us having set fire to itself. The silence has morphed into a thick, cloaking thing around us, growing heavy to the point of tangibility. No one seems to want to reach out and break it; and furthermore, no one seems like they can.
At last, Elodie steps forward, lighting a match. Sara closes her eyes, murmuring something so softly that it doesn’t reach my ears. Then the match hits the pyre and the kindling catches the flame. The flame finds fuel and it’s like a chain reaction, the entire pile of wood quickly engulfed by a mindless dancing fire. The flames grow larger and larger, spinning dizzyingly up into the sky like orange ghosts leaping into the mysterious abyss, and we all step back, a blast of heat driving away the wintry cold. Around me, everyone’s faces flicker red then gold, red then gold.
