Cthulhu, I thought.
[A distant cousin,] the voice answered, in all seriousness.
I could only stand and blink, open mouthed.
What I was staring at, after all, was a pile of tentacles that filled the back wall of the enormous cavern in which I stood. And yet, they appeared to consist of mostly the tips.
If those are just the tips, I thought, how big is the rest of this thing?
[Big,] said the voice, chuckling again.
It was no fun having a conversation with something that could read your mind. Especially, I realized with horror, when at least a third of your mind is almost always thinking about either sex or food, or both.
That amused chuckle pushed through my brain, again.
Mortified, I took another step closer. “Who are you?”
[I lived before names,] it said. [But I am what I am.]
“Like Popeye?” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.
A tentacle lifted itself, causing me to skitter back. But all it did was flex, like it was a bicep. It was my turn to giggle.
[Do you know what you’re here for, little Jane?] the creature asked then.
“Blondie told me you chose me,” I said. “But I think you’re crazy.”
[Crazy?]
“You can’t be serious about me,” I told it, trying to make it understand the truth. “I’m not a fighter. I’m not anything. I work at a bookstore.”
[You’ve done quite a bit more than work at a bookstore, this past year,] the creature reminded me.
“But not by choice,” I said. “I didn’t want any of this.”
[Perhaps that’s why you’re perfect as a champion.]
“I don’t understand,” I said, meaning everything about this situation.
[Not all heroes are born, Jane. Some are made. And those bring with them a different insight. It is such insight—the insight of the person who has been outside, who has been, as you say, nothing—that is sorely needed right now.]
“But I don’t want this…”
[Perhaps you think so. But you must make your choice. And undoubtedly there are things that will sway you. Everyone has a weakness. Should we experiment?]
With that, one of the creature’s tentacles moved, slithering toward me. Knowing it could crush me with any of its many, many limbs, I tried to keep still and look brave. I think all I managed was to look terrified, but in the same place.
The thick, mottled tentacle tip flipped itself over with the paradoxical elegance of a hand model to reveal a large, flat sucker probably the length of my whole arm. Or one of my legs. But I had short legs, so that wasn’t saying much.
[What are your weaknesses, Jane True?] the creature asked.
At that question, two answers popped into my head, simultaneously. The first was: foot rubs. The second was: pastry. I kept both to myself.
“Is this a test?” I asked, “Like those tests you created that I went through outside?”
[I did not create any tests,] it answered, with a non answer.
“So you had nothing to do with those tests?”
[That’s not what I said. Now answer my question, Jane. What would seduce you? What would make you turn your back on your friends? Your family?]
I frowned. “What do you mean, turn my back?”
[I mean leave me be. Then Phaedra and her friends will have the opportunity to force my prison open. To “free” me. Unfortunately, my prison is vast. And built under much of your North America.]
“Well, then there’s not a lot you can offer me, if ‘turning my back’ means letting everyone I know and love be destroyed.”
[Ah,] it thought. [Are you sure?]
And with that, another one of those flat, mirrorlike sigil surface thingies appeared, floating over the creature’s enormous sucker.
[I can give you anything,] the creature purred. [How about wealth?]
And with that, the mirror’s surface showed an image of what I could only describe as the love child of Jane True and Paris Hilton. It was me, but so very, very not me. “I” was dressed in all designer gear, sitting in a limo and playing with a little dog that was dripping in as much bling as “I” was.
It was my turn to laugh. Seriously? I thought.
“If I wanted stuff, I would have just stayed with Ryu,” I told the tentacle.
[Ah,] it said. [Ryu. What if you could have a Ryu who wanted what you did? Rockabill, and a family, and domestic bliss?]
And with that the image shifted from Paris-Jane to an equally ridiculous image: Ryu, wearing carpenter-fit jeans and a flannel shirt, holding not one but two babies.
I laughed even harder. That’s not how things work, I thought, not bothering to try to control my laughter enough to speak. You can’t just change people into what you want them to be.
I didn’t comment on the fact that that’s exactly what Ryu had wanted to do with me.
[Very wise, young one,] said the creature. [But there are things I can change.]
And with that, the mirror showed Anyan as a dog. He was sitting, glaring at his own tail as if it might spring to sentient life and take off with his butt, when he suddenly sat up with what appeared to be an embarrassed look on his face. Then he was engulfed in a circle of green light, and then he was standing, a man again. And naked as a jaybird.
I admit it: I ogled. I ogled hard.
[I could give you your lover back,] the creature whispered, letting its magic surge to let me know just how powerful he was.
It was tempting to say yes, I admit. The thought of Anyan safe and sound was a powerful draw.
But he’d only be human and whole long enough to die with the rest of us.
“As much as I want Anyan back the way he was, I can’t take your offer,” I said, knowing I was doing the right thing but still wanting to kick myself all the same.
[How good you are,] the creature said, its voice arch. I snorted.
“Not good, just realistic. We’ll get Anyan back the way he was, when all of this is settled.”
[What about death?] was the creature’s next, unexpected answer.
“Sorry?” I asked, not understanding the question.
[What about death?] it repeated. [What if I could bring, say, your mother back from the dead?] And with that, the mirror showed me Mari, my mom, laughing. She was wearing her red wrap-dress, the hand-me-down that I still wore. She had my eyes, my figure. I noticed, however, that my nose was my father’s, for he had joined her in the mirror. Obviously, he was older than her now, but—because of the goblin healer’s intervention—still healthy. He embraced my mom, his arms tight around her, as she hugged him back. They stayed like that, frozen in the tableau that had been my greatest childhood fantasy.
“You can’t do that,” I whispered.
[Can’t I?] the creature asked. And this time, the wave of power it unleashed actually did bring me to my knees. I went ahead and stayed kneeling.
I had to admit, it was tempting. The sight of my father’s face was what did it: He looked so happy, and I knew he would be that happy.
But for how long? asked my rude, ever-practical brain. Even if this thing can bring you back your real mother, the point is it’ll be your mother. And she will leave, again. She can’t stay with you on land. She couldn’t the first time, and she wouldn’t the second.
What if she’s brought back different, so she won’t leave? whispered an ugly, selfish part of my brain.
Then she won’t really be your mom, the rest of me replied, knowing it was true even as I thought it. And you don’t get to bring back somebody already dead, mourned, and survived, at the expense of so many living.
My dad had survived the knowledge of my mom’s death, but he wouldn’t survive knowing bringing her back had killed so many others. He was a good man.
I also knew the creature had been party to my little mental conversation, so I didn’t bother replying when I looked back up to the mirror to watch my happy fake-parents swirl away like ghosts. Sitting back on my
heels, I hung my head.
[So strong you are,] the voice whispered. I couldn’t tell if it was mocking me or not.
“No,” I replied. “Just practical.”
[Is that it?] the creature asked. [Even practicality breaks…]
And that’s when the creature pulled its sucker punch.
“Jason,” I breathed, feeling my body tense as I stared into the mirror.
For Jason stared back. Not Jason as I’d last seen him, as an eighteen-year-old boy, but Jason as he should be now, had he lived.
Had you not been the death of him, whispered that tiny, traitorous sliver of my mind. It had been quieted, but never completely silenced.
The handsome, golden boy I’d known had become an even more attractive man. He’d have been only twenty-seven, but already crow’s feet wrinkled the corners of his eyes.
He always did spend too much time in the sun, and too much time laughing, I thought. Then I shook myself. That’s not Jason. Jason is dead. He never got to earn crow’s feet, or anything else.
Certainly not those sun streaks in his blond hair, or that filled-out body that had grown thicker and manlier. He looked like a young lion when he smiled at me with that same easy, happy smile I’d known so well. I took a step forward.
I couldn’t help it.
“That’s not fair,” I said.
[Has the world ever been fair?] it asked. [Especially to you?]
“Quit trying to manipulate me like this. You can’t do any of these things. They’re impossible. I don’t know what game this is you’re playing, but it’s over.”
[What about what you want, Jane?] it asked, as if I’d never spoken. [It’s never about what you want. Why not take something for yourself, for once?]
“I only want to stop Phaedra. I want to keep everyone safe.”
[Such a martyr. And a liar. I know you want things… You needn’t lie to me. To yourself.]
“What would you have me do?” I shouted, frustrated. “What we want doesn’t always matter! Who do you think you are?”
[I’m someone who can give you back your love,] the voice whispered. And then Jason stepped out of the mirror.
He walked toward me. I was rooted in place, shock filtering through my system like a thousand lightning bolts.
When he reached out to touch me, I was glad to be already sitting on the ground because I would have crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut. Jason only crouched down to my level, a patient expression on his face. His hand on my shoulder was gentle as those achingly familiar blue eyes searched my face.
I waited for the questions I thought he’d ask: Where was I? What happened? What was going on? But Jason only stayed crouching, smiling.
“Jason?” I asked. His smile broadened, his eyes twinkled.
I reached out tentative fingers to touch his chin. Rough, warm skin met my fingers and I shuddered. “Is it really you?”
His only response was to move his chin downward so he could kiss the tips of my fingers. His lips felt like they always had.
For a split second, I imagined launching myself into Jason’s arms. I knew they’d be warm, and solid, and they’d feel just like Jason’s.
But they weren’t really his.
“He’s not real,” I said, although I allowed myself to stroke a hand over Jason’s body’s rough cheek, so achingly familiar yet so strange—a combination of memory and fantasy.
[Why would you say that?] asked the creature.
“Jason was always the talker,” I said, smiling sadly. “I was the quiet one. If he’d been in the ground for ten years, he’d be yammering like a skipping CD right now.”
[You’re right. But I can give his shell all of your memories,] the creature crooned, his mental voice seductive. [He’ll be the Jason you remember, down to the last detail.]
“But they’re my details,” I said, standing up and brushing myself off. Jason’s body echoed my movements, still smiling sweetly at me. “That’s not the same as the real Jason. I loved him partly because he was always surprising me. He’d never surprise me again if I made him up. Besides, the real Jason would still be dead.”
[You wouldn’t have to remember that fact,] said the creature.
“What do you mean?”
[I could wipe your memories. Put you back where you were before Jason died. Take you far away from this place, set you up as a family. You’d remember only life and love, and you’d be together.]
While the creature was talking, Jason’s body had moved along beside me and put an arm around me. Meanwhile, the creature played out his offer using that damned mirror. Jason’s body held me while I watched the creature’s promises play out in front of us. I felt like I was in a bizarre, supernatural version of The Price Is Right.
In the mirror, Jane sat at a small table on the verandah of a log cabin. Interestingly, it looked mighty similar to Anyan’s. Jason soon joined her, carrying a big platter of something. He sat it down in front of Jane, calling into the house as he did so. Two little girls, one dark and one light, came carrying their own smaller plates out to join their parents. They all sat down together, Jason eating off Jane’s plate as he almost always had in life, while the four talked animatedly, if silently.
In my heart of hearts, if I was honest, I knew I would have given anything for that picture to have been a reality.
But instead I shook my head, stepping away from the warm, strong arm of Jason’s body.
“It’s not real,” I said. “And it can’t be real. I would have loved for that to have come true, but it didn’t. Jason died, and I’m a different person now.” Almost as if to prove my point, the figures wavered and then disappeared, leaving only the replica of Anyan’s cabin sitting alone in the mirror.
[But it could be real. I can make it real, for you,] came that seductive whisper.
“Only by destroying me,” I said, almost sadly. “I’m not that Jane anymore. And, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d want to be her. She was sweet, but she wasn’t able to cope with things. I like being who I’ve become,” I said, realizing that fact for myself only as I said it for the first time.
I really do like who I’ve become, I thought, much to my evident surprise.
“And again,” I said quickly, before the creature could up his ante any more, “I don’t get to choose my happiness over others’ lives. That’s not my right. Nothing you can offer me will change that fact.”
First, Jason disappeared. For all my brave words, my heart wrenched at the sight of him fading away. Then, the mirror disappeared from above the creature’s enormous sucker, and its tentacle slithered away. Finally, all the tentacles began slithering. Left and right they went, untangling themselves to reveal another door in the opposite wall.
This door was black, not white, and it was carved with all sorts of Alfar symbols.
Exit all hope, ye who enter here, I conjectured upon their translation. They stayed shut as I neared, and I had to push my way through them. They were heavy, but I managed to push them open by putting all my weight into it.
Call that service? I griped, mentally, only to come to a halt as soon as I’d crossed the threshold.
For I’d come face to cornea with one enormous fucking eyeball.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The eye blinked at me. I blinked back.
Like my own, the eye was jet black. Unlike my own round orb, however, this one was more a horizontal slit—like an enormous subtraction sign. And it was huge: The eye itself, along with the round, slightly protruding socket in which it was housed, was larger than the entire length of my body. The skin around the socket was green-gray, but then it flashed orange, and then brown.
Like a chameleon, I thought as it blinked at me again, and I blinked back. Or an enormous octopus.
[Come around, Jane,] said that warm, sonorous voice in my mind. [Come around and see my home.]
I sidled past the eye, which watched my progress. Only then did I realize it had been moved around in its socket, and that I�
�d come in through some sort of side entrance.
Once I’d moved around in front of it, I peered around the room. It had once been white marble, like the others I’d just been in, but it was now streaked with algae, lime, salt, and sand. Partially that was because there was a lot more water here than there had been. Water ran down the rock walls, like natural fountains, spilling into pools here and there, or dripping out onto the floor. All that water made it look a lot more like a natural cave than those other overly white spaces had. Similar to that last room, however, this one also had tentacles piled around, here and there. They pulsed and twitched occasionally, but were otherwise still.
Also like those other rooms, this one heaved with power. Yet the power was slightly different, somehow. The other rooms had been Alfar, laced with something else… Here, I just felt that “something else.” It felt a little like Terk’s brownie magic, or Nell’s power when she tapped into the old magics, but more concentrated. More like Blondie’s power, actually, but still not exactly that.
[It’s the wild magic,] the voice said. [Older than old, it’s the first magic. Tapping into the elements themselves, not just the elements’ radiated force.]
I turned back to the eye. “I guess that would make sense, since you’re so ancient. So’s your power.”
The creature chuckled in my head, and I had the odd experience of watching the mottled green-gray skin around the creature’s eye crinkle in amusement and flash brown, until the laughter in my head ceased.
[You are a practical little creature, little one. And so calm.]
I shrugged. “This past year has been all about the surprises. I’ve learned to roll with change.”
[Aren’t you frightened?] it asked.
“Of course,” I admitted. “But you could have killed me at any point, couldn’t you, since I’ve been in your home. Plus,” I hazarded, having formed a hunch from having the creature in my mind for these past few hours, “you were the one possessing everyone, weren’t you?”
There pulsed a feeling of agreement in my head—less language and more a sense of affirmation.
“I thought so. So, if you’d wanted to kill me, you could have just possessed me and made me dash my brains against a cave wall, or used that sword to kill myself instead of that bird. Which was a dastardly little trick, that bird.”
Eye of the Tempest (Jane True) Page 22
