The Beautiful Dead

by Banner, Daryl

  “I could pull him apart and send him through the grinder myself, had I the chance.” I glare at the sky, a perpetual silver burn. Right now, the sky looks more steel than silver. “What if I were still alive, John?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what if I’d never died? What if I was just another member of this camp, living and breathing and all? What if I was one of you?”

  “You already are.”

  “I still don’t think your people trust me, not totally. They look at me as though I were made of fire and brimstone. Like I’m some messenger from hell.”

  “They listen to their fear, no matter what they see, no matter what they’re told.” He looks at me, his eyes heavy and firm. “It’s kept them alive this long.”

  “I wonder if I listened to my fear when I was alive. I think I listen to my fear more now that I’m dead.”

  And then John’s got a hand on my shoulder and a finger to his lips—reminding me exactly of the moment we shared in the tavern—and he’s all perked up, having heard something. Listening to his fears, I suppose.

  Then I hear it too. Crunching, snapping in the woods. With the blatant scarcity of wildlife in this world, any sound in the woods is significant and deadly.

  For one terrible moment I think: They’ve found us. I led the Deathless here, to the camp. I’ve killed all the Humans.

  Then Jasmine appears in the thicket.

  “Jasmine!” I cry out, rushing toward her like a little girl reuniting with her long-lost aunt. Really, it’s only been a day or two, but maybe a part of me worried I’d never see my friends from Trenton again. “You’re alive!”

  “As I’ll ever be, my rabbit,” she agrees heavily.

  I pull away. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” Her eyes fall on John, all the tension in her face releasing. “Oh, how I’ve longed to see you in the flesh … I can feel your warmth from here, young man! You’re a true miracle, to survive on this wretched land, so far from home. It’s my dearest pleasure to meet you.”

  “You’re Jasmine,” he concludes. “The gatherer from across the road.”

  “Yes, the one who kept you fed, the one and only.”

  I interject with a sudden concern. “Jasmine … How’d you find us?”

  “We Undead are drawn toward one another. It’s perhaps how you found your way back to Trenton after breaking free from the Deathless city. Sadly, it’s also how the Deathless found ours, I suspect.” She looks away for a short moment. “Nearly the moment you left, when all went to chaos in Trenton, I’d made my own escape from the south gates … It wasn’t difficult to find you.”

  “I’m glad you did, but—does that mean—”

  “No, they are not following.” Jasmine sighs, her entire face telling the whole of what she’s about to say, her slumped shoulders, the grief in her eyes. “Winter, I’m so sorry to tell you this, but the Deathless King has taken over Trenton and has made an offer for your head. For every passing hour that you are not returned, an Undead is turned to dust. Already before I’d left, two existences were ended. Hilda was one of them.”

  Hilda, the proud maker of dresses. One of the first friendly faces I’d met. The last time I saw her, she was gaping scandalously at the sight of my flesh-ridden forearm. The fact that I haven’t had a better last moment with her, that I’ll never have another moment with her again …

  I cling to my shirt like a child … Even the thing I’m wearing now is one of hers.

  “Grimsky is there,” she goes on, and I look up. “He’s at the Town Square alongside the King. I’m afraid his … I’m afraid his eyes were removed.”

  “Removed??” I manage to blurt out, almost too overcome with what I’m hearing to make sentences. “They’ve punished him for helping me. It’s my fault.”

  “He’s made his own choices too, my rabbit.” She puts a calming hand on my shoulder, but I pull away. My brain is just a bunch of noise right now—the world is furious and confusing suddenly. “And it’s not just Grimsky there. He also has a metal-legged man with him. I believe he is the executioner of sorts, though I don’t see a weapon.”

  “He is a Warlock,” I tell her matter-of-factly. “Did you know they exist? So endless, the list of surprising things in this world. I wonder what’s next … Goblins and trolls and bridge tolls.”

  “The Judge sent me to find you,” Jasmine explains, inspiring a snarl from me at the mention of her, “but not to turn you in. Winter, we need to end the Deathless reign once and for all, and you hold the key.”

  “How does she reckon that?” I ask acidly.

  “She didn’t say directly. Just mentioned something about what you did to the army in the Harvesting Grounds. Does that … ring a bell?”

  Yes, of course it does. The whole lot of them bowed before me like I was their queen. All I’d done was lifted a sword and commanded them to leave us alone. If it weren’t for the dwarf interrupting, I could’ve led them into a choreographed musical number for all I know.

  But I’d rather have torn off their heads. “Yeah, it rings a bell. But I don’t know what I did, or if I can do it again. Or more importantly, why they did what they did.”

  Jasmine just stares at me. So does John. Of course, neither of them were there, they have no idea.

  “Is there anything else I need to know?” I ask coldly.

  “No.”

  The three of us stand in silence for a while. I’m taking in all that I’ve heard. It’s such an effort in times like these not to just pull out your hair or pull off your face and run. And the fact that I could painlessly pull out my hair or off my face and survive is unsettling. The burden of this Second Life … even without knowledge of my First Life. It takes every bead of focus in my body to stay stoic, to appear strong, to not let my friends know that I am, within, a tumultuous storm of angst that can level a forest. It’s so tempting to just unleash it, watch it burn.

  “I know what I have to do,” I tell no one in particular. Staring at some stray blade of grass in the ground, some strong little thing daring to be alive in this ugly world, I say, “We cannot invade Trenton. They will capture the Humans and they will eat them. I’m turning myself in.”

  “The hell you are,” John blurts, his voice forceful and his eyes fierce. “I won’t let you.”

  “Yes, you will.” I can’t look at him. “Ever since I came into this world, everyone’s peace has been jeopardized. I befriended the enemy my first day. They took lives at the tavern. I gave them my first Raise, like some sick offering I hadn’t meant to offer. Now, the whole of Trenton and all these innocent Humans here—I can’t take it. I’m not going to take it. No more lives, do you hear me? That’s my ultimatum. No more lives.” I glare at John finally, whose expression has noticeably faltered. “I should’ve left myself at the Necropolis to rot in their cages. Escaping, claiming my own freedom … That was my mistake.”

  “It was not a mistake,” someone behind us calls out.

  We turn, the three of us, to find the little figure of Megan standing there with a bag hanging from her fist.

  “If you had not escaped,” Megan goes on, “I’d be dead. Eaten alive, maybe. The others, too. And you broke John out of the Trenton dungeons. You saved many lives already, Winter. And you’re gonna save a lot more when we break into your town and hack down that King!”

  “Please,” I tell Megan. “No more lives.”

  “I’m coming whether you like it or not,” she insists, “because this thing is about more than just you.”

  She doesn’t have to say it. I know the Deathless took her brother from her. Indeed, the dead have taken the world. What place can a living-anything claim that won’t by time’s devices soon expire anyway? It is everything’s final destination, no matter which paths are taken.

  “I have something to contribute,” she says. On quick feet, she rushes back into the camp and straight for the giant anvil that rests near a tree. She unburies something with her bare hands, replaces
the dirt, and quickly returns with a small wooden box. Clicking it open, she reveals three jagged jewels. I can’t quite tell what they are … precious stones, or just three shards of glass.

  “What are these?” I ask, running my finger along one of them. The color seems to react to my touch, strangest thing, appearing almost green for a moment. I’m taken by how pretty they are, how sharp.

  “I found them in the woods after my brother was taken,” she explains. “They seem to shine whenever one of them is nearby.”

  “One of them?”

  “One of … them,” she emphasizes, her whole face turning dark. “I think it belongs to them. Maybe it’s valuable. Maybe we could bribe them with it.”

  “Then chop off their heads,” I agree sweetly. The color of the glass … it has an unfortunate resemblance to the Warlock’s emerald eye. I remember it well. “I’ll keep these, if you don’t mind. I’d rather not a thing of value be risked in your possession, if a value it holds.”

  “I’ll leave a note for my mama,” Megan whispers.

  With the blunt point of a pencil, she leaves her parents a message written on tree bark. I don’t know what she writes, but it crushes my heart to think the sickening possibility that she’s written her final farewell to them. No one that young should be telling anyone goodbye forever. I consider ways of tricking her into staying, short of tying her to the tent, or knocking her out—yes I’ve even considered that. I wonder twenty ways to keep her here, to keep her safe.

  Sad fact is, nowhere is safe.

  I fetch a belt to which a few knives go, as well as a small sheath for my sword. I fasten Megan’s box of jewels to the belt, small enough as it is. After the others are armed with steel blades and a short axe stolen from the arsenal, Megan chooses this moment to ask a question. “Why do they eat people?”

  Checking that the box of jewels is fastened to my belt properly, I distractedly address her. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a reason they eat the living,” she says. “I know there is. So what is it?”

  I don’t know how to answer this. “Well …”

  “Does it give them special powers?”

  “Not exactly.” I suddenly find my belt to be very engrossing, double-checking everything fastened to it. “They do a lot of things they shouldn’t. They’re bad people, Megan.”

  “But they have to have a reason,” she presses on.

  “They have little reason,” I say. I’m fidgeting with the knives I’ve placed at my hip. Not looking her in the eye. “They took me for no reason. They took H-Helena and, and, and you, and … and for no reason, and—”

  “Do they turn back alive when they eat us?”

  I close my eyes, gripping the side of my belt tightly, squeezing, clutching. I mumble, “Not … completely.”

  “So you do know?”

  I take a short breath. A very short, very fake, habit-of-my-old-dead-life breath and say, “It makes you partly alive. It makes you see the sun and the sky. It makes you feel and taste and … and almost alive. That’s why.”

  Innocently, quietly, she asks, “How do you know?”

  When I face her, I realize she’s not the only one paying attention. Jasmine is watching, the action of securing a blade to her back paused. John’s stopped in the middle of weighing the short axe in his palm, his eyes on me intently, awaiting my answer.

  I could lie. I could say the Deathless King told me what eating Human does. I could say anything, but …

  “Because I’ve eaten some before,” I say instead.

  Jasmine covers her mouth, and the sight of it kills me. John, he has no reaction, as if still listening, as if still awaiting my answer.

  “I … didn’t know,” I explain to them, already seeing the damage I’ve done in telling the truth. “The King fed me a piece of … a piece of … I swear, I didn’t know.”

  Megan smiles finally, grips the small dagger in her hand and says, “I believe you.”

  Those little words, they would mean so much to me right now if it weren’t for how Jasmine is still covering her mouth, horrified … If it weren’t for John’s stony stare.

  “You didn’t know,” John says finally. I dare to meet his eyes. “Someone puts a person in front of you, and you don’t know what you’re eating?”

  “It was a piece!” I say, raising my voice, frustrated. “Just a little piece! I couldn’t identify it. I thought it was some sort of … fruit. I don’t know!—I had no idea it was a person!”

  “Of course you did!” John retorts. “I know what you want, what you’ve always wanted since I met you. You want to be alive. You want to taste, to … to see the sun!”

  “John, I swear to you, on my life, I didn’t know.”

  “You have no life to swear on,” he spits back.

  With the crunch of slow footfalls at my back, I turn. People from the camp have stirred awake and witness this exchange. Including the chief himself, crossbow in one hand, torch in the other.

  “I swear it,” I whisper, I squeak so quietly I can barely hear my own voice in the pitch dead of the woods.

  They all know, now.

  “This is so unfair,” I say, turning back on John. “I’m being punished, over and over, for things I can’t control. John, I can’t help what I am. I can’t help that the King of the Deathless lied to me and fed me something that—had I known—I wouldn’t have—”

  “Can you be so sure …?” he asks quietly, the short axe hanging heavy in his hand. “That had you known, you would’ve turned down the chance to be alive again.”

  “Almost alive,” I mumble. “It isn’t the same. It’s so, so not the same.”

  The chief watching with dark eyes, studying me. The people of the camp, all of them returned to the state they were in the first moment they saw me … Huddled, armed, scared, hateful.

  And John.

  “Fine,” I say, my tone changing. “This is how you felt about me the first day we met. A blood-hungry monster. Have it your way. I’ll be dead soon anyway. The real kind.” I give John the most scorching glare. “Better stay out of my way, just in case I’ve an appetite.”

  I shove past him shoulder against shoulder in my departure. He doesn’t move to get out of my way, and I’m gone. One foot after the other, I leave behind the camp and the Humans and something else I can’t name.

  YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF.

  Maybe I leave behind my humanity.

  Something I can’t name.

  And into the darkness of the woods I go, until the shadows and the night swallow me whole. I don’t look back. I’m just ready to throw away all I’ve done, to put this unlife to a meaningless and necessary end. Nothing was meant to endure this long, heartbeat or not. My time’s long come and gone.

  “Wait up, rabbit,” I hear her call out behind me.

  “Don’t bother,” I shout, marching forth.

  “You’re mad if you think you’re returning to Trenton alone!” Jasmine insists, catching up to my side. “And I don’t care what vile things the Deathless King made you do, I won’t leave your side.”

  “You’re a fool,” I tell her.

  “And I’m about to be a free fool.” She wrenches the blade from the sheath on her back. “Be ready for anything, my little rabbit. We’ve got a little Human with us, by the way.”

  I glance at my side, realizing Megan’s caught up to us too. Her eyes are full of tears, but she looks absolutely determined, her mouth pursed with conviction.

  “Megan, you shouldn’t come.”

  “You are not one of them,” she says, not meeting my eyes. Dagger gripped tightly in her hand, she adds, “No matter what you tasted or felt or saw. And all I want to taste or feel or see is a Deathless dying at the end of my steel blade.”

  “But really,” Jasmine interjects, “a sweet girl your age shouldn’t be talking like that.”

  Megan smiles darkly, I suspect taking Jasmine’s remark as a compliment.

  For the rest of the way, our little party
of three pass through darkness in silence, creeping as shadows creep. Through the woods until they are no longer woods.

  Until the wet banks of the lake turn into the dry, dirty plains of sparse trees and deadwood.

  Until the Whispers are upon us, vacant of its usual noise, quiet as death itself.

  Until the town of Trenton looms far away, then closer, then closer still.

  “Is that it?—Is that your home?” Megan says, her equal parts curious and frightened eyes gazing at the distant walls of Trenton.

  “Not yet,” I mutter.

  We’re coming at the city from an angle I’ve never seen. In fact, it is the far east side of town, a side that I hadn’t had the time to visit, and neither Grimsky the desire to show, even all our outings considered. Jasmine thought it the best way into the city, seeing as this small part of Trenton burned down long ago and was never again touched by the city. It’s abandoned, left to memory and dust. I suppose that’s consistent with the Trenton way: Toward anything unpleasant, turn the other cheek.

  Something inside me stings, wishing John were here with me.

  Then I scowl the thought away, huffing, and step through an enormous hole in the wall. We come upon a ring of homes—much like the little neighborhood I lived in—all of them burned up, hardly standing upon their own wooden legs. One house in particular seems to be the source of the fire, as though it were the setting for a great bomb. The one most blackened, even after all this time … Its roof and door bent out like an exploded heart, nothing within but splinters, shadow and death.

  “This is where she lived,” Jasmine whispers. “Malory, the magnificent. Malory, the magical.”

  Megan stumbles over the burnt remnants of furniture. I couldn’t possibly guess what these things once were … so burned beyond recognition as everything is. I want to pass through these houses quickly to get into the city, but a shiny thing catches my attention. I crouch down and pull it out from under a stone slab … It is a photograph. The rubble protected it somehow. Like the picture was meant to be found … Like it meant to endure. The face it shows, I’ve seen her before, but not sure where. Her beautiful face. Full lips and an unapologetic half-smile that seems both wickedly playful and innocent. I know this woman, this beautiful woman in the picture.