by Ameriie
“This isn’t a good idea,” says Death, but this is Grace’s day, bought and paid for with a life, and she will not surrender.
“It’s all right,” she says. “You’ll just have to be a fall sprite instead.”
In the distance, a fiddle begins to play.
A drum sounds steady as rain.
She takes Death by the arm. “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”
IX.
The festival sits with its back to the woods.
It is a circle of tents in shades of yellow and red, white and green; a platform of fiddlers and a pair telling stories and a dozen men and women with tables of food and drink.
The whole town is here.
Death has seen most of them already, making their way to the church that morning. That procession had been quiet, but now they whoop and cheer, their heads ringed with crowns, their lips brimming with laughter.
Death has never seen so much color, so much life.
The sun is high overhead, but men are already dragging dry logs from the forest and into the field, stacking them into a pyramid within a ring of stone.
A ring of stone just like the well, only there’s no drop into darkness, only matted grass and piled sticks ready to be set on fire.
And all the girls have flowers in their hair.
And all the boys have crowns of leaves.
And everyone is happy.
“Here,” says Grace.
She is holding out a piece of ripened fruit, the color of sunrise, and when he bites down, he remembers—laughter, an arm around his waist, lips against his skin. By the time he swallows, the memory is gone, fleeting as blue between storm clouds, but the warmth settles in his stomach, beautiful and sweet.
Someone starts to sing, and he knows that song.
He doesn’t know it.
He can’t remember.
But he can feel the place where it should be inside him, and when she sings the words, he feels them rising in his own throat.
The woman’s voice carries as she sings old songs, of sailors and seasides and runaway girls, the kind of songs that sound like the wind bent into shape and thrum through Death’s bones. An echo of an echo of something he knows. Knew. A flicker in his mind of another time, another name, a girl holding out her hand, and then he’s blinking back the stars of memory, the flares of light made by the light of Grace’s life throwing off embers beside him.
Grace holds out her hand.
“Dance with me,” she says.
And Death hesitates, but the music is stirring something in him, every chord plucking at a string inside his mind, and when she takes him by the arm, he takes her, too, and they are spinning, first in slow circles and then faster, faster, and in between the strings and the turns, he remembers—lifting a girl into the air, a crown of yellow in her hair, a fiddle and a far-off song—but then it is gone, and he is here, in his body, in his bones, in his life without a life, a mind without a memory, and he wants to find his way back, wants to see the girl’s face again, wants to feel more, more, more.
He laughs.
It is a strange sound, like a catching breath, a stranger feeling, like light in his chest, and he holds it close.
X.
They dance until dusk.
Until night falls and the music stops, and sweat darkens Death’s red hair and shines in the hollow of Grace’s throat. Her face is flushed and his is bright, and in that moment it is so easy to forget that he is Death and not just a boy with copper lashes and warm brown eyes.
She has seen him smile.
She has heard him laugh.
But the moment they stop dancing, she remembers.
He remembers, too. She can see it in his face. The flex of his fingers beneath the glove.
Just a little longer, she thinks. I want to see the fire. I need to throw in my crown. It’s bad luck, you know, if you don’t say good-bye to the spring.
“Grace,” he starts, but then the crack and hiss of catching wood sound out their own music, and everyone is moving toward the waiting logs, and they are caught up in the current.
It catches slowly, the crackle of kindling at its center, the tendrils of smoke.
And then it roars to life.
Death stands, wide-eyed, beside her, fire dancing in his eyes, and she reaches out and takes his hand, careful to choose the one with a glove.
XI.
Death closes his eyes and basks in the heat.
He can feel himself smiling.
“Does it make you happy?” asks Grace.
And he is not sure he remembers what happiness is, but then she brushes her lips against his jaw, a warmth as sudden and bright as sunlight darting between clouds. There and gone, but not gone the way it was before, not missing.
He wants her to kiss him again, wants to kiss her back, but she is already moving, reaching up for the crown of red flowers in her hair.
When she takes it off, a pinkish stain lingers on her skin, and Death reaches up with his ungloved hand and brushes his thumb along her brow. And she is rimmed with light, throwing up sparks like embers, and when she smiles, he can see the light behind her teeth, can almost feel its heat.
She snatches the crown of dead leaves from his hair and tosses them both into the flames.
“Come with me,” she says, and then she is pulling him away, away from the fire and the festival, away from the field, and into the woods.
They stumble through the trees, Grace in front and Death a step behind, and there’s a lightness in his chest, and between strides, when the breeze is cool and her voice is sweet, he forgets.
Forgets that he is Death and she is burning, forgets that there is only one way for this to end.
“Grace,” he calls after her, “slow down.”
He wonders if, after all this, she’s trying to run, but then she reaches a break in the trees and stumbles to a stop, catching her breath at the sudden swatch of sky.
And by the time he reaches her, she’s sinking to the ground, lying back against the mossy earth to watch the stars.
Death lies beside her, the moss going brittle beneath him.
“Listen,” she whispers.
As loud as the festival was, the forest is quiet.
“Thank you,” he says softly.
“For what?” asks Grace.
For the spring dance, he wants to say, and the taste of summer fruit, for the bonfire and the starlit woods, and the memory of a life before. He is holding fast to each, cupping them in his hands, but they are already falling through his fingers.
He is getting cold again, the heat of the day dying down to embers in his chest. And he is hungry, and he is tired, and it has gone on too long.
He draws the glove from his hand. Lets it fall to the ground, silent as a leaf.
It is time, he thinks, his bone fingers drifting toward her hand. He wishes he could cup her life in his hands without letting it go. Keep it warm between them.
But that is not how death works.
But then she turns her head, those blue eyes shining in the dark.
“I want to go to the well,” she says, and the words are so jarring that he pulls away, sits up. He thinks he’s misheard, but she continues on beside him. “They say it’s the place where the dead meet the living, where the living meet the dead. I want to call down to my mother.”
And Death doesn’t have the heart to tell her that’s not how it works, that there’s nothing at the bottom but cold earth and tired bones.
This is what she wants.
He has given her so many things.
He will give her one more.
XII.
It’s been seven years since Grace went to the well.
None of the lads were brave enough to even climb the hill, but grief is louder than fear, and up she went to call her mother back.
But her mother never answered.
Now she stands there, side by side with Death, looking down at the ring of stone, the hole carved deep into the eart
h like an open grave, a place caught between the living and the dead.
“It’s time,” says Death.
“I know,” says Grace.
“I’m sorry,” says Death.
“I know,” says Grace.
The boy leans down and unties the laces of his borrowed shoes, and Grace kicks off her own.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“I want to go down.”
Death shakes his head. “It is too steep.”
“I’m not afraid of falling,” she says. “I want to reach the bottom and press my lips to the cold earth and whisper to my mother. Will you show me how?”
Death looks between her and the well and then swings his leg over the side.
He turns, holding out his hand, and she looks into those wide brown eyes one last time before she pushes him in.
She half expects him to catch himself, to hover in the air, but he doesn’t.
He falls.
Down, down, down, like all those words she hurled into the well, the ones that came up wrong, and then she hears the sound of bones crashing against the moss-slicked side, a body hitting stone.
Then nothing.
Grace stumbles back from the well, from Death, and runs.
Her chest heaves, heart trilling like a bird as she races down the hill.
Through the woods.
Past the dying fire as the distant sound of midnight bells ring in the end of spring.
She has done it.
The day is over, her time has come and gone, and she is running home, sprinting through the tall grass, when her foot catches something hard and flat laid into the earth.
She falls, cracking her head against the tombstone.
Her vision splinters into shards of light.
There is something warm against her face, like a hand brushing her brow.
Just out of reach is a crown of pale flowers, and her fingers drift toward it as the bells end, and the stars go out.
XIII.
Death is a girl with blue eyes.
A girl with bare feet and a white dress stained by red farewells and spring storms.
A girl with blond hair escaping its braid and a streak of ash on one sharp cheek.
It is a cloudless fall day when she wakes at the bottom of the well, uncurling like a leaf in spring.
One hand is smooth fair flesh; the other, crisp white bone.
Slowly, she gets to her feet, smoothing her skirts from habit, though habit is a thing that comes from memory, and she cannot remember anything.
She tips her head to the sky far, far above, one simple truth beating behind her ribs.
She is awake, and so she is hungry.
She is hungry, and so she is awake.
JESSE GEORGE’S VILLAIN CHALLENGE TO VICTORIA SCHWAB:
Hades Wakes Up after Being Unconscious at the Bottom of a Well in Ireland
DEAR DEATH
BY JESSE GEORGE
Dear Death,
You scare me. You’re something that has taken me a long time to accept. I struggle coming to terms with what you’re capable of. Sometimes you’re expected; other times unexpected. You’ve taken people from me when I needed them the most. I have a few questions that I hope you can answer. Though I know deep down you’ll never be able to.
What is it like to wake up with a hunger that can only be cured by someone’s life? I can’t blame you for doing what you have to do, but I find it difficult to understand you. When you see the burning aura, do you ever question fate? Do you ever attempt to resist? Or is the raging hunger inside you too difficult to contain? You give in to your cravings. You’d think you’d be able to let your prey live a little longer, but at the end of the day you can’t show them grace, because you’re on a set track. Hand in hand, you walk them down the aisle to their destiny.
It must be difficult to perform your act when you begin to know the life you’re taking, though you make it seem effortless. You watch them before you cling to them. You observe who they are and what they’re all about. As you drink them away, do you see a slide show of their life? I can’t imagine that being an easy thing to partake in, yet you perform your act often.
Do you ever question yourself when they tell you “I’m not ready”? Does it ever slow down the process? They resist lacing their fingers with your bare-boned hand. They run from you, because in a way they feed on life, too. They’re fueled by moments, memories, experiences, and people.
They don’t want their time to end, so they resist you.
They resist their last dance with death.
Do you ever regret it? Do you ever look back and think you’ve made a mistake? That maybe they had a little bit more to give, a little more life to live? I often wonder if they stain your dreams. When you look up at the stars from the depths of your well, do you ever look at it as a display of the lives you’ve collected? After the sacrifice they’ve made for you, they still find a way to shine for you.
Do you ever stick around to see the aftermath? You climb out of the well and stroll out of the woods. The aura burns for you, and you feed. You feed on hopes, dreams, and memories. You feed on life. Do you linger in the shadows?
I’ll never forget the time I received the news, when you decided to make a strike on someone so close to me. I was taken aback. I fell to the ground breathing in the question “why?” Were you watching then? As tears streamed down my face and my heart shattered? The bond that once was, beginning to fade? I wish there were some way I could go back in time and intervene. To get on my hands and knees and beg and plead for another way. Any other way. Take me instead, let her live. Would you have even heard me? Or is the call of death too strong?
You inhale life but exhale chaos. You set off a ticking bomb of emotions. Loved ones of the taken receive the call of hard-hitting news. They’re taken aback as they attempt to come to term with the news. Reactions vary from cries of shock to overwhelming sadness.
When the church bells ring, do you ever wonder if it’s the start of the funeral of the life you fed on? Do you ever consider attending? I always wondered if you attended the funerals of my loved ones. If you snuck in and found a seat in the back. To pay your respects to the lives you took.
Even though you wreck hearts, you have a way of bringing people together. How do you do it? Do you even realize you’re doing it? People who’ve spent years apart come together to unite over the loss of a beautiful soul. I’m not sure I could ever grant you the title hero, but there are positive side effects to your madness.
Have you ever realized how many people fear you? Because I know, truly, that I am not the only one.
I hope this letter finds you well. I’m sure we’ll meet eventually, but hopefully not anytime soon.
— Jesse
MARIGOLD
BY SAMANTHA SHANNON
Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care;
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They’ll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep.
— JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, THE ERL-KING, TRANSLATED BY EDGAR ALFRED BOWRING
This is a tale of a prince and a princess, two men on a quest, two queens, and a maid named Marigold.
You might reasonably assume that these are the perfect ingredients for a fairy tale.
It begins in 1850, when the Erl-folk were in England. (History holds that they originally came from Scandinavia, but they have a habit of turning up in all sorts of places, at all sorts of times. Their royal family, like any, moves its court between seasons, and seasons, for erls, can last for generations in our world.) Some people said they were faeries. Some said they were men and women who had stretched their natural lives with alchemy, or by making pacts with the devil that had left them twisted beyond recognition. Some said they were the offspring of demons, while others declared them to be the vengeful spirits of the dead.
What was agreed by everyone in England was tha
t the Erl-folk were wicked. For when their pride is insulted or their territory trespassed upon, erls take something in return.
They take children.
Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, disappeared on September the third of 1850, when she was seven years old. When she scampered into the woods that morning, saying she had seen a perfectly lovely fox, her governess had pleaded with her to come back. The woods belonged to the Erl-queen. It was common knowledge. An unwritten law.
But Alice had always been too curious about people who were nothing like her, and Erl-folk had intrigued her since she was old enough to know that they existed. Later, people would doubt that she had seen a fox at all, but the red hair of the Erl-queen’s sprites.
The governess had called in vain. She had been certain, for an hour, that she could hear Alice singing; she had chased the voice until she was exhausted. A manservant found her lying beside a stream, cold as death and murmuring nonsense.
A search party was mustered, but the dreadful truth was soon apparent: Alice was gone. She was the latest in a long line of girls to be taken in a year.
The princess had been missing for a week when the Erl-queen’s son arrived at Windsor to broker a deal on his mother’s behalf. Queen Victoria had pleaded for Alice’s safe return and offered a trade to the creatures of the forest. The Erl-queen was welcome to any person in England in exchange for Princess Alice. Anyone at all.
It was assumed that a person of some importance would be required in exchange for the life of a princess, and that the matter would need lengthy consideration, but the Erl-queen’s son had made his decision at once. He had called her by name: Marigold Beath. No title. A servant in the household of the Sinnett family. Her employment had been an act of charity from the housekeeper, who had taken pity on a pretty orphan. Yet she, of all people, was known to the elves.
Eight girls missing, and now, by royal decree, the Erl-queen had Marigold.
Marigold was the ninth.
London, September 1850
Isaac Fairfax opened his eyes and beheld his moonlit image in the glass. How like his father he looked tonight; he could almost be his ghost. Grey eyes, a square jaw, and a hint of mustache. Marigold had always said how much she liked it.
