by S. C. Green
May reached down, and with her beak, she slid out the pipe, inch by slow inch, and tossed it aside. It disappeared below us and landed with a faint clatter between the rushes of air.
“Th-th-thank you,” the man choked out, his voice hoarse. The wind whipped his words away.
I grabbed his other shoulder, clambering on just as the portal opened up beneath us, and the three of us dropped away.
The factory disappeared into darkness. We fell through nothing, dropping the man onto the yellow sand that rose up to meet us. I glanced around. Yes, this was the place. May really had brought us to the underworld without the Mimir.
“That’s amazing,” I said once May and I took our human forms again.
“I know.” She grinned, her pale features bursting with colour.
My heart soared to see that smile, even more brilliant in reality than it had been in all my dreams.
“Where am I?” the man asked, his hand on his throat as he dusted sand from his stained overalls.
“We don’t have much time,” May said. “Soon someone will be here to take you away, and I can’t follow you there. I know you didn’t show yourself to harm us. You wanted to say something. Do you have a message? A warning?”
“A warning,” the man’s voice rasped, his fingers still scratching at his throat. His words shuddered through my body as though I really had scraped my teeth against metal.
“There are secrets—” he choked out.
“What secrets?” I demanded, impatient. We had only moments before someone would arrive to take him.
“The dome … hides more than the wraith. It hides … truth.”
May’s dark eyes narrowed. “What truth?”
The man clutched his throat, struggling to force out the words. “It wasn’t … an accident.”
Behind him, I made out the shadow of a figure walking slowly toward us.
“What wasn’t an accident? This doesn’t make sense!” May cried. She grabbed the man’s shoulders and shook him.
“May, we have to go.” I tugged on her sleeve.
She didn’t move, just kept asking over and over what the man was talking about. He kept trying to speak, but all that came out now was a dry, hacking rasp.
The figure drew closer, cloaked in black, its features indiscernible. A pale, feminine hand reached out toward the man. At any moment he would see her, whoever she was. Someone from the dead spirit’s past always came to greet them in the desert – most of the time the reunions were happy ones between long-parted spouses or parents. Other times they were horrific – murder victims met with their murderers, abusers came face-to-face with those they had wronged, bullies came to gloat over the deaths of their rivals. The things people did to each other in the afterlife … Sometimes Reapers went mad after witnessing these first meetings. That was why the Order had a hard and fast rule – get out before the escort arrives.
“May!” I jabbed my finger over the man’s shoulder.
The figure was close enough to touch the man. He still hadn’t noticed her, too intent on trying to speak. Two white hands extended from the figure’s black robe and folded back the cloak, revealing an old woman, her face creased with age, her eyes sparkling with joy. On her finger, a gold wedding band shone in the dim light.
“Shit.” May jerked back, calling up the portal again.
It appeared behind us, whipping up the sands as it shimmered into existence. I shielded my eyes against the bright light that called us back to the lands of the living.
The ghost called after us, but the wind tore his words away. We fell backward, the winds whipping around us, dragging us back into the portal. The last thing I saw before the desert fell into darkness was the man and woman embrace.
Down we fell, hurtling through space and time. The journey took both an instant and a lifetime. My feet hit the steel grate of the gangplank. I reached out to steady myself as I regained my balance. Strong hands gripped my shoulders and righted me.
“Watch yourself.” It was Alain, his voice like velvet.
I slumped against him. I hadn’t been so close to him since I’d seen him again. His woodsy smell invaded my nostrils, bringing with it a flood of memories and feelings I’d been too afraid to unleash. My mind still reeled with the image of the man and woman embracing, reunited after all this time. Tears streamed down my face.
“Whoa.” Alain steadied me, his concerned gaze searching my face. “Are you okay? Did something go wrong?”
“No.” I sniffed. “I...”
In an instant, I was back in another moment. Our first date. Alain had been aloof at dinner, keeping me at arm’s length the way he did, saying little, making me do all the work. When the main course came, we got into an intense debate about the morality of eating meat. The waiter had to tell us to keep our voices down or we’d be asked to leave. I didn’t know that he was just nervous, of course, but then I was bitterly disappointed. We were walking home along the river, awkward silence hanging between us, and I was wondering why I’d ever been attracted to this guy, when he wrapped his arms around my body and kissed me with such intensity my stomach dropped to my knees. Alain said more in that single moment, his lips pressed against mine, than he had the entire evening.
That look in his eyes right now--it was the same Alain, buried beneath all that fire and rage. He still cared. He still cared about me.
Hope welled up inside of me, for a moment pushing aside the scalding guilt, cooling my wounds. I leaned forward on my toes, my whole body willing him to kiss me, to go back to that first date ...
May dropped beside us, her boots making a loud clang on the steel. The memory leapt away, the spell broken. I tore myself away from Alain, the separation like ripping off my own skin. I wiped my face with my sleeve. It wouldn’t do for May to see me like this.
Sydney, on the other hand … I glanced around. Where was she? I finally spotted her sitting on the edge of the gangway, her legs dangling over the side. She stared up at us, and her face, for once, appeared blank, all emotion wiped away. Had she seen Alain grab me? Had she noticed the look?
Alain rushed to embrace May, who glared at me over his shoulder. “You did beautifully, sweetheart. Did everything go okay?”
May’s shoulders slumped. “The spirit was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand,” she moaned.
Sydney stood and walked over to listen to May recount what had happened, avoiding looking at me or Alain.
“Hey, where did Red and Harriet go?” I asked.
Sydney shrugged. “They were down in the factory, looking for the chemical storage. They didn’t follow us up here.” She peered down onto the factory floor. “I can’t see them anymore. Hey, Harriet! Sing out if you hear me.”
There was no reply.
“Harriet?” May cupped her hands and called down the gangway. “Don’t pull this shit. Harriet!”
Still nothing, save the faintest shifting of dust.
“Shit.” Sydney grabbed me by the arm, that old fury back in her eyes. “What’s your wraith done with Harriet?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced down at the factory floor and swallowed. Something still didn’t feel right. “Red! Can you answer me?”
But Red had gone quiet, too.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Alain said. “Maybe they’re just too far ahead to hear us. Harriet was anxious we get the immortium to safety.”
“Or she wanted to keep it for herself,” I suggested. “She left us all here dealing with a ghost while she made off with the immortium.”
“That’s ridiculous,” May snapped. “Harriet would never do such a thing.”
Neither Sydney nor Alain looked as certain of Harriet’s innocence. They exchanged a concerned glance. I wanted to add my voice of dissent, bring up my concerns again, but I remembered May’s smile from earlier, when we’d been inside the underworld. I wanted more of those. I kept my mouth shut.
“We need to find them,” Sydney said. “The last I saw, they disa
ppeared behind the ovens.”
We raced down the stairs. Alain went to grab Sydney’s hand, but she yanked it away.
“You take May and search along the line,” she said. “I’ll check back here.”
Alain slid her a questioning look, but he didn’t argue. He and May ran off, and not sure what I was supposed to do, I followed Sydney. We made our way toward the back of the factory where a series of containers had been placed, the doors hanging open on their hinges, the metal sides caved in by the force of the original blast.
“Red!” I called out, my stomach tightening with unease. “Where are you?”
“Harriet!” Sydney cried, her wide gaze darting everywhere.
What if that gang she’d told me about had followed us here? What if they’d killed Harriet and captured Red, and they were lying in wait behind one of the containers, ready to take us out, too?
Sydney must have had the same idea because she pulled the small pistol from her belt and held it in front of her as she peered around the first container. She shook her head, and with her mouth pinched into a thin line, she marched toward the next one.
“Come quick!” Alain cried, his voice echoing across the cavernous room. “We’ve found something.”
We raced toward him, ducking and dodging around the mangled machinery. Alain stood beside an open door leading to a small storage room. Signs warning against toxic fumes and dangerous chemicals lined the wall beside the door. Shelves crowded the walls of the room, all empty. The floor was littered with overturned white barrels. The sickly sweet smell intensified, and I winced against it.
“Look at this.” Alain pointed to the wall on the opposite side of the room, marred with a large, charred circle. “This was where the explosion happened.”
“And see this.” May flipped over one of the empty barrels, revealing the label clearly marked IMMORTIUM. “This is what we were looking for.”
“These are all empty.” Sydney sifted through the rubbish, tossing the empty barrels aside.
Alain pointed to a wet circle on the ground near the door. “There was a full one here. It looks as though they spilled some when they moved it. There are footprints over there, but after that, there’s no dust, and I lose them.”
“You mean...” I dragged my gaze from the fresh footprints to Alain, my spine icing up with cold realization.
He nodded. “I don’t know why, but Harriet and Red have run off with the only remaining container of immortium.” His jaw clenched. “Which means they alone have the power to make more wraith.”
11
Sydney
Shit. Holy, holy shit.
Alain’s words reverberated in my mind. They didn’t make any sense. This whole situation had gone from bad to worse to what the actual fuck in ten seconds flat.
“Why would Harriet do this?” May cried.
“She’s unstable,” Raine said. “We should never have trusted her in the first place.”
Don’t talk about what we should do as if you’re part of this, I wanted to say, but I bit back the angry words. Getting pissed at Raine wouldn’t help, even though I wanted to throttle her after I saw her and Alain exchange that ‘how you doin’?’ look when she’d come out of the portal.
Alain swore to me he had no feelings for Raine. But that was clearly a lie. He couldn’t hide what he felt. Good or bad, it was always written right there on his face. He still cared for her. He still drew upon the memories of what they’d once had. And why not? The mother of his child, returning to him after all those years. A woman of such haunting, unnatural beauty … Who would want me after that when I probably smelled like a shit magnet?
You’re being ridiculous. You can’t think about that now. You have to focus on finding Harriet.
A wave of exhaustion swept over me. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and forget the world for a while. But I couldn’t do that until we had that immortium safe in our possession.
“You don’t know Harriet,” May shot back at her mother. “You don’t know any of us anymore. If you love me as much as you claim, why won’t you just accept my word for it?”
“Because you don’t know everything...” Raine said, flinching as she spoke, as though she knew she’d said the wrong thing.
May stuck out her lower lip, appearing more like a petulant teenager than the strong woman I knew her to be. At least May wasn’t swept up in her mother’s miraculous return.
“She wouldn’t betray me. There’s some other explanation. I know it,” she said.
“Honey,” Raine cooed, stretching out a hand to May. “Maybe this is just her way of showing you that she’s not in this for the same reasons you are.”
May glared at her dad. “Are you going to let her just keep talking to me like this? She’s trying to parent me as though she’s been here this whole time. She can’t do that. She has no right.”
I looked expectantly at Alain, wondering the same thing, but he dismissed May’s statement with a stern look.
“That’s not a conversation to have right now,” Alain said. “We need to focus on what’s going on here. Harriet has been acting oddly. Ever since we destroyed the Mimir, her words and behaviour have been erratic. Maybe your mother is right.”
Your mother. I hated the way he said that, as if he and Raine were somehow working together. She wasn’t the parent or the partner. She didn’t get to just walk back in here and change the rules.
No. I had to stop coming back to this, again and again and again. Raine was here now. I couldn’t change that. I had to let Alain and May process that in their own way. The only thing that mattered now was finding Harriet and the wraith and figuring out what was going on.
“I’m not just going to stand here while you all disparage the person I love,” May said, her voice hard. “I’ll sort this out on my own.”
Before Alain could grab her, she transformed into her raven as she whirled around. She launched herself into the air and sailed out the hole in the roof.
“I’ll go after her,” Alain said, turning away.
“Don’t.” I rested my hand on his arm. “I’ll find her. She doesn’t need her dad right now, or her mother.” The word came out harsher than I’d intended, and Raine cringed. “I think she needs a friend.”
Alain looked unconvinced.
“Look.” I sighed. “She’s a teenager. Did you listen to your parents when you were a teenager?”
“You’re probably right. Raine and I will try and find Harriet and the wraith,” Alain said. “When you find May, take her back to your apartment and keep her safe. We’ll meet you there in an hour, whether we’ve found Harriet or not.”
“Fine.” I had no intention of waiting in my apartment while he and Raine raced all over the city together, but he didn’t need to know that.
I took off along the gangway. At the end, it led off into a small hallway, and through a couple of other doors, a series of upper offices and storage rooms. I pressed my hands to the walls and doors, watching the sky outside the windows.
The office at the end of the hall must have belonged to a manager. It was twice the size of the others and furnished to a much higher standard. The art on the walls was real art, not cheap laminated posters or printed motivational quotes. Behind the desk, a soundproof glass door opened out onto a viewing platform overlooking the factory grounds. May sat on the edge, her coat flapping behind her and her legs dangling through holes in the rusted balustrade, swinging out over the cemetery below.
“May?” I tried the office door and found it clicked open easily. The door, caked with dust and filth, stuck a bit on its rails, but eventually I slid it open and sat down beside May, dangling my legs over the edge into the void below.
She stared down at her hands, folding and unfolding her fingers. “I know I’m acting like an idiot,” she mumbled. “It’s just …having her here is really messing with me.”
“Join the club.” I grinned, patting her shoulder. “Meetings are on Mondays. We wear funny hats.”
/> May looked at me then, and I saw something like understanding glimmer in her dark eyes. Instinctively, I touched my stomach and saw the flash of my little peanut against the edge of my womb. I had to stop doing that. It was kind of gross.
“I wish she hadn’t come back,” she growled, kicking her legs. “It’s messing everything up, just as things were starting to change, to get better.”
I was about to gesture wildly about the desolation surrounding us and question the truth of her statement, but then I realised what she meant. She no longer had Dorien preying on her. She’d been reunited with Harriet. Her dad was with me, and that made him happy. In a seventeen-year-old’s world, that was all the boxes ticked.
Besides, I kind of wished Raine hadn’t shown up, too.
“Can I ask you a question?” I shifted my weight, trying to get comfortable on the steel girder.
Across the silent city, someone shouted. Was it Harriet? They were too far away to tell.
She heaved a sigh that was much too dramatic to be real. “I guess.”
“How come when I showed up, you didn’t act like this?”
May grinned. “You mean, like a teenager?”
“Something like that. You never saw me as someone trying to replace your mother.”
“That’s easy. You made Dad happy,” May replied. “We get so little that brings happiness inside the dome. I wouldn’t dream of depriving him of that. He and Raine used to argue all the time … huge screaming matches and slamming doors and hideous, ugly words. You’re different. And I guess …I’m old enough now that I know you’re not trying to take him away from me. But her...” She frowned.
“Do you believe her that she was forced from this city against her will? Do you believe all the stories about imprisoning the Reapers and mind control drugs?” I tried to keep my tone light, not wanting to install my own fears of Raine’s trustworthiness in May.
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” May wrung her hands. “It’s hard to tell. All my knowledge of who she is is tied up in memories of my childhood. I think she was a good mother, but I can’t remember. I remember she wasn’t there much; she was always working. And I remember hiding whenever they’d fight. But once, she came back from the office early, carrying a kite shaped like a giant squid. I was really into sea life at the time. We took it to the Hopburn Lookout, and Dad helped me put it together. It had these long, swirling tentacles made from ribbons, and as the wind caught them, they rippled, as though it really was floating through the water. Mum ... Raine … she held my hands and helped me reel out the string and ran with me back and forth across the hill. I never laughed so much in my life.” May’s eyes flickered shut. “The dome came down the next month.”
