Echoes of Memory

by A. R. Kahler

  I started to cry then. Because already I could feel my body’s instincts taking over. It was worse than when Heru was whispering in my ear. This was me. This was all me. I couldn’t hide from what I’d done or what I wanted to do. What I’d continue to do.

  “Chris, I know you would never hurt me,” she whispered. Her voice shook, but it was strong. She was just convincing herself. I know she was just convincing herself. “I came here to find you. Through Hell. To save you. That’s where we are, Chris. This is the Underworld. You tried to kill yourself. To save me.” She made a noise, almost like a sob, but I couldn’t see her through the tears in my own eyes. “That’s why you’re here. Because you wanted to save me. Because you didn’t want to see me hurt. And now I’m going to save you. You just have to let me out of here. . . .”

  “You can’t,” I replied. No one can save me from this. I don’t deserve to be saved from this.

  “Yes, I can,” she said.

  I opened my eyes and tried to see her through the tears. Let me go back to seeing my sister drown. Let me go back to the other pain. They were easier to get through than this.

  “I killed my own mother,” I whispered. “When I was born. She died. And my parents never told me. The child of the Aesir is born in blood, and through that blood he wields his power. I can’t live, Kaira. If I come back . . . I can’t go back.”

  I saw it, the briefest flicker of concern. Of doubt. It flitted over her features like a shadow. Like a raven’s wing.

  “That was the past,” she whispered. “And that wasn’t your fault. Any of it. I know you don’t want to hurt me. To hurt anyone.”

  “But I do. I’m not safe.”

  “Chris,” Kaira said, her voice no longer gentle. It was demanding. “Only you can get us out of here. You’re here because you think you deserve it. But you don’t, okay? This is all an illusion.”

  “I do deserve it,” I said. “I deserve all of it.”

  My mother started screaming again. Kaira groaned.

  “Chris, come on. You can come back with me. None of this is real. None of it. We can leave here together, okay?”

  “We can’t. I’ll hurt you. He’ll make me hurt you.”

  “You won’t. Trust me, Chris. I’m a big girl. I don’t get hurt easily. Not anymore. Let me out, and we’ll leave. Together.”

  I knew what she meant. I knew about Brad, about her horrible past. I never wanted to hurt her like that. I never wanted to hurt her in any way. That was why I had to stay here. To keep her safe. But I wouldn’t keep her with me. I wouldn’t relive her death again. I undid the straps holding her down, then stepped back. Back to the center of light in the room, back toward the sudden silence. I looked around. My mother was gone. My sister was gone. And so was the bed Kaira had been strapped to.

  Now it was just her and me. Her and me in the circle of light, with nothing but Hell between us and redemption.

  “Just go,” I whispered. “Leave me.”

  She stepped forward. I stepped back. This made her hesitate. But she didn’t move away. Against better judgment, she moved closer.

  “Damnit it, dude, I’m not leaving you. Not after what I’ve been through to get to you.” Her voice didn’t hold the anger or resolve it had before. It sounded tired.

  “I’m going to hurt you,” I said, looking away. It wasn’t a threat or a promise. It was a fact. She needed to understand. If it was her, she needed to leave. I came here to save her. And that’s what I was doing by staying. “Please. Just go.”

  “Or I’m going to hurt you,” she said. “That’s part of being alive. It happens.”

  “But not like this.”

  “Chris, come on,” Kaira said again. “I . . . I need you to come back.” She sighed. Like she didn’t want to admit it to herself. But also like it was the truth. “I need you.”

  “I can’t—”

  Her lips found mine. A shock pulsed through my heart, a vibration that made the rest of the world still.

  Something new welled up within me, sweeping away the pain and fear.

  This would end in disaster.

  But this feeling, this power, that felt worth the risk.

  Kissing Chris was nothing like kissing Brad.

  Brad had always been abrasive, fumbling; his tongue moved like a jackhammer the moment I’d part my lips, and his mouth was almost always dry. It felt like kissing a fish. With a jackhammer tongue.

  Even in the world of the dead, Chris’s kiss was infinitely different; his lips were warm, the perfect mix of soft but firm, and when I felt his chest expand against mine, my own lungs lit with heat. With desire. I had never liked kissing Brad. It had always felt like a battle for dominance. With Chris, it was opening up. Both offering. A mutual communion.

  He wrapped his arms around me, falling against me, letting himself be heavy and light.

  I hadn’t planned on kissing him. I hadn’t planned on saying I needed him.

  But I did.

  And I meant it. Both actions.

  He had said he loved me. Had he meant that?

  “Kaira,” Freyja said behind me. Her hand was on my shoulder, and my happy little daydream snapped into reality. I pulled back from Chris and opened my eyes.

  We were no longer in Chris’s hell.

  To be sure, we were still in the Underworld; a field of skulls paved the ground around us, stretching into a hazy infinity. But Chris was there, held in my arms, his forehead now nuzzled against my neck. I didn’t want to admit how comfortable it felt, having him there. How natural, the scratch of his scruff against my skin, the warmth of his breath. He was warm. So warm. I wanted to fold myself around him and soak up his heat for eternity.

  Gods, why was I so cold?

  “You did it,” I whispered. Then Chris leaned back and looked around. He didn’t let go of me though. If anything, his hold tightened.

  “What?” he asked. He sounded groggy, like he’d just woken up. If only this could just be a nightmare. When was the part where we woke up and everything was okay? “Where are we?”

  “The Underworld,” I replied. I tapped the ground with my foot, the one small tile in the entire landscape that didn’t contain a skull. “And you, my friend, were just right here.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We can discuss this later,” Freyja interrupted. “We must go. Now.”

  I shifted my body, slid my hand down to Chris’s. It was the only thing that felt warm out here. The only thing that felt solid. Chris’s hand tightened in mine. He tried to take a step back, but the moment he did, he stumbled over a face and would have toppled had I not been beside him.

  “Kaira. What is this? Where are we?”

  “I already told you,” I said. “We’re in the Underworld.” I tried to be calm, but Freyja’s words had me on edge. I was acutely aware that Heru was out there. Somewhere. And injured. Unless that, too, was just some figment of Chris’s inner hell . . . It wasn’t a risk I was going to take.

  Chris wasn’t looking at me, though. Just as he wasn’t looking at the faces beneath his feet. He was staring at Freyja like she was death incarnate.

  And I guess, in many ways, she was.

  “What is that?” he whispered.

  It was stupid, that his words made me cringe. Not because I was worried about what Freyja would think or do, but because . . . because she was part of me.

  That realization made me look at her with a completely different awareness. It also made me wonder what would happen on the other side of this journey. With Chris back in the land of the living, what would she and I do? Would we still be battling for control over my body? Or would this whole endeavor grant us a certain understanding?

  “That,” I said, trying once more to keep my thoughts in line, “is Freyja.”

  “I recognize her,” he said. His voice was a low growl. “She was the one trying to control you.”

  “Was,” I said. “But not anymore.” I looked at her, raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t catch my unspoke
n question. She was too busy staring at the hazy sky. “You can trust her.”

  “She’s a god. We can’t trust her. She’s just trying to use you. Us. If you’d seen—”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Freyja said. She looked back down, stared between the two of us like she was tired of babysitting. “We must get moving.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Chris,” I said, squeezing his hand to remind him I was there. “She’s on our side; it’s—”

  “No!” he said, pushing me away. “You can’t believe her. She’s just like him. She just wants to use you.”

  “We really can’t be doing this right now,” Freyja said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “I won’t go back.”

  His words were steel. I stepped to the side and looked at him, a knot of fear in my chest.

  “What?” I whispered.

  He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring straight at Freyja, his hands balled into fists.

  “I’m not going back with you. I know what you want. I’ve seen what you’d have me do. You’re no different from him. You only want to kill. I’m not going to let you use me like that. I’m not going back.”

  “Chris,” I said. I tried to keep my voice level. I saw a glimpse of what he’d been dealing with in his own hell; I couldn’t blame him for being reticent. But I didn’t have time to fill him in on the blanks. “I just came through the Underworld to get you. What the hell do you mean you aren’t coming back with me?”

  “He’s still out there,” he said. He didn’t break eye contact with Freyja.

  “We really, really don’t have time for this,” Freyja said. “The Aesir is not here. Which is precisely where we should be. Not here.” She leaned in. “Even if we aren’t attacked, neither of you will last much longer down here. We must leave now.”

  “We attacked him. In there.” My words were hesitant. “Is he gone? Trapped?”

  “It is not important. None of it will be important if the both of you fade out before we reach the mortal world. The Aesir is the least of our worries.”

  But I knew her by now. I knew she didn’t believe it, not really. But I also knew her explanation wasn’t for me.

  “I’m not going—” Chris began, but I rounded on him.

  “Shut up,” I hissed. “Do you trust me or not?”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it again. His eyes searched mine. Those eyes . . . they glimmered gold, but they were so muted. He looked like a washed-out painting.

  “I do,” he said finally. I’ll admit: It made my heart flip over.

  “Then trust me in this,” I replied. “Heru is gone; he can’t hurt you, and he can’t make you hurt anyone else. And if he isn’t gone, I’ll handle him. But look”—I held up my hand, to show him how pale I’d become, how translucent and frail my skin had gone—“we’re already fading. Any longer, and we’ll be worse than dead. Don’t let him win. Don’t leave me. Please.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, right up to my last plea. Instead, his whispered words were a spear to my heart.

  “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

  So unlike Brad. So why did my ex’s words echo within Chris’s?

  “You won’t,” I replied. I tried to grin, felt it falter, and looked back to Freyja to hide it. “I have a goddess if you get out of line.”

  He didn’t respond. I didn’t press him. It took all my self-control to keep Brad’s face out of my head. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get to a place where we could think straight.

  “How do we get out?” I asked her. I’d jumped into the River Styx to get here, and there was no way we were going to swim upstream. . . . I couldn’t imagine there were elevators in Hell.

  “There is only one way up,” she replied.

  “And how’s that?” I didn’t like the inflection in her voice. Like she knew a terrible secret she couldn’t quite hope to share.

  She didn’t answer right away. Her violet eyes shifted from Chris, to me, and then back again. Was I wrong in what I was seeing? Freyja could read my thoughts, and right then, I thought I could feel hers. And if I was right, she was bitter. And envious. When she answered, however, her words were deadpan.

  “You already saw how to return to the mortal world,” she said, her gaze returning to me. “The same way I ascended. By making a sacrifice to the Norns.”

  My stomach clenched. Another sacrifice?

  She had killed her lover to come to my aid. But I had come down here to rescue Chris—surely the Norns or the gods or whatever wouldn’t make me give him up. They weren’t that cruel.

  Then I remembered all the myths and fairy tales.

  Of course the gods were cruel.

  They were rarely anything but.

  We also didn’t have a choice.

  We followed her, mute, Chris’s hand firmly in mine. He didn’t speak, didn’t even seem to be himself. He stumbled along at my side, watching the horizon, a grim expression on his face. Not like he was worried we were going to be attacked. But like he knew it would happen, and he was ready to die when it did. Despite the warmth coming from his hand, he felt like a shade of himself, the barest echo of a memory, as though I hadn’t actually rescued the boy I cared for. I’d just pulled forth the idea of him.

  He mumbled something. It took me a moment to catch it.

  “It won’t work.”

  “What?” I asked. I nearly stopped, but Freyja’s pace didn’t allow for it.

  “It won’t work,” Chris said. “It never works. Think of Orpheus. He failed. Right at the end, he failed. All the heroes fail.”

  My stomach twisted with the thought. He was right—I couldn’t remember a single myth where the hero brought back the loved one. Orpheus failed to bring back Eurydice. Persephone stayed in Hades.

  “Yeah, well,” I said, trying to kick my dull thoughts into gear. “Those stories are about men. I’m a girl. I’ll get shit done.”

  He laughed. Slightly. But it honestly felt like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. If only for a moment. Then the clouds drew back over, and he was silent and reserved once more.

  Still. It gave me hope. Down here, that seemed as rare and necessary as ambrosia.

  Every step, I expected the heavy clouds overhead to part, for harpies to screech down from the sky and attack. I expected the faces below our feet to wail, to drag themselves up from the soil, because surely it couldn’t be this easy. Surely the Underworld would try to keep us down. Or I expected Heru, that golden god that bore Chris to do this, to split the skies and take back what he had tried to steal from me.

  I wanted to believe we had trapped him in Chris’s hell. But I knew better. I wasn’t that lucky.

  The silence that cloaked us, that only grew thicker with every passing yard, made my hair stand on end. Not only because of the sound our feet made as they slapped on flesh. But because I knew, if the Underworld was letting us off so easy right now, something terrible waited ahead of us.

  This place was what you made of it. And millions of people had collectively made this world a land of misery. There was no way we’d be let go without a catch.

  All the heroes fail. Chris’s words were a mantra in my head, one I desperately wanted to quell, but that only grew louder in the silence.

  I wasn’t a hero, though. I was just a girl. And I would succeed. I would succeed.

  I wasn’t going to let my story end this way.

  It felt like we walked for an eternity.

  It felt like it was over in the blink of an eye.

  One moment we were walking over human skulls.

  The next, our toes dug into sand.

  The River Styx raged before us. It should have filled me with relief. Instead, it just made my pulse race with dread. So close. So close. And that meant we were still so far.

  I shuddered when we neared the water. The memories of what I’d seen in there were still fresh in my mind: all those bodies, littered around Islington l
ike fallen leaves. And the presence . . . the voice that chilled me to the bone. Maybe it was just some wayward god from down here, trying to scare me away.

  So why had Freyja seemed so concerned by it?

  There were so many things I wanted to ask her. And Chris. And right now was not the time for any of it. It was going to drive me insane.

  “Where do we go now?” I asked. There was no way I was jumping in there again. No way.

  Again, that look from Freyja, that guarded expression that made me rail against the fact that she could see into my mind, but she was still an enigma to me. I expected there to be a boat to ferry us across—where was Charon, demanding coin for passage?

  “Down.” Her word dropped like a drachma into the waters, swallowed up into nothing.

  I looked into the water. My heart dropped to my feet as Chris’s hand clenched tighter in mine. Tighter, and yet it still felt like he was fading away.

  “The water leads to the base of the Tree,” she continued. “It is there the Norns rest.”

  “I’m not going back in,” I whispered. I didn’t want to see the shadowed figure again. I didn’t want to smell the innards of my friends rotting in the air.

  She sighed. For the briefest moment, I thought maybe she would respect my reluctance.

  “We have no choice. We cannot make it on foot. Not anymore.”

  She took my hand.

  She didn’t ask if I trusted her. I didn’t ask Chris if he trusted me. He didn’t even seem to register what was happening. Freyja dragged us toward the river. Then she leaped, and we fell in behind her.

  • • •

  Shadows.

  I panicked. I didn’t want to be back here. Back with the shadowed man in his shadowed robes, the owls watching.

  But then I realized—I was realizing, and wasn’t that better than before, when I’d lost myself to the illusion? I’m tumbling through the river. I am holding Chris’s hand. Soon, Freyja will pull us from here, and this will be a bad dream.

  “But what if she doesn’t?” came a voice. His voice, harsher than snow, colder than the void. “What if this isn’t an illusion but the truth?”