Mercury Retrograde

by Laura Bickle

  Petra looked at it. “Move on to where?”

  “She really belongs back at her home. She’s not a creature of our world. When you bring a creature from the spirit world into ours, disaster follows.”

  Petra felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. The basilisk was likely the only one of her kind. She wasn’t evil—­she was a force of nature unleashed. She couldn’t blame the basilisk for lashing out against humans, any more than she could blame a bear for an altercation with a human holding a box of donuts at the park. The snake was what she was, and she just didn’t belong in Petra’s world.

  She took a deep breath. “So. How do we send her back? Preferably, without getting killed?”

  “A good start would be getting her out of that mud.”

  Petra regarded the snake with narrowed eyes. “That sounds like a colossally dangerous thing to do.”

  “Hey, you did it. Can you live with yourself if you leave the last basilisk in spiritual limbo forever? I mean, I’d do it myself, but . . .” He shook his feathers like jazz hands. “No hands.”

  She made a face. What Frankie said was true. Her father had been trapped in a limbo of his own for years. It seemed only right that she try to balance the scales.

  She stepped into the gooey stream, and it soaked into her dress. About two feet of water stood on top of the heavy silt. She waded out to the basilisk.

  Her heart hammered as she approached. Surely, the basilisk could sense her slogging in the mud with its preternatural senses, and was playing opossum? But the snake’s body just rolled limply with the turbulence, floating like a pool noodle. Petra steeled herself and reached for the middle of the body. It felt warm and supple, but incredibly heavy. The serpent didn’t react, and that gave her courage. Using all of her might, she dragged the snake backward in the mud with a sucking sound, stumbling against the weight. The basilisk gave no resistance as she hauled, the tail sliding free of her mouth. Petra slogged in the mud and water, hauling the serpent to where the heron stood. The tail and the body still remained in the water, but the head made it to the mud beside the heron. Petra rested her hands on her knees and panted. Sig trotted back and forth, growling at the snake and nosing at the scales.

  “Okay, so now what?”

  “We need to take the snake home.” Frankie pointed with his feathered wing beyond the mist. “Her temple is beyond the gate. Thataway.”

  The mist had drained away around a rock arch about fifty feet up the muddy beach. It looked as if it could have been a naturally-­occurring structure, except for the carvings in the dark basalt. There were humanoid and serpentine figures writhing on it—­it dimly reminded Petra of Dante’s Gate to Hell. But as she squinted, she thought the figures might be dancing. It was hard to tell in this half-­light. But it looked like there was tall grass beyond it, and she’d never pictured hell with grass.

  “Blergh.” Petra reached for the limp snake. She was easily five hundred pounds of dead weight. With each clumsy attempt to get her hands around the slippery creature, Petra was convinced that she would awaken and tear Petra’s head off. But the head just lay there, eyes open. As she looked closer, she saw a transparent film over each eye. Perhaps the basilisk was pretty thoroughly comatose. Petra hoped so.

  “That’s it,” Frankie said, fluttering before her. “Put your back into it, girl.”

  “Frankie, shut the hell up.” She was tripping over the hem of her ridiculous dress and was in no mood to put up with his mansplaining. Heronsplaining. Whatever.

  “I’m just trying to boost your morale,” he huffed.

  She was unable to wrestle the snake from the water. She sank up to her knees in the mud, sliding backward with each effort to bring the limp body to shore.

  “You can’t give up,” Frankie told her.

  “She’s too heavy.” Petra gasped. She cast about, looking for materials she might use to build a sledge or get some leverage. All she could come up with were a few handfuls of reeds and some broken sticks.

  “There has to be another way, Frankie.”

  “Well. You could wake her up.”

  Petra’s eyes narrowed, and her pulse thudded in her throat. “Assuming that I thought that was a good idea . . . how do I do that?”

  “Look in her mouth.”

  She balked. “Um. She’ll eat me.”

  “Possibly,” Frankie admitted. “But can you live with yourself if you leave her this way?”

  The snake, half-­dragged out of the water, looked like trash washed up on the beach. There was something incredibly sad about her limp and dirty form that caused a lump to form in Petra’s throat. Such a rare and deadly creature—­reduced to this. She couldn’t walk away, no matter how badly this was destined to play out.

  Steeling herself, she knelt in the sludge before the snake’s still head. She reached out to place her hand on the basilisk’s nose, flinching. The snake didn’t move, her lifeless gaze not shifting.

  Petra jumped when Frankie landed in the shallow mud beside her.

  “Jesus, Frankie.”

  “Quit flirting with her and get in there!”

  Petra grabbed the snake’s jaws and pried them open at the snout. Such a creature had jaws that could crush her, but the mouth opened easily, like a suitcase. A forked tongue slid over sharp fangs, dangling coldly against Petra’s wrist. The basilisk’s mouth smelled like rotten cold cuts.

  “I don’t see anything, Frankie.”

  “Keep looking.”

  She peered into the dark maw. At the back of the snake’s throat, she spied something that glistened. She braced the bottom jaw open with her knee and reached in with her right hand, feeling the cold damp of the basilisk’s flesh around her arm.

  After a moment of fumbling, she grasped something solid. She tugged it out, the snake’s fangs scraping her arm on the way out. She landed on her ass in the mud, blinking.

  In her hand, she held a bottle—­a beer bottle. It was identical to the one that she’d loaded in the potato cannon, full of lye. This one was capped, with liquid sloshing around inside it.

  “Good work!” Frankie cheered. “Look!”

  Sig snarled beside her, and Petra’s head snapped up.

  The snake was awakening. Scales began to move, muscles twitching, the spine undulating. The basilisk turned sleepily, as if still dreaming, her tail curling in the water. The transparent scale over her eyes flickered away, and the creature coiled up, lifting her head from the ground.

  Oh, she was screwed. Petra scrambled up the filthy beach on all fours toward the arch, slipping and sliding in the muck. Sig pressed against her leg, growling.

  Petra found her footing and ran toward the arch. She had no idea what was beyond that portal, except that the grass was likely to be surer footing than the mud. She lurched through the arch with Sig at her heels.

  A dreadful hissing sounded behind her. The basilisk whipped through the mud, racing after her, far too fast to escape. Petra threw her arm around Sig to shield him.

  The heron fluttered to Petra’s side and whacked her hard with his wing. “Calm down, for Chrissakes.”

  “Frankie!” she hissed.

  The basilisk slid through the portal, past Petra, into the grass. It seemed to look beyond her, at something that made its eyes dilate in fascination. Petra could see no other prey, just grass and sky. Once through, the snake stopped, writhing, and collapsed to the ground. It seemed that her skin was too tight, and the green scales were splitting open.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered to Frankie.

  “She’s shedding the form she was forced to wear on Earth,” Frankie said. “You’re about to see what she truly is.”

  The snakeskin ruptured open, and something shining tore through the husk of the snake body. It was a lustrous green, the color of jadeite dishes, speckled in black. The creature turned and twisted free of the snake
skin on the ground beside it. The new shape was serpentine, still, but much larger—­it had a pair of clawed feet, and damp wings as large as parachutes unfurled in the mist, veined with gold.

  “Oh, my God,” Petra breathed.

  The creature turned to face her. She still had golden eyes of the basilisk, the general shape, and the feathered crest. But she was so much more—­magnificent. She spread her wings and shook them, extending her face to the sky. The force of her wings pushed the mist away, sounding like the thunder of sails in a stiff wind.

  There was nothing for Petra to do but cower before this amazing creature. The basilisk was as near a dragon as anything she’d ever seen in a picture book. Tears sprang to her eyes. To have the privilege to see such an awe-­inspiring sight . . . if she was devoured now, she knew that her life would have been worth it, to see this.

  The basilisk faced her, toes digging into the long grasses, tail spiraling. She brought her massive head level to Petra’s.

  “I’m so sorry,” Petra said, mouth dry. She knew that these would be the last words she’d ever utter. There was no use explaining about anything, about fear and the Hanged Men and threats to the general public. There was no point in it.

  The basilisk stared at her with her slitted golden eyes, so close that Petra could hear her breathing.

  After many long minutes, there was a sound from the field. A cry—­a chorus of them.

  The basilisk turned, and a reptilian expression of joy spread across her face.

  Petra’s gaze slid to the field. There were women in the field, women in white cloaks and tunics, running toward the basilisk. Behind them loomed a great stone temple, hewn of the same dark basalt as the arch. Cheering, the women came with open hands, dozens of them.

  The basilisk bounded away, plunging into the field like a puppy. Petra sank to her shaking knees. As the basilisk ran to the women, Petra cringed, half-­expecting that there would be a massacre that would paint the tassels of the grasses red.

  But, no. The basilisk knelt in the grass, opening her wings. The women clustered around her, embracing her. Her neck and tail curled around them, lovingly.

  And Petra realized what the basilisk was. In this corner of the spirit world, the basilisk was a treasured goddess. She was precious and adored. The women pressed their hands and faces to her jadelike hide, crying and laughing.

  “She’s home,” Petra whispered.

  The basilisk swam through the field, with the women in white. A warm breeze stirred the grass, and they walked together, the women singing, to the temple. Petra watched until the basilisk had climbed the temple steps and gone inside. There was a lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow around. Even Sig seemed reverent. He sat beside her, watching intently.

  “You done good, kiddo,” Frankie said. He patted her with his wing.

  “What now?” she managed to ask.

  “You go back, back to your world and Maria. Tell her that I love her.” He took a ­couple of steps away and peered up over his long beak into the leaden sky.

  “You’re coming back with us, right? You can’t stay in a trance. You’ve missed supper,” she said lamely.

  “Sweetie, I’ve gotta fly,” he said. He turned back to Sig. “You take good care of this one, okay?”

  Sig barked.

  And Frankie flapped his wings, once, twice, then took off into the sky. He tucked his feet beneath him and soared up.

  “Frankie!” she shouted.

  But he didn’t come back.

  Petra’s eyes snapped open.

  She was sitting on the cold ground, shivering. Sig had rolled off her lap onto the ground and turned his head up in alarm. The sun had drained out of the sky, leaving cold purple twilight in its wake.

  There was the sound of sobbing. Maria. Her face was a mask of tears.

  Petra looked up at Frankie. Maria was patting the old man’s cheek. Frankie was sitting in his trance posture, unmoving. And he fell over, like a rag doll, his hat falling into the water.

  “Frankie!” Maria screamed.

  Petra crawled on all fours to him. She grasped his wrist for a pulse, then his throat. Sig nosed his chest, whining.

  There was nothing.

  “Frankie!” Petra shook him.

  He didn’t come back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-­ONE

  AWAKE

  The paramedics said that Frankie died of a stroke.

  “As far as ways to go, it was a peaceful death,” one of the medics told Petra as they loaded Frankie’s body into the ambulance. He was a young man from Maria’s tribe who had grown up three houses down. “We will take good care of him.”

  Maria had fallen into a soft shock. The paramedics had wrapped her in blankets and offered her a ride back to the house, but she refused. She walked back with Petra, Petra’s arm over her shoulder and Sig plodding on her other side. The stars had been scattered overhead in a brilliant jewel box of glitter, and the women and coyote slowly moved under the weight of all those stars. Maria kept pausing to look back, as if the ghost of Frankie would be standing beside the pool.

  “I had . . . no idea he was at a risk for stroke,” Maria said. “I mean, sure, he was overweight and drank a lot, but I didn’t think of it as an immediate risk. I should have made him go to the doctor more often.”

  “Maria. You couldn’t make him do anything.”

  “But I’m—­I was—­his niece. I was responsible for him. I should have called the paramedics sooner. I assumed he was off . . . gallivanting in the clouds or whatever he does on the other side when he gets bored with life here.” She rubbed her drippy nose.

  “You couldn’t have known that this was the last time. You can’t be everyone’s social worker, especially in more than one plane of reality.”

  “He was my last living relative.” She stared up at the stars.

  “I’m so sorry,” Petra said, feeling helpless. There were no good words for this, nothing to say that would make anything better.

  “Did you . . . did you see him in the spirit world?” she asked.

  “I did.” Petra felt guilty, at that. Maria should have been the last one to see him, to speak to him in this plane or any other. “He said that he loves you, but that he had to fly.”

  Maria smiled. “Was he . . . was he a man or a woman in the spirit world? I always hoped that he would have found the body he wanted.”

  “He actually . . . he was a great blue heron. I think he would have slapped me with his wing if I’d been impertinent enough to peer at his tail feathers.”

  Maria laughed through her tears. “I can see that, somehow. Damn it.” She dissolved into sobs again.

  The house was dark. Petra turned the lights on as they entered. Pearl hopped down off the kitchen table, making a series of inquisitive mrrps. Sig lay down on the floor beside her and made whining noises. They seemed to hold a conversation as Petra ran a bath for Maria.

  Maria said little else that evening. Petra tucked her into bed, intending to sleep on the couch. But Maria caught her hand and asked her to stay. She tucked herself into the other side of the bed and pulled up a quilt that smelled like lavender. Maria fell into a fitful sleep, while Petra stared at the ceiling for hours, listening to the clock tick in the next room.

  Eventually, she dreamed, dreamed of walking with her father in the underworld. He was talking about wanting to go to a Waffle House, because there were apparently no waffle irons in the spirit world, and he missed them. There were only pancakes. When she asked him why, he said that he didn’t know the reasoning, that it was just a rule. Mike walked by in her dream, hauling a wagon of confiscated waffle irons and writing tickets. Cal sneaked up to the wagon when Mike’s back was turned and stole a waffle iron, and she tried to talk to him. But he just gave her a sad look and scurried away. She felt a deep pang of mourning for him, and wondered if anyone else in th
e world would notice he had gone missing, that his shy smile had vanished.

  Maria drifted past her, wearing a white dress, calling for her uncle. There were no herons in this dream, only ducks. Maria sorted through the ducks, but none of them was blue. One of them spoke, telling her that Frankie had gone home. But Maria insisted that he was not home yet, that he had missed supper.

  Petra searched for Gabe in her dream, but couldn’t find him. Her father told her that it was completely inappropriate to date an undead man, unless he had a waffle iron and knew how to use it to make snake waffles.

  Clearly, her subconscious was overwhelmed.

  She awoke in the middle of the night, finding Maria still as a stone and snoring softly beside her. Sig and Pearl slept at the foot of the bed, nested together like spoons. She made no move to disturb them, just watched the elderly cat turn over and knead Sig’s belly in her slumber.

  Frankie was gone. Really, truly gone. Tears slid out of the corners of her eyes and trickled behind her ears onto the pillow. She had somehow expected that if Frankie were to pass away, it would be in some spectacular bar fight with six-­shooters or a car chase involving cops and a cliff. Something that would have made a great story. But he had slipped away so silently. Had he somehow known? Had he felt that stroke curdling in his body, and walked away to the spirit world to spend his last hours communing with the basilisk, to fix Petra’s fuck-­up?

  And she felt guilty that her father had returned to this world—­at least, some of the time—­just as Maria had lost her only living relative. Still, her father’s return gave her a bright spot of hope. She’d come here, to Temperance, to search for him. And now, she had both his spirit and his body together. She could speak with him. She had so many questions she couldn’t wait to have answered. So much she didn’t know about all that time he had been absent from her life. And about his own alchemical experiments. Where had he gone? What had he seen? What secrets did he know that he could share with her?