She watched as his pupils grew wide and he turned his face upward, seeing the spirits for the first time. He opened his mouth to scream and the spirits shrieked, rushing down toward the opening.
Lightning knocked her off balance. Mariskka fell forward onto the boy, cutting her palms against the stones beneath him as she tried to catch herself. She pushed up, seeing more strikes across the sky, hearing the terrible, rushing growl bursting above her from that first blow of lightning.
The spirits hovered just over his mouth, a steaming hiss coming from the blackness beyond them.
“Oh, God,” she prayed. “If he does not know You, show Yourself. Give him another chance.”
I am not willing that any should perish.
Mariskka heard the words and turned her head to see who had spoken them.
Do not look upon Me, Mariskka.
She felt a gentle hand push her face to look forward.
The boy was standing beside his own body, looking at the corpse. He stared next at Mariskka, shaking his head.
“Thank you,” he said to her. “You fought for me. You fought.”
The boy then extended a hand to someone standing behind Mariskka.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Receive me now.”
The boy’s body released a breath and the spirits plunged in after it, but the life was gone. The shrieks made Mariskka’s ears bleed. She pressed her hands against them. The back of her hands, exposed so close to the words, burned.
When she removed her hands, there was a fuzzy bubbling in her ears. Mariskka swallowed to make her ears pop. It didn’t help. This strange bubbling was all she could hear, although she looked around and saw people talking or crying, moving and reaching for her.
She was deaf.
The spirits had retreated again to the outer edges of the patients. One grinned at her, snapping its teeth. She couldn’t hear it. The spirits moved in a line, swaying like seaweed in dirty shallow water. The grinning one covered its ears. One covered its eyes. One covered its mouth.
Mariskka got it. She spat back, “You got it backward. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ The eyes come first.” She had spoken out loud. Somehow they would know her language. They would understand.
The second spirit held up one finger and spoke back. “No, the eyes come next.”
Gio was numb, even hours later. She could not guess how much time had passed since she had said good-bye to Lazarro. Her heart had stopped in that moment, like a church bell caught in its arc. She did not know how to measure time in this new way, when her heart was stopped.
Lazarro would probably be dead by now. He’d had only hours when he left her. Gio thought these hours had passed. She wondered if even a whole day had come and gone. She couldn’t be sure. The cellar gave so little light, and the servants were not regular in bringing food or fresh torches. There were no more sounds from the darkness around her.
Gio did not know herself. She kept looking for some familiar sign or feeling, something to remind her how to step back into her old skin, how to remember who she was. Nothing came to her.
A light pierced her eyes, making them water and sting. Gio brought her hands to her face, turning away.
Strong hands came around her body, cradling her like a child and lifting her up. She recognized his strong, blood-soaked smell as he carried her up the stairs and into the morning light.
The morning sun made the stones glitter along the window. Panthea raised her head, smiling. She had fallen asleep at her work. It had been good for her. She felt stronger. Every sunrise that passed would give her relief.
She pulled aside the curtain at the window and looked down. A breeze was stirring the roses below. She was surprised how many blooms still opened, even this late in the fall. Her garden was not ready for winter. Some years it seemed to take the garden by surprise, making the blooms drop overnight, and some years, like this one, her garden gave the coming days no thought. The roses drank the dew and opened to the sun.
Panthea felt a stirring in her belly. Yes, she was hungry. This was a good sign, she thought. And she was thirsty. It was time to live. There was time to live. This is what my garden is telling me, she thought. Eat, drink, and grow strong.
She dropped the curtain back into place and turned, inhaling for a sigh.
“Good morning,” Damiano said.
He sat in her father’s chair, his dark hair combed into place, his beard groomed. The serpent cane rested under his palm, the emerald eyes dead and still. Damiano wore wedding garments of dark green velvet with gold embroidery.
“Did you think today would not come?” he asked. Panthea stood still. Her eyes darted to the door behind him, and into the hall. She listened for a noise, any noise.
“They have all fled, my darling,” he said. “Undo your gown.”
She was lost, that feeling when she played a song in her head and forgot the next verse. She was lost between notes, falling, grasping for a hold to begin again.
“What?” she asked. “Undo my what?”
Damiano rose and walked behind her, his cold hands touching her collarbones as he slipped his fingers under the neck of her robe. “They are all gone, Panthea. They fled in the night. Look upon yourself.”
His breath crawled over her skin. She bent her head and looked down. Her gown was stained with black, wet fluids, her body growing thick, dark bubbles.
“No,” she said. “No, I was careful.”
“In time, no one will remember,” he said. “They will think of these days and talk of numbers, of masses, of death as a general accident that befell all. But how perfect, how precise, was the war.”
“Is it over then?” Panthea asked. “The plague?”
“The time of the angels is over. Never again will men believe in unseen goodness. The Age of Fear has begun.”
“You are finished here then?” She wanted his breath off her neck. She could feel it moistening her hair, making it stick against her skin. Panthea wanted to reach a hand up and sweep those slick wet hairs off her neck.
“I was finished long ago,” Damiano replied. “But I am not done.”
She waited. He would say more. She knew he would.
His hands tightened on her neck, as if displeased she did not reply.
“I forget how you love to tease,” he said in her ear.
She jerked her elbow back, into his ribs with all her strength, and lunged toward the door. Grabbing it with both hands, she flung it open and ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time, lifting her robe so she would not fall in the flight. On the bottom step she released the gown and looked to the entrance leading to the main gate. The plague was out there; she could see newly dead bodies steaming in the morning light. Her servants had tried to flee but had not made it to the gates.
She felt the breath on her neck, his hands going around her waist, pulling her back up the stairs.
“No!” she screamed.
Damiano laughed and put an arm under her knees, twisting her so she was cradled in his arms. “I like that,” he said.
“Let me go!” she cried.
He moved up the stairs with her. She could not feel his feet landing on the steps or a heart beating beneath his robe.
“My bride,” he said, looking at the bruised swellings still growing, not splitting open yet. “Come away with me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mariskka brought a cool rag to the girl for her fever. She shook her little head, giving it back, motioning for someone else to have it.
“Do not stop fighting!” Mariskka said.
The girl stroked her dying mother’s face and shook her head. Her mother could not open her eyes or move. The girl did not leave her mother’s side, though Mariskka saw the swellings on the girl’s neck, the fever making her sweat.
She is fighting, Mariskka thought. She is fighting for one last moment of kindness to pass between them, one more sign of love.
“Love is stronger than death.” Mariskka remembered that Bible verse from a sermon so long ago in that other world. Odd those words would follow her here when nothing else could. “Love is stronger than death.”
Mariskka wiped the back of her hand across her forehead to clear it of the sweat and grime and flecks of blood that kept finding their way into her hair and onto her face. She examined the back of her hand, then looked up.
Mariskka’s own mother stood before her. “Love is stronger than death,” her mother said.
Mariskka nodded in agreement. She was not shocked to see her mother. It all felt right, this field of the dying, and an apparition she could name. It all felt right, Mariskka thought, to die this way, so far from home.
“I am dying, aren’t I?” she said to her mother.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Lazarro stumbling toward her, his arms outstretched, lips moving. She could not hear him.
Her eyes began to fail her, making the world break apart in pixels of grey and black. She was losing her vision. It’s a shame, she thought. I wanted to see my mother.
The world went black.
“I have no more cures,” Gio told Del Grasso. “You have wasted your strength on me.”
He took the cup of fresh water from her. It looked like a thimble in his hands. He did not speak.
“How is it no one stopped you from entering the castle?” she asked. “And does Lazarro live?”
“Of Lazarro, I do not know. Death came for everyone above in the castle,” he said.
He opened his bag and took a piece of dried beef, tearing it with his teeth into a smaller strip, handing it to her. She refused the dried meat. She did not think she could swallow it. He ate what he had offered her, then began to walk back toward the village.
“You do not flee?” she asked.
He did not reply.
“You are not afraid of death?” she asked.
She wished she had spent more time in the company of this man. His eyes spoke languages she did not know. She could not read what was in them.
He looked down at his hands, marked with scars from knives that slipped, razors that slashed across his skin every day. “No,” he answered.
She looked back at the manor.
Del Grasso watched her. He answered her before she asked. “She is dying. I heard her voice,” he told her. He began walking away, back toward the village.
“You were not loved by any of them,” she called after him. It sounded like an argument.
He did not stop.
“You shouldn’t do these things,” she said. “You were not loved.”
She looked up at the windows circling around the castle. She did not know which room to find. She could be in there for hours. If Lazarro was still alive, if he had returned to care for the victims in the village, he would certainly be dead when she finished here. She would have to give up that last moment with him if she did this.
Love is stronger than death. The thought rang through her mind.
Lazarro would want this.
Gio pressed her hands against the stones of the manor.
The stones were warm. They still felt the sun.
No guards were posted at the front of the gate, and she guessed no guards would be posted at the door.
She didn’t know Panthea. She had known only Panthea’s father, and that for a brief day. Nothing good had come from her bravery that day. Their manor had overshadowed the village all her life, sitting there like a big stone fist.
The heat from her hand spread, hurting her. There was no justice in this sacrifice.
If she had only truly known Lazarro’s heart back then, her whole life would have been different. She would not even be here at this moment.
To that one brief thought, God replied, If you had known My heart, your life would have been different. Trust Me with today.
Panthea had seen fish caught in a tidepool before, in her young years. They darted from side to side while Panthea and her friends straddled the pool and laughed. The shadows made the fish flee, but there was only a wall no matter where they swam. Only a wave could save them and waves were predictable. No waves were due. Not for hours.
Panthea and her friends would lose interest soon enough and return to the water’s edge, looking for shells and pinching crabs. Sometimes bits of ships would wash up, ships that had been lost at sea, somewhere between those terrible sisters, Charybdis and Scylla. Panthea would find polished wood or leather shoes, or sometimes even a ring. She loved those treasures. They were all hers. No one had given them to her. They did not smell of the village or her manor. They smelled of a new world. A cruel, beautiful world.
Panthea now breathed in small gasps, like those fish in shallow water. She did not waste her energy in trying to flee. She did not want to entertain him.
Damiano was at her side, stroking her hair as she lay on the bed, her chamber ready for her wedding night.
She had never kissed Armando.
Kissing Armando would have changed everything. But she had never been able to trust love. Panthea trusted herself. She did not trust Armando’s love, her father’s love, or Lazarro’s loving God. She had trusted in love once. Those years ended in desolation. Her father had not saved her mother from dying, instead she died without saying good-bye to either of them, slipping away in disappointment. God remained unmoved. Trusting in love was a woman’s mistake. Panthea vowed to never repeat it.
“It won’t be long now,” Damiano said. “Though some have lasted for three days, even four if they have much strength, you are doing very well. Death is working through your body with great speed.”
“Just end it,” Panthea whispered back. Her neck hurt too much to move it. She could only look up at the ceiling as she talked or strain to see him out of the corner of her eye.
“I have no power here,” he said, pushing his face closer in so she could see him. She could see in his mouth rows and rows of teeth lining its roof, waiting to descend. They were ugly and sharp, like the spines of a fish. He craned his neck until he was nose-to-nose with her. She tried to hold her breath so she wouldn’t smell him.
“The only power I ever needed, you gave me, darling. Though I waited through time and age for you, I never imagined the splendor He would give you on earth.”
He stroked her face. “I will be sorry to see this gone. You really were quite beautiful.”
Panthea heard heavy steps coming up the stairs and the cracking of the hinges as the chamber door was opened. Damiano spat in that direction.
Panthea tried to move, but the plague had weakened every muscle. She could only shift her back a finger’s width and try to look.
Damiano’s hand went to her neck. She could not even whisper.
Gio leaned over her. “You do not have to die this way,” Gio said. “There is forgiveness for you.”
Damiano leaned over Gio’s shoulder.
Panthea tried to nod. The swellings on her neck made any touch, even from her own skin, agony. She felt her eyes stinging, but no tears came.
“You need wine,” Gio said. Her face disappeared.
Damiano receded, moving back above them both, hanging there along the ceiling.
Gio’s face came into her vision again, and Panthea felt Gio lift her head and pour a little wine into her mouth. Panthea tried to swallow. She felt some go down her throat, and some pour down her chin and neck. Both felt exquisite. Had she ever tasted wine like this? Had she ever truly known thirst?
Damiano was studying Gio. Panthea did not want another one to die for her.
Panthea opened her eyes as wide as she could, trying to signal her.
Great God, Panthea
said, knowing no words were coming from her mouth. She could only hear herself speaking in her head. I am lost. But she is not, is she? She came back. Only You would send her here. Open her eyes. Open her eyes and she will flee!
Gio’s face changed as Panthea’s words were spent. Panthea watched as Gio’s mouth opened, her eyes watering.
“Angels,” she whispered. “Panthea, why are there so many angels?”
Gio’s face changed again. Panthea could tell she felt something along her back, and Gio turned, in a slow, deliberate arc to look up at Damiano.
Gio did not scream as Panthea expected. Instead, Panthea felt Gio’s skin turn cold and stiff, her fingers digging into Panthea, holding onto her.
“It’s a Valkyrie,” Gio said. “Why is it here? Something is already dead, or it could not come.”
Gio looked down into Panthea’s eyes. “What have you done, Panthea? Is there something dead in this room?”
Panthea nodded yes.
“Can you tell me what it is?” Gio asked. The angels were not moving. Everything in the room, even the dust floating in the air, froze.
It is me, Panthea whispered. She could feel blood in the back of her throat, the effort destroying the last bit of smooth flesh in her mouth.
“I don’t have any herbs for this,” Gio said. “I don’t have any herbs. Panthea, I don’t have any herbs! What do I do? I don’t know what to do!”
Panthea narrowed her eyes, trying to get Gio’s attention. She tried to lift a hand to cover Gio’s for comfort. Gio’s herbs were not needed.
Get out, Panthea thought. God, if You have any mercy, get her out.
Gio moved her shaking hands and placed them over Panthea’s heart. “I don’t know the words. I’m a woman. I was never taught.”
Do not let her stay! Panthea screamed in her mind. This punishment is mine.
“Panthea,” Gio said, sounding like a child reciting a poem she has no understanding of, “God is not willing you should perish. All is forgiven, Panthea. All is forgiven. You can go home. You have only to choose.”
The words fell like arrows against stone. Those last words, Panthea thought, those came from Gio, not God. God could not mean that.
In the Arms of Immortals Page 21
