Netherworld

by Amy Miles

  I remained back with Ma. Not because I wanted to or felt that I should, but because I was in absolutely no hurry to reach the chaos I could hear two streets over. By the time we arrived, it was the madhouse I had feared. I saw girls swooning, crying, laughing, and patting their curled hair. Ma clutched her hands to her chest as she searched for her girls.

  “Can ya see ’em?”

  I stood a few inches taller than Ma, so I had a better view. “Tris is over there.”

  “Go see what she’s rooted out.”

  There was no please, no sign of appreciation. Just a command.

  “Oy, Tris,” I called as I shoved my way through the crowd. “What the bloody hell is going on?”

  Several people glanced up at my call. A few stared openly at my scarred face. Others noticed but quickly returned to their celebrations.

  Tris broke away from a group of her friends and practically skipped back to my side. “You are not gonna believe it. Prince Aed has been called back from the Wall. He’s throwing a royal ball in four days’ time to choose himself a bride!”

  I stopped in my tracks. “You’re joking.”

  “I would never!” She looked horrified at the thought.

  When I saw Ma shoving her way ungracefully through the wall of swooning girls, I knew I had about five seconds before the gig was up.

  “Do me a favor?” I grabbed onto Tris’ arm. “Give me a head start.”

  “On what?” she called when I started to run, but I didn’t answer. I just ran, ducking and weaving through the crowd. By the time I was free of the madness I found the remaining streets of my city nearly abandoned. I looked all around, trying to think of anywhere I could go to be alone.

  I could go to the fish shop that Eivin and I practiced behind, but it felt too soon to see it. I needed somewhere safe, somewhere emotionally neutral.

  “Taryn!” I turned and saw Tris pushing her way towards me with my ma dragging my sisters behind.

  I saw by the look on Tris’ face that she knew I was about to bolt. Ma shouted for me, but I wasn’t about to stick around and let her drag me into a discussion about ribbons and dresses and makeup. I had no intention of being paraded around like a simpering ninny.

  So I ran to the only other place I felt like I could be alone…to the human realm.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DEVLIN

  F ROM THE DARKNESS OF my room, I saw there was a light snow falling over Ireland, draping the morning in a thin blanket of white. The flakes succeeded in covering the dirt and grime of the land, making everything glow. It was the type of rare snowfall Alana would have loved.

  The house had grown cold in the two days since we’d been back. Somehow it felt wrong to care about keeping comfortable anymore. Da finally broke down and started a fire, but the warmth hadn’t reached me. I wasn’t sure it ever would again.

  After Alana’s death, I didn’t leave my room. I couldn’t even go to the funeral. My body refused to move from my bed. I was torn between anger and depression. A very dangerous place to live for long. The only thing that brought me any sort of relief was when my thoughts lingered on the mystery girl from the hospital. Taryn.

  I shook my head when I caught myself thinking of her. It wasn’t the time to think about some bird. And yet my thoughts kept wandering back to her. To those warm blue eyes. They threatened to pull focus from where it should be. On my grieving. I chided myself again. There would be plenty of time to track her down after the wake.

  The wake. I couldn’t go. How could I? If I went down those stairs, I’d see all of the food lying in wait. Each dish meticulously covered with plastic wrap or tin foil in anticipation of the feast. The tea kettle would be set to simmer with all of our mismatched china and silver. In a matter of hours, the house would fill with those who knew Alana. The same people who didn’t care enough to visit her when she was sick, but now come out of their own guilt. They’d fill their faces with the food Ma slaved over and the liquor Da bought with his hard-earned wages. After a few drinks, they’d forget they were supposed to be in mourning. The sound of inadvertent laughter would escape even the best-intended lips.

  How could I stand that? Laughter. Conversation. It would drift up to my room and I’d hear it whether I wanted to or not. I couldn’t bear that. I wasn’t ready.

  Grabbing my jacket, I left the safety of my room and raced down the stairs. My hand was on the door when Ma came into the room.

  “Devlin? Where are you going? The wake—”

  I opened the door. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Devlin…”

  Hovering in the doorway, I almost turned around. The hurt in her voice was palpable.

  “I just can’t right now, Ma. I can’t be in a room filled with people who didn’t love Alana the way we did. I need to be alone for a few minutes.” Without waiting for her response, I walked out of our house, making a beeline for the road that led away from town. Not even the pub could cure the ache in my chest. With each step, I could feel the guilt mounting. I was responsible in a way. I convinced my parents to go through with the procedure. I caused my sister undue suffering. Or I let her finally rest...My mind warred with me about which was the truth. Little matter it made now.

  What I wouldn’t give to slam my fist into a punching bag. I had so much anger inside and no good way to release it.

  I slowed my pace as I got closer to the McBride farm. I spotted a bit of buttery yellow flowers poking out from the snow: Celandine. Alana’s favourites.

  It was as though it was a sign from God. This was why my feet led me here. I needed to bring these flowers to her. I needed to finally visit her grave and pay my respects.

  Jumping over the stone wall, my feet crunched against the snow coated blades of grass. I sank down to the earth, ignoring the chill of the snow against my knees. I brushed the soft powder from the flower’s delicate petals. So fragile, but as bright as the sun. Exactly as she had been.

  Ripping a small patch of earth from the cold ground, I cradled the stems in my arms as though holding a precious cargo. With the flowers in hand, I walked towards the cemetery. It was a path I knew well as I walked it almost every day. Seamus lived beyond the cemetery. The three of us created the well-loved path as a shortcut to his house. A sad smile brushed my lips. Alana hated going through the cemetery. She’d always run and hold her breath, worried that the spirits were going to seep into her body and take hold of her soul. Now she was stuck here for all of eternity; mingling with the shadows that used to terrify her.

  The gate swung open in the wind of a darkening sky, almost as though it had been anticipating my arrival. Our family plot wasn’t far from the entrance, but my feet dragged nevertheless. When I saw the freshly overturned ground where her body had been laid to rest, I stopped. My sister’s body was less than a metre away. Though the headstone hadn’t arrived yet, I knew where she was buried. I held my breath for a moment as I pulled myself together.

  “I got these for you,” I croaked out after several minutes. “I nicked them from Mr. McBride’s farm like you used to. Don’t think he’d mind, do you?”

  In the fading light of the night, I noticed dozens of tombstones that jutted up from the ground in odd angles like crooked teeth. Weeping willows surrounded the lot in an unorganized fashion, confirming that the grounds weren’t often cared for as the trees were left to grow wild. Alana didn’t belong in a dismal place like this. She deserved to live a full and free-spirited life.

  Frustrated by my unwieldy emotions, I grabbed hold of a nearby fallen branch and threw it across the cemetery in anger. The sound of the splintering branch as it hit a gravestone brought a small amount of satisfaction. Standing, I looked around, searching for a larger branch. I didn’t have to look for long. As I slammed that one into a nearby tree, a memory from my past came rushing forward. One of a nine-year-old Seamus.

  It was right after his ma had passed. The day of her funeral, in fact. His da was at the church shaking hands with the other mourners, whi
le Seamus, Alana, and I, all slipped away from the crowd. We had no idea what to say to Seamus. We were so young. We couldn’t even wrap our heads around what had happened. He walked about ten steps ahead of us the entire time, but we got the sense that he wanted us there.

  About a block from his house, he made a turn down Welch Road. It was a dead end. The Welch house had burnt near to the ground before we were born. Nothing had changed in all those years, but we continued walking with him.

  When he got to the house, there wasn’t much left but a few half-brick walls that were charred black. Stray bits of what looked like the remains of furniture scattered around. It was little more of a shadow of a place that used to be someone’s home. Nature had all but gobbled up what remained.

  “Seamus, what are we doing here?” I remembered asking. Beside me, Alana waved at me to stop yakking.

  For a bit, Seamus had stared at one of the brick walls. A vacant look on his face. But he had reached down for a loose brick near his feet and thrown it hard against the burnt remains of the fireplace.

  I remembered flinching and moving to stop him, but Alana had held me back. Seamus picked up another one and threw it, but this time towards a different wall. Bits of brick chipped away. Over and over he had thrown them until finally Alana walked over to him and took it from his hand. Seamus had been panting with fury but calmed when he saw her. Alana smiled at him, then chucked the brick herself, breaking the sad remains of a window. She spun around to look at Seamus, who had broken out into a smile. For the next several minutes the two of them had taken out their anger on the house. Each of them grunting and screaming while I stood there, too shocked to do anything.

  At first, I thought they had both lost their minds. They were screaming like barbarians. After a few minutes, however, I began to see what it was; a release from the pain that had been bottled up.

  The hairs along my arms bristled. That was it. That was what I needed. I needed a release like that. Something to chuck. Something that would shatter into a thousand pieces…and I happened to know a place that would do the trick.

  With a newfound purpose, I headed back to the house; not to rub elbows with the false mourners. No. What I wanted lay farther out in the back garden.

  I pushed the door to my studio open and the hinges cried out in protest. I shrugged out of my coat and placed it on the hook, draping Alana’s scarf over it.

  In front of me stood the Mecca of all things breakable. Shelf upon shelf of carefully sculpted Madonnas smiled down at me. Below that, angels with their wings spread in joy as they mingled with the squat fat Buddhas. All of the sculptures mocked my pain with their superficial grins.

  Shaking with anticipation, I scanned the shelves for a piece I could smash. Just one. One sacrifice to release my rage at the unfairness of her passing. My eyes fell on a large Native American inspired pot that I threw for a gallery showing next month. It was about three feet tall and had a nice, thick middle. Perfect shattering material. Granted, that piece took me almost two weeks to finish, but I needed to see it destroyed more than I needed the paycheck.

  I grabbed the step-stool from under the table and lifted the vase precariously off the top-shelf. The pot would easily fetch five hundred euros at the auction. Probably more. Right now I didn’t care about what it was worth. I could make it again in my sleep. Raising it over my head, I paused.

  “Let’s see if you were right about this, Seamus.”

  My hands descended so fast that I didn’t have time to second-guess my decision. In seconds the pot shattered to oblivion, creating the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard.

  Seamus was right. This felt good.

  I bent down and picked up the bottom chunk of the pot that remained intact and threw it down again, savouring its destruction. I wanted more.

  My eyes darted around, looking for something else. Something small. Or several small things, I smiled, spying a row of cherub figurines. God, I hated making those. I sold a part of my soul each time I made one.

  Suddenly enraged, I grabbed a broom and swept the end of it along the entire top shelf. The resulting crashes obliterated a thousand euros’ worth of commissions.

  “Why?” I shouted. My fist came down onto my bench, making the tools there dance upwards for a moment.

  “Why did you take her away from me?” I felt blood rushing into my temples. Heat climbed up my neck and into my face. “It should have been me!”

  I reached up to grab another piece when I saw something through the window. Though the sun was fading fast, I could tell it was a person. Probably someone from the wake who had heard my destruction.

  “Shove off!” I shouted to whoever was out there, but they didn’t move. I walked closer to the window, ready to tear into the bloke and froze.

  “Taryn?” Wide teal eyes stared back at me. She took a step back and quickly turned to leave. “No, Taryn. Wait. Come back!”

  Rushing outside, I searched for her.

  “Taryn!” My eyes whipped up and down the length of our drive, trying to figure out where she had disappeared to when I heard the sound of feet against the crunch of the frozen ground behind me. She was there, headed towards the woods.

  I called out her name again. She stopped but didn’t turn around. Her shoulders were tense, though, like she wasn’t planning on staying for long.

  “I shouldn’t have pried. I’ll be going now,” she said with her back still towards me.

  “No. I’m glad you did.” I took a few tentative steps in her direction. “I thought you were some drunk from my sister’s wake. That’s all.”

  She turned then. A look of uncertainty lived there.

  “I’m glad it was you,” I said.

  Her lips curled into a sad smile before she looked down at the ground.

  “I was comin’ to pay my respects,” she said, gesturing to the house. “I owed it to Alana.”

  I nodded and took another step towards her.

  “Thank you.” Her eyes found mine and I held her gaze in place, praying she wouldn’t leave again. My eyes darted down to find that she was wearing that silver dress and cloak again. Although the cloak was closed at the neck, I could make out an intricately designed necklace of thick red and black beads. It coiled around her neck like a python would around its prey. It gave her a regal like appearance that I hadn’t noticed before. She kept her head tilted away from me, hiding the black marks I knew lived around the tranquil blue of her left eye. Her scars fascinated me. From the way she held her head turned away from me, I could tell she was ashamed of them, or at the very least, was trying to hide them from me. She likely had no idea how stunning they made her look. They were a part of her, just as much as the fierceness that lived inside of her. Guarded as she was when she was near me, I couldn’t help but want to know her better.

  “You’re not inside,” she said, bringing my eyes back up to hers.

  I shook my head. “I needed to blow off a little steam,” I said, cringing, wondering what she must have thought of me for such childish behavior.

  “So I saw.” This time, she took a step closer to me. “Did ya make all of those?” she asked, gesturing to my studio.

  It was my turn to look away. “Aye. I’m a sculptor. When I’m not helping out in my da’s shop.” I brought my eyes back up and noticed she was tilting her head to the side.

  “It’s fascinating.”

  “What is?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  She shrugged. “To see that your kind is capable of such beauty and such destruction, too.”

  “My kind?”

  Her eyes widened a bit. “As an artist, I mean.”

  I laughed. “True. We are a pretty unpredictable lot.”

  She nodded and took the smallest of steps away from me. I didn’t like the retreat, however small.

  “Do you want to go inside with me? I’ll admit, I haven’t wanted to go in, but it might be bearable if you were with me.”

  She looked at the house then back at me, seemingly confuse
d.

  “There’s a ton of food in the house, and I’m sure my folks would love to meet a friend of Alana’s.”

  “Oh. No. I canna stay. I shouldn’t even be here...” She turned to leave.

  “No. Wait. Stay. We don’t have to go in,” I said, afraid I had scared her off again.

  Her retreat had already begun. “This was a mistake. It’s late and I need to be gettin’ back.”

  “Taryn, why did you come if you didn’t want to pay your respects?” I asked, stalling for time.

  She swallowed hard. “I guess...I guess I just needed to know that you were okay. Are you? Are ya alright?”

  Her interest in my well-being confused me. “Is anyone ever okay at a time like this?”

  “No.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Not really.”

  Something about the way she was holding herself made me want to take her into my arms and hold her. Though I could tell she was strong physically, there was an internal battle waging behind her eyes. It was a battle I knew well.

  “How did you know my sister?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to place you since the first time we met and I can’t figure out how she would know you. Did you meet at the hospital?”

  She smiled. “Aye. That we did.” Her shoulders righted themselves. “I really have to go now. Take care of yourself.” She turned and began walking for the woods.

  “Wait. You’re leaving?”

  “Goodbye, Devlin.”

  I started after her, my shoes slipping as I walked. My fingers were freezing and my whole body was covered in gooseflesh, but I didn’t want her to go.

  “When will I see you again?” I shouted.

  She kept walking.

  “Taryn!”

  Her feet stopped and she glanced over her shoulder at me. “How about ya stop hiding and go into your sister’s wake?”

  She had me pegged. “Aye. And if I do? Will you come ’round tomorrow, then?”