Grave

by Michelle Sagara

  Margaret came to stand beside Eric, and then, after a moment, she stepped into him, occupying the same space that he occupied, although they weren’t the same height or general shape. Emma turned to the magar.

  “Do not ask me for approval. Do not ask me for permission. Your guilt or your pride are things you must come to on your own. And, child—my daughter became the nightmare of the people, made flesh. If I were infallible or wise, none of this would have happened. You must make the choices that seem wise to you. And you must understand that no choice is without fear or doubt.”

  “It was forbidden to use the power—”

  “Yes.” She glanced at the circle, pale and luminous, that still floated around Emma. “My choices were not your choices. But it is not you who is using their power, Emma Hall. Helmi chose. Nathan chose. You are a conduit that allows them to express their desire in a way that affects the world of the living. You did not decide; they did. Now, I must go. But I will return. Scoros is finished.”

  • • •

  Scoros was no longer holding Eric’s hands when Emma turned away from the magar. Eric’s hands were at his sides. He didn’t look significantly different to Emma. Before she could ask, the old man said, “Brace yourselves.”

  Chase, however, said, “Lie down on a solid patch of floor. Now.”

  Since he was following his own advice—and at speed—Emma did the same. The floor was cold. Emma absorbed its chill. “Will the citadel dissolve?” she asked, voice shaking.

  He answered the question she hadn’t asked. “No. Not yet. Large parts of what remains will require your intervention. But your friends are as safe as they can be.”

  “The other Necromancers?”

  “Some are dead; the Queen’s fire was not contained to this room.”

  “The others?”

  “They will not find your friends. It is the only thing I can guarantee. They may find you, but I do not think they will come looking. They will be concerned with their own escape. They will know that the Queen is dead.”

  “Will they find her?”

  Scoros shook his head. “Not without both time and effort. And yes, Emma, they may look. She knew much, and she did not share all of it. But they will not find her yet. She is too new to death—as I will be.”

  Anything more Emma could ask was lost as the floor shook. She expected it to crack, to break, the vibrations were so strong. But the floors only looked as if they were made of stone; they weren’t. They were made of the dead, just as the walls and the ceilings were.

  When the shaking stopped, she pushed herself from the floor to her feet. She could see the words of the circle around her; they moved as she did. She wasn’t certain anyone else could see them, but it didn’t matter. She understood why Helmi and Nathan remained.

  She was going to have to free the dead that were trapped here, not by their own memories or their inability to walk away from the lives that had ended, but by the will of their deceased Queen.

  This was a temple, a cathedral, to grief and loss. It was vast and it was fortified and it was, in a fashion, starkly beautiful—but it was a grave. It was a grave that Reyna had dug, had lain down in, and had occupied for all but seventeen years of her existence, adding to it, enlarging it, but never emerging.

  And Emma understood it. And understood that grief was not respect, in the end. It wasn’t a testament to love, to how much Nathan had deserved love. It just was. And she had survived it—would survive it—because she had Allison and Michael and actual responsibilities. There were whole gray, empty days that waited—and she would fill them as she could bear to fill them.

  But she would not be Reyna. She would not create the same space, albeit with vastly different decor, and attempt to remain in it, forever frozen, waiting for something that could never come.

  She lifted the lantern again, and, circled by Helmi and Nathan, she turned to Scoros.

  Scoros nodded. “It is done. The citadel is upon the ground, as you requested. Your friends have survived its landing, although I believe your dog is very upset. And loud.”

  She placed a hand very gently on the old man’s chest, and she undid the bindings that kept his body functioning, freeing the trapped, mute dead, who streamed away from him, arms raised, faces upturned.

  And she watched as elements of Scoros came together, as if rushing in to fill the space that the dead had occupied, and she realized that Scoros had been both alive and dead, and he was becoming whole. She didn’t ask him how it had been done. It was enough that it would be undone.

  She began to walk through the Queen’s resurrection room, and as she moved, the floors became liquid; she could see arms raised, a sea of waving, frenzied limbs. This time, it didn’t disturb her. She reached for a hand, and instead of being pulled under, she had the strength, the balance, to lift, to pull the dead man—it was a man—free. As if he were a tightly compressed piece jammed into a very strained, intricate puzzle, the rest of the dead began to follow; there was nothing to hold them in place.

  She knew where they would go. She could hear their voices raised—a whisper of sound, but so sharp, so sweet, words would have been superfluous.

  She didn’t know if the ease of this dissolution was due to the lantern or the Queen’s passing, and she didn’t care. The radiant joy of the dead was enough to move her to tears, and she let them fall as she walked. She didn’t need the circle. The dead trapped here couldn’t trap her. But she felt Nathan’s presence as a comfort and Helmi’s as a sharp encouragement to continue until every last one of the dead was free to leave.

  • • •

  She found Allison and Michael near the end of that journey; they were pale and drawn, but they lost the look of shuttered tension the minute they saw her. They stood on overgrown wild grass, and as they moved, a black blur streaked past them heading for her legs and whining in that high-pitched, overexcited way of happy dogs everywhere.

  She knelt into a faceful of tongue and dog breath and was grateful for it, and when she rose, she said, “Where’s Amy?”

  “Marshaling the rest of the living,” Allison said. “And Chase?”

  “Chase is doing something similar with the Necromancers.”

  “I doubt it; Amy is only terrifying the maids.”

  “Maids?”

  Allison nodded. “Some of the living weren’t novices. They were just regular prisoners. They did the cooking and the cleaning, things like that. Ernest is with them as well.”

  “He should be with Eric and Chase.”

  “And leave the rest of them to Amy?”

  Emma laughed.

  “He’s trying to arrange for a safe exit for all of us. Some of us aren’t on the right continent, and we have no passports, among other things.” She didn’t mention clothing or food, although that was in short supply as well. At the moment, they had their lives. “He’s also trying to come up with some sort of cover story for how we got here—and an international slavery ring isn’t going to cut it. Even if the rest of us were good liars, Michael isn’t.”

  The rest of them were, sadly, not good liars—they only looked good in comparison to Michael. Allison glanced at Michael and added, “Michael called his mother.”

  Emma nodded.

  “With Amy’s phone. He told her that we were all safe, just—not really close to home. And that we’d be home as soon as we could. Is it over?”

  “I’m not sure it’s entirely over—but I think the worst of it is.” She hugged her best friend, and held on tightly while Petal, feeling left out, whined and jumped.

  But Michael said, “Where’s Nathan?”

  Emma released Allison. “He’s here,” she said. And he was: the thread-thin words of a circle still floated around Emma at chest level.

  “Is he going to stay?”

  She reached out, touched a word—the badly spelled “gratitud”�
�and shook her head. “No. He can’t. He’s dead.” The word was cold in her hand, but she expected that. She wasn’t even surprised when it began to dissolve, the letters fully fading as the words gave way for peace, in a way they hadn’t for war and death.

  Standing in front of Emma, when the words had vanished completely, were Nathan and Helmi. She felt a surge of gratitude at the sight of them. Gratitude and grief. But she accepted the grief.

  “Thank you,” she said—mostly to Helmi.

  The child snorted. “You were never going to get it done on your own. Neither was he.”

  Nathan grimaced—safely beyond Helmi’s line of sight. “She argues more than Amy when Amy’s on a roll.” But there was affection in his words—affection Helmi could see when she pivoted to face him, frowning.

  “Can you—can you see it?” Emma asked them both.

  Helmi nodded, eyes shining. “You would have made a terrible Queen.”

  “Thank you,” Emma replied, meaning it. “I can barely manage my own life. I don’t think I want to be responsible for anyone else’s right now.” Petal whined. “Except my dog’s.”

  Helmi settled small fists on her hips and surveyed the landscape. Emma wasn’t certain what she was looking at; the dead, as she well knew, saw things differently. “Hey,” Helmi said, staring off into the distance. She frowned when Emma failed to answer and turned to glare at her.

  “Sorry—I wasn’t sure who you were talking to.”

  “You. I thought my mother was an idiot. I mean, I still think she’s mostly an idiot.”

  “I have days like that.”

  “I had centuries. Don’t interrupt me.”

  Nathan was grinning as Emma nodded silently.

  “You did a good job. You did the right job. Thanks.” Her urchin smile deepened around the corner of her lips, her eyes almost sparkling with mischief. She looked young, to Emma. Maybe because joy was youthful. “My sister was really broken.”

  Emma nodded.

  “Don’t hate her. I mean, if it’s possible. Don’t hate her.”

  Emma said, quietly, “She’s dead. There’s no reason to hate her now.”

  Helmi shook her head.

  “. . . I’ll try, Helmi. I’ll try hard. I think—” But she shook her head. Held out a hand. Without hesitation, Helmi placed hers across it, and beside Emma, Michael’s eyes shifted.

  “Helmi wants to say good-bye. And thank you.” And to Emma’s surprise, Helmi did, smiling up at Michael with unfettered, uncomplicated joy. When she released Emma’s hand, she looked up at Nathan, waved, and walked away. Well, bounced away, really.

  She inhaled, turned to Nathan, and held out a hand. Nathan shook his head, and looped both of his hands behind his back. “I have a favor to ask.”

  Emma hesitated.

  “I want to talk to my mother.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “I know. I want you to keep me by your side until you get home. I don’t know what you’re going to tell the parents—all of the parents—and I don’t have good advice. I imagine Michael will tell the truth, Allison will say almost nothing, and Amy will lie. I don’t know what you’re going to tell Mercy.”

  “A lot of ‘I’m so sorry, Mom.’ ”

  He laughed. It was the most wonderful sound in the world. His laugh was one of the first things she’d noticed about him. “I know the dead and the living aren’t supposed to meet. I know there are rules—but, Em, I want to talk to my mother. Once. Just once.”

  “She’ll want—”

  “No. She’ll understand why it can only be once. Unless you keep me here, I can’t stay.”

  Emma understood. Chains of grief had bound Eric for centuries. She felt that grief tighten. She wanted—for just a moment—to be loved so completely that she would be the only thing Nathan wanted. She wanted him to want to stay.

  And she wanted to let him leave. She was not ready to die yet. She knew she would let him go. She would smile. And part of her would mean it. Part of her would grieve—but she accepted that, too. She had loved Nathan, had anchored her dreams in him. It was okay to feel pain at the loss. It was what the living did.

  “I want her to know I’m okay. I want her to know where I’m going and what’s waiting for me. And that I’ll be waiting. Just that. I think—I think that’ll be enough.”

  “If you’re bound to me the way Margaret was,” she told him, “you should be able to make yourself visible without touching me. I don’t know if it works at a distance.”

  Nathan nodded.

  “I—I don’t want to be there when you talk to your mother. I don’t want to do that to her.”

  He smiled. Nodded. “She’ll cry.”

  “I know. I would.”

  THERE AREN’T A LOT OF SURFACES on which Emma can draw a circle in her house. Her room—all of the bedrooms—are carpeted. The dining room has hardwood floors, but the floors are heavily laminated, and they don’t take chalk well. She knows from experience that they would take paint or marker, but she’s not three anymore, and even when she was, that hadn’t gone over well.

  In the end, she settles for the garage. She bundles herself in heavy winter clothing although it’s spring, and she heads out, a box of chalk in her hand. She’s had some practice in circle drawing in the past two years. It’s been interrupted by the usual things—end of school, graduation, searching in panic for a university that both wants her and that she wants to attend.

  Allison has started to complain about her annoying baby brother again; apparently he was still stealing pens and paper from her room. For nine months, she didn’t offer a single word of complaint; his lungs were damaged by the gun—almost everything was. He needed physiotherapy and time to recover, and he lost almost an entire school year.

  But he didn’t lose his life.

  The first time Allison stormed into his room to retrieve her stolen supplies and threaten to kill him with one of them, he laughed. That was normal. And then he cried, which was not.

  Allison’s mother got teary. “Allison’s been trying so hard,” she said, with a fond, but watery, smile. “But he needs to know that he can annoy her. He needs to know that she thinks he’s strong enough—safe enough—to threaten.”

  Emma privately agreed. But she didn’t think that Toby was the only one who needed it.

  She thinks of this, smiling, as she writes. The magar wanted her to learn the old runic forms but finally surrendered—gracelessly—when Emma had insisted on English. “It was fine for Helmi,” she pointed out. “And it worked.”

  She’d been surprised to see the magar, two months after they’d returned to Toronto. The old woman had walked through her closed bedroom door while she was conversing with her father about her university choices.

  Her father, of course, had stayed.

  He was almost ready to leave, he said, because Mercy was almost happy. He didn’t mind Jon. In fact, he seemed to approve of him. Emma wanted him to go—but while he remained, she was happy to have his company. Happy and a bit chilly.

  She was less happy to have the magar’s company—but she was not at all surprised to see her. She turned to the old woman as her father tactfully faded from sight. “Did you come for the lantern?”

  “The lantern,” the magar said, “is yours. It’s up to you to pass it on.” Her frown practically became a canyon. “What are you going to do, girl?”

  Emma could have pretended to misunderstand. She didn’t. She wasn’t a Necromancer. She was, however, Emma Hall. She thought about Andrew Copis a lot in the quiet hours of night. Andrew Copis was a ghost who would have been trapped in the moment of his death for decades or centuries, regardless of the Queen of the Dead.

  It had been so important to her to free him from that.

  “I’ll learn,” she’d told the magar.

  • • •

  E
mma doesn’t misspell “gratitude,” although she considers it every time she draws the circle. It’s the one word she’s certain she won’t give up, no matter how much living her life changes her.

  She writes in careful chalk and she waits. She doesn’t have to wait for long. The garage door is open to the evening sky. She can see street and trees in the boulevard just beyond the sidewalk.

  And she can see Eric walking up the drive. He almost heads to the house, but some instinct causes him to jog a bit. He approaches the garage.

  “You knew I was coming?” he asks, as he looks at the circle that’s nearing completion.

  “The magar dropped by.” Like a Sisyphean boulder. She looks up to see his expression; dusk hides most of it. Or it would, if he were alive.

  “I don’t envy you,” he replies, with a grin.

  “You’ve got Margaret.”

  “She heard that. She’s trying not to be amused.” He takes a seat, leaning against the only bare wall he can find; he stretches his left leg, folds his right, and rests his elbows on his bent knee. He then lowers his head.

  “Where’s Chase?” she asks.

  “I left him at Allison’s. If I know Chase, he’s standing on the sidewalk out of line of sight of her house trying not to look as terrified as he feels.”

  Emma laughs. She fumbles in her pocket for her phone.

  “That’s cheating,” Eric says, but he’s smiling broadly as well.

  Emma texts her best friend. Chase is outside on the sidewalk. He’s too nervous to knock on the door. “I’ll blame you. Besides, Ally doesn’t always check her text messages.”

  Apparently, she’s checking them tonight. OMG. She doesn’t even ask Emma how she knows.

  Emma looks at the source of the information. “You’re ready?” she asks him quietly.

  Eric nods. Emma doesn’t ask about Necromancers; Eric doesn’t volunteer the death count. She is grateful that it’s not her job. But she has a job to do. Emma carefully steps over the perimeter of her circle. She holds out a hand to Eric. There’s no hesitation when he takes it.

  But he says, “Margaret first.”