Hoarfrost

by J. L. Murray

  As Abel crouched next to the unconscious woman, I could hear his voice, and I knew he was praying. To me.

  "I can do this for you, Frankie," he said, and I was the only one who heard. "I can take it out of her before it kills her. And when the time is right, when I am strong, I will kill him. For you, Frankie, in your name. And then you can forgive me." He turned to Esme, Esme! He pulled a silken thread from her mouth and kept pulling until he had a ball of burning twine flickering in his hand. And then he opened his mouth and ate it, swallowing it whole.

  I felt the tears coming from my own eyes, but I didn't understand why. The light within me was distracting, making me feel too whole. The ravens were screaming and I followed them. Three were carrying a faceless head. Did I know this creature in another lifetime? I reached out and took it from the birds and they shot off into the air. A weight fell hard onto my shoulder and I felt my sweet dead-eyed raven nip at my hair. My other shoulder was grasped more gently and I heard the soft coo of a dove. I breathed in the salt air and followed the ravens as they flew out to sea. The water was calm now, as smooth as glass, and I remembered another body of water so long ago. Or maybe just a moment ago, it was hard to tell. I was shining from the inside, from something I had taken.

  "I swallowed the moon, but it's still in the sky," I told my dead-eyed raven, and he croaked in agreement. I lifted the head by its hair. The shapeshifter, was that right? I couldn't stay on one thing long enough to understand. I couldn't remember who I was. Where was I? On the water, and the head needs to go somewhere. The dark face would fix something. I remembered a pair of silver eyes, reflecting my own face back as I held them in my hand and I fell. All I had to do was fall. It felt like burning, it felt like death, it felt like the end, but it wasn't. It was a chance. Maybe this time would be better. Maybe I would start over, maybe I'd be born and just be a baby girl, nothing else. My sister wouldn't see my wings.

  Even as I thought about the wings, I felt a stirring in my spine. A lengthening. My bones stretched and broke, mended themselves, and my clothes ripped as wings rose from my back and I fanned them. I could fly. I could fly and fly and fly and never land again.

  “Maybe I will cleave the veil,” I said.

  "All you have to do is fall," said the raven. "This time will be different."

  I laughed because I knew ravens couldn't talk.

  "Why?" I said.

  "Because I will be with you."

  "Because I brought you back from the dead."

  "Because I want to."

  "Am I afraid?" I said. "I forget what fear tastes like."

  "You'll remember. It's temporary, this confusion. You'll remember and it will hurt."

  "Then I'll stay crazy," I said.

  "You have too much work to do," said the raven.

  I followed the other ravens, stopping over a patch in the sea, a different color than the rest of the bay, darker, too dark, bottomless and empty and somehow alive.

  "Your feathers will get wet," I said.

  "So will yours."

  The ravens overhead shrieked, and the dove flew off my shoulder and joined the other birds.

  "I was in love once," I said.

  "It never leaves you," said the raven, "even in death. But even death doesn't matter, not to you. Death is not the end."

  "Maybe I won't die."

  "Maybe you won't. Better to fall and find out."

  "Better to fall," I repeated. I looked back to the shore and saw Esme sit up, saw her find my face, reaching out a hand as if to stop me. I saw her at a funeral that hadn't happened yet. I saw her holding a boy's hand, her son’s hand. I saw her live, I saw her love, I saw her go on. I saw her happy and I hoped she could forget how it felt to burn. I hoped she would remember it all as a dream, that someone would convince her that none of it was real. And I knew that someone would, and that I did it. I saved Esme. I kept her alive and she was free.

  I looked at the man on the shore, dead, the waves washing over him. I felt sorrow, fear, regret. I knew something else, too: I would come back to him. Like fire and gasoline, Lilith had said. Fire and gas, but which was which? Was I the fire or the gasoline? But the dead man didn't look like fire or gasoline. He looked like a man whose heart had been broken.

  "I think I love you, but I forget," I whispered.

  I turned away and looked down into the abyss. I hugged the severed head to my chest. It had started raining glowing white light, like a million falling stars all around me. The sparks fell into the sea and sizzled out. I closed my eyes as the rays of brightness shone inside me.

  I let myself fall.

  "Frankie?" said a voice.

  I turned my head, but could barely keep my eyes open. Everything was blurry, slowly coming into focus. It was night. A heavy weight thumped on my chest and cawed in my face. I was lying on something soft and alive. I touched it and it felt like grass. Long grass, like the kind from when I was a kid. Becky and I used to make sandwiches and lie on a blanket in the tall grass and no one would find us, not even our mother. But someone was leaning over me, touching me. Then a hand reached down and slapped me across the cheek.

  "Beatrice?"

  I blinked and saw her then. Old eyes in a young face, dark hair hanging around her face as she stooped. She pulled me up, wrapping my arm around her shoulder.

  "Yeah, it's me," said Bea. "You damn fool."

  I got my footing and pulled my arm from her shoulder. I looked around me, felt my abdomen.

  "The light is gone," I said.

  "You went a little mad, then?" she said, and I could hear the cackle wanting to come out. I could feel her approval. "Do you know who's looking for you down here? Do you know the kind of danger you're in? He probably already knows you're here."

  "The master," I said. "That's what the Mother of Hearts called him."

  "I've heard him called a lot of things," she said.

  And as I peered into the darkness, I could see everything. I saw mountains and rivers, shorelines and plains, in a world without a sun, without a moon, a world without light. I looked up and saw a glimmer of color above me, magic shining like glowing crystals, waiting to be plucked.

  I let my eyes search through this dark new world, taking in cities and settlements, fish with white eyes and whiter bellies, monsters tending their farms and monsters killing each other and monsters loving and fighting and hating and loving again. The land was shaped just like my world, the mountains the same shapes, but the air felt almost suffocating. And there were no trees. My eyes continued, faster, as if I were being reeled in toward someone. Someone powerful, someone who wanted to see me.

  And when I saw him, when I hovered in front of him, he seemed to see me, too. He smiled a joyful smile that was all sharp teeth. Two great horns rose from the top of his head, two great horns bigger than any Cain or Abel had ever grown. His head was massive, his skull flat and thick between the horns, and hairless, his skin the deep red of blood. He took up more space than seemed possible, his bones thick and sturdy as a bear, but in his eyes there was a light. A pale blue light that shone brighter the longer he looked at me. There were tears in his eyes.

  "At last," he rumbled. "Frankie Mourning. I've been waiting such a long time to meet you. Welcome to Xibalba.”

  I woke up screaming, to the clatter of metal crashing to the floor. I was cold, shivering, and when I looked down saw I was naked. A woman was standing next to me, her eyes wide, her mouth open, sucking in air, as if trying to breathe. Stumbling back, she reached into the pocket of her lab coat and put an inhaler to her lips. She fell to the floor, still staring at me. She was wearing glasses, her hair in a messy ponytail.

  "Where am I?" I said. "Why am I naked?"

  "You're in the morgue," she said weakly. "And you're naked because you're dead." She blinked. "I thought you were dead. Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Shit. What the fuck? No, you were dead. You were definitely dead."

  "I’m not dead anymore," I said, sitting up, pushing the remaining instruments off
the metal table. "Give me your coat."

  She stripped off her lab coat and gave it to me, and I swung my legs down off the edge of the table. I frowned. "You didn't cut me open, did you?"

  "Well, that was a problem," she said, adjusting her glasses. "You seem to have already been autopsied before. You have a lot of scars. What the hell? Am I really having this conversation?"

  "Where is he?" I said, slipping down onto the cold floor.

  "Where is who?" she said, staring at me. She seemed to be in shock, but at least she was talking to me. Most people would have been running for a phone to call the authorities. "I think I'm going to pass out."

  "Thomas Dek–" I stopped. "Where is Jacob Solomon?"

  "Jacob Solomon?" she said dumbly. "Do you want a phone book?"

  "No," I said, "keep up. What's your name?"

  "Shelby."

  "Shelby, do you have Jacob Solomon's body here?" I looked around. "Where is this place?"

  "Multnomah County Medical Examiner's," she said. "Let me look."

  Dekker was in a drawer. Shelby pulled it out and I couldn’t breathe when I saw him. He was bloodless, and I groaned when I saw the tidy stitches up his abdomen and on either side of his chest. The spot where the horn had pierced his heart was also stitched up, and he had a burn in the shape of a hand print on his arm.

  "This is going to hurt," I said.

  "What is?" said Shelby, staring at me.

  "Resurrection," I said, and placed my hands on his chest. "I hope this is what you want, Dekker." I felt the power inside me come to life and burst from my hands, into Dekker's chest. I felt all the power I had in me slide into him, and felt him start to vibrate. I remembered the raven, coming to life in my hands and, like a dream, a gray and black mottled heart from a monster’s chest, soft and alive. I poured everything into Dekker’s body, everything I felt, everything I knew, every thought I’d ever had. And when I took my hands away, his body shook, as if he were having a fit.

  "What the hell did you just do?" said Shelby, watching Dekker’s corpse in horror. “What did you do?”

  Dekker began to scream, looking wildly around, his eyes landing on me. He panted, his face clenched in pain.

  "I’m going to give it to you straight,” I said, and reached down and took his cold hand. His heart was beating, I could see his pulse in his throat. He was taking long, labored breaths, the color coming back to his face. “This is not going to be fun for a little while. It’s going to be painful, you might vomit something disgusting, you might have some other inadvertent bodily functions. Are you with me so far?”

  “Frankie?” he gasped.

  “But when that’s all over, we’re going to get a drink. We’re going to eat something. And then we’re going to drive to Chicago and you’re going to show me where you—where Jacob Solomon came from. But I’m still going to call you Dekker.”

  Dekker watched me for a while, his chest finally moving up and down with each breath. His heart slowed, and a smile spread across his face. Then he blanched, turned, and vomited onto my feet. I looked up to find Shelby gaping at us.

  “Romance,” I shrugged, then considered the vomit on my bare feet. “Do you know where I can find a good pair of boots?”