All Hallows' Eve Collection

by Sarah M. Eden

  But not just any memory. One that would convince her that life was about hope. That’s what it boiled down to, after all. When sorrow is more than you can bear, hope promises you that, one day, it will get better. And when your days are filled with happiness, hope is what you share with everyone around you.

  Oliver had two gaping holes in his memory, vacancies like missing teeth, but even though he couldn’t remember what used to be there, he still had one memory— his best memory— that could be the key to his freedom.

  If he was willing to give it to Glau.

  Oliver curled the fingers on his left hand into a fist, making his wedding ring the focal point of his thoughts and his gaze.

  Could I do it? Should I?

  What would Cate tell me to do?

  Oliver wished he could ask her; the memory was hers, too, after all. It didn’t seem right to sacrifice it like this without consulting her.

  But he couldn’t. Glau was right about one thing. Cate was gone, and even though Oliver wanted her back, it was impossible.

  Unless…

  Glau had proclaimed herself a daughter of a god. There was power here on the island, in the songs of the sirens.

  “You said you’ve brought people here from all over,” he began slowly. He couldn’t believe the words forming in his mind, let alone that he was about to give voice to them, but the moment felt like a chance. One he had to take. “How far is your reach?”

  Glau settled her shoulders and raised her chin. “No place is beyond my reach.”

  “Even”— he swallowed— “Hades? The underworld?” He couldn’t remember which was the Greek name and which was the Roman. “Can you bring someone back from the dead?”

  Glau tilted her head, considering.

  “If I give you my best memory—” He pulled off his ring and offered it up on his palm. “—could you do it?”

  Glau was silent, but Oliver could tell she was intrigued.

  “She may only stay until sunrise, but, yes, I can bring her here. Then you will give me your heart. And then, if there is anything left of you, I will let you go.” She stated the terms with meticulous precision.

  His heart stuttered with fear and desire. He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  Glau snatched the ring from Oliver’s hand and stood up, her wings snapping open to their full width. “Done.”

  She took two paces to the edge of the firelight, three to the edge of the vegetation, and then four to the edge of the ocean. Her last step submerged her feet in the water.

  He followed her, wondering with each step if he had crossed the line into madness. But whatever else he had learned from loving Cate, it was that hope never dies.

  The moon was still full, still hanging low in the sky, as if the time he’d spent on the island had been no time at all. The stars were still gone, the arching dome of the sky solid black glass. He kept his eyes fixed on Glau.

  Water ebbed and flowed over her feet. With each washing, the scales on her toes, her legs, her thighs, glowed brighter. Her wings gathered the sea breeze, swirling it around her like an invisible cloak.

  “We stand on powerful ground,” she murmured, her voice melodic and strong. “This is the middle passage— where water meets land meets air meets fire.” On the last word, she thrust Oliver’s wedding ring into the sky. The moonlight ignited the gold band, and he heard a low rumbling begin beneath his feet. The water retreated with a soft hiss. The breeze built into a storm with them at the center. “This is where the song begins— and ends.”

  The moment Glau closed her eyes and opened her mouth Oliver knew it was too late to turn back or have doubts.

  The sounds that emerged from her were inhuman. A rolling, rising tide of noise. A rhythmic pulse that forced his heartbeat into alignment with it. A song that was both harmony and melody in the same voice.

  Oliver had thought her voice was powerful when it had been joined with her sisters’, but as her body arched back and her wings stretched wide, as her hair flowed down her back like shadows and her scales shimmered on her skin like light, he realized the truth. Glau might have been the youngest of the three sisters, but she was the true anchor, the source of strength for the other two. She was the one who ruled them all.

  He fell to his knees under the pressure of Glau’s Siren song— calling, coaxing. Summoning. Demanding.

  He pressed his hands against his ears trying to keep the sound out, but Glau’s song filled up the empty places in his head until they rang like a struck bell. He couldn’t get away from the noise. He was made of noise. He was made of song.

  The moonlight gathered around the ring in Glau’s hand, intensifying and building even as the song did. The gold grew so bright, Oliver couldn’t look at it anymore.

  A shaft of golden light streamed down from the ring, hitting the water and dividing it, pushing it aside. A hole opened up in the ocean, as black as the empty sky above, as full as the moon illuminating the beach.

  A figure rose up out of the water. Tall. Blonde.

  Oliver’s body screamed in recognition even as his mind struggled to accept what was happening.

  She was bathed in winter moonlight and Mediterranean waves.

  She wore a pair of worn-out sneakers, blue jeans, and a faded Swedish Bitters concert T-shirt.

  It was Cate.

  Chapter Nine

  Oliver whispered her name.

  She looked up and, when she saw him, offered him the smile he’d fallen in love with. “Oliver?” she asked, and his heart nearly stopped.

  If he hadn’t already been on his knees, he would have fallen at that moment.

  Glau’s song cut off, and she rolled the ring into her fist. Pride straightened her spine. She didn’t look as if the summoning had cost her anything. Rather, she looked stronger, hungrier, than before.

  “Remember,” she said to Oliver. “Sunrise.”

  He nodded and scrambled to his feet. All his attention was fixed on Cate, two thoughts pounding in his head in rhythm with his steps: It can’t be. It is.

  Cate stepped forward and met Oliver on the beach; her arms came around him just as his arms encircled her. Her body met his, melting into him, matching curves and hollows and hips. She was his second half, his better half. She filled the emptiness inside him. She made him whole.

  Oliver ran his hands through her soft hair, tilted her head, and kissed her all in the same motion. He was already out of breath, and the touch of her mouth on his stole the rest of it from his lungs.

  She was warm. That was what he kept coming back to. Her skin was warm under his hands and his lips. Her body moved and responded to his. Her heartbeat rolled and crashed like the waves below their feet.

  He kissed her long and hard, greedy to taste her again. She kissed him back, giving what he wanted, taking what she needed.

  He ran his hands down her neck, her back, to her hips. He lifted her up and held her even closer.

  Stars speckled behind his closed eyelids. He pulled back a little, only to bury his face in the curve of her neck. He breathed in the familiar, sweet clean scent of her. “Cate,” he whispered again. “I missed you so much.”

  He felt her hands spread across his shoulders and her tears fall on his cheek. “I’m here,” she said, repeating it over and over as though she couldn’t believe what had happened either.

  “I can’t believe I was gone when…” Tears blinded him. Words crowded in his throat. “You were all alone that night. I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have—”

  Cate pushed him back and looked him in the eye. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. I didn’t know. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I should have known. I’m a doctor. I was your husband!”

  “You still are my husband,” she said with a smile. She slid her hand down his arm and held his left hand. She lifted her eyebrows in a question.

  He looked over his shoulder at Glau. “She has it. It’s part of how she brought you back.”

>   Cate nodded at Glau in greeting, her eyes cool.

  “When we have completed our bargain, he may have it back,” Glau said.

  Cate looked at Oliver. “Bargain?”

  He licked his lips and told her what had happened to him during this long, strange night trapped between reality and myth. “I promised to give her my best memory if she brought you back to me,” he finished.

  “But only until sunrise,” Cate said.

  Oliver nodded.

  “And which memory does she want?”

  “October 31, 2004.”

  Cate flinched. “You would give her that?”

  “It’s the best memory I have,” he said. “It is her price for my freedom.”

  “It’s our wedding day.”

  “Which is why I couldn’t give it away without you knowing why.”

  Cate looked at Glau, then at Oliver. She pursed her lips in thought. Silence stretched out to the horizon.

  “If I give her this one,” he said low, so only Cate could hear, “she will let me go, and I’ll be able to keep all the other memories I have of you. If not, she’ll take it from me anyway—along with all the rest. I’ll die here, and you will be forgotten.”

  She searched Oliver’s eyes and placed her hand on his cheek. “I will never be forgotten,” she said. “And you will not die here.”

  Decision made, she took his hand, and together they faced Glau. “You ready?” she asked, her tone between a tease and a challenge. Then she grabbed Glau’s right hand, and Oliver took her left, which was still curled in a fist around the ring.

  Cate slanted a look at him, and grinned. “She’s not ready,” she said, but…

  I am standing in the kitchen of Joshua’s apartment, refilling my cup for the third time. I keep hoping someone will spike the bowl, but so far, no luck. The dull ache in the back of my heart remains. It has been there since last Halloween when Cate stayed on the bus and left me on the curb. I can’t believe it’s been a year.

  A year without Cate. No word from her. No phone calls, no postcards, no carrier pigeons. Nothing. It’s like she’s vanished.

  It’s not like I didn’t try to find her, but her parents stonewalled me, telling me Cate wasn’t at home, even though her car was in the driveway. Her friends hemmed and hawed and avoided me. I hung around our favorite spots, but she never came back to them.

  I tormented myself with unanswerable questions. What had I done? What had I said? Why was she so sad that night on the bus? Would I ever see her again?

  I couldn’t face the possibility that the answer to the last one might be no, so I threw myself into my medical training, studying more, working more, outpacing my colleagues until exhaustion wiped my mind clear every night.

  “Doctor!” Joshua comes around the island in the kitchen and slaps me on the shoulder. “Glad to see you.”

  I am dressed in my doctor scrubs, a stethoscope around my neck, and a name tag that reads “Frankenstein” on my chest. I’ve only been at the party an hour, and I’m already tired of explaining to people why I don’t have green skin, scars on my skin, and bolts in my neck.

  Cate would have gotten the joke.

  “Thanks.” I lift my cup in a salute to Joshua. “Great party.”

  “Hey, there’s someone here to see you.”

  I frown. Coming to the party was a last-minute decision on my part. If someone from the hospital needed me, they would have called or texted.

  “She’s in the living room.” Joshua jerks his head over his shoulder. He grabs a handful of chips from a bowl and wiggles his eyebrows at me. “And she’s hot.”

  A girl? Looking for me? Impossible.

  I am curious, but cautious, so I edge my way to the kitchen doorway and peek into the living room. Crowds of people fill the room, dancing, drinking, talking, laughing.

  In the center, though, is a girl in a white dress, a bridal veil drawn over her face. She holds a bouquet of flowers in one hand.

  I down my drink in a swallow, wishing it had more of a kick, and step out into the din of the party.

  The bride turns to me as if she knows the moment I entered the room. She comes directly toward me, pushing a zombie and a French maid out of her way.

  I know that walk. “Cate?” I say, confused.

  She reaches me, grabs my hand, and pulls me down the hall, pushing open each door until she finds an empty room. We are in a small bathroom, barely enough room for one person, let alone two.

  “Cate, is that you?”

  She tosses back her veil, ditches the bouquet, and presses me against the door, kissing me hard.

  I don’t understand what is happening.

  I put my hands on her shoulders and push her away. “No,” I say. “Don’t.”

  “I’m so sorry, Oliver,” she says. “You have no idea how sorry I am.”

  I have dreamed of this moment for months, but now that it is here, all my carefully planned speeches are lost. All I can manage is, “Why?”

  She seems to understand the depth of my question. “I’m sorry for what happened on the bus. I was mad and scared and confused, and it turned into something I didn’t mean for it to. I’ve never loved anyone but you, and I thought that was a bad thing, so I kept wondering if maybe we should break up, you know, so we could both date other people, see if there was someone else out there for us— for me— but then you wanted to marry me, and I panicked, I guess. I ran. And I kept running. Everywhere. Nowhere. But it didn’t matter, it was always the same. I was alone. And I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What if he never knows how much I love him?’”

  Her words flood out without pause. I am as breathless as she is.

  “Of course I know,” I say. “And I’m never going to stop loving you, no matter what. I’m just glad you came back.”

  Tears fill her eyes, stream down her cheeks. “Can I ask you something?”

  I brush my thumb across her face. “Anything.”

  She offers me her signature smile and hikes up the hem of her white skirt. Peeking above the laces of her sneakers are a pair of purple socks: one striped, one solid. “Marry me?”

  A laugh builds up in my chest, impossible to contain. I say, “Yes,” and then thoroughly kiss her until her body hums beneath my touch.

  I break away, grab her flowers and her hand, and together we bolt toward the front door.

  We are laughing as I point my car toward Vegas.

  Chapter Ten

  Oliver felt Glau’s hand slip from his grasp, though his hold on Cate remained secure. He could still feel the wind in his hair from the open window as he and Cate drove to an all-night wedding chapel in Vegas. No, it wasn’t an open window— it was a sea breeze. And they weren’t in Vegas— they were lost in the Mediterranean Sea.

  He felt a touch on his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw Cate, near tears.

  “You didn’t even hesitate,” she said. “I never knew. I mean, I knew, but seeing that memory from your viewpoint… You never doubted me, or hesitated, or held a grudge, or anything. Your heart was just happy to see me.”

  “Of course.” Oliver’s voice scratched at his throat. “My heart is always happy to see you.”

  A low moan rose up from the sand. Glau sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She rocked from side to side, her eyes closed.

  “Do you think she’ll be okay?” Oliver asked.

  “Do you want her to be?”

  Oliver hesitated, then said, “Yeah, I think I do. She wanted to understand forgiveness, and joy, and hope. Maybe she does now.” He looked at Cate and raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t the whole memory of that night, you know.”

  She smiled. “I know. But I remember that night, and that’s what counts.”

  “Me too,” Oliver said, then paused. “How is that possible? The other memories are gone— I can feel where they used to be— but I still have this one. Even after Glau…”

  Cate tapped his forehead with her index finger. “You gave Glau y
our memory, while I was giving you mine.”

  Oliver tested the truth of that statement and found that, yes, he could remember everything about that night. Except now he remembered standing outside Joshua’s door while the party raged inside. He remembered the worry and the hope and the flowers in his hand.

  “Cate—” he started.

  She placed her finger on his lips. “Yes, I should have.” She smiled, but for the first time it was shaky, and a little bit sad. “And don’t be surprised if you eventually remember a certain Halloween dance that ended with a kiss, or an even earlier Halloween where a princess met a pirate for the first time.”

  A thin line of light sliced at the horizon of the starless black sky. Oliver’s whole body flushed cold with dread. Sunrise.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he whispered.

  Her sad smile softened. “I won’t be gone forever, you know. And I’ll still remember you.”

  “I think about you every day.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Don’t,” she said so softly Oliver thought he misunderstood. He frowned in confusion, and she continued. “Not every day. Don’t keep these memories forever on the forefront of your mind. Don’t feast on them every day.” She nodded to Glau and her silver scales and her white wings. “We aren’t made to live on memories. Promise me that one day soon you’ll take all the memories of you and me— of us— and you’ll store them somewhere deep in your mind and your heart for safekeeping. Promise me that then you’ll live your life and make new memories.”

  “I…” Oliver tried to say the words, but the light continued to creep up the sky, sweeping away the darkness.

  “And then, when we’re together again, you can tell me all the stories of all the new memories you made. Okay?”

  “Cate.” He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her.

  She was the first to pull away. “Good-bye, Oliver,” she murmured. Her tears had dried, and her blue eyes sparkled when the bright rays of the rising sun caught them.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  The sun rose swiftly and completely. One moment there was darkness. Then, light.