The Mortal Fringe

by Jordi Ribolleda

  "Yes of course we do, Abigail. I have not seen him since, is he alright?" Elizabeth looks at me while answering. "Don't say a word about our little trip."

  "Not a word".

  "Well dear, he looks marvelous, although I must say that he looked somewhat sad, such a pity."

  "Well I guess he would be" Jay has joined the conversation. "I mean, not all bonds grow as strong as the one he had with…"

  "That's quite enough Jay, thank you” Elizabeth does not want me to hear about that, I can tell from her voice tone. After all, our bond is what is making us do this now.

  It is almost night, the room looks just like when I first walk through that door, back when I was just a troubled boy that had taken an eight hour flight to run away from his own reality, when I thought that there was nothing else to this life…Back to when I did not know Elizabeth. I realize that I won't be here much longer, maybe five, ten minutes tops. I need to buy some time, I don't want to leave. I can't lose her again. And suddenly I see the answer in front of me. Something in me, like an inner voice shows me the thing to do. The books that I left on my desk, the ones that I had to return to the library, are still there, waiting to be brought back to their rightful place.

  "Wait" I say, grabbing the books quickly and holding them with my arms, like if they were the most valuable thing in my life. "I need to get these back, I'd be in trouble if I didn't."

  "Can't it wait?" Elizabeth asks, quite frustrated.

  "Well, I was going to leave in three days, then, it could have waited, but now that I am leaving in a matter of hours…"

  "I'll take you there, you will leave the books and then you will be out of the city, for good.”

  She has everything so planned that I am terrified of asking if I can stay a bit longer. Obviously, I don't do it, I just got myself some more time and that's good enough for me.

  We remain silent for about an hour as Elizabeth makes sure everything is alright. Abigail and Jay seem to be enjoying a mute conversation, because they keep smiling and punching each other, like three year olds, it makes it impossible to see them as mythological beings, they looks so human that the line that keeps me apart from them is almost invisible to me.

  Elizabeth is seating at the other end of the room, all by herself, touching something hanging from her neck. When she removes her hand I can see that it is the same necklace that she gave me. I suddenly blush, I put my hand around my own, and don't let go from it until Elizabeth breaks the silence in the room.

  "Ok then, we'll be back in no time. Please, have everything ready. The flight leaves in three hours, and you –she says pointing at me– need to board the suitcase. That means that we are about to be late. So let's go.”

  She stands up, crosses the room, grabs my hand and without even looking at me, blinks and makes us disappear. I don't even notice the fluctuations anymore, this has become so normal for me that I think the one thing that will feel strange is to seat on the plane for eight hours.

  We arrive in the library in just a second. It is closed down but the lights are still on. The silent room is as beautiful as always, with its stairs at both sides of the room and the crystal cabinet doors, letting us see the secrets they hide inside them. I need to look up for one last time. The second floor, with more books and the banisters around the edges of the stairs is so mesmerizing that I think I could stare up forever.

  Suddenly a creepy laughter breaks the silence.

  "To be, or not to be" a low and beastly voice coming from up above surrounds us. "That is the question. Is it not, my dear sister?"

  CHAPTER 33

  "It is so easy to get into a mortal's mind and make them do as I please. It used to be more fun some centuries ago, now I just get bored and make them kill themselves."

  So the idea of coming here came from Mal, not from my need to stay close to Elizabeth? I refuse to believe it. She is not the master of my own will, I won't accept it.

  "Don't you have anyone else to bother with your exquisite performance, Mal?" Elizabeth's fearless voice kills the memory of Mal's laughter.

  "You see, little girl, I like this setting, and as you say, I don't have anywhere else to perform at today, and given that it is just you and me, going after the same reward, why not just play it out."

  Am I the reward?

  "I should be Hamlet, of course. I have the better looks, but no, it's not quite that…. I also have the brains to trap you both here, making you think that this is nothing but a game, letting you think that I am crazy." She smiles again as she walks down the spiral stairs. "You should be Laertes, Hamlet's final adversary. And obviously the thing next to you would be Ofelia, the nice but yet defenseless Ofelia, whose ultimate goal, is… to die."

  "In that case, you will join us in the fall" Elizabeth smiles, ignoring her. "Providing that you have done your reading, of course, I guess you know that."

  "Sweetheart, the premise does not set for the same conclusion."

  "We will see."

  "Indeed."

  They are facing each other, hands raised to each other's chest.

  Mal makes the first move and Elizabeth is blown away by an immeasurable force. She hits one of the stairs and falls on the floor. She stands up quickly enough to avoid being hit by a computer Mal has thrown at her. Elizabeth disappears and teleports herself in front of her adversary, Mal crashes into one of the cabinets and covers the floor with crystal and pieces of wood.

  Before she stands up, Elizabeth points at me and moves her hand quickly to the door of the library. The door opens and I am thrown out of the room immediately. The door closes behind me.

  "Go away. Now."

  I pretend I can't hear her. I am lying on the ground, looking at her being hit over and over again by Mal's fatal strikes. Elizabeth can't die as fast as I can, but her body is as human as mine, and even if it heals faster, it sure hurts as if she was human. I can see her lying on the floor too, meters away from where I am, and staring at me. She does not care about Mal, her mind is set on me, and I can feel it.

  "Get back, have Abigail get you out of here."

  "I'm not going anywhere."

  Mal hits her again, this time Elizabeth screams as if she was being tortured to death.

  "So you thought you could beat me?”

  "No…" She answers with her rotten voice. Mal is disappointed with that answer. She wanted a battle, not a piece of cake. "I knew you were cruel, and pure evil. That's why you became what you are. I am not surprised."

  Mal stands up and smiles at her, with a surprisingly mad look on her face.

  "Is that what she told you? Is that the reason she gave you for me becoming this?"

  Elizabeth has no time to answer, Mal rises both her arms and pulls Elizabeth up to the ceiling and drops her on the central desk of the library.

  "Is that what she told you?!" she screams again, repeating her question, more furious than ever.

  Mal then moves her arm and Elizabeth is thrown against the glass door of the library, I am so close to her that I can almost touch her. I stand up and put my hand on top of hers. The glass door is the only barrier between us now.

  "Go" she asks again, she is exhausted. "If you care about me, Alex. Please."

  With the last bit of her strength she pushes me to the end of the corridor.

  I can't leave her here. I could not live with that on my back, I have failed my brother, I failed Ingrid… I won't fail her too. I don't just care about her.

  "I love you, Elizabeth Mears."

  I stand up ignoring my shaking legs and walk the corridor with my eyes fixed on Elizabeth. Mal is playing with her body, throwing her from one side of the library to the other. I can't stand it anymore. I try to unlock the doors but Elizabeth has made sure that I can't come in. I look around and I find some wooden chairs near the door. I take one of them and crash it into the glass, which breaks at the third hit. I take one piece of crystal, sharp enough to cut my hand the moment I touch it. I grab it regardless of the pain and walk acro
ss the destroyed room. Mal is on her knees, near Elizabeth's motionless body.

  "Perhaps you should ask her what really happened."

  The woman stands up and gets herself ready for the final hit, but I move faster and before she notices me I stab her on the side, cutting the palm of my hand and just scratching her body.

  "Was that supposed to hurt me, little something?"

  I can't breathe. She is grabbing me from my neck and she holds me away from the floor.

  "I like this picture."

  She breaks into crazy laughter once more.

  "I should have it made into a postcard."

  "Should you now?" Elizabeth is standing behind her, and her exhausted expression scares me more than Mal's hand around my neck. The library starts to shake, the shelves of the books fall down in a matter of seconds and every volume from the second floor falls on us. Mal lets me go, scared. The tables, broken glass, computers and books, everything, starts to move across the wrecked place. Elizabeth looks at Mal, but I don't recognize her, it is like if it was someone completely different. Suddenly, Mal is thrown away through the window.

  Everything stops moving, Elizabeth looks at me for a couple of seconds and then her body falls down to the floor.

  I run to her and hold her in my arms. I keep calling her name and try to awaken her, but it doesn’t work.

  "I won't let you leave me like this" I think to myself, and for her. "You are not going anywhere, not again".

  I keep trying to wake her up. I call for help but there's no one in the building.

  "Jay! Abigail!" I don't know if that will help, I don't know if they can hear me.

  I get closer to her, and kiss her softly, I don't want her to go, not like this.

  When my lips meet with hers I feel my life leaving my body and getting into hers. I can't get away, I feel weaker and weaker and I am about to pass out when she finally wakes up. She let's go of me.

  "I need to get you away from me."

  I nod, too tired to answer.

  "And thank you" she thinks “for not going away."

  Jay and Abigail pop up a minute later, smiling at first but slowly changing their expression to a one full of terror.

  "What happened?"

  "Mal, she set us up."

  "No, she set me up" I explain, ashamed.

  There's an uncomfortable silence.

  "Abigail, take him away" Elizabeth is so sure of her words that it hurts me.

  I stand up and try to speak, but before I can do so Abigail is already holding me.

  "Goodbye, my friend" Jay is as close as I am to breaking into tears.

  I look at Elizabeth. She does not move, and she doesn't say a thing. And it looks like if she could, she would look away rather than have her eyes fixed on me. Those green eyes, I can't believe how scared I used to be about them not too long ago. I can't believe I need them by my side now. I can't just leave, not like this.

  "Is that it?" I ask, screaming "that's all?" I scream louder.

  She looks at me and then closes her eyes. She slowly stands up and opens them again. Her green eyes are fixed on me.

  "Yes."

  CHAPTER 34

  The morning sun wakes me up. I am seating on a bench line near the departure gate at the airport. Abigail is right next to me, holding some magazine which she only uses to cover her face and avoid being discovered.

  "Some of those might be with Mal" She pulls the magazine even higher "Oh look! I can't believe that Amanda Barks had another baby!"

  Amanda Barks is one of the most famous Hollywood stars at the moment, I am surprised she knows about her. She keeps reading and ignores me. I silently seat here, looking at the gate that will lead me to where I came from. Looking at it makes my shiver, there's a bizarre and yet perfectly normal mixture of feelings going on inside me that try to show me everything I have gained by coming here, and everything that I am going to lose.

  "When does the flight leave?" I ask trying not to disturb Abigail's intense reading.

  "In an hour."

  I wish we could just teleport. It would be much easier, but I need to tell myself every now and then that if we had opted for the teleportation, the traces of Abigail's powers would lead them to us straight away.

  "Where are Elizabeth and Jay?"

  "Gone. You need to remember that."

  Like I could forget. I still hear Elizabeth's last words on my head, killing me from the inside out. She is giving everything up so I can live, I know how thankful I should be, and I am, but the way she said goodbye troubles my thoughts.

  We get on the plane, Abigail looks at everyone in the most suspicious way, thinking that each one of the souls on board are here only to haunt me down. After she is done checking every corner of the aircraft, she lets me go forward to my seat.

  "Stay here, don't go anywhere and make sure that you don't do anything stupid."

  "Like what?"

  "Like standing up and disappearing from my sight."

  "What if I need to go to the bathroom?"

  "What?" she smiles and goes back to the magazine. "Just freeze. You will have plenty of time for bathrooms back home. After all, that’s all you humans do, right?"

  Her offensive comment has no effect on me, I actually pretend it did not happen. I know that Gods think too much of themselves and too little of everyone else, so I am not surprised to hear her opinion. I just lie back and close my eyes. If I'm lucky, I'll sleep through the whole flight.

  I am not lucky.

  My eyes are closed but I see things that I'd rather not see.

  Everyone in the plane have turned into corpses welcoming me to my new life, a life between life and death, of eternal sorrow. Far away, I see Elizabeth waving at me, her dress full of blood. My blood. She is looking at me with the old memory of a smile. She looks older, much older. I look at her bare feet, covered with blood and almost turned into stone. She has been there waiting for me for an eternity. Then I look at me, I lower my head and I see the blood pouring of my chest, I don't feel the pain, I only see the life going away.

  I put both my hands around the deathly wound, but I can't stop the bleeding. I look above, to the lights of the monstrous venue that has hosted my dreams for so long, and they shut down slowly, one after the other. No green eyes this time, just the rest of the dream, the bit that I have never seen before, the bit in which I finally die, alone.

  Suddenly, Elizabeth is holding my hand and pressing the wound on my chest with the other. She looks at me with the same reflection of a smile.

  She brings her lips to me and kisses me softly.

  "We only fall together" she whispers into my ear.

  And then she dies with me. One holding the other's hand. Not letting go.

  I wake up.

  "Good, for a moment I thought I would have to wake you up."

  "Where are we?" My mind is still dreaming, but the light coming through the small rounded windows wakes me up quickly enough to go back to being myself.

  "Landing." she says.

  She offers me some water; I drink small sips until I empty the bottle. She does not need to know about my dream. No one needs to know, that will be something I will hold on to as my last memory with Elizabeth.

  When we reach the terminal I look around for the taxi station, or the bus ticket office. But Abigail stops me before I get any of both and leads me to the parking door.

  "You don't suppose I will let anyone else drive us home, right? Elizabeth made me rent a car."

  We look around the Parking lot, there's plenty of cars but Abigail does not look happy about any in particular. Eventually she stops randomly in front of one.

  "That's it."

  It is a mesmerizing car, a black BMW that looks brand new. I am even scared to get close to it. I don't like cars, let alone one that is twice regular size.

  "Are you sure it is this one?"

  "Well, that's the one I like."

  The one she likes?

  "Wait, what do you mean?"
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  She gets near the door, and opens it without a key or anything that could be used to open a car's door.

  "God's take what they want, and I want this car. Just get in, will you?"

  Reluctant at first, and for a long while, I get into the black beast that she has just stolen and we set our way home, my all-time home. I can't believe I am so close to normal life again.

  The engine does not make a single sound and the car moves as smoothly as a feather in the wind. Perhaps Abigail is using some of her God's gifts to drive, but I do not feel scared, and that's quite a milestone.

  The quiet and beautiful town of Bay Shore, where I have lived since I was a small kid appears in the distance and I feel my heart moving inside my body. Being so close is weird now. I never thought that I would feel this way, I feel half a stranger now.

  The red tiles of my house shine with the sunlight. I can see my mom working on the little garden we used to keep in the front yard and that we just forgot about after the accident. It's nice to see her working on it again.

  Abigail stops the car. I take a deep breath.

  "Here I am, whish me luck." I know she won't answer. But I need to share the moment, the feeling, with her.

  I open the car's door slowly, thinking about the last time I was here, how I closed Dick's car door and left, thinking that I would be free from all the worries that made me leave in the first place. Now I realize I was wrong. I should have faced my fears when I had the chance, but of course, if I had not left… I would have missed out.

  "Oh my God!" my mother shouts when she sees me step out of the vehicle. She throws away the spade and runs towards me shouting and jumping, all at the same time. She jumps on me and hugs me as hard as she can. I am sure I can hear her sobbing, but I don't care, not this time. "Let me look at you" she makes me turn around as if I were a top model. "I can see that eating has not been an important part of your student's life."

  "Mom, really? I just got here."

  "Oh sorry, sorry" she hugs me again "I can't believe you are finally here, thank God you called to let me know about the misunderstanding! I was not going to be home until tomorrow."