The rest of them had worse problems to deal with. The ground in front of them stirred, and then a sinewy, obsidian arm burst through the soil. A humanoid figure crawled out of the ash. Tar had preserved much of his grotesque body, but his femur was exposed where part of his thigh had rotted away. He pulled a stone-tipped spear from the ground with him.
Several more reanimated corpses emerged throughout the clearing. “Sable Noir’s prehistoric settlers,” Baron explained as though he were narrating a nature documentary. “Shame they chose the wrong side of the volcano to build their village, but they certainly come in handy when I need some hired muscle.”
The zombie warriors advanced on them, spears raised. Tane summoned his own powers and plant fibers began to spring from the pores in his fists. As they braided together, they formed two thorny projections extending from his hands.
But as he took a step forward, ready to ram his blades into one of the undead, his skin started to turn green. Moss sprouted uncontrollably from his pores as he became the next victim of Baron’s black magic. He turned to Sedna, his gaze pleading before the green vegetation blanketed his face and he dropped to the ground, convulsing.
The undead converged on the three of them who remained standing—a mortal scientist and two goddesses whose powers would be of little use against spear-wielding corpses. Soon they would have to choose between getting skewered or burning alive in the tarpits.
Njörun stepped closer to Sedna. “Can you use your sonar to identify which Baron is real?” she asked in a whisper.
Sedna tried to tune out the sharpened stone tips in front of her, and the intense heat behind her. She had only learned to use her echolocation abilities for about a year, but she had been practicing with Themis. As she let her internal sight take over, she used the sound produced by the crackling of the flames to map out the landscape around her.
The warriors were unfortunately very much solid. But when she pushed her attention further ahead to survey the ten different Barons, she discovered something odd:
None of them were real. They were all projections, capable of tricking the eye but not Sedna’s sonar.
She extended the reach of her vision, searching for any sort of anomaly. And then she sensed the slightest movement above her.
Someone was sitting on top of one of the petrified palm trees in a meditative pose.
The real Baron Samedi had never even shown his face. He’d been taunting them all as he manipulated reality from his high perch.
“Ra!” Sedna cried out. “Send a fireball as big as you can to your seven o’clock!”
The sun god was on his knees. He’d used a pen-knife from his pocket to gouge a hole in his cheek to let in air so he wouldn’t asphyxiate. Though he was still blind, he turned around, following Sedna’s instructions.
With what oxygen he could muster, he aimed his hands at the petrified palm and let loose an explosive blast so intense that it sent everyone around them, friend and foe alike, staggering back.
The blast obliterated the bottom of the trunk, reducing it to rubble. The top of the tree, along with Baron Samedi sitting among the stone fronds, toppled backward. The Vodou spirit let out a brief shrill cry before he plunged into the flaming tarpit and disappeared beneath the surface.
Instantly, the undead warriors collapsed limply to the ash. The projections of Baron flickered out around the clearing. Nagual contracted back to human form, the moss blanketing Tane’s skin receded, and Ra drew in a deep breath as his mouth, nostrils, and eyes unsealed. The hole in his cheek continued to bleed.
Njörun stared at the spot where Baron Samedi had disappeared into the tarpit. “Death by boiling hot tar seems like a horrible way to—”
Baron Samedi burst out of the mire with a hoarse gasp. Hot tar dripped off his skin. He only made it a few steps before he collapsed on the rocky bank of the pit.
He grabbed Sedna’s ankle and she flinched as the hot liquid burned her skin. Baron’s bloody eyes gazed up at her through the tar that covered most of his face. “Please …” he begged in a choked whisper. “Don’t hurt her. She’s only …”
Before he could finish his sentence, his head wilted to the ground and one final wheeze escaped his lips. Then he lay still.
Although he’d been intent on killing them, Baron Samedi’s death left them all rattled. Sedna had seen a corpse before—Arctic Canada wasn’t the most forgiving place to grow up, and storms had taken the lives of several fishermen in the village throughout her childhood.
She’d never watched a person meet such a horrible end.
Eventually, they pulled themselves together and circled the tarpit’s perimeter, until the dark river dried up. The ashes eventually transitioned back to a hearty grass as they resumed their trek up the island’s slopes.
Soon they saw a coil of smoke rising into the darkening sky. At first, Sedna thought it originated from the volcano’s caldera, but it belonged to a different source: the chimney of a small stone cottage built into the slopes.
A few minutes later they would open the cottage door.
That one act would send into motion a course of events that, in twenty years’ time, would kill them all.
Constellations
Just as Cairn had instructed, Delphine arrived at the end of Long Wharf just before dusk. She tightened the belt of her peacoat as she paced along the dock—the November air had taken on a chilly bite as the sun set and dragged the temperature down with it.
Delphine heard the telltale rumble of the motor first. She stiffened as the familiar boat approached from the harbor, prow sending a ripple through the placid waters. She’d boarded the Lemon Shark many times, but hadn’t seen it since the day it fractured her world in two.
An unfamiliar boy stood at the helm, and he cut the engine as they neared the wharf. Cairn stood on the bulwark, spreading her arms victoriously as she shouted “Ta-da!”
Despite herself, Delphine laughed at the dramatic entrance. “When you told me to wait here, I figured the date was going to be a drug deal.”
Cairn pressed a finger to her lips. “Ix-nay on the ugs-dray until we’re out in international waters.”
Grudgingly, Delphine let Cairn help her down into the boat. She nodded to the tan Italian boy at the wheel. “And who is our limo driver tonight?”
Vulcan doffed the flat chauffeur’s cap he’d insisted on wearing when Cairn had roped him into this. “Vulcan Manfredi, god of the forge, reluctant date chaperone.”
Delphine shook his hand. “Delphine Simone, reluctant date participant.”
“So much enthusiasm!” Cairn clapped her hands together. “Exactly how much apologizing am I going to have to do tonight? I’m just looking for a rough estimate.”
Delphine stroked her chin thoughtfully. “What’s a step just below ‘pleading?’
“Groveling?” Vulcan suggested as he restarted the engine.
Delphine snapped her fingers. “That’s the one.” She ignored the open spot next to Cairn in the back seat, and strategically claimed the navigator’s chair beside Vulcan instead. “I’m going to need you to grovel.”
For better or worse, the wind whistling past the boat drowned out further conversation on their journey across Boston Harbor. Cairn knew she had her work cut out for her to win back her girlfriend—or whatever they’d been. But for all Delphine’s attempts to remain pokerfaced, she couldn’t hide the glee in her eyes as they slalomed through the labyrinth of harbor islands beneath the coral sky. She drew in a sharp breath as Ambrosia Gardens came into view. The greenhouse glowed softly against the indigo waters.
As soon as they’d docked the Lemon Shark, Vulcan jumped ship first. Before Cairn and Delphine could even finish tying off the ship, the forge god had already ignited a bonfire on the beach for himself. He kicked up his feet on a piece of driftwood, cracked open a novel, and called out, “Have fun, lovers” with a casual wave.
Ari greeted Cairn and Delphine at the greenhouse doors, wearing a long-tailed tuxedo and a tie de
corated with a hexagonal honeycomb pattern. He had a serving towel draped over his forearm and a tray balanced on one of his gloved hands. “Good evening,” he welcomed them with a slight bow. “I am Aristaeus, master of bees, and I will be your maître d' tonight. Allow me to escort you to your seats.”
As they followed Ari through the labyrinth of hives, Delphine eyed the thousands of bees crawling behind the aerated plastic. “You know, pizza and a movie would have been just fine. You didn’t have to rent a bee-colonized island.”
Cairn shrugged. “I figured if I were lucky enough to get a chance to woo you back, I would be an idiot not to swing for the fences.”
Their destination was a lone candlelit table by the windows, with a dramatic view of the windswept bluff and the darkening ocean beyond. Ari had arranged mead kegs around its other three sides to give them some privacy. The mead-maker uncorked a bottle of “rose-infused sparkling honey cider” and filled their champagne flutes. With a flourish, he garnished both glasses with floating blueberries before bowing again and retreating off to leave them in peace.
Delphine examined the personalized three-course menu on the table. “Honey-balsamic glazed strawberries, honey-braised Norwegian salmon, pecan-honey soufflé,” she read aloud. “I’m … sensing a pattern.”
Cairn cringed. “I hope you took your insulin today. The chef has a bit of a one-ingredient mind.”
“So.” Delphine raised her glass. “What she would toast to?”
Cairn considered this before lifting her own. “To first loves and second chances.”
“Smooth, Delacroix,” Delphine replied nonchalantly, but she sipped her drink to cover a pleased smile. She gestured to the illustrated image of Ari surrounded by bees on the back of the bottle he’d left in the ice bucket. “So let me get this straight—both our chauffeur and our private sommelier are reincarnated gods? What exactly have you been up to the past month?”
“I actually don’t know where to begin.” Cairn hadn’t planned on mixing business and pleasure tonight. But the flood gates opened, and she suddenly found herself hopelessly babbling through an explanation about everything that had happened over the last week, from her eerie first visit to her mother’s ice lair, to her strange recruitment session at Themis’s mansion, to her investigations both with Nook and on her own. All the while, Delphine listened, still as a statue, barely blinking.
When Cairn reached the end of the story, she said, “After Nook banished me from the investigation, it felt at first like the world was caving in around me again. But over the last few nights, an Atlantic puffin has been appearing in my dreams. Those birds used to nest by the hundreds along the shore of my mother’s hometown. As dumb as it sounds, seeing that same puffin in my dreams sort of feels like my mother is still out there, watching over me—that she’s trying to tell me that I’m on the right track.”
As Delphine processed the long, wild story she’d just heard, her fingers unconsciously formed chords on an imaginary piano, a nervous habit of hers. “I’m not going to ask you not to see these investigations through,” she said finally. “If it were my mom, I’d want to know who did it, too. But unlike Ahna, you and I are mere mortals—we only get one shot at life. One day she’ll be reborn, and if she realized her daughter died trying to avenge her, she would never forgive herself.”
“I know it’s a dangerous road. I’m being honest with you because I thought it was only fair for you to have all the facts before you decide whether you want to let me back in. Until I see this through to the end—until I find out what really happened to Mom and why—part of me will still be somewhere else.” Cairn reached across the table and took Delphine’s hand. “But the half of me that’s here and now, in the present, belongs to you.”
“Just promise me one thing: Don’t you dare make me go to a second Delacroix funeral.” Delphine’s voice broke. “You hear me? I couldn’t bear it. If I get so much as a whiff that you plan to put yourself in harm’s way, I’ll … well, I’ll duct tape you to your bed until you come to your damn senses.”
After a tense pause, Cairn burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I wanted to take you seriously but then I pictured you having to spoon-feed me.”
“Don’t think I won’t!” Delphine threatened.
Over the course of the meal, Cairn was relieved when their conversation transitioned back to less supernatural topics—Delphine’s singing, and the producers that had periodically stopped by the Coconut Grove to hear her perform. It hadn’t occurred to Cairn just how feverishly the investigations had consumed her every waking minute, and it gave her a glimmer of hope that a more normal life awaited her at the end of all this, that maybe she and Delphine could find their way back to that first night atop the lighthouse.
After Ari served dessert, Cairn put a small gift bag on the table between them. “I made you a little something.”
Delphine reluctantly reached into the mountain of tissue paper and retrieved the object hidden inside. It was a metal orb, spherical except for a small aperture at the bottom. “And here I thought you couldn’t outdo that romantic rock you gave me.”
“Ari, kill the lights!” Cairn called over her shoulder. On cue, the overheads clacked off, plunging the greenhouse into darkness save the table’s only candle. “May I?” She took the orb from Delphine’s hands and lowered it over the votive.
The candlelight filtered through hundreds of pinholes that Vulcan had helped Cairn carefully drill into the orb, casting constellations onto the casks around them.
“They’re … stars,” Delphine breathed. She held out her hand and marveled at the projection of Cassiopeia against her palm.
“This is a map of how the night sky looked in Boston on the last day of August, thirteen years ago,” Cairn explained. “The night you moved in next door.”
Delphine’s gaze drifted back to Cairn as they were both transported back to the day they’d first met. Cairn had seen the moving truck unloading all afternoon, but it wasn’t until night fell that she saw Delphine out in her backyard, amateur telescope angled skyward. As Cairn had approached, shy but curious, the new girl had seemed so forlorn at how few stars she could see given all the light pollution from their neighborhood.
Cairn had suggested a cove she knew down by the beach, away from the streetlights. Together they’d wheeled the telescope half a mile in Cairn’s little red wagon.
It had been a memorable evening—until their parents called the police to report them missing.
“That might be the angriest I ever saw my father.” Delphine smiled wistfully. “Guess I should have known then and there that you were trouble.”
“It’s funny,” Cairn said. “Some of the most important days in our lives don’t really seem so big as they’re happening—it’s only in retrospect that you realize. Sometimes I think if I had a time machine, and I could go back and stand beside my five-year-old self in the backyard that night, I’d point to you and say, ‘See that girl? You don’t know it yet, but she’s going to change your life in ways you can’t even imagine.’”
Delphine abruptly stood up. For a moment, Cairn feared that she’d pushed things too far, too fast. She had been so desperate to make tonight memorable, when maybe she should have eased up and let Delphine’s heart come back to her at its own speed.
Instead of running, Delphine said, “It’s my turn to show you something.”
Cairn followed her through one of the glass doors, out onto the bluff. The waves crashed against the base of the cliff, ten meters below. “I’ll understand if you brought me out here to push me off,” Cairn said.
Delphine whacked her arm playfully. “I recently did a little astronomy research of my own. Did you know there’s a dwarf planet called Sedna at the outer reaches of our solar system?” She pointed toward the eastern horizon, near the constellation Taurus. “Somewhere out there, ninety times farther from the sun than we are, it’s drifting on a long, slow, crazy orbit. Only Sedna could have the te
nacity to survive in someplace in our solar system so cold and remote.”
Cairn’s lip quivered. “Sounds like an awfully lonely place.”
Delphine cocked her head to the side. “I don’t see it that way. Its orbit takes twelve thousand years, and we were fortunate to be alive for the period when it was closest to the sun. A few centuries in either direction, and we might not have discovered it. And like your mother, though maybe we don’t see her right now, she’ll eventually come back around.” She took Cairn’s hands in hers. “I feel privileged that my existence got to overlap with your mother’s, even if only for a short time. And I’m even more grateful that whatever forces have shaped the universe allowed my life to intersect with yours, too.”
Cairn couldn’t hold back any longer. She pulled Delphine into her and kissed her like it was that night at the lighthouse all over again. The world tilted beneath Cairn’s feet and she had to remind herself not to tumble off the bluff. Delphine’s arms kept her grounded to the earth, the same bedrock she’d always been.
Between kisses, Cairn whispered, “Don’t ever give up on me again.”
With a grin, Delphine whispered back, “Don’t give me another reason to.”
On the ride back to the mainland, Cairn couldn’t stop smiling into the sea breeze. She’d thought restoring her friendship with Delphine had been a long shot, but the possibility that they were back on the road to becoming more … Well, it filled her with a kind of hope she hadn’t felt in months.
Between kisses in the back of the Lemon Shark’s cockpit, Delphine insisted on taking a turn at the wheel. “Better buckle up,” Cairn warned Vulcan as he forfeited the helm. “Thrill Seeker Simone has a need for speed and a penchant for jumping over the choppiest waves she can find.”
“Do not!” Delphine called back, right before she rammed the throttle forward. The Lemon Shark lurched, and Vulcan practically tumbled over the transom into the water.
This Eternity of Masks and Shadows Page 15
