A Courtroom of Ashes
Page 11
“Compared to houses and swords, books are quite simpler to make, don’t you think?” He lets out his shrewd smile and stands up to light the fireplace.
“I got nothing.” Irving rubs his hands over his forehead. He goes to the fireplace and drops on the sofa. The flames reflect in his glasses. “There are thousands of black mirrors back on earth. Finding another that links here shouldn’t be a problem, but crossing without the medallion will be.”
I walk closer to John and lift my shoulders. “We could always take Belaphona from Red Seth.”
“He has a legion of Shades,” John says. “It’s suicide.”
Footsteps come from behind. Molly stops before the last step, leaning over the stairwell and looking at her nails.
“I could arrange something,” she says.
John shakes his head. “If we fight him, we’ll leave this place unguarded. I know how Red Seth thinks. We might get the medallion but we’ll lose the Home.”
Irving lets out an exasperated sigh. “The way I see it, our only hope is the Falls.” He seems to notice I’m lost. “They’re a vortex, lass.” Irving grabs an open book lying on the table and shows me a sentence under an illustration that depicts enormous waterfalls: Water cleanses the soul, brings it back to its source; flow with the waters, cross all the borders.
John hoots. “Where exactly is earth mentioned there? If Santana’s soul is lost…” He wraps my hands in his.
“It’s a gigantic risk, yes. But the ‘brings it back to its source’ part is interesting.”
“Is there any other way?” I ask.
“No, lass, aside from letting Red Seth destroy this place and finish a bunch of us in the process. But if he possesses you, a lot of people on earth will suffer.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s a fair price to pay.”
No, I could never put the Home in danger. The image of Bowman almost biting Tommy’s head off rushes back into my mind, and I know I’ll be dead, really dead, before I let that happen again.
“All right, the Falls it is.” I clap my hands, drawing everyone’s attention. “How do we get to the― AGH!”
There’s a man looking inside the house through the windows. His features are faded and colorless. His long hair droops lifelessly over his shoulders. The only parts of him that have color are his oversized dark pupils that stare through the house.
“Hauntings never come to these parts,” Irving says. “Whatever Red Seth is planning can’t be good.”
I try to calm my heartbeat, staring at the man outside. “What’s a Haunting?”
“Spirits who can’t accept they’re dead. Hauntings relive their lives over and over, lass. They’re the true walking dead, trapped and lost in their own minds.”
“They’re also cattle, since they can’t put up a fight,” John adds. “And where there’s Shade food, there’s Shades.”
I take a few steps toward the window and wave. The Haunting doesn’t blink, just stares at the wall behind me. He’s missing an arm. His skin hangs from the wound like ripped paper.
“Hell can’t be much worse than this,” John mutters from behind.
The Haunting slowly walks away.
John grabs a brown backpack and hands another one to Irving who starts packing a book and some supplies. He hands me a gray backpack. “Gather what you can. We leave immediately.”
“I’m coming too,” Molly says.
Irving puts a hand over her shoulder. “Yer the oldest, most powerful. You know there are Shades around, especially with the Hauntings. Without ye the Home is doomed.”
Molly frowns, crossing her arms. Then she walks over and hugs me tight. “Know who you are Santana, and you’ll be fine. Remember this when all hope is gone.”
What does she mean by that? Why would all hope be gone?
I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
A longing for the Home takes over me, even though I haven’t left yet. This place has become safe territory, and now we’re abandoning it. I don’t want to leave Tommy…
Molly’s voice rings in my head, “You will come back, dear. One day, when you’ve lived your time, and you’re too old to keep breathing, we’ll see you again.”
I hug her with strength. Noting the dusting of flour on Molly’s shoulder, I remember something extremely important. “May I take some of that bread for the road?”
She smiles, cupping my cheeks with her hands. “Of course.”
“Oh, and can you tell Tommy I said bye?”
She smiles ruefully. “He’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss him too.”
Wow. Never thought I’d say that about a kid.
Molly and Irving walk into the kitchen, leaving John and me alone in the living room. Only now I notice John is pacing in circles in the way of caged animals, mindlessly clenching his backpack against his chest.
“Is there something I should know?” I ask.
“The safest way to the Falls takes us across half of Death, and we’ll need to sail an almost unending ocean. It will take too long.”
“Will I be able to get to my body in time?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.” He pauses. “There is a quicker way, but it goes through the Wastelands.”
He’s seems to be angry that the Wastelands are our best bet, but it’s clear we don’t have much of a choice.
“The Wastelands it is,” I say.
John rests his hands over his waist. “Not many people come out of the Wastelands.”
“You did.”
“That came with a price.”
He leans near the window and I know he won’t tell me anything further. He stares at three black peaks, three shadows beneath the moonlight, far beyond the safety of the Home’s hills.
John looks so gray, as if all the blood in his spirit veins has left him.
“It’s going to be okay,” my voice unsure. “I mean, Shadeland can’t be that bad, right?”
He gawks at me, eyebrows raised as if I said something incredibly stupid. I’ve never felt so small and ridiculous, being looked at in this way by a man I’ve come to care so much about. Then he starts laughing hysterically.
15
We pass through dense woods woven with the threads of tears and sorrow, a never ending, cold gray. Invisible owls hoot from tree branches; unseen wolves howl, but they never come close. It’s downright creepy, and we’re utterly alone. The forest that protects the Home is a playground compared to this place.
Oh, how I miss the Home…It’s been two days of walking through this graveyard of barks and pines. I wish we could go back to those beautiful fields and see little Tommy again, playing with his bunny. But we can’t.
The worst thing about this forest though, is the visions. Sometimes, from the corner of my eye, I spot a memory of a shadow in the shape of a woman with long black hair and a white gown, but when I try to look at her, she’s gone. Naturally. Mother isn’t here, she’s in my head, and even if she were, I wouldn’t want to see her. She’s dead to me in every way.
We stop at night to sleep for an absurdly short amount of time. I’m always the first to doze off and the last to wake up.
This morning I hear a whisper as soft as a feather. Mother’s voice says my name, but when I jolt awake, she’s not here. A few tears gather in my eyes—against all reason— and I wipe them before they streak down my face.
And then we’re walking again.
Every once in a while, John asks me if I’m okay. I assure him I am, but I’m not, and it’s not just because of Mother. I’m so tired; every bone in my body hurts, and my feet throb like a boat engine. It’s as if this place is sucking all the strength I have.
Pain is an illusion, right? Besides, I can’t afford to stop. My body back on earth is slowly dying without water or food, though Irving has assured me it must be in a hibernating state. Be as it may, time is a commodity I don’t have.
The forest ends in an immense lake that reflects the sky and its two suns. I look behind and notice that the forest has
acquired a lively green instead of dead gray and that the eerie owl hoots and wolf howls have been replaced by chirping birds.
Weird…
“So forests have their own will around here?” I ask.
“Not really. That one happens to reflect what’s inside ye.” Irving sighs as if he’s trying to explain quantum physics to a five-year-old. “The forest you saw isn’t the same I did, and it’s not the same John did. The paths are the same but everything else varies. Many places in Death do that. I think it’s a mechanism to improve spirits, let them see what’s inside.” He shrugs. “Maybe it helps them prepare for the final destination.”
“So what does that tell me?”
He shrugs. “Only you can figure it out.”
Glancing once more toward the forest, I decide it’s better if I don’t. I need to leave Mother behind.
We walk until the sky turns purple. Dark blue spreads from the corners of the canvas until all becomes black and the two moons stand high in the sky. Even though it’s dark, we keep walking.
I don’t remember seeing the stars like this back home. They’re so sharp, so close. I wonder if they’re spirit stars or real stars. The lake reflects the sky perfectly, all diamonds from above flickering in the water. Crouching near the water’s edge, I brush the surface with my finger. There. I’m touching the stars.
A dolphin’s squeak sprouts from the water not far ahead. When I follow the sound, a sweet-water dolphin, all shades of pink and glowing like James the bunny, winks its black eye at me― or maybe it’s just my imagination. Then it dives back into the lake. The dolphin’s pink glow swims underwater until it’s joined by thousands of plasma fishes and a few neon manatees, all swimming under the stars at their own steady pace. A moving symphony.
“John, Irving, you’ve got to look at this!”
A whale’s song reverberates from above and I freeze. The lake is below, not above. Heart thumping, I look up to watch a giant blue whale swimming through the air, its blue plasma light leaving sparkling traces in the night sky. Ten more approach and now I’m staring at a pod of whales—orange, pink, green—swimming across the stars, right above my head, painting a rainbow as they go. Two of them don’t have any plasma light though. Regular blue whales, swimming in the sky.
John stands by my side, his voice quiet. “I always wondered why some animals are made of light and others aren’t.”
“And?”
His eyes are locked on the whales. “I don’t know.”
“I bet your friend over there has a theory,” I whisper, nodding to Irving.
“Personally, Miss Jones, I like some small mysteries to remain unsolved.”
I gaze at the show of light above and giggle. “I’m with you on this one, Mr. Braver.”
The whales disappear beyond the dark horizon. I want to wait and see if they come back, but we can’t stop. So we leave the lake behind and trek through more woods.
The moonlight shines through branches and tree crowns, weaving us in and out of darkness. I search the sky for the whales, but they don’t return.
We make a quick stop, and I sleep for a second, before John gently nudges my shoulder and says it’s time to go. By dawn, we reach a clearing painted with lush green grass that turns gray as it goes up a mountain. The mountain looms ahead like a hawk staring down on its prey. It’s pointy in all the wrong places, as if someone deformed it for fun.
“Mount Shadow,” John announces. “The gateway to the Wastelands.”
Mount Shadow is clearly the biggest peak, the two others mere backstage props. “Might as well have called it Mount Stay Away,” I mutter.
“That would work too,” Irving says as he starts going up the mountain.
A dreadful silence fills the space between us as we—or better yet, I— struggle up the mountain, slipping and stumbling on loose rocks. I’ve been a city rat for too long. Eventually, my legs adapt to the uneven slope.
The quiet is maddening and unnatural. It’s the kind of quiet you’d find in space, where no one can hear you scream.
I focus on moving forward, but time passes slowly. We’ve been walking for an eternity. The tendons in my foot threaten to break, but I push on.
“What’s the big deal with the Wastelands?” I ask, trying to focus on anything but the pain.
John ignores me. He has done this frequently during our climb, and I have no idea why.
His stride and speed increase, adding more distance between us. Irving trails behind me like a teacher keeping an eye on the straggler during a school tour.
“Can you at least dignify me with an answer, John?”
“Don’t insist.”
“I just want to be prepared, what’s wrong with that?” My tone is harsher than I intended.
“You’ll see when we get there. Surely you can wait?”
“No.” I stomp my foot. “And don’t treat me like a child!”
He keeps moving. “Then stop behaving like one!”
What’s wrong with him? Irving said John went through shit and it changed him, but what could possibly have happened between here and the Home?
“Why are you so scared of the Wastelands?” I know I have crossed the line before I finish the question, but there’s no going back now.
John turns and stares back at me as if he’s trying to assure himself I didn’t just ask that. I send him a stubborn look that says yes, I did.
“Why?” he sneers, climbing down until my chin is inches from his chest. His breath blows against my face, his eyes wide with threat. For a second, I’m scared of him.
“It’s a land of desperation where the craving for lost chances eats you from inside for eternity. Can you imagine that? Living in pain, regret, and madness forever?” He doesn’t wait before turning and leading the way.
There he is: the man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Is that what happened to you?”
John doesn’t grace me with an answer.
I should stop. This is clearly a very sensitive topic, but a part of me wants to know what created this stone version of him. I open my mouth to press him further, but Irving softly grabs my wrist, shaking his head. I need answers, so I ignore him.
“What were you doing in the Wastelands, John? You shouldn’t have been sent there in the first place, you’re the good guy!”
“You don’t know that!” He shouts from above, never looking back at me.
“Of course I do!”
“Oh yeah? Like you know you shouldn’t pay a price for defending guilty men?”
His words are a slap in my face. It’s not the words that hurt, it’s the words coming from him, the one guy in the world I don’t want to think I’m a monster. My eyes water. How dare he bring that up? How dare he remind me of my biggest regrets when I’m already on the verge of crumbling? I force myself not to cry, but it’s becoming hard not to.
“Fuck!” He jumps down with the grace of a gazelle until he stands in front of me, hands on my shoulders, bringing me to him. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that. Coming back to this place is hard, Santy. It calls to a part of me I want to forget.” He runs his hand through his hair and sighs. “But you’re right, I shouldn’t have awakened in the Wastelands. And you shouldn’t be punished for defending those scumbags.”
I don’t want to talk about this, and I can’t look him in the eye. “Shouldn’t we stop? We’ve been walking for a long time.”
“You’re a spirit, remember? You shouldn’t sleep, feel cold or warm.” John turns his back. He’s moving ahead.
“But I’m tired!”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Why are you being like this?” I whimper. “I want the old John back!”
He turns only slightly, but even so, I spot something painful and sad in his eyes. Hurt. My words hurt him. I want to embrace him and apologize, and kiss him until he forgives me, but I’m too angry.
He croaks, “We need to get you back. I won’t let you die, Santana.”
John looks down at me as if I’m a whining little thing he can’t refuse. He clicks his tongue and climbs back, leading us to a hidden glade in the mountain. The spot seems to please John and we gather dry wood and old pieces of bark. By the time we’re done settling into our camp, it’s night.
A blue plasma ball comes out of John’s hand, igniting a fire. Irving takes bread and cheese from his backpack. I punish John with silence as we eat, but he doesn’t cave. After a long while I give up.
“How did you make that plasma ball?”
“With this.” John taps his forehead. “Your mind can have a strong power in the world of the dead. If you manage to let go enough, that is.”
“And can you let go?”
He looks at his eternally damp suit. “Not as much as I’d like.”
I stretch my hands toward the fire. “Irving, can’t we fly to the Falls? It would put an end to John’s PMS, wouldn’t it?”
Irving tips his head to the sky and roars with laughter. After a quick moment, he clears his throat. “We could if we weren’t crossing the Wastelands. Gravity there is…strange.”
I wait for Irving to elaborate, but he just shrugs.
John seems to have missed my little comment, because he stares at the fire as if hypnotized. He seems to be reliving whatever happened to him in the Wastelands. Seeing him like this kills me, even though I’m still angry at him. For the first time since we met, I wish he’d link with me. Maybe I could try linking with him, but I suspect in his current mood, he’d shove me out of his head.
“Guys, it’s kind of chilly up here, isn’t it?” I rub my arms. My black skirt and sleeveless shirt aren’t enough to protect me from the cooler mountain weather.
John spreads his arms and the message is clear, but I won’t go to him, I’m keeping my pride, thank you very much.
“I’m sorry I have to be like this, but you don’t know what we’re about to face.” He keeps his arms open. “I will protect you Santana, no matter what. Even if you hate me in the end.”