by C. S. Wilde
The concept of soulmates has always seemed like child lore to me, something more absurd than Santa or the Easter bunny, but with John, I am complete and in peace.
Leaving him will be the hardest thing I’ll ever do, but it’s the only way to guarantee his safety.
Now I snuggle in his arms, relaxing completely against him. These will be my favorite memories for as long as I exist: his chest slowly heaving up and down; the soft brush of his fingers over my shoulders, fabricating invisible patterns over my skin; the memory of his kisses, everywhere in my body; and John, shouting my name, his eyes half rolled up in ecstasy as a part of him became mine. With such thoughts in mind, I lower my hand to his intimacy and find it perfectly ready. He looks down at me with a smile that’s lazy and naughty at the same time.
Oh the things this smile does to me…
Time for round two.
***
Barbie and Irving return in the late afternoon, brandishing pointy spears and a hunter’s knife with a rough blade made of sharpened rock.
She tells me her account of how they found the perfect piece of rock for the knife and how Irving turned out to be quite the smart guy. Once she’s done, she looks further down the cave, where the boys are talking.
She whispers to me, attention still locked on them. “Do you really think Irving likes me?”
“I think he does more than just ‘like’ you.”
Something flickers over her face, an expression that passes too quickly for me to identify. She taps my legs. “So, enough about me. How was your day?”
I tell her all about it, how incredible and mind-blowing it has been.
Barbie smiles. “You deserve happiness, Banana.”
I don’t, but I appreciate her telling me that.
“Good girl!” She winks at me. “Or should I say bad girl?”
As if on cue, John crouches behind me and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Very bad girl.”
His voice is a sexy whisper that sends shivers to my most intimate parts. He soon returns to the back of the cave to help Irving pack.
Barbie and I talk for a while longer, gossiping about boys like when we were sixteen. For a moment, I envision my dad stepping in the cave and asking if we want meatballs for dinner. I’ve missed talking about boys with my best friend so much…
When we’re done, I pat her on the back, smile, and say, “You and Irving must be starving. I’ve prepared something with the berries and a few herbs. Hope it’s good.”
***
Now, in the quiet of the night, I lay beside John. I kiss his lips, but he’s limp beneath me.
I drag myself away until I’m free of his embrace, but when I look at him one last time, my heart shrinks. Pressing a soft kiss on his forehead, I pray that he’ll remember me through his eternity.
I sheathe Foxberry in the scabbard around my waist, and shove a goatskin bottle and a handful of berries inside a backpack. With the hunter’s knife Barbie and Irving made, I write a last message on the cave’s wall: Don’t come for me.
The right thing to do would be to thank them and tell them I’m sorry for leaving, ask them to make peace with my choice. But this will have to be enough.
I tiptoe silently across the cave, and suddenly Irving moves. I freeze so quickly I’d put a statue to shame. He grumbles indecipherable words, eyes still closed. He’s sound asleep.
I move ahead carefully, almost in slow motion.
Barbie sits on guard at the entrance of the cave, arms crossed, head down. She can’t be awake. I mixed three fireberries into their dinner, just to be sure. Sliding one step forward, I listen to her heavy breathing. Barbie was supposed to stand guard and I know she’ll blame herself for my escape.
I whisper, “It’s not your fault, okay?” before I stand up, fix the backpack over my shoulders, and run as if my life depends on it.
Dodging willows and brushing random leaves out of my way, I soon reach the end of the forest. I keep running through the wasteland and when I look back, the blue willows have become a tiny bush in the middle of the desert. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I mumble my last good-bye. Then I’m crossing the nothingness at amazing speed, thundering under the moonlight.
I’ve made the right decision. Enough people have been hurt because of me.
The blue willows are now nothing more than a dark blue dot in the background. Dry, cracked ground and distant boulders covered in a silver mantle surround me. Above, the two moons almost touch each other.
It’s strangely peaceful out here, by my own.
Against the glittering canvas of the night sky, I picture Mr. Baker and lunches at McDonalds with my dad. I see John, running his hand through his hair, and him above me, skin glistening, a gentle smile on his lips. I see Irving fighting like a warrior and Barbie running through my garden with her pink-laced bikini. Finally, I picture Barry, standing tall in a decadent throne room.
I hope he’s okay.
Then I think of Red Seth and come to a halt. I’ll be seeing him soon, that demon with an army of his own. I’ll either kill him or be annihilated trying. Many innocents will perish if he possesses my body and I can’t have their blood on my hands. I can’t convince him to stop either. It’s like karma is telling me this is how I’ll make up for my mistakes; it’s clear as day now. I just need to figure out how.
Blade to the neck, probably.
The song in my head sings, Far. I spin one time, slowly, and when I’m about to complete the circle, the song dims. I know which direction to take.
***
I’ve been running through the desert for four days. A few ponds lie scattered across the wasteland, and I’m careful enough to fill the goatskin without looking at their surfaces. If they show me Red Seth cutting my head off or something horrible like that, I’ll lose the courage that keeps me going.
I find a few berries and worms at the edges of the ponds, usually under dry pieces of tree trunks. That’s all I need to move forward. A meal a day is more than enough.
The heat is the worst, though. The two midday suns shine overhead and press my skin with their burning fingers, but I’m nearly a full Shade now. My body—or better yet, my spirit— bears more effort than I thought it would.
I track the stark gray nothingness until I spot a dry tree at a distance. It’s torn and skinned, as if it’s made of burned and broken bones. There’s a Shade tied to it, and the voice in the back of my head intones Close…
The Shade wears a moss-green professor’s coat with ragged brown pants. His bare night-blue chest and belly are visible, and there’s a freshly healed wound on his stomach, followed by a waterfall of dried blood that paints his lower body with a red that’s almost black. It looks as though someone spilled out half of his guts, but somehow he has healed.
He’s so skinny that I fear he’ll cross the line into oblivion any minute.
He bangs the back of his head against the tree, until he notices I’m standing a few feet from him. He eyes me with interest from below his scarce, gray hair and says, “Hello.”
“Hi.” I scratch the back of my neck. “Are you okay?”
He looks at his bloodstained stomach and smirks. “Been worse.”
“Do you want help?”
“Of course not. I’m here for a reason and I’ll be staying here if you don’t mind.” He stares at me with big puppy eyes. “Jessie, is that you sweetheart?”
“Hmm, my name is Santana.”
He opens a large, brown smile. “Delighted to meet you, Santana. How can I be of assistance?”
Is he kidding? “You’re the one who’s tied to a tree.”
“Indeed, and that means you need help, not me.”
I can’t figure out if this guy showed up in Death already mad, or if Death made him crazy. “So I need help because I ran into you, is that what you mean?”
He nods. “Which leads to making polite conversation.”
“I don’t have time for that, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, no one ever has time.
” He blows his lips. “Alive, dead, we’re always going somewhere. Going, going, and then gone. Isn’t that right, Santana Jones?”
Crossing my arms, I state the obvious. “You linked with me.”
“Only a little bit.” His lips turn up into a sweet, childlike smile that looks horrid on his broken Shade face. “You see, I’m an oracle. Some information I get from you, some from the universe.”
“The universe talks to you?”
He nods quickly, in the way of an excited child. “Oh yes, to all of us. Everything that was, is, and will be, lies in the universe. It’s an open book. Past, present, future, it’s all in there. You only need to listen.”
I look around, trying to hear what he hears, but besides a soft wind blowing through the desert, I can’t hear a thing. The professor nods absently to himself as the wind ruffles what’s left of his hair.
“Oh yes, indeed. Not much time.” He turns to me. “Answer me this, Santana Jones: What is it that you seek?”
Where on earth did that question come from?
He rolls his eyes as if I’m incredibly dull. “Polite conversation, remember? So, right now, what is it that you seek?”
I shrug and say, “Red Seth’s camp.”
Which is something I should be looking for instead of talking to him.
“That’s not what you seek, that’s where you must go.” The professor peers at me with big white irises. “Be honest with yourself.”
A part of me thinks this is a waste of time, but the other part finds his question intriguing. I haven’t had time to ask myself what I’ve been seeking in Life or in Death. Ever since I arrived here, I’ve been trying to keep my sanity and get back to my body. No time to think or ponder. And it was the same in Life: always running, going, going. And then gone.
The professor sticks out his tongue and makes a face. “Enough thinking. What do you seek, right now? One, two, three.”
And it comes to me all at once: Redemption.
The professor nods eagerly. “But how do you reach this redemption?”
In oblivion.
I’ll never kill Red Seth. Deep down, I’ve known it all along. I don’t have the skills or the knowledge, but it doesn’t matter. I only have to try hard enough so that he’ll kill me in the process, which means he won’t have me for the ritual. Game over. And if he somehow manages to wake up in my body, he won’t know the secret phrase, and Mamma Na Se will kill him.
Either way I die; either way he loses.
“Very good, but punishment and redemption are two very different things,” the professor says. “Bad people never seek either.”
Nonsense. If I’m not bad, then why did Hell suck me in?
“For a number of reasons,” he says. “The universe isn’t a simple answer. It’s zillions of questions and answers, shouts and whispers, all at the same time.” He winks at me. “And everything has a purpose.”
This is pointless; I’m wasting time with a lunatic. I need to get to Red Seth before John decides to track me down, and I’m pretty sure he has already started by now. “Look, I need to go. Are you sure you don’t want me to cut these ropes?”
The professor cranes his neck, observing me. “Redemption is what you seek at this moment, but there’s something you’ve been seeking your whole life.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“You think it’s all because of her.” His face crumples like a ball of paper. “You wonder if you would’ve made the same mistakes if she hadn’t left you.” He smiles as if he has found the answer to mankind’s biggest riddle. “You’ve always been looking for Mother!”
The air around me closes as if trying to become solid, the way it is in a room without windows, trapped and drowning.
How dare he mention Mother? He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know my struggles, and he doesn’t know her either. I turn my back and walk away, even though a part of me knows he’s right. I just hate admitting that I’ve always needed to know why she killed herself. I’ve always figured it gave her a right of defense when she had none.
“Jessie, wait. I’m sorry; I was trying to help!” the professor screams from behind. “Please Jessie, don’t leave me!”
This guy is a deluded know-it-all, but he’s not a bad man. In his own way, he genuinely seems to be trying to help. Walking back, I crouch a safe distance from him. “Let me cut these ropes and set you free before I go. That’s a pretty nice offer.”
He frowns, peering at me with an expression of utter hurt. “You don’t believe in the universe?”
“We’re in it, so of course I do. I just don’t believe it talks to you. All you did was link with me, without my permission, by the way.”
“Fine,” he says, baring his teeth. “The darkness is in you. You’ve fed it with remorse and anger, and it’s growing so big there’s almost no space left. It smiles at you from the back of your mind, with a mouth too big for its face, ragged pointed teeth, and a lolling hyena’s tongue, waiting for the time it’ll come out.” He laughs an utterly mad laugh. “When the real death claims him and you meet her again, the darkness will break free and consume you with the fires of Hell.” He starts whimpering like a little boy who just scraped his knee. “I’m sorry, Jessie, this is not funny. I don’t know why I laughed. The universe is so many things, billions of emotions and thoughts, past, present, and future, everything mingling into the same pot.” He sniffs, tears gathering at the curve of his mouth. “Forgive me, Jessie.”
A lump clogs my throat. I can sense the darkness he speaks of, lurking and waiting, showing me glimpses of itself and then retreating back. His words scare me in an irrational way because I know they aren’t true. He’s just a crazy man, that’s all. He can’t be an oracle.
“Well, well, well,” says a gruff voice coming from a few meters behind.
A skinny, bald monster stands across from me. At first, he half hunches in the way of an old man, but when he straightens up, he shows strong muscles and an evil grin. I remember his jaw stretching, ready to engulf little Tommy’s head.
Bowman, Red Seth’s number one.
The professor tells me to run, but I clench my fists instead and stand up. I was afraid of Bowman once, but now that I have nothing to lose, it’s easier to be brave. “What do you want, you miserable bastard?”
Bowman steps closer, arms crossed. “I’m here to escort you. Red wasn’t sure if your Shade abilities would get you very far.” He smiles with amusement. “You did well. Guess you were born to be a Shade.”
Bowman blurs, and now he stands an inch from me. I stare into his backward eyes as he grabs my wrist with the strength of a vise. I don’t give him the satisfaction of screaming, and he grins at this.
“I’d like to have fun with you before Red sends you to oblivion.” He presses his face against my hair and takes a big sniff. “After all, you owe me for that little boy. I bet he tasted good.”
“I don’t owe you shit.” I slap him hard with my free hand, but his face doesn’t move.
Pain spreads through my muscles and bone, and my hand pulses as if I just slapped rock. Tears gather at the corner of my eyes, but no matter what this bastard does to me, I will not cry.
He smiles but doesn’t say a thing. Then he drags me farther into the desert. It’s impossible to break free from his iron grip.
In the background, the professor laughs loudly. “It has begun, Jessie! Brace yourself!”
30
The suns are about to set, drowning the gray landscape with shades of pink and orange. Bowman and I have been walking for a while.
He pulls me by the wrist, careless about the fact that my free hand rests on Foxberry. If I’m fast and lucky, I’ll be able to cut his arm. It won’t change my fate much, but at least I’ll get some practice before I meet Red Seth.
Bowman sends me a lopsided smile. “Bad idea, pretty face. I’ve been a Shade for far longer than you. Give it a try, and we’ll see who ends up without an arm.”
Bastard. I concentrate on breaking into B
owman’s mind, but he laughs.
“A baby trying to trip an adult before learning how to walk. Cute.”
Wait. If he linked with me…“How much did you see?”
“Into your mind?” He grins pure evil. “All the way to ‘Mamma is gonna save you.’”
My legs fail and I miss a step, almost stumbling over Bowman. The urge to hurl takes over. If Red Seth takes my body and tells Mamma Na Se the secret phrase, he’ll kill her, and he’ll kill so many more, all under my name.
“Desperation looks good on you,” Bowman says.
I have to kill Red Seth, no matter what. It’s the only way now.
Bowman snorts. “It will be fun watching you try.”
A tingling reverberates from the ground into my feet and to my head. The air fills with shouts and cheers, roars and cries, and when we reach the top of a hill, I stare at a sea of blue monsters down below. They walk in and out of their white tents, and they fornicate, eat and fight, in a tangled web of madness.
Bowman jerks me forward and we venture into mobs of Shades, who stop to watch us pass. Some grin at me, others lick their lips. A Shade flies across our path, missing me and Bowman by an inch, his bottom thudding against the ground. He looks up to us and smiles a toothless grin that matches his broken nose and bleeding forehead.
“Sacrifice,” he whispers, almost as if I’m a deity he’s worshiping.
Another Shade repeats it, and another, until millions of Shades are intoning the same mantra: “sacrifice.”
Bowman pushes me forward and the Shades open a path that immediately closes behind us. All the while, that damned word rings in the air.
Sacrifice.
We finally reach a big red tent with golden swirled lines stamped on the borders: A place suited for a king. The mantra abruptly stops, but ‘sacrifice’ still rings in my ears.
Bowman throws me in and I tumble onto a Persian rug woven with motifs of skeletons being burned at the stake. The whole tent is a mix of red and gold: golden cups over fiery-brown nightstands; crimson pillows and duvets over a golden-framed bed, and those devilish carpets, they cover the entire floor with their visions of Hell.
