The Other Side Page 17

  The rake and broom were on the floor, mine for the keeping. The prize felt small – so much loss over such simple objects.

  Pesta’s eyes were closed, but her body was fighting for its last vestiges of life as she twitched. She looked like an exquisite doll bathed in ethereal light. It was tragic, and a complete waste of beauty. Sparks of light like mini firecrackers fizzled and flew out like spit from her quaking fingertips.

  I knew what I had to do.

  The spell of Pesta’s voice no longer had its grip on me, so I stood on wobbly legs over my tormenter. I didn’t hold back my incoherent ramblings of terror as I slid the knife from her chest and slammed it through her gut to ensure she died quicker. One of her errant sparks zapped me in her feeble attempt at one last attack, and I felt a shiver in my bones that coursed through me like an effervescing change I couldn’t put a label on.

  That was the thing that tipped it. She was on the brink of death, but with a second stab through her ribcage, I watched as the last of her life fled from her body.

  I began hacking away at her wrists. Uncle Rick needed her hands taken off to stop her power. I wasn’t sure if that mattered anymore, now that she was dead, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances. Sawing through sinew and then bone with Jens’s knife was a horror I knew I would never be able to talk about, not even on the therapist’s couch in five years.

  With nervous hands still coated in the stars of her blood, I picked up her bare feet, sobbing lifelessly as I dragged her body to the portal and pushed it through, making sure none of the gold light that flared white even got close to touching me.

  I crawled to my mother’s mangled body. She was missing her right arm and was covered in blood.

  Her eyes were no longer yellow, but there was no comfort in them, either. Her natural magic of laughter and optimism was not there. She was a ghost of her former self.

  I knelt down clumsily and pulled her shoulders up in a hug. I clutched her to me as grief like I’d never known before crashed over me in fits and waves, crushing me with the inescapable reality that my mother was dead, and the therapist’s couch I’d scheduled for five years from now could no longer wait.

  I don’t know how long it was that I screamed and wailed my agony, rocking my mother as if she was my baby. The utterance of my soul had no intelligible words, only incoherent mutterings of self-torture and regret.

  Her hair didn’t smell like hers. Her perfume was gone and her skin wasn’t soft anymore. Her right shoulder was scabbed over with a circular puckered scar where her arm used to be. She was my mother, but not.

  It dawned on me afresh as closure stitched painfully at the seams of my heart. My mom was dead, and with her, a part of me was, too.

  After an immeasurable amount of time, I released her, staring inertly at the portal to Be. I sat cross-legged as I willed my heart to calm, my tears to settle. My hands and forearms were coated in stars and blood, my skin cold and tingly as I watched the gold light beckon me with its alluring beauty. Though the doorway was surrounded by arms that had gone motionless with Pesta’s death, there was a peace to the macabre scene I couldn’t describe.

  It would be so easy to drift away. The pain would be gone if I just took a handful of steps toward the land of no pain. I would feel none of the weight that crushed my chest. There would be death surrounding me, but I wouldn’t have to care anymore. I could rot along with the rest of those who’d chosen to leave their pain behind for the promise of mindless peace.

  I stared down the portal with the same seriousness I’d once debated when I contemplated ending myself with the pills and vodka. I’d ended up pulling myself out of it after counting three reasons to stay alive.

  Lying next to me was one reason not to. Before me in the portal was another. My dad was dead, and his bones had been knocked aside by his deranged daughter. Linus, my best friend and other half was gone. He’d died in my arms, and no amount of me giving my organs, my blood or my heart kept him by my side.

  My love had little value. My love did not save the day.

  I was quiet for a long time until the debate in my head turned to static, and I reached that rare place of zero thoughts.

  I breathed as the stars glistened on my skin.

  Slowly, like a blessing of light kissing the horizon of my mind, miniscule parts of myself came back to me.

  My love helped to save Jens from his addiction to the lavender powder. That was reason one not to crawl into Be and collapse in my eternal rest.

  My love saved Foss from the poisoned drink, the fire, the car wreck and oftentimes from himself. Reason two.

  Reason began to trickle into my brain, bringing with it the dregs of emotion I was only just capable of feeling.

  Linus. Though he’d died, I was not responsible for it. In fact, I’d fought alongside him with everything I had. Linus was loved, and in the end, his encroaching death shook me more than it ever had him. It would break him if he could hear the thoughts I was entertaining as viable options.

  Linus served as a solid reason three.

  Then, like shooting stars and fireworks, my brain began to open up and bloom with possibilities I had been too afraid to take seriously.

  Going to London as Basil Cubbington.

  Actually going on a first date with Jens.

  The white picket fence.

  Oh, the white picket fence and the entire life it represented. I may not have had much choice over the first half of my life, but with all the moxie and muscle I had in me, I was resolved that the second part would be every bit the Leave it to Beaver paradise I’d always dreamed of.

  That settled it.

  I wiped my hands off on my jeans, but it seemed the siren blood had dried on my hands and forearms, and would require soap or a loofa to get it off.

  I stood, pulling on my jacket in preparation for my grand exit from Limbo. I gripped the rake and broom together in my sparkling fists and took a swing at the portal made from siren bones. In under a minute, I managed to destroy the portal and simultaneously set the trapped souls free.

  I turned to my mother, exhausted, and lifted her by her bare feet, dragging her down the long corridor shrouded in shadow toward that white picket fence. We would go there together, and I would take her body to the permanent and peaceful home she also was never allowed to have.

  When I finally reached the end of the rocky pathway, I laid her down and limped back for the dreaded farm tools so much controversy was concocted over. I carried the rake and the broom over to my mother and wound her remaining arm over them, taking the treasure back out to the Other Side. My side.

  34

  Impossibly Less

  The chaos that abounded when I emerged reeked of terror and frazzled nerves. I pushed my mother out first and toppled out atop her, apologizing to her body as Jens yanked me up.

  “She’s here! She’s back! How is he?” Jens snatched me to his chest and shouted in earnest over his shoulder. He was shaking as he clung to me, his anxiety hitting its breaking point. “Lucy!” he cried, taking in my blood-soaked clothing. His hands ripped the jacket from my body faster than I could eke out an explanation. “Where? Where did you get hit? I’ll fix it! I’ll fix it!” He was frantic, his hands searching my body for signs of a tear. “Lucy! This… is this what I think it is?” He looked at my bare forearms and hands, which were still coated in thick glitter and stars. “Siren blood?”

  “I’m not hurt,” I informed him.

  Britta’s voice came back a sob from inside the van. “The seizure stopped! He’s calmed down.” I saw nothing except for Jens’s jacket, which my face was buried in. Britta sounded terrified. “His eyes are opened! Jamie? Jamie, can you hear me?”

  Jens continued to check my arms, legs and torso, fingering my face with his gloves to make sure I wasn’t lying. “What happened? You were here, and then you got pulled through. We tried to get you, but we aren’t human!”

  Jens, Foss, Elsa and a handful of Huldras all demanded their questions be an
swered first, but I paid them no mind. I pried myself from Jens and pointed a glittery finger down at my mother. “Watch her,” I instructed Foss as I wiped the tears from my face. He was the only person aside from Jens I would trust to watch over my treasure. “That’s my mom. Nothing happens to her without my say-so.”

  I could tell Foss wanted to ask a million questions, but he locked them up for the time being and nodded, finally taking orders from me. His mom was the only person he actually loved, so I figured she’d be safest in his care.

  I bent down and took the rake from atop my mom’s body, shivering at the shift from warmth to freezing temperatures. My jacket felt unconscionably thin. Jens was talking to me, but I was focused on the job. “I can’t tell which bones are my dad’s and which are that Charles Mace guy’s, so just help me gather them all, okay?”

  “Lucy, what happened? You were here and then you weren’t. Did I see Alrik’s hand? Was it him? Was he in there?”

  I ignored his questions and swung back the rake like a baseball bat. In one swish, I knocked down half the remaining bones, ignoring my regret and horror. Nothing compared to the determination with which I was driven to end this. Never again would my family be used by Pesta. Uncle Rick’s soul was the last that would ever enter the Land of Be.

  Jens kept asking his questions, but gathered up the bones as he did, piling them with the others.

  The final swing brought out a growl that was less than human and more like a sheer animal attack. My father’s bones clattered to the snow, each sound clanging my conscience with the disrespect that was trampled by the necessary means. It was awful, but victory in war was often thus. There was never triumph without sacrifice. There were no true wins without the bitterness of less and loss.

  All around me in the snow was my loss. And though I had won, somehow I felt impossibly less.

  I picked up the broom and slung both tools over my shoulders that would now be permanently weighted. “It’s done.”

  Jens was still trying to get answers from me, but the explanations would only bring more conversations I was not ready for. I might never be ready for them, therapist’s couch or not.

  I jerked my chin toward the van. “Take me home, Jack.”

  35

  Formaldehyde and Fiddles

  I can’t say crematoriums are my favorite place in the world, but one thing’s for sure, they’re quiet.

  The barrage of questions didn’t stop until about half an hour after we pulled onto the freeway when they finally realized I wasn’t going to speak at all.

  What happened? Is Pesta dead? Jamie asked in his circuitous way. Apparently the entire time I’d been in Limbo, Jamie had endured a seizure. He’d come out of it the second I crossed back over, but he was still rattled from the experience, sticking extra close to me to prevent us from being separated again.

  I slammed my mental door in his face, shutting him out of any errant thoughts that were still sparking in my mind. I’d instructed them to find the nearest crematorium, and that was the last time I’d spoken. I still had my blood, my mom’s and Pesta’s all over me, but I didn’t care. Jens wiped at my hands as we rode away but the blood was dried on my clothes and the stars seemed frozen on my skin.

  Jens fished out a fresh shirt for me so I could change at the next rest stop. “We’re not stopping,” I ruled. I peeled off the soiled garment that clung to my body in uncomfortable places. I handed it up to Leif in the front passenger’s seat so he could throw it out the window. Everyone in the van now knew that I wore a lavender bra with pink stripes. I shoved the thermal shirt over my head and leaned back in my seat as Jens zipped up one of his hoodies on me. My jeans were a mess of glittery blood, but I didn’t care enough to change them. I bent down to straighten the tongue of my left shoe and noticed my hands still looked like they’d been dipped in stars. They sort of reminded me of that same shiny glitter I’d seen in flecks on the chief’s skin in Fossegrim.

  Whatever.

  Four hours later, the crematorium offered me the silence I craved. Foss had gone uncommonly quiet, slipping out with Liv to run an errand. Jens was seated on one side of me, and Jamie held Britta’s hand at my other side. Reverence slung over our shoulders, and it finally united us off our separate frenzied paths.

  Elsa helped whistle along the professional running the crematorium to get the job done right away, lumping all the bones in one go for a group cremation. He took the bodies back and prepared them while we waited, a row of misfits staring at our hands. The waiting room had stiff-backed uncomfortable faux-leather chairs, brown to match the dull carpet and beige walls.

  Foss and Liv returned with a shopping bag. Liv made a point not to be annoying, for which I was grateful.

  My heart was heavy, and the rest of my body felt the same weight that pulled me downward. I still hadn’t told them what happened, though they were all dying to know. I didn’t have it in me. In fact, I didn’t have anything in me anymore.

  Foss’s eyes were wary as they darted around the waiting room the Huldras had whistled clear for us. His face had a dare on it that warned everyone to not comment on what was in his shopping bag. He tried to start his sentence three times before he gave up and pulled out a brand new violin.

  Something in me flickered, but I said nothing, which was the exact right thing to say.

  Foss sat down on the floor cross-legged in front of me and put the instrument to his chin, twisting the pegs a few centimeters here and there to test the pitch. The persuasive powers of the Fossegrim fiddles didn’t work on me because my blood was part human, but the magic worked well on the Undrans. Foss and I had shared too many passionate kisses in his orchard because Jamie got me buzzed on Gar through the bond, and Foss had been drunk on fiddle music.

  Foss put the fiddle in his lap, frustrated. “I know this won’t help you,” he said to me. “I know Grimen magic doesn’t work on you. But it’s the best I can do. So you know, I don’t want to hear about it.”

  Foss raised the violin again, and then lowered it. “I haven’t touched a fiddle since… you know.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So be grateful.” His commands were always a little cute. Like he could really control me. Like he needed to demand gratitude of a nice deed. Foss was an idiot, but part of him would always be my idiot.

  When the bow hit the strings, my heart ceased its perpetual breaking out of pure curiosity. He closed his eyes and stroked note after note from the instrument, coaxing out a low melancholy that vibrated my heartstrings with every shifting melody.

  After a few bars, just like the Nøkken song and the Huldra whistle, the fiddle started belting out three or four notes simultaneously. Slowly, and without my conscious choice, the grip my brain had on my depression started to loosen in bits and pieces.

  Suddenly I could feel the sorrow of my fate without running from it. I could hear my sadness without being buried by it. I could see my past without breaking myself in half at every memory.

  It wasn’t magic. It was music.

  Jens wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I sunk into him, foregoing the space I didn’t seem to need anymore. I began to breathe, the fifty-pound weight on my chest alleviating to a mere twenty.

  When Foss finished his melancholy song that only at the end reached a level of closure and peace, the room was silent. Everyone had tears in their eyes or dotting their cheeks. Foss put the violin away and placed a light brush of a kiss to my closed mouth in lieu of speaking.

  I whispered, “Thank you,” to him, and he nodded solemnly in response.

  Elsa came out and motioned to me. “It’s time, Domslut.” She had stopped calling me “baby doll” since I emerged from the portal. Instead she addressed me with this new moniker I didn’t care for either. She spoke it with reverence though, so while I wanted to be offended she was calling me a slut, somehow it felt like she wasn’t really saying that.

  I stood on legs that were surely a miracle; I have no idea how they held me upright. Jens caught my hand, his eyelashes wet
. “No. You don’t need to see that.”

  “I’ve got to make sure their bones are gone.”

  “I’ll go, then.” The dread of duty was evident on his face. Jens had been friends with my parents. I couldn’t put him through that. He kept touching the spot on his neck where his pouch of lavender powder would have been and sniffing subconsciously.

  Foss stood and clamped his hand down on Jens’s shoulder so he reclaimed his seat. “I’ll make sure it happens.”

  I held up my sparkly finger. “Wait. I want you to get me some of their ashes. My mom and my dad. I know the other guy Mace’ll be in there too, but it’s fine. He was my cousin, right? My family should be together.” I took my necklace off and handed it to Foss reluctantly. “Please be careful with that.” I stretched out my hand, but retracted it before I could relinquish it, a panic attack jumping atop me from out of nowhere. My breath was shallow and the walls felt impossibly close to where I stood. I shook my head like a caged animal. Linus and I couldn’t be parted. The thought was too wrong for words. “On second thought, no. I can’t.” I shook my head and backed up to sit in my chair again, clutching my brother tight as my breathing came out in uneven gusts.

  “I’ll give it right back,” Foss promised. To his credit, he did not mock my childishness.

  I put the necklace back on and covered the heart-shaped vial to keep it in place. “No. You’d have to pour out some of Linus, and I can’t… I can’t.” I shook my head. “I just can’t.”

  Jamie turned and wrapped his arms around me. “Jens, hand me your bag. I seem to remember Lucy buying a vial of poison in Bedra. I’ll dump out the poison, and we’ll put your parents and Charles Mace inside with your brother.”

  Jamie was kind, as always. He didn’t rat me out by telling them I’d bought lavender powder. He saved me from myself, and saved a bit of my family in the process. I loved him.