by Brindi Quinn
This doesn’t look like the same forest we were in before. The trees aren’t needled, and the air is wetter. Maybe it’s a jungle.
Hm. Botany isn’t really my thing, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s definitely a jungle.
Pine releases me without warning. I start to splash but only until I realize my feet can touch the bottom. Nether-powers must be at work. We were way deeper than that just a moment ago.
“Next time warn me before you decide we should go skydiving, okay?”
“Sorry.” He shakes out his hair.
I make my way for the shore. “That whole thing was confusing. You and Minx and your fight.”
Pine is silent.
“What’s a Sleeper, anyway?” I pry.
“You don’t need to know.”
Ugh. Frustrating.
“Well then, what’s an Usher?”
Pine freezes. “Where did you hear that word?”
Uh-oh. If I say where, will Minx get in trouble?
“N-nowhere,” I lie, before diverting, “You know, if one of you would just bother to explain everything to me, I’d have no problem declaring you the winner of this little game.”
“You aren’t the one who makes that decision, Marley.”
Great. So I have zero power.
. . . Or do I?
We reach the shore, but instead of dragging my soppy body from the water, I whirl to face Pine. Because of the water, his hair isn’t in its usual state. Both of his eyes show fully. Wow. They’re even more piercing that way. Silver arrows. Silver bullets. Drilling, boring, penetrating. I lock onto them. “Pine?”
His eyes flash.
Yes, I do have at least a little power.
“Piiiine?”
His eyes flash brighter.
“Piiiiiiine?”
He swallows. Beads of water drip down his neck. “What?”
“Did I have a wretched life?”
He lets out a loud swear as his face falls into something crabby. “I knew it. That stupid, inexperienced–”
“Called it!” I interrupt his angry rambling. “Minx hasn’t been at this as long as you, Captain.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“My bad, Captain Pine.”
Rolling his glowing eyes, the annoyed reaper pushes past. “I suspect you gave your aunt and uncle a lot of trouble, Marley Craw.”
His wording catches me.
My aunt and uncle?
Milo’s parents.
Why should I give them trouble?
Pine lets out another loud swear, and then comes bolting at me, taking my cheeks in his palms. “Shhh. Sh. Sh. Sh,” he tells me – then to himself, mutters, “Damn. This is HIS fault. I’m even starting to slip.”
My mind’s racing. Knocking on a forbidden door in the far reaches of my memory. Pine holds my face tight and places his commanding stare on my feeble one. “Don’t think about that, Marley. Just think about me. Or HIM if you have to. Even he would be better than . . .”
I feel my eyes widening as my thought probes into a dark part of my mind. I’m forgetting something. No, I’m forgetting lots of things. Shaking, my hands latch onto Pine’s wrists as he holds my face.
Water drips off the tip of his nose.
“Marley, you’re soaked.”
The tick at the back of my skull ticks. A door. Yeah, there’s a forbidden door with light streaming out from underneath it. I want to open that door and see what’s behind.
“You’re soaked,” Pine says again, lowering his eyelevel to mine.
“I wonder whose fault that is,” I murmur, though my mind keeps racing.
Distantly, I notice that he’s worried. “We could take our clothes off to let them dry,” he suggests, but the suggestion doesn’t roll out as smoothly as usual. Maybe he’s more than worried; maybe he’s closer to frantic.
I ignore him. I’m not fazed. Seduction mode won’t distract me from remembering what I need to remember.
Remember, Marley Craw, remember.
Tick. Tick. TICK!
Splash!
From out of nowhere, Pine pounces on me, forcing us both under the water. I don’t close my eyes in time. Through the water, I see him over me, pushing me down. I see the bubbles stream from both of our mouths. I see the sky above the water distort.
Somehow, the water’s much deeper again than it was when I was just knocking on the forbidden door in my head. Downward, Pine pushes me, kicking his feet, until the sky is no longer visible and my back hits the sand far, far below.
A sole sliver of light comes from directly above us, illuminating only a foot or so in either direction from where we are.
It’s a little creepy down here. Who knows what kind of wriggling creatures and grabby weeds are lurking in the dark, out of sight, waiting to strike? Not to mention sharp things hiding in the sand.
Ish.
I imagine little spikey crabs and needled urchins and barbed snakes.
Double ish!
And I thought the aquarium was bad.
With Pine holding my shoulders to the sand, it seems like I should gasp for air, but I don’t. Even though the last of my bubbles left my mouth on the way down, I don’t have the urge to breathe now. I’m not panicking over lack of air. My limbs aren’t thrashing, and my head isn’t reeling. My body isn’t struggling to float, either. Don’t bodies normally float?
Well, our bodies might be unusually heavy, but not our hair and clothes.
Pine’s hair floats around his face, and his hood lifts behind his neck like a cape. He looks paler than usual down here. Downright ghostly. I wonder if I look that way too.
Around my face, my hair rises toward the surface, getting in the way of my view of the ghostly reaper. I swat it away, but it retaliates.
Red. I feel like there’s something important about the color, but I can’t remember for sure.
The water is chilly on my arms, and because my shirt tries to float upwards, my stomach is cold too. I pull the bottom of my shirt into place, but all the while, Pine holds me against the sand, staring.
Staring.
Staring with eyes that are silver even through the water’s distortion. He lowers his face to my ear.
“Good,” Pine’s voice says inside my head. “Think about me, Marley. Think about us. This is better. This is safer.”
Safer? It’s safer to think about us. Safer than thinking about . . .
Wait . . . what was I just thinking about?
There was something I was trying to think about up there, above the water, but now I have no clue what it was.
Oh well.
“It’s better, isn’t it?” Pine presses.
I wouldn’t say this is really better, per se. I mean, isn’t he worried about the creepy stuff hiding in the shadows? After all, how does he know there’s no coral down here?
At the thought, the mind-reading reaper shoots his face from my ear and looks disapprovingly over his shoulder. Aha! Goober.
When he’s satisfied, he glares at me before drawing close again.
“I’m positive there isn’t any coral.”
Well then, what about other bulbousy underwater creatures? Like maybe some sort of anemone with forty eyes all in a neat little block? Or a scuttling scuttler with a hard shell and two-hundred legs and little suction pockets on its belly?
I feel his arms tense. Bullseye. A twinge if I’ve ever seen one.
“You’re a brat, Marley Craw.”
So sue me, Captain.
“Close your eyes.”
Why?
“Close them.”
Fine. I block out the underwater scene, and as I do, Pine wraps his arms around me in a tight embrace. There’s a strange noise – like a whoosh! – and I feel the water around us swirl. When it settles again, Pine’s voice in my head says,
“All right. You can look now.”
I open my eyes.
We aren’t at the dark bottom of the abyss anymore; now, we’re at the bottom of a shallow . . .<
br />
“Lagoon,” Pine’s voice says.
Oh, a lagoon.
“Better?” says Pine.
The surface is no longer distant. The sky shows wide over the top of the water.
Better? Much, thanks.
The bottom of the lagoon is white sand, clean and even – the water clear enough to show that we’re the only things in the entire wet place, with the exception of a few vibrant shells. Pine takes my hand and rolls over onto his back beside me so that we’re both lying in the white sand, staring up at the top of the water. My hair reaches for the sky, glowing red in the sunlight through the surface, though my body stays flush against the grainy bottom.
Yup, much, much better.
I reach my free hand to the surface of the water and swish it around. Where are we, anyway? Bali? Thailand? Tahiti?
“You’re unusual.”
I look over at Pine and he’s watching me.
Psh. Bet you get loads of girls back home by calling them things like unusual, Pine. I shake my head at him through the water. Not impressed, Cap-I-tan. Not impressed at all. You’d think that someone who specializes in, you know, seduction would be better with his adjectives. For instance, you’re cute, would make a girl swoon much quicker, I bet. And, you’re thin, would work just as well.
Pine’s lips grin just a little. “That’s what I mean,” he says without moving his mouth. “You’re lively.”
It’s hard to be lively when you’re dead, Captain.
The just-a-little grin falls. “Don’t call me that.”
Stop calling me unusual, then.
“But you are unusual.”
Whatever. I return to moving my free hand through the water over my face. My other hand is still firmly in Pine’s
“It’s difficult to make you shift,” he goes on. “And I don’t think I’ve ever had a spirit banter me before.”
Banter? Shift?
“That’s probably why HE is having a hard time. Tch. Hardly an excuse.”
Who’s HE again? Red eyes flash in my memory. Right. Minx.
I kissed Minx.
SH-SHOOT!
My mind just went ahead and thought about the kiss, even though it knows Pine can hear! Crap, crud, damn. Hiss and growl and boo. The hand holding mine tightens.
“Look at me, Marley.”
Suddenly, I’m a robot. With jerking movements, my head slowly, very slooowly, twists to the side to look at Pine. My smile is wide and unnatural, like someone caught in the act.
You think, Marley Craw? That’s probably because you were just caught.
So yeah, I tell Pine with my eyes, that happened.
“Oh.”
Pine’s bang sways upward in the water like seaweed. Despite what I was picturing, his expression doesn’t look to have changed much. That’s good, at least. Maybe he doesn’t even care that I kissed Minx. Phew. Worried for nothing.
“Did you kiss him, or did he kiss you?”
Well, he kissed me, and I sort of kissed him back, I guess.
“Oh.”
Again with the ominous ‘oh.’ Guess I know my new least favorite letter. Let’s just exclude it from now on, shall we? L-M-N-P. Perfecto.
“Did you enjoy it?” Pine says, face stiff.
Enjoy? Uhh, no, not really. It was okay, I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing, but–
“Marley.”
Yes, I ‘enjoyed’ it, okay!? So sue me! I’m only human! . . . Well, spirit technically, but still! Geez, what do you want from me!?
Without a word of warning, Pine scoops his arms under me and lifts me out of the water. I grab onto his neck because it’s a natural response.
“P-Pine?” I say, once emerged.
The sun overhead is bright and warm and makes the water sparkle. Our surroundings are more open now. A beach extends beyond the water, and on the opposite side, there’s another turquoise pool. So it is a lagoon. Pine stands with me firmly in his arms, holding me as you’d hold a princess who has very recently woken from a deep slumber. Water falls off of us in dripping pearls. I was right about those arms of his. Super strong. Strong enough to pick up practically-adult me as if I were as light as a pack of toilet paper.
He says nothing.
“Are you mad?” I ask.
Still nada.
The air is floral. Temperate, too. The world is wide.
We’ve managed to travel to paradise.
Pine hoists me up and begins trudging with me out of the water. He doesn’t say a word as he sets me down in the sand.
“You’re definitely mad, aren’t you? I’m sorry I kissed Minx, okay? I didn’t plan on it. It just sort of happened.”
He doesn’t answer as he begins to strip.
Wait, STRIP?!
Starting at the feet, he kicks off his shoes and peels off his socks. Next, he unzips his drenched hoodie and tosses it away. With vigor, he tears off his vest and tie.
Is he getting all the way naked?!
I wouldn’t really blame him, though. Now that we’re out of the water, soggy clothes are even more of a nuisance. The sand sticks to my jeans and my jeans stick to my body. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself, so I watch him further undress. Without shame, he unbuttons his black dress shirt, showing off his form underneath.
Oh gawd.
Oh gosh. Oh gawd. Oh golly.
Inhuman.
Too fine for a spirit like me to handle, that’s for sure.
Still, I ogle as he discards the shirt and then bends down to roll up the bottom of his pants.
And that’s where he stops.
Sporting only his rolled up jeans, Pine plops onto the ground and stares off into the lagoon, heels in the sand and elbows rested on his knees. His arms dangle, lacking purpose. Whatever water’s left on his back, chest and shoulders shines in the sunlight.
“I’m not mad,” he says. “You can’t help your desires, Marley.”
Desires again, eh?
“Oh.” This time I’m the one to use the forbidden letter.
The air is silent.
Awkward.
It reminds me of the air after a fight.
“If you want to take off your wet clothes, I won’t watch,” Pine says to the distance. “I’m not ready to go back yet, so we have to stay a little longer. Sorry.”
“That’s fine . . .” I murmur, trailing.
Okay, he may not be mad, but he definitely sounds kind of sad. Grim reapers can get sad?
“If we’re staying, can you conjure me up a towel or something?” I ask, delicately. “I can’t just take off my shirt like you can. I mean, I could, but I’m not going to . . .” Again with the trailing.
Pine barely seems to notice I’m there. “Hm? Of course. There should be a shack over behind those trees.”
Huh? A perfect opportunity for a seductive remark and he didn’t take it? But I left him wide open!
That proves it. He IS mad . . . or sad . . . or something.
“Be right back,” I mutter. To the ‘shack’ it is. I draw my feet through the sand on the way, feeling guiltier than ever. I knew it was a contest between them. I knew that, and yet . . .
You’re dumb, Marley Craw.
Beyond the grouping of smooth-trunked trees, I discover there is indeed a shack. A tiki shack? Is that a thing? Whatever. It’s a squat shack made out of banana husks or palm tree leaves or some other kind of big dried plant product. The door is nothing but a strip of fabric. Inside, I find a gray beach towel folded next to a white sundress. I hold the dress up to inspect. Simple. Airy. To the knee.
Is that what Pine likes?
I pull it on, wring out my hair, and exit the shack, leaving my wad of old clothes in a wet pile.
Warm breeze flutters the bottom of the dress lightly. How girly. Does that mean Pine likes girly things? Did Pine want to specifically see me in this dress? Is that why he left it there? My cheeks blush.
With my hands behind my back, I walk to where the reaper still sits, staring out over the
lagoon. He hasn’t moved.
He’s practically stoic. Like one of those old men on a park bench – not the creepy ones that stare at joggers, but the other kind – the ones who watch the day, reflecting on their lives and coming to terms with the world.
“Pine?”
Without looking at me, he responds,
“So that’s what you picked.”
“Picked? You didn’t give me much of a choice.” I look down at the dress. “This was the only thing in there, and you . . . made this place, didn’t you? Like how Minx made that library?”
“You helped make it, Marley,” Pine says. “You chose that dress.” Finally, his uncovered eye slips to me. “You must have known I’d like it.”
I tuck the bottom of the dress beneath my butt and settle down next to him. The sand is soft and not so bad, now that I’m dry.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Mm.”
Yeah, right.
“Are you . . .” My mouth starts to ask him something but changes its mind.
“What?”
“Are you giving up now?” I whisper. For some reason, it’s really hard to say, and afterwards, my chest hurts.
His uncovered eye turns shrewd. “Tch. You like having us fighting for your soul.”
“Ugh, nooo! That’s not true!”
But my voice sounds totally suspicious! And it even rises in pitch halfway through the ‘no’! So I’ve turned into that kind of girl, have I? Amy Jo would be SO proud.
“Don’t worry.” Pine leans back on his hands. “You’re supposed to like it. And of course I’m not giving up,” he says. “I told you, I want to reap your soul more than anything. I just need to think awhile, away from him.”
Oh. I get it now. He isn’t mad or sad.
That look on his face is worry.
I tip my head. “What are you worried about, Pine?”
“You don’t need to know,” he says, eyes lit. Then, he looks at me peculiarly. “. . . And I’m not worried.”
Sure, sure, even though you basically JUST admitted it.
“We can, like, talk about it, you know. I hear that helps some of the more touchy-feely people.”
The worried reaper swears under his breath. “You shouldn’t be noticing this,” he says. “This could be bad. I’m not doing my job.”