Eight Rivers of Shadow

by Leo Hunt

  “Where’s Ilana now?” I ask.

  “Asleep,” Ash says. Her face looks really bad; the irises of her eyes are almost transparent.

  “Hello,” Elza says. “I’d like an ambulance, please.”

  Me and Ash whirl around to look at her.

  “What are you —”

  “Elza?”

  She puts one hand over the speaker of her phone.

  “There are two people back there in terrible condition,” Elza hisses at us. “Were you just going to wipe their memories and leave them?” She speaks into the phone again. “Hello. Sorry. There’s been an accident. Dunbarrow High. A girl and one of the teachers.”

  “Well, sure,” Ash says, almost to herself, “do what you think is best.”

  After another ten minutes or so, we pull up in front of Ash’s house in Pilgrim Grove and she cuts the engine. Elza is looking at the house with trepidation. I’ve already described the house to her of course, but there’s something about the strangeness in this place that you can’t convey with words.

  Our first task is to carefully transport the mirror into the house. Elza does a double take when she sees the empty living room. Me and Ash carry the trapped demon upstairs and take the mirror into a spare bedroom that I didn’t see the inside of last time. There’s a symbol drawn on the floor, a magic circle with a triangle inside it. We lay the mirror in the middle of the magic circle. I look down into the mirror. At first all you can see is your reflection — unflattering, since it’s from below — and then the blank white ceiling above you. But if you have second sight, and you look at the mirror in just the right way, you can see the black-walled room inside it, can see the demon beating itself against the glass, screaming at you with inaudible fury. It’s like watching a wasp in a bottle.

  “Are we going to kill it now?” I ask Ash.

  “No,” she says, “sunrise is the best time. Strike it with the dawn on our blade.”

  “So I’m waiting for dawn?” Elza asks.

  “Yes. I’ve got a spare bed for you both. You can stay here tonight. We’ll need to be up and ready for six thirty-two a.m.”

  “You never said anything about that,” Elza says.

  “I’m telling you now,” Ash says mildly.

  “So what’s all this for?” I gesture at the magic circle.

  “Oh,” Ash says, “that’s for security. Don’t want to take chances.”

  She steps back out of the magic circle to join us and makes a gesture with her left hand. The Widow insinuates herself into the room the way ghosts do.

  “Mistress Ashana,” the Widow says. “Luke, Elza.”

  “Did you give all witnesses the Lethe’s draft?” Ash asks.

  “I did,” the Widow replies. “They will not remember the night’s excitements. The student and the teacher are receiving emergency attention. There are police present as well. Nobody knows what happened.”

  “So we got away with it?” Ash asks.

  “There were several recording devices in the parking area and school building. I have ensured these videos are unusable.”

  “Excellent,” Ash says. “So what’s left? Just the car, I guess.”

  “I will dispose of the vehicle,” the Widow announces.

  I’m starting to appreciate the advantages of a well-behaved Host.

  “And Ilana?” Ash asks.

  “She sleeps.”

  “All right. Get rid of the car, then I want you to guard the demon’s prison.”

  “I obey,” the Widow says to Ash, and vanishes.

  “So we’re here until sunrise?” Elza asks again.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Ash says. “I’m not going to make you. But I’m not using that car again, and we’ll need to be up by five to get ready. So unless you want to walk back to your house by yourself, get an hour’s sleep, then walk right back, I think staying here is the better option.”

  “Yes.” Elza sighs. “I suppose it is. I’ll have to phone my mum, tell her I’m staying out. It’ll be OK since it’s a holiday tomorrow. You too, Luke.”

  “Do you want to meet Ilana?” Ash asks her.

  Elza says she does, although her eyes say different. Ash doesn’t pick up on her reluctance — or pretends not to, in any case — and leads us across the landing and into the master bedroom. Nothing’s changed. Ilana is still lying in the same position, eyes closed. The same tubes run into her mouth and nose. I don’t think her body has moved at all. The numbers on her life-support machines pulse in steady rhythms. You can hear the soft hum of batteries, a faint noise that might be liquid flowing through a tube.

  “Hello, Ilana,” Elza says quietly. “It’s nice to meet you properly.”

  She rests her hands on the rail at the end of the bed. Looks for a long time into Ilana’s sleeping face.

  “I’m very grateful,” Ash says to Elza. “This means so much to me. To us.”

  “And the nonpareil will bring her back?” Elza replies, not taking her eyes from Ilana.

  “Yes,” Ash says, “yes. It will. You’ll bring her back. You and Luke. I can really be with my sister again. I can’t . . . You’re so kind.”

  There are tears in the corners of Ash’s gray eyes. Slowly, not quite sure what to do, I move over to her, wrap my arms around her. She starts to sob, crying into my chest. Elza puts her arms around her as well.

  “Thank you,” Ash keeps saying, “thank you. I’m so happy. Thank you. I know she’ll say thank you, too. You’re amazing. Thank you.”

  And it’s easy to feel, the three of us standing there in one another’s arms, in the bedroom of the girl whose life we’re helping to save, like we’re going to make a difference. To feel like we’re good people. Like we’re doing something, for once, that’s inarguably good.

  You can’t embrace and cry all night, of course, and Ash’s tears pass almost as quickly as they arrived. We leave Ilana upstairs and head down to the empty living room. Elza asks why Ash didn’t bother to order some furniture, and she just laughs and says she “basically forgot.” She goes back upstairs and slides her big double mattress down the stairs, and we lay it out flat in the living room. Ash gets a stereo from her room, a bottle of wine, plastic cups. She changes out of her dirty clothes into a new white T-shirt, white jeans, a white denim jacket. She looks, once again, like she just got beamed down from another planet.

  We end up having a sort of victory dinner party, just the three of us, sitting on the double mattress in the middle of a blank wood floor. Ash makes us a weird supper of crackers and salmon and a wheel of what tastes like pretty expensive cheese. She barely eats, just crunches on a succession of celery sticks. Ash’s taste in music turns out to be pretty much exclusively pop-punk groups from the early 2000s, which irritates Elza like there’s sand in her eye.

  “Can we not just listen to some actual punk, please?” Elza whines.

  “Ash likes what she likes,” I say. “You can enjoy music just because you enjoy it. It doesn’t have to pass the Five Tests of True Punk.”

  “This”— Elza gestures at the stereo —“is trash, and I’m sorry, Ash. It’s barely music. It’s cookie-cutter corporate-sponsored faux-rebellion without a soul or brain. It’s political commentary —”

  “Political commentary that comes from a paint-by-numbers kit,” I say.

  Elza frowns. “Have I said that before?”

  “You say that about twice a week,” I tell her affectionately.

  “I think this album is fun,” Ash says, completely unfazed. She takes a crisp little bite of her celery stick. “So how long have you guys been a thing?”

  “A thing?” we both ask her.

  Ash grins. “As in, finishing each other’s sentences and stuff. It’s cute.”

  I catch Elza’s eye, and amazingly, she’s actually blushing. Our relationship is quite a private thing, so far. It’s not something we’re used to being asked about. We’re pretty separated from the rest of Dunbarrow High, for obvious reasons, and my mum seemed to accept Elza c
oming into our lives the same way she greets most things that happen to her: with unfocused good will. I haven’t had any kind of “talk” with Mum about Elza and me and whether she can stay over or not. She just refers to Elza as my “friend” and that’s it. Elza’s parents have been pretty welcoming, although sometimes I catch her mum giving me the kind of look you’d give a toddler that you saw carrying a priceless Ming vase around its playpen, bewildered that I ended up being given something so valuable, and totally mistrustful that I know how to take proper care of it. Her dad’s a bearded nonentity, as meek as the two Moss women are forthcoming. He’s crazy about bird-watching and about programming ancient computers, and I think he likes having someone else around to watch rugby with.

  “Since October last year,” I tell Ash.

  “Oh,” Ash says, “so tell me more. How did you meet?”

  “He kicked a ball at me,” Elza says.

  “Romantic.”

  “Kirk kicked it!” I protest. “I didn’t kick anything at you.”

  “OK,” Elza says, “your best mate kicked one at me, and then you all laughed about it.”

  “I wasn’t laughing!”

  “I can really see why you were drawn to him,” Ash says to Elza, straight-faced.

  “It was because of his Host,” Elza says. “I’ve always had second sight. He just developed it once he signed for them. Once I realized what was happening to him . . . well, I had to do something.”

  Ash looks like she might cry again, but she stops herself.

  “Tell me about your Host,” she says to me. “What happened with them?”

  I’ve talked a bit about what happened last Halloween with Elza, but not with anyone else, and although it feels strange explaining everything to a third party, it’s actually quite interesting trying to arrange it all in a way that makes sense. I tell Ash about my meeting with Dad’s lawyer, Mr. Berkley, and the contract I signed, about him giving me the Book of Eight and Dad’s rings, the first night when the window blew open and Mum was so sick she didn’t even notice. I tell her about seeing the Vassal and the Judge on the bus, about meeting the Heretic and the Prisoner and the Shepherd, about the Oracle and the Innocent, and of course the Fury.

  Elza takes over at certain points, explaining what happened to her when she left Holiday’s party, filling in some of the gaps, talking about hiding me from her mum during the three days I spent reading the Book of Eight. In about an hour of drinking and talking, I’ve taken Ash all the way up to the night before Halloween, the Rite of Tears at the Devil’s Footsteps.

  Maybe it’s the drink, maybe it’s the company, maybe it’s the sense, like I said before, that I did something good and I’ve got nothing today to be ashamed of. But I start to talk more, take them further than I thought I would. The wine is good and strong. I tell Elza and Ash how it felt when Mum stabbed me with a kitchen knife. I tell them about Deadside, about Mr. Berkley when I met him the second time. The beast’s shape, billowing up out of the man’s. I tell them about meeting my dad on that gray lonely beach and the conversation we had.

  Ash is particularly interested in what it feels like to walk around in Deadside, and I spend a while talking about the mist and the grayness and the strange otherness of the place. I take a drink and then I tell them about the Fury and the Innocent, how my dad stopped my brother from being born, something I’ve never said before out loud. I tell them about the choice the Devil gave me, the deal he wanted me to make.

  I stop talking. My throat’s gone dry. I finish my wine, pour out some more.

  “So what did you do?” Ash asks me.

  I look her dead in the eye.

  “What do you think I did? I sent that piece of shit to Hell.”

  Ash grins.

  “You’ve made me very happy,” she tells me. “Does anyone want more wine?” She stands up, almost falls off the mattress onto the floor. “Whoops.”

  “I’m not sure we need any more,” Elza says. She’s still holding my hand tightly, but it’s hard to read her expression.

  “Nonsense,” Ash says, and she lurches off the mattress and into the kitchen, while me and Elza sit together in silence, listening to her rummaging in the fridge.

  A short time later, Ash — who seems pretty drunk — says she’s going to spend some time with Ilana, and if we want to go to sleep, we’re welcome to. I’m lying on my back at this point, the white ceiling spinning slowly, slyly, denying that it’s actually spinning if I focus really hard, and then starting to rotate again when I relax. Ash turns the light off and stumbles upstairs, and I’m left alone with Elza. I rest my hand on her hip. I hear Ash moving overhead.

  “Well, she’s happy,” I say.

  Elza doesn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry I never told you before,” I say.

  Silence.

  “Are you pissed at me?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Elza says quietly.

  “It’s not like I was lying to you. It’s just hard, you know? With Dad and my . . . with my brother. It’s not an easy thing to bring up.”

  “I know,” she says. “I’m not angry.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I shouldn’t be.”

  “So that means you are angry.”

  No answer.

  “I didn’t send him to Hell,” I say after a while. “I just told Ash that. I set him free. The Devil says I owe him for it. But I don’t know what he wants.”

  “Yeah, I knew that,” Elza says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, not the ‘I owe the Devil something’ part. But I knew you’d let Horatio go. I can tell when you’re lying, Luke. The way you were speaking to Ash, it was like someone saying a movie line. I knew you wouldn’t send your father to Hell.”

  “Do you think Ash knows?”

  “I think sometimes people want to hear certain things, and you told her what she wants to hear.”

  “So you think she believes me?”

  “I think she’ll be happier if she does believe you, and she knows that, too. For Ash, he’s in eternal torment, and that’s enough for her.”

  My stomach is churning. I wish I hadn’t eaten so much salmon.

  “It wasn’t something I found easy to talk about. I was going to tell you.”

  “When?” Elza asks me.

  “When it seemed right.”

  “So when it seems right is when Ash asks you? Like it did with the Book — you told her you still had it before you told me.”

  “That had nothing to do with it.”

  “Sure,” she says.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re implying. But it’s dumb.”

  “Sorry,” Elza says. “But first not telling me about the Book and now this . . . I just thought we trusted each other. I trusted you. I tell you everything.”

  “I do trust you, Elza. It’s not like I don’t trust you.”

  “I know,” she says. She sniffs. “I’m sorry. I’m drunk. It was a shock.”

  We lie there in the dark.

  “And the Devil?”

  “Yeah. He said I owed him. Something worth as much as my father.”

  “So a pile of dog shit,” Elza says in the darkness.

  “I wish. He wants something from me.”

  “And when were you going to tell me about that?”

  “When I needed to. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “I see,” Elza says.

  My hand is still resting on Elza’s hip. I can smell her hair spray, her leather jacket, all mixed up with the strange clean smell of the fresh paint on the walls.

  “Can you take that ring off?” she asks.

  “What?”

  “The sigil. I can feel it touching me. It’s cold.”

  “Sure,” I say. I take the ring off my finger and slide it into the smallest pocket in my jeans. I put my hand back on her hip.

  “So are you angry with me?” I ask.

  She doesn’t answer.

  Ash wakes u
s up at five thirty in the morning, like she promised. I have a headache with a pulse, and my teeth are furry. She flicks the lights on and stomps across the wooden floor, waving to me cheerfully. Elza groans.

  “I have a kettle now,” Ash says from the kitchen, “if anyone would like coffee.”

  “Black, please,” I say.

  “Elza?” Ash asks.

  “No, thank you,” she says quietly. Her thundercloud hair is all flattened to one side where she slept on it. She runs a hand through it.

  “Are you all right?” I ask her in a whisper.

  “Sure,” Elza says. She gives me a real-enough-looking smile. “We can just talk later, OK?”

  “I mean, if you’re sure, though.”

  “Luke,” she says, “I’m sure. Really. Don’t worry. Let’s get this demon-slaying done with, and then we can get the Book out of your brain once and for all, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, shower’s upstairs,” Ash says over the sound of the kettle boiling, “and if you want some of my clean clothes, Elza, I’m happy to lend you them.”

  Elza makes a vomiting face.

  “I think I’m all right,” she calls.

  I can smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen, and it’s enough to make me get out of bed. I stand up, head pounding, and make my way across the living room. Friday the third. Good Friday. It’s still dark outside, with just a hint of dawn approaching. Ash is wearing a white tracksuit, her hair wet from the shower. She turns to smile at me, and I’m surprised to feel actual affection for her. She looks more alive than she did last night, although her wrinkles are still there, creasing the corners of her mouth.

  “Here,” she says, holding a mug out to me. I take the coffee. It’s still too hot to drink. Ash is making scrambled eggs, and she’s put toast on as well.

  “So dawn, then?” I say.

  “Yeah,” Ash says, “we’ve got about forty minutes now.”

  “And she’s going to what? Stab the demon?”

  “There’s a short incantation,” Ash says, scraping egg into a bowl, “and then she plunges the knife into the surface of the mirror. The Fury will be destroyed, and only the nonpareil will remain.”