Loss

by Jackie Morse Kessler

  “That you people are worth saving.” Death was no longer smiling. “And yet here you are, demanding that I take back the Bow—which, by the way, does not appreciate being bludgeoned against the table.”

  Suddenly queasy, Billy repeated, “Appreciate?”

  “Would you like it if someone tried to break you into splinters?”

  Eddie’s boot, slamming into his side and nearly cracking a rib.

  Billy’s throat went very, very dry. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  “Of course not. So treat the Bow with respect.”

  He held the weapon at arm’s length, wanting to hurl it away but afraid to let it go. “You said yesterday you needed my help. If this is it, then I’m not helping you. Get someone else to be Pestilence, someone who’s okay with making people sick.”

  “Usually, I’m rather open-minded about who stays a Horseman. If those chosen decide not to wield their symbols of office, I find someone else. But your case is different, William. You were chosen by the White Rider. Behind my back, which I don’t appreciate, but I understand why he picked you.” He wagged a finger in a no-no-no gesture. “Never antagonize kings. Their memory is long for grudges.”

  The words made no sense. The only kings Billy knew were names in his history textbook.

  “As for your help, well, I already told you what I need you to do. Either be Pestilence, as you agreed to be when you were five, or get the White Rider out of bed and back on his steed.”

  “That’s not me helping you,” Billy shouted. “That’s you forcing me to make a choice I don’t want to make!”

  “I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.” Death shrugged, the perfect image of slacker-may-care whatevertude. “I don’t want to make the choice, either. I find the entire situation distasteful. The White Rider played us both, but you’re far too caught up in your own drama to be mindful of that.”

  Billy felt his cheeks flush.

  “I had this notion that you’d spare me from choosing your fate by doing it yourself. Foolish of me.” Death grinned, showing far too many teeth. “No good deed, and all that. Let’s be clear. If you don’t help me by making the choice yourself, I will choose for you.”

  Of course he would.

  “Decision time, William Ballard. You stand at a crossroads, and now must choose your path. Will you wield the Bow of the White Rider? Or will you call the Conqueror back to duty?”

  It didn’t matter; whichever path he chose was paved in White.

  Billy squeezed his eyes shut and shook as emotions surged through him—anger, first, searing every nerve; on the heels of that, resentment, slathering over him like balm.

  He took a deep breath, and with the air came a quiet focus, a sense of quietude, of clarity. He breathed, and he opened his eyes, and then he turned to face the Pale Rider. Locking his gaze on to Death’s empty blue eyes, Billy Ballard made his choice.

  ***

  The hospital room was no different from last night: small and stale, with machines scattered haphazardly and a single, narrow bed with crisp white sheets. At first glance, the bed was empty. But as Death closed the door behind them, Billy saw the unmistakable form of the Ice Cream Man, a white blanket covering him from chin to toe. His ruined face was all too visible in the harsh florescent light.

  Staring hard at those waxy, pox-ridden features, Billy swallowed thickly. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “All manner of things,” Death said idly. “The White Rider houses all diseases. There are any number of things wrong with him.”

  “So you don’t know why he won’t get up?”

  “Oh, that. Easy peasy. He’s not home.”

  Billy frowned at the Pale Rider, who was leaning casually against the door.

  “He’s not here,” Death said, tapping his own head. “His body is well enough, all things considered. But his mind has gone wandering to a place where even I cannot seek him. He’s lost somewhere in his past. It’s up to you, William, to find him.”

  In a world where a horse can be a car and travel halfway across the globe in a matter of minutes, the notion of time travel was almost quaint. Billy was surprised to find himself rather blasé about the whole thing. Have Bow, will time travel.

  “Return the White Rider to himself,” said Death. “Find him and bring him home.”

  (You find your way, and you come back home.)

  Thinking of his grandfather, Billy set his jaw. Ice Cream Man or no, the Conqueror was just another old man who’d gone wandering. And if there was one thing Billy had experience with, it was tracking down wandering old men and bringing them home again. “Okay,” he said, determined. “How do I find him?”

  “You are Pestilence; he is the Conqueror. White beckons White. You can’t help but find him, wherever he is. The more difficult part,” said Death, “will be convincing him to return.”

  “I’ll do it,” Billy insisted. No way was he going to be stuck being Pestilence. “I’ll get him back.”

  “Then touch the Bow to the Crown on his brow. And think White thoughts,” Death added, perhaps whimsically.

  Billy looked hard at the Ice Cream Man, the nightmare man of his past, and he held out his hand, knowing the Bow would be there. As his fingers closed around the black wood, he thought, I’m going to find you. Whatever it takes, I’m going to find you. And I’m going to make you take back the Bow. His heartbeat quickened, but not from fear. A hum of power danced along his skin, but it didn’t come from the Bow.

  He could do this.

  Chin high, Billy Ballard touched the tip of the Bow to the silver band half hidden on the Conqueror’s forehead. And the world erupted in White.

  Part Two

  Into the White

  Chapter 11

  He Sees the End of the World . . .

  . . . and it arrives on a sheet of white/

  /he drapes her in a white chiton, her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green/

  /he is surrounded by lush greens and earthy browns, here in the heart of the Greenwood, and peace settles over him as he smiles, content, for here he’ll stay, away from the world with its never-ending diseases and hunger and battles/

  /he’s seen centuries of battles, of wars erupting over the face of the world like a pox/

  /the pox has ravaged his kingdom, but now he wears the Crown and wields the Bow and he will make it right, he will set the balance in his people’s favor/

  /he holds her favor, this woman in black, with her whip-thin smile and set of balances in her hand/

  /and she tells him the Four are out of balance and he must return, but he cannot, he will not, not even for her/

  /not for the woman in red with her laughter of fire and blood, handmaiden of the one who shall lead them in the end/

  /he sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/

  ***

  —and with a gasp, Billy pulled himself out of the White.

  He floated in a world of smoke the color of a winter sky heavy with snow; not white, not pale, but somewhere caught in between. Nearby—so near that all he had to do was close his eyes and leap—the White beckoned to him like a will-o’-the-wisp, urging him to return. Fainter, he sensed the Ice Cream Man lying desiccated and empty on his sickbed, and he felt the presence of Death, so cool and aloof beneath his mask of flesh, but they were little more than peripheral flickers, ghosts hovering at the edge of his vision. Here, in the space between present and past, they weren’t real.

  Here, Billy was completely alone.

  A shiver worked its way through him. What he’d seen, what he’d felt, was a raw wound in his mind, echoing around him and through him in a free fall of sensation: loss and stolen solitude, despair and bitter determination, and, above all, a lingering terror that started and ended in an expanse of white. Still shivering, Billy rubbed his arms. He’d expected to go into the Conqueror’s memory like a time traveler going back in history: There would be a proper beginning in which he found the Horseman; a satisfyin
g resolution, once the Conqueror agreed to return with him to the real world; and an adventurous middle that neatly connected start to finish. What he’d gotten instead were flashes, like pieces of a movie spliced together out of order. Along with those flashes were thoughts and feelings, swirls of emotion that threatened to drown him. Somewhere within the jumble of images and sensations was the thread of an idea, of an experience, that linked everything together in a way that Billy didn’t understand.

  Good, he thought, shuddering. He didn’t want to understand. Those flashes had been so overwhelming that he’d had to jump out of the White, to distance himself from the insistent now of those memories. He hadn’t been merely witnessing what had happened to the Conqueror; they’d felt real, in the way that dreams sometimes felt real. And more than that: Deep in the White, it had been as if those memories, those events, had actually been happening to him.

  Death’s voice, patient and knowing: White beckons White.

  But Billy hadn’t merely been beckoned. It had felt like he’d been absorbed, eaten away by a cancer of the mind. For those brief moments, he’d lost his very identity. In the White, Billy Ballard had ceased to exist.

  What would happen if he lost himself completely in the Conqueror’s memories?

  (You find your way, and you come back home.)

  He thought of Gramps, manic and violent when he walked a world adrift in the past, torpid and monosyllabic when he was anchored in the present. Would that happen to Billy? If, in the embrace of the White, the Conqueror hooked Billy’s mind and pulled him down, would he be no better off than his grandfather, forever battling with dementia?

  Would he be worse, because he’d be reliving memories that weren’t his own, and he wouldn’t even realize it?

  How was he supposed to go back into the White, knowing that everything he was could be erased?

  (You find your way.)

  Even if he succeeded and found the Conqueror without losing himself, what then? How was he supposed to pull a Horseman out of a memory and into the real world? How was he supposed to rescue someone else when he could barely hold on to himself?

  I can’t do it.

  Billy hugged himself tightly and curled into a ball. His life was a series of can’ts—he can’t fight back, he can’t deal with his grandfather, he can’t kiss the girl, one can’t after another with no end in sight, building on one another until they paralyzed him. He can’t go to school. He can’t get out of bed. He can’t face the day. He can’t.

  He was sick of his life being defined by can’t.

  A hint of frost as a cold breeze whispered along his neck. It almost sounded like laughter.

  He was scared to move forward; he felt that fear claw its way through his stomach and squeeze his throat, felt it tighten his chest and shrivel his spine. But staying where he was did nothing other than suffocate him with that fear.

  He could lose himself; that was true. He could try and still fail, and therefore be forced to travel the path of the White Rider. That, too, was true.

  He could succeed, and be thrown back into his life. That was also true, even if deep in his heart he didn’t think it likely.

  If he didn’t try, he would never know if he could have succeeded. And that was the truest thing of all.

  Billy took a shaky breath, then unfolded his limbs. Slowly, he pulled himself up so that he stood tall, floating in the gray world of in between. He had another moment of I can’t, one that stole his breath and threatened to release his bladder. And then, before he could talk himself out of it, he launched himself once more into the White.

  ***

  He sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/

  /he drapes her in a white chiton, her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green and violet. The cloth settles over her like a shroud, and he touches her face, once ivory perfection and now mottled with reds and yellows. Her skin is cool beneath his fingers, but he knows she had burned fiercely within, burned her enough to cook her very flesh and turn her fingertips a purple so bruised it looked black. He strokes her cheek once more, then pulls his hand away, and he gazes at her ruined form. He’ll bury her in her beloved garden, will cover her in roses, thorns and all, so that her sickness will be hidden in a bed of blushing petals and lush green leaves/

  /he is surrounded by lush greens and earthy browns, here in the heart of the Greenwood, where the very ground thrums with life. Peace settles over him and he smiles, content, as he leans against the broad trunk of an oak tree. Here he’ll stay, away from the world with its never-ending diseases and hunger and battles at every corner/

  /he’s seen centuries of battles, of wars erupting over the face of the world like a pox until land and sea were awash in red, but nothing affects him as much as this one boy with his golden hair and honeyed voice convincing thirty thousand children to march to Jerusalem. Dumbstruck, he watches them advance, row by row, an army of them, a river of them, all enchanted with the possibility of succeeding where their elders have failed. Tears wind down his cheeks as the children’s call to battle spreads like an epidemic of the most sinister pox/

  /the pox has ravaged his kingdom, indiscriminate of poor or rich or old or young. The healthy had suddenly been taken by a violent heat that started in the head and slowly worked its way down, transforming their eyes to embers, inflaming their throats and causing them to spew blood and reek of sickness. He feels their agony even now, though he himself remains untouched by distress: the coughing, the sneezing, the endless vomiting and spasms, the compulsion to rip clothing away from his overheated body, the urge to throw himself into a rain tank or the river in the desperate need to slake a maddening, ceaseless thirst. But now he wears the Crown and wields the Bow, and he is rejuvenated. He will cleanse his land and heal his kingdom. He will make it right; he will set the balance in his people’s favor/

  /he holds her favor, even though he had not sought it. She’s looking at him now, boldly, this woman in black, with her whip-thin smile and set of balances in her hand. The instrument of her office gleams in the sunlight, but it cannot compare with the hungry sheen of her eyes. They share a look, these two Riders, and around them, Romans fall victim to famine and plague. He hardly notices the bodies littering the streets; he’s enamored by the swirl of the Black Rider’s linen peplos around her shapely ankles. Something about this woman calls to him, stirs his blood and upsets the balance of his sanguine humor/

  /and she tells him the Four are out of balance and he must return, but he will not listen to her. She may wear the mantle of the Black, but she is not his Famine. He turns his back, bristling when he feels the weight of her hand on his shoulder. She speaks of sickness and starvation and dares to tell him of his duty, and he whirls to face her, his mouth twisted in a snarl. Shadows play behind her eyes as she quietly asks that he do this for her, and he laughs in her face. He cannot. He will not, not even for her/

  /not for the woman in red who laughs at him when he accuses her of whispering to the golden-haired boy, of dazzling him with images of glory and coaxing him from his home, encouraging him to stir the souls of thirty thousand children and lead them to slavery and death, all in the name of war. She mocks him with her laughter of fire and blood, and she declares herself as the handmaiden of the Pale Rider, the cold one warmed only by her passion, the one who will lead them all to the greatest battle of all time before the end of everything/

  /he sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/

  ***

  —and Billy screamed as he threw himself out of the White. He dropped to his knees and retched, dry heaving in the gray of in between past and present. When his body stopped convulsing, he hugged his knees and rocked.

  Too much. It had been too much. All the sickness, all the death, the overwhelming sense of despair and horror—how could the Conqueror stand it?

  He shook violently as he rocked, alone in the gray. He remembered the looming presence of the Ice Cream Man, standing over
him as he played in the sandbox all those years ago, remembered how his face had run like wax melting in the sun. Had his experiences done that to him? Had he literally fallen apart because of everything he had seen, had done?

  How was Billy supposed to jump back into the White and not drown?

  (You find your way, and you come back home.)

  A memory winked: Gramps and Billy and Marianne at the community pool, back when his grandfather had been whole and Billy and Marianne were just kids. Gramps was pitching pennies all along the deep end of the pool and giving them thirty seconds to scoop up as many coins as they could. Marianne went first, using one huge breath and managing to grab thirteen pennies. When it was his turn, Billy took a breath and dove, grabbed the few pennies within reach, then swam back up for more air and back down again. And again. And again. By the time thirty seconds were up, he’d scored the entire twenty cents. He’d won, said Gramps, because Marianne had been so busy trying to do it all at once that she’d forgotten she needed to breathe. Billy had won because he’d paced himself.

  Yes, he thought, pulling himself to his feet. Yes. He didn’t have to jump into the White and nearly drown; he could take a breath and dive, then come up for air before going back in. One memory at a time; that was the key. One at a time, instead of all at once, and he’d get all the pennies.

  The end of the world arrives on a sheet of white.

  For a long moment, he stood at the edge of the White and wished he were brave.

  Shut up, chided Marianne. You were too brave!

  Fine. Time to prove it.

  Billy Ballard took a deep breath and stepped once more into the White.

  Chapter 12

  He Skimmed the Surface . . .

  . . . of the White, treading the waters of memories not his own. Above him, the bleached sky glittered with stars; around and below him, the White flowed and churned, rolling softly and hinting of storms. He floated, mesmerized. Before, he had just plunged into the depths without acknowledging the power and presence of such a force as the White; if the gray of in between was a place of nothing and nowhere, the White was on the edge of everything, everywhere. Billy felt both insignificant and magnificent, as if he were a speck on the face of grandeur as well as the eyes on that face, the one who could appreciate such awesome splendor. It was a sublime moment in which Billy was both completely empowered and thoroughly humbled, and the combination stole his breath.