Between Decisions (The City Between Book 8)

by W. R. Gingell

  The bond had been Athelas, too—or had, at least, come from him. He hadn’t been able to kill me, thanks to my parents, but he had done the next best thing: he had made as sure as he could that I would never leave the house. And if I did leave the house, he knew that I wouldn’t go far. Even in his games, Athelas had made sure that he had a winning hand, no matter which way things went.

  And now my home didn’t feel as though it could be home anymore. Not because of what it had been without my realising it, but because of the home it had become while I was aware. At first, while I was alone, it had been a refuge: a place of safety from the outside world where no one knew I was. Security and a promise for the future, a hope to keep me going when it felt like there was no warmth or hope in the world. When my psychos had first come it had been a more perilous place, but it had been a place where I could learn and grow and try not to die in the vast new world that had opened up to me.

  And after they had been there for a while, the house had become a home again. A place I could leave in the security that it was there, and would still be there, and mine, when I got back. A place where I could care for the people I loved and be cared for in return, as slow and often problematic as that care had been as it grew.

  It was a place where I had grown to love Athelas—a place where he had made his mark as indelibly as Zero and JinYeong had made theirs—and I didn’t think I could bear to see the shades that had almost certainly been left by his complete and final absence. I didn’t even know if it was still home, and this time I didn’t have the ability to forget it all and live there anyway.

  I mean, it wasn’t like I could go anywhere else. I just followed Zero as though I was the brainless pet behindkind usually thought me to be, JinYeong’s hand around mine and his presence beside me. He didn’t try to talk, and that was nice because I didn’t think I could make much sense right now.

  Maybe none of us really thought of it as home anymore. Maybe I was the only one who ever had, because as soon as we got back, Zero vanished out into the backyard, and I felt the pull all through the house as he started whatever exercises he did while he was out there alone. I’d seen him doing those exercises, but I was always pretty sure he was doing more than it looked like he was doing. At any rate, he was honing that concentration, that purpose of life, pushing away the emotions that had brought him to his knees earlier, and I wished I could do the same.

  JinYeong didn’t seem to be able to settle, either; he prowled from one end of the lower half of the house to the other, pattering around me like a cat as I put the kettle on and started meal prep.

  What are meals when the sneaky old fae you’ve started to think of as family turns out to be a murderer—especially the murderer of your parents?

  What are meals?—but also people have to eat. Even fae have to eat. And it was something to do that didn’t leave me able to think too much: not if I didn’t want to burn the pancakes.

  I fell asleep with JinYeong on the couch, shivering and heavy but not troubled by nightmares. I must have slept for longer than I remembered, because the day and night passed over while I shivered, and Zero came and went. I felt a brief hand on my forehead as he passed every now and then, and shivered a bit more, then slept again.

  Maybe you can’t die of grief, but it took all the energy out of me, and by the time I seemed to have enough energy to sit up again, it was early evening. The faint pinkening of the sky touched the edges of the windows, and I felt the coolness of an evening breeze sneak beneath the front door and up the hallway toward us.

  I sat up with a heavy head, and JinYeong curled up into a sitting position easily. I wondered if he’d been there the whole time or if I was misremembering the steady, constant warmth that had finally stopped my shivering.

  I sat where I was for a few minutes, trying to decide if I had the ability—or maybe just the motivation—to get up. Was there any use in getting up? Was there any reason to not just lie down again?

  I didn’t so much sigh as a breath forced itself into my lungs and then left again. Maybe I could get up and decide what to make for dinner. Zero must be pretty hungry by now.

  I found myself looking at JinYeong instead, with my head tilted back against the couch, until he turned his head and met my eyes. One of his eyebrows lifted enquiringly.

  “Nothing,” I said. I grabbed his shoulder and used it to pull myself to my feet, and he allowed it with a soft sniff of laughter. I stood where I was for a brief moment, but my hand was already on his shoulder, so I turned a bit and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Just thanks,” I said.

  I left him there and wandered away to the kitchen, wondering if I was going to feel like a ghost in my own house forever or if it was just a result of too much sleep. My brain tried to make me think about Athelas when I went to make myself a cup of coffee, so I left the kettle alone and just drank a cup of water instead. I was alive and I didn’t know how, because Athelas had definitely tried to—

  I pushed that thought away, too, hurling my cup into the sink with the remaining water still in it, and went back into the living room. JinYeong was still on the couch when I stepped back down onto carpet, and I felt the vague suggestion of Zero in the backyard. I left them both where they were, left Athelas’ empty chair cutting into the living room, and went out to the front patio instead to try to wake up a bit.

  The next-door neighbour was watering her front yard, and that was kinda nice and normal to see, so I stayed where I was for a lot longer than I’d expected. It was too hard to go inside and see Athelas’ chair so empty and dreadful. Here, outside the house, it was possible to believe for just half an hour or so that things like watering the lawn in your pyjamas while yawning and picking up a weed or two and throwing them into the garden bed instead of getting rid of them properly were the real world. Real, and sleepy, and safe.

  I propped my feet against the veranda railing and wondered if the cool breeze sweeping in would do something about the hot, miserable feeling that was currently sitting right in the centre of me and pushing upward every so often, making my face feel hot and tight.

  I didn’t know some of that heat had pushed up even further to make tears well in my eyes until JinYeong came out with an ice-cream in either hand.

  He shoved one at me and said, “Eat,” and sat down beside me to eat his.

  I blinked away the tears, surprised to find them there, and asked him, “What did you do?”

  “I did nothing,” he said, looking faintly guilty. “If you do not want the ice-cream—”

  I surprised myself with a soft choke of laughter, and since it seemed to make me feel better for a little bit, I went a bit further and licked my ice-cream. “Not that. I mean when everything got—you know, messy. When your friend walked your team into that place to be drained by vampires. What did you do?”

  “I made other things…very messy,” he said. “What I did…you should not do.”

  “I’m not gunna go on a rampage and kill people, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  JinYeong’s grin was very sharp and not at all amused. “I did not kill people,” he said. “Not human people. Hyeong made sure of that.”

  “Yeah, he’s good at looking after people,” I said, and there I was at the point of tears again. I said accusingly, “Heck, you’re supposed to be cheering me up.”

  “You should not be cheerful just now,” he said. “Now, it is enough to be sad.”

  I shifted a bit, and maybe it was by accident, but I didn’t think it was: I found myself pushing into the warmth of his arm. I could have moved when I realised what I’d done, but I stayed there instead. It was all right to let myself be comforted a bit, wasn’t it?

  “Know what the worst of it is?” I asked, leaning back a bit more to kick at the railings. I hit them savagely enough to loosen the slats in front of me, and that was satisfying, so I kept doing it. “I feel like I can’t even hate him properly.”

  “The old man?”

  “Yeah. I got to know hi
m—got to love him. How am I supposed to hate someone I understood and loved? Problem is, I don’t reckon I can forgive him, either. He told me—he told me not to forgive him, too, a long time ago. S’pose he knew this was coming one day.”

  “That one had plans inside plans,” agreed JinYeong. He slid me a sideways look and said, “Hyeong did not say you have to forgive him. I did not say so. Why would you say so?”

  “Dunno,” I said, giving the slat one last kick to dislodge it completely. I let that foot drop back to the patio floor, heavy and useless. “Just…I dunno.”

  “Maybe,” said JinYeong, licking his ice-cream with great precision and seriousness, “Maybe it is because you are not satisfied.”

  “No, I reckon it’s because I want to be able to do one of those things: hate him or forgive him.”

  “I think you are not satisfied. Something is there in your head, turning and turning, and you can’t get rid of it.”

  I turned a bit to look across at him and folded the arm that wasn’t holding my ice-cream underneath the other, warming my ribs on that side too.

  “You trying to pick a fight?” I demanded. “If you think I’m gunna be distracted by a fight—heck, you’re probably right. What do you mean about something turning over and over in my head? There isn’t anything left to turn over: Athelas explained everything and it all makes sense. All the little things that were bothering me, all the little bits that didn’t fit in anywhere suddenly make sense and fit. He killed my parents, and he’s gotta pay for that.”

  “If you want to kill him, I will do it,” JinYeong said, delicately licking melted ice-cream off his fingers with a fastidious wrinkle of his nose. “But I think you don’t want to kill him. I think it would be bad for you.”

  “No; I want him to vanish,” I said. “I want him to not exist so I don’t have to think about him or worry about walking into him one day. I want to know I’ll never have to hate him, or forgive him, or remember that he’s out there somewhere.”

  “I am not satisfied,” said JinYeong, surprising me. “I am very not satisfied.”

  “Yeah? About what?”

  “I do not know. It is bothersome.”

  “Just like me, then,” I said.

  I caught the twitch of Between somewhere outside the front gate just before JinYeong stiffened and scowled in that direction. My eyes followed his, and with a fizz of shock that made my feet thump into the wooden floor, I saw that there was a man out on the street, his head turning curiously to observe the other side of the road and then this side. Like he was looking for a yard in particular. Like he was looking for someone in particular.

  Well, not a man, but someone who looked like a man.

  And then he stopped right outside our gate, turned, and just…stood there looking over the gate.

  “It’s the Librarian,” I said, blinking. “Heck. How did he find me?”

  Had he found me? Or was he here on business with Zero? If so, how had he found Zero?

  JinYeong, his eyes narrow and calculative, ran his tongue over one of his canines and put his ice-cream down. “I am not sure,” he said, “that I should call Hyeong.”

  “Me either,” I said, setting my own cone down carefully on the top of the railing in front of me. “I’ll go down and talk to the bloke. You stay here to get Zero if we need him, yeah?”

  “This person—you know him?”

  “Sorta.”

  “Very well. I will wait here.”

  I got up and headed for the stairs, and JinYeong added, “I shall not wait long.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, and hopped down the couple of stairs to the path. Whatever the Librarian wanted, it was probably best that he didn’t get too comfortable around the house.

  I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think he could see me before I spoke to him. When I said, “Oi. What do you want?” his left eye twitched just a bit, as if he’d stopped himself from flinching, and he looked straight at me for the first time.

  “You really are indomitable,” he said. “Hello.”

  “Thought librarians were meant to stay in libraries,” I said. I could feel the tight ball of energy that was JinYeong behind me on the patio, and I was feeling pretty antsy myself. Whoever he was after, me or Zero, I didn’t like the fact that he knew where to find us. “What are you doing out on the streets?”

  “Are you asking me how I found you?”

  “No, but you can answer that one if you want to,” I told him. “You give me something for free, and I’ll take it. I won’t give you anything for it, though.”

  He grinned at me, straw-stubbly cheeks deepening with laugh lines. He reminded me of Athelas for a moment, all soft lines and real feelings, and I didn’t want to be reminded of Athelas right then.

  Maybe he saw something in my face, because the grin faded away pretty quickly.

  “I’d tell you that it’s not safe to be as honest as you are,” he said. “But I suppose you wouldn’t take the advice. Are your owners home?”

  “Why would they be here?” I asked. Strictly no lies. I was pretty sure he’d know straight away that I was telling them, and even if I didn’t know how dangerous he was, Zero’s dad did know, and he had backed off. “Unless you know something I don’t know, you should know that the fae don’t much like living in human houses.”

  “True,” he said, his gaze floating past me and roaming over the house behind me. “But I think this house might be a bit better connected with our level of reality than might normally be thought.”

  “Yeah, probably,” I said. “Maybe it’s ’cos of the murders.”

  It was a risk to say that. If he knew anything about me at all—if he knew anything about Athelas, or Zero’s dad—he would have a pretty good guess that I was not just a pet. How much more than that he knew, I didn’t know. Enough to know how and why my parents had been murdered? And what that meant?

  Like I said, it was a risk, but I wanted to know what he knew.

  “If they were the right kind of murders, I suppose so,” he said, bringing his gaze back from the house to my face. “I have something for you.”

  I frowned. “You’re going to give me something? What’s it cost?”

  “No charge,” he said, and held up a book. “I’ve been meaning to give it to you for a little while now, but I couldn’t seem to find the appropriate time—or maybe it was the place I couldn’t find. Now seems appropriate.”

  That was flamin’ ominous, I thought gloomily, then tried to chivvy myself into a more reasonable frame of mind. It wasn’t like it was the Librarian’s fault that I was having such a bad day; and who knew, maybe it was a good present? It was a book, after all.

  He didn’t pass it over the fence, he just held it there until I reached out and took it, almost as if he didn’t really want to give it to me. He let it go straight away once I had it, though.

  “Good day,” he said, smiling at me. “I’ll see you next time, I suppose. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said, because I needed all the good luck I could get, even if I didn’t know why he was wishing me luck.

  I would have reiterated to him that I wasn’t planning on paying him anything for the book, and that he shouldn’t expect to be able to try and chisel something out of me later, but he didn’t give me time. With barely a whisper of Between, the Librarian turned away down the road, and for a moment it wasn’t a road but a hall, made of stone but somehow living, curving around him in shadow and light to follow him wherever he wanted to go.

  I caught the briefest sight of it and then it was gone, but I couldn’t help straining my eyes for another sight of that smooth, peaceful corridor. I saw nothing, not even another flutter of Between: it was gone utterly and completely.

  I breathed in a sigh, held it, and let it go. Then I looked down at the book he’d given me and caught my breath again—this time so suddenly that I nearly choked on it. I heard JinYeong strolling down the path toward me, but now all I could see was the book: a hefty, clothbound copy of
Dad and Dave that was warped from a bit too long in the sun and had a big, discoloured patch on the bottom at the spine where it had been half dunked into the bathwater one day.

  “What is it?” asked JinYeong, looking over my shoulder. “This, why did he give it to you?”

  “Dunno why he gave it to me,” I said, a prickle of what might have been either fear or excitement in my heart. It should have been fear, but I couldn’t help being excited, too, because here was another piece of my past that I’d forgotten about. “It’s mine, though: my book. I had it when I was a kid.”

  I flipped open the clothbound coverboard and flipped two pages in quick succession, the paper thick and familiar beneath my fingers, looking for the thing I knew would be there.

  Never write your name: it can be used as evidence against you.

  Not even your initials.

  But there it was, on the title page of the book: my single, tiny act of rebellion against my parents. Only really half a rebellion, but still.

  JinYeong, leaning over my shoulder, touched a finger to the sunken letters in blue ballpoint pen and asked, “Nuguya?”

  “It’s me,” I said, surprised as my voice came out sounding light and cool. “That’s my name.”

  He flipped the book shut with a suddenness that made me jump and took it from me, his fingers pinching the coverboards together as though my name might suddenly try to jump from the pages and escape.

  “How did he get this thing?”

  “Dunno,” I said, the chill of uncertainty spreading across me again. “Heck, how did he get it? He said he’s a librarian, but I could have sworn this book was still in the house: it’s been here for years.”

  JinYeong’s eyes were distant, though his head was cocked to listen. “Did you read it recently? When did you read it?”

  “Heck,” I said, staring at the book. “That’s another one of those things I forgot, I reckon.”