by Lee Thompson
Love is magic.
Action its wand.
At least, it was for them for a while.
Your mother walked between worlds with him. He left behind all he’d owned, all for her…but he failed. Because the love he had within him was already given away to his wife and his children. He couldn’t take it back. He had so little left to give, and he hated himself for it, while your mother cried and buried her head in his shoulder and told him that it was more than enough, she’d never felt so much joy, she’d never received so many gifts from another’s heart…
But war fell from the skies and bubbled from the earth and it landed in that place in-between where his kingdom stood, even then showing its first signs of decay and ruin.
And it was no longer just about the wife he no longer lived for, or the twin girls who mirrored their mother in their desires and words and posture; there was his kingdom to think about, his people to protect, the forest and its magic to save.
So he left your mother there at the doorway between the shared spaces, where they meshed, although not perfectly because gods had forced themselves through eons ago and bent time and space, desperate for new blood, hungry souls.
Your mother wept for Ash.
And then she forgot him because she had to, because you cannot hang on to what has let you go, what has pushed you away.
Returning home Ash found that the God of this other world had moved its way into his dominion, it had taken his wife and all her bitterness and frustration, it had consumed his children, Leonora and Proserpine, beneath a haze of blinding light that left their flesh as white as freshly fallen snow, and it broke them, all of them.
And like you, boy, he wept. Because there was nothing he could do to return things to the way they once were.
He couldn’t have what he wanted, no matter how hard he fought.
Red said, “My mother loved him?”
“He’s still looking to reclaim his throne. It’s why you must free the giant and find his brother Blue. And then we can all help him burn this God who has obliterated what once was.”
His brother Blue…
Red wiped his eyes and stroked the butterfly’s wings. It tickled his fingertips. “Together they can stop Leonora and her mother, can’t they? Ash and Mr. Blue? But why did Ash take me? To hurt my mom? Why? He could have asked me, he could have explained.”
Red glared at the sky and its coming darkness.
“Your mother would not let him near you. For she sees only that he failed so long ago, he left her there and she has never forgiven him. Perhaps…” the raven said sadly, “maybe someday she will.”
Red clenched his hands, worried—picturing this other God who came in and sent fire from the sky and bubbled boiling water from the ground—wondering how they were supposed to fight that.
His head stuffed with images of the albino princess, Leonora, of Mr. Blue, of Pig, and so many other things, all of it like paint smeared over paint, one color after the next, a mess really, but in a way, unique, full, beautiful.
It pulled his mind away from Amy’s dad gasping his last breath and keeling over, his eyes gone so dark and those wet red hands flopping against his chest. It made him miss Amy though, and he hated himself for lying, because that was not love.
“I can’t fix anything,” he said, studying the raven, part of him suspecting that it was one of the creatures that had been Mr. Blue’s constant companions. “What can I do? What can you?” Red remembered the Dragonfly Man and how it had grabbed one of the ravens, plucked it from the sky like the angry hand of god, ripped its wing off. He kept his mouth shut and looked up at the sky burning, cloud puffs of smoke infected with dancing flame. He pulled the Band-Aid from the back of his hand and blue light washed over his face, warmed his skin, helped, if only a little, to put his mind at ease. The air around his right hand crackled and he felt as if he could stretch it like taffy.
“Yes,” the raven whispered. “That’s how you can help. The magic is inside you. Together we can all bring balance back to this universe. And if you do this thing for me, I will help bring balance back to your world.”
Red wiped his lips, wishing he had something to drink, and something to eat because his mouth was so dry and his stomach kept hurting and hope hurt, because he wanted balance back in his universe. He wanted Amy to forgive him, for the police not to be waiting at his house when he returned home, whether for a brief dark moment, or forever.
He said, “You can help her forgive me?”
But the raven remained silent.
The butterfly’s wings stuttered weakly against his shoulder.
* * *
His mother waited at the door, as if she knew he was coming home at that exact moment. Red trudged up the driveway, tears dry, but the guilt still heavy in his heart, even though the raven kept cawing, He killed himself.
“Please,” Red said. “Just shut the fuck up.”
The raven jerked its body and tugged at his shoulder. Red nearly fell beneath the pain that cut through his body. But it faded quickly, and he stumbled up the drive believing that his mother could fill in the gaps he was missing, because she knew Ash, he’d loved her and she him until he’d left her at the divide between worlds, so she had to share. She had to.
As he put a foot on the step, she came down to meet him, but she didn’t have her arms out for a hug, her right hand was raised and she smacked him. Heat filled his cheek and he fell off the step, her towering over him, eyes like fire, fists at her sides, saying, “What the hell have you done?”
Red jumped up, hurt but angry, wanting to ask her, What have you done? I thought I brought them here, but it was you. It was always you!
She grabbed him by the shirt and though he tried to resist her, she dragged him up the steps and into the trailer. His mother let go and jammed a finger at the kitchen table. “Sit!” Red did, and hung his head, angry with her and frustrated with himself. She sat across from him, her fingers laced together. Red kept quiet, thinking, Maybe she isn’t accusing me of what I did to Amy’s dad, maybe this is something else, and he tried to think of what that something else could be. He’d stolen one of his dad’s Playboy’s but he hadn’t really had the chance to look at it, and part of him didn’t want to because he was unsure what Amy would think of him if she found out.
He wiggled in his seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No?” she said. “What’s that in your hand?”
He lifted the shard of mirror up above the tabletop and set it down. “Just a piece of mirror.”
“Really?”
He studied her face for a moment even as she studied his, but he felt like her stare was penetrating much deeper than his ever could. Red cleared his throat and tears tickled his cheeks, and he let it all spill out, he couldn’t stop it, telling his mom about how much he loved Amy and how bad he’d hurt her because he was driven to make things better for her, to teach her dad a lesson, but things went too far, they hadn’t gone as he’d expected and her dad died while all Red wanted was to see her safe and see her grow and he couldn’t really do anything at all. He felt evil, felt like a failure, and he didn’t know how he could stop anything bad from happening to anyone. He sobbed and pulled a napkin from the center of the table to blow his nose. His mom’s face softened, and when she spoke, it wasn’t what he had expected to hear, her hand suddenly there on top of his and tears in her eyes too. “You’re very different, Red. And this girl you love, I’ve always liked her, but I knew that the day would come when you would hurt her.” She shook her head. “I just never thought it’d have been like this.”
Something cracked inside him because he saw the pain in her eyes, the disappointment, and he didn’t know how to make that right either, to take it back and make her love him like she used to. But she scooted around the table and wrapped her arms around his shoulders like she still loved him and he put his head against her shoulder and wet her shirt with tears. His mom stroked his hair. She whispered, “You c
an still make things right.”
“How?” He hated the sound of his voice and all the need, all the helplessness in it, but he buried his face in her shoulder and his hot breath clung to his face. “How can I do anything?”
She shushed him but it didn’t help, and he wanted to wail but his strength was gone, there was only the crying, this sadness that felt so thick he could hardly breathe. He begged her, “Help me, please. I don’t know what to do.” His mom continued stroking his hair, showing tenderness he’d never experienced with her, and it delighted and frightened him. Her breath tickled the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder and he shivered as she said, “I have been where you went, I’m sure you know that. I loved someone before your father, back when I was a young and stupid girl, but that man, that thing, he only loved himself. He tricked me because that’s what he does. He finds those who have a little bit of the old magic, an ancient stirring in their blood, and he wants it, he finds a way to take it, and he leaves you there, emptier than you ever felt, honey. And nothing will ever fill the hole left behind once it’s over. Then he runs back to his family, like a lot of normal men do.” She shook her head.
“But the raven said he was on the good side, that…”
“What good side?” She pulled back away from him and her fingertips brushed his chin. “Both sides are good and both sides are bad, Red. They both want what they want and will fight for what they think they need, and you don’t matter to them. Not to either one.” She blinked tears away. “I used to think Ash was so lovely.”
“What did he take from you? How can I get it back?”
She laughed sadly and it broke his heart. He wanted to cry with her but the sadness quickly faded, and a soft rage swirled and bucked inside him, pounded inside his head until his eyes ached and the kitchen grew darker and he saw blood smeared on the walls, so dark it looked black. His mom said, “You can’t take anything from him, baby. He won’t give anything up.”
“The raven said that Ash is trying to take back his throne, that Leonora and her mom and some other god have moved in and taken his place.” His head ached, trying to remember exactly what it was the bird had said. He bit his lip. “It said he lost it when he was in love with you.”
“No,” she said. “He never loved me. That’s a lie. He used me.”
“But—”
“What you did today is going to haunt you the rest of your life. It might destroy the feelings you and Amy share. You have to accept that because there is no taking it back.”
“The raven said—”
“What raven?”
He heard the raven’s words in his head: Your mother would not let him near you. For she sees only that he failed so long ago, he left her there and she has never forgiven him. Perhaps…maybe someday she will.
Red wasn’t sure who he was supposed to trust. His heart told him that his mom was bitter, that she held on to a grudge against this man from another world, that it blinded her to what might have really taken place.
She stood next to him and said again, “What raven?”
Don’t tell her, it whispered.
But he couldn’t lie to her, it’d feel like when he’d lied to Amy and he didn’t want to feel that way ever again. So he poured it all out, he told her what he knew, or thought he knew, and the little he assumed. The raven shifted on his shoulder, its beak against his temple, listening intently.
Seven
They moved down a path through the woods, the trees so tall in places they scraped the sky. On his shoulder, the raven said, “They’ll have taken the giant to their lair.”
And Red thought about the beast outside his bedroom window, and how it had pursued another raven and destroyed it, and he thought, It’s why you sit on my shoulder, isn’t it? Because you think for some reason I can protect you.
The wind stilled and Red looked behind him but couldn’t see the mountain or the flashing beacon on the top. It seemed that they were going the wrong way, and he didn’t like trusting this creature, but he kept walking anyway because Mr. Blue had his own ravens—Dream and Nothing—and they had seemed to tend to him in his darkest hour. He said, “After we free the giant, we find Mr. Blue.”
“No,” the raven said. “We must climb the mountain and join forces with our king to overthrow he-who-should-not-be, The Wind with a Thousand Eyes. Your angel lies in the heart of the garden, weeping for all that has been lost, for all that our king has failed at. We must fight, and then we free. It is the way, the only true path.”
Red thought about all the adventure books he’d ever read, of all the movies he’d seen where men had overcame more powerful foes by undermining them, by circumventing their strongest forces. He whispered, in case the trees listened, in case the greenery carried their voices back to The Wind with a Thousand Eyes, “What if we sneak?”
“There is no sneaking here. It’s not allowed.”
“What? Are you crazy? Jesus Christ. I’m not following any stupid rule like that.” He slowed as the land sloped down into a valley full of lush shrubbery and to their far right a waterfall that glistened in what Red guessed was a midday sun. The raven said, “It’s down there.”
“What?”
“The giant.” The raven cocked its head. “Listen.”
The butterfly fluttered around their heads. Red tried to listen for whatever it was the raven heard—uncertain he’d be able to hear it at all—and his stomach cramped from lack of food and he worried as the raven watched the butterfly intently, worried because something dark lurked in its eyes, as if its beak might snap forward and swallow Amy’s spirit like Ash had his. Red clenched his hands, opened them, and whispered, “You better never hurt her.”
The raven coughed, said something too soft to hear, and then, louder, “Shut up, boy. Listen.”
“I’m serious.” Red shifted his feet. “I don’t know what you want from me, but you better never hurt her.”
“You have all of this power sleeping inside of you and yet you worry about something insignificant.”
“Amy is not insignificant!” He pulled the Band-Aid from the back of his hand and blue light thickened the air. He grabbed hold of it, imagined a leash around the raven’s neck, and jerked the strands of mutated density surrounding them until the raven screamed and clawed at his shoulder, trying to retain its grip. Red smiled, thinking of an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other—one that just watched and let him make his own choices, succeed or fail, and the other telling him what to do, the creature never shutting up because the darkness in its heart drove its words up and out of its beak. Red pulled at the imaginary leash, harder, seeing it clearer, feeling it in his palm and between his fingers, watching the raven’s head tear from its body, listening to that satisfyingly wet, sucking sound. He said, “You will never hurt her.”
It was as if a presence filled him, stretched his skin, the walls of his heart, and the raven trembled, both of them thrilled and terrified, the bird’s eyes bulging, beak working, trying to cut the air. Red thought, I could kill this creature. He clenched his free hand. The butterfly lit upon his forehead and a soothing coolness spread from its tiny legs into a dot on his flesh and spread, working its way to his ears, trickled down his neck and settled into his shoulders. The raven spoke with Mr. Lafond’s voice, “You’re right, okay? You’re right. I will never harm a hair on her head. Let go.”
But Red held on a moment longer, squeezed with his mind, feeling that power throb, giving him a hard-on, and it sickened him but he couldn’t stop and that moment seemed to stretch out into forever, as if it’d never end. Red shifted his feet, shoulder burning, part of him wanting to crush the bird because it wasn’t a bird, but some thing, and he thought, I’m stupid. Things like it are always sent by someone else.
He pulled tighter on the strands of air gathered in his fist and heard muscle tearing in the raven’s neck. He said, “Who sent you, huh? Tell me!”
The bird eyed him, slowly composing itself, its trembling body becoming still,
nearly tranquil, even though Red kept pulling harder, deciding that it was taunting him. The raven laughed even as the muscles in Red’s shoulder strained to its limit. The butterfly spread its wings and took to the air as an arm exploded from the raven’s chest in a wash of feathers, and then another arm, both of them seizing the invisible tether, jerking it free of Red’s grip, causing his palm to blister.
The raven said in the Stick Man’s voice, “All I’ve tried to do is help you find the right path, and ask for your allegiance in return.” The bird shuddered and exploded in a puff of throbbing black light. Ash jumped from Red’s shoulder, kicking as he leapt, and Red stumbled back. He caught his balance as Ash landed, stood, and rubbed his neck. He smiled sadly, saying, “We’ll never get what we want if we’re fighting each other.”
Red clenched his hands and winced against the pain flaring across his palm. “You were the raven all along.”
“No. I was me all along. Unlike you I can’t be anything but myself.” He waved his hands down over his body. “Not the prettiest thing, I’ll admit, but functional and mostly whole.”
“You’ve been testing me.”
“No, boy. So much more than testing.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward the valley. “They’re down there with their prisoner.” Ash jabbed a finger in Red’s direction. “Down there with you.”
“The giant.”
“Yes. The you we need to storm the castle.”
Red cleared his throat. “I thought it was your church.”
“It is in my eyes, and obviously in yours, but the Wind with a Thousand Eyes believes otherwise, and with might comes right.”