Gaia turned around and willed her legs to run. Natasha began to chase after her, but even in this state Gaia was too quick for her. She jogged through the alien rooms of the apartment, slamming each door behind her until she’d found the front door. She burst through and bolted down the building hallway, nearly falling down the entire first flight of stairs.
For a moment the stairs appeared to be rolling up toward her like a high-speed cement escalator. Gaia grabbed onto the railing and shut her eyes, struggling to regain her balance. When she opened her eyes again, the stairs had thankfully stopped moving. But Gaia wasn’t so sure that she wanted to move. If the silent stillness of a stairwell was daunting, she couldn’t imagine what the outside world would be like. One simple thought spurred her legs to take on the stairs. One simple wish would keep her moving.
Be home, Ed. Just please be home.
GAIA
My father always told me I was beautiful.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He would say it at least twice a day, usually when I was in the midst of some extremely banal unbeautiful task-like unclogging the toilet or cleaning out the gerbil cage.
But even in fourth grade I was well aware of why he did it. God knows it wasn’t because I was actually beautiful. I mean, at the age of nine, I swear the top half of my face had decided to grow to full size while the bottom half was still stuck in negotiations. No, he did it as what I would call “a noble act of compensation.” That is to say, he did it so that I wouldn’t feel ugly next to my mother, who was in fact, empirically speaking, the most beautiful thing my father or I had ever seen.
I know most nine-year-olds probably thought their mothers were the most beautiful woman they’d ever seen, but I was also a lot smarter than the average nine-year-old, and in my case, the opinion was based solely on fact.
Plus I also had a very sophisticated understanding of which elements combined to form that superior beauty. While a lot of kids were probably under the impression that their mothers’ beauty stemmed only from the classic “unfettered smile,” I knew that in my mother’s case, it was actually a precise combination of three things:
The unfettered smile
The scent that her cooking created throughout the house (particularly her borscht and her beef stroganoff)
The sound of her voice when she sang a Russian folk song
When these three elements were in harmony, my mother took on this otherworldly radiance that was so powerful, it was nearly blinding.
And now, somehow, due to some sort of glorious mix-up in the time-space continuum, that blinding radiance is shining in my eyes again.
home
His eyes and mouth were contorted with a look of unfathomable pain, like a living Rodin sculpture—an agonized, tortured soul.
Accidental Compliment
“TESTS? WHAT TESTS? WHAT ON earth is she talking about?”
Tom felt a painful twinge in his stomach. He couldn’t begin to understand the meaning of Gaia’s statements, but it really wouldn’t have mattered what she had said. Natasha’s description of his daughter’s bitter rage hurt enough.
“I have no idea,” Natasha replied, tightening her coat as the wind kicked up. “I don’t know that she was in her right mind, Tom.”
They were standing on a deserted steel platform under the Brooklyn Bridge, right by the South Street Seaport. The night wind had turned rather strong coming off the river, and the water was just rough enough to send some faint ripples onto the shore. Just below the steel platform was a thirty-foot span of garbage-laden rocks and sand. It was just about the only remaining evidence that this city had once been an actual island with actual beaches.
Tom kicked the metal rail with frustration. He knew how childish it must have seemed to Natasha, but it couldn’t be helped. It was the act of a child. An involuntary response to his complete powerlessness.
“What did he do to her?” he murmured, staring out at the lights of Brooklyn. “I need to know what he did to her.”
“We’ll find out, Tom,” Natasha said. “Don’t worry.” She placed her delicate hand on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. Tom stiffened at her touch. He turned his head slightly to where her hand touched his shoulder. Natasha pulled her hand away, flashing an uncomfortable reassuring smile before she thrust her hand back in her coat pocket and turned out to the water. Tom felt a pang of guilt for having stiffened up, although he wasn’t quite sure why. He moved quickly to the next moment.
“I hate not being with her,” he murmured. “I know it’s for her own protection, but it feels like I’m just leaving her hanging out there. I can’t stand it.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Natasha assured him. “You’ve made the right decision, Tom. She’s in good hands with me, I promise you. So she needed to run off tonight. That’s okay. Let her collect herself. We’ve got people keeping an eye on her at all times.”
Tom nodded, although nothing could give him much solace right now.
“You need to understand something, Tom….”
Tom kept his gaze locked across the water. The same question was still running through his head. What did he do to her? I need to know what he’s done.
“Tom…?” Natasha used the tip of her index finger to turn Tom’s head to hers and establish eye contact. Then she quickly let go. Tom looked into her large brown eyes and gave her his full attention.
“No matter what she is going through,” she said, “Gaia is still just a teenager, like any teenager. Like my daughter. Her anger is not only because of Loki. She is angry at having to move again … at having no real home.” The wind was snapping Natasha’s long, honey-colored hair all over her face. Tom felt compelled to reach over and sweep it behind her ear. Simply as an act of public service. But he kept his arm glued to his side. Thankfully she finally gathered it in her own hands and tucked it into the back of her coat. Her eyes dug deeper into Tom’s. “She only wants what you want, Tom,” she said. “A normal life. She wants her father. And she wants her mother very badly.”
Tom lowered his eyes. He could feel the veins in his neck bulging as he strained to harden his heart. The simplicity of Natasha’s statement had hit him with enough guilt to crush him against those jagged black rocks. Of course Gaia wanted her mother. Tom wanted her, too. But he had lost her. Thanks to one brief moment of ineptitude, he’d lost her for them both.
“You know…,” Natasha began cautiously, “she has mistaken me for Katia twice now.” Tom raised his head again, locking eyes with her. “Our families are separated by many generations. Do I really look so much like her?”
“No, not really,” Tom said dismissively. He had a flash of worry that his answer might have somehow come out offensive, so he quickly amended it. “I mean, you’re both beautiful in different ways….” Tom froze at the end of his statement. That was not at all how he had meant to say it. “I mean, I didn’t mean to say that you were … Not that you re not…” Each addendum to his sentence made him more uncomfortable than the last until he’d finally talked himself into a painfully awkward silence.
Natasha smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “Thank you for the accidental compliment.”
Tom nodded and turned back toward the water, trying to find a professional way out of this deeply unprofessional moment. But Natasha did it for him.
“I should check in on Gaia. Make sure she is all right.”
“Yes,” Tom replied quickly. Natasha had brought them back around to the real matter at hand. “You’ll let me know immediately….”
“Of course,” she said. “Don’t worry, Tom. She’s had a little time alone. I’m sure she must have calmed down by now.”
Long Walk to Purgatory
FITS AND STARTS. THE ENTIRE CITY was coming through in fits and starts. Bells were too loud, lights were too bright. Sirens were making Gaia’s ears bleed. Why was everyone screaming? Spitting vicious curses at her for bumping into them? She wasn’t even coming near them. No … that wasn’t t
rue. She was bumping into everything. Walls, mailboxes, fire hydrants, bitter old men, and mischievous children. Street after street, it was all the same. The sights, the smells, the sounds. Enough light to make her blind, enough garlic to make her retch, and this collective cloud of anger, firing random bolts of lightning into every malevolent stranger on every corner.
She had no idea how long she’d been walking or how close she was to Ed’s. She only knew that her clothes were drenched with sweat and that people had gotten progressively uglier with every block. The image of Ed’s kind and beautiful face was like a distorted phantom carrot, dangling just ahead to keep her moving forward. But no matter how hard she dragged her aching legs and no matter how far she went, she still didn’t feel like she was moving any closer to beauty of any kind. It was quite the opposite. It seemed as if, without remembering why she had done so, Gaia had decided to take a nice long walk to purgatory. But she’d gotten there hours ago. She’d just been walking in circles ever since.
Burning up and walking in circles. She was past purgatory. She was in hell.
The ninth circle of hell and still walking. I need a sign. Please, God, I know I don’t believe in you, but show me a goddamn sign…. I can say “goddamn” as much as I please; I’m in hell—thank you very much. You show me a way out, and I swear I’ll change my ways. Just show me the way out ….
No reply. More heat. Talk about coming full circle. Back in foster care. Her uncle gone and her father gone. Her mother gone, Ella gone, Mary gone, Sam gone.
Sam. Oh, Jesus, Sam …
A shock of tears suddenly erupted from Gaia’s eyes. She froze in the center of the sidewalk and dropped to one knee. She stared down at twenty years’ worth of blackened chewing gum and shattered glass in the cracks of the pavement as her tears gathered on the ground.
I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m so sorry for everything I did to you. You know that, don t you? Please tell me you know that, wherever you are now. I can’t think of you too often, Sam, because then the guilt … the guilt would be … but you understand that, don’t you? You understand that there’s a place for you—a separate place just for you that I’ve locked away in my brain and my heart that no one can ever touch—that I can’t even touch, do you understand that? Are you listening, Sam? Can you help me off this street?
Legs swirled by her from every side, swiping her shoulders and her back.
“Goddamn druggies,” someone spat.
“Get a job,” somebody else barbed. Two boys howled with laughter.
She should have pounced on them. She should have jumped those asshole boys and ripped them apart. But she was too hot. And unless the sidewalk was going to give her a push, she wasn’t capable of moving fast enough. She raised her head into the blur of colored lights and looked for a sign of any kind.
And then she saw one. Two, actually. The most beautiful signs she had ever seen. Two green signposts sticking out under the red streetlight just like it was Christmas.
Eighth Street and MacDougal Street.
It was a miracle. Eighth and MacDougal. Around the corner from Washington Square Park—the closest thing Gaia had to a home now. Somehow she’d guided herself home without even really knowing it And Ed’s was only a few more blocks from here. Maybe God had been listening?
She felt a burst of renewed energy and immediately broke into a jog, cutting across MacDougal Street and stumbling into the park like she’d just broken through the finishing tape of the New York City Marathon.
Personal Angel of Death
WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK HAD NEVER looked more beautiful. The trees rustled gloriously from the strong winds, and the arch was lit to perfection, shining like a bright white beacon signifying that Gaia had in fact made it home. It was deserted but thoroughly unthreatening, as if all the skinheads and junkies had decided to give the Village bohemians and the NYU students a much-needed night off.
The chess tables were empty at this time of night, but they were the ultimate sight for Gaia’s painfully sore eyes. She stumbled to the tables, plopped herself down on a stone seat, and slid her hands back and forth across the board, savoring the tactile taste of the familiar.
“Gaia…”
“Ed?” Gaia popped her head up from the table. Someone had whispered her name. She hoped that perhaps Ed had come to her, understanding through deep emotional telepathy that her legs and feet were nearly out of commission and that he needed to meet her halfway. She looked around her, searching through the round bushes and the angular branches of the trees, but there was no sign of Ed.
“Gaia,” the voice whispered again. “Please.”
The whispers were anxious and short of breath. She didn’t know how she could have thought it was Ed. It was a girl’s voice. A girl in trouble. Perhaps not every park-dwelling scumbag had gotten the memo about taking the night off. Gaia’s spine snapped to attention as she pricked up her ears like a predator and chased down the voice with her eyes.
There, in the clearing by the brick rest rooms. A young woman’s form shivered in silhouette as her hands reached out to Gaia, beckoning her with quick snaps of her wrists. “Jesus, hurry,” the girl moaned.
Gaia didn’t waste another moment. She jumped from her stone seat and raced toward the desperate voice, cranking every ounce of energy out of her wobbly legs, leaping two park benches and landing with a flat thud on the higher level of the park.
“I can’t see you,” Gaia said through deep, winded breaths. She staggered the rest of the way toward the voice. She’d forgotten just how painfully tired her muscles were. She hardly had the energy to be a hero. But her old instincts were still intact, and that was encouraging. Whatever Loki had done to her, her obsessive savior complex was still fully functional. “Come into the light where I can see you,” she said.
The girl did as Gaia asked and stepped into a spike of light that cut through the branches from the street-lamps outside the park.
But when Gaia saw the face, her chest went numb. Every ounce of strength that was left in her heart began to crumble.
The vision of fiery red hair seemed to melt what was left of Gaia’s defenses. Long, tangled red hair. Red velvet lips. A curvy form in a skintight black miniskirt and a black Nirvana T-shirt … There was no way she could be standing there, yet she was. These two basic truths were in such pure contradiction, Gaia wasn’t even sure what to think. So she simply chose the truth that made her happier. The impossible one.
“Mary?”
“Gaia, hold on to me, okay?” Mary Moss begged meekly. She was shivering hard and holding on to her stomach.
Gaia was motionless and speechless. Her brain was still in a holding pattern, trying to wrap itself around this impossible encounter.
“My stomach,” Mary complained. “My stomach feels like it’s going to explode. I think I’m hurt bad. Hold me up.”
Mary began to collapse. Gaia thrust her arms under Mary’s to give her support. Once she had touched her, once she could feel how real she was, a huge wave of elation was unlocked. She wrapped her arms tightly around Mary and took deep inhalations of her spiced rose perfume.
“Mary, I don’t get it,” Gaia whispered into her ear, wetting her thick red hair with tears. “How is this happening?”
“I’ve missed you so badly,” Mary said, breathing out with exhaustion as she gripped Gaia’s shoulders. “So badly, it hurts. I wish you hadn’t let me die. I wish you’d saved me.”
Gaia pulled away, stunned and appalled. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Mary said, wrapping her arms tightly around her midsection, cringing. “You know you could have gotten to me in time. You could have saved my life. But you didn’t.”
The words seemed to hover over Gaia’s ears, forming a chain that wrapped around her neck like a cold steel noose and hanged her from the trees. “Don’t say that,” she begged in the near silence. She was choking on every word, gasping for a decent breath. “Please don’t say that.”
“Then save me this ti
me,” Mary moaned urgently. “Please. Don’t let it happen again.”
Suddenly Mary’s entire body arched backward into a rigid pose of sheer agony. She let out a protracted rattling scream as the tip of a blade jutted straight through the center of her stomach. Gaia’s eyes darted down to the knife, only to see it pulled out of Mary’s stomach and plunged back through her again. And again.
It had happened so quickly. Instantaneously. Without any warning. Gaia was left frozen in place, her feet nailed to the ground as she watched Mary dying right before her eyes. There had been no time for action in this lightning-quick moment. No time for anything but shock.
Mary lurched forward, grasping at her wounds with one hand and flailing the other hand out, trying to latch onto Gaia’s arm. Gaia grabbed Mary’s hand and squeezed it as tightly as she could, kneeling to the ground with Mary as she doubled over.
“I’m so sorry, Mary,” she whispered. She didn’t know what else to say. She barely even understood what she was witnessing. All she knew was that somehow she’d failed again. Once again Gaia had only looked on and watched as her best friend was murdered.
Mary didn’t speak a word. She glued her pleading eyes to Gaia’s as blood trickled from her mouth, and then she collapsed in a heap on the grassy rocks.
Gaia let out a loud, involuntary blip of a scream, but it was cut short. Cut short by what she saw next. The man who had been standing behind Mary, holding the knife. Somehow Gaia hadn’t even considered him until she looked up at his face.
The face with the vacant blue eyes and the shiny, sadistic grin. The face of the apparently immortal Josh Kendall.
Of course. Why would it be anybody else? Josh was the Grim Reaper. Gaia’s own personal angel of death, tag teaming with Loki to kill anyone she loved.
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