by Ali Cross
When the bell rang, I jumped to my feet and was almost out the door when something made me glance back. Miri still sat at her desk, her head in her hands. The sunlight framed her face and her obvious sorrow awakened the spark, erasing my resolve. I’d kept that part of me hidden for centuries, fought the possibilities it suggested. That I was more than a demon. Because what demons, with souls like frigid glaciers, held a piece of warmth at their core? That would be none. Warmth had no place in me. And yet . . . there it was.
So I moved. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was doing it—like my body was on autopilot.
“Hey,” Miri said, when she looked up and saw me watching her. There was a wild look in her eyes, and the bright spots on her cheeks were gone—now she just looked pale and worn out. I wondered if she’d even be able to stand.
I walked to her side. “Come on.” She looked at my hand, then at my face, before letting me take her elbow and help her up. She barely had any strength to lift herself at all.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Knowles asked as I led Miri down the aisle and toward the door.
“I’m just gonna . . .” take her to the nurse I was going to say.
Except, James was there. Leaning against the classroom doorframe, looking for all the world like he had every right to be there.
“James,” Miri breathed, but it wasn’t a sigh of relief—it sounded more like exhaustion, weariness.
“There you are, bright eyes.” James made no move to touch her or help her. His eyes flicked to me and for a moment there was something in them, something that left me reeling. Something like regret. “Princess,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“James, Miri’s not feeling well. I’m gonna take her to the nurse so . . .” Get the hell out of the way, I wanted to say. Instead I looked at him pointedly. He didn’t budge.
Miri sighed again and straightened her shoulders, pulling away from me. “It’s okay Desi, I need to talk to him, anyway.”
I glanced at Knowles who was busy pretending not to be listening, his nose pointed toward a book on his desk. I knew he wasn’t reading. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I won’t be long.”
I slipped past James, careful not to let my body touch his, and stepped into the hall. I walked away, but stopped by the water fountain and turned to face James and Miri who stood just outside of Knowles’ classroom.
Miri leaned against the wall and James joined her, blocking my view of Miri. Damn him.
But centuries of sitting silently beside my father in the throne room of Hell had taught me a lot about body language, and I could tell that pretty soon James wasn’t feeling nearly as confident as he had when he’d come in.
His shoulders lifted higher. His hips straightened out, making him look stiff and awkward. Finally he stepped away from the wall and raked both hands through his hair. For her part, Miri looked broken, like it took every ounce of her strength just to remain upright.
“You’re joking,” James said, his voice loud enough it carried down the hall so well you didn’t need to be a demon to hear it. “Seriously.”
“I’m not,” Miri said. It sounded like she spoke through a curtain of tears, and sure enough I could see her shoulders shaking in silent despair.
“Please, give me another chance,” James said, this time his voice raised into a high pitched sound of . . . something unexpected. For a moment I thought he felt something. Like maybe he actually did love her. Like maybe Miri was breaking his heart.
With a frustrated huff of air, James threw his hands to his side and stared at Miri for a second before turning and stalking toward the door.
Knowles came out of his room then and I hurried toward Miri.
“You’d best get her to the nurse,” he said, giving Miri a critical look—I couldn’t tell if it meant he disapproved of Miri’s condition or her personal problems, but I didn’t care.
“Sure,” I said, even though I had no intention of doing anything like taking her to the nurse. No school nurse was equipped to deal with the kind of sickness Miri had. I didn’t even know if I did—but I was on autopilot, the golden spark filling my heart like sunshine.
I looked forward, toward the exit—and saw Michael standing there. He smiled, a slow and crooked tug at his soft lips so achingly familiar, even though I only knew him from my dreams. He nodded a little, like he gave his approval of what I was about to do, and stepped back so Miri and I could pass.
I smelled oranges, and before I could stop myself I took a deep breath and sighed.
Damn autopilot.
chapter fifteen
For the second day in a row, Miri and I left campus, but this time I put her in my car. We still went to Lucy’s though. It just seemed like the right place to go—at least my autopilot seemed to think so.
I laid Miri on the couch, propped her on a few pillows with a blanket tucked around her. Her body had begun to quake, even her eyelids twitched. She’d barely said a word since we left school, but I hadn’t been too chatty either. I mean, what could I say to her? That I was a bitch? I think she already knew. That I had no social skills whatsoever? Pretty obvious from the get-go.
So I let the autopilot take over and sat back in the time-out corner of my brain while I watched my body do all kinds of things and felt the spark grow. Like smoothing the hair off Miri’s sweaty forehead. Or holding her hand tightly between mine and whispering little words of comfort.
When I offered her a sip of whiskey, pilfered from Lucy’s cabinet, she whipped her head to the side.
“No!” She gripped the blanket in her fists and twisted so hard I thought her fingernails might tear the yarn apart. “I can’t,” she gasped between panting breaths.
“It’ll help.” I knew it was true, too. The same way I knew anything just before I needed it, like driving a car, or sky diving—not that I’d ever tried sky diving, but I knew I’d be able to do it like a pro if I ever did. “Just a little now. Then a little in a while. We’ll cut back, but it’ll help you with the pain.” True. All true.
Miri drank the amber liquid, wincing as it went down. She let out a long sigh and opened her eyes. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I dabbed a cool cloth on her forehead and cheeks, while she watched me, her thoughts unreadable.
“Because you didn’t have to do this. You don’t even know me.” She put her hand on my wrist and I stopped what I was doing.
Her sky-blue eyes weren’t shining like I knew they could, but already they were a little clearer. A little less psycho. I shrugged, and immediately remembered how Lucy hated it when I shrugged. You got somethin’ to say, you say it, baby, she’d always said.
“Well, you helped me yesterday.” I breathed out, then spoke again without censoring. “And sometimes it’s easier to help someone you don’t really know—someone who can’t judge you because they don’t know you.” Truth. That was truth. But it wasn’t my truth—I didn’t know anything about friendship.
Miri bobbed her head and laughed, and even though the sound was strained, it still made me smile. “We’re quite the pair, huh?”
“Yeah.” And I laughed, a real laugh. Something I’d only ever done with Lucy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose and I shivered. For a moment it felt almost like she was there, trailing her long fingernails across my shoulders like she sometimes did.
Miri’s gaze travelled to a pair of Mardi Gras masks on the wall. “I bet she was really awesome,” she said, her voice a reverent whisper.
I rocked back on my heels and looked around. “You have no idea.”
“Tell me more about her.” Miri pulled her feet up and scooted so she was sitting higher on the couch. I sat down in the space she’d made for me and after looking around, I told her everything else I knew.
How she never let anyone make her do anything she didn’t want to. How she stood up to Daniel even though I knew senators and judges who didn’t dare tell Daniel what they really thought. Not Lucy, though. Lucy’d won her scari
est battle when she’d run away from her dad at sixteen. She said nothing would ever be as scary as that.
My thoughts skipped to the night at the gazebo, and how I doubted she still felt that way—there was something scarier than her dad. But then I thought, maybe she was right anyway. Nothing was more frightening than my father—not even me.
But I didn’t go there. I just told Miri how strong Lucy was. How much I admired her.
“She was a lot like you,” I said when I finally finished. And I did feel Lucy’s presence then. Like a kiss on my cheek. You done good, baby. You done good.
I called Miri’s house to talk to her mom, but the maid on the phone said she wasn’t available. Even when I told her Miri was really sick and that she was going to stay over at my house because she’d fallen asleep on the couch, the lady just said okay.
“Typical,” Miri said through clenched teeth. “I don’t even think Mom would come to my funeral if there was something better to do, like a fundraiser or something.” And the way she said it—not with sadness or regret or any of the things I might have expected, but with acceptance, with truth—made me speechless.
I didn’t bother calling Daniel. Let him worry. Let him have to answer to Father. Besides, Father could find me if he wanted—but I had a feeling that, like Miri, no one would miss me much tonight.
By midnight, Miri’s shakes had subsided and she’d fallen into a deep sleep. I couldn’t bring myself to lay down on Lucy’s bed, so I pulled the downy white comforter from off of it and curled up in the chair across from the couch. I slipped in and out of wakefulness as I kept watch over Miri. Dreams danced at the edges of my awareness, but I didn’t stick around long enough for them to reach me.
Asleep or not, I couldn’t get away from thoughts of Michael.
“Wake up,” Miri said, shaking me a little on my shoulder. “Desi.” When I opened my eyes, and saw her standing over me, her hair flattened on one side and wild on the other, she said, “You were dreaming.”
“Oh,” I said, sitting up and pulling the comforter more tightly around me.
Miri ran her thumb over my cheek, wiping a tear I didn’t know I’d shed. “And by the sounds of it, it wasn’t very good.”
I shrank back from her touch. “Sounds of it?” I tried shaking my head to clear it of the fogginess—what had I been dreaming about?
Miri backed away and sat on the edge of the couch, pulling the blanket over her lap. She looked at her feet, then out the window which was showing the first hints of daylight—she seemed to look everywhere but at me.
“Miri. What did I say?” I knew my voice was too harsh, but if I’d said something about Father or Hell that could hurt her, endanger her, I needed to know.
She shook her head sharply. “I’m not sure. You said a few things—mainly about already chosen and . . . I couldn’t make much sense of it. Something about becoming, but you didn’t say what. Mostly you were just crying, like whatever it was you were dreaming about was really, really sad.” She raised her chin and her eyes met mine. “And you said something about Michael—only, it wasn’t anything happy.”
She cocked her head, as if considering me all over again. “Do you know him? Like, from somewhere else?” I just stared at her, not sure what to say. “Because, it seemed like more than just a little crush—did he hurt you? Before?”
Had he hurt me? Because I did hurt.
But no, it hadn’t been him who hurt me. It had been all me. I must have sided with Loki in the Great War. I must have chosen him over Michael, because how else would I have ended up with him as my father?
Except, why would I ever have chosen anyone but Michael?
“Desi?” Miri prompted in an oh-so-quiet voice.
I took a deep breath, then another, trying to push the last remnants of the forgotten dream, and thoughts of Michael, far from my mind. “No. He didn’t hurt me. And yes, I know him.”
Miri was quiet for what felt like an eternity, but then she said, “Okay.”
“Okay,” I said.
We sank into an uncomfortable silence while the sun rose and warmed the room with golden beams. It made my heart ache because Lucy had told me how she always greeted the new day with yoga on her balcony. She’d said it was the best time of the day, the time she felt most wholly herself.
Without thinking about it, I stood, letting the comforter slip to the floor. I stepped onto the balcony, and closed my eyes as the sun bathed my face. Flashes of the balcony in Hell—the endless tiers of eternal damnation and the fires that burned so cold you wished they would just consume you—filled my mind.
But there was Lucy’s yoga mat. And there was the sun. And here was where Lucy greeted each day. Here was where Lucy felt like herself.
I didn’t dare hope I’d find my own self there on that balcony, but I unrolled the mat anyway and sat down, face turned into the sunlight. I felt, rather than heard, Miri join me. We sat there together, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on our knees, letting the sunlight prepare us for a new day. Miri took a deep breath, followed by a long, low sigh. I copied her and felt the spark flare and the cold recede.
Miri’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of the pocket in her rumpled skirt. She snapped it closed without responding. Her hands shook as she stuffed the phone back into her pocket.
“What is it?”
“My mom.” She let out another sigh, but this one didn’t sound quite so relaxed as the one just before. “She says the school called yesterday about my absences the past couple days. She says I better get my butt in school, and stay there, or I’ll be in big trouble.” Miri attempted a laugh, but it did nothing to hide the fear that had replaced the hope I’d seen shining in her eyes.
“Are you feeling any better? Can you even go to school?”
“Oh man.” She pulled her trembling hands through her hair, somehow making the flattened mess look better. I watched her profile, the way her cheeks rose and her eyes crinkled when she smiled into the sun. She sighed again, this time more deeply, more cleansing. “Yeah, I’m feeling okay. Tired, but okay.” When she turned to me, her blue eyes caught the sunlight and shone like cut crystal. “You have the magic touch, I guess.” Her smile deepened and a dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Thank you, Desi.”
Her open expression knocked me off-kilter and I looked away. I didn’t know what to do with that much honesty. I closed my eyes against the sunlight, and against Miri’s questioning gaze.
“Well, we’d better get going then, I guess.” Miri stood and brushed at her horribly wrinkled skirt. “I’ve gotta stop back home at least to get a decent uniform.” She checked her watch and took a sharp breath. “Damn. We don’t have much time.”
I took that as my cue to get the hell up, so I jumped to my feet and hurried through rolling Lucy’s mat, then hustling into the living room. I didn’t have time to put the comforter back on her bed, but I folded up the blankets. I just couldn’t leave Lucy’s apartment a mess—it didn’t feel right.
Forty minutes later I drove up to Miri’s house to pick her up—her car was still parked in the lot at school. I’d gotten home, changed—without seeing anyone, a miracle—and come all the way back to get Miri in record time.
When she dashed out of the house and hopped in the car, I gaped. “Uh, aren’t you supposed to be dressed for school?”
She was wearing jeans and a St. Mary’s sweatshirt.
“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry! I totally forgot until I got home.” Miri stared at me, like I was supposed to be able to figure out what the heck she was saying. “It’s a game day—a football game. We don’t have to wear our uniforms just so long as we’re wearing school spirit stuff.” Her words tapered off as she considered me, sitting there in my prim white blouse and navy blue sweater, my chaste plaid skirt and black Mary Jane’s. Then she broke into a huge smile and jumped out of the car.
“Come on!” she called, dashing for the house.
I hurried after her, not sure what she was up to, and getting more and m
ore worried by the minute that we’d be so late for school Miri’s parents would be sure to hear about it.
When the front door closed behind me, Miri called, “I’m upstairs!” I followed the sound of her voice, and the sound of dresser drawers slamming shut, up to her bedroom on the second floor.
Even though I knew what her room was like, the reality of it still hit me like a slug to the gut. Once I stepped inside I felt the Shadows reaching out to me, stroking me. Familiarity pelted me with shivering ice. There was a part of me—a big part, apparently—that wanted this, that wanted to be worshiped and adored, like I was in Hell. Like I belonged to them.
Miri must have mistook my silent trembling as something else because she stopped what she was doing and looked around her room, as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh,” she said. “I should have warned you. I actually kind of forgot.”
She picked up a shirt from the ground, dislodging a bottle that had been hidden inside of it. The bottle rolled across the floor then bumped against the foot of Miri’s bed. She laughed—though there wasn’t a shred of humor in it. She was embarrassed. Ashamed. I knew those feelings.
And beneath it all, was Miri’s want.
I realized, just then, how similar we were.
We both wanted something we hated—Miri the liquor, me Hell.
And it all equaled the same thing. Without some divine intervention, Hell was exactly where we’d both go. Only there, Miri would live an eternity dying of thirst but forever unable to quench it. And I’d be forced to inherit a kingdom I despised.
Well, there wasn’t anything that could be done about me, but there was still a chance for Miri. There was still hope.
“You could always paint it,” I said. Miri stopped searching among the clothes and froze for a second. “The walls, I mean. You know—if you wanted to.”