by E. E. Holmes
Choice number two was to become a Walker. It was the only way to fulfill my role in the prophecy, the only prayer the Gateways had of surviving. If it were as simple as just stepping in and out of my body, my decision would already have been made; but of course, it wasn’t that simple. The risks were piling up so fast, I could barely see beyond them. I may not have the strength to do it in the first place. If I did manage it, there seemed a pretty good chance I’d wind up as irretrievably mad as Irina. If I couldn’t control myself in that state, there was no way I could carry out my part in reversing the Gateways and it all would have been for nothing. And finally, if I did manage both to Walk and to keep my sanity while doing so, it was all just a suicide mission unless Hannah was able to Call me back. And whatever Ileana said, the prophecy was very sketchy on any chance of my sacrifice only being a temporary one. It would have been nice if the damn thing ended with, “And then the Caller did save her sister, and the Necromancers did explode into tiny bits, and all was right with the world once more.” Or something like that.
“Well, here we are. I’ll bid you good night.”
I looked up, having half-forgotten Anca was there. The red wagon stood before us, silent and dark as the others slept away inside of it.
“I’d wish you a good night’s sleep, but I don’t want to insult you.”
I laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, you’ve effectively killed all hope of sleep, I think.”
“I’m sorry,” Anca said. She reached out a hand as though to squeeze my arm, but dropped it again quickly. “I wish I could have shown you something that would make this all easier. But you needed to know.”
“Yes, I did. Thank you for being honest with me. And I’m sorry about Irina.”
Anca nodded gravely. “So am I. The price of our gift is steeper for some than for others. Irina has paid dearly for it. I pray that the same will not be true for you.”
She turned to go. I wanted to call after her that I’d already paid dearly for our gift, which I was sure now I’d never be able to look at as anything more than a curse. But in the moment it took me to consider this, she had rounded the end of the neighboring wagon and was gone from sight.
I had one hand on the door handle when a voice behind me said, “Well now, wasn’t that an interesting little field trip.”
I cringed and swore under my breath before turning around. Milo had flared into sight behind me, his arms crossed, his spectral foot tapping impatiently.
“Did you follow me?” I asked, with an attempt at indignation.
He scowled. “You’re damn right I did, and don’t give me that attitude, honey. I’m your spirit guide. It’s the whole point of my afterlife, following you around.”
I sighed, defeated far more easily than usual. “How much of that did you see?”
“Oh, you mean the crazy lady secretly locked away in the woods like something out of a Brontë novel? Every messed up moment of it,” he replied. He began flickering into place every few feet, back and forth, his own spectral version of pacing. “They can’t really expect you to try this Walking thing after seeing something like that, can they?”
“Ileana obviously didn’t think so, or she’d have shown me herself, wouldn’t she?”
“Oh, and I’ll have a few choice words for her when I see her next,” Milo said his usual purr turned growl.
“Don’t,” I said. I sank onto a rock beside the wagon “It’s not her fault. She’s just trying to save us all from certain destruction. It was a natural omission to make, and I can’t say that I blame her.”
“Well, you might not, but I’m pretty pissed.”
I put my head down between my knees and took a deep breath. My head was beginning to pound. I was still staring down at my own shoes in the dirt when Milo burst out.
“There’s got to be another way. Some other option to fix this.”
“I wish that were true, but—”
“We’ll go back to her in the morning. They are just going to have to come up with something else.”
I laughed. “Milo, they’ve been obsessing about this prophecy for hundreds of years. You really think they haven’t exhausted all the other possible options?”
“I don’t care! It’s their own damn fault the Necromancers are on the rise again, so they just have to figure it out for themselves.”
“Solid plan,” I grumbled. “I’ll just tell them that in the morning. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“But why does it have to be you?” Milo cried.
I looked up at him, surprised to see the anguish in his face. “Sheer dumb luck, it would seem.”
“Why can’t I just do it?”
“Do what?”
“Go through the Gateway and close it from the other side!”
I wrenched my head up and fixed him with a glare. “Excuse me? Why in the world would I let you do that?”
“Because this whole thing is fucked, and it doesn’t make any sense!” Milo said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Someone needs to go to the other side of the Gateway to reseal it, and that person should be me!”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Well, it should!”
“Milo, you heard what Ileana said. I have to be the one to go. The only way to reverse the Gateway back to normal is to have Hannah on one side and me on the other. One more ghost over there isn’t going to make a difference.”
“But if I go knowing that I have to close it—”
“You wouldn’t be able to! I appreciate the offer, but it has to be me.”
“But it shouldn’t be you! Don’t you get it? I’m the one who should be over there!”
His voice was nearing hysteria. I stared at him, unsure of what to say next. But he took a deep breath—a holdover from his human days, since breathing wasn’t a real action for him anymore—and kept talking.
“It’s just—and if you ever tell Hannah this, I will haunt your every waking moment from here on out—I’m not supposed to be here. I know that I made the choice to stay, and I’m dealing with it, but the truth is, the biggest mistake I ever made in my life was ending it.”
He seemed to dim as he said it, like his usual spark was fizzling out. I said nothing. I didn’t even move, sure that if I broke the spell of the moment, he’d never reveal the rest of his story. A story he obviously needed so desperately to tell.
“Back then, I’d given up. I convinced myself that I could never be a happy person, never have the things in life that I wanted so badly. I would never fall in love, because I’d been told time and time again that my way of loving was wrong. And no one would ever love me because I knew that I was unlovable. My own parents couldn’t love me, and that was their goddamn biological duty. I was an anomaly—a mistake, and what do you do with mistakes? You erase them. You crumple them up and throw them away and start again.”
“Oh, Milo,” I whispered. For the first time since I met him, I wished I could reach out and touch him.
“So I did it. I erased myself. And because of Hannah, I knew that there was a chance I could start over again in a different form. And it was only because I didn’t know anything about what that would be like, that I chose it. It was a gamble, but I honestly thought that nothing could be worse than being me and being alive. Even if being a ghost was terrible, I told myself, it had to be an improvement.”
Even with everything I’d been through in my own life, I couldn’t imagine making that kind of decision. I wanted to say something comforting, but I didn’t dare shatter the honesty of the moment, so instead I just sat quietly, waiting for what would come next.
“You can’t understand what it’s like, being like this,” he said. “It’s like standing on the outside looking in at everything you ever wanted for yourself. I can’t experience things the way you do. I’ll never get to do the things I always wanted to do, but I have to sit by and watch everyone else doing them. There’s a reason we’re not meant to exist this way, and I’m finally figuring that out.
We all figure it out, eventually. Every ghost reaches the point where we finally admit that crossing over is the best choice. Well, actually, living would have been the best choice, but it’s too late for that now. The difference is that I can’t make the choice to cross now.”
“I’m… really sorry, Milo.”
“Me, too. So I’m asking you, Jess, please. Just let me do it. It would fix this… awful in-between I’m in. I can help you all, and I can help myself, too. Please. Let it be me.”
I wished I could give him another answer, just to extinguish the agony burning in his eyes.
“I can’t, Milo. As much as I’d like to get rid of you,” I said, in a lame attempt at a joke. He ignored it.
I went on, serious once more, “It’s not enough to send any spirit across, even one who’s connected to us, like you are. It has to be me. The Gateway has to be divided, one Durupinen on either side, for it to be resealed. But it isn’t only that. You can’t get across until Hannah does, and we can both agree that we don’t want that to happen any time soon. It sucks and I’m so sorry, but as long as she’s still alive, I don’t think you could do this, even if I wanted to let you try it.”
Milo shook his head and flickered in and out of view. I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but it still wasn’t easy for him to hear.
“I can’t understand what you’re going through, but I know what your choice meant for Hannah. She never would have made it this far without you. I could never live with myself if I was the reason for separating you. She needs you, Milo, much more than she needs me.”
Milo shook his head. “You’re her sister.”
“And she really doesn’t know me yet,” I pointed out. “You’re her best friend. You two have already been through much more together, and as much as I hate to admit it, you’re the one she really needs. You chose to stay with her once, and even though it’s difficult, I need you to make that same choice again. Because if this goes wrong, and I can’t get back, she’s going to need you more than ever.”
“It’s not going to go wrong,” Milo said. “She’ll Call you back, I know she will.”
I didn’t answer. I thought I might burst into tears if I tried to voice that fear, and this moment was already too real. I bit it all back, forced it down, and sighed.
“So I guess that’s it, then,” Milo said quietly.
I realized in that moment, without meaning to, that my decision had already been made. Had I ever really had a choice? I exhaled sharply and nodded.
“They don’t deserve it,” Milo said. “They don’t deserve to be saved.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But I’m going to try anyway.”
“Are you going to tell Finn or the others about Irina?”
“No. Because I’m not going to change my mind, and them knowing will just make it harder for everyone. But they’ll know soon enough, because she’s the one who’s going to show me how to do it.”
“Huh?”
“We’ve got to try to use her. She’s the only one living who’s done it. I don’t care how many books Ileana and her Council have studied about Walking, I don’t think this is something you can learn from a book.”
“You think Irina can actually stay sane long enough to teach you anything?”
“No idea. Maybe not. We’ve got to try it though.”
“Finn isn’t going to take this very well.”
“You never know,” I said, with greater conviction than I actually felt. “He might be more supportive than we think.”
10
Abandoned
“NO.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said no.”
Finn’s arms were crossed over his chest like a knot not even the briniest of sailors could untie. His expression was mulish. It had been that way from the moment he’d woken up and seen me sitting there, waiting for them all to stir so I could tell them my decision. I could tell from the way he was looking at me that he’d known before I’d opened my mouth, but somehow this knowledge didn’t better prepare him for accepting what I had to say.
“I’m not sure you quite understand the nature of this conversation,” I said, crossing my own arms. “You seem to be laboring under the delusion that I’m asking your permission, which is something I have never done before and will never do under any circumstances that I can think of. So wipe that disapproving look off your face and do your job.”
He blinked at me, incredulous. “Do my job? What the hell do you think I’m trying to do? It’s been quite enough of a challenge protecting you from the hordes of other people who want to kill you. I wasn’t anticipating having to protect you from yourself!”
“Well, good, because I’m not asking you to. Anca and the Traveler Council will help me figure out how to do it. You just need to stay out of my way.”
“I’m not in your way,” he shouted.
“Really? You’re trying to forbid me from doing something. I’d call that in my Goddamn way!” I shouted right back.
“When are you going to realize that I’m not trying to undermine you? I’m trying to help you!”
“And when are you going to realize that I make my own decisions? You know, Mackie warned me when I got to Fairhaven that the Caomhnóir had a pretty Draconian view of women, but you are unbelievable. Seriously, if you don’t want me to do this, why don’t you just hit me with your club and drag me back to your cave?”
“You didn’t have a problem with me or my club when I was standing beside you in that Council room back at Fairhaven, or when I was driving like a maniac all over the city of London to get away from the Necromancers! Either you want my protection or you don’t, Jess, but you can’t have it both ways!”
“Yes, let’s talk about wanting it both ways, shall we? You keep claiming that your only job is to protect and preserve the Gateway. You’ve made it quite clear that all the times you’ve helped me have nothing to do with my own personal well-being. Well, here I am, getting ready to risk that well-being to defend the entire Gateway system, and suddenly you won’t allow it? So which is it, Finn? Are you safeguarding me, or the Gateway? Because it looks like you’ll have to choose between the two, and we both know how you’ve chosen in the past, so I don’t know why you’re fighting me on this. We all know you care a hell of a lot more about the Gateway than you do about me!”
His face twisted with something painful, and he leapt up out of his chair and toward me in one sudden movement. For one wild, incoherent moment, I thought he was going to attack me, but instead he charged past me and out of the wagon, slamming the door so hard that the candles tumbled from their wooden holders and the draperies separating the beds fell in a dusty heap to the floor. Savvy had to stomp quickly on a candle that landed in the folds and started to smoke.
I didn’t even consider following him. I just watched the dust cloud settle, attempting to let my own anger settle amongst the motes. Annabelle and Savvy sat in the stillness with me, waiting for me to break the silence.
“What about you guys? Do you forbid me to go through with this?” I asked.
Annabelle smiled weakly. “I’m impressed with you, frankly. And don’t worry about Finn; he’ll come around.”
“I don’t know about that, but thanks anyway,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” she said, standing up and pulling her sweater over her head. “I’m going to find Anca and see if she can rustle us up some breakfast. I’ll be back soon.” She slipped out the door and into the dim morning, the light filtering through the trees still as much shadow as brightness. As I watched her go, I heard Savvy behind me, blowing a long breath out through her teeth. “Blimey, Jess, do you always have to be so hard on him?”
I whipped around to face her, anger instantly redirected. “Excuse me? What do you mean, I’m hard on him?”
“You never let him do his job without arguing with him! I know it’s ridiculous having the men as protectors, but it’s not his fault that this is how the system works. He was b
orn into it just like you were, and he’s got to make the best of it. He’s been told his whole life that his destiny is to protect you, and you go around getting into all these situations that almost get you killed—”
“I’m not getting into these situations on purpose!” I shouted. “Do you honestly think I want any of this?”
“Oi! Don’t you go yelling at me! The point is, if this all goes tits up, he’s going to blame himself, and I know you don’t want that. So just… try to understand where he’s coming from. That’s all I’m saying.”
I was caught completely off guard. When Savvy sounded more rational than I did, I knew I needed to reevaluate. I took a deep breath.
“There’s a possibility you might be right about that, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t change my mind on this.”
“I know you can’t. So does he. That’s probably why he’s so cross about it,” Savvy said. She walked over and sank onto the bunk next to me, flinging a chummy arm around my shoulder. “I’m not that happy about it myself, to be honest.”
“Neither am I.”
“I’d be scared shitless if it were me, mate.”
“I am,” I said. “Believe me, I’ve tried to talk myself out of this at least a dozen times since last night. But no matter how I look at it, I keep coming back to the same decision.”
“Yeah, I know. We really didn’t know what we were getting into, did we?”
“Not a clue.”
“To think I used to complain about a bit of book work back at Fairhaven. Now look at us: on the run with a bleeding traveler caravan,” Savvy said, chuckling. “I should have just slammed the door in Celeste’s face when she recruited me.”
“If only you’d walked in on someone else’s shower. You could have avoided this whole mess,” I said, putting my head down on her shoulder.
“Yeah, fate works in mysterious ways. But I’d have missed out on your magnificent tits,” Savvy said. “So really, a fair trade all in all.”