by A. R. Kahler
“It’s just a tree . . . ,” I began, but she shook her head.
“The Tree is God.”
“But I thought . . . I mean, you’re sort of a god. And Munin, and the Allfather . . .”
She continued shaking her head, and stood.
“There are many gods. But there is only one God. And that is the Tree. There are many worlds and many World Trees, but the sap of God flows through them all.”
So much for God being a man with a beard. Or a woman, for that matter.
“How vain, humanity is, to believe that a being that has existed for eternity—that is eternity—would wear their face.”
“Says the goddess-thing who looks human,” I replied.
She shrugged and held out her hand. For some reason, I took it, let her help me to standing.
“I was made in your image,” she said. She looked right at me—right through me—when she said it. “And—again—I am not a goddess.”
“Right,” I replied. I sighed and stared around at the cavern. “So it’s all for this. To feed the Tree.”
“It’s why you were born. And why I was born. And why your lover was born. All to wage this war. All to serve the Tree.”
I’d spent my life running away. First, from the fact that I couldn’t remember my past. Then from a past I didn’t want to remember.
Now it felt like all my running had led straight to this: a brick wall at the end of the road and no way to turn back. I might have been moved by the vision, but now that it was fading, I was just getting pissed.
“Don’t take it personally,” she said. She started walking again. It was only then that I realized the root had healed itself.
How could I take it personally when everything about this was impersonal? Nothing in my life mattered. Nothing I’d done had mattered. Nothing I wanted to do mattered. I was just, what? A piece of machinery? Living fertilizer?
“Does it ever piss you off that your only role in life is to kill and die?” I asked.
I hadn’t meant to say it, really. And when she didn’t respond, I thought maybe I hadn’t. Then, a few steps later, she said without stopping, “Every day.” She looked over her shoulder then. “You’re not the only one who gave up their hopes of a future for the Tree.”
“And you just go along with it,” I muttered.
“I have no choice,” she replied. “I am made of the Tree, and I will die for the Tree. Those who win the battle live for eternity. The other isn’t even granted rebirth. Focus on that.”
Like hell. I wasn’t going to live forever if it meant giving up what made me human.
Maybe I was just a cog. Maybe I wasn’t the first mortal to go through this. But maybe they’d never dealt with someone like me before.
I may have spent my life running, but I’d also spent it learning how to survive. How to make life my own. And there was no way anyone would take that from me. Not Brad. Not Freyja. And not some fucking Tree.
We didn’t speak as we continued on. The path dipped and twisted, tunneling and then opening, passing under tangles of roots or brilliant skyscapes of crystals and gems. Eventually the path led to what seemed to be one enormous root, which we hopped on top of and began treading slowly down. I wanted to be running. We should have been running. Chris needed me.
But what was I going to do once I’d saved him? What would happen when we were back in the mortal world, back at Islington? Back with Ethan and Oliver and Elisa and holy shit, I hadn’t even thought about them. How are they doing? Are they worried? Elisa couldn’t stand sleeping in our room when I was away. Said it gave her nightmares. And I’d woken up in the nurse’s office. How long had I been out, and how many nightmares had haunted Elisa in my absence?
Funny that I wondered that, seeing as it felt like I was living one.
I tried not to think about Chris, but of course he was all I could focus on. Just the thought of him made me feel warm, even surrounded by the heavy, cold air. The curve of his smile when he thought I wasn’t looking at him. His hair shifting colors from auburn to maple in the thin Michigan light. I could feel him. Still. Even here, in the depths of the Underworld, I could feel him out there. Needing me. And in some strange way, I knew I needed him. And not just because of some cosmic war I still refused to play into.
Chris wasn’t my savior, but he was the first spark of warmth I’d felt for as long as I could remember. Even dating Brad—at the height of my stupid infatuation with him—had seemed wrong. Like I was playing the wrong part in a play. Chris was like a complementary color. He didn’t mirror me, but when I was around him, I felt more myself. More comfortable being myself.
“Beauty is a weapon,” she said again. “Do not think for a moment that your love for him is true. He was crafted to compel you, just as you were created to draw him. It is part of the battle. It is a sacrifice that makes the Tree sing.”
“What the hell do you know of sacrifice?” I hissed, suddenly jarred back to the cold reality. “All you’ve done is kill and take. Is that why you want me to kill him? Because you’re jealous? Because you just want my life?”
She was on me before I knew she’d turned around. One moment, she was ahead. The next, her hand was on my chest, pressing me to a root. Her eyes blazed, and it was not my imagination—the rest of the world dimmed around her, the jewels of the Tree blinking out to fuel her anger.
“You know nothing of what I’ve sacrificed for you. You think you are the only one to know loneliness. To know loss.” Her voice cracked. She didn’t look away, though, even though tears formed in her eyes. “You know nothing of me, Shadechild. I have lost more than—”
She cut herself off, her eyes going wide with fear. I opened my mouth, but her hand was pressed over it in an instant, silencing my question.
Then I heard it. Like wind through the branches, or a rusted gate opening far away, the noise sending chills up my spine.
“Shit,” she whispered. I almost laughed, if not for the fear that paralyzed me—shit didn’t seem like a curse word she should know. I forced her hand off my lips. She didn’t resist. She was too busy staring wildly into the shadows.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“That beautiful danger I spoke of. Be quiet.” Then she yanked me forward and began to run, dragging me in her wake.
The keening screech grew, and it wasn’t a single note but a cacophony of pitches, a hundred voices screaming. I was suddenly acutely aware that I was in a foreign land, with no clue where I was going, no clue what I could be up against, and no way to defend myself. Not that I’d know how, even if I had the opportunity. The only thing protecting me was a creature that wanted to use my body to kill a boy I thought I was falling for. Which didn’t sound like much protection at all.
No matter how fast we ran, every step we took seemed to bring the screaming closer. The dread that iced through my veins gave me speed, but even that didn’t seem to be enough. I was reminded of those dreams, when I’d woken up screaming and covered in sweat, because I had been pursued. Woken the moment the talons had clutched my heart.
There wouldn’t be any waking when this monster caught me.
I covered my ears as I ran. But still, the screaming sliced through, and the scenery didn’t change, and I felt, with this terrible sense of certainty, that I was going to die down here. My mind conjured a thousand different horror stories, nightmares that leaked into the landscape like ink, covering the darkness with promises of pain and destruction. The noise grew. Freyja ran faster.
Then it stopped.
We stopped too.
“They are here,” she said.
She actually sounded afraid.
“Who?” I asked.
I didn’t need to ask.
The lights around us began to blink, like the moon through a murder of crows. But there wasn’t anything fluttering around in the silence. Nothing moved. No breeze or wind, just the blinking of lights.
Blinking.
Not like gems. Like eyes.
T
hen the roots began to shift.
Shadows peeled from treeflesh, unfolding into monstrous shapes that stretched themselves out into figures my brain couldn’t comprehend. Bats. Or vultures. Or women made of shadow and tar. They stretched silently from the roots, their eyes glinting violet, their teeth and talons glittering razors.
“Run!” Freyja yelled. Daggers materialized in her hands in a swirl of shadow.
The creatures launched themselves toward us. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Women with cicada wings and raven silhouettes, and they leaped from the tree roots, screaming like the damned. My legs froze in place. Their faces were too long, their mouths too stretched. Their limbs oiled and inked and elongated, wings in dozens of shapes, all of them horrible. But I couldn’t run from them. I couldn’t move a damn muscle. The harpies swooped, screamed, and I swore they were calling my name. . . .
“Damn it, Kaira!”
Freyja turned and shoved me. Hard. I stumbled away, but the momentum was the shock I needed; I kept running. And I didn’t look back.
I heard her. Heard her screaming and fighting, the sound of her daggers clanging against claws, the rip of flesh, but it was muffled under the harpies’ cries. Muffled under the screams of them following me.
My breath burned in my lungs and I ran faster, stumbling deeper into the darkness, the light not growing. I prayed that the end would be near, that I’d wake up and this would all be a dream. But I didn’t wake up, and blood thundered louder in my ears as my breath ripped through my throat. This wasn’t a dream. Definitely wasn’t a dream. I was definitely going to die.
They swarmed me. Of course they swarmed me. I had nowhere to go but forward, and in no time they were there, blocking my way, their great slick wings moving slowly, like lungs breathing sickness, their bodies somehow beautiful and grotesque, like a figure painter had taken her exquisite work and stretched it, stained it. Coated it with coal and nightmare.
A creature landed in front of me. I bit back a scream. Where were the ravens now, to protect me?
“Such warmth,” the harpy hissed. Her words scratched from her lips like sandpaper. “Give us your warmth. Let us hold it.”
“Let us taste it,” came another.
“Such sweet warmth.”
I held my fists up. Like I could fight. Like I could possibly fend them off. I couldn’t hear Freyja anymore. Was she too far away, or was she dead?
“Pretty girl,” the first harpy said. She stepped toward me. Her feet were talons. Vulture claws. Her calves scaled and coated with muck. “So pretty. You will make us pretty.”
“Get away from me,” I said. Because there was nothing else to say, and even as the words left my lips, I knew it was pathetic. The harpies didn’t laugh or smile. They didn’t register the fear in my voice. The one before me took another step forward. She reached out, her clawed fingers inches from my shoulder.
She smelled sour, like rotten milk. Bile rose up in the back of my throat.
“Let us wear you,” she said. “Let us wear your warmth.”
Then I realized why my stomach twisted at the sight of her. Her face wasn’t her own—the skin was stretched tight, stitched into place. And it was decaying.
Sharp pain pierced my shoulder. I screamed and tried to dodge away from the harpy whose talons had dug into my skin. Another scream, this coming from the harpy. She lunged.
I shoved my shoulder into her, tried to sidestep. But I wasn’t a fighter. I wasn’t trained in self-defense. She grabbed me, wrenched my arm even as another swooped toward me. I ducked low. Pushed against flesh, tried to move past her. I had to keep running. Had to make it . . . Where?
It didn’t matter. The answer, or the question.
I made it three steps. Then a hand caught the back of my shirt, scratched against my spine. My motion twisted. I tripped. Fell sideways.
And with a terrible rush of fear to my throat, I realized I hadn’t fallen onto the root. I’d fallen off.
Even the darkness couldn’t swallow my screams.
Screaming.
So much screaming. Whose voice?
My mother, screaming, covered in blood. A baby wailing. Bri. Bri screaming my name, her words bound in blood. And Kaira. Calling out to me. Afraid. Kaira.
Kaira.
My eyes fluttered open, and I thought . . . I thought it had just been a dream. It had to have been a dream. It couldn’t be my reality.
The dark room, the circle of light pooled against the dirt floor. A hospital bed, half in and half out of the shadow leaking against the edges. The empty hospital bed. But I knew it was the same. The same one I was birthed on.
I could taste the tang of her blood on the air.
I forced myself to standing. Where was I? What had I been doing?
My thoughts swam with my head and I swayed to the side, or maybe the room tilted. Though the bed didn’t move and the shadows stayed solid. I looked to the darkness. Tried to find a wall out there. Rooms had walls. And I was in a room. A room with walls.
And then I heard her scream again.
My body moved slowly—turning to face the bed, feet shuffling not forward but away. Away from the woman on the bed, her face twisted in pain and her hands clutched to the bed, to my father’s hand. Her knuckles as white as the blanks of her eyes that turned to the ceiling. Seeking. What? God? Release?
Both?
My father knelt there. He leaned in, held her hand tighter even as blood spilled from her gown and down the bed, the gurney. Dripping to the floor. Red molasses river.
“There is no God here.”
My dad’s words.
No, mine. My jaw working against itself.
He held her hand tighter and the air was cold, so cold. Her blood pooled and crystalized. Spread like two arms around the circle of light. I turned. My mother screamed again. I couldn’t watch this. Couldn’t see . . .
She was there. In front of me. The circle of light, the bleeding bed. I turned again. And she was there, screaming. Only my dad now stood above her, holding a blade to her belly. A machete.
“He must live,” my dad said. A voice deeper than darkness. A falcon. “He must be born in blood.”
I closed my eyes, but I could see through my eyelids. Covered my eyes. Could see through my hands. The blood, circling me, caught in the center of light. And the blade piercing her stomach as light pierced the sky and she screamed. I screamed.
But why was I screaming?
The sand was warm beneath my knees, our sand castle nearly built. She’d drawn a circle around us. To keep the monsters out, she said. Because monsters couldn’t cross our moat without the password.
The password was Pink Cheetah.
“I’m going to find a shell for the roof,” Bri said. She stood and dusted the sand from her knees. The sky was gray. So was the horizon. But the water beckoned and I nodded and told her not to go far, because I had to build the drawbridge from the driftwood we’d found. Just in case the monsters got past the moat. Sometimes even passwords weren’t enough. Even I knew that.
“Should our moat have a Loch Ness Monster?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I looked up. There was only gray. I pushed myself to standing.
“Bri?”
I walked forward. But I couldn’t get over the moat. The moat was wide and filled. With something dark.
Then she called my name.
“Bri!” I screamed to her. She screamed back.
And I tried to run, but the moat stretched out, and the dark waters churned and bubbled and steamed. And something swam through it, wiggling against the surface. Scales rippled through the water and I wanted to run away. Back to the castle. Where it was safe. Then Bri screamed again, and I knew I couldn’t just stay there.
One toe into the water. The warm water.
A snake tail snapped out and wrapped around and pulled me under before I could blink or gasp or step back, and I was down, down. But I wasn’t drowning. Even with the dragon’s tail around me
, I could breathe in the blackness. Bri couldn’t. She was in front of me, fighting a dragon the size of the moon, its claws wrapped around her tiny body like she was a doll. Bubbles popped from her lips as she screamed. My name. And I screamed back, but I couldn’t reach her. The dragon no longer held me, but I couldn’t swim, couldn’t move in the thick water that pulled me down. Down. Away from her. Until she was a white dot in the sky. A star.
The dark sky, so cold. A thousand tiny stars spread across it, a blanket of gems.
“You came,” she whispered.
I looked down, wondering why Kaira was surprised. Of course I came. I would follow her to the ends of the earth and farther. She stood in the starlight, and I’d never seen her more beautiful. Her eyes locked on to mine, her smile a curve, her dark skin glowing with a light of its own. She stepped forward. She wore a long coat, as white as the snow at her feet, and her streaked hair was pulled back behind her, falling over her back in multicolored threads. Her earrings were dangling white circles. Like outlines of the missing moon.
She stepped forward, and I stepped toward her. The space between us closed, folded in like hands coming to prayer, and I swore the night air grew still. Like even the woods around us had been waiting for this moment. Were holding their breath.
“Kaira, I—”
Her finger pressed to my lips, silencing me. Then she leaned forward and replaced her finger with her mouth.
I melted.
Her lips were cold, frosted from the night, but when she pulled me close, she was warm, and her tongue danced over mine, and I felt my heart race against my ribs. This was what I had wanted. Had dreamed of. Had thought I could never have.
Her.
I had wanted her. And now she was drawing my arms around her waist and leaning in to me. She pressed so perfectly against me. Like that was where we were meant to be.
“I love you,” she whispered, leaning back to look into my eyes. Her eyes glinted in the moonlight. My heart flipped again.