Immortown

by Lily Markova

  India pauses on the porch. “Freya, if it was Kai who called you here. . .you can tell me.”

  “Nobody called me. A fan gave me a hug so enthusiastic my neck snapped.”

  “We’ll find him and make him pay for that!” India’s voice is laced with such ferocity that I instantly regret my cheek. My heroine-defendress.

  “No! I mean, that was an accident. Would be awkward to risk running into him here every day.”

  “Freya. . . .” India’s tone takes on a confidential softness now. “I want to warn you about something. About my brother, in fact. Please be careful with him. Those paintings of his. . . They give him some kind of power over the ones he draws, so try not to make him angry.”

  “Funny, this coming from you. If my memory serves me right, Kai wasn’t the thirstiest for my blood when—okay, fine, forgotten.” I tone it down, noticing the tears beginning to quiver in her eyes again.

  Maybe I should take another look at his paintings, then. I was too busy trying to cater to my self-preservation instinct to study the ones hanging under my portraits, but there was something hypnotizing about that marionette from the bar, and I don’t doubt for a second that it was Kai who created her.

  “Can I have your autograph?” India jumps up and down, eyeing me in hopeful excitement.

  “Not even in your dreams.”

  Kai

  “Could you show me again?” says Freya. “I think I might have overreacted last time.”

  I let her into my asylum, and for several minutes she stands in silence, surrounded by her portraits. Not a single one of them can capture everything I see in her; the temptation to draw her once more is so strong I’m toying with the idea of asking my sister to tie my hands. India would swoon with joy.

  “They’re beautiful,” Freya says quietly. “Dark, but I really like them. May I have one?”

  “Choose.”

  Carefully, she takes one picture off the wall, the one where she is on the shore, looking out at my ocean. I like it the most too. Freya moves slowly along the walls, running her fingers lightly across the canvases.

  “So much darkness,” she says, “in your paintings.”

  I can’t concentrate on her words; I watch her every tiny motion, every flicker of emotion behind her eyes, trying not to miss anything. I sense her—her, charmed by the darkness. She wouldn’t want to drown in it, but floating on the surface, sunlit, peering into the impenetrable blackness beneath, breathless at its exquisiteness, knowing she risks sinking to the bottom at any moment—oh, it’s such bliss. She’s felt it before, when she was playing the role of someone unkind, someone dangerous. She’s wondering if I ever rise to the surface to fill my lungs with air.

  It’s so strange to be in the same room as her, and not merely try to catch her in a dream. It’s not her fault she didn’t come to me sooner, I try to convince myself. Not her fault I didn’t call her here years sooner. Maybe India’s right after all and Freya’s here because I’ve been invoking her by drawing these portraits, and maybe if it hadn’t been for them, she would never have found her way to Levengleds, to me.

  My mind resists accepting her after so many years of habitual solitude, but we have more in common than she thinks, and sometimes it feels as though she’s reaching out to me in her thoughts, from days to come, telling me her story as I tell her mine. And it’s okay that she never needed me as much as I needed her, it’s okay that right now I can sense clearly that I don’t mean a thing to her—I know that I’m doing better now that she’s here.

  “. . .to complete them?” Freya looks at me inquiringly, pointing at some pictures abandoned halfway, pictures of white Levengleds birds, which superstitious locals call the harbingers of death.

  “Hmm?”

  “These unfinished paintings. Don’t you want to complete them? Don’t they haunt you?”

  I shrug. She’d better worry about my paintings when they start haunting her. She has already let my marionette in; to remodel her as I see fit will not be difficult at all.

  5.Amnesia

  Freya

  “Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen,” booms Remy, climbing on the table. “And Tom! We are gathered here tonight to welcome a new addition to our amazing—if homicidal and dysfunctional—Immortown family. Some of you may recognize her as that boy from Kids, Abandoned. We were joined the other day”—he beckons to me, and somebody’s arms lift me onto the table—“by the beautiful and brave Freya Aurore!”

  The first floor of the Skarsens’ house is swarming with faces smiling their approval, but I can’t see a face with a scar on the right cheek among them. The mob of ghosts claps and cheers. I feel queasy.

  “Let’s help Freya get used to her new home. Get acquainted, socialize, and try not to attack her, for she won’t thank you for that.” Remy grins at me, rubbing the side of his neck. “And now, smash vases, wreck furniture, enjoy this nastily weathered evening—you know what to do!”

  Remy grabs me by the arm and jumps down into the crowd, throwing the microphone over to India as she scrambles up. The voices of strangers and music start blaring at the same moment, creating some kind of noise explosion around me. India is the loudest, warbling a song called Kill Me Baby One More Time. Neither Kai nor Chase is anywhere to be seen, but I spot Krystle, who’s standing by a tall, narrow window, sipping an iridescent cocktail through a straw.

  “Cute dress,” she says, after I finally thread my way over to her, all the while smiling as politely as I can in response to greetings and even congratulations—I’m probably supposed to celebrate my ‘deathdays’ rather than birthdays from now on. “India’s efforts?”

  I nod. Krystle’s beauty is simply overwhelming. She must be used to people dropping whatever they’re carrying at the sight of her. But to spark Iver’s interest, her external gloss couldn’t have been enough. He must have discerned in her something he’d never found in others, something that made them alike. I try to stifle a surge of jealousy. She got to spend so many days with him when I no longer could, when all I wanted was to see him once more, even if just one last time.

  “Nice to see you again,” she says. “Not rushing off to Levengleds anytime soon anymore, I suppose? Any luck remembering what happened to you?” Her eyes narrow cunningly.

  She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and a ring flashes on her finger—just like the one Kai has: silver, with the letter K engraved on its large black stone.

  “Yeah, I remember.” Keeping in mind Chase’s warning about having to tell everyone a plausible story of how I died, I decide that it doesn’t have to be the same story every time. “When we first met, I was confused as to what was going on. But now I remember, yeah. My boyfriend sprinkled my soup with ant chalk. He didn’t think it’d be in conflict with the label instructions. Listen, I wanted to ask you about Iver,” I say directly. “You said you two were close. That means he’s in Immortown, right?”

  Krystle turns to face the window, peering through a gap in the curtains. Raindrops crawl up the glass, driven by the wind. I want to choke her, to strangle the truth out of her.

  “He was,” she says finally. “But I haven’t seen him in a long time. I’m afraid he might have been erased.”

  “Erased?” I echo, although I already know what her answer will be.

  “Yes, erased. Things here get erased sometimes for a while, but they always come back—buildings, dresses, you know. But if you’re stuck in one, your collateral erasure is permanent.”

  No. Please no.

  “What would happen if this house started flickering right in the middle of the party?” I ask automatically just to say something back, not really worried about the reveling ghosts. As long as I’m here, they’re safe, more or less.

  “Well, I’ll be quick enough to escape through this window,” Krystle says. “As for the rest. . .” She shrugs.

  In the year since I lost my brother, the pain hasn’t dulled one jot. And now that I’ve regained the hope of reuniting with him, I am told that I
have possibly lost him once more. I silently count to three, then take the plunge. “It was you, wasn’t it? You called him?”

  “He was hurting,” she says at once, looking me in the eye without a shadow of remorse on her face. “I wanted to help him. You know, when people lose someone, they’re horrendously hypocritical. They don’t pity the ones who are gone; they mourn themselves for being left without something familiar and loved. You rage at the whole world for taking your brother away from you, but he himself felt better here.”

  I used to dream that when I finally learned the answer, I’d feel the weight of the main question—why?—stop pressing down on my shoulders. There was a reason, an external stimulus that had pushed him to do what he did, but the burden of why is only getting heavier. This is an unfair answer. It’s not enough, not for me. And I understand that Krystle is right, all the worse for that. I do feel sorry for myself. I want my brother back, I feel lonely without him. He never cared much. I don’t want to accept his choice if it means that he doesn’t need me, that he’s better off without me. An acute feeling of distaste for myself makes me want to feel even worse.

  “Where can I get something to drink?”

  Without a word, Krystle points toward the far side of the room, where Remy sets shots on fire and tosses them up in the air for ghosts to catch.

  “What’s the strongest stuff you’ve got?” I shout to him.

  Remy gives me a nod of understanding, pours liquids from five varicolored bottles rather artfully into a huge glass tankard, and hands it to me.

  “Catch, soldier boy. It’s called ‘Amnesia.’ ”

  “Just what I need. Thanks, Remy. Hey, do you think my brother could have been ‘erased’?”

  “Dunno. Sorry.”

  India’s answer is no different from Remy’s. Her “sorry” sounds a lot like “my condolences.”

  The Amnesia proves to be pretty palatable. I’m definitely having a second helping after I finish this one. One more swallow. Maybe partying isn’t all that bad. One more. I think I want to dance. India strikes up a sensuous song, “Deathbeds,” and I myself am erased, fading into the music, clamor, light, faces. . . .

  I can barely stand on my feet. Remy suggests a little break, so he, India, Krystle, and I move to the third floor. Such a wonderful, soft lawn. . . . A harsh odor of smoke and exotic plants. . . . Even here, I can hear the hubbub of the party two floors below.

  “Look, guys, I don’t even drink,” I manage to utter through tingly, disobeying lips, when India passes me a cigarette, which Remy has stuffed with what I suspect isn’t tobacco.

  I take a puff and have a coughing fit. Then my body overflows with a pleasant sensation of weightlessness, and my head feels as though it were exfoliating, sloughing off one layer after another.

  Remy sprawls on the floor and says, “I want to be a starfish. Did you know that a starfish can turn its own stomach—stomachs?—inside out? What did you say happened to you, again?” he asks, chuckling.

  “I died of unrequited love.” After another quick coughing attack, I add, “And a little bit of tuberculosis. You?”

  “Nothing special, really,” Remy says, plucking large dark blue berries from one of the flowerpots and absently chucking them at India. “That night, I happened to drop in on a party, much like this one. So there I was, sitting on the floor, and on my left, someone was trying to turn their stomachs inside out, fancying themselves a starfish, and on my right, some twosome couldn’t seem to get enough of cuddling. The music was abominable. And suddenly, I felt so intolerably bored that I went over to the window, lit a cigarette, and walked out. Ninth floor, it was. Maybe if it hadn’t been for that abysmal music. . .”

  “Kai called him here,” India cuts in. “Intensified Remy’s boredom a bit. Remy’s always so bored. He deems me uninteresting too, don’t you, Remy?”

  “Well, that depends on how you look at it. I find ants exceptionally interesting from a scientific point of view. They’ve got their own empires, discipline and everything, but it’s not like I’m eager to spend all my evenings in the company of them whisker-legged bastards, okay?”

  India snorts.

  “How come you guys are married?” I say, genuinely amazed.

  “Oh, I love telling that story,” India says with such vehemence that I don’t doubt that much. “I was in the Drunk Dead, at my usual table—actually, more like on my usual table by that point, but whatever. I was so sad about that Kai-killing-Remy thing. I used to like watching his dreams when he was still alive, you see. And when he was awake, he would always do something spacy, too. Like that time he was reading someone else’s book on a bus, peeking over their shoulder.”

  “Lots of people do that,” I say.

  “True, but how many people have the gall to reach over and turn the page after they finish it? Anyway, so I’m sitting there being sad, and then this waiter shows up with a glass of whiskey for me. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ he says. So I said, ‘Yes, fall in love with me, marry me, have kids with me, and die the same day as I.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, then.’ So we got married. The rest didn’t work out so well—we’re ghosts, after all.” India stretches and adds, “I mean, the Drunk Dead never even had a waiter.”

  “I had to keep myself entertained somehow,” Remy explains, yawning.

  India’s dreamy expression slides off her face, revealing a wistful one underneath. “And then Kai painted a portrait of the two of us as a wedding gift. Now, every time we take off our rings or stay apart for too long, we start feeling funny. We grow pale faster than the others when we’re by ourselves. Kai tied us together by creating that portrait, so now we depend on each other, and only on each other. If one of us is erased, the other will fade away.”

  “Till a flickering shoelace do us part,” proclaims Remy, raising his glass and draining it dry at once.

  “My brother is a manipulative and selfish puppet-master,” says India earnestly. You’d better watch out that he doesn’t tie you to himself.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Since we were kids, Kai had been going on and on about how one day he would meet someone who’d understand him as nobody else could. We grew up, and he quit his sentimental nonsense—only kept drawing green eyes. And seeing the way he looked at you. . . I think he believes he’s found you.”

  “But I don’t understand him.” I shake my head, and the painted sun above appears double. “He makes people kill themselves. I don’t think I could ever understand murder.”

  “I do,” Remy says unexpectedly. “I was languishing, feeling crushed by pretty much everything. With so little time allotted to me, I was constantly scared it wouldn’t be enough for me to find myself, to find myself a purpose. Every reason to keep going was farfetched, and I didn’t feel like taking refuge in self-deceit. My whole life had been a big slow suicide. Immortown is a fitting place for me. I can do stupid things all I like, and none of them will be fatal; I don’t have to grow up and pretend like I matter. Kai kind of did me a favor there, and I understand why he did that.”

  “Oh, look, your eyes are green too!” says India, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Perhaps you are ‘the one’ for Kai, since you understand him so?” At this, none of us can help laughing.

  With what seems like considerable effort, Remy suppresses his amusement and turns to India. “Kai loves you, although I have no idea how he manages to. He wanted you to have someone to while away eternity with. Maybe that wouldn’t have been necessary if your brother were enough for you. . .but you hate him, so. . .”

  India raises her glass. “Too true.”

  “Why?” I say.

  “There are as many reasons as the number of days that I’ve spent here. Off the top of my head, here’s one: When I decided to die, I meant to die. I wanted everything to be over. And Kai trapped me here, so instead of the desired rest, I got a pathetic semblance of life again. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the choice I’d made, and if I could come back to lif
e, I would travel,” India says with a sigh. “It’s just unbearable, being stuck in a small town forever. Seen the map? The red darts I send to places I’m not meant to visit.”

  “Speaking of,” says Remy. “If you could still somehow die once more, for real, finally, like, how would you prefer to? I, for one, would go for a walk in outer space so that my body could lounge around the stars and planets long afterward.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a Prickett,” India says. “That’s nasty, you’d look like a blobfish. I would like it to be painless. Quiet and beautiful. Ideally, in my sleep. And you, Freya?”

  I’ve already detected no fewer than five blurry suns, which roll away every time I try to focus my eyes on one.

  “I wouldn’t mind disintegrating into atoms,” I say, “while listening to beautiful music.”

  “Nice one, soldier boy,” Remy says, pursing his lips in approval. “What about you, Krystle?”

  I’ve completely forgotten that she’s here too, swinging in a hammock hung from the ceiling and peering at me searchingly with her six pairs of eyes.

  “If I could finally die? I wouldn’t,” she snaps, soaring up.

  Kai

  I watch the party from the mezzanine. Remy has caught hold of an unfortunate Tom and is now inking roses onto his shoulder; Tom is contriving to read a hefty hardback in the process. India hiccups rhythmically into the microphone. Freya is standing at the very heart of the human sea that heaves up and down to the energetic music. Clearly not having made friends with alcohol, she presses her fingers to her temples and sinks slowly out of view among the waves of upraised arms.

  On the other hand, though, she’s definitely made friends with Chase—he turns up in time to scoop her up and steers her to a love seat, whispering in her ear. Perhaps I should whisper something to that girl he was stalking? Aria, was it? Somebody has to look after her since Chase has forgotten her so quickly. Haven’t seen him in a year—thought the guy was out of luck, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got lost when the Shelter decided to erase itself for an hour or so. But no, here he is, alive by our standards, one hundred percent nontransparent, endeavoring to lay his hands on what was always meant to belong with me.