A Boat Made of Bone (The Chthonic Saga)

by Grotepas, Nicole

  “All this way and you’d give up? Your pride is that insurmountable?”

  They both shouted. Speaking was a battle. Everything on Chthonos was just one big war all the time.

  “Yes, you could say that,” he fell to his knees. His entire form had shrunk. It was like looking at Yoda. “Go on without me, Kate. I’m a monster!” His fingers felt like they were crumbling between her fingers. She crouched beside him and curved herself around him, sheltering him from the wind. Dust and debris scored her cheeks as the wind whipped around her. “Leave me!” He shouted again.

  His words penetrated the noise and exploded into Kate’s heart like a harpoon. She wanted to scream at him for giving up. Instead she used her indignation at his words to unlock a hidden reservoir of strength within herself. She bent down and slipped her arms beneath his shoulders and legs and lifted him. He protested and shook his head, but he was too weak to fight much beyond that. Kate’s cheeks were wet with tears, but for less than a second before the wind dried them.

  She plodded up the hill of wind, ignoring Will’s weak protestations. She could barely hear him through the noise. With each step toward the top, his murky flesh faded and dissolved in a grotesque display like a wax creature left out in the desert sun. Kate squinted against the wind and her tears and lumbered on, surprised at how light Will was.

  At last she crested the mountain. Will hadn’t said anything for at least five minutes. She walked along what felt like a flat surface, passing through the roughest part of the storm. Lightning flashed around her and thunderclaps shook her bones. She bent against the fury, holding onto Will tightly. Her feet remained anchored firmly even against the fiercest gusts as they blasted against her. She began to think of the mountain as a vortex—a pinnacle composed entirely of wind.

  “It’s no use!” Will yelled against the rage, startling her. “Let me go, Kate! The storm can have me! Cipher can have me!”

  “No!” she roared. “I’ll never let you go! We’re almost there!”

  Finally, when it seemed she could take no more, when it seemed the roar of wind assaulting her ears would surely deafen her for good, she took a step and all was quiet. Truly quiet this time.

  32: Ascension

  She stood there, stunned at the silence. It hit her like the wall of sound the wind had been at first, only the quiet stole her breath and nearly knocked her over. She fell to her knees.

  “Is this it? Did we make it?” she asked, her voice sounded still and small like a cricket. Will was quiet.

  She bent her gaze to study his face. He had become smaller than ever, his body like clay and torn away almost entirely by the wind. She gently set him down and glanced about herself quickly to get her bearings. They were standing upon the dome of the storm, the floor like glass, while around them walls of madness and wind shot up toward the heavens.

  “The eye of the storm,” she whispered, feeling reverent for some reason, like she had entered a cathedral.

  Will didn’t respond. His eyes were closed beneath that drooping, decaying forehead. She touched what should have been his remaining arm, but it had melted into the pile that was his body.

  “Will,” Kate coughed out, feeling a sob rising. After everything, after everything, after all of that. He is gone. The thoughts repeated themselves hysterically. “No, no, no.” She plunged her hands into the ooze that remained of him, searching for something in there, something that was Will. Perhaps he’d gotten so small that he was just a pebble of a man. It was hysterical, she knew, but she couldn’t stop.

  “Will!” she screamed, a whisper no longer appropriate. “Don’t leave me like this! Will!”

  She swept her arms wide through the muck, desperate, no longer believing that she’d find him in there. This continued for a minute, until she collapsed, her face in her hands, her body bent double over her knees, her forehead touching the glass-like floor.

  Kate finally let herself cry, alone, abandoned and on a faraway planet with no hope of return to her home. What she’d come for was gone. And the way back home wasn’t presenting itself. Besides, she’d lost him. Lost the man who she’d only known in dreams.

  “Kate.” His voice broke through her emotional turmoil and she quieted.

  She lifted her eyes, swollen from crying and sore from days without sleep. Will stood ten feet away, glowing like the sun. His blue eyes burned with a light that singed Kate’s gaze. He smiled.

  “Will?” she asked, uncertain, climbing to her feet. She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and swallowed, moving toward him slowly, stepping over the mess of ooze that once contained him.

  “It worked,” he said, and held out his hands—two hands. He had his arm back!

  “You look amazing,” she breathed, relief cascading over her like the glow from Will’s eyes. She reached for him, but he pulled away.

  “I don’t have a body anymore, Kate. You can’t touch me.”

  “Yet. You don’t have a body yet. But why on earth can’t I touch you?”

  “I—I just don’t think it’d be wise.”

  “Well, so, when do you get your new body? The one you’ll wear on Earth?” She felt her bottom lip quiver when she said it, as though she had a feeling that he wouldn’t be joining her.

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead he arched his back and looked up. Kate followed his gaze, gasping in quiet awe. The eye of the storm reached into the heavens, never darkening, becoming brighter until it was brighter than the sun. She blinked and lowered her eyes, seeing black spots where the brilliance had burned her retinas.

  “Kate, I’m sorry, but I think I’m supposed to go up there.”

  “Why are you sorry? You’ll go up there, get your body, and come back, and we’ll return to Earth. No biggie. Go on, go get it and let’s go. I have so much to show you. It’s going to be awesome. I’ll take you rock climbing. I’ll take you around the neighborhood and you can stay at my place till you get your new life set up. Heck, why not just stay with me indefinitely? There’s no rush. You don’t have to move out yet,” she rattled on until his gentle laugh stopped her.

  “My sweet doll, I would love all of that. I would love nothing more than to just go back to Earth with you. But—but I don’t think I can. I think that’s what got me on Chthonos in the first place. Fear. Regret. Lust to live again. I think I better do it right this time. The light. I’m supposed to go toward it.”

  “So this is goodbye, then? For good?” she choked it out.

  “Not for good. But a goodbye. For now,” he said.

  Kate swallowed—tried to swallow. A huge lump caught it, and she coughed, blinking back a swell of tears. Her mind spiraled like a crashing airplane, latching onto nothing concrete. All she found was something abstract, something great and white, a brilliance that illuminated everything that had been dark within her. Kate found in the midst of her flailing confusion that what lived within her was a word she’d been afraid to say to a man. But Will? He wasn’t just a man. He was more than that. She stared into his shining eyes and comprehended his soul. “I love you, Will,” she said, the great word expanding like a balloon within her mouth, and carrying the joy of it out of her body into the air around them. She sighed, and didn’t ask for it back.

  “I know. Kate, I love you. Never have I—never, ever, have I known love like this before.” From the way he looked at her, she felt like he was holding her, as he had so often in their dreams.

  Was she crying? She couldn’t tell. The only thing she knew was the raw emotion that suffused her. “This is crazy. This is so dumb. I can’t believe what I’ve just gone through. And I know you have to go, but I have to just tell you, that I don’t want you to leave me.”

  He shook his head, his face full of concern. “I know, I know. I don’t want to leave, I hate the thought of leaving you behind. But I have to, I think.” He glanced up again at the tunnel of light.

  Kate bit her lip and shifted, her body feeling tired and exhausted. She wasn’t sure how much more emotion she could
take before she just collapsed. “I know. I mean, I don’t. But I understand. I think.”

  “Thank you for coming after me, for following the dragonfly, for doing the impossible.”

  She breathed deep, feeling the weight of her pack dragging her down, an anchor strapped to her back. She was so exhausted. “Will, I don’t know if I want to live in a world where I’ll never see you again. I can’t go back, don’t want to go back without you.”

  “Kate,” he began, his brow furrowing in concern. “I won’t be far. Wherever I’m going, I’ll find a way to see you. I’ll watch out for you. If they tell me I can’t, I’ll find a way. Trust me. There’s no way heaven will keep you from me. Hell couldn’t do that, neither will heaven.”

  She was crying again. The exhaustion was bone deep. “Really? How?” She swiped the back of her hand across her face.

  Will raised his hands in a helpless gesture. “I won’t know until I go. Listen, I may not be as smart and clever as Leonardo, and I may not be as powerful as Cipher—that royal jerk—but I’m smart about who’s smart.” He laughed. “See? That’s what I did with Leonardo. I wasn’t using him, I like the guy. But he was the smart one. I’m sure similar principles will apply in heaven.”

  “So you’ll find a way to come back to me?”

  “Whatever it takes, Kate.”

  “Promise. Please. You didn’t promise,” she urged.

  “That’s because I don’t know what to promise. I might not be able to physically come back to you. I might just be there, and you won’t see me. Like a ghost, haunting you.”

  She bit her lip and dropped her gaze.

  “Kate, don’t look away. I hate it that I can’t hold you. I hate it that my body is gone, even if it was a hideous pile of trash that Cipher mistook for beauty. You know what I want to do right now? I want to hold you. I want to go back to Earth with you and spend time seeing your world. I want that more than anything.”

  “But—” she prodded.

  “But I can’t have that. This is what I have. A tunnel of light and no body. And luckily, there are no negotiating demons around to try to persuade me to give up heaven for a cup of swill.”

  “What if there were demons here telling you that you could go back to earth with me?”

  He smirked. “Let’s both be glad there aren’t any. You know I wouldn’t be able to say no to that.”

  “So you would give up heaven for me?”

  “Would you ask me to?”

  She hesitated, considering it. “No. I—I couldn’t. Not after what I’ve seen.”

  He nodded. “Thank you. You have no idea what that means to me.” His voice was a whisper.

  “Will, are you crying?” she asked in surprise.

  “What? Can’t an angel cry?”

  “Oh, so you’re an angel now?” She teased through her tears, knowing that the joking was just a way to cope with the crushing sorrow of goodbye.

  He inspected his body, which looked exactly as it always looked in the dreams. “Don’t I look like one? Oh, I guess not. Hey! I swear I wore this getup in the late 60s. It was one of my favorites.”

  “I prefer my angels in vintage clothing, anyway.” She teased, enjoying the banter, trying to draw it out in whatever way she could.

  “Kate, my Kate, my sweet doll. I’ll always think of you as mine. I wish I could hold you . . . one last time . . . “

  She hushed him. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Like what?” he blinked, looking offended.

  “‘One last time…’” she repeated.

  “Well—”

  “It can’t be the last time, Will. Don’t let me think that, please. Not now. Not ever. I don’t want to go on thinking we’ll never touch again or talk, or sit in a cafe somewhere, in my dreams, watching the world pass by.”

  He nodded, his lips drawing into a thin line. “I won’t then. Kate, I’ll come back for you, somehow. Someday. I’ll figure this all out.”

  “You better. It’s my turn to say that if you think heaven can keep you from me, well, then you don’t know me.”

  “Look for me, Kate,” he said, and it sounded like he would say more, but a burst of light flashed, blinding her, and Kate lost consciousness.

  ***

  The smell of soap and cleanser pierced the bubble of dreamless sleep. Kate struggled toward the pink light beyond her eyelids, but they seemed glued shut. Finally, she blinked slowly. Blurry cold light surrounded her. She shielded her eyes. It was so bright. Too bright!

  “Kate,” a voice said. She turned her head. Her own voice caught on the lump that formed instantly in her throat.

  “Ty,” she whispered. Relief flooded through her.

  He was seated nearby, his forearms resting on his knees. Dark rings encircled his eyes. Scruff covered his jaw and chin. His dark hair was clumped together as though greasy and dirty, and his brow was furrowed in concern.

  “Where am I?” Kate croaked.

  “A hospital in Vegas,” Ty said, coming to her side and taking her hand in his. He used his calloused fingers gently.

  “Audra? Malcolm?” she asked, searching the room. A huge window let in brilliant desert sunlight. The large LCD TV made the two-bed hospital room feel particularly small. The cream curtain separating the beds was partially drawn. Ty had been sitting in a small armchair against the wall at the foot of her bed.

  “She went for some breakfast, but she should be back soon. Malcolm caught a flight home. Something came up at the gym,” Ty lifted a shoulder. “And once we found you, well, he thought you’d understand if he took off.”

  “How long have I been asleep?” She tried to sit up, but her body felt like it’d been run over by a bulldozer. Her muscles were weak and refused to respond, groaning against her attempts to rise further. An involuntary moan escaped her lips and she gave up.

  Ty checked his watch. “You were unconscious when we found you. Does that count as sleep? I don’t know the precise length of time. Since you’ve been here, it’s been around sixteen hours.”

  Kate gasped and tried to sit up again. “That’s almost an entire day.” She had things to do! Work . . . and . . . work. And not much else, since both Audra and Ty were with her. But still . . .

  “Take it easy, Kate,” Ty said, touching her shoulder. “Your parents are on their way over from their hotel. They spent the night there. As soon as they heard you were missing, they came down. And I think they called your boss—what’s his name? Ferg? Anyway, you’re lucky. You were completely dehydrated when we found you. You could have died, you know that, right? Kate, I mean, it was insane. Where did you go?”

  She searched his face. His eyes glittered and there was a pinched look to his expression. She’d been so selfish, thinking only of Will, that she’d forgotten how her absence would affect her friends.

  “I was fine,” she said, defensively, feeling guilty.

  “Fine? Really? I guess that’s true, in a very roundabout way, since you weren’t yet dead when we found you. Geez, that makes me sick to even say. Dead. Do you understand the desert, Kate? People die in it all the time. It’s almost uninteresting it happens so often. You could have been a casualty. Do you know how long we looked for you? Days, Kate, days. Search and Rescue was about to give up. Audra and I wouldn’t let them, and your parents looked for you without resting.”

  She blinked back tears, embarrassed for having been the cause of such a ruckus. It wasn’t like there was a way to explain it to them. She’d vanished without telling them why or saying goodbye. She was lucky they’d found her. She couldn’t admit that to him. She couldn’t tell him where she’d gone. What then? He would want to know if she even said anything. Audra would want to know. Her parents. Everyone. The best thing to do would be to claim that she didn’t remember. There was a term for it—fugue, she thought, recalling it from the psychology general she’d taken at the university.

  “I don’t know what happened, Ty. I’m—I’m so sorry. It’s like it’s a blank, in my mind,” s
he said, rubbing her eyes and blinking.

  Ty sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—that wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t make you feel worse for what happened. It’s just that I don’t want to lose you, Kate . . . I’ve already lost so much. I—I couldn’t bear to lose again. And if I had, I would blame myself. Anyway, I’m so relieved you’re OK. You’re,” he hesitated. “You know you’re important to me, right?”

  “Thanks,” she said. What was he talking about? Lost so much? “What have you lost? I mean, besides this. Me, I mean. I know—I know it must have been hard for you. Thank you,” she began, her voice a whisper. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

  “There are some things I haven’t told you, yet. Nothing too serious. But it—it might explain why I couldn’t give up on you.” He looked up from staring blindly at the spot of her blanket that covered her legs, his gaze catching hers. “Which I would never have done.”

  “She lives!” Audra’s voice interrupted them. She let out a cheer, and then did a little dance in the doorway. “Is it really her? Or should I get the shotgun? She’s not a zombie, is she?” Audra finished prancing and came into the room carrying a salad in a covered plastic plate and a lidded Styrofoam coffee cup. “For you. Sorry, they stopped serving breakfast while I was there,” she said, handing the items to Ty.

  “Thanks,” he said, running his hands through his hair and blinking before taking the food. Kate saw his jaw muscles clench, giving her another jolt of guilt.

  “I—uh, didn’t get anything for you, Kate. I wasn’t planning on you being awake.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kate said.

  “I’ll go back and get you something, if you want,” Audra said, patting Kate’s blanket-covered leg.

  “That’s fine. I’m not really hungry,” she said, pointing at the IVs near the head of her bed.

  “Oh right. So, did you ask her about the sword?” Audra asked Ty, exchanging a concerned look with him.

  “Sword?” Kate repeated, confused.