Days of Borrowed Pasts

by S. M. Schmitz

  “It’s not sanctimonious,” Ayla hissed. “You don’t get it. All of your training, and you still know nothing about us.”

  Leon threw his hands up and grunted at her then kicked at the railing on the dock. When he’d somewhat calmed down, he faced her again and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, Ayla. What don’t I get?”

  “How fragile our souls are,” she explained. “How corruptible. You want to know why the gods became so greedy and bloodthirsty? Imagine being immortal and each death, every abuse against those who worship you, becomes a permanent stain on your soul. If Thomas and I go down that path, there’s no coming back for us. We’ll eventually become the gods that led to this war in the first place.”

  Leon kept his arms folded, but his posture loosened slightly, just enough that Ayla thought maybe they were getting through to him. “Well,” he finally said. “I guess that makes sense. I mean, the same thing happens to humans. They can be inoculated to some pretty terrible shit and even convinced to take part in it.”

  Thomas and Ayla glanced at each other, but neither mentioned the death of the woman in Leon’s hotel room again. Maybe Leon had really thought her murder was necessary, but that was exactly the problem: Leon could no longer see alternatives to violence.

  “Is it broken?” she asked Thomas, pointing to his wrist.

  “I’ll live,” he assured her. “Probably just sprained.”

  “Do you think those other hunters are ransacking our rooms?” she asked. “My backpack…”

  Thomas grimaced as he stood up and released his wrist so he could hold onto his key. “We’ll try to get into your room directly so we can grab it then get out again.”

  “And if they’re in her room?” Leon asked.

  “Everything I cherish most is in that bag,” she whimpered. “Please, Thomas.”

  Thomas took a deep breath and offered her a strained smile. “I’ll get it for you, Ayla. I promise.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Leon muttered. “I’ll go. My soul is obviously tarnished already. Just make sure you open a door to the right hotel room, so I don’t get my ass kicked by some dude thinking I’m a total perv.”

  “You are a total perv,” Thomas retorted.

  “Open the door,” Leon sighed.

  Thomas blinked at the dock then the ocean then the lighthouse in the distance, barely visible through the dense fog that blanketed the coastline. “Um… where?”

  “Try the ground again?” Ayla suggested.

  “Or we could walk over to the lighthouse,” Leon said.

  Ayla ran her fingers through her hair and cried, “They’re going to steal my backpack. My journal, my keepsakes, everything I have.”

  Thomas twirled the key in his hand and shook his head. “Then we’ll hunt them.”

  “Oh, so damaging your soul is okay over a backpack?” Leon asked.

  Thomas narrowed his eyes at his friend, but Ayla grabbed his arm and pointed to a boat moored to the pier. “Will that work?”

  He shrugged and said, “Let’s give it a shot.”

  Ayla pulled her sleeves over her hands, shivering as they approached the boat, just as much from the frigid temperatures as the fear her backpack and its contents would be missing. Thomas took a deep breath and closed his eyes, obviously concentrating on finding the right door, then pressed the key to the boat’s port side. The doorway appeared, but as always, she couldn’t see where it led, which meant Leon could be jumping into a deadly situation.

  But Leon didn’t hesitate. Since the doorway was almost two feet from the pier, he took a step back then jumped. Ayla gasped as he disappeared, and Thomas put his arm around her. “It’ll be all right. I’m pretty sure I got it right. I think.”

  “Thomas,” she whispered, “something feels off about Leon. I’m sorry, but —”

  A body hurled out of the doorway, clutching a bundle of black fabric, and for the second time in five minutes, Thomas and Ayla tumbled to the ground as Leon fell into them. Thomas groaned and pushed his friend off him, and Ayla grabbed her backpack, quickly rifling through its contents to ensure they were all there. She pulled the zipper closed and threw her arms around the former hunter. “Thank you.”

  “You know what would really thank me?” he replied.

  “Dude!” Thomas yelled.

  Leon laughed and insisted, “Oh, come on, I’m kidding. But I could hear the hunters in my room. They’re tearing it apart. We need to find somewhere to lay low for a while.”

  “I have an idea,” Ayla offered. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Leon arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m oddly intrigued.”

  Ayla helped Thomas to his feet and slipped her backpack over her shoulders. “Where we’re going, I can’t imagine anyone would look for us. I’m pretty sure time forgot all about this town, so as long as we’re cool living in 1955, we should be fine.”

  Thomas nodded and said, “I liked the 50s. A time traveling key would be awesome, by the way.”

  “I suddenly feel like Michael J. Fox,” Leon said.

  “You don’t have a DeLorean,” Thomas pointed out.

  Leon waved him off. “They’re crap cars anyway.”

  “You’re also missing an eccentric scientist who provides on-point comic relief,” Ayla added.

  “I have two gods,” Leon argued. “That’s way better.”

  “Can we get out of here?” Thomas asked. “I’m freezing, and I too have become oddly intrigued by our time traveling adventure.”

  Ayla snickered and gestured to the side of the boat. “Then open our door to Larken, Iowa, Mr. McFly. I don’t think anything exciting has ever happened to this town… it’s like a black hole in the middle of America.”

  Thomas nodded again and flashed that impish grin at her. “Time travel through black holes. I should have stalked you centuries ago.”

  “And you say I’m the perv?” Leon teased.

  “Yes,” Thomas and Ayla immediately answered.

  Leon opened his mouth, but instead of making a smartass comment, his gaze shifted behind the gods, and he inhaled a sharp breath. “Hunters,” he said. “Thomas, we need a door now!”

  Ayla glanced over her shoulder as a gunshot broke through the tranquil sounds of waves crashing against the shore and the occasional squawking of a seagull. The fiberglass of the boat splintered as the bullet narrowly missed her. Thomas grabbed her arm and jumped into the water, bitterly cold and painful against her skin. She heard another gunshot and a second splash as Leon jumped into the ocean behind them, and Thomas slapped the key against the side of the yacht where another door flickered open then the three fugitives swam into its light.

  Chapter Nine

  What does it mean to be lost? Is it no longer knowing how to find my way home, or having no direction, no path to follow? Or worse still, is it losing the values you instilled in me so long ago, the compass that always defined me? Because I fear I’m truly becoming a lost god, and I will burn this world in fires of revenge.

  The air in Larken, Iowa, was only slightly warmer than the icy water of the ocean. The few pedestrians on Main Street slowed to stare at the trio, soaked and shivering and slightly perplexed. Ayla nodded toward a pharmacy across the street and told Thomas they should get a bandage for his wrist, but he shook his head and insisted he just wanted dry clothes and a room with heat.

  “There’s only a bed and breakfast here,” Ayla explained. A sudden, horrifying thought occurred to her, and she groaned and shrugged off her backpack, pulling out the notebook, which had been drenched when they’d evaded the hunters by jumping into the ocean.

  “No,” she groaned again.

  “You should probably keep that in a waterproof bag,” Leon said helpfully.

  Ayla scowled at him then returned her attention to her ruined notebook.

  “Looks like you can still read most of your entries,” Thomas said. “We’ll get you a new notebook.”

  Ayla swallowed and nodded, but this journal had been d
ifferent from the countless others she’d kept before. It was no longer just her confused thoughts that she was attempting to sort through. She’d also been writing to her mother.

  She led them to the blue Victorian bed and breakfast nestled on an oak lined street in a charming neighborhood. The boards on the porch creaked beneath their footsteps, and a young woman opened the door before Ayla could knock, her smile quickly fading as she noticed her customers were wet and shivering.

  “What happened to you?” the woman asked.

  “It’s a long story,” Ayla answered.

  “Prank,” Thomas added. “Which I personally didn’t find funny at all.”

  The woman blinked at them then stepped out of their way to allow them inside. The warm, dry air of the bed and breakfast greeted Ayla, embracing her, and she sighed happily. The young woman smiled at her and gestured to her desk where she’d check them in. “You look familiar,” the woman told Ayla.

  “I stayed here before,” Ayla said. “A few years ago. But you weren’t running the front desk then.”

  “Ah,” the woman said. “My parents just retired, but I used to help out on the weekends. I’m Melanie, and you’ll be needing…” She paused and let her eyes linger on each of them as if hoping they wouldn’t answer, “One room.”

  “Three rooms, please,” Ayla prodded.

  Melanie’s shoulders relaxed a little as she tapped on her keyboard. After checking them in, she led them upstairs and chatted amiably about meal times and the only two attractions Larken had: a doll museum and a farmer’s market every Saturday morning held in the town’s public square.

  “And you’re not always packed?” Leon asked Melanie. “We obviously got here in the nick of time.”

  Melanie just blinked at him again and handed him a key. “Your room.”

  Leon flashed her a mischievous smile and added, “Do you offer room service?”

  “I will kick your ass,” Thomas threatened.

  “I’ll help,” Ayla muttered.

  “Um… lunch is served at noon,” Melanie reminded them, handing them their keys.

  Ayla thanked her profusely as a way of apologizing for Leon, but he’d already disappeared inside his room. Thomas watched Melanie descend the stairs then whispered, “I’ll go get us dry clothes. Maybe none for Leon though.”

  “Definitely not,” she whispered back.

  Thomas smiled at her and went into his room, where he’d open a hidden door to retrieve clothes for them. Ayla realized they’d just checked in with no luggage except her soggy backpack, and if Melanie saw them wearing different clothes, they’d have no reasonable, non-magical explanation to offer her. She knocked lightly on Thomas’s door to tell him they should probably reconsider, but he didn’t answer.

  Ayla entered her own room and put her backpack on the floor, sitting next to it so she could empty its contents. Only the notebook wouldn’t be salvageable, and as she carefully opened it and separated some of the pages, she noticed the ink had run, blurring many of her entries and creating a nearly indecipherable code. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes and she silently chastised herself. “Don’t be so ridiculous, Ayla. You would have eventually burned it anyway.”

  She ran her fingers carefully over the waterlogged page and shook her head. “No. This one was different… my chronicle about going home, my love letter to my mother, my reconciliation with my father.”

  Ayla sniffled and wiped her cheeks, and a now familiar tapping at her door startled her. Thomas had returned. She didn’t want him to see her crying over something so silly, but she couldn’t leave him standing in the hall, especially since he’d retrieved clothes for her so she wouldn’t be so miserable. As soon as she opened the door, his smile vanished and he asked, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  She tried to smile back, to insist she was just tired and it was nothing, but an ugly sob erupted instead. Thomas put his arms around her and held her closely, and he must have seen her belongings scattered on the floor because he said, “I got you something else.”

  He let go of her to dig into one of the plastic bags he carried and pulled out a spiral notebook. “It’ll be all right, Ayla. I promise.”

  Ayla held the new notebook carefully, reverently, as if he’d just handed her the key to the veil. It had been such a long time since she’d been important enough to someone that he’d remember something that seemed so trivial to everyone else. “I’m going to change into dry clothes,” Thomas added. “But I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Ayla nodded, and as Thomas left her room, she reluctantly put the notebook down so she could change into dry clothes as well. She’d just finished dressing when someone knocked on her door, but it wasn’t Thomas’s knock. She thought, perhaps, Melanie had come with more news about Larken’s exciting attractions or had forgotten to tell them she did offer room service after all. But when she opened her door, she didn’t recognize the woman standing in the hallway.

  “Oh,” the woman said. “Wrong room. I’m looking for Thomas.” The beautiful woman with luscious auburn hair and full rose-colored lips glanced past her and smiled when she saw the room was otherwise empty.

  “Who are you?” Ayla asked.

  The woman looked her over quickly and kept smiling. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Thomas’s door opened, but he froze in the hallway when he saw the strange woman.

  “There you are,” the woman cooed. “You’re not easy to track down.”

  “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

  “What do you think?” she responded, her voice feigning innocence, but Ayla didn’t think her intentions were innocent at all.

  Thomas looked at Ayla then back at the woman. “Ayla, this is Aphrodite. And she’s leaving.”

  “Aphrodite,” Ayla whispered. The goddess ignored her.

  “Thomas,” she laughed, putting a hand on his arm, “you know I’d never turn you in. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Ayla’s cheeks warmed, and she crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at the goddess’s hand on Thomas’s arm. But he didn’t pull away from her, and he didn’t seem overly concerned about it. And she had no reason to be jealous, so why the hell was that emotion surfacing now?

  “Fine,” Thomas sighed. “You can tell us what you want, but then you’ve got to leave.”

  “Oh, Thomas,” she said, her voice like silk, “I came here for you.”

  Ayla grunted and stormed back into her room, suddenly embarrassed by her behavior. She heard Thomas following behind her, and he immediately tried to offer an explanation even though he certainly didn’t owe her one. “I’m not going anywhere, Ayla. Nothing has changed. We still have the same goal.”

  Her door clicked closed, and she didn’t need to turn around to know Aphrodite had followed them, too. “You don’t have to be so cryptic, Thomas,” Aphrodite said. “I know you’re trying to get to the Otherworld.”

  “How?” Thomas demanded.

  Ayla faced her, too, but she neither liked nor trusted this goddess whose own cryptic messages could ruin everything for them.

  “Because you once told me you’d try to cross the veil, remember?”

  Thomas threw his hands up and exclaimed, “That was a long time ago! How did you even find me?”

  Aphrodite smiled at him, a seductive smile that Ayla disliked as much as the goddess herself, and told him, “Do you forget how well I know you?”

  Thomas shifted his weight between feet and tried to look indifferent, but Aphrodite’s reminder about their past clearly affected him. “What do you want, DeeDee? I can’t go home. You know that.”

  Ayla disliked his nickname for her even more than the goddess and this entire situation.

  Aphrodite lifted a shoulder at him. “Of course I know. Ares is out there right now looking for you, and he will try to kill you if he finds you. I want to go with you to the Otherworld.”

  “No,” Ayla immediately said then blushed when both Aphrodite and Thomas gaped at her. “I have
no reason to trust her,” she hurriedly added. “And if you really need me to reopen the veil, I shouldn’t have to be surrounded by people I can’t trust, people that can turn on me and murder me.”

  Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at Ayla and retorted, “Thomas trusts me. And I couldn’t care less what you do with this mortal you’re traveling with. If you’re worried about the company you’re keeping, though, perhaps you should leave.”

  “Hey,” Thomas snapped, “we need her to reopen the veil. If you’re serious about wanting to help us, be nice.”

  Aphrodite snickered as she continued to glare back at Ayla. “Honey, you didn’t love me because I’m nice.”

  “DeeDee,” Thomas groaned.

  “You both need to get out of my room,” Ayla insisted.

  Thomas turned toward her and his mouth fell open, obviously surprised and maybe even hurt. “Ayla, what am I supposed to do here?”

  “You’re supposed to get out of my room,” she replied.

  Instead of either god leaving, somebody else knocked on her door, and Leon poked his head inside. “I thought I heard another voice.” He grinned at Aphrodite, and Ayla rolled her eyes because she already recognized that grin, that assumption that he was somehow Eros or Min reincarnated.

  But Aphrodite rolled her eyes, too, and said, “Never going to happen, human.”

  “How do you know I’m human?” Leon asked, that grin never faltering.

  “Because you act like a human, and you’re not nearly as interesting or attractive as you think you are.”

  “Stop insulting my friends,” Thomas ordered. “And Leon, don’t hit on Aphrodite. She will smite you.”

  “Aphrodite?” Leon repeated. “Challenge accepted.”

  Aphrodite put her hands on her hips and scowled at the former hunter, but Thomas prevented any smitings by locking the door and ordering them all to sit down and shut up. Ayla thought about reminding him it was her room, and she didn’t want any of them in there with her, especially when she remembered she’d laid the contents of her backpack on the floor to dry. She dropped to her knees and began to scoop items into her arms, and Thomas knelt beside her.