Never

by K. D. McEntire

  The pause that followed Wendy's declaration was long and measured. After several minutes Sanngriðr rose to her full height. “Come closer.”

  “Wendy,” Piotr murmured, his voice carrying no further than her ears, “be cautious.” He squeezed her hand.

  “Always,” Wendy said and crossed the distance between Piotr and Sanngriðr. It felt as if she were traversing some vast gulf of space—the Lady Walker now emitted a tangible cold, an icy aura that shocked the system the closer Wendy approached. She shivered and forced her legs to keep going, passing Elise, passing the assembled creatures and Walkers, and finally reaching the Lady Walker.

  Sanngriðr tilted her head and examined Wendy closely. “You are not lying. You have a great deal of spiritual energy built up within. This should have burned you to a crisp by now; how have you not burned up? How are you holding on? It should be impossible.”

  “I don't know. Maybe I'm just stubborn. Maybe I'm just lucky.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Sanngriðr tilted her head. “No. I think not. I think this is a ruse to stall me. I think you believe you can save both the worlds. No, girl, no. I have suffered too long to allow you to stroll in here and try and sway me!”

  “Sanngriðr!” Piotr snapped. He straightened to his full height, his arm wrapped around his gut, fingers splayed against his ribs. “Sanngriðr, you know who I am.”

  She laughed. “Of course I do.”

  Piotr leaned down and gathered up his mother's cloak. Then he flung it at her feet. “You know what this is.”

  Sanngriðr paled; her expression grew greedy and covetous. “How did…yes. Yes, boy,” she said slyly, “I know what that is.”

  “I give it to you,” Piotr said. “In exchange for Wendy to do as she will with no interference from you or yours. She wishes to attempt to destroy the Never and only the Never. You will help her. For this.”

  “No, Piotr—” Wendy protested but was cut off as Piotr jerked a hand sharply, lips tightening. She quieted.

  “I give this to you, the cloak of my mother, so that you may return home,” Piotr said. “So that you may face your Lady and spit in her face if you wish. I care not. But this ends. Now.”

  Sanngriðr snorted. “Deal, boy. But how do I know that this little natural has the power to even—”

  “The last time my soul was released,” Wendy hurried to point out, “it caused an earthquake in the living lands.” She looked up at the hole in the sky. “Sound familiar?”

  “Your energy wasn't concentrated properly in the Never then,” Sanngriðr sneered, plucking at the ruins of her face. “Such sloppy handling of your power, allowing it to spill over into the living lands.”

  “I did the best I could, given the circumstances,” Piotr replied dryly. “Since my goal was to return Wendy's soul to her body, not harm anyone.”

  “You had access to this Reaper's powers? Outside her body? How…” Sanngriðr paused and looked between the two of them, confused, before comprehension dawned. “Oh, my. Your mother really was very good at what she did, girl. If she were still kicking I'd give her my compliments.”

  Sanngriðr laughed, not bothering to hide the cruel glee. “Had the White Lady succeeded in her endeavors, she would have returned to the living lands, riding the wave of your power. She pulled it out whole, yes? A ball of fiercely burning Light?” Sanngriðr shook her head. “Using the power of a natural's soul as a conduit. Brilliant. If she had succeeded—”

  “Well, she didn't,” Wendy said flatly, “which is lucky for you, isn't it? If my mother had killed me returning her soul back to her body, you wouldn't have me to play this stupid cat and mouse game with. She wasn't a natural; she couldn't have offered you what I'm about to. So what will it be? Will you help me?”

  “Don't,” moaned Elise from the ground at their feet. She wiped one ringed hand against her torn mouth, smearing the blood further across her cheek. “Don't do this, Winifred. Please.”

  “No one is talking to you,” Sanngriðr sneered, kicking Elise in the gut. The older woman doubled over but Wendy, ignoring Sanngriðr's snide expression, knelt down by Elise.

  “What would you have me do, Elise?” Wendy asked softly. “I've seen the beginning of what we are. I know what we were supposed to be.”

  “You don't have to listen to our ancestors or whatever ridiculous nonsense you think you found,” Elise whispered. “Tracey and Mary thought they found it, too. I knew that they were wrong. Just as you're wrong. We are what we make of ourselves. We are Reapers! We make the rules here!”

  “And if making your own way hurts everyone else? If making my own way leaves countless souls to suffer?”

  “They chose this suffering,” Elise reminded her. “They must toil through their penance! Many souls turn from the Light on their own. Many are frightened of the lives they've led, the sins they've committed. The Never may not be perfect, but it's a safe place for them to recoup themselves, for the spirits to find their own way. Limbo, Winifred. A respite from Heaven and Hell. Don't you think they've earned the right to decide on their own?”

  She had a point.

  “If I unweave the fabric of your soul, you may not survive the explosion,” Sanngriðr interrupted idly, fingering Elise's chain, dangling around her neck. “Have you thought that far, girl? Once done it cannot be undone. If your Light does not obliterate all the souls, you will have failed and the Never will still exist.”

  “Yeah, I got that part,” Wendy growled.

  “If I take your Light but this fails, you will still stink of Reaper. You will still taste of the Light but be unable to protect yourself. You will most likely die a painful death at the hands of Walkers or Lost or even creatures from between the worlds. Not that you will last much longer, as it is. Your body is nearly done.”

  Wendy flicked a nervous glance at Piotr. He nodded; Sanngriðr was telling the truth. Wendy squared her shoulders and put on her most haughty expression. Her heart was racing. “I can handle myself, Sanngriðr.”

  Though she knew it would most likely bother the older woman, Wendy knelt and smoothed Elise's tangled hair. She just didn't look like Elise, lying there bloodied and beaten. Elise shook her head and wordlessly lay her cheek to the ground, beaten and done.

  “Wendy,” Piotr said in an undertone, “you do not have to do this. You can let them fight among themselves.”

  Rising to her feet, Wendy was tempted. So, so tempted. The Lady Walker and the Reapers had been at one another's throats for centuries—why should it fall on her to change it all?

  And then she remembered Kara, hanging from the ceiling, bloodied and crazed, corrupted by the creature and torn asunder yet still having enough strength to keep the location of the hearth, the door to the Never in the basement of her own home, locked away from Dr. Kensington. He'd killed her girlfriend, the worried woman who wore bunny slippers to the ER, sacrificed her to open up the hole to the darkest realms, and still Kara fought with the beast and kept her cool.

  What about Chel and Jon? What about Eddie?

  Decision made, Wendy sniffled. “The dead have made their choices. The living deserve to be given that chance. I'm going to do it. I'm going to destroy the Never.”

  At her feet Elise moaned and Sanngriðr laughed.

  “Is it enough? Will it be enough? My Light…powers…whatever? Are they going to be enough to get the job done? Is there any way I can…I don't know…any way I can up my powers so I don't burn out the way you think I will? Enhance them or something?”

  “Short of allowing yourself to burn to a crisp and releasing your Light seconds before your body gives out, no,” Sanngriðr said shortly, crossing her ravaged arms over her chest. “We can, of course, do this if you so desire, but it will ensure that you cannot return to your human body when this is all done. The act of destroying the Never by yourself will kill you. You won't even be able to go into the Light. You'll merely burn out.”

  “Net!” Piotr snapped. “This is not to be allowed.”

  “Excuse
me?” Wendy said, irritated. She tried not to think of the promise she'd made Eddie. “Allowed? Who do you think you are, Piotr, my dad? You aren't the boss of me. You can't just tell me what I can and cannot—”

  “Wendy,” Piotr said, grabbing her hand. “Solnyshko moyo, look at me. Net, lyublyu tebya vsem sertsem, vsey dushoyu…I love you…puzhalsta…please, please, were anything to happen to you then I could not bear it.” Piotr drew her close, resting his chin on her shoulder and pressing small, feather-light kisses against her jaw as Piotr whispered his explanation fast and low.

  “Wendy, you have so much to live for…”

  “What, and your mom didn't? My mom didn't?”

  “This is not about them,” he said urgently. “They are both dead, Wendy. This is about you and this world. You do not belong here. You are still alive. Puzhalsta, Wendy, please, please…please do not do this thing.”

  Sanngriðr stepped close to them. “I can appreciate your tender moment, children, but I am a woman on a schedule. Wendy, make up your mind. You can sacrifice yourself and burn out, or—”

  “Wait,” Wendy said, pounding Piotr once on the chest and bouncing on the tips of her toes, overwhelmed with excitement. “Wait! The spirit webs!”

  Piotr's hand brushed his chest. “What?”

  “The spirit webs. They're full. They're full!”

  Nodding, Piotr glanced at Sanngriðr; both he and the Lady Walker gave Wendy a quizzical look. “Da. Brimming.”

  “We can tap that, right? Tap their…juice? All that living willpower? All the Shades the webs devoured? Use the power to—”

  Sanngriðr's laugher, long and cruel and overjoyed, cut Wendy off. “I was wrong, girl! You are every bit as smart as your mother was! YES! Yes, yes, if you let me infect you with a spirit web, you will be connected with the forest. Of course, again, you are so weak that the web itself may kill you.”

  “She doesn't have to,” Piotr said. He rested a hand on his chest. “I already have a seed inside me.”

  Sanngriðr raised one ruined eyebrow. “Indeed? I see.”

  “How…” Wendy swallowed deeply, “how do we…how do we do this?”

  Sanngriðr lifted the necklace. “Wearing this, Piotr takes your orb of Light and flings himself into the mouth between the worlds. That is all. It will destroy the—”

  “NO!” screamed Elise, shoving to her feet and striding forward. Light bloomed in her hands—fierce and sharp and blazing—and Piotr dropped to his knees beside Wendy, dazzled.

  “Everything you do is poison! The Never must not be destroyed! I will destroy her first!” Elise screamed and, just like that, she was writhing with Light, a fiery figure with ribbons alight, flinging herself at Wendy. Sanngriðr moved too slowly, Piotr was down…

  And, falling back, Wendy's hand scrabbled in her pocket. The dull knife ripped through the side of her jeans…

  …jutting out…

  …stabbing Elise between the breasts, punching through the ribs and burning Wendy's hands. Elise, grunting, sliced jaggedly at Wendy's face and temple as she writhed on the blade.

  “Kill…you…abom…ab…” Elise whispered, the Light fading from around her body as she became nothing more than a run-ragged old woman once more, the Reaper's power leaving her body in a rush of heat and one final blast of Light. Above them the hole rumbled and blazed. The earth trembled beneath them.

  Then, just like that, Elise sagged…and was done.

  Kin-killer.

  The knife blazed.

  Wendy dropped the knife frantically, but her palm had been embossed with marks of the blade. Struggling out from beneath Elise proved difficult—her fingers spasmed and ached; she clutched her hand to her chest as Elise fell to her knees and fell forward, truly dead this time.

  “Oh, Wendy,” Piotr moaned beside her. “Oh, Wendy.”

  “Enough of this. No more distractions! You! Boy! Go to the roof,” Sanngriðr ordered, passing Piotr Elise's necklace. “Wear this. You know what it is.”

  Piotr didn't smirk as he took the forgery. His expression was properly grim, but Wendy could sense the lightness in his body as he took the links from Sanngriðr's hand. Sanngriðr knelt down beside Wendy. “Are you prepared, girl? This will hurt.”

  “Wait,” Wendy said. “I…I want to be there.”

  “On the roof?”

  “Yes. I need to…” Wendy licked her lips. “Let me say goodbye. Please.”

  For an instant she thought Sanngriðr would deny her, but instead the Lady Walker laughed. “Love. All my misery stems from love. Fine. Go. I will follow in five minutes and not a second more.” She waved a hand at the hotel. “Do not make me regret trusting you, girl.”

  Leaving Sanngriðr, Wendy and Piotr approached the hotel. A gauntlet of Walkers, both inhabited and not, stood beside the path. As they passed, Wendy paused to speak to the first Walker. “Am I making the right decision?” she asked. “Would you…would you want to go into the Light if you could?”

  The Walkers shifted uneasily, and then the one Wendy picked to speak with nodded. “Once, scared of death.” It raised its hooded face to the blackness boiling above. Creatures were pouring from the hole now, directly above the city.

  Wendy, distantly, could hear the living screams.

  “Now…scared of this.” The Walker chuckled raspily. “Is this truth? Can flesh, can you, end the Never? Make there be no more pain? No more death?”

  Nervously, Wendy glanced over at Piotr and Sanngriðr. “I don't know. They think I can. We'll see.”

  The Walker indicated the blackness. “Then try. Be quick. Stop you, we will wait. We tire. We wish sleep.”

  Wendy glanced around the gathered Walkers. “After all this time…you all really feel this way? You're done fighting? Honestly?”

  “Flesh chatty-chatty too much,” warned the Walker. “Time ticking. Go. Finish this.”

  Hurriedly, Wendy moved to join Piotr and they both hurried into the hotel, rushing past guests and speeding to the roof.

  They had to cut across the Top of the Mark to get to the roof. Frank and the Council watched them pass silently. The mysterious greaser was there, Wendy noted, lounging in the far corner by the piano. He winked at Wendy as she passed and, pulling a comb out of his pocket, began to comb his ducktail. Where the comb ran, the black turned to red…

  Startled, Wendy spun on her heel. Surely she hadn't seen that right?

  The greaser was gone as if he'd never been, nowhere to be seen. Wendy frowned. Something about the way he moved…

  Once they were on the roof, together in glorious privacy, Piotr turned to Wendy and drew her into a loose embrace. He brushed her matted, crooked bangs off her forehead and tenderly kissed the ragged, clotted cut zig-zagging at her temple. “This will scar, I think. We will be a matched set.”

  “Let it. I don't care.”

  Shaking his head, Piotr sighed and dropped his arms. The normal Walkers below had all retreated from the twisted creatures. More than a few of them were watching the distant skies, the endless ebony expanding beyond the mist, shifting uneasily as the growing mass sucked at the edges of their tattered cloaks, sending the ragged edges fluttering in the wind.

  In the distance twisted creatures were dropping, free-falling, from the rent in the sky. Their numbers were small now but the dead were many, the spirit webs expanding rapidly, trapping souls as they flourished and flowered.

  “It's time,” he whispered.

  To die will be an awfully big adventure.

  —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

  Wendy shook her head. “No! I'm not ready. We're not ready. I just found you. I just…Piotr, please. Please. Sanngriðr can give us ten more minutes. Twenty!”

  “Wendy.” Piotr repeated gently, “It's time.”

  “But it's not fair,” she said, tired now, sagging and feeling the hot tears leak out of the corners of her eyes. Piotr, unashamed, was crying as well, taking both her hands in his and rubbing her knuckles with the pads of his thumbs. Wendy sobbed as Pio
tr pulled her hands to his lips and kissed her fingers, her wrists, even turning her hands over and placing tender kisses in the cups of her palms.

  “Wendy,” he said, whispering the words between kisses, “I waited for you in the breath between moments, in the space between worlds. I waited and I hoped and eventually, after I forgot that I was waiting for you, you finally came. It's been a very long time, Wendy. And I have suffered every day.”

  Blinking the tears rapidly away, Wendy nodded once. “I know.”

  “Don't you think…” Piotr looked over at the Walkers, some who'd drawn closer to the hotel, edging surreptitiously away from the shadow cast across the sea. “Don't you think that I—we—have earned our rest? Even Sanngriðr has suffered, Wendy. Evil as she is, she deserves to go home.”

  Sanngriðr, approaching from the stairs, heard this last bit. Joining them, she rolled what remained of her eyes and laughed darkly. “Seeing as you never should have been born in the first place, hearing that you believe your time to be nigh amuses me.”

  “It isn't?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Oh it is,” she smirked. “But this is far too graceful an end than you deserve. If it were up to me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Sanngriðr,” Wendy said, shaking her head and forcing a tired, sad smile. She hated the woman but her tears were done. It was time. “And if pigs could fly we'd all have bacon on the wing. Beat it for a minute.”

  “Only because the souls are done…only for this reason will I leave,” Sanngriðr said, tilting her head back, smiling at the ever-darkening sky. “But hurry, boy. Our time draws close.” She left, leaving Piotr and Wendy alone again. As she stalked away Wendy spotted the figure hiding around the corner. The red hair. The white cloak. It was a brief glimpse, nothing more, and Wendy knew this time that she hadn't imagined it. She thought of going after the figure but decided that, in the end, the spy watching them didn't matter.

  Piotr did.

  “I am sorry that I said you were being foolish,” Piotr apologized, dragging Wendy's attention back to the moment at hand. “It was unfair of me. You have every—”