by Daryl Banner
I somehow doubt that’s the vision he has.
Of course, not all people have children. Not all people marry. When I was alive, I had an uncle on my dad’s side. Well … Claire did. Claire had an uncle. His name was Humphrey and his wife June never had children. But they did have six puppies, two fish tanks and a parakeet.
Uncle Humphrey gave Claire one of his most prized fish for my—sorry, her—twelfth birthday. It wasn’t the one Claire liked with the purple stripes, however, so she refused to feed it. What an awful, spoiled girl she was. My—sorry, her—housemaid fed it instead, then eventually took it home to give to her own son.
At least Claire didn’t manage to kill that pet.
There was a friend of Claire’s mother, a lady from the tropics named Zoe. She didn’t live a very conventional life, never found love, and she always seemed happy as can be. She might’ve been the only person that I … that Claire liked. Zoe was a painter and she always smelled like paint, but Claire never minded because she always gave the best birthday and Christmas presents. Zoe was going to move into a house near us, but then my dad got the promotion, throwing us into the snowy north and far away from everything I knew, and …
My dad. My mom. I can’t keep dissociating from her.
When I think about my dad, I feel a strange, ripping emptiness inside me. He was always there, yet never there. Like a wallpaper you see in an old picture of your house. It was there the whole time, yet you swore the wall was painted banana yellow. My dad was a ghost to me until he was dying in the hospital. How ironic.
And I think on my mom. She was miserable. She was icy. She was kissing my forehead sweetly and then she was tearing a hole in my prom dress. In my last moment of life, I was racing through the snowy woods, desperate for her forgiveness, for my dad’s forgiveness, insisting that I’ve changed. Too late. The winter beneath my feet had found me. Snap. Crack. The world went away.
And in that final-final moment … when I was still kicking, reaching toward the heavens in slow motion, a thousand icy knives cutting into my still-living, still-aware, still-alive body … I had a moment of clarity. Helena mentioned it once long ago, this moment that happens just before you die … this moment of clarity …
Every memory you had, every regret, every hilarious joke you’ve told, every sandwich you made yourself, every song you cried listening to, every argument that ended in a hug, every stumble, every paper cut, every glass of pink lemonade you poured, every class you fell asleep in, every bright light bulb you accidentally looked into, every undisturbed second you spent staring at your own reflection in the mirror, every person you craved who never paid you any attention, every doubt you had about a story you heard, every bitter disappointment you couldn’t voice, every embarrassing thing you ever said to impress someone, every grunt you made ascending that staircase, every bit of bad news you ever gave a friend, every smile you faked … it waits for you.
It waits so patiently.
It knows, because in this final moment of your life, just when the moment of clarity is upon you … it’s right at the point when you go from being alive to being dead.
Floating down into the shadows, I stopped kicking. My legs wouldn’t work. My arms and hands … even my eyes couldn’t find the break in the ice, the thing I ought to blame for my death, the doorway that welcomed me to the wintry abyss of doom.
The tragedy of the moment of clarity is that it is too late. Always. Staring up at the shattered ice, I thought, but there is so much left to do. The prom. Gill.
My friends. Didn’t I have any? My mom at home …
I thought, but there is so much left to do and to say.
And my dad at the hospital. What about him?
There’s so much left to learn. My hair coming undone and my heart slowing, slowing … There is so much left …
Wait, wait, wait. Not yet. Please, wait.
I can’t even see the ice anymore, or the sky. Nothing. It’s all going grey the further I sink, and I wonder who’s going to pull me out.
Who’s going to pull me out.
Is there anyone, anyone at all … anyone who could come down into the cold to pull me out? My dad would say I did this to myself. My mom would say the only one left to blame is …
But who’s going to pull me out?
Who’s going to—?
“Winter?”
It’s John. He’s woken up to save me from myself. I turn and rush into his arms. He hugs me tight. The Undead don’t cry, but I’m shivering and lost in my First Life, and I’m so afraid I’ll never be able to let Claire go.
She’s the one sinking in the lake. It’s Claire who lost all her chances, not me. She’s the one permanently reaching into the sky, waiting for someone to help her, waiting forever for someone to come and pull her out.
I’m Winter, not Claire. And I am out.
I am out.
“It’s okay,” he moans into my ear. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” He runs a hand gently through my hair. I have no idea how he just understands what I need the moment I need it. He wasn’t always this way. He’s grown and he’s softened and he’s hardened, all at once.
“Thank you, John.”
I feel him smile into my neck again. I love feeling his lips move there. “I’m here for you,” he tells me, quiet as a dream. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere, Winter. I’m yours forever. You won’t ever lose me, I swear it.”
I realize in an instant that I feel better. John’s tight embrace, his gentle words … my face relaxes and my body lets go. I even start to breathe. Pretend-me is taking over, fake-breathing, letting the world seem like a nicer, warmer, better place.
“I love you so much.”
It’s John who says it this time. His warm tears touch my neck. They burn, and I let them. I grip him tight and I whisper it right back, right into his ear. We kiss, and the morning burns and burns to combat the cold winter dream I just let in.
An hour or so later, there’s a knock at the door. I cross the house in seven strides and swing it open.
My favorite dead person, Helena, huffs tiredly at me. “Well, do you have the thing or not?”
“The what? Oh!” I’d nearly forgotten about it.
“Oh?” Helena lifts a lazy eyelid. “Please, keep me in suspense.”
“The Lock’s Eye. No, I don’t have it. But I know who does.” I turn back to John, who is listening patiently to this exchange. “I’m going with Helena to pay our dear friend Ann a visit. I’ll be right back.”
John with all his tousled morning hair gives a small nod and a stubbly smile. Just the sight of that could warm me a whole winter long, provided I ever need warmth.
I step out with Helena and trek into the city. Judging from the mild activity I can hear in the nearby houses, and the handful of Humans who are taking a stroll, I assume morning’s come. I have a guess or two where I might find the little one, and I pray I won’t be forced to experience the awkwardness of knocking on her front door and explaining to her gentle, well-meaning parents that she may or may not have something that does not belong to her. Something I happen to need.
“Why Ann?” asks Helena. “I can’t stand the girl. Just a thorn in my ass for Human-Undead relations. Her little bleeder boyfriend Jimmy-Jim is bragging to everyone in the Human’s quarter about their relationship. I might just pluck that thorn, too.”
“Speak of the devil,” I mutter.
I’ve spotted said Human Jim outside the hospital, which is on the way to Ann’s house in the fourth quarter. His eyes, normally half-opened and droopy, flash wide as full moons when he sees us. “H-Hi,” he manages.
“Hi, Jim. We’re looking for Ann.”
“Oh, uhh … I dunno, W-Winter.” He looks to the left, shrugs, then swallows anxiously and scratches his face. “Maybe home. I dunno.”
I squint suspiciously at him. The way he’s perched here at the doorway to the building, one might think he were standing guard. “What’s going on, Jim?”
Hel steps up impatiently. “To hell with it,” she grunts, literally picking him up and setting him to the side. His only protest is a strange choking sound that might be a word or two he’s too scared to say. We push through the doors into the empty gymnasium. Our footsteps ring hard and loud, echoing across the unused machinery until we arrive at the only occupied room in the facility.
Doctor Collin peers up. Ann spins to face us, her short burst of hair whisking around, and when she sees me, her mouth opens, closes, opens.
“Don’t be mad,” she finally says.
The little girl that I didn’t notice lying there on the operating table turns her head. Her right eye meets mine, and she grins excitedly, so very happy to see me. Just her right eye … only the right … because now all that remains of her left is a small green stone.
“I did it,” she tells a dumbstruck Helena and me. “I’m gonna save Trenton. I’m gonna save us all.”
C H A P T E R – T H I R T E E N
R E C K O N I N G
It all happens so fast. In one moment, I’m staring at Megan in a stupor, her Human eye staring back … and her green one. The next moment, I’ve got a screaming Ann by the hair and I’m dragging her out of the room, out of the gymnasium, out to the streets.
I throw her, and she lands on her back. Gripping her head—so as to literally keep it on her shoulders—she says: “Winter, Winter, Winter, wait, Winter, Winter, wait—”
“HOW COULD YOU DO THIS??” Even I’ve never heard myself shout so loudly. “TO HER?? HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!!”
Ann raises her hands in defense, shielding her face. A clump of her hair hangs in a tangle from my fingers and Jim is somewhere off to the side, quivering and hugging himself. I hear the door flip open behind me, then shut. Either Helena, or Doctor Collin, or Megan herself … I don’t know, I’m not looking. I’m baking Headless Ann under my icecap blues, imagining forty different ways to make her actually headless.
“She’s just a child!!” I cry out.
“H-H-Haven’t you ever—” Ann can’t get the words out, still struggling to get to her feet. Half her hair is missing near her left ear, and I marvel for a moment at my own strength. “H-H-Haven’t you ever wanted to be more than-than-than-than what you are?”
“She’s just a—” I shut my eyes, unable to look at Ann anymore. I bring my hands up to my face, too angry to speak, too ashamed, too hurt. I say something else, but it’s muffled and it doesn’t matter. It’s done.
“I was so tired of being a teenager,” Ann tells me. “My whole Second Life consisted of graduating high school over and over again. And then you came along.” She makes it sound half an accusation. “You came and you wrecked it all. You rebelled. You were just like me, except you didn’t pull off your head and play soccer with it in alleyways. You overthrew a wretched Mayor. You freed us. You … brought in the Humans.”
I drop my hands and open my eyes. She’s still on the ground, a hand raised up to me as she explains, as if she’s afraid I might strike her at any second. I still might.
She continues. “For the first time in my Second Life, I’m more than just Headless Ann. I’m more than just an Undead … I’m a girlfriend.” She glances cautiously at Jim, who appears more terrified than proud at the moment. “And now M-Megan …” Just at saying her name, my face hardens. It doesn’t go unnoticed. “Now M-Megan is—is more than just the little girl with the dead brother. With that eye, now she’s more than just … Human.”
I stare hard at Ann. I can’t let her off, not so soon. I feel like I’m gnashing my jaw so tight, my teeth might be lodged halfway up my skull by now.
“Please say something,” she squeaks.
In a voice no stronger than the wintry breeze snaking through the street, I say, “You can explain the reasons until the end of days, Ann. But … her parents will never forgive us. Her parents will never understand.”
“B-But that’s just her parents, Winter. This is more important than-than-than just two fussy people who—”
“No, Ann. No.” I shake my head, overcome with the enormity of this. I can’t believe this is happening. “Ann. This is about more than the parents. This is about all of them. All the Humans. They won’t forgive us for this. Now we’re … we’re turning their children into monsters. We’ve done a horrible, horrible thing. And the timing, Ann. The Burning Army will be here any day.”
“I d-d-don’t care what the Humans think.” Ann gets to her feet, though it does little to steady her shaking voice. “Megan did this to p-protect them. She’s a Warlock now.”
“No, she isn’t. It doesn’t just work like that. She has no idea how to use the eye. It took Grimsky half a year to develop his own, and we don’t have that kind of time.” I plop onto the curb, fed up, and bury my face once more into a spread of pale palms. “What have we done …?”
Why doesn’t she see? Why doesn’t she understand? The parents will revolt. The rest of the Humans will see it as an act of violence. Megan, the innocent little Human, they’ll say she was brainwashed, pressured, maybe even held down and forced, for all the difference it makes. The Humans, already frustrated and cautious of us—as they have an unfortunate history with being eaten—are ready for any excuse to declare war on us. Even the Chief refused to let Judge Helena back in the city. Judge Helena.
Oh … The Chief.
The Chief is going to find out about this.
And then … “It’s over,” I say into my hands, defeated. “It’s over. It’s all over. We’ll be demolished before Grim ever makes it here. We’ll have done half his job for him.”
“Stop your whining.”
I lift my face to find Helena seating herself on the curb next to me. The sight is very strange, as I hadn’t taken her to be the kind who’d dare sit on the grimy, damp curb of a street. But from the exasperation that’s evident in her face, she’s had enough of the curveballs herself.
“What do we do?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “We tell Chief. He decides what’s next. As you can tell, we’re still not being invaded. For all we know, sweet Grimmy is taking his time. Or building his army further. Or sparing us altogether. How convincing do you think you were, Winter?”
I think about the blade Megan struck through him. I can still hear his screams of agony. “Might not have gone so well,” I admit quietly.
“To be fair, you weren’t prepared to confront him,” she points out, defending me in a rare, uncharacteristic way for Helena. “Same way I wasn’t prepared for After’s Hold to take our steel and give nothing in return. I wonder if this means his Raises are like the Deathless: weak to steel. What do you think?”
I’m affronted with the image of Grim holding my ringed hand to his chest, letting it burn. “He still is, if that counts for anything.”
“Miss him?”
I glare at Helena. “Are you kidding?”
“I mean, do you miss how he used to be?” She isn’t looking at me. Her gaze is lost somewhere down the street, her sharp features appearing sharper by her tensed expression. “The gentleman who took you dining? The well-mannered fellow who gave you a tiny spot of life in the woods? With tulips?”
Yes, I remember that little spot in the forest where Grim took me after our first night out. It was a merciful patch of grass that had sprouted somewhere in the Dead Woods. On its perimeter grew a little family of flowers … among them, tulips.
“Tulips …” I mumble.
The next voice I hear is neither Helena’s nor Ann’s, but Megan’s little one as she says, “You can call me that if you want. Your new name for me. My Undead name.”
I turn, daring myself to look at her again. She stares at me from the opened door of the gym-turned-hospital, Collin standing behind her with a hand on her shoulder. Her creepy green eye stares into the netherworld, her real one wetted with sadness.
“Tulip,” she mutters. “I’ll even pretend to like it. I thought you�
��d be proud of me.”
What did it take for this whole thing to happen? What was the conversation like between her and Ann and Collin? What convinced him to help? How did they sedate her? What sort of backwards medieval method did they employ in this world of limited resource to numb her to the pain? Collin may be a doctor with surgical experience, but who the hell knows what surgeries he performed when he was alive. Doctors specialize, don’t they? Are we just so lucky that he happens to be an eye doctor and an obstetrician? Is he also a neurosurgeon? Did he lose his license in a shady malpractice lawsuit?
Whatever, he’s probably a vet. “Just tell me. Is she going to be okay?” I ask Collin directly. “Is she, like, at risk for any infection or … or something?” He shakes his head. “I mean … because, well, let’s face it. You took out her eye and replaced it with a rock.”
“There are no guarantees,” he admits somberly. “But I also handled the body of the … the last Warlock. Who was also Human. After he was, well, dead. Really Megan should be resting. I told her not to get up, but …” He bites his lip, unable to go on, embarrassed. He’s never been the talking type. Until the Humans came, he was severely depressed and never spoke a word. His brother still runs the gymnasium, by the way. No one’s confirmed whether or not they’re actual brothers; we all assume it’s more of a death-brother, best-buddy sort of thing.
“Megan, no matter what we do next, we need to hide that eye,” I tell her. “No one can see it, Megan, no one. Especially not anyone who breathes.” Despite her look of disappointment, I turn back to Collin. “We need to come up with a story. Like … she fell and, and—ugh, I don’t know.” I slap a hand against my face. This isn’t going to end well, no matter how we spin it.
“I’ll handle the business,” Helena assures me. “We’ll have the Chief in on it. We’ll occupy her with some … fake task at the Town Hall. Maybe we can use Brains to figure out if this green eye has any green left in it. And—”
“My Raise?” I stop her right there. “You’re going to use my Raise as … as some kind of Warlock test subject?”