by S. M. Beiko
And now the promise of an end in sight was gone. Because having to kill a baddie in my hometown wasn’t bad enough; but the entire world could be at stake, and now I had to take that on, too?
I can’t. I CAN’T. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be the invisible nobody again. I just wanted to pass my English provincial exam. I’d always longed for normal, but I’d had it all along. Roan, you gigantic idiot. You gave it all up for THIS.
I was all cried out, lobbing these useless, dark thoughts back and forth until I was finally numb. I wanted to get as far away as I could, but I stayed rooted in my misery.
Then something rustled against my cheek — a dust mote, or a curious finger. I opened an eye, and saw a moth flutter by. Real hygienic, I thought miserably. Then I opened my spirit eye.
The Moth Queen herself stood silent over Cecelia and her Fox avatar. And me. She was still and all alone, a hundred hands all folded against her furred chest in expectation.
Bleary-eyed and absolutely done with everything, I lifted a hand. “Hey.”
She nodded, curious leaf-antennae swivelling like tiny satellites. “Fox-girl,” she said, in her burning cornfield voice.
Her wings flexed but did not open. I looked from the abyss of her sloe eyes to the bodies of my sleeping grandmother. “Who are you here for this time?”
The Moth Queen didn’t move — didn’t have facial features to arrange in any emotion, really, but I could’ve swore she smiled. “That is up to you.”
There was a thrill in suddenly having agency, a chance to make a choice, but I was too exhausted to run with it. “What do you mean?”
Whatever I’d thought was a smile had become so razor sharp I could cut myself on it. “Death does not explain itself. It only gives. And takes. When it arrives is up to those that need bearing.” She reached out a hand to me. It was beautiful, and it was prickly, but I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. Death was not the enemy, and this wasn’t the Moth Queen of my nightmares. She touched my cheek. She sounded sad. “I wondered if you had had enough, Fox-girl. If you needed me now.”
The hand was still close. Though it had been only a vague memory in the passing weeks, the comfort of the Moth Queen’s darkness came back to me. The reliability of it. The peace. She was offering me a way out from the responsibility, from the consequences of failing. She was here to grant my wish.
I wanted it. My whole body screamed, Yes. Please. Make it stop.
I took her hand in both of mine and held it there. “No. But thanks for thinking of me.”
Her wings unfurled like blossoming shadows. She took back her hand and bowed her head, dissolving into so many tiny bodies, each in search of souls that did need her. The only thing left of the Moth Queen was a face when she said, “We will see each other again, very soon.”
It was just Sil, Cecelia, and me now. I’d given up my get-out-of-jail-free card. But it seemed that Death herself respected the authority of my failing courage, had as much said now isn’t the time to run.
It wasn’t much. But if Death believed in me, I’d better start doing the same.
The hospital room door creaked open, and I threw my legs out of the chair.
“Whoa! Sorry ’bout that, just checkin’ on everything in here.” The nurse, a tall dirty-blond guy with stubble, strode in around the bed to check Cecelia’s various monitors and fluids. I was too startled to pull my hood up and hide my face. Too late now. He’d looked directly at me, glancing away from the IV drip to smile across at me.
“Geez, you look wiped. Your granny here’ll be just fine. Just leave ’er with us and get some rest. You can always come back later.”
My eyebrows twitched. I looked down at Sil, motionless and breathing slackly at the foot of the bed. “Um,” was all I could get out, but the nurse didn’t stop looking at me and never even gave the fox a second glance.
And his hand was still on Cecelia’s IV line, slowly crushing it.
“Go home. Get some rest,” the nurse said again, and I wavered slightly. Yeah. Rest. Man, I’m so tired. I need . . . I need to sleep —
My eyes grew heavy, but the one I needed, the one I could rely on, saw through the haze, and I snapped awake, clutching the chair and melting it in my grip as I twisted and hurled it across the bed at the Owl on the other side. A gale whipped up from nothing, and blew me, and the chair with it, back against the hospital room door.
I slammed hard into the door, wind knocked out of me and my back screaming from the impact. I crumpled to the floor, wheezing, trying to keep my spirit eye open and alert against the pain.
The nurse’s face, formerly buddy-buddy hippie, rippled like a disturbed parking lot oil slick. “Sorry about that,” the face burbled as it rearranged itself. “But I had to make sure it was you.”
As I tried to split my focus 50/50 on recovering quickly and not letting my guard down, I realized that somewhere in that murk of sound, was a familiar voice. I forced myself to my feet despite the pain in my back. Whoever he was could still harm Sil. Cecelia. Both.
“I know we’ve met before, but I’m terrible with faces. Especially when they don’t keep still,” I choked.
Then the face smiled, and it was whole. Maybe it’d been there all along, but it was taking my brain a bit to catch up with the Owl’s illusion. It was that police officer from school. The one with the grey, sad eyes.
“Jordan Seneca,” he said, bowing his head slightly. He gestured to the half-melted chair he’d just lobbed back at me. “Do you need to sit?”
“Thanks, I’d rather stand,” I shot back, shifting my weight, on the defensive. I felt the air heating up around me; he felt it, too. “What did you mean you had to make sure it was really me?” The hairs on the back of my head crackled like embers.
He held up his hands. “There’s no need for that,” he sighed. There was another chair on his end, and he pulled it up. He slumped into it, and my pulse calmed. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Answer the damn question. Because I’ll fight you just for the sake of putting my fist through something, I’m that done.” I kept my squeezed fists at my side, waiting.
He puffed his cheeks. He looked defeated. “I had to make sure it was you and not another Owl. In case I was walking into a trap.”
That got my attention. My mouth scrunched. “What? Trap set by who?”
He smiled. “My cousin. Vindictive little shit. You met him.” He clasped his hands between his lean legs. “Eli. He suspects I’m going to try to help you, if you’re found alive. Unfortunately for me, he’s right.”
“What? Wait . . . what?” I felt like I was dreaming of myself onstage, in front of a full house, and I’d forgotten my lines. Where was this coming from? “Don’t you and all your winged besties want me dead?”
Seneca scoffed. “I don’t think anyone knows what they want anymore. Least of all the Owls. All the other Families think we’ve got it together, that we’re this pious pillar of wisdom and guidance and that we know what’s best in the name of Ancient. But we’re questioning things now. We’re tired. We want it to end. And we didn’t believe it before, but . . . you might actually accomplish what we’ve resisted for hundreds of years. And it’s got them scared.”
I came closer to the bedside, antsy about having this guy close enough to Sil to smother her if I wasn’t quick enough. I put a hand on her head and she leaned into it, but she didn’t wake. I kept Seneca’s eyes locked on mine as I stood over my grandmother’s two bodies. He blinked. Owlishly.
“So the Owls are on my side now? Why?”
He raised a hand. “Slow down there. Mostly just this one.” He thumbed at himself. “The majority still think the best bet is to let Zabor have you. But some think otherwise, having now seen what you’re capable of. You left a nasty mark on our precious Paramount, and the lot of them won’t soon forget he’s actually fallible.” He sneered slightly at that.
With all the excitement of nearly being dead, I’d forgotten that I had fought back, that I had the upper hand for a second, but blew it. My current running guess had been that this Eli was the de facto leader of Winnipeg’s Owls . . . but now I knew he was the Paramount of them all. And I could see why. That kind of role was decided by power, and I wasn’t shocked.
“None of them believe you’re dead though, least of all Eli, who hates to see a project unfinished,” Seneca went on. “So he has us pounding the pavement. Hunting you. Interrogating Denizens. Reaching into human minds that may have seen you. I volunteered to lead the main task force. To be honest, finding you wasn’t too hard after what happened at your grandmother’s house.” He glanced from her to me so fast I barely registered he’d moved his eyes; a true prey bird. “They won’t stop. They’ll come for your friends. For your aunt and uncle. They’ll draw you out. You’ve seen Eli at work already, not only on yourself but on Arnas. He won’t stop until he’s fulfilled the task he’s being made to carry out. He’s sure you’ll fail in defeating Zabor, so your only option left is to die.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding and closed my eyes, looking inward. It was quiet inside, and I followed my veins as they shunted life through tiny corridors, keeping me upright, holding me together. A body pummelled and hunted and hated, and it still trundled on. Momentum demands that you keep going. The world keeps spinning even when a part of it burns.
Because the world was a body. It had its own order. The Owls believed they were the reason that order was protected, that they were what kept it going. Little did they know that without them, it’d still be what it was: a cycle of death, of a demon’s petty revenge. The sleeping god they feared had nothing to do with it.
“It won’t stop with me.” I opened my mismatched eyes. “And I won’t stop, either. Until it does.”
We’d exchanged these words already. Seneca, like Death, had come to test my resolve and see if I had any left.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m going to keep them off you, off your family, your little A-Team, for as long as I can. So you can do what you need to.”
“Oh yeah?” I challenged. “You’d put your life at risk for me?” But I was grateful for his offer and suddenly felt the relief I’d been craving.
“Not just my life. Everyone’s. For their own sakes.” And that was it. After all the doubting and the anxiety, we had our Owl. We were Five. All that left now was the targe.
He smiled a little, probably reading my thoughts. “Now, I know you need to get into the legislature, to get to the Bloodgate. They’ll have it heavily protected, but there are ways to get in undetected. And I can show you how.”
*
Seneca has promised them a week of lying low and safety. Seven days. This is all they get before they have to dive into hell and somehow come back out.
Barton is in the summoning chamber that his parents had sealed up years ago, beneath the house he’d grown up in. He could never go to the basement before, anyways, so he’d never been curious enough to check it out for magical secret rooms. It smells like Roan’s chamber: warm earth, walls made of peat and stones.
“They’ll help you,” Arnas Harken is saying, nodding towards these miraculous arms. “They’ll keep you grounded, which is what you need.” The broken man smiles for a second, remembering his training, maybe, but the smile doesn’t last. “For this you need to be still. Everything. Your heart. Your brain. Your soul. You’re trying to open up the earth, and it answers only to itself. You’ve got a week to learn how to tame it, so quiet your mind.”
Barton’s mother and father stand aside from the silver circles glowing dim under the loamy soil. They nod. Barton has learned not to resent them for what they did, especially after seeing the look of desperate understanding in the eyes of the First Rabbit. She had understood their sacrifice. And so does he.
Barton squares his shoulders, the tension there built up from years of compensation. His mind races. The possibilities are endless. He can become the hero he’s dreamed of. And most of all, he can stand tall (if only metaphorically) beside Phae. He can be her equal.
Yes. He grounds his palms into the earth, clenching the wet. He thinks of Phae. His mind is still.
“Okay,” he breathes, feeling the world in his hands, his heart.
Arnas nods. “Let’s begin.”
*
Four days.
Natti stands on the porch of her aunty’s house in Point Douglas, staring out into the neighbourhood, into nothing. She thinks about Roan Harken and her friends and the mess they’ll be in. She thinks of how different their lives are. She tried not to think about it when they found themselves on Wellington Crescent before the throwdown with Roan’s uncle. Now that was an eye-opener. White girl from the wealthy suburbs forced to save the world. Not like Natti hasn’t heard that story before. But Roan knows less than Natti first assumed. She leans heavily on her friends, asks for help. She needs them. Doesn’t presume she can do it without them. At least when it comes down to it, they are all just a scared bunch of kids. But they are willing to do this together. At least she can rely on that.
Natti shakes her head. Her aunt has already warned her that a lot will be resting on her when the big throwdown comes — there are very few Seals this far inland in Canada, and she is one of the strongest Winnipeg has. It’ll be up to her to listen for the water. And it’s already angry. It’s already coming for them. Nothing they didn’t already know. But Natti can hear it from miles away. The chattering of the river’s children with the side-slash mouths. The ice is breaking, and Natti can’t freeze it all.
She looks at her hands. She’s going to have to try, though. Or at least keep the water at bay, keep Zabor’s hunters out of their hair when the big momma herself wakes up. Natti glances back out into the neighbourhood, which reeks of road salt and thawing sewer pipes and smoke, babies crying and women screaming and men yelling. This is her place, despite how decrepit it is, despite how someone like Roan Harken would never come down here for a social visit. This is Natti’s stock, and she’s always had to prove herself against it. But she wonders now if maybe, despite the world telling her she can’t do much . . . that this place is a part of her, and it is worth protecting.
She finds herself slumping down the basement stairs, assaulted with a deep chill and the smell of mildew. Spiders scatter as she removes the cinderblocks on top of the freezer. There’s no sound from inside. She unlocks it slowly, steps back a few steps, waits.
The freezer hinges crack like a thunderclap as the baby river hunter bursts out, landing wetly on the cracked concrete of the basement floor. It keens wildly, gaping mouth wide.
Natti doesn’t move or try to stop it; she waits.
“Hello, little one,” she says in the water-tongue that this creature would know. The language Natti’s mother taught her, sang her to sleep with . . . before she became another statistic and disappeared.
The hunter whips its head towards her, a tentative claw in the air, grotesque face hemmed with concern. “Mother?” it mewls, sniffing the air around Natti cautiously. It can smell the Arctic Ocean in her veins — a cleaner, richer scent than the dank death-water it once knew.
So, Aunty was right (was she ever wrong?): kept in seclusion long enough, these things forget where they come from. Forget their loyalty. Most die of loneliness, but this one is strong.
But Natti will not start this creature’s second chance at life with a lie. “No, little one,” she says. “I am not. But I could be your sister instead, and you could be my brother. Your own creature. If you needed me.”
Before she could think, the hunter is in the air, nearly on her, but she puts out a hand and stops it. Her face is stone. She must be the waters of life. She needed to get close to the hunter, to see if it was possible that they could come back. That any hunter could be human again.
She holds firm, as still as a lake. She
could be a tsunami, but not yet.
The red eyes of the creature have changed. Now they are a murky green. It looks at Natti’s hand, wrapped around its bony wrist in a loose grip. It pulls back its arm and tentatively touches her chubby digits, comparing the hands. Thinking.
“Hm,” it grunts, transfixed, still considering. “Sister?”
“Yeah,” Natti says, slipping back into English, nodding. “Sister.”
*
Two days.
I flexed my hands, staring at them underneath the table. Only a couple more sleeps, and that’d be it: we either did it, or we didn’t.
“You sure you don’t want anything, hon?” Deedee asked me, concern filling up the visible part of her forehead underneath the cranial bandage. “You can’t just have iced tea. They have red velvet cake, you know!”
I half smiled. Yeah, we’re in Sals . . . I know about their trademark delectables. “I ate a little while ago, Deedee. No worries.” I was lying, as usual, but it came naturally now. I couldn’t remember when I last ate. And there were lots of worries more important than red velvet cake. Heapings.
Arnas was elsewhere. Things had been going well with Barton, but there wasn’t much time left to hedge our bets. That was step one; opening the door. If he could do it, I’d still have to go through. I’d volunteered, after all, because I had more experience in other realms than anyone else, and I’d know how to handle myself down there.
But the hypotheticals piled up: If I made it through and couldn’t make it back out, then Zabor would still go hungry, demand blood, and it’d be for nothing. My mother had been strong, but even her lifeline snapped.
Couldn’t think like that. I needed to relax. Everyone said so. Even Sil, when I went to visit her in the hospital. She’d taken up residence in the bottom of the supply closet in her hospital room, and Seneca made sure everyone thought she was just a pile of old linens that no one could ever move. She still needed rest; she’d had a lot taken out of her. But even in her exhaustion, she just nodded, knowing I could do the thing. And on the rare times I’d seen her in the past week, I hadn’t even asked what would be down there waiting for me. I didn’t have the energy to think about it.