by Charlie Hart
Why in Hades name can’t I fade? I’m cursed to be here forever.
Shocked, Hawthorne turns to me. “You don’t mean that.”
I shrug, determined to be strong even if inside the words are hollowing me out. Standing from the rocker, I pull my short dress down. “Yes, I do. We don’t know how long we have left, and I don’t want to be the one to hold you guys back. Go live the rest of your half-life to its fullest.”
“Don’t be like this,” Hawthorne says, standing too, reaching for me. “We’ve been friends since we were little. And South and Lennox, they’ve been by our side for years. The four of us are a team, the only family I’ve got. Why would you throw it all away?”
“Because I can’t give you what you want,” I say crossing my arms, defiance becoming my protective armor. My heart is too sad to say the truth: I want them and hate the idea of losing them forever. Better to let them go now than hold on to a dream that is already dying.
“You mean you don’t want to,” South says.
“Exactly.”
“Fine,” Lennox says, a harsh edge to his voice I’ve never heard before. “Then don’t come home tonight. Don’t ask us for favors, to get you out of the hundred jams you’ll be in next week. Don’t look to us when you’re bored or lonely or--”
“Hey.” Hawthorne raises a hand. “It doesn’t have to be like this. We can just go home and--”
“No,” South interjects, angry. “Give her what she wants. It’s clearly not us.”
“Fine.” I lift an eyebrow. Looking across the marsh, I see the stranger, the new soul, from earlier coming toward the porch, toward me. “Should I just go then?”
The guys follow my gaze, seeing it land on a stranger.
“For fuck's sake, Ten, really?” Hawthorne’s face is written with pain. I’m doing this to him.
But he doesn’t know why.
I know what’s been happening to me. More and more each day.
“I can’t do this,” I tell them, stepping off the porch, toward the stranger.
Under his breath, I hear South mutter, “But apparently she can do him.”
I don’t look back. I won’t hurt the ones I love with all my heart. I can’t bear to be with them as we all lose each other.
It’s better like this.
“Hey,” I say, reaching the stranger. My body twisting inside as I get closer. Why am I so drawn to this soul? It makes no sense, yet I come closer still, unable to turn my back on him, it’s as if my feet are cemented to this marsh. “I’m Tennyson. What’s your name?”
He lifts his chin, and I see his bright green eyes, his dark black hair. Gasping at the words, he says, “I’m Eric. And I think I’m dead.”
3
Tennyson
His words are familiar. How many times have I met someone here, who has only just arrived, and listened to their story; explained the situation? There is no rulebook for Styx, it’s a sink or swim kinda place.
People are usually only here for a day or two, a week maybe. Except for Hawthorne and me. We’ve been here since we were so young and for ages, it’s was just us against the world. Before yesterday, he knew everything little thing about me, and I know every little thing about him too. Each scar, each scrape, each bruise. Through thick and thin. When after what must have been fifteen years of getting through this place together, watching souls fade, always leaving us behind, we met Lennox and then South, shortly after.
One look was all it took. We were meant to be friends.
This man though seems more than confused; he looks downright ill.
“Are you okay?” I ask as he staggers backward. I reach for his hand, feeling something spark between us as our fingers meet.
He falls to his knees, head in his hands as if he has a headache. Then he looks up at me. “Are you real?” he asks, his breath ragged.
“I’m real,” I tell him.
At least, I think I am.
“Where are we? I drowned and then... I don’t understand. How did I?”
“This is Styx. The in-between.”
“The what?”
“Styx,” I repeat, then I tell him what this place is. Purgatory is a word a lot of new arrivals use.
“It doesn’t make sense. Gaia told me I was coming to help Harlow’s sister. I shouldn’t be here. I was supposed to... Acheron... I must... go...” He stops speaking again, and his hands fall to the ground, bracing himself on all fours.
I swallow, not exactly qualified to help.
Then he begins to roll on the ground, howling in pain. I jump out of his way, not wanting these heels to be wrecked. Though, looking down in the damp grass, I realize they are ruined already. Great.
“I feel sick,” he moans. “I’m exhausted and so worn out. She didn’t tell me it would be so hard to travel here.”
I grimace, biting my bottom lip. I just told my best friends things were over. And a few minutes later I already need their help. They know me so damn well.
No. I can do this on my own. I just need a witch doctor.
“Can you sit up?” I ask, just as Eric is rolling over in the marshy grass, on his back, moaning. I sink to his side, my knees covered in mud. I hold his face, trying to will him to get it together. Instead, his head rolls back, his eyes close.
I don’t know why I care, why I’m not content with letting his soul do what it wants here, but when I press my hands to his cheeks, I can’t help but feel, deep in my belly, that I can’t just let him go.
Groaning, I try to conjure him. “Come on, Eric, you got this, just...” His breath shallows and so I press my lips against him, my chest against his own, wanting to revive him somehow, some way. I breathe into his mouth, my only goal to keep him here, grounded. Among the half-living.
It works. He moans, gripping his stomach, the pain still clear on his face. He’s turned a pale green, and I begin to panic. “Okay, just hold tight, okay? I’ll get help.”
I don’t wait for an answer, I just run toward the mansion, but my stupid heels sink into the soggy ground, and eventually, I quit trying to pull them from the wet dirt. Barefoot, I run toward the house, where Hawthorne, South, and Lennox are all in the kitchen, arguing.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Hawthorne asks immediately upon seeing me.
“Goddammit,” Lennox growls. “Do you not remember what we were just saying?”
“Look at her…” Hawthorne points to me and their faces all scrunch up in worry.
I look down at myself and see my legs and bare feet caked in mud.
“You were seriously gone for five minutes, Ten.” South pushes away from the kitchen island. “What the fuck did that bastard do to you?”
“He didn’t do anything. He just needs a witch doctor.”
Lennox’s lips curl. “I knew it. You push us away and already you are back asking us for help.”
“Dammit, I know. I’m a flake and a fuck up and I broke your hearts. But this guy is dying.”
Lennox lifts an eyebrow. “We’re already dead, remember?”
“Fine, whatever.” I throw up my hands and begin running room to room, asking for a witch doctor. No one here is one. Of course, they aren’t. We’re in a fancy-pants house on the water, the center of town. Not deep in the Bayou, where the voodoo casts its spell.
“Anyone? Any at all?” I beg, asking guest after guest for help. Realizing I look like a crazy person, screaming for help like this.
I don’t know why I feel loyalty to this man I don’t know. He touched me and said words that make no sense, yet they hit me in my heart. I don’t know who Gaia is or who Harlow might be, but his touch sent a sensation straight to my core.
“Hawthorne,” I ask, knowing he won’t say no. Is it wrong to use him again, the way I always have? “Will you... help?”
Hawthorne and Lennox share a look, and as they do, I see the faintest etchings of a fade burning over their brows. My heart constricts, knowing what is coming. For all of them.
“He just got here and is sick. Something isn’t r
ight.”
Time stills as I wait for an answer. Lennox looks so bruised and broken when our eyes meet. I remember the day I met him. He’d crawled from the marsh and been so damn scared. Hawthorne and I took him home with us. I never let him go.
Finally, it’s Lennox who breaks the silence. “Of course, we’ll help you, Tenny.”
Relief washes over me, and I don’t even know why I care so damn much for a stranger, but I do. “Thank you. Thank you, Lennox.” I wrap my arms around him, kissing his cheek. Grateful for his tenderness toward me as undeserving of it as I am.
“On one condition,” he says as I pull away.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You stay with us tonight.”
4
South
She answers quickly with a yes. I tell myself it’s because she wants to be with us and not because she cares that fucking much about a man she just met.
But I know Tenny. She loves the newcomers. She’s always asking them questions about their old lives, desperate for some clue as to why she’s been here, stuck, for so long. It’s strange, she and Hawthorne are the only two people here in Styx who age. And damn I’m jealous that he had the honor of growing up with the girl I love.
But unfortunately, Hawthorne, Lennox, and I are old hat. We aren’t novel, we aren’t new. We don’t have exciting stories about the real world to dole out. We don’t have a single story she hasn’t heard.
She knows us inside and out. Up and down, in every possible way.
Except for the way I really want.
I want to know her body the way I know her heart. I want to feel her skin against mine, see her vulnerable for once in her damn life.
But instead of giving me the thing I wanted, she pushed me away.
We asked for more. She said no.
Maybe it was too much, to consider all three of us. Maybe we should have asked her to choose.
But I love the guys as much as I fucking love her. And why choose, when we all love her so damn much?
Instead, she wants us to save some fucking newbie.
“Where is he?” I ask, and then we’re following her from the house to the wet grass, to the man unconscious on the edge of the river.
I want to ask if it’s worth it. One look at him and it’s clear he’s struggling even to breathe. Wouldn’t it be easier to let his soul decide? Why intervene now?
Then I look at Ten. Poor, misguided Tennyson. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, who can’t see herself the way her best friends do. If only she could. Tenny, who throws herself at any guy who will look at her to avoid rejection from the ones she loves.
The irony is, the moment she hears our confession of love, she still runs. Self-preservation is a motherfucker and it kills me to see what it does to the girl I’ve loved since I arrived in this godforsaken place.
“Never mind,” I say, pulling the guy into my arms. He’s big, but I’m bigger and stronger. “Where’s the doctor?”
Tennyson has a plan, and while there are no cars in Styx, there are a hell of a lot of riverboats and rafts. “Let’s take our boat and head south, toward the River Styx.”
Hawthorne smirks at Tennyson. “Is this what you meant when you said you wanted to see how much you could change your fortune in one day?”
“Maybe it is,” she says with a small smile. “One day can change everything, right?”
Before Hawthorne can answer, Lennox jumps in. “And this asshole is the change you’ve been waiting for?” Lennox’s voice is filled with more than a hint of irritation. “We’re not enough, but this stranger is?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, but then Eric is down again, in the grass and we’re reminded to keep moving.
Lennox and Hawthorne lead the way as we cross the grass to the established path and we walk down the dock to our small rig. Lennox lights a lantern when he steps into the boat and minutes later, I’ve placed this Eric guy on a bench, and am reaching for an oar. Modern conveniences like engines don’t exist down here--just one of the thousands of things I miss from life home.
Of course, life Earth-side had a hell of a lot of problems too.
“I can help,” Ten offers, but of course we brush her off. We’ve been steering this boat for years and Ten never paddles, not that she hasn’t offered. It’s just that -- not to be a chauvinistic ass -- we have brawn where Ten has beauty. We guys might as well put our strength to use every once in a while.
“Just make sure he doesn’t puke in the boat,” Lennox says. He tries to laugh it off, but I feel the tension. it’s thick enough to slice.
“Thanks, guys,” Ten says as the boat careens through the black waters. The oars slap the river’s surface and we maneuver around the reeds growing near the bank. Souls swish around us as they fade away, and the familiar hush of death fills the river. I can hardly remember what Earth sounded like anymore. Cars honking and kids at the park are distant memories. It’s true what they say. You never realize how sweet something is until it’s gone.
“Anything for you, Tenny,” Hawthorne says, and right now I’m grateful for the thick dark night. I don’t think I’d want to see Hawthorne’s face right now. I know the way he gets when he starts wishing for a life with Ten; a life he’s never going to have.
It fucking kills me, and I know it kills Lennox too. Why doesn’t it kill Ten? Has she built her walls so damn high to not see how devoted he is to her?
How devoted we all are?
We paddle for what feels like an hour. Sweat drips from my brow and that fucker Eric is still moaning about being in pain. He’s not the one rowing his ass down this river.
“To the right,” Ten directs. “See down there, the light?”
There is a lantern hanging on a tree branch and as we near, I ask how she knows this place.
“I’ve been here once before,” I tell him. I look over my shoulder again at Hawthorne and see that his jaw is clenched. “Remember when we came here, Haw?” she asks as we ease our boat against the dock of the witch doctor’s house.
“I remember.” He sets down his oar and reaches for the rope to tie the boat to the dock. “She had broken her arm,” he tells us. “When she fell from a corpus tree, and we asked all around for help.”
“And finally, we heard that there was a witch doctor down the river,” Ten offers. “We must’ve been nine or ten.”
Hawthorne turns to her, and I try not to be jealous of their long history, but it’s hard. It’s always been hard.
“You should never have been in that tree,” he tells her. “You were so stubborn.”
“I call it determined,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. The night air is unusually cool, and I instinctively pull off my leather jacket and hand it to her. “Thanks, South,” she says. When she puts it on it reaches her knees. It looks like she isn’t wearing anything at all underneath the jacket.
I push the thought from my mind.
No point in dwelling on desires that will never come to pass.
I reach for Eric, forcing his arm over my shoulder, helping him stand. Hawthorne comes to the other side of me and props the guy up.
Together, we pull him from the boat as he weakly manages to put one foot in front of the other.
“Ohh, God,” he groans, his head dropping to his chest.
“Come on, buddy,” I say. “Stay alert.”
Tennyson’s eyes meet mine and it’s clear she’s scared.
Ten is never scared.
Lots of newcomers have a hard time transitioning. But usually, if a soul is struggling, it’s a clear indication that they don’t belong here. Why the hell does she care about this guy anyway?
“Do we trust this witch?” Lennox asks as we walk toward a decrepit house nestled in the trees. When our feet leave the dock and hit the ground, they squish in the marshy ground.
“Where else would we go?” Tennyson asks. And it’s a legitimate question. I was in the real world until I died at twenty-one. I have strong memo
ries of hospitals and doctors’ visits. Things like that don’t exist here. Everyone who arrives is dead already. And most people, if they got really ill in Styx, their souls would relieve them of any agony before a doctor would be called.
“I just remember doctors after being sick for so long,” Lennox says. “So, I just get a little spooked out at the idea of seeing one again.” His words come out in a rush. Tennyson reaches for his hand, taking it in her own.
“From what you’ve told me about the doctors at the cancer center, they are going to be a lot different than this old witch. I promise.”
“A good different?” Lennox asks. It’s unusual seeing this confident guy need reassurance, but he does, and thank God he gets it from Tennyson. That’s the thing, why we must stick together, no matter what she might think right now. We need one another to work, to survive down here in Styx.
Otherwise, we’re all going to our final resting place alone.
5
Tennyson
Barefoot, I walk toward the shack, the dank swampy water around us and fireflies dancing between tree branches. The air isn’t musty; instead, a familiar scent of sandalwood and thyme lingers around the place.
I swallow, remembering this scent from another time, another place. It was one of my mother’s smells: her kitchen, her potions. Her magic.
My heart aches for what I don’t have, what I’ll never have again.
Lennox fades in and out, and I look around, startled, wondering if anyone else noticed, but they didn’t. Everyone is focused on putting one foot in front of the other right now.
Scared, I reach for Lennox, squeezing his bicep tightly, then pressing my face to his chest, breathing him in -- needing the reassurance that he is still here, with me.
“You okay?” he asks concern in his voice, brushing my pale purple hair from my face, looking down at me. I breathe him in, loving the way he looks at me and hating that I can’t have what I want.
A real life, a real future with these men.