by Charlie Hart
“I’m scared of losing you,” I admit, a single tear falling down my cheek.
“I am too,” he admits, his thumb wiping my tear away. His hands run over my breasts, his mouth on my ear, whispering ever so softly, “I love you, Tennyson.”
And I know he does. Because when he touches me it is tender, and when he looks in my eyes it’s like he drowns, and when he presses his lips to my breasts, I feel like I’m in the arms of my soulmate, my lover, my best friend--my dream come true.
And it’s not just Hawthorne. It’s Lennox and South too, they are my forever. My center. My true north. Their arms reach around me, and I feel grounded when they surround me, when they hold me.
Like I won’t fade so long as we just stay as we are.
“I don’t want you to be buried in the Elysian Fields,” I whisper. “I want you to stay here, with me.”
“I know,” South says, his voice low, gravelly. He understands the fear. “It’s so final, right?”
I nod, my chin quivering, naked with the men I love, and we should euphoric, blissed out and indulging in what we’ve dreamt of for so long. But the rawness of what is coming seems to wrap around us, and soon the tears are streaking my cheeks.
I can’t lose my best friends.
I can’t lose the men I love.
But then... it’s not just South’s hand that is fading, so much of all of them is translucent.
“Oh, God,” I manage to get out, before I collapse in their arms, lost to the grief filling my soul.
They’re leaving. Soon.
“Oh, Tenny,” Hawthorne whispers, his cheeks covered with tears too, and I gasp, seeing that his shoulder is fading like it did earlier. I press my hand to it, willing it to stay put.
Hysteria wrecks me, and I’m holding onto them, my body pressing against theirs, needing them to stay put and while it works. It doesn’t help. My force, whatever it is, can’t keep them grounded. They are fading and we all know it.
I’m shaking, terrified and desperate.
“It’s okay, Ten, it’s okay,” Lennox assures me. “We’re all still here. We’re here. Take hold of me, Tennyson. Touch me. See, you are here. We are here.”
His words take root in my heart and won’t let them go, but how can he be sure?
“Tenny,” South says, taking hold of me by the shoulders, forcing me to listen. He is firm and solid, and his words are strong. “Don’t let fear take over.”
“You can’t force your soul to stay, South,” I say, salty tears hitting my lips. “It’s not how it works. You’re going to leave me. And then… how will I bear it? Losing you all?”
South’s blue eyes won’t have any of it. “You don’t know how it works, Ten. Maybe it is changeable.”
“Maybe what is changeable?” Eric’s voice startles us.
South reaches down for his tee-shirt and slips it over my head discreetly before Eric can see my bare body. Turning to him, I answer. “They are fading, and we have to make it stop.”
Eric’s nods. “Agreed. We’ve to get out of here.”
“Don’t you think if there was some portal we’d have already tried it?” I ask.
“There is no portal, I’m sure of it,” Hawthorne says.
“How can you be absolutely sure?” Eric asks. “If there’s a will, there’s a way, right?”
But Hawthorne just shakes his head, and it’s clear something weighs heavy on his shoulders.
He clears his throat, running a hand through his hair, not meeting my eyes. “I hate this, Ten. But I have to tell you, in case I fade before I get a chance. It’s best you hear this from me.”
“What is it?” I ask, worried, stepping close to my oldest friend. “You can tell me.”
“You know how we met when you first arrived?”
I nod.
“Well, I hadn’t just arrived.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, my heart trembling.
“I’d been here. For quite a while already.”
“What do you mean?” I shake my head.
His gaze is now fixed on mine. Like he needs to look in his eyes as he says it. “As a mercenary.”
“A mercenary for who?” South asks, rage fueling his words. His past has made him hate liars even more than most.
“I work for Hades,” Hawthorne says. “Or at least I did.”
“Why?” I ask, wondering how my oldest friend could have betrayed me.
He exhales, a weight seeming to lift from his shoulders as he does. “I made a deal with the devil in order to save my soul. And then I crossed him.”
11
Hawthorne
I never meant to be the villain in Tennyson’s story, but I see now that I am.
Her cheeks were already streaked with tears, but now fury fills her face.
“What the hell?” she shouts, fists raised. South pulls her back, and she crumples against his chest.
“Tell us who the fuck you are,” Lennox growls. I’ve never seen him pissed. He has always been the weak one, the sensitive type. But now I see another side of him, strength comes when you know you are loved, and maybe that’s what’s happened to him -- same as me.
Tennyson gave him her heart and it has fortified him into something larger than life.
Well, it’s done the same to me.
Except, I was already larger than life. Truth is, I was never human, to begin with.
“What do you mean you made a deal to save your soul?” South asks, his arms wrapped around Ten.
I pace the cottage, my hands running through my hair, my mind buzzing. What do I say?
“The word soul may have been a stretch.... more like... I gave Hades my loyalty in order to live here, in Styx.”
Tennyson lifts her chin, looking at me with eyes so filled with hurt, I can’t help but step toward her.
She steps back. Scared of me. She’s shaking and scared and fading too damn fast and it can’t be like this. Not after seventeen years devoted to her. Hades can’t turn on his word now.
Or can he?
Looks like he fucking did. I’m not supposed to fade. It shouldn’t be possible with the protection he placed on me all those years ago when he asked for a volunteer.
“What loyalty?” South asks, pulling Ten back in his arms. And I fucking resent him for that. For his human body that allows him to be where without secrets. Without lies.
“You’ve been waiting to kill me all this time?” she asks, confusion lacing her words with sorrow. “Why would Hades send a four-year-old to kill on me?”
“I wasn’t four. I mean, physically I was... but come on, Ten. How do you think you survived in this place, so well? Got the clothes you wear or the houses we’ve stayed in? The books you’ve wanted to read. Hell, all of it.”
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head and her purple hair covers her eyes. I wish she wasn’t scared of me right now, so I could brush it from her face, tell her I am the same person she has always loved.
But she sees me as someone else now. Someone I’ve worked so hard to hide, to bury.
“You’ll never see me the same again,” I say, shame covering me.
“Too late,” Tenny says, stepping away from South and pointing her finger at me. “You tricked me.”
“I tried to protect you.”
“By lying about who you are?” She shakes her head again, bewildered.
“The truth will wreck you, Ten. I don’t want that.”
“How badly is it gonna wreck her?” Eric asks, interjecting himself in our affair. “Because I need Tennyson in one piece, so I can take her to the surface.”
“Not before Hawthorne tells us who he is,” she says again. “Then we can leave him.”
But Lennox grunts in disapproval. “He’s the one who has been here the longest, maybe he can help us find a way out.”
“Lennox!” Tennyson shoots him a disapproving look. “Whose side are you on?”
“It’s not sides. It’s love.”
“It’s not love w
hen it’s grown from lies,” she says softly.
“Tennyson,” I say, reaching for her hand, but she pulls away. “I’m a demon. Is that what you really wanted to hear?”
“A demon?” she asks, her eyes narrowed.
“I lived in the Underworld, I have no idea how long. I lived there and then Hades said he had a mission that was important. To kill you, his daughter. And he sent me because I was his right-hand man.”
“His daughter?” She looks at me blankly.
“I don’t know the details. I just know he isn’t allowed in Styx for some reason. And you’re here, which makes you untouchable.”
“You know how impossible that sounds?” she asks.
“What part of this isn’t impossible?”
She covers her mouth with her hand. “Is that why I’m alive?” she asks. “Because Hades was involved?”
“I remember him saying that the binding would only last until you were twenty-one. So, I knew time was running out...”
“You knew this was coming?” she asks. “You knew things would come to a head and you just…”
“Just did my best to make you happy? Yes. That is exactly what I did, Tennyson. Everything surfaced yesterday because we admitted our love to you. We should never have confessed. It accelerated everything. The only thing Hades hates more than true love, is his wife, Persephone.”
“I don’t understand,” South says, crossing his arms. “If you were Hades’ right-hand man... how old are you?”
I swallow. This is the question that I know will send Ten running.
“I don’t know. I mean, the Underworld isn’t like Styx. There is no beginning or end, there just is. A fiery blaze, an inferno. It’s hell. And I only remember ever being there. But then I was sent to Styx, given a new body-- this body. And I met you, Tennyson. And the flames died and, in their place, something grew. Love.”
Tennyson looks at me with hatred, disgust.
“You’re twisted. Sick. You took advantage of me, Hawthorne.” She pushes me hard in the gut. Screaming at me. “You...” She pounds on my chest. “You played with my heart. And now, when you’re all about to go to fade, you tell me this? Is there supposed to be comfort in that?”
“No,” I agree, holding her by her wrists. “I know there isn’t comfort. But look at me, Ten. Look me in the eyes. I could be a thousand or I could be thirty. It doesn’t matter. I don’t remember feeling emotions, feelings, loyalty, until you. I knew nothing but destruction until you. You gave me hope. You gave me life. I was sent to kill you. Instead, I fell in love.”
“Love?” Tennyson cackles, her laugh bitter and dry. “This is not love. How could we understand love when we’ve spent our lives in this hazy in-between? We tell ourselves Styx is better than death, but it’s not. I remember being a child and seeing blue skies and green trees. Here it is only dark, every fucking day. Here it is moldy and dusty and frayed. We get scraps from the surface, morsels traded for what? Spirits and souls? This is not love, Hawthorne, or whoever you are. This is hell.”
I grip her wrists and hold tight to her until she stops shaking. “You’re wrong. Being with you, Tennyson, is fucking heaven. You’re my saving grace.”
Tears pour from her eyes and I break for her, this woman I know so damn well. This woman I lied to because I couldn’t bear to say the truth.
“You are more whole than you know,” I tell her. “And I know you hate me now, but I would do this all over again if it meant I had these years with you instead of the years below.”
She falls against my chest, her body trembling to its very core. “I don’t hate you,” she sobs. “I just hate that I’m losing all of you.”
“What?” South shouts. “You forgive him for lying to us? What the hell, Ten?”
She lifts her head from my chest. “Is that what you’d prefer? For our last moments together to be filled with hatred? Dammit, South, what does it matter? He loves me. And I love him, and you’re are all going to die anyway!” she screams.
“Why were we all protected for so long?” Lennox asks. “I understand Hawthorne and Ten, but why you and me, South?”
Eric clears his throat. “It’s love. It’s what has saved you.”
“Love?” I ask.
He nods. “It’s what saved my family.”
“Except you died.”
“That was Poseidon’s fault. Not love’s.”
“Fuck the bastard,” South hisses.
“Right?” Eric shakes his head. “That’s why I’m trying to get the hell home. So, are you guys gonna help or what?”
“My dad is really Hades?” Tennyson asks, looking at me with trepidation as if she doubts me. God, it kills me to have her look a time with such mistrust.
“He is, Ten. I don’t know why he wants you here, or why the binding only lasted as long as it did. I just know he found out you were here and wanted someone from his side to come after you.”
“Why did you do it?” she asks me.
“If I did as I was told before you turned twenty-one, I’d be granted freedom.”
“Freedom?” Ten asks. “What do you mean?”
“I’d be given this body to keep Earth-side.”
“You’re could have gone to the surface?” she asks, her eyes welling with tears.
I clear my throat. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
12
Tennyson
Just then, as if a gust of wind has swept through the cottage, all three of them lose more color. I immediately reach for them, trying to pull my best friends close to me, but I’m not strong enough to do so.
“Oh God,” I whisper. “I’m not able to help... to keep you together.”
“There is one thing I don’t understand,” Lennox says. “Why did Hades lose his daughter to Styx in the first place?”
“Another unanswerable question,” South says, and from his voice, it’s clear that his patience is wearing thin. “We’re hardly even here at all. If we’re gonna try and escape, we have to hurry. Hawthorne, do you know the way?”
He shakes his head. “I wish.”
But Eric smiles, a smile that makes me understand why a woman is in love with him Earth-side. His face lights up as if relieved that we are finally interested in moving forward instead of fighting.
“We need to get to the boat and travel to Acheron,” he says. “Gaia said that is the way home.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“The river of sorrow.”
I pull my dress on before we leave the cottage. The men are headed down the dock toward the boat, but I take a final look at this home of the recently faded.
It reminds me of my mother’s home--what my four-year-old mind remembers of it, at least. Mom and my auntie had herbs lining shelves, apothecary jars filled with herbs and tinctures. They were witches, I had that in my vocabulary at least, but I don’t know what sort of magic they conjured.
How much I’ve wished over the years that I had their spells. That something in those jars could possibly be the key to finding a way out. I wish I had one of their spells right now. To take away the thousands of questions burning in my mind... how my father is Hades and how is Hawthorne’s story possible?
Who is Harlow and why is Hawthorne a liar, and am I going to die, once and for all?
And if so, why did I wait so damn long to admit to what I always knew?
I love South and I love Lennox and I even love Hawthorne, despite his lies.
I’m not sure what that says about me, but all I know is this: Hawthorne may be a demon, but wouldn’t I have chosen the exact same thing as him if given the opportunity?
I would do anything right now to leave Styx with my men. Which is, apparently, nowhere near as bad as the Underworld. In theory, I don’t hate Hawthorne for lying. But now, at the moment-- it’s hard to reconcile.
I wonder who will take up residence here next. Who will arrive at this dock and rock in this chair, waiting for someone to help for a day or a week or a month until t
hey fade?
My heart tightens. How have I not come to accept dying after living here for so long?
“Ten,” Hawthorne calls, coming back for me.
“I’m coming.” And I am. I take a final look at the cottage and close the door. It feels like the end of a chapter; or really, the end of a book.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, reaching for my hand. It’s dark, but I can barely even remember life in the light.
His fingers brush against my own and my breath catches. Hours ago, we were at a party where we didn’t belong, drinking moonshine that wasn’t ours, and now we are here, at the end of our lives.
“Why are you fading if Hades made you a promise?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I betrayed him. I’m just getting what I deserve.”
I press my lips together, feeling a surge of emotion within me. For him. “You don’t deserve to die.”
“Does anyone?”
My chin quivers, tears splashing down my cheeks. “I’m so scared, Hawthorne.”
He pulls me to him, his strong arms taking hold of my face, my eyes on his. “No more tears, Ten. Not until we know for sure what is happening.”
“And then what?”
“Then we will figure it out together like we always have.”
“I feel stupid, too. For not realizing what you are. That you weren’t a child like me.”
His eyes well with tears. “I don’t even know what I was before you, before us. I just know what I am when I am with you. Yours. I wish I knew more. Why I was in the Underworld and how long I’d been there. I spent eternity waiting for you, and here you are.”
His mouth crashes against my lips, and he kisses me like it’s the last kiss we’ll ever share. And maybe it is. Maybe forever ends tonight.
“I love you,” I say, gasping between kisses. The boat is loaded, and we need to go, but I’m not ready to leave Hawthorne’s arms.
“I love you too,” he says, pushing my hair from my eyes, cradling my face in his hands. “Now let’s go find a way to stay together. Forever.”