by Lucia Ashta
Clara and Gertrude flitted between their grand-mère and the firedrakes Marcelo and Brave also helped.
Madame Pimlish and Wizard Meedles were there too, along with his hellhounds.
Marie walked up behind Walt to place a hand on his shoulder, and Sir Lancelot flew low circles above the scene.
Not a single one reacted to me sitting or talking.
I didn’t want to do it—I really, really didn’t—but again, it had to be done.
Slowly, I looked down at myself.
Oh no.
I was sitting up, yet I was also lying down.
I saw right through myself.
There was only one explanation for that.
I was dead.
Chapter 10
My handsome, charismatic brother collapsed on top of me. He was strong and caring, and he’d always helped me no matter what, and now he laid his face against my chest and cried.
He didn’t sob and wail as I’m sure I would have done if he’d been the one to die instead of me, but tears streamed into the front of my dress. I would have felt wetness if I hadn’t been dead.
“I was supposed to protect her.” His voice was muffled by taffeta. “My parents left me behind with her so that I’d keep her safe.”
Marie left Walt’s side and knelt next to Nando. She didn’t say anything, but simply put a hand against his back.
I supposed it was a good thing Nando had Marie. I could tell he liked her, and that she liked him too. He’d need support as he mourned my loss, and the doe-eyed blonde was kind and strong.
I noticed Walt was crying too, though he did so silently. Tears streamed down a shocked face.
I like him. That’s when I first realized that I really liked him, that maybe I would have liked to hold his hand, to kiss him even. As it was, I’d died without ever kissing a boy, and I was seventeen.
I smiled sadly to myself. Walt would have been a nice boy to kiss. With his guard down like this, I could tell that he liked me too, that he was experiencing regrets about me as well—or maybe that was just wishful thinking, that I should have been important to more than just my brother while I was alive. Sure, my parents and older brothers loved me, I’d never doubted that. But in the end, they hadn’t loved me enough not to leave me, no matter what their reasons.
Nando was the one always there for me. And it was nice to believe maybe Walt had wanted to be there for me too, to experience a bit of life with me.
“I’m so sorry,” Walt said. I presumed he was saying it to Nando as he wouldn’t think he could say anything to me anymore, but his eyes remained on my face when he spoke. I looked like I was only sleeping. “I never thought—I never imagined she’d—oh no.” He cracked, and a muffled cry escaped him. “It can’t be. How—”
He simply stopped talking, pursing his lips.
Nando tilted his face so his mouth was free of my dress, but he didn’t break contact with my body. “It’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”
“It is my fault. I left her.”
Nando sighed and sat up. His usually strong shoulders drooped like a wilted flower. He didn’t brush off Marie’s hand, I noticed, and she kept it there even after he sat. “You left her to get help. Isa wasn’t good at following directions. She did what she believed she needed to do in the moment, no matter the cost to herself.”
Walt didn’t react, his tearing eyes pinned on my face.
“She was brave and kind,” Nando said. “Loving and caring, and she always knew the right thing to say to make me smile.”
I blinked. I did love and care about him, and I supposed I was kind, but brave? Nah. I did only what I absolutely had to do, nothing more.
“She always thought she was so ordinary. She hated being ordinary.”
“Her? Ordinary?” Walt said. “How could she believe that?” His question was the saddest yet.
“I know. I never understood why she saw herself that way either. She’s beautiful, smart, funny, and so excited about life.” His shoulders slumped so much he had to put his elbows on his thighs to keep himself upright. “Was. Not is, was.”
Marie started crying softly behind him, and even Mordecai’s brilliant eyes shone with unshed tears.
“She was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” Walt said. “Her smile was the best.”
He liked my smile? Too bad I hadn’t known that before I died.
“I wanted to kiss her,” he said, then immediately turned bright red, all the way to his ears, and tucked his face to his chin. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, obviously.
But neither Nando nor Marie, nor Mordecai, Count Vabu, or his sister Priscilla reacted to what he’d said with anything other than a sense of loss. Loss of an opportunity, loss of perhaps a love, loss of a young life.
Seventeen. I realized we all had to die someday, but at seventeen? I never figured I’d die before I’d really had the chance to live. Had I known, I would have kissed Walt, and I wouldn’t have waited for him to kiss me first either. I would have spoken my mind more often, and I would have frolicked in the sunshine every single day. I would have laughed and run and played with all my might.
Because the day would have arrived when I could no longer do any of it. I would have loved, laughed, and taken risks—even the biggest ones that involved my heart—because I would have known today would arrive to rob me of all my chances and hopes.
The others seemed to have realized what was happening, that I wasn’t moving—at least not in any way that anyone could see. Slowly they began to make their way over to where I was. They moved as if they already knew there was no hurry to get here, and that they wouldn’t like what they’d see.
Many of the firedrakes stayed where they were, like penguins guarding their eggs from the harshness of winter. They looked dizzy perhaps, ruffled, and battle-worn, but they’d survived. Every single one of them.
Even the five firedrakes who’d been in the middle of the circle had made it, though they still looked just as they had before. Arianne had said they were people cursed to the bodies of the winged creatures, but they remained in those same bodies.
We’d broken the curse. Though at great cost, it was still a win, right? It looked like only I had died. Everyone else was moving. They were battered, but they’d made it.
Was I willing to live with those results? Probably. Besides, it no longer mattered. I couldn’t choose to live.
I took in the bright greens of the garden, along with its colorful blooms. I was captivated by the sunshine that I no longer felt warming my skin, but remembered how much I’d loved the sensation. I would miss the people and the creatures I was growing to like—and maybe even love. They were fast becoming my friends, and replacing the family I’d lost to an overseas adventure.
The colors of the firedrakes I’d intervened to save had been restored completely. The sickly pink of the scarlet firedrake was absent. Its scales were rich and deep once more.
And Elwin, the bluish-indigo firedrake, looked healthy and strong. His scales shone, reflecting the sunshine. I’d managed to save him. What a relief. At least my death would count for something.
I’d spared magnificent beasts, perhaps a whole tribe of them. I’d maybe even saved Arianne.
My death wasn’t in vain.
I smiled in the general direction of Elwin. “I’m glad you survived, and that what I did managed to save you,” I said to him, though he obviously wouldn’t hear me. I spoke to myself because now I had no one left to talk to. “I had no clue what I was doing. I got lucky it worked at all.”
“I’m grateful you tried it, because you did save me. I was almost dead,” he said, and smiled right back.
Chapter 11
Elwin speaking to me shocked me almost as much as discovering that I was dead—almost, because finding out you’re dead is about as shocking as it gets, especially when something you did was what killed you.
He didn’t move his mouth at all, but he was staring straight at me, and I was sure I’d
heard his voice. Unless.... “Did you really just talk to me, or did I make it up?” I mean, it wasn’t like I could put hallucinations or wild imaginings past me. Now that I was dead, I had no frame of reference for what the experience would be like.
“I spoke,” Elwin said.
“Why?” It definitely wasn’t the brightest question, but my brain was scrambling to catch up with what was going on, and it was really what I wanted to know. Why was he able to talk with me when no one else could? Why was I still here if I was dead? Why did I have to die at all?
Elwin chuckled a chuffing sound. “Because I can, and I choose to.” He sounded like an old, wise man with a strong voice. A bit like Mordecai and Albacus, actually.
Obviously I was going to have to be more specific to get the answers I wanted. “I meant, how come you can speak with me when no one else can even hear me?”
Elwin stared at me for so long that I began to reconsider whether I might be hallucinating after all. When he finally spoke, he was in no hurry, and I wondered if it was because he was dead, just like me.
“You and I are connected,” he said, all too cryptically for my current mental state.
I studied him. There was only one of him that I could see, and he looked alive enough.... And no one was rushing over to his side to hover over him as everyone was doing to my body.
Nando continued to cry openly, and Walt and Marie did so quietly. Even the loquacious Sir Lancelot was silent in his grief.
I returned my attention to the one place that gave me some kind of hope. “Why are you and I connected?” I asked Elwin, resigning myself to the fact that I was going to have to pry every single piece of information out of him.
“Hmm,” he said, then took a really long pause. My eye twitched while I waited impatiently; I knew it did even if I couldn’t feel it. “You and I are connected,” he drawled, “because you linked to me when you broke the darkness.”
“Because I touched you?”
He nodded, reminding me of a wise and slow—very slow—tortoise. He kind of looked like one too, if said tortoise had fangs, talons, and wings.
“Are you dead too?” I asked, because I really couldn’t decide whether he was or wasn’t.
He threw his head back and laughed, but no one else looked his way. “Oh no. Of course I’m not dead.”
Of course not, I thought sullenly. But I also noticed that no one was reacting to the sounds he was making... and that his mouth wasn’t moving. Just like Mathieu and Sylvia’s mouths didn’t move when they spoke with Arianne and Mordecai.
“Are you speaking to me in my head?”
His long face nodded again, looking at me a bit too much like the answer had been so obvious all along he couldn’t believe I’d only just caught on.
“Hey,” I said, “don’t be so hard on me. I just died. I’m upset, all right? And I’m not thinking as clearly as I usually do.”
“You are only dead if you think you are.”
What! I needed clear information on that point. “What on earth do you mean?” I was working really hard not to shout at the Zen firedrake. I rolled my neck to relax myself, but it didn’t work, probably because I couldn’t feel my neck.
“We are and we aren’t depending on what we believe.”
“Mmhmm.” It was all I had to encourage him to keep going. I pursed my lips to keep myself from dumping my desperation on the only creature who could see and hear me.
When no more explanation was forthcoming, I added, “Please explain further. Why can you see me? Why am I still here if I’m dead? And if I’m not dead, how can I come back to life?”
“Oh, no one can come back to life once they’re dead. Not without inviting the darkness.”
“Mmhmm. And you can see me because you and I are connected, because I touched you while doing magic? So even though you’re alive and I’m, well, whatever I am, you can see and communicate with me?”
He nodded, and I struggled not to want to rip that serene expression right off his long, dragon-like face. He was so calm, he was making me freak out, and none of this was like me. Wanting to rip someone’s tranquil smile off his face was so not like me. Give yourself a break, Isa. You’ve never been dead before. But was I really dead?
“Please tell me with clarity, am I dead or not? Can I get back in my body right now?”
He tilted his head to one side and then the other. “That’s entirely up to you.”
“Grrrr.” I growled, I couldn’t hold it back any longer. I jumped to my feet and started pacing, doing my best to ignore the anguished sounds next to me as the others mourned me.
“If there’s a chance that I’m not dead, then I want to be alive.” I glanced at my body. I wasn’t moving, and Nando said I had no pulse. That seemed pretty dead to me.
“You won’t cease to be dead by wanting to be alive.”
I faced him and smacked hands to my hips. “Then what? What do I do?”
“The answer is not in the wanting, it’s in the having; it is in the knowing, as are all things.”
I pursed my lips and didn’t bother saying a thing. It was just my luck that the one creature who could see and speak with me when I was dead—or not—would be this way. He had the answers I sought, I could tell from the look on his face. His long face was so wise that I didn’t understand how I’d never noticed it before—probably because I’d never needed answers this desperately before.
I resumed my pacing, debating how to best phrase my next questions so that I might actually get answers I understood. Because I wasn’t giving up. Oh no, I wasn’t. If there was a way to return to my body, I’d find it no matter how many cryptic replies I had to sift through.
But a shift in the energy around my body drew my attention. Something had changed. I’d missed whatever it was while I listened intently to Elwin, trying to find the gems among the fog.
Nando wasn’t crying anymore. Neither was anyone else. Everyone was staring at the two vampires, who’d drawn close to my prostate form.
Count Vabu knelt next to Nando. He was so close to my body that he almost touched me, but he didn’t. His hands remained at his side, his stare on me.
“She isn’t dead,” he said, apparently not for the first time.
I rushed to kneel next to Walt, right across from Count Vabu and Nando so that I wouldn’t miss a thing.
“I heard you,” Nando said. “But what does that mean?”
Count Vabu hesitated for only a second, but Nando was already pushing him for answers. “Please, you have to tell me with absolute clarity. She has no pulse. She isn’t breathing. She appears dead. Is she or isn’t she dead? And if she isn’t, is she alive? And what does that mean?”
Good thing Nando wasn’t speaking with Elwin. He’d have gone crazy.
Despite Nando’s desperate plea, Count Vabu didn’t answer right away. He looked first to Mordecai, who nodded, and then to his sister, who gave no encouragement that I noticed.
Then Count Vabu looked from me to my brother, and said, “She isn’t actually dead. She only appears dead.”
Nando looked as if he didn’t dare to breathe for fear of changing what he’d just heard. “You’re sure?” he whispered.
“Trust me, I know death. So does Priscilla. If there’s one thing vampires can gauge with certainty, it’s death.”
I suspected Nando was milling over the same questions that were shooting through my head, and I mentally urged him to ask them. I didn’t care if I was half-dead or whatever I was, I still wanted to know. What on earth was a vampire really like? And how, exactly, were they so familiar with death?
Though Nando wouldn’t think it the time to focus on anything but me, he was curious, just as I was....
He cleared his throat. His voice was still thick with the remnants of his tears. “Do, uh, vampires drink people’s, uh, blood, and um, ah, kill them? Is that how you know about death?”
I didn’t blame Nando for his stuttering. Count Vabu was fierce looking up close, with his nearly black
eyes and perfectly composed features, a veneer capable of concealing almost anything behind it. I was just thrilled he’d asked. I was dying to know, literally.
Count Vabu stared at Nando so hard that I worried for him. Priscilla looked no kinder, towering over her bent brother.
I couldn’t stay still while I waited for the tension to pass. Surely Mordecai or Marcelo or Brave or someone would interfere if the vampire became angry with my brother. Right?
I fidgeted, though remained mindful not to touch Walt. I had no idea what might happen if I touched him, and I didn’t want to find out until I understood at least something about what was going on.
Count Vabu’s thin, wide lips drew thinner. His eyebrows pinched and his eyes gleamed a bit too predatorily for my liking.
He breathed in and out a few times as if calming himself.
Good. Take all the breaths you need.
“Priscilla and I neither drink blood nor kill people.” His words were terse. I tried hard not to notice how he didn’t speak for all vampires, only the two here.
“Not all vampires are the same, and the legends are far from accurate.”
“So you, uh, weren’t bitten by another, ah, vampire? That isn’t how you and Priscilla became what you, ah, um, are?”
Go, Nando! My brave brother, he’d gift me with the answers I was so curious to learn.
Count Vabu’s nostrils flared beneath his perfectly straight, longish nose. “No,” he ground out. “We weren’t bitten. We were cursed. Now, can we move on? I thought we had more pressing things to occupy our time than nosy questions.”
“Yes, sorry for asking.” But Nando didn’t look sorry at all, neither did Marie or Walt, who were staring at Count Vabu and Priscilla and pretending not to. “Please do continue to tell me about Isa. She’s so important to me. Please explain how she isn’t dead. Please, please tell me she isn’t dead.”