by Kim Smejkal
“Are you punishing me?” Lyric said. “Look, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you the truth earlier. I’ve never had a friend before. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Clearly, Celia wanted to say. But she was so tired. It seemed that everyone around her, herself included, was always trying their best, but they were just really bad at it. “Yes, you do,” Celia said, sighing and meeting their eyes. “Thanks for bringing Griffin food and water. Thanks for telling me about Zuni. You know how to be a friend, Lyric, and I appreciate it.”
Lyric snorted a “shut up” as Celia hauled herself out to the hallway. “Halcyon won’t be gone long this first trip, so don’t do anything stupid,” they called just before disappearing around a corner. Celia wasn’t sure where they were going in such a hurry, but with a start, she realized that she trusted them. Either they were going to disassemble the platform or feed Griffin and Zuni some nonpoisonous food.
Xinto buzzed quietly on her shoulder as she crept toward the door at the end of the hall. Her throat closed with the knowledge that she was about to walk among the dead again. Before, she’d entered without understanding what lay beyond. Now it took every iota of willpower Celia possessed to keep moving forward, and she braced herself for the oppressive nothingness of the other side.
The possibility of seeing Anya again made her vibrate with dread and anticipation.
As Celia put her hand on the sunflower doorknob, she paused, going over all the million things she had to remember—a jumbled combination of what she’d found out from her first trip, things Lyric had said, and abstract information Griffin had given her over the span of weeks.
She needed to anchor herself to the door. It was her only way out, and she could quickly get lost in the fog of the nothingness on the other side, even if she didn’t plan on moving.
If any of them looked too interested in her—interest of the voracious variety—she had to get the hell out.
She couldn’t linger. Time passed strangely there, with the clock winding faster on the side of the living. Moments were minutes, minutes were hours, hours were days.
Halcyon was there, somewhere, and she needed to avoid him at all cost. If Halcyon caught her, she had a suspicion she’d have a long-ass time to think about her mistakes. She shuddered, remembering what Diavala had told Griffin of her curse’s beginnings: her choices had been dying over and over or killing over and over.
It would be a fitting end to Celia’s story to have it never end. On and on, body after body, in an infinite loop. If that happened, her only company would be Diavala, for all eternity—the only one who would understand her existence, the only one who could sympathize.
A horrible curse if ever there was one.
She took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped through. Just as before, the door slammed shut behind her, but her gasp was nothing more than a choked noise in her throat, with no breath to suck in.
Celia made a glowing thread appear from her wrist to the doorknob amid a silence so thick that a heartbeat would have given her away. Then she moved away, only a few steps, and watched the door disappear.
The fog was so strange there: thick but hollow somehow, as if it were made of everything and nothing at the same time.
Immediately, she felt alone.
It was a full-bodied loneliness, consuming her all at once. With no heart beating in her chest and no lungs breathing, there was plenty of space for all that ache, and it filled her from head to toe.
She had something important to do there—a small experiment, nothing more—but even that was difficult to focus on when all she wanted to do was cry. She must have been running on shock alone, the last trip.
“Okay,” she said aloud, trying to chase away the emptiness. “Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump,” she intoned, whispering it to herself as she took out her quill and braced it over her forearm.
For weeks she’d been learning how to command the ink into temporary illusion, held in place by tethering it to itself, which was connected to one crucial point in the real world. Something that could be unwound with only a thought because it was always connected to more ink and, ultimately, to herself. But this was a test of her original learning: an inkling making the equivalent of a Divine tattoo, where she would give away the ink rather than hold on to it.
She needed to see if she could fix what Halcyon had broken, and give the ink back.
“Ka-thump, ka-thump.” She continued to whisper. With each stroke on her arm, the image grew. It started out as nothing more than a series of lines, but she merged them, shadowed them, imagined them in color: blacks, blues, whites.
She layered even more: one portrait turning into three, stacked one on top of the other. Simultaneously, the portrait was as-yet-nameless little Anya on the day they’d first met, child Anya as they held pinkies and cried in fear, and angel Anya on the day she died.
They were the images of Celia’s heart. Part of her didn’t want to let them go, but that’s what she’d come for: an experiment to see whether she could give the ink away on this side of the door, and whether it would make things better there.
And if anyone could make things right, it was Anya.
Instead of ordering the portraits of Anya to transfer to skin like a regular Divine tattoo, she transferred it to the abyss around her. If ink understood intent, it should understand be free. She severed her link to the ink, cutting it like an umbilical cord.
As the lines disappeared from her arms, each one tugged a tear from her eye. Or would have, if her eyes worked properly.
She waited. “Ka-thump, ka-thump . . .”
The familiar exhaustion of giving her ink away rolled through her. Or maybe, like the feeling of phantom tears falling from her eyes, she only imagined it.
How long should she wait? How many ka-thumps had already passed?
Absently, Celia tugged on the thread around her wrist. It illuminated the fog around her, but barely. Enough to remind her where she was and that she didn’t belong there. Not just yet. She needed some sign that it had worked, that it was possible to bring the ink back, let it go, and that something on this side would be better for the effort.
Without any footsteps announcing his arrival, Vincent emerged from the fog right in front of her.
Celia stumbled, choking back a scream. She’d known him as the sad Palidon of the Commedia Follia, but he looked the same as the moment he’d died: wild, puffed hair, gaunt, fever in his eyes. His time being possessed by Diavala and then living with the Touch hadn’t been kind to him. It never was.
Twin slashes scraped down the sides of his neck from a mistico’s blade, and his white shirt was stained with streams of dark red.
“Vincent,” she whispered. She wanted to reach for him, hook her arm under his, and go for one of their quiet walks. He reminded her of comfort, of finding a home.
He was there because of her.
“Is Anya here with you?” she asked in a whisper.
He nodded, and in his mime way, he pantomimed all around him: a miniature play of walking endlessly, of sadness, of darkness and cowering in fear.
Celia squeaked out a whimper. Despite not having a heart beating in her chest, nor air going in and out of her lungs, there was a squeezing going on inside her. A wrenching, twisting ache threatening to choke her. It was Anya and Vincent who didn’t belong here, not Celia. “If I could trade places with you . . .” she whispered to him.
Then Celia heard movement. A lot of it and all around her. Vincent had crept up on her without sound, so whatever was coming up behind him was big or many. His eyes widened, and he pointed to the thread around her wrist, gesturing behind her.
He wanted her to leave.
“But did it work?” she asked. “Did the ink I just released help you? I’m not leaving until I know. I have to fix everything. I need to know if this is the right thing to do.”
Vincent pointed again, more urgently. Every time he moved even slightly, his trachea bulged through one of the gashes in h
is neck. Thick cartilage, ribbed and bloody, pushing up to meet her.
A sob burst from Celia’s throat, and she met his gray eyes. Had her Palidon been silenced for good, even in the afterlife? “That’s not fair,” she choked out. “This place isn’t right!” she screamed. He’d always been quiet, but how could he not be able to say anything, forever and ever?
“What have you found here?”
The person from all of Halcyon’s paintings emerged from the fog. Unlike every other soul Celia had seen there, Martina wasn’t bloody and sliced apart. She looked much the same as in every portrait of her that Halcyon had hung in his home: regal, refined. If the dead souls all looked the same as they had at the moment of their death, then hers, unfairly, had been a peaceful one.
Immediately, terribly, Vincent dipped his head and clasped his hands in front of him, as if he were deferring to Martina’s authority.
“No, Vincent, look at me,” Celia said. She didn’t want him bowing to anyone. Ever. Especially the likes of her.
Martina stepped in front of Vincent and reached a hand out, grabbing Celia’s trembling drawing hand as she tried to step back. It was so cold despite the oppressive heat around them. “You called them with it,” Martina said urgently. “That means they’re coming. You won’t leave here if they find you. You gave them only a drop, but they’ll want more. They need it.”
Celia wasn’t scared of her. Not like she’d been of the mistico or of Terrin, the shredded child. As much as she wanted to pull away, hate her, there was an undercurrent of desperation in Martina’s grip, as if she needed Celia to listen.
“Answer my question,” Celia demanded. “Did the ink I just released help anything?”
“Ink is everything here,” Martina said. “It’s what sustains this place. With it, we can create our heavens, our hells, whatever we think we deserve. It’s done without thought or effort; this place is simply our souls manifest, and it can be very beautiful.” She glanced over her shoulder at Vincent, then back at Celia. “At least it’s supposed to be. When I first died, it wasn’t like it is now. Vincent should be able to change himself, his reality, his memories, however he wants, as much as he wants. A Palidon performing with his troupe, a simple life with a lover and some Kids, an adventure to the mountains . . . or all of the above, because time doesn’t exist here. This space was endless potential, adventure, peace. It was magical, but it hasn’t been right for a long time.”
“But you started this with Halcyon,” Celia said, trying to untangle herself. “I know about your chest, the door, I know you found a way to steal some ink and leave.”
“We made a mistake, taking it away.” Martina looked away, as if the confession pained her. “And every moment that passes, it gets darker and more desperate here. Without the ability to change their forms, every soul is stuck in the moment of death. Can you imagine it? Knowing you’re dead, remembering every detail of your life, and then being forced to stay in the moment you died and left that world . . . it’s an endless curse. They can’t create a present or a future, because they’re stuck in the past. If it feels like we’re starving, it’s because we are.”
Celia stopped tugging. She looked at Vincent for confirmation, and he stared at her long enough for her to recall his end in detail—being tortured by Diavala’s Touch, forced to remember all of her pain, and then mistico approaching with blades, the feeling of your neck being sliced open, the wails of your friends singing you to sleep . . .
Vincent nodded. He pressed his hands to his heart and dropped his head. His trachea bulged like a crooked finger poking out of his neck.
With a mewling whimper, Celia grabbed his hand and stroked the blood-soaked bracelet around his wrist that marked him as part of the Rabble Mob. He’d been the one who’d gifted her with the twin around her own wrist.
Anya would have one too: bloodstained, ink-stained. She would have those same gashes in her neck. And worst of all, she would exist for the rest of eternity on a stage where Celia, her best friend, had been the one to kill her.
Celia wanted to scream at the injustice of it. Her fists clenched and her chest tightened.
No. There had to be a way of fixing it. Death was bad enough without being forced to stay within it for eternity. The fact that the afterlife existed proved that there should be a future for every soul.
Caught between them—one hand in Vincent’s and one in Martina’s—Celia turned to Martina.
“Do you hide from him?” Celia asked. Halcyon had been searching for her for a thousand years, yet she’d appeared for Celia on her second trip.
Martina’s lips pressed together as she nodded. “He is beyond reason. And without the ink, I have no power here.”
“He would give it all to you, on the other side,” Celia said. He’d vowed to bring Martina home one day; it was his entire mission in life. Wisteria was full of Martina’s favorite things, and he was so determined to get the original Martina that even a near-perfect ink copy of her wouldn’t do. “Everything he does is for you.”
Martina’s lips tightened into a hard line, and she cut Celia off. “He’s known my wishes from the beginning, but refuses to hear them. Tell me, why does he go to the trouble of creating a paradise for me with the ink on the side of the living, when he could do it here, where we both belong?”
As Vincent nodded, that struck Celia like a blow. If the ink was the very substance of the afterlife, all of Wisteria could easily exist there.
Instead, he’d pulled the ink out and hoarded it and refused to meet his death. “What are you saying?” Celia asked in a whisper.
Martina turned to Celia again, her eyes piercing her with their intensity. “Halcyon says it’s about me, and I really think he believes it in his heart, but it’s always been about her. The child who took my chest of ink. The one who foiled his plans. He blames her for my change of heart. She was the catalyst for our moral disagreement, and he will never forgive her for that.” Martina looked down then, to the place where her hand rested on Celia’s. Both of them trembled.
“She had nothing to do with your death,” Celia said bluntly. The timeline now made sense: Halcyon and Martina had started all this a thousand years ago when they’d taken the ink. Diavala’s part had only started when she’d happened across a chest of magical ink as a child. She was no murderer.
But Halcyon was.
“The only thing that child killed was Halcyon’s dream,” Martina said. Her hands had turned clawlike, nearly piercing through skin. “He’s always only ever yearned for beauty—to be surrounded by it, to live it, to create it—and in his mind, I was a vital part of that dream. Unfortunately for all of us, he didn’t take kindly to me having a mind of my own.” Despite the indents from Martina’s fingers, Celia didn’t feel a thing except the cold. “So now he exists to inflict eternal revenge. His hate overpowered his love a long, long time ago.”
A perfectly balanced scale had tipped the wrong way.
Celia didn’t feel it even when Martina’s nails ripped through and blood bloomed.
Vincent’s eyes widened again. He swiveled and disappeared into the fog, leaving his blood on Celia’s empty hand.
Martina’s nostrils flared, and she didn’t look away from Celia’s fresh blood. “There’s ink inside you.” The same hunger for the ink Celia had sensed in the mistico, in the shredded child, was now written all over Martina’s face.
Vincent had run from it, Martina was fighting it.
“I want to give it away,” Celia said. “If it will help Vincent, help you, take it.” She shoved her bleeding hand into Martina’s face. “It’s okay. I can’t even feel this. Take it. I have people here I love, so many of them, and if they need it to make this place bearable and it’s all I can do, then I want you to take it!” Her voice had risen alarmingly as all the emotional pain flooded back. She would give away everything inside her if it could only make things better—for Vincent, for Anya, for everyone to come.
Martina shook her head and, with difficulty,
let go of Celia’s hand. “It wouldn’t be enough. Your sacrifice would be for nothing.” She looked over her shoulder at the still-hidden masses approaching. The rumbles of conversation, footsteps, shrieks were louder now. Celia was so focused on the conversation, she had managed to forget, for a moment, where she was. “Get out! Leave!” Martina cried.
“What if I can bring you back the chest? I’ll steal it from him—”
“Halcyon would never allow it. Don’t bother, Inkling. Don’t bother. Just protect yourself, and don’t come back here.”
Then, with a sad look in her eyes, Martina turned and disappeared into the fog.
Chapter 24
On the other side of the door, Celia gasped until her lungs remembered how to do their job, her heart remembered to beat. Her eyes caught up—the tears she’d wanted to shed on the other side coming out all at once. With blurry vision she stumbled toward the bird room down the hall. Her footsteps sounded like the pounding of a drum, her nose picked up every scent: wisteria everywhere, candles burning, parchment, and ink. She could smell it, but whether it was from the small wound on her hand, or infused in the house, or the underlying scent of everything around her, she couldn’t tell.
Prying the door open, she flung herself in, the birds already screeching at her from every branch.
She swiped her hands across her eyes, trying to clear them, the copper scent of her blood stinging her nose. Collapsing onto a bench under an old oak tree near the back, she put her face in her hands and tried to calm down.
The ink would help them. It belonged there. She needed to steal his chest and take the ink home.
“There you are!” Halcyon stood in the doorway, looking around, as if trying to figure out why his beloved birds were so upset.
Even with the door wide open, the birds didn’t try to escape.
His gaze landed on Celia, on the wound on her hand.
“I’m okay,” she said, wiping her face a little more. The quiver in her voice was too strong. She forced herself to talk low and even. “I tried to pet one of the ravens, but he didn’t appreciate it.” She held up her bleeding hand as evidence and tried to laugh.