A Courtroom of Ashes

by C. S. Wilde

  She laughs. “Did you memorize that sentence?”

  He shifts on his feet. “No…”

  The woman crosses her arms. “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe what you say. Stronger together? You look awful.”

  John frowns. “Appearances aren’t important when you’re dead.”

  “Not entirely true. In Death, appearances show others who you are, or at least who you think you are.” Her head moves up and down as if she’s eyeing him. “Are you truly this beast, Mr. Braver?”

  John stares at her, either surprised or offended. I’m guessing offended, because he pulls Spritebreaker from the scabbard in his back. “That’s enough. You’re coming with me, whether you like it or not.”

  She gets up swiftly, her bare feet against the sand. She looks so small in comparison to John.

  “That’s a nice sword,” she says.

  “It can be deadly too.”

  She lifts her shoulders as if she doesn’t care. She’s not afraid of him, and I like her for it. This woman has spunk, and I can certainly respect that. I wonder what her story is, and why John never mentioned her.

  Unless she’s the person he sent to Heaven in his place. If she is, there’s only one reason he’d sacrifice so much for her: Love. Pure, perfect, untainted, love.

  The darkness pushes further, blanketing my brain in a fog of rage and sadness. I’m not sure if the darkness is getting stronger or if I’m not blocking these thoughts as well as before. It’s like I’m hanging from the edge of a cliff and John is a rope, keeping me from falling—the only thing between sanity and an abyss of madness, the only thing that matters.

  Slamming my hand over my head several times as if I could be slapping the voices, I tell myself, “Nonsense, John would’ve told me if he loved her.”

  Would he?

  Orange scales swim over my arm, but when I blink, they’re gone. Scales…I’ve seen them before…

  I wait for another mad thought. Nothing comes. I’m okay for now, but fact is, curiosity tempts me like a big red button that says “Don’t push.” Maybe this woman meant more to John than he admitted. He mentioned a spiritual guide back at the blue willows…

  Was she prettier than me?

  Listen to myself. This is petty and childish, but it doesn’t stop me from running past the woman so I can see her face.

  She looks so serene with her friendly dark brown eyes. Her skin is pinkish where the sun hits it, her nose cute and perky. Damn it, she’s gorgeous. She’s probably my age, maybe a bit older, and she doesn’t look like a spiritual guide at all, I mean, are they supposed to look like professional models?

  Told you.

  “Shut it,” I say, slamming a final slap on my forehead.

  Ms. Perfect asks John, “Why do you look like that, Mr. Braver?”

  “I’ve been like this ever since I can remember.”

  She rests her hands on her hips. “No you haven’t. None of us have.”

  John looks at his left hand with its long, thin fingers, as if it’s bringing him some forgotten memories. “I’ve done things. Bad things.”

  “Doesn’t mean you have to keep doing them.”

  He looks away and closes his fist. “There’s no going back for me. I’m a monster now.”

  She eyes him carefully. “Mr. Braver, I’ll tell you what. You can take me to this Red Seth of yours under the condition that we take my path.”

  Now that I’m getting used to her, she seems strangely familiar. Could it be I’ve met her before? Maybe she used to be an actress and I watched her in a movie…

  “You don’t know where our camp is,” John states.

  “Doesn’t matter. We’ll get there in the end. It’s either this, or you’ll have to use that nice sword of yours.”

  John peers at her for a while, and I think he’s considering his options. He nods and they move ahead together. I follow them, walking on the woman’s left and John on her right.

  Maybe she can rescue John, get him back to his true self. Maybe that’s what she did, given John wasn’t a Shade when I met him. She must be one of the good Lummeni, like Evangeline and Barry, a woman worthier of John than I’ll ever be.

  But why is she so familiar? I run faster and turn so that I’m walking ahead of her but staring at her face. It’s itching in the back of my head. And suddenly I know. All that she’s missing is her dangling hair and mad eyes.

  I drop to my knees and hurl as Mother walks through me.

  34

  Mother clasps her hands behind her back and tilts her head to the sky as she strolls in the desert. John walks a few steps behind. I fill the space in between them.

  Apparently, I always have.

  This woman feels foreign. To me, ‘Mother’ equals insane babbling and nervous glares, because she hears things no one else does. ‘Mother’ means anything but ‘at peace.’ I don’t recall ever seeing her so calm, except when we were singing the “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

  I look behind at John. The expression in his eyes tells me he can’t quite figure Mother out.

  He didn’t tell me he knew her. He lied to me.

  No, I’m sure there’s an explanation.

  He lied because he loves her.

  This is ridiculous! He doesn’t love my mother.

  Look at the way he stares at her, so intrigued.

  Because it’s an intriguing situation!

  We’re smarter than this.

  I slam my hands against my head. I’m making no sense! My thoughts have gained a will of their own. That dark part of me has grown into a full mad version of Santana, and it’s swallowing me whole! I can’t think straight! I killed Barbie, Kasey, and Barry. Who’s next? Tommy? The entire mankind?

  I glance at John. Liar, liar pants on fire.

  Stop!

  Mother stares at me and I freeze. Even mad Santana silences. “First step to free yourself from regret is forgiveness.”

  Is she talking to me? I turn around and find John.

  “Forgive myself?” John chortles. “What do you know about pain and regret? You have no idea what I’ve done.”

  Mother lifts her wrists, both cut by deep lines, dry blood spilled on the edges. Tears bloom as I remember her drenched in a bathtub full of crimson.

  “Best thing I’ve ever done,” she says, wrists held proudly in midair.

  What? The tar inside me lights with fire, explodes in a flesh-ripping anger. How dare she! I attack her like a rabid dog, hands as claws. My nails run through her face but don’t scratch her. No wonder. I make no difference to this woman, never did.

  “You selfish bitch!” but Sarah Jones can’t hear me.

  I want to hurt her so bad, just like she hurt me. I keep shouting and scratching, my hands plunging through her until I’m left crying and panting. But Mother remains oblivious to my existence. She always has.

  “Best thing you’ve ever done?” John asks.

  She lifts her shoulders. “Second to my little girl, of course.”

  I cover my ears. How can she do this to me? A second ago I wanted to kill her; then she says I was the best thing she ever did, and I realize I’ve been missing my mommy for too long to remember. How could I forget what she looked like?

  “Shut up!” I shout to them, to myself, to the voices, to everything and everyone.

  “You didn’t tell me your name,” John says.

  “Sarah Jones.” Mother crosses her arms, finally hiding her wrists. “You were still alive when I killed myself. I remember going to one of your fundraisers.”

  John arches one hairless eyebrow. “You did?”

  “Yeah, I remember thinking you were too young to know what you were doing. But you climbed on the stage and spoke, and you proved me wrong. Sorry to see you around.”

  “There’s not much one can do about a plane falling out of the sky.” John scratches his bald head. “Why did you kill yourself?”

  Mom lets out a smile that oozes regret. “I did it for my daughter. I started hearing whispers in the a
ir when she was two. At first I ignored them but they grew so loud. Too loud. The voices said my husband was cheating on me and it was all my girl’s fault.” Mother hugs herself. “The voices said I should kill her. It would feel so good after I did it, it’d be just me and him. No more waking up in the middle of the night, no more ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ They promised all these things, and they didn’t shut up.”

  “You were schizophrenic,” John says.

  “Perhaps.” She sniffs. “I lived with these voices for two more years, two years listening to them nonstop, when I was awake, when I was asleep…Of course I went mad, but my husband wouldn’t throw me in an asylum, even though I begged. He couldn’t.”

  “Hmm, keep walking,” John orders. “We don’t want to keep Red waiting”

  I wonder if the small part of John that remains decent pities my mom. Maybe that endangers the evil parts, so they force him to act ruthlessly as a defense mechanism. But this is speculation. I don’t know how John feels, I don’t know him at all.

  He lied to us.

  Mom raises her hand in surrender. “As you wish.” She turns her back to him and walks as peacefully as before. “One time, my daughter hugged me and said ‘Mommy, I wuff you super much,’ while the voices told me to break her tiny neck. I cried for hours.”

  My hand flies to my neck. I had no idea I’d come so close to dying, and I had no idea I super wuffed my mommy either.

  “That’s horrible,” John mutters.

  Her white nightgown flows like silk in the soft breeze. “One day, before my girl left for school, I took a kitchen knife and hid it behind my back. She hugged me and the voices told me to do it, over and over. My hand moved. I lifted the knife, but tossed it in the sink.”

  I don’t remember that knife.

  “I hugged my baby so hard―” Mom’s voice fails and she halts. “And I said ‘Mommy is gonna save you.’ And I did.”

  I pass through her, turning around to admire her for the first time. Her eyes burn with agony. How could I spend so many years thinking the worst of her when she sacrificed everything for me?

  Mom wasn’t selfish or a coward. The facts told me she was, but the facts were wrong. Dad knew this; it’s why he never gave up on her, even after all those years.

  Evidence. It can be misleading. It convinced me Mom didn’t love us enough.

  She gave her life to save mine, and how did I repay her? By hating her and calling her a coward. I couldn’t even remember her face!

  Anger, sorrow, and guilt slip through my skin and into my essence, fueling the mad darkness inside of me. I might explode—angry at everything and everyone, but not at my mom. Never again.

  “Sarah, I’m very sorry,” John says.

  John loves our fucking Mommy, look at it!

  There’s a glint in his eyes. It’s admiration, nothing else. It has to be.

  He’s known her for five seconds, what is he admiring?

  Shut the fuck up!

  He lied to us!

  From the corner of my eye, I spot a version of me with a mouth too big for its face, ragged pointed teeth, and a lolling hyena’s tongue, but when I try to look directly at her, she disappears.

  You destroy everything you touch, disappoint everyone you love.

  The sun hits her skin and it gleams a burning orange. Scales. Orange scales. Her voice booms in my head, I can bring justice to all.

  I failed Barbie, Jenny, and Kasey; and I failed my mother and everyone else: Dad, Mr. Baker, John…no, John failed me.

  He failed us.

  Maybe this madness inside me can fix it all. I’m so tired of fighting it…

  Give in.

  Guilt turns to anger, anger turns to fury, fury turns to…I feel her smiling before she disappears.

  Wrath.

  And all of a sudden, everything is clear. John loves my mother. I’m just filling in for her. Did he think of her when we…

  It’s as if an angry hedgehog is spinning inside of me, ripping my body from the inside out, growing exponentially. John, this sick, cunning prick tricked me into falling for him. He defiled my mother’s memory! How dare he think of her that way!

  I want to grab Spritebreaker from the scabbard and stab his heart. I’ll make him pay. I’ll make them all pay!

  A quiet voice in my mind tells me that this isn’t me, that I’ve lost all sense, but I ignore it.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Mom says. “My girl is safe.” She turns back to John and her lips turn up into a big, warm smile, the smile Dad says I inherited. “As I said, best thing I’ve ever done.”

  John looks down at the sand, his foot shuffling a half circle on the ground. “I sold myself and betrayed my country.”

  Mom gurgles. “That’s it?”

  His foot shuffles at a faster rate. “I’ve sent souls to oblivion, bad souls, but it still doesn’t make it right.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  He seems surprised by her bluntness. “Not if I can help it.”

  Mom walks to him and cups his cheeks in a motherly way that feels vaguely familiar. “My religion tells me people who kill themselves go to Hell, and maybe that’s where I’m going, but I’m not worried. No matter where I go, I’m at peace with what I’ve done. Find your peace, and you’ll be free too.”

  John’s eyes widen as if she’s revealed the biggest secret of the universe to him. This is the moment when Sarah Jones becomes his guru, and whatever she’s doing works: John’s dark eye whites slowly shift back to white, as they should be. But why is she helping him? Mom should help only me! He’s undeserving of her! Make him pay!

  All in due time.

  “Now, could we make a pit stop on our way?” Mom asks, a half smile tugging the left side of her cheek. “There’s something I need to do.”

  ***

  We walk through a dark, lifeless jungle, covered by the mantle of night. Bushes stand at least seven feet tall, their leaves bigger than my face. I feel like a tiny person in a land of giants.

  “This is a bad place,” John mutters.

  I hate to agree with him, but he’s right. Cold burns through my throat and lungs, stings my skin. Breathing hurts, and I can barely see ahead.

  “What do you need to do here anyway?” John says as he bends under a branch.

  Mom leaps over a thick tree root. “I’m sorry, John. I wasn’t completely honest.” He stops, waiting. She goes on, “I can still hear the voices from time to time.”

  “What do they say?”

  Mom scratches her cheek softly as she turns to him. “I can’t know for sure. They’re barely discernible. It’s impossible to hear them sometimes, but whoever is speaking doesn’t know that I can listen.”

  “That’s why you were meditating in the desert,” he says. “You wanted to listen.”

  She half nods. “I did more than that. I followed the whispers to this place. I can understand words now.” She points to Spirtebreaker’s scabbard wrapped across his chest. “It really is a beautiful sword.”

  John steps back. “You weren’t schizophrenic and you knew it!” Realization dawns on him. “You tricked me. You wanted Spritebreaker.”

  Mom hides her forehead behind her hand as if hit by a migraine. “John, someone drove me mad. Someone in this forest. I need to know why.”

  John peers at her for a moment, but finally lets out a sigh that says ‘Screw it.’ “It’s called intruding. Red Seth has done it sometimes. It’s the way spirits from this side haunt the living, like ghosts trapped on earth. But it only works if they have a connection.”

  “Which kind of connection?”

  “An object that reflects.”

  Mom digests this. “Was Red Seth intruding in my head?”

  John’s face closes. “Maybe.”

  She turns and follows the path. “Well, we’re about to find out.”

  “Sarah, you said I had to forgive myself,” John says. “You should take your own advice.”

  Mom swivels and stomps on the ground until she’s too
close to John. Her peaceful manner has vanished. “I have forgiven myself, but the voices are pestering others. If I don’t stop them, someone else will never see their little girl grow up. Do you understand that?”

  You tell him, Mom.

  John glares at Mom for a while. Then he unsheathes Spritebreaker and hands it to her.

  ***

  We walk through the darkness until we spot a man and a woman, crouching near a fire. They’re surrounded by bushes and tall trees. Both are dressed in rags like hobos, but their skin isn’t blue.

  Their dry and messy gray hair falls over their dirty faces and toothless smiles. They might not be Shades, but they’re still ugly as hell. They crackle high-pitched laughs as the fire burns.

  Mom hides behind a fallen log, a leopard taking its time, while John watches her from the shadows. I walk further and stand near the hobos. Why bother hiding if they can’t see me anyway?

  “Tyst nu, Alrik,” the woman says.

  I try to link with her and the other man. Flashes of a cold place burst in my mind. The snow falls so hard that the sky and the floor mix into one white canvas. A knife drips red dots over the snow as the strong scent of alcohol spreads in the air.

  I’m surprised to link with memories, but that’s probably because John linked with those two when this originally happened.

  The woman’s hands run across a silver tray filled with black water resting on her lap. With her wild gray hair, withered skin, and yellow teeth, she looks nothing less than a witch.

  “He’ll kill you,” she whispers to the tray. “You must end him before he ends you. Do it now! There’s the knife, do it.”

  The man claps his hands excitedly, looking down at the tray. He points at the black water. “What’s his name again?”

  She grins. “Ben.”

  “Traitors all around you, Ben. We know what’s best. Do it!”

  The woman lets out a high-pitched scream, filled with delight. “He did it! He cut his brother’s throat!”

  They both laugh and laugh and I think they’ll never stop. They wipe a tear from the corner of their eyes in perfect synchrony. Then the hag puts the tray down.

  “A small meal to celebrate, Brigit dear?” the man says, looking at the tray the way a child would look at its favorite toy.