Mud

  “Adem!”

  The sound is sweet and familiar. Like home.

  I turn to Jordan and he races toward me, leaps into my arms. He is warm and solid, alive. Not just a soul. And safe, safe and happy. My chest all but bursts open with relief.

  “I knew you’d find me.”

  “Always.” Always, always. The rumble of my voice skitters up the rocky walls. “How did you get here?”

  “Get here?” He cocks his head questioningly, a little wrinkle forms between his brows as he pulls them together. “I live here.”

  “But… ” I look around the cave again. Barren rough stone. There’s nothing, no food, no bed, no sign of life here at all. “How?”

  Even as I say it, I hardly care. Light and intoxicating warmth pulses through me. He’s here. Here in the Underworld. It’s impossible, but here he is, not two feet from me, beaming his Jordan smile that is just the way I remember it.

  And the box no longer has its hold on me here. No threat looming, a constant barrier between us nagging at the corner of my mind as I stand here, close enough to touch. Deep in my core, I was sure I’d never really reach this.

  I laugh.

  For maybe the first time.

  I just wasn’t made for this elation.

  But isn’t it strange for a human to be so comfortable in this darkness, this cold? Yet he doesn’t seem to mind.

  “You must be hungry,” he says. “Eat.”

  He pushes a small silver platter to my face, overloaded with juicy berries. I take in their sweetness from the air, dense and rich. It is unlike anything I have ever smelled. I lean into it and breathe deep.

  I shake my head. “I am not like you. I do not eat.” And then I realize. “You know this.” Where did the plate come from? Just a moment ago, I could have sworn—

  I kneel to him. Look into his eyes.

  Innocent and wide, flat and stormy gray like the caves.

  Something deep in the back of my mind scratches at the door, begs to be let out. From the corner of my eye, the rustle of darting shadow.

  Answers begin to creep forward like dusting off an old book, but the light swells against it and tells me I’m home, this is right, and I can’t remember the question.

  “Try one anyway.” Jordan shrugs. “They’re so good.”

  He holds a handful toward me. I stare at them. Their richness squeezes in juicy streams over his fingers, pollutes the air in a burst of ripeness. A burst of light inside me, an emptiness growls in my stomach. Is this what hunger feels like? Perhaps in this realm I do need to eat. Perhaps one would not hurt.

  Don’t eat, don’t drink. Miriam warned me. The light throbs against it. The emptiness stirs angrily in my stomach. The berries are full, juicy, and rich with color.

  The faint scratching again at the back of my mind. What am I thinking?

  I shake my head.

  Jordan pulls his fist to his mouth and devours the rest himself. Juice dribbles down his chin and sweetness explodes into the air in a thick, fragrant cloud.

  When he is done, he licks the last of the sweetness from his fingers.

  I wish I’d taken one.

  “Oh!” His eyes widen with excitement. “Have you seen outside yet?”

  Outside? In this secluded pocket deep within the mountain?

  He takes my hand in that fearless way that only he has ever done. “Come with me!” He playfully tugs at my arm. Leads me to the back of the cave.

  His tugs send bolts across the wound in my back and deep into my muscle. The pain calls me back to myself. Who knows how much time has already passed, where Miriam has wandered while I’ve been gone—how could I leave her out there in the Nethers alone? I fumble through my mind for the words to explain and break away.

  As we get closer to the rocky walls, my perspective shifts, and I see it. The back of the cave is not the back at all, but a crack in the mountain’s side. A breeze stretches out to me through it and blows away everything else.

  A breeze that’s soft, warm, and salty and feels like… it feels like…

  “Jordan, where are we?”

  But I already know where we are. I just don’t understand how. Did I give up and return to Terath? The light keeps growing and filling and pushing out all else, replacing it all with its warmth and tingly bliss, and I can’t remember. Stinging confusion drowns underneath its warm buzz.

  “Jordan, how—”

  “Come!”

  He slips through the cracked wall, turns and waits for me to follow.

  It is too tight. I will not fit.

  But Jordan is waiting, expecting me to follow. Something in the warm sea breeze reaches to me, sweet, calling me home. I shut my eyes and press into the crack. Rocky ridges hug against my back, my arms, my cheek. Cool and rough. And then I am past it. Somehow, I got through.

  Another gust of breeze. Soft and salty fresh. It eases its way through my hair and over my aching back. I realize suddenly just how cold I was. How the chill sank deep below my skin and settled into my bones. It warms me from the inside and rests within my chest, mingling with the bursting light already throbbing within me. The familiar whisper of waves floats to my ears.

  But how did we get here?

  The light expands, relaxes my mind. Tells me to stop questioning. To accept this incredible gift.

  “Look,” Jordan tells me.

  I open my eyes and look.

  It is just how I remember it. Even better.

  Sandy grains tickle under my feet. Rolling waves topple to the shore. Not far off, sits Haven. Its people for once aren’t working for survival or training for battle. They are out on the beach with us. They’re playing. Their heads turn to us, and they beckon to us to join them.

  Jordan is at the sea’s edge, jumping waves.

  “You see?” A familiar woman’s voice from behind me. A hand lands on my shoulder. “You belong here. You are safe here. With us.”

  Wild curls bounce in the breeze.

  … Miriam?

  It is and it isn’t a trick of the light, something familiar but not the same.

  She’s smiling, hair tossing into her flat gray eyes, so like Jordan’s.

  She is standing too close. Something is clawing at the crevices of my mind. Something trying to scream, trying to tell me something. My mind floods with questions, trying to find the one that will unlock it.

  If we’re back on the shore, will I be forced to protect the box again? It quivers in my pocket and I feel it calling to be held. I know what will happen as sure as if it has already happened. She will reach for it. I will kill her. And then I will have to leave. For good this time.

  I couldn’t bear it.

  But she just keeps smiling. Easy, free, simple. She stands too close, too close, too close and it twists in the pit of my stomach.

  How is she here?

  “We know your secret.” Her words are like a plunge into a lake in winter. Her eyes are wide and earnest. “It is safe with us.” She reaches out to me and her hand is on my chest. Resting right over the box. Alarms scream in my head. I brace myself for the inevitable. Nothing happens. “You are safe with us.”

  I try to slow the throbbing panic coursing through me.

  Safe.

  And then at the edge of my eye, a darting shadow. I whip around. Nothing. Just soft breeze and open sky and warm sun. The light latches into me, expands, and expands until I am blinded by it, until it is too loud to listen to anything else. Quiet, it demands, Stop questioning. Be happy.

  The sun dances in sparkles over the waves. Birds sing a sweet, lazy tune. The light bursts, makes me dizzy and lightheaded.

  It is all I ever wanted.

  “Here, eat,” Miriam says. More of the fruit. Suddenly a whole plate of it is in her hands.

  “No.” Something in me still resists, even now.

  Where did the fruit come from? Like before it seems to have come from nowhere.

  “Oh, but they are so good,” she says. She brings a few to her mouth and bi
tes into them, releasing their aroma into the air. “You must try it.” She lifts my hand and drops some into my palm. I lose myself in their rich sweet smell.

  No, Miriam warned me. One bite and I will be trapped here forever.

  But this is Miriam. This is just where I want to be. Isn’t it? Isn’t she?

  What was I doing?

  I have to stretch deep into my mind to pull it out. A name.

  Rona.

  I was looking for Rona.

  I try to remember why. The image of a bright, beautiful creature with wings rises to my mind. I grope for more. But it is too far away. Like a lost dream.

  “I should go.”

  My words float aimlessly in the air. As if they came from someone else. The light fights it, tries to push them back.

  “But you must rest. Look, you are injured.” Her soft fingers press on my shoulder. The touch softens the pain, courses through me like a healing elixir. It rises to my head and buzzes with a peaceful lull.

  “You must heal first. Then you can go if you must.”

  Everything in me hungers to yield to her. The berries are plump and rich, still in my hand. And yet still the clawing at the back of my brain. Why fight, why resist something so good?

  Jordan is splashing in the waves. The sea stretches behind him wide, open, limitless. He calls for me to join him. “Finish your berries and come play with me!”

  The sun is behind him, putting him in silhouette against its splashes of color as it sets. His hair flies around his face in the breeze like rays of sun.

  I remember leaving him here, the way my core clung to him as I walked away, how I promised him I’d come back. The way his deep brown eyes darkened as I tried to explained, set sparks through those flecks of fiery orange.

  And suddenly the door slams open and I recognize the gnawing thing clawing at my mind.

  His eyes.

  This boy is not Jordan.

  The real Jordan’s determined face rises to my mind, his soft brown eyes with bright orange flecks, and my chest sinks, sinks, sinks like a rock in a pond.

  Finally, I understand.

  I do not have to die to be trapped in this realm.

  And that’s exactly what this is. A realm trap. Set just for me.

  Chapter 19

  THE SUN STRETCHES across the sand, warm and bright. The waves wash soft on the shore. A bird floats overhead, singing. But it’s wrong, it’s all wrong.

  A sickening knot twists in my stomach. Adrenaline charges through me like an avalanche.

  “I must go.”

  I hear myself say the words, but they do not feel like mine. Small. Distant. Impossible. The light is still in me, stretches its beams down my arms and my legs, filling me with dizzy warmth, stealing my focus. How could I ever leave such a place? It’s everything I’ve looked for all these years. Already it has started to mend the holes inside me. Must I rip myself away?

  Stop, I snap myself back. This is not real.

  The thing that is not Miriam is smiling. A wide, relaxed smile that pushes a dimple into her check. Where is the real Miriam now, wandering the dark caves alone? How could I abandon her like this? She tried to warn me.

  “Of course you must,” not-Miriam responds. Her ease sends prickles over my skin. “But please, not yet. You must rest. Let us take care of you just one night before you go on your way.”

  She takes my hand. It is warm and gentle. Real. What’s the harm in enjoying this peace for just one night?

  No.

  This is not real.

  If I do not go now, I will never leave.

  A muffled sound catches my ear from within the cave. I turn to look back. “What was that?” Almost like someone calling out.

  “It’s nothing.” Not-Miriam pushes the plate of swollen berries to my face again. They are bright, ripe, and red. Red like rage, red like poison. “Please eat. It will help you stay strong in your journey.”

  She puts a hand on my back, gentle and kind. Right by my gaping wound. The pain has loosened and eased while I’ve been here. It is hardly anything now. If I leave, the pain is bound to return.

  When I leave.

  Because I must leave. I owe it to Kythiel to keep going. More importantly, to Miriam, to the real Jordan. To myself.

  This is not real. This is not real.

  The thick waxy air is crowding in on me. My shoulders are pulling in tight, tight, tighter every second.

  I want to run away as fast as I can.

  I want to curl up next to not-Miriam on the sand and listen to the waves’ whispers forever.

  Not real, not real, not real.

  What does it matter? Why shouldn’t I stay?

  The words rush into my head, as if shoved in from the outside. I could rest here forever on the shore. Never again fear the box, what it will make me do. Never again feel the sinking dread of the Hunters. I could join these people and sit on the shore, watch the tides rise and fall forever. What is the difference, really, between going back to Terath and letting myself be happy here? What could it possibly matter to anything? Whenever will this come my way again?

  So long I have lurked the shadows of Terath, without a moment of peace. Here in the realm of the dead, I find my first true taste. And now I will rip myself away?

  No, I will never leave it, never.

  My hands are balled in determined fists. Here I already have all I’ve yearned for. If I go back, I may never find it again. Even with a soul. My mind floods with thoughts I’d locked away, did not dare think before. What if the humans still never accept me among them? What if the soul does not work as we expect, and I am still bound to the box even after? If I’ve learned anything here in the Nethers, it’s that anything is possible.

  Not-Jordan runs to me from the waves, takes my hand, panting.

  “What’s wrong? Come! Play in the waves with me.”

  I look down to him and something else’s eyes meet me. I remember the boy I swore to protect. The real one, the one waiting for me back in Terath in a real village by the shore.

  This is something I cannot let go of. Not for anything.

  Again, a call pierces from within the cave. I whip around. This time I am sure of it.

  I let go of not-Jordan’s hand, turn from him. I walk quickly back toward the crack in the stony wall. I do not stop.

  Not-Jordan pulls on my arm, says something to me with a wide smile.

  But I am not listening now. Not to him. My ears are focused on the shouts coming from inside the cave. A voice I know, a voice I hardly believe I’m hearing. It’s Miriam. Real Miriam. Could I be so lucky?

  I must get to her, get away from the shore as fast as I can. Not-Jordan tugs harder, but I avert my eyes, not trusting what’s in front of me anymore. I focus on the bare rocks of the cave walls ahead of me, Miriam’s calls beyond it.

  Not-Miriam rushes next to the child, pulling at my other arm, her voice a high-pitched buzz in my head. I struggle against their weight, an impossible weight for two humans, as if they’re made of lead, anchored into the ground. But my legs push me forward, forward, forward, and the sand sinks under my feet with each step as they drag dense and heavy behind me. Their knees drag and scrape on the rocky ground, they cry for me to stop. The pain in my shoulder is back, a fierce piercing sting that digs all the way through to my chest, raw and sharp.

  This is not real, this is not real, this is not real.

  They get heavier and heavier, until the pain in my back is unbearable and I do not think I can move forward another step. I am almost there, just feet from the opening back into the mountain. Miriam, the real Miriam, shouts for me clear as day, “Adem! Adem!”

  “Miriam!” I call back.

  As I shove back through the crack in the mountain, it seems to be tightening, fighting against me.

  “Miriam!” I call for her again.

  I turn to the strange figures clinging to my arms, unclenching their fingers from me one by one. They cry, whimper, beg me to stay—not real, not re
al—and when I am done and stand upright again, I find changed creatures before me.

  Creatures like fury embodied.

  Their skin rots down to their bones, turns ashy gray and withers into the realm’s darkness. Blood red eyes glow out of grimaced snarling mouths, revealing feral fangs. Thin dark wings twitch from their backs.

  “Oh Gods.”

  Miriam is rushing toward me. I try to fling the horrible creatures away, but they will not release me. Miriam is quickly at my side, swinging at them with her fists, but each dissolves into shadow and darts away as she makes contact. I don’t try to understand. We turn away and we run, run, run.

  The creatures come at us in whooshes of shadow, re-form at our sides to grab, claw, and bite. More start to join them, and more, and more. The whole beach of villagers must be after us now. A flock of shadow and fury all around us, whooshing and snapping, scratching and shrieking, and I can’t push them away fast enough. As soon as my arms reach for them, they dart away again, nothing but shadow.

  We trip and stumble our way across the open cave. They swarm us, clutching at my heels and clawing my head, a blurred rush of darkness swirling all around. I can hardly see the ground ahead of us to get away.

  We're almost at the opening back into the mountain’s tight tunnels. I grab onto Miriam’s arm, her deep cold shooting back into me through my palm, and pull her through it with me. The shadows’ shrieks echo, darting after us. The pain is sharp in my shoulder, even worse than before. The light collapses within me like a vacuum, cold, empty, and leaving behind a raw, naked longing. It begs me to turn back.

  But I dare not stop, not again. Not for anything.

  Keep moving. Wherever we end up, it will be better than this.

  Chapter 20

  WE RUN AS hard and as long as we can. Until we can no longer hear the awful echoes of their shrieks twisting down the tunnels after us. We run until Miriam is gasping, and my back is seizing with pain, and we’re forced to slow to a walk. The steady, slow pace quiets my body and the adrenaline starts to wane. My ears prick at every tick of the caves, every rolling pebble. Behind my eyes, my last look at those strange creatures still burns. Were those demons? I understand now the Keeper’s fear of them.