She didn’t look up from unpacking. “Of course.”
I glanced at Nicholas, who was still within earshot. “It has to do with the…um, the stuff that was in the hot chocolate.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks colored. “Maybe it’d be better if Nicholas…”
“Right.” I cleared my throat. “Nicholas? Do you mind giving us a few minutes?”
He looked back and forth between us warily.
“I promise that no one’s going to jump out and attack me in the middle of the forest,” I said with a grim smile. “And if they do, I’ve got Calliope and Pogo to protect me. Just a few minutes, I promise.”
“I’ll watch out for her,” said Calliope, and Nicholas caved, melting into the trees.
“How did you handle it? The thing that made me and Henry…” Now it was my turn to blush. Instead of doing the same, something unreadable flashed in Calliope’s eyes.
“I’m not seeing anyone, and I didn’t have enough of a dose to be climbing the walls, as you must have, so I rested.” Her tone was flat and unfriendly, and I frowned. What had I said?
“Why aren’t you dating anyone?” I said, figuring that was a safe enough question. “I mean, you’re pretty and smart and funny, and you must know a lot about everyone here—”
“You’re very kind,” she said stiffly. “But I’m afraid I will never be good enough for the person I want.”
My frown deepened. “Of course you are. Any guy would be crazy not to want you, you know.”
“No, Kate.” Her tone was icy now. “I’m not good enough for him, and I never will be. He’s made it perfectly clear that the only person good enough for him is you.”
Stunned, I stumbled over my words. “Calliope, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—whoever it is, I’m sure I can talk to them and figure it out and—”
“Are you really that dense?”
I fell silent. Apparently I was. “Your Henry,” she spat. “I’ve been watching him weed through girls like you for decades. He doesn’t care about me—all I am to him is someone to take care of his guests.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “I told him once, you know, the first time he invited a girl here. Told him I’d be perfect for it, that I would love him and treat him a thousand times better than Persephone ever did. And you know what he did? He walked away and never said a damn thing to me again unless it had something to do with one of his spoiled girlfriends.”
I didn’t know what to say or think—what was I supposed to do? Was this why she was mad at me? Because I’d slept with him while under the influence of some stupid aphrodisiac?
“I’m sorry,” I said, fighting to keep my voice under control. “I didn’t choose this. Maybe if Henry never noticed you…maybe it was never meant to be.”
“Of course it was meant to be!” she exploded. “How could it not be? I love him. I’ve loved him for longer than you’ve been alive.”
Her expression flattened, and for a frightening moment, her eyes looked as dead as she was.
“And I will love him long after you’re gone.”
From the picnic basket, she withdrew something sharp and metallic. I didn’t have time to run. She moved so fast that the knife was a blur, and I tried to move, to kick her legs out from under her and scramble away, but she grabbed my hair and yanked my head back so hard I was afraid my neck would snap.
“Nicholas!” I cried, but it was too late.
I felt the pressure first, a strange pushing against my side. The pain didn’t blossom until she yanked the knife out, and that was when I screamed. Instinctively I thrust my elbow at her, feeling something crack as it found purchase, but that only gave her another opening. I gasped as she thrust the knife into my belly, the wound instantly white-hot. Already I could taste blood.
“How disappointing,” she said, wiping the stream of blood from her broken nose. “Is that really the best you can do?”
With one last burst of adrenaline, I lunged at her, my hands closing around her throat. But I was losing blood rapidly, and I didn’t have the strength to do the damage I wanted to do. Helpless, I squeezed my eyes shut as she delivered her final blow, stabbing me in the center of my chest. This time she didn’t bother pulling the knife out.
She pried my hands from her neck and lifted me with ease. I could hear Pogo barking, the sound of it muffled and far away, and I tried to call out, but all I could manage was a sickening gurgle. Pain burned through me like fire. I grew dizzy, as if I were falling through a tunnel, but there was nothing I could do to hold on.
The splash of freezing water roused me enough to open my eyes. My vision was blurry, but I could see Calliope looming over me. Her body moved away from me, but she stood still. With my mind so sluggish, it took me several seconds to understand that I was in the river and floating away.
This was it. This was what death felt like. Cold and wet and numb and fire as I struggled to breathe, but no air filled my lungs. Instead of being scared, I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to say goodbye to my mother after all. If Henry had any mercy in him, he would let her go the instant he realized I was dead.
Henry.
After letting him lower his guard and get his hopes up, I’d managed to get myself killed. And if I was dead, he would be, too. He hadn’t given up on me, so what right did I have to give up on him?
I struggled weakly against the current, but it was futile. I could barely move, let alone try to swim to shore. The river would take me, and if I were lucky, eventually they’d find my body washed up on the riverbank somewhere nearby.
Above me the sun streamed through the bare branches, and I let myself drift down into the darkness, no longer cold. Instead I felt warm, as if Henry was embracing me, and I imagined him pulling me to shore. The cool air would hit my wet skin, and I would shiver. He would heal me, and in the end, everything would be all right again.
But it was too late for happy endings. I was already dead.
CHAPTER 17
DEATH
When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but my mother wasn’t it. Except there she was, looking as whole and healthy as she did every night when I fell asleep. Instead of greeting me with her usual smile, her expression was grim, and she stared at something in the distance.
“Mom?” I said, and when she looked at me, her eyes were so red and hollow that they couldn’t have possibly been hers. Even in the worst days of her illness, she hadn’t looked so empty. There had still been something inside of her, a spark or a smile or something that reminded me she was still my mother. Not this time.
I tried to take her hand, but the ground was unsteady, and I fell back down onto the bench. It was dark outside, nothing like the usual bright days we spent together, but the full moon and twinkling stars above us gave off enough light for me to make out where we were. We were still in Central Park, but for the first time since my dreams had begun, we weren’t in Sheep Meadow. We were in a boat floating in the middle of the lake.
I froze. This was exactly how I’d nearly drowned when I was a kid.
“Mom, I—” My voice cracked, weaker than usual. I was exhausted and badly wanted to close my eyes and forget about all of this. To let it fade away with the rest of my life. “I’m sorry.”
She stared out across the water, her misery painted so clearly on her face that I could feel it. “It isn’t your fault,” she said, her voice cutting through the eerie quiet that surrounded us. Even the things that usually made sounds, like crickets chirruping or leaves rustling in the breeze, were silent. All I heard was her voice and the sound of waves lapping against the side of the boat. It was as if we were the only living things in the city.
I was too exhausted to move, but I wanted so badly to cross the boat and touch her. To show her I was still here, even if it wasn’t for much longer. “But it is. It was Calliope this whole time, and I never saw it. I should have—”
“There have been many others who have known her for much longer than you,” said my mother. “If anyth
ing, they should have been the ones to see it, not you. You cannot blame yourself for something you could not have possibly known.”
“But I should have,” I said, my voice so strained I was afraid it might disappear. “I knew someone wanted to hurt me, and I should have tried to find out who it was, but I was so concerned about Henry, and I thought—I thought no one would dare when he was around. I thought I was safe.”
“You should have been.” I could see the moonlight reflected on her cheeks, a sure sign she was crying. “I should have done more.”
I hesitated. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering me, she stood and crossed the boat, making it sway. I gripped onto the edges as hard as I could, but drowning was the least of my worries. If I wasn’t already dead, I would be soon enough. She sat beside me and enveloped me in her arms, and it was all I could do to keep my composure. One of us had to be strong.
I don’t know how long we sat there, listening to the boat bob up and down in the water. It could have been minutes or hours—time seemed to stop in this place, and her embrace was all the protection I needed against the cool night air. I ran through the events that had happened by the river, how one moment Calliope had been my friend and the next my killer. How had I not seen it? But looking back on it, what was there to see?
“Why do you think she did it?” I mumbled against my mother’s shoulder. “She said she loved Henry, but why kill everyone? Why risk his life like that, too?”
She ran her fingers through my hair. I was sure she meant to comfort me, but it only reminded me of what I was losing. What we both were losing. I’d failed her just as much as I’d failed Henry, but at least she forgave me for it. I wished I could forgive myself as well. “Why do you think?” she said gently, and I shrugged.
“I don’t know.” My mind wandered from Calliope to Henry to Ava, who had been so desperate to find love. “Maybe she was as lonely as he was. Maybe she thought she could save him. But—if she really did love him, how could she risk his existence like that? I mean, if I were her, I would’ve rather seen him with me than not see him at all.”
“There’s more than one kind of love,” said my mother. “Maybe that’s the difference between you and Calliope. Maybe that’s why you were chosen and she wasn’t.”
I closed my eyes as I tried to think about it, but nothing outside of the sway of the boat and the sound of my mother breathing made sense anymore. “I don’t want to go,” I whispered. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
She buried her face in my hair. “You won’t have to.”
Before I could figure out what she meant, the boat glided toward the shore. When it came to a stop, I opened my eyes and saw a silhouette cast against the water, distorting as the water rippled. My mother’s slender arms were replaced with muscle, and I felt myself being lifted out of the boat. I wanted to struggle, to insist on staying with my mother, but my tongue felt heavy and my thoughts sluggish.
“I’ve got her,” said a pained voice. Henry.
“Thank you,” said my mother, her voice weighed down with something I didn’t understand. She brushed a hand against my cheek and leaned forward to kiss his. “Take care of her, Henry.”
“I will,” he said, but there was nothing beyond that. My mother bent down and pressed her lips to my forehead. I desperately wanted to take her hand, but she did it for me, and using the last of my strength, I managed a small squeeze.
“Mom?” Even to me my voice sounded foreign and twisted, as if I were only beginning to learn how to form words.
“It’s all right, sweetheart.” She pulled away, and I could see the tears in her eyes. “I love you, and I’m so proud of you. Don’t you ever forget it.”
Panic bubbled inside of me, but with no way of releasing it, I suffered through the heart-wrenching pain. She was leaving. This was the end. I was supposed to have weeks more with her, wasn’t that our deal?
Stupid me. How could I possibly spend time with her when I was dead and she wasn’t?
“Love you, too,” I said, and though it came out as more of a gurgle than anything, she smiled.
As Henry turned away from her and carried me into the inky blackness of the night, I turned my head enough to watch her grow smaller and smaller in the distance. Finally she seemed to fade, and she was gone. I clung to her last words, the glue that held me together as I struggled to resist the deep lull of sleep. I would see her again when she passed, and there would be no end of sunny summer days we could spend together in Central Park.
But even though I knew this, even though Henry was carrying me to my own death, I couldn’t help but form a single word on my lips, one I’d resisted saying for so many years. The one word I hoped I’d never have to say.
Goodbye.
I expected death to be cold. Instead the first thing I felt was warmth—incredible warmth that filled my body, or at least what was left of it, and spread through me like honey. Was this what Ava went through? Waking up warm? It seemed too easy.
And then the pain started. Overwhelming, agonizing pain in my chest and my side, exactly where Calliope had stabbed me. Gasping, I mentally kicked myself for thinking it’d be so simple. Ava hadn’t shown any signs of her head wound, after all, and my body had to heal before I could get up and walk around.
Whispers filled the air, and I couldn’t make them out. Other dead souls? Would my mother be there waiting for me already? Would I open my eyes and see grass and trees and sun, or was there more to it? I should’ve asked Henry when I’d had the chance.
It seemed like ages before I forced myself to look. At first the light burned, and I closed my eyes again, but when I took it slowly, they adjusted. This time my gasp had nothing to do with pain.
I was in my bedroom in the manor, surrounded by familiar faces. Ava and Ella, Sofia and Nicholas, even Walter was there, and they all looked worried. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Henry.
My heart skipped a beat, but I was already too confused to wonder why it was still pumping in the first place. This wasn’t Central Park.
“Am I dead?” Or at least that’s what I’d meant to say. It came out more like a croak, and my throat was on fire—but what did it matter? Henry was there.
He grimaced, and a block of ice filled my stomach. I was dead, wasn’t I? He could barely even look at me. “No,” said Henry, staring down at my hands. He was holding mine. “You are alive.”
My heart managed to sink and soar at the same time. That meant it wasn’t over, that we could still do this, that I might still pass—
But then I remembered my mother’s last words, and I realized what she’d meant. It hadn’t been my time to go; it had been hers. Horror filled me, and I couldn’t help the rush of tears, too exhausted to hold them back. I struggled to sit up, but the pain in my chest was torture.
“Lie still,” said Walter sternly, putting a cup of warm liquid to my lips. I drank the sweet medicine, my eyes still streaming.
Everyone watched me, but I never looked away from Henry, too devastated to be embarrassed. “Henry?” I slurred as the medicine took effect. “Why…” I couldn’t get my question out. Fighting against the urge to close my eyes, I tried to wiggle my toes to keep myself awake, but even that hurt.
“Sleep,” he said. “I will be here when you awake.”
Having no choice, I let myself drift away, clinging to his words and the hope that he was telling the truth.
That night, I didn’t dream of my mother, and I knew I never would again. Nightmares filled the hours instead, images of water and knives and rivers of blood, and no matter how loudly I screamed, I couldn’t wake up. They were different from the ones before I’d moved to Eden Manor—those had been menacing somehow, a warning. These were memories.
After what felt like an eternity, I woke up. My eyes flew open, my body still aching and the tension in my muscles doing nothing to help it. I expected light, but for several seconds there was nothing but dark. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed Henry
.
He’d pulled an armchair up next to the bed, and while the other three sides of the curtains were closed, there was enough space open on the fourth for me to see him. He was still holding my hand. “Good morning,” he said. There was a distance to his voice that I didn’t understand.
“Morning?” I mumbled, trying to move my head to look out the window, but the curtains were closed. Henry ran his hand over a candlestick on the nightstand, and the wick burst into flame. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough for me to see.
“Very early in the morning. It is still dark out.” He hesitated. “How are you?”
Good question. I considered it for a moment, surprised when I realized that the pain had lessened. But that wasn’t what he’d meant, and we both knew it. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“She asked to take your place, and I allowed it,” he said, his eyes trained on our joined hands. “It was the only way I could take you from the Underworld. A life for a life—even I cannot break the laws of the dead.”
His words hit me hard, and I licked my dry lips. “She gave up her life for me?”
“Yes,” he said, offering me a cup of water. I took it with shaking hands, spilling more than I got inside of me. Henry refilled it, and this time he held the cup to my lips for me. “You were dead, and I could not heal you. It was her last gift to you.”
I let out a soft sob as grief washed over me. She was gone, all because of my mistake. Because I’d let Calliope get too close. Because I’d trusted the wrong person. I felt like a piece of myself had disappeared, like I’d lost something vital I would never get back. I was empty and full of heartache at the same time, and everything felt wrong.
Several minutes passed before I could look at Henry again, let alone talk. When I did, my vision was blurred and my voice hoarse and forced. “What happened after the river?”