A thought occurred to me, a piece of the complex puzzle he’d presented to me. “So those times you missed school and rehearsal? The days when I can’t seem to find you? Are those the times you’re . . . on the bank?”
Dante nodded.
“And where is that, exactly?”
He looked away into the darkness. The stars were glittering pinpricks in his fathomless eyes. “It’s . . . not here.”
“You talk about it like it’s a real place,” I said.
“It is a real place. At least as real as it has to be.”
“I don’t understand.”
Dante chafed at his wrists absently, endlessly, choosing his words carefully. “The bank is a space—an existence—that runs parallel to now but is entirely separate from it. It’s like a mirrored reflection of this life—only here, life flourishes. Here, time flows along its measured course. On the bank, there is only emptiness. A barren wasteland. A nothingness . . .”
“It sounds awful,” I murmured.
Dante shrugged. “It’s my life now. I have to keep the balance. If I falter too far either way . . .” He leaned forward, his words falling like stones between us, his shrouded hand pressed hard against mine. “Do you know what it’s like, Abby? To be so close to life—and not be able to touch it? To not be able to dive in and let the water close over you and have the current carry you away? To be forever denied the one thing that you long for most of all? The one thing that will save you—” His voice sheered off into silence.
Tears filled my eyes and I brushed them away with the back of my hand. I wondered if the same rules applied to Leo, to Zo and his friends. And if so, I wondered if they coped with keeping the balance the same way. I could have been wrong, but they never seemed to be gone as long or as often as Dante. It was a long moment before either of us spoke again.
“Do you believe me, Abby?” He handed me his silk handkerchief, crumpled from his efforts to explain an impossible story. “Please. I need you to believe me.”
I hesitated. I wanted to believe him, but everything he had told me seemed so unbelievable. So far-fetched, so crazy. And yet . . .
And yet the longer he spoke, the more it sounded like the truth. And what if it was? What would that mean?
“Can you show me?” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I was going to say them. “The bank? I think I could believe you if you could show me.”
His eyes searched mine with a dark intensity. “It’s a dangerous thing to ask. I’m not sure. . . .” He shook his head and drew in a deep breath. “Do you trust me, Abigail Beatrice Edmunds?”
I opened my mouth, but Dante covered my lips with his fingers.
“Be sure of your heart before you speak.”
I closed my mouth underneath his fingers. Did I trust him? I’d only known him since January. Yes, we’d spent time together rehearsing for the play—we’d even been on what could only be properly defined as a date—but was that all that was required for trust: spending time together?
Or was trust based on more than that? On character? On experience?
I’d felt his blood on my hands. Was that enough?
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing, on the feelings in my heart, on recapturing that moment of golden light. Was Dante the kind of person I could trust—possibly with my life? I had seen his temper, but it had never been directed at me. I had heard his quick wit cut others like a razor, but his words to me had always been kind and gentle. I had witnessed his moodiness, but, honestly, it hadn’t been any worse than Valerie’s mood swings or Hannah’s snarky comments.
It was clear he trusted me. Who had he asked for help at the Valentine’s Dance? Who had he confided in with his deepest secrets? Who had he kissed with all the passion of his wild and fierce soul?
Wasn’t trust ultimately a decision of the heart?
I opened my eyes. I took the silk scarf, smoothed it over my fingers.
Dante looked at me with apprehension.
“I trust you,” I said simply.
He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, hard and insistent. His mouth moved on mine and electricity shot through my veins.
“Grazie, Abby. Tu é una bellissima donna, e ti ringrazio dal fondo della mia anima per avermi creduto.”
His murmuring voice sent shivers down my spine.
“So, what do we do?” I asked, once he had let me catch my breath.
“We don’t do anything. You hold tight to me”—Dante suited action to words and intertwined his fingers with mine—“and I . . . do this.”
Chapter
18
The transition was instantaneous. For a moment, I wondered if anything had even changed at all. I was opening my mouth to ask Dante a question when I realized how dramatically my surroundings had, in fact, altered.
There was no air. I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning in an ocean of nothingness.
Pressure squeezed my lungs like a vise. I was acutely aware of the flow of blood in my body, the sound of it roaring in my ears. My heartbeat hurt inside my chest. Darkness feathered the edges of my vision. I tried not to look at the landscape around me. The world shimmered drunkenly, tilting just enough off center to upset my equilibrium. What was going on? Where was this place? Panicked, I grabbed for Dante.
His mouth came down on mine, and with his kiss I found I could breathe again. The roiling darkness inside me subsided in soft, lapping waves. Dante encircled me in his arms, holding me tight and safe in his embrace. I could hear his heart beating, and the sound helped calm my fraying nerves.
I don’t know how long we stood together, locked in an embrace, but eventually I started to feel stronger, more solid and stable. I could peek at the world from the corners of my eyes without feeling like I was going to throw up.
Dante spoke in short, clipped phrases. His voice sounded thin and flat and I noticed there was a strange echo to his words, almost as though I was hearing them two or three times.
“Abby—Abby—Abby. How do you feel—feel—feel?”
I shook my head, trying to clear away the disconcerting echoes buzzing like insects around my ears. “I’m fine—fine—fine. Now—now—now.”
His smile lit up his whole face. “Good—good—good.” The echoes slowly faded until his voice resolved into his regular cadence, rich and full of emotion. “I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t think that would happen.”
“What did happen?”
“I think you brought some of your time with you. I . . . I had to make it so you could survive in this environment.”
He pulled back just a little, concern written large in his eyes, in the tightness of his jaw.
The dark black line I’d seen around him back at the park had returned, but this time it extended to include me as well. I could see a thin line of shimmering gold layered beneath the black armor that protected me in this place.
“Where are we?”
“We’re on the bank of the river.” Dante’s voice had an odd catch to it. He gently turned me around so I could see the entirety of where we stood.
The sky, or what would have been the sky had there been any depth to the world around us, was a horrible gray nothingness. No sun. No moon. My eyes hurt, like I had an eyelash stuck under my lid. I blinked and had to look away.
But that was even worse.
From horizon to horizon stretched a perfectly flat, utterly barren wasteland. Void of color. Void of movement. Void of sound.
Dante and I were the only things that disrupted the terrifying emptiness around us. His white shirt and black pants were a study in severe contrasts. My skirt was red as blood. The silence itched on my skin.
“We’re outside of time,” he said, his eyes the same flat gray as the non-sky above us. “Stepping out of the river and onto the bank is like sliding in between the moments of time. Come with me. Don’t let go.” Holding tight to my hand, he began walking swiftly to the left.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You w
anted to see the river.”
“But I thought we had just come from the river?” I frowned in confusion. My mind felt flattened; it was hard to think.
“The river has a connection, a presence, in this mirrored existence, too.” Dante shrugged. “We’re going to see the other side of the river.”
“Ah, the back side of water,” I chuckled.
Dante’s eyebrows drew down in confusion.
“Sorry. Disneyland joke. Go on.”
“Think of it like this: A tapestry takes threads of all different colors and creates something beautiful out of it. But turn the tapestry over, and you’ll see all the knots underneath.” He quickened his step a little. “It will make more sense when you see it. I promise.”
It was eerie to walk next to him and not feel the air on my skin, not hear the sound of my footsteps, not see my shadow behind me. I could feel my mind splintering under the weight of the terrible void that had swallowed us whole.
And yet, something about this place seemed weirdly familiar. I closed my eyes and saw dark stars sparkling behind my lids. I could almost taste chocolate and pineapple on my tongue.
“I’ve been here before,” I blurted out, my eyes flying open. “You brought me here before, didn’t you? All those weeks ago when I was under all that stress.”
Dante didn’t break stride, but I saw the tension tighten the muscles along his shoulders. “It wasn’t stress. You were feeling the pressure of too much time. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Too much time?”
“It happened during breakfast at the café. I wasn’t paying attention—I wasn’t careful enough . . .” He shook his head. “I didn’t realize it would hurt you. I didn’t realize that you would have to make up for that lag in time somehow.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know how when you drop a stick in a river, how the water parts and flows around it? That’s what happened at breakfast. Time split around us—two streams separating for a moment before joining again, but at a different pace than before.”
I remembered how I had felt divided after breakfast, how I had two distinct memories of that event.
“Then I guess those glimpses of the future I saw were because of that disruption of time,” I said eventually, amazed that I could say something so strange in such a strange place and have it make sense.
Dante stopped short. “What ‘glimpses of the future’?”
I told him about the white flashes I’d experienced and how they’d gone away along with the pressure when he’d brought me to the bank the first time.
His eyes darkened.
“Is . . . is that bad?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice low and troubled. “Promise me you’ll tell me if it happens again.”
“O-okay. I promise.”
He started walking again, his thoughts obviously far away.
The silence that fell between us was oppressive, suffocating. I hated the nothingness that was all around me. I wanted to hear the roar of a jet engine instead of the hollow hum deep in my inner ear, straining to detect even white noise. I wanted to see the setting sun flip the horizon from day into night instead of the glare of omnipresent, flat light. I wanted to smell the musty scent of Dante’s wool coat instead of feeling the faint itch in my nose of empty air. I wanted my senses back. I interrupted his musings with another question.
“So, that day after breakfast, those matters of ‘personal business’ you had to attend to . . . ?”
He nodded, returning his attention me. “I had to come here to find my balance again. To take the twig out of the stream, so to speak.”
“And the pressure I felt? That’s the pressure you were talking about? The kind that can kill you?”
“Yes,” he said quietly, and I shivered at the flatness of his voice. “If I hadn’t seen you that day at lunch, hadn’t recognized what was going on, the pressure would have grown and grown. It would have killed you. It’s why I brought you here for just a flicker of time. You didn’t need to stay long to find your own balance again. It’s also why I had you keep your eyes closed. I didn’t want you to see . . . this.”
I remembered the sensation of an open vastness replacing the tight pressure strangling my heart. “And here I thought it was the chocolate that made me feel better.”
Dante smiled, squeezing my hand softly. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
He tugged me with him, walking forward at a brisk pace, but it was hard to tell how fast we were moving since nothing changed around us.
I was having trouble focusing my thoughts. Talking seemed to help so I asked Dante another question: “What were those echoes I heard earlier? What was that all about?”
“Time doesn’t flow on the bank, it just is. Everything is happening now, and everything has already happened, and everything has yet to happen in the future.” Dante shrugged like he knew he wasn’t making much sense. “Those were echoes from the past, the present, and the future.”
“I don’t understand,” I complained.
Dante smiled a little. “It’s best to think of something else while you’re here. Something that will keep your mind focused on things that do make sense. Sometimes I recite Inferno: ‘Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita—’”
“In English, please,” I panted, trying to keep up with Dante’s long strides in my heavy skirts. I mentally cursed Dave; if it weren’t for his stupid performance superstitions, I’d be in jeans and sneakers and much more comfortable.
“‘When I had journeyed half of our life’s way, I found myself within a shadowed forest, for I had lost the path that does not stray. Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was, that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even in recall renews my fear: so bitter—death is hardly more severe!’”
“How uplifting,” I drawled. “It fits right in with all this.” I gestured with my free hand at the vastness pressing down on us like a fist.
“Inferno isn’t all like that,” Dante said, a flush staining his cheeks. “The language in some of the Cantos can be extremely beautiful. A few lines can sustain me for days here.”
“Days? How can you tell?”
He glanced at me, an unreadable expression on his face. “I can tell.”
I blanched as I realized what he was saying. Of course he could tell. Even in a place outside of time, he could tell because this barren hell was part of his permanent reality.
“Tell me one of those parts, then,” I said softly. “One of the parts you love.”
Dante thought for a moment, his steps slowing before stopping altogether. He reached out, cradling both of my hands in his grasp. He brushed the inside of my wrists with his thumbs. His changeling eyes glittered like falling snow. “‘I was among those souls who are suspended; a lady called to me, so blessed, so lovely that I implored to serve at her command. Her eyes surpassed the splendor of the star’s; and she began to speak to me—so gently and softly—with angelic voice.’”
I felt heat race through my cheeks, my throat, my wrists. A soft touch and some poetry and I melted. I was starting to understand what Dante saw in the writings of his namesake. “Who is she?” I asked. “The woman in the poem?”
“Her name is Beatrice. It is for love of Beatrice that Dante travels through the nine circles of Inferno and the nine tiers of Purgatory just to catch a glimpse of her in Paradise.” He ran his fingertips along the curve of my cheek.
I closed my eyes under his tender caress, trembling. For just a moment, the vast emptiness around me was filled with a golden light.
He brushed his thumb over my lips. “You’re my future, Abby. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat and my heart speed up its rhythm.
He leaned down and kissed me again, his lips soft and gentle. I felt a warmth rising through my body from the soles of my feet, tingling in my fingers and toes. The kiss seemed to last forever—and, I reflected, in a place outside of
time, perhaps it had.
I heard him draw a deep breath. “We’re here.”
Surprised, I opened my eyes. “Where—” I began, but my words were washed away at the sight before me.
The river.
I suppose I expected to see a traditional river—a huge cataract of water rushing in white-water rapids along a deep ravine like the Colorado, or a wide, meandering highway of ripples and undertows like the Mississippi—but what I saw was unlike anything I could have imagined.
The vast, flat wasteland of the bank spread out before us like a pane of glass, but a few steps beyond where we stood, the glass seemed to ripple and shimmer, bend and convulse, creating a wide chasm of chaotic movement that shouldn’t have existed in a place of such frozen and unchanging sameness.
Time flowed wild and fierce in that chasm. I could see it passing before my eyes while I stood just a few inches away, motionless on the bank. My mind struggled with the dichotomy.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Dante asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“I like to come here sometimes to see life in all its possibilities. What has been”—he gestured upstream at the ripples that constantly flowed—“and what might be.” This time he pointed downstream, where the silver thread unspooled into the endless distance.
I looked across the shifting surface to where the ground seemed to return to its smooth, flat expanse. “What’s over there?” I asked, pointing.
Dante hesitated. A hidden pain surfaced in the corners of his eyes. “It’s where we came from. It’s the past we left behind. We can never go there.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve been exiled here—to this side of the bank. It’s impossible to cross to the other side. The moment we touch the river, we’re pulled back into it. And even if there was some kind of bridge, we’d still need a door to take us home.”
“Past and future . . .” I murmured. “‘And never the twain shall meet.’”
“Shakespeare?”
“No, Kipling.”
My eyes returned to the swirling sheet of glass at my feet. Images rose to the surface of the glittering chasm, jumbled and uneven. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t.