The Light of the World, page 27
“Al can help us find him.”
“I know. I just hope we’ll be able to catch him before he goes down there.”
The driver of the cab said nothing, eyeing them both through his rear-view mirror and shaking his head as they fell into silence. Eva’s hands were shaking and her breath was coming in uneven gasps. She felt like an idiot for not seeing this coming. It was bound to have happened. She should never have trusted a man who was so driven to find something like the light of the world.
She’d gone to Theo and had decided to stay with him because he reminded her so much of all the professors she had loved when she was still at college. He was as inspirational as any of them had been. He knew truths about the world that Eva had yet to discover. She was a fool, she knew that. She was too trusting, too gullible.
Liv’s fingers found hers and squeezed encouragingly. Eva felt the warmth and the affection that she was only starting to realize was genuine and for her alone. She allowed it to seep into her skin, curl deep at the base of her spine, and calm her racing heart and ragged breath.
She couldn’t play the same role as Mary had to Wren. She couldn’t wake up one day to find Liv gone forever. She couldn’t, but maybe she would have to because she didn’t think she could stop herself. She just wanted to kiss Liv again.
Eva turned and looked at Liv as they clung to each other in the back of a cab that wouldn’t go fast enough. They were doomed, and probably always had been.
The cab lurched to a stop and Eva fell back against the seat, blinking as they parked in the darkness outside the warm yellow windows of the bookshop’s display windows. Light poured out into the night and Liv cursed quietly, handing the cabbie a ten and telling him to keep the change.
They clambered out of the cab into the freezing night.
“I want this, with you.” Eva found herself saying. Liv’s head tipped backward and she stared up at the second-floor windows. There were lights on, which Eva took to be a good sign. Maybe Theo was at home. Al would still be downstairs with the last customers of the day.
“Terrible timing is all,” Liv said.
“We do have awful timing,” Eva agreed. She stared up at the lit windows. Her mind felt hazy, and Liv was still too close for her to be able to think straight. “I’ve never actually been up there…” She’d never had the occasion and she felt guilty just barging in. “Think he’s home?” The bell above the door rang and Al stuck his head out, a sweater wrapped around his shoulders. “You guys just missed Dad,” he said. His expression was perplexed.
A cold, ringing sensation started to fill Eva’s ears. She stepped away from Liv, and closer to Al so she could hear him over the wind. “What do you mean?”
“He came in, blew past me without even saying hello, got some stuff upstairs, and then locked himself in his workroom for a few minutes.” Al shrugged and held the door open, ushering them into the shop. He stared into the back of the store. “I opened the door after about ten minutes to ask what was up and he was just gone. I think he went out the fire exit.”
Liv let out a quiet curse. “Get your coat,” she said, “And some boots and flashlights. We have to catch your dad before he goes down there.”
“Goes where?” Al pulled his sweater over his head, his fingers wrapped around his shirtsleeves as they stuck awkwardly out through the arm holes, his head still not quite through the neck. His voice was muffled, but attentive.
Liv paced the small space in front of the battered old armchairs that dominated the front of the store beside the newspaper rack, her arms clasped behind her back. “Mary’s diaries are gone; Eva’s apartment was broken into.”
All’s head popped out of the top of his sweater. “You think my dad took ’em?” His voice was hardly accusatory. For all that Al had struggled to tell her about his father, he had been honest about how prone to obsession the guy was. This was his white whale. This was the one thing that he was going to be completely and utterly unpredictable about.
Liv faltered, and Al hurried to reassure her. “Look,” he added, stepping toward the door and flipping the open sign around to the closed side, spinning the lock closed. “I get that my dad’s a bit nutty, but breaking into someone’s apartment is a bit much, I think.”
“No one else knows about the diaries, Al.” Eva jammed her hands into her pockets. “Not unless they overheard me talking to my dad way back in August about them. I’ve emailed your dad about them a few times, and since then it’s been just the four of us who really know what’s going on with them.” She didn’t add that only two of them understood what was happening. “I wouldn’t accuse him of anything, except for the fact that he’s missing, as are the diaries.”
“Where would he have gone?” Al frowned. “I mean, with the diaries.”
Eva and Liv exchanged a searching glance.
“The cavern under Penn Station. Maybe. I don’t know where else he could have gone,” Liv said. “Look, there isn’t much time, Al. We have to hurry if we want to get there before he does.”
“Why does it matter if he gets there first? Not to mention, how the hell does he know about it in the first place? I thought we agreed never to tell him.”
Eva’s fingers tightened into a fist. Liv shot her a warning look. Don’t, her entire demeanor seemed to scream. Liv had to handle this.
“Because if he gets there— Look, Al, there’s no time to explain all this now. We’ll do it on the way, okay?” Liv’s expression was open and unguarded. Eva could see the desperation she barely kept in check. They had to go. They had no time to explain this stuff now.
Al seemed to consider this, before he turned on his heel and marched toward the back of the shop, beckoning for them to follow. He led them behind the half door partially concealed behind a bookshelf and up the narrow stairs that led to the upstairs apartment where he and Theo lived. Eva followed half a step behind him, Liv trailing behind her.
Over her shoulder, Eva saw Liv give the back room a cautious glance. Her fingers were warm on the small of Eva’s back and her quick, tight-lipped smile when she caught Eva looking was reassuring. Maybe this would work out in the end.
The apartment upstairs was homey, if small. Books were crammed into bookshelves that lined the walls here as well. They were not new though; every one that Eva reached out to touch had worn covers and creased spines. She would have thought better of Theo, but it appeared that he read as he lived: brashly and without thought of consequence.
Al disappeared into the kitchen, which was hidden behind a half-wall with stools crammed under the counter. He was rummaging in drawers. Eva glanced over at Liv. “Have you ever been up here?”
Liv shook her head. Eva wondered what she was thinking about as she stood there her fingers clenched around the pendant at her neck and her eyes half-closed in concentration. They were going to have to tell Al because he was going to figure it out if they didn’t.
They had to hurry.
“Got one!” Al flipped on a bright red flashlight with a white switch, the kind that you get for five bucks at a gas station. He directed the light in their direction and Eva could see that the beam was weak. “I don’t know where all the batteries went,” he said. “Dad probably used them in that light box.”
“Or he took them with him,” Liv guessed. She didn’t even bother to look at Al as he brushed past her to get a jacket and his boots out of the closet. He slung a backpack over his shoulder, chucking what looked suspiciously like a first aid kit into it. Eva hoped that they wouldn’t need something like that; she didn’t want anyone to get hurt.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Al asked as he took the stairs down to the bookstore three at a time. He hit a hidden switch on the wall and the place was drowned in darkness. Only the light in the front window was still illuminated.
Liv let her hand fall from her necklace and a small, startled gasp escaped Eva’s lips. It was glowing brightly now, pushing light into the darkness of the bookstore. “The seal is threatened, we have to go.”
Al almost blended into the blackness around them, his skin reflecting blue and purple in the light from the necklace. He leaned forward, his eyes bright and white in the darkness, his expression fearful. “What is that?” He stared at Liv’s necklace with an almost reverent air.
Silence filled the room. Eva shifted uncomfortably and Liv stared down at the necklace for a long time, her hair blue-green against its light. When she eventually looked up, her expression was drawn and frightened. Eva was struck by how purely vulnerable Liv looked in that instant, her eyes wide and her body appearing to shake as she reached up to touch her fingers to Al’s cheek.
“This is the light of the world.” Liv’s eyes fluttered half-shut and her expression steeled to grim determination. Eva was in awe of Liv. She was a force, able to push past any skeptic with the power of her belief. In a matter of seconds, she had taken Al’s doubts and assuaged them, seguing perfectly into the terrible business of what they had to do next.
“That’s it?” Al shook his head, his eyes still wide. “Seems like there was an awful lot of fuss over a glowing necklace.”
Reaching down, Liv’s hand closed around the necklace and she whispered a word that Eva did not recognize. The light between her fingers soon ebbed away to almost nothing. She tucked the necklace back under her shirt. “It’s a lot more than that, Horral.”
“I had somewhat figured, Olivia,” Al retorted. He tugged on his backpack strap. “So my dad doesn’t know…”
“He has some of the pieces, but not the whole picture,” Liv replied. She glanced toward the door and then shifted half a step back and into Eva, their fingers touching and then hands clasping. “He knows who Catherine Monroe was and what her purpose in life was. And he’ll go to the one place he should not go, with hopes of finding out more.”
“That room…” Al breathed.
“Exactly,” Liv said. She took a deep breath and related an abridged version of the story that she’d told Eva about what was sealed beneath the city. She told him of her fears for what his dad might do, and what might happen if the seal weakened. Al started to move for the door before she had even finished.
“The diaries never mentioned a seal.” His voice was thin with anxiety.
Eva nodded. “Not in so many words, but I think it was implied that Wren at least told my grandmother a good deal of what was happening. I don’t know. I just hope it’s not too late.” She stared down at her feet as Liv tugged them in the direction of the subway station. It was going to be a close thing, but Liv knew how to get down there faster.
“So… Mary was what, Wren’s one?” Al asked, digging out his wallet for his Metro card. “Not that I don’t believe you,” he said, swiping it and pushing through the turnstile. “It’s just that I really think my dad isn’t the type to break down some sort of seal to a dark place where all the evil that was never in Pandora’s Box in the first place is kept these days. It just… doesn’t seem like him.”
Liv sighed, her fingers ghosting away from Eva’s as she followed Al through the turnstile. “As I said, I don’t think he’s got all the pieces. He might just think that the diaries have some sort of a clue that will come to him when he gets down there. I don’t know. Either way, he’s walking into a situation he doesn’t understand and has no way to protect himself.”
They stood huddled together on the platform. Eva hated that she could not hold Liv close and tell her that it would be okay. She seemed to be almost shaking.
“How closely are you connected to the seal?” Eva asked. She leaned in as the train arrived and screeched to a halt in front of them. Her lips brushed against Liv’s ear and Liv froze. Her body was stock still as she turned slowly to face Eva. Her eyes were wide and Eva reached down and grabbed her hand, pulling her onto the train after Al.
Liv didn’t answer her until they were three stops up, her forehead resting against Eva’s shoulder and a handful of Eva’s jacket clutched in her fist. Her breath was hot on Eva’s neck and her eyes were unfocused. She finally articulated what Eva had suspected since Liv had revealed the truth to her.
“The seal and I are one,” she said, and her face contorted with unimaginable pain. “And the shadows have found him.”
Liv was silent for the most part during the ride into Penn Station, her breath coming in uneven gasps. Eva held her close as they sped toward their destination, and soon they were hurrying down the steps to the Long Island Rail Road track, same as before.
It was only when they reached the platform and dodged around the people milling about waiting for the train that Eva realized that the door was not there. The door that had so clearly been there the last time that they’d been in the station had completely vanished, and a smooth cream-colored wall was all they could see.
She let out a low curse and turned to Al, whose eyes were as wide as her own.
“Where the hell did the door go?” Al demanded, glancing down at Liv. Her hands were clasped around the necklace, and Eva could see the light emanating from between her clenched fingers.
She reached out as they grew level with where the door should have been, her fingers glowing with a blue-green light. “Take me to the seal,” Liv murmured, as if she were attempting to coax a particularly stubborn child into doing her bidding.
Eva felt a terrible expulsion of hot, damp air around them, and suddenly there was nothing at all but a void of blackness that they tumbled forward into. Liv’s fingers were glowing still, the necklace pulsing bright and pure between them.
Eva flung her arms outward into the darkness, reaching desperately forward to touch those glowing fingertips. They couldn’t be separated or they would never find their way out of there. Her fingers closed around Liv’s.
“I’ve got you!” Eva shouted over the rush of the air that engulfed them.
“I know.”
The world fell into darkness.
Chapter 25
Out of Void
Eva was in the dark place again. Her eyes strained to see in the gloom. Everywhere she touched felt slimy. She was drenched in sweat and falling, falling.
Her mind was racing and the scream that escaped her lips felt real. It pierced through the dream, because this could only be a dream, and reverberated on and on.
“You seek the light of the world.”
Christ. Not this again.
Eva shook her head. Her feet touched solid ground and she fell forward, her fingers squelching in sticky mud. “I don’t.”
The girl with no face stood before her, drawing a slow, rattling breath. “You seek the light of the world.”
She wore a new face then, one of a girl with round cheeks and a kind smile.
“Wren,” Eva breathed. Her chest ached. The air tasted foul with mold and decay. “Why are you haunting me? I do not seek what you are sworn to protect!”
“You seek the light of the world.”
The third time the statement was made, it felt different. In the darkness, Eva could scarcely see her face. The truth burst forth and Eva scrambled to her feet. She took the apparition’s hands and gazed into her blank expanse of skin that should have been her face. There was no emotion there; there was no face at all. “I seek to love its guardian, nothing more.” She said it like a promise.
“You are out of sequence.”
“Because Mary lived too long, Wren! She lived for over a hundred years missing you!”
The girl’s brow drew down in concentration, and realization seemed to blossom across her face. Eva started to smile.
She started to speak once more, but no sound came out. Her breath felt forced from her body and she gasped, desperate to force air into her lungs. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t—
Eva opened her eyes. She was lying flat on her back, gasping for air. Water dripped onto her face and ran down into her eyes. She shook her head to clear it. Her mind felt fuzzy and achy from the dream in what felt like a quagmire.
It was pitch black, she had no idea where she was. Where are the others? Her mind started to race. It was as if bits of her were memory missing. Wherever this place was, it was damp and warm. It smelled of earth and mold just as in her dream. Everywhere there was water dripping.
Eva could not keep her breathing steady. With each drop of water, her heart raced faster and faster. Panic rose like a wave. She had to remain calm. If she didn’t remain calm— She flailed wildly, trying to find something to grab hold of and orient herself. She had to touch something solid, she had to! There was no way to make her pulse slow. The anxiety that gripped her would not dissipate without something to reassure her that she was not trapped in a nothing space beyond the scope of time.
Had Liv done something to catapult them into the seal itself? Was this what that darkness she’d described felt like? There was no light here, no hope. Just darkness.
Oh god. Eva shook her head. She wasn’t going to let herself go down that path. Didn’t Liv say that beyond the seal was a place worse than death? She was going to go insane, trapped in the darkness. Her mind was racing, and the panicked thoughts came faster and faster. What had just happened? Where had Liv and Al gone? Where were they now?
Her eyes could not adjust to the black. All she could see were flecks of lights at the corner of her vision. They were the shock of the blackness that surrounded her, like when she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and then opened them quickly. There was no light anywhere.
Eva let out a shaky breath, and slowed her movements. She groped around in the darkness and felt a long leg and a boot. Al, good. Her hand brushed against the battered canvas of Liv’s old army jacket. Thank god, they’d all landed in the same place.
How did we even get here?
Eva pulled her hands free from the muck and tried to shake off as much sludge as she could before she tried to rouse Liv. Liv was lying face down.
Worried that she might suffocate, Eva rolled her onto her side. She shook Liv’s shoulder. “Liv,” she hissed. “Liv, wake up.”
