The Realm of the Deathless, page 4
“Should we pursue him?” Dusk asked.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. He—did you see him?”
“Didn’t get a good look,” Errol said.
“He was in my garden,” she said. “He kicked in my back door. I ... I don’t think he was human.”
“No,” Billy said. “He wasn’t.”
She looked back at the house. All doubts were gone. This was not her house now. This was no place for her.
“Can we go somewhere else?” she asked.
“Sure,” Errol said. “I don’t know where, but okay.”
“Did you get what you came for?” She asked him.
“No,” Aster answered. “My house has been sold. Everything in it is gone.”
FOUR
ANOTHER’S TREASURE
Now that she knew it, Veronica felt the Itch everywhere.
She saw it, too sometimes, like colorless seams running through the earth, the sky, the waters. She changed shape and nature, exploring the contours of it, until she saw that the stuff wasn’t so much threads or seam or lines, but more like roots; they spread everywhere, they cracked the world the way sidewalks buckled up near oak trees. Or were they veins or sinews, the parts of the dead giant trying to grow again, to take hold inside of its own corpse?
Whatever they were, she suspected they had a common source. So she set out to find that.
She came to another undersea kingdom, but here the roots had taken hold, and she found it hollowed-out, bereft of life. She happened upon whale graveyards and schools of what appeared to be fish, but which no longer were.
Still further, and she became uncertain she was in water any longer; the transition happened slowly, but eventually she was walking instead of swimming. Here the roots became fewer but thicker, as if she was approaching the tree from which they sprang; except that the tendrils reached out in all directions. Eventually she could go no farther without entering the Itch itself, so she stopped. She waited.
And eventually something came. A sort of impression of a man, or something that was trying to remember what a man looked like and not doing such a respectable job of it.
“I thought we’d lost you,” It said. “But you’ve come to me. So you must sense it.”
“I’m only trying to figure out what you are,” Veronica said. “And how best to kill you.”
“I’m already dead,” the thing said. “Like you.”
“I’m not dead anymore,” Veronica said.
“You’d like to think so,” the man said. “And yes, you have more of a seeming of life about you. But you are what you are.”
“I am not a nov.”
“No,” It said. “No, you are so much more than that. Deeper, stronger than any such creature. But you are still a part of us. Of me. You must know this. And you must know that in time, you will come to me.”
Veronica caught on then. She wagged her index finger at his face.
“I know you,” she said. “You’re the Raggedy Man. The bad, bad man that murdered me.”
“He is here,” the Raggedy Man said. “He is part of me. A piece come home. I am much more than I was, but there are still parts missing. And you are one of them.”
“Did you enjoy being eaten by a shark?” she asked. “I sure enjoyed watching it.”
“And yet here he is,” he replied. “Here we are. We can be broken into fragments. We can be hidden away from each other. But we can’t be destroyed.”
“Uh-huh,” Veronica said. “So you’re just collecting the pieces to work your little jigsaw puzzle?”
“What?”
“My mom did jigsaw puzzles,” Veronica said. “Sometimes I helped her. One time we did a big one of all these ships in a harbor. And we couldn’t find the last piece. It drove my mom crazy, that one hole in that beautiful picture. She looked everywhere for that piece. But she never found it. And you know what? She had to get over it. And so do you, you piece of trash, because I am never going to come in there with you.”
“Not even to save Errol?”
The image of Errol, dead, flashed again through her mind. It figured they would try to use him to get to her. She had to put that notion to rest. She couldn’t let the Raggedy Man think had had an edge over her.
“I’ve done my part for him,” she said. “He’s on his own now.”
“You belong here.”
Thing was, he was right about that. She felt it in her bones. This was the place that had called ever since Aster and Errol had stolen her away from the Creek Man. This was where she could be what she really was, what she was meant to be. Every longing, every hunger she had ever felt came back, and if she went another step or two, she could indulge them all.
He can’t make me, she thought, or he already would have.
But he didn’t have to. She was already here, and she was only a single motion from finishing her journey. Trembling, she took a step forward.
No.
It was like ripping off a band-aid, or maybe more like a wolf chewing off its paw to escape a trap, but then she was rushing away, a stream of water, a school of fish, a dolphin, breaking the surface and feeling the air on her skin. The Itch grew weaker, but it did not fade entirely. It stayed there, at the top of her spine.
I can’t do this alone, she knew. Next time I will fail.
So she searched the currents, she found a trail, and she began to follow it.
***
Ms. Fincher, Errol had learned, was good at shaking things off. She was probably the most practical person he had ever met. For her, freaking out was a waste of time; she usually put her mind straight to finding a solution. He admired that about her.
So he wasn’t surprised that she immediately moved from the shock of the attack to figuring out what was going on. She reversed her decision on leaving her house right away. She said they all needed sleep and a place to start from in the morning. They set a watch, just as if they were still in the Kingdoms.
His watch came right after Dusk’s, and she did not leave right away. Instead, she paced to the window, looking like a caged tiger.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Errol,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“For as long as I can remember, I always knew my purpose,” she said. “I set the point of my arrow toward a target, and I followed it. I was always quite certain of my actions.”
“Sure,” Errol said, thinking that was an understatement.
Maybe she sensed something in his tone.
“I have apologized for all that,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t mean to imply anything.”
She shrugged.
“Look,” Errol said. “Before, you were trying to end the curse, right? I mean you were also trying to win a civil war against your siblings and all that, but we’re still trying to, you know, fix the world. So your purpose hasn’t changed.”
She frowned and looked out the window.
“Oh, wait,” he said. “It’s because you aren’t in charge.”
She sighed. “You could put it that way,” she said. “Aster undoubtedly knows more of this than I do. Our chances are best following her instincts. But I am unused to this. And thus far our meandering feels ... aimless. There are other things I could be doing.”
“Such as?”
“Hunting down my brothers and sisters and making them pay for their perfidy. Force them to tell me what they know.”
“Oh,” he said. “That is a plan. And I can’t say that some of them don’t deserve it. But if you feel that way why not ... why not do it?”
“I might yet,” she said, not looking at him. Then she went to the couch and lay down.
***
The next morning, as promised, Ms. Fincher got busy on the phone. Hers was cut off, of course, so they drove to a convenience store in the next county, where hopefully no one would recognize her, and used the payphone there.
Aster’s house and been repossessed by the bank only a week before; everything in it had been auctioned. Ms. Fincher discovered that most of the stuff had been purchased by a single buyer—Grandma’s Chest, a junk and antique store in the Old Mall.
When Errol was younger, The Old Mall was the place to be. Everything about it was shiny, the stores were colorful and clean. He’d spent entire days there hanging out with his friends. They would watch a movie at the theater, play video games in the arcade, laugh at stuff in the novelty store, eat tacos or fried chicken sandwiches and drink orange-flavored milkshakes.
That was before the New Mall was built.
The faded, neglected façade of the Old Mall was depressing, but inside was much worse. They entered what had once been the department store where he’d picked out birthday presents for his friends, where before each school year his mom dragged him to get new clothes and tennis shoes. Where his dad bought him his first real suit.
Now it was a dingy bargain store with bins of plastic crap and cheap, “slightly” defective clothing in bins marked with prices mostly in the single digits. Only half of the fluorescent tubes that lit the place were still working, and of those that were, several flickered fitfully.
The long central hall of the shopping center was now lit only by skylights; wild plants pushed up from what had once been a fountain, straining toward the sky. Old people walked back and forth the length of the place in their sneakers, getting their daily exercise. The walls had been painted with festive scenes in places, in an attempt to rebrand the mall as a “community square.” For a year or so there had been free concerts and dances and an indoor carnival. But now those murals were grimy and faded and the contrived parties existed—like so much else in Sowashee—only in memory.
Most of the stores were shuttered and dark. But where the record store had once been, the lights were on. A sign hand- painted with folksy letters identified it as Grandma’s Chest. Below the letters was a painting of a busty older lady.
The greying, sallow-faced woman at the counter glanced up at them as they entered. She wore a salmon velour shirt with two puppies on it and pants to match. She had dark eyes, so dark he could hardly see her pupils. Her gaze picked across Billy before lingering on Errol. He knew the look. Like she was expecting one or both of them to pocket something. What, he could not imagine. Most everything was too big to steal—furniture, mostly, some antique but most just old. Maybe she worried he was interested in shoplifting porcelain figurines of men with ponytails in blue housecoats or monkeys made from coconut husks.
“Looking for anything in particular?” the lady asked.
“Just browsing,” Ms. Fincher said.
“Well if you have any questions, let me know,” she said.
Ms. Fincher nodded, and they all moved deeper into the store. Errol was a little surprised by how many people were already in the junk shop. All were older than Ms. Fincher, and some were really old. It was weird to see, after so much time in the Kingdoms, where anyone over sixteen or so had been disappeared in one way or another. It made him think again about what he had learned about the world of his birth—that it was the last stop in a long slide toward oblivion. Maybe that was why it hadn’t been affected the way the Kingdoms had; everyone here was already a few wrong breaths from being permanently dead.
Beside him, Dusk touched a stack of old LP records, making a puzzled face at the art on the cover of the top one. She picked it up.
“That ax is absurdly large,” she said. “It would never serve as a proper weapon, no matter how muscular the wielder.”
“It’s not supposed to be realistic,” Errol said. “It’s just an album cover.”
“What is an album?” Dusk asked. “Some sort of farce, or comedy?”
“Music,” he replied.
She frowned at the picture, shrugged, and put the album back. “What sort of place is this?” she asked.
“They sell old stuff,” Errol said. “Things no one wants anymore.”
“Why should anyone buy something another person discarded?” she asked.
“Well, they say one man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” he said.
“Treasure is always treasure,” she said. “Even if someone is foolish enough to discard it. And junk—”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I know treasure when I see it,” Dusk said. “I understand its value.”
Oh, he thought. She wasn’t talking about the stuff in Grandma’s Chest, was she? Or was she? Crap, he hated it when he had to figure out what someone meant. But Dusk —she didn’t usually beat around the bush. It wasn’t her style.
Then she took his hand. It made him jump a little, but then he curled his fingers into hers, feeling the hard callouses on her palm. Warmth spread up his arm.
“Are you still thinking of her?” Dusk asked.
He didn’t have to ask who she meant. Veronica.
“Umm,” he said. “I wasn’t.”
“I meant in general,” she said. “Is your heart still given?”
And that was the problem. He didn’t know the answer to that. But it was clear she wanted one. At this point she probably deserved one. Veronica had been gone for a while now, with no explanation. From what he could tell that whole thing was over.
Dusk was—amazing. At one point he’d thought she was everything he desired. Now he sort of had her, if he wanted. But he felt guilty about his feelings, even now, with Veronica gone. But there was more to it than that. If you were in love with someone, and they were in love with you—well, it usually went somewhere. You either broke up or you moved on.
Dusk was a warrior and a princess of an ancient kingdom. She was not someone to be trifled with, and he knew that first-hand. Moving on with someone like Dusk—he wasn’t certain about everything that entailed. But he was pretty sure there wasn’t a big space between necking a little bit and marriage. Not for her, anyway. So if he actually did what he wanted, pulled her out of sight and started kissing her—he felt like they would be on that path. And with the universe and everything ending, getting married and all of that seemed really—complicated, and maybe pointless. So the risk was that they would get all hot and heavy and then break up. After Lisa and then Veronica, he really, really wasn’t ready to do that again.
But he couldn’t say all of that. At the same time, he didn’t want to lie to her.
“No,” he said. “My heart isn’t ... given. It’s beaten up. It needs a rest.”
She looked slightly vexed. “You don’t trust me,” she said.
“With your heart. I understand. I did betray you once.”
“It’s not that,” he said, remembering what she meant, the time she had cut his leg off. And Veronica’s head. “Okay, maybe it’s a little that.”
“And this is why you haven’t kissed me again?”
“No,” he said, all the logical stuff he’d been thinking dissolving like a sandcastle before an incoming tide. “That’s just because I’m stupid.”
“I may not be very good at it,” she said. “I haven’t had much practice.”
They weren’t walking anymore. Somehow, they were facing each other, both hands clasped.
“No, you’re—“
He knew she was going to do it. He could have tried to stop her, but of course he didn’t really want to.
“Errol!” Someone shouted. Aster, in some other part of the store.
His lips parted from Dusk’s, but their gazes stayed connected.
“Errol,” she said, softly. “Last night you asked why I don’t strike out on my own to search from my siblings. Do I really have to say?”
It was too much. He didn’t have anything to say back to her.
“Aster’s found something,” he said. “I think we’d better go.”
***
“Oh, crap,” Errol said.
The back corner of the store was crammed with a bunch of stuff he recognized from Aster’s house. A lot of it was furniture. But that wasn’t what had stopped him in his tracks.
“It looks like you, Errol,” Dusk said. “When we first met. Not exactly ... “
“Yeah,” he said. His mouth felt dry.
They were staring at rough model of a man, built of wood, wire and various scraps of metal. It was articulated like a human-sized puppet, but there were no strings.
“Oh, that,” Aster said, from nearby. “Yeah, that was an earlier model. Errol got the improved version.”
The main difference was the face. The automaton Aster had summoned his soul to animate had been carved to look something like him. This thing’s face was as blank as that of a crashtest dummy.
“Anyway,” Aster said. “That’s not what we’re here for. This is.”
His gaze shifted over.
“I remember that,” he said. He had only seen it once, in Aster’s workshop. It resembled a picture frame, but it was several inches deep, a shallow box. It was hanging on the shop wall, just as it had been on the wall back in Aster’s house.
Behind the glass was something like a clock, with lots of gears. In Aster’s house, it had been running, so the golden sun, the silver moon, and one little shining star had moved in an elaborate dance. Now the two disks and the jagged representation of a star were still.
“The Sun, the Moon, the Morning Star,” Dusk murmured.
“This is it,” Delia confirmed. “I ... don’t know how I know.”
“Twenty dollars,” Aster said, reading the little white tag on the thing. She sounded cross.
“Is that too much?” Billy asked.
“My father built this,” Aster said. “It’s worth far more.”
“I’m sure it is,” Delia said. “But do you have twenty dollars? I don’t. They don’t take credit cards here, if mine are even still good, which I doubt.”
Aster shrugged. “I think I can work something out. If one of you guys can carry it.”
Billy lifted the thing off the wall. Errol wondered how heavy it was; Billy seemed to be straining, which was unusual. He wasn’t a giant right now, but he was strong guy, even like this.
They made their way back to the front of the store, where the lady was still watching them suspiciously. He noticed the other people in the shop were also looking at them, apparently curious why so many young people were in here. It was morning, and probably a school day, but Errol figured all of them could pass as old enough to be out of high school.
