Chapter Forty-Seven A Candle and Its Shadow
Chapter Forty-Seven
A Candle and Its Shadow
Nothing has changed when I land in the garden—not the blues and not the greens, and certainly not the sunshine. The same grass ripples in the same mild breeze, and the river—it moves just as peacefully through the languid afternoon. Indeed, after the nightmare of the grotto, this pastoral scene is almost... chilling.
I lurch to my feet in search of any sign of Death, but he seems to have vanished without a trace.
The thought brings little comfort.
“Michal?” I whisper his name as I tiptoe toward the riverbank, peering through boughs of orange trees and glancing behind topiaries for anything unusual. Surely something should look different after Death’s return? Withered roses, perhaps? Blackened snowdrops? Perhaps the wind should erupt into a gale, yet all remains still—perfect, just as we left it. “Michal? Dimitri?” I raise my voice a little louder, wincing as it cuts through the tranquility. “Are you here?”
No one answers. Michal and Dimitri agreed to wait near the water for as long as they could, yet I don’t see either one of them. And those shadows—my gaze snaps toward the orange tree above me—they seem longer than natural, darker, as the wind begins to blow harder. As the river starts to swell.
Dimitri and Michal have been here too long. If I don’t find them soon, we could all be doomed. I glance around helplessly—until Michal’s arm snakes around my waist, dragging me behind the nearest tree. With a panicked cry, I nearly leap from my skin, but he claps a hand against my mouth. At my incredulous look, Dimitri whispers, “He’s here.”
And the entire garden explodes with darkness.
I clutch my head as pressure spikes through my skull and Death’s laughter rumbles around us—through the pitch-black, through my very bones—until I crash to my knees, unable to move. Unable to think . Unable to see, hear, or even feel Michal and Dimitri, who might never have been here at all. Who might never have even existed — for who can exist in this deprivation, this dearth ?
Perhaps I cannot exist here either.
When Death speaks at last, I sense rather than hear him: “Who did you think I was, mon mariée?” And his voice —it feels like a hundred voices now, like a thousand, no longer filled with the warmth of humanity but cold and ancient and strange. Still familiar, however, as if the Death from our realm still exists within it, desperately clinging to existence. “Who am I but an absence? Who am I but the want of creation?”
No. I shake my head without a mouth to form the word, without a voice to speak it, and splitting pain cleaves through my being; the pressure is too much, too soon—
“I was the darkness in your sister’s casket.” Death constricts around me, suffocating me, and I search blindly for Michal, for Dimitri, for anyone or anything with which to ground myself. There is nothing, however. Nothing , and now I am falling, my stomach swooping sickeningly. “I was the void in your mother’s chest, the disappointment in your father’s. I am the hollow inside your sister. I am her sickness too, her hunger, and I am also your fear—and such fear you harbor, Célie. I have known and nourished you for so long.”
“I—I am not afraid of you.”
“Are you sure ?” Death shifts with the words, and the darkness presses closer as a shape emerges at last—a long shape, a cold one, with a leering smile of white teeth and half her cheeks rotted, her hair like a cat-o’-nine-tails upon my skin. Slick with my blood, with her own fetid flesh. Filippa. And there is no Michal this time, no candles to light the way. There is only me—alone—and there is only Death, who wears the face of my every nightmare.
No.
Focus on just one sense, one detail.
The grass. I can still feel it beneath my knees, soft and warm from the eternal sunshine. It does not know this darkness; it tickles my fingers as I flex them into the earth, forcing myself to breathe, to expand my consciousness outward. The river. I can still hear it flowing. Salt. I can still taste it on my tongue.
It all means I am alive. I exist , and— “I am not afraid of you.”
The words burst from me like a fire in the darkness, illuminating all those parts of myself I felt too ashamed to see—that I can be porcelain, and a martyr, and spoiled and soft and selfish too. That I can be incompetent. That time and time again, I have failed—both my loved ones and myself —and will continue to do so often. I can be flighty and fickle, and I sometimes care too much when I shouldn’t—about society and its pressures, its rules, its people.
I am also loyal, however, and empathetic and curious and kind. My mind remains open and free of judgment. Despite everything, I have never hardened myself, even when threatened—even when scorned—because there is strength in my softness; there is courage in my vulnerability. I have never given up. I have always seen the light in the darkness.
No.
All this time, I’ve been looking for someone else to lead me, to banish the darkness of my past, without realizing the darkness is part of me too. I cannot outrun it. I no longer want to, no longer need to—I am both the candle and the shadow it casts.
I am the light in the darkness.
And I am the darkness in the light.
Pushing to my feet, I stretch out my hands anew in search of Michal, and this time, I find him almost instantly. He has been here all along, searching for me too, shouting— “We need to go! Célie —” His hand catches mine, locking around it, and I drag him forward as Dimitri crashes into us with a curse.
“ Fuck. What is happening —” His limbs tangle with mine, but I seize him with my free hand, refusing to leave him behind. Instead I pelt through the flowers and force them to follow—crashing into a topiary, another—as the darkness begins to recede. To move . It sweeps ahead of us with the rising wind, and a shard of dread pierces my heart because—
Because he found it again—the way back, the tear in the veil. Because he is racing us, and if he gets to the door first, we will never defeat him.
Both Michal and Dimitri seem to realize it at the same time. “Keep going,” Michal says fiercely before lengthening his stride and pulling away from us, ahead of us, but even he cannot catch Death. That shard of dread twists deeper. What are we going to do ?
The wind whips violently through my hair now—frantic, almost crazed—as the river rushes behind us in a fast, roaring torrent. “What if we don’t make it in time?” Dimitri asks desperately.
“I—I don’t know—”
Snarling, Dimitri tears an orange from a branch overhead and hurls it at Death’s shadow. He overshoots our momentum, however, and before I can do anything to stop it, the two of us tumble head over heels to the ground—and straight into Michal’s knees.
Though Dimitri and I flail in a tangle of limbs, Michal uses the collision to propel himself forward, launching back to his feet and diving toward Death. And from those fluttering ripples in the veil, Odessa’s garbled shout drifts toward us. “Célie, hurry! Hurry! ”
But now Death is contracting, folding, squeezing into himself—into the ripples—and Michal cannot stop him. Michal cannot even see the exit to pass through it. I am the Bride of Death. Michal and Dimitri cannot return without me, so I leap, I slash —
I tear through the darkness like I would the veil, and it shudders in response.
It recoils.
“Don’t fight the current in the maelstrom,” I tell them, “and don’t look back.” Tackling Michal around the waist—dragging Dimitri behind—I careen through the ripples and into the grotto before the darkness can re-form.
Instantly, the ocean rips us apart.
It turns the world upside down, turns us upside down, but I’ve done this before. I am not afraid. Relaxing into the current—and praying fervently Michal and Dimitri do the same—I allow it to spiral my body down, then up, up, up until I break the surface.
“They’re here!” Odessa’s shout splits the air as Michal resurfaces beside me, then Dimitri. Diving past three revenants, she reaches for us from the shore. “Come on! Swim, swim —”
Instantly, I know something is wrong. The air is too thin, too cold, and the world is too gray—all color has leached from the grotto entirely, spreading beyond it in a silent and suffocating wave.
“What is that ?”
Reid’s eyes widen as fresh blood trickles from his tear ducts—bright scarlet amidst the gloom—and he stumbles back a step, grasping his chest. Lou collapses in front of him. And the storm winds—they must’ve followed us through somehow, because the broken bedpost spirals high in the air. Pieces of the splintered desk hurtle toward us.
No.
Toward it .
Lungs burning, I inhale sharply at the enormous waterspout rising beyond the maelstrom. It spins viciously, sucking the debris of the grotto into its vortex as the veil around us trembles. Oh God. The veil.
In resurrecting Michal and Dimitri, I have created— I have broken —
Everything.
Reid faints in the split second of my realization, and Dimitri pulls himself from the heaving depths and onto the shore, sprinting to Reid’s side. To Lou’s. He drags them both away from nature’s wrath—from its last great retaliation at the damage I have caused. Not everyone is so lucky, however; everywhere I look, revenants are clawing at the ground, the walls, anything they can reach to remain standing, yet the wind sweeps several—sweeps most—high into the air. The waterspout rips them apart. Their viscera rains down upon the grotto, but I cannot dwell on it—not as the water whirls higher, deadlier, and shrapnel flies in all directions.
“I have to close it!” Waves crash into my mouth—no, blood —as I swim for the islet, as the winds tug and pull me closer. Closer. I need only to mend my tear. I kick out, propelling myself forward, allowing the riptide to speed me along. As soon as I close it, it’ll —
Death’s icy fingers close around my ankle, and he drags me under again.
He’s re-forming.
Frantic, I kick out blindly, connecting with his face. When his grasp loosens, I wrench his hair this time, and I hurl him headfirst into the waterspout’s vortex—into the door.
Without so much as taking another breath, I dive after him into the heart of the storm. My storm. Wind pummels me, water battering my skin like fists, but I do not concern myself with the bruises. I will close the door.
I will stop Death.
Clutching the veil with both hands, I fight the tumultuous weather and begin to mend the rip. I focus on the emotions flowing through me, find strength in each one—fear of losing my loved ones, anger at sparring with Death, hope that we can still fix this—and allow them to thread from my fingers as if I’m in my nursery once more, sitting beside Filippa and cross-stitching snowdrops and roses onto pillows and handkerchiefs.
All at once—or perhaps it is slowly, time losing its meaning as I grapple with the waves, with Death, with the balance of our very world—the veil mends. The waterspout dies. The deep blue of the ocean gradually returns, along with the silver specks of mica in the grotto walls. And I—I did it.
I did it.
Death’s presence vanishes with the disaster, the water and debris crashing back into the sea, but this isn’t over yet. Filippa still needs to mend the hole in the maelstrom, or Death will return—and soon . Shouting my name, Michal crouches on the shore and reaches for me, while beside him—
“Get a move on, girl!” Mathilde gestures weakly toward the maelstrom, toward the islet, and tears well in my eyes at the sight of her. She came back. Despite her attitude, her scowl, her parting words—she came back. She is here , and— “Your sister seems to be experiencing performance issues!” She jerks her warty chin toward Filippa, who stands on a shelf near the islet, wringing her hands hysterically. “And that ”—she points to the tendrils of darkness already creeping from the maelstrom—“does not look promising.”
Fuck.
Changing directions abruptly, I throw myself toward my sister as Mathilde lifts her hands with a determined expression, shouting, “I cannot hold the bastard for long! One way or another—no matter the cost—we must close that damn door!”
“Filippa!” I heave myself onto the shelf, gasping and shaking. “You need to—to close it. Do it now —”
Filippa drops to her knees, reaching into the water and attempting to hold the veil, to force it together in her hands. Her movements are jolting, however, almost convulsive. With each thread she mends, another splits apart. And this tear—it spans larger than the grotto, larger than life itself. It’ll take more than her anger to mend it.
Did Death even teach her how to wield her power? How could he have? He never learned to control his own emotions, and Filippa has always fled hers. As if realizing the same, she whispers, “I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can .” I sink to my knees beside her. “Channel your emotions—all of them this time. You cannot manipulate the veil—you cannot mend this tear—while still acting like you do not feel.” When she thrashes her head in denial, I say fiercely, “I heard you, Filippa. While I was drowning in the garden, you begged me to live, and when Death threatened our mother, I saw the look on your face. I saw your fear, your anger, your love . And you do love us—all of us, including your daughter, which is why you nearly rent the world apart to meet her. Everything you’ve done has been out of love, and of course it has. You are human, Pip, and you feel just as deeply as the rest of us, if not more.”
Her hands clench into fists. “I’ve never been like you. I’ve never been able to do this—never wanted to feel this—”
“Aren’t you a little old for pretend?”
“ANY MOMENT NOW!” Mathilde strains on the shore, her own hands twisting as blood begins to trickle from her ears and the grotto shakes with Death’s roar.
Filippa laughs harshly, the spray of the sea hiding her tears. “Perhaps we should just be done with it.” She glances at me, her eyes hard as ever. “If I jump and cross the river, this ends. Save the world, right? That’s what this has all been about. We know how to do that, Célie.”
I glare at her, guiding her fists back toward the water, toward the veil. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Though her grip remains stiff, almost immovable, I manage to unclench her fists and smooth out her palms, just as Death’s hand shoots from the maelstrom. Mathilde collapses with a hiss.
True panic rears within me now. We do not have time for this moment, but it is perhaps the last moment we will ever have.
“I lost her,” Filippa says, quieter now but no less cold. “I lost Frostine. I lost Frederic. I lost... everything that I considered for my future. What else is left for me?” She turns her gaze to the maelstrom, and her fingers seem to stroke the tear. They seem to beckon it forth. “If I mend the veil, what lies ahead except a life of torment? Of grief ?”
Pain laces the last, and for the first time since our youth, Filippa’s icy facade falters. I move my hands to her arm, squeezing tightly so that she will feel it—feel me —and know that I am here.
I am here, and I am not leaving her.
I will not let her die.
“I can help you, Pip. We—we can all help you. The grief you feel over Frederic and Frostine... it will not vanish, but it will fade. Little by little, you will overcome it. Please, Filippa.” My voice breaks on her name. “ Please don’t give up now. If not for me or Maman or the life we might share together, then... then stay for yourself .” I guide her hands closer to the heart of the maelstrom, where Death snatches the air wildly, desperate for leverage. Mathilde groans. “You aren’t alone. We can do this together.”
She shakes her head. “That—that isn’t how mending the veil works—”
“So do it yourself.” Desperation sharpens my voice, all my hope and my fear colliding within my chest and exploding outward as my fingers dig into her skin. “Do it yourself, but know that I am here beside you—that I will always be beside you. I will be here, Pip, because I love you. I love you. ”
Her hands tremble, and her lip quivers. Though her gaze widens like she’s listening—like she’s really, truly hearing me—she does not yet move to close the veil. “You should hate me, Célie. The things I’ve done... the person I’ve been... you should shove me inside this stupid fucking maelstrom without a single regret.”
“Funny, that.” I lift my chin, conviction pulsing a steady beat in my veins. “I no longer care about what I should or shouldn’t do. You are my sister, and I want you to live. I cannot make you, however; you need to want to live too. The choice is yours, and the clock is ticking.” Though I release her at the last, I remain near her side, willing her to feel my warmth.
I will not leave her.
Filippa has been awful.
She aligned with a murderer, she killed Dimitri, she kept the souls of her ex-lover and our nursemaid trapped inside her ice palace, and she has threatened me more times than I can count. But life does not work in absolutes. No one is wholly good.
I once called a young woman a whore, and she soon became my dearest friend. That same young woman set her own best friend on fire, but they reconciled just as quickly—in the flash of a single spark.
That same spark resides in each of us, that glimmer of light and that touch of darkness. The propensity for good, yes, but also the potential for great evil. Filippa is no different. Both exist within her as well.
She can change. She can decide to do better, to do good, so long as she makes the decision for herself. Filippa glances at me, at our mother, at Mathilde, then at Michal and Dimitri and Odessa. She even glances at Lou and Reid, who slump beside Jean Luc and Brigitte. Our family. My friends. People she will someday know too, hopefully, if she dares to imagine that future for herself—if she dares to reach for happiness.
Without another word, she turns to Death, and she slaps his hand away.
A cry passes my lips, unbidden, as she clutches at the seams of the tear—as much of them as she can hold—and leans forward, pressing the ragged edges together. Her edges. Her tears fall faster now, dripping into the storm that her rebirth created.
“I never want to smell another revenant again,” Filippa says.
And then my sister closes the veil.