Chapter 46 Helena
Flora had a different method for smuggling me into the Netherworld than Grim.
Instead of taking hold of my soul, she masked me with a glamour similar to the one she’d used on herself, smothering my essence under fairy magic so we only registered as one being, one fairy—her—when we crossed the threshold.
From there, the two of us ran through the woods, all the way to the towering black cathedral-like citadel that loomed like a behemoth amid the craggy trees, which skirted its foundation, small as toys in the fortress’s presence—just like us.
Together, we entered a long Gothic hall, and as we raced down the straight and unending corridor, I swore the green flames in their sconces whispered my name—like they knew me. Like this place did.
If Flora heard, she didn’t let on.
Finally, we reached the familiar chamber of the Basins, where we found Johann pacing in front of his desk. Perched on the old man’s shoulder, Pluto saw me first.
“Bright light!” the bird called, wings opening as though with excitement. “What a sight!”
“Helena!” Johann exclaimed, his frightened and surprised gaze darting between me and Flora.
“I had to bring her here,” said Flora. “She says she knows how to find Grim.”
“Grim Grim,” said Pluto, “we miss him.”
Johann frowned, his eyes suddenly so sad. “My greatest fear is that he’s been arrested. Or even that he is on trial this very moment—facing judgment with The Few. Otherwise, with the backup of souls, why wouldn’t they have answered my summons or come looking for him before now?”
I didn’t say anything. I just hurried to Grim’s statue, which did not hold its scythe.
I froze under that hooded stare, suddenly much less sure I could actually get in to view the painting that portrayed Grim’s whereabouts.
Last time, I’d gotten out of his chambers by borrowing one of his scythes. This time, though, I had nothing to offer the statue.
Nothing, that was, except for myself.
Unsure of what else I could do, I gripped the stone reaper’s awaiting hand with mine.
To our unanimous surprise, those fingers curled around mine. Stuck, I peered wide-eyed over my shoulder at Flora, Johann, and Pluto, who ticked his head at the phenomenon in wonder.
Maybe this was some kind of trap set by The Few?
That thought left me as the hooded statue lifted my hand to press its teeth—or rather, the lips it didn’t possess—to my knuckles.
“Missing Grim,” said Pluto, “kisses the miss.”
The statue released me and, with a low clunk, began to move, its short plinth sliding to one side to reveal the spiral staircase down to Grim’s lair.
Cradling my hand close, the one the statue had “kissed,” I couldn’t help a small smile—a small hopeful smile.
Surely, if Grim was somehow no more, this statue wouldn’t have responded to me this way. And this sweet gesture from this inanimate eidolon. Did it somehow mean that holding the keys to Grim’s heart was the same as holding keys to his place?
A question for another—and I hoped to God happier—time.
Without looking back, I plunged into the darkness, followed by Flora, whose wings fluttered as she flew down the channel.
Johann came, too, Pluto remaining perched on his shoulder as the three of us spilled into the long hall of scythes.
“Great gobs of bobs,” marveled Flora, her voice breathless as she took in the collection of scythes. “I knew he had a few of these, but lord. He’s got a right problem, I’d say.”
“Fascinating,” rasped Johann. “He’s always scared me a little, you know. And this collection. It does make me feel more founded in that fear. Less guilty for harboring it.”
“He’s fickle with his sickles,” said Pluto. “Every day it’s trade a blade.”
I rushed past the collection of scythes before taking a second hall. Then, I burst into the central room with the red couches, Grim’s desk, and that painting.
I gaped at the portrait, which did not depict the interior of this room or any other. Neither did it show a moonlit ocean, or anywhere at all.
“Gods almighty,” whispered Flora as she trailed in after me. “Who’d have guessed the bone brain’s got taste?”
“Sharp objects,” said Pluto, “sharp décor. Never been in here before.”
“Oh,” said Johann, pointing to the snow globe before smoothing his beard. “I gave that to him ages ago. For Christmas. Never thought he kept it.”
“It’s… black,” I said as, with slow steps, I edged nearer, drawn by the nonimage that I willed to become something other than absolute nothing.
“That painting,” said Johann. “You’re saying it is of significance?”
“It shows where Grim is,” I explained, my voice quavering as a terrible foreboding—worse even than before—stole over me. “Wherever he is. But… I don’t understand.”
I swung around to face them. “There’s something wrong with it. Unless… unless either of you know of someplace he’d be that is… pitch black.”
Flora gasped, both hands leaping to cover her mouth. “Gods.”
Johann’s expression went gray and graven. “It’s worse even than I thought.”
“W-worse?” I asked, my voice shaking. Because… were they saying he was somehow… dead?
“Where is he?” I demanded, taking a step toward them. “Tell me right now.”
Neither answered, and both averted their gazes. Even Pluto refused to meet my eye.
“Is he gone?” I asked outright. “Did Sir White or one of the others take him away? Into one of the Basins?”
“He… his soul is in one of the Basins, aye,” allowed Flora, a pair of tears cutting tracks down her face, both of which she quickly whisked away with the heel of her palm.
“And no soul has ever come back from a Basin. Not ever. None but Cedric’s.
Basins won’t have him ’cause he can’t die. But Grim…”
My heart sank. Then it imploded.
But this… none of it was making sense.
If Grim was well and truly gone, why did the painting still show his whereabouts? Why had his statue responded to me the way it had, allowing me entry?
If he, his soul, was gone and he wasn’t the Grim Reaper anymore, if he’d been replaced, then souls wouldn’t be piling up in want of collecting.
“Flora,” I said to the fairy, who had to battle away new streams of tears that, like her wings, sparkled with a strange iridescence. “Before, when we made the plan to smuggle my soul into the White Basin, you said you knew how Grim could get into that Basin undetected.”
Flora’s eyes widened, and she started to shake her head at me—slowly at first, then with rapid refusal.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said the fairy, “but you don’t know what you’re askin’.”
“The Black Basin,” said Johann as, hands clasped behind his back, he eyed me with curiosity and, I wanted to believe, new respect. “It won’t keep Helena’s soul.”
“Johann!” piped Flora. “For her to go in at all, I’d have to remove her spirit from her body—which would die. Are y’both forgetting that the plan was only supposed to go into effect after Helena died?”
“She won’t die if her soul exits her body willingly,” said Johann. “At least… not right away. It will remain attached, in essence, to her physical form until that form perishes or until her soul is cleaved from it.”
“And that’s exactly what will happen the moment she goes into the Basin,” said Flora. “She’ll get cut off.”
“Chop suey,” said Pluto. “Ka-plooey. Light’s out. Check, please.”
“We don’t know for sure,” said Johann. “And as you said a moment ago, Cedric’s soul always emerges from the Basins because they can’t keep him. Because he’s not dead.”
“Cedric can’t die!” exclaimed Flora. “He’s hardly a good example of what’s likely to happen to Helena. And when he has gone in in the past, his body at least has been dead—however temporarily.”
“His body revives itself,” argued Johann, “which draws his soul back. The case could be the same for Helena.”
“Could be,” stressed Flora with a growl. “It could also not be the case.”
“I want to try,” I said, my gaze bouncing between the two of them.
“You want to try dying?” challenged Flora.
“It’s not like I haven’t before,” I said, exasperated. “Aside from that, aren’t I destined to anyway?”
“Aren’t we all?” mumbled Johann from beside us, drawing both our gazes.
“Aye,” said Flora, “everyone except for you. And Cedric. And Grim.”
“Just my point,” said Johann. “Cedric, Grim, and I—we all sidestepped fate, did we not? I at least did not expect to. And aside from that, Flora, you are currently here and out of fairy prison because Grim asked for his duties to be split with another. He saved you. He’s protected me—more than once, I can only assume.
Here has arrived our chance to roll the dice again despite the odds and to strive to repay him. ”
Flora shook her head, more tears falling. “It’s not that I don’t want to save Grim. I’d go into that Basin meself if I could.”
“You can’t because you’re not a spirit,” I guessed.
“Johann and I,” said Flora, “we’re still in our physical vessels.
To smuggle you into the White Basin, Grim was going to need to drink from the Basin’s waters while carrying your soul in his hourglass.
Presumably, the essence of that realm would have disguised his soul and cloaked yours long enough for Grim to carry you in.
Once the waters wore off, the Basin would kick him back out—but The Few don’t monitor souls coming out. Just those going in…”
I took a steadying breath and then asked the obvious question. “What happens if I drink from the Black Basin?”
“The answer to that,” said Johann, his tone grave, “is… anyone’s guess.”
I turned and started for the door, but Flora’s wings flittered, and she zipped ahead of me, blocking the exit with both arms.
“Grim wouldn’t want this,” she said. “He wouldn’t want anything terrible to happen to you. He didn’t want you to die.”
“You’re right,” I said. “And Grim tried to stop my death from happening. He saved me… so many times. Now it’s my turn to save him.”
“I’ll drink from the Basin,” said Flora. “I’ll go in to get him.”
“In truth,” said Johann, “I almost offered to do the same myself. But… none of us knows what lurks beyond the barrier of any of the Basins—let alone the Black. Flora and I—what if either of us is destined for it? Given our… histories, I cannot discount it. In that case, either of us could become trapped—and dead—as well. But Helena, we know, is a Fated. She is destined for the White Basin. So the Black. It cannot keep you.”
“It has to be me,” I agreed, already ten steps ahead of them on this. Not because I understood how the Basins worked, but because I understood… how Grim worked.
Who knows what state I would find him in? I did know, however, that he had come to recognize the feel, the shape, the light of my soul. If nothing else, he would recognize me. And I would recognize him. No matter what.
“Only the darkest souls go into the Black Basin,” Flora warned, her voice dropping with dread. “Whatever happens in there, whoever—whatever you encounter. Johann and I won’t be able to get you out.”
“You can sit with my body,” I said, “and protect it in case Cedric comes back.”
“If you don’t die the moment you go in that Basin!” she piped.
“Even if I do,” I said, “I can still get Grim.”
“He’s going to be so mad,” Flora said, her bottom lip trembling like she still hated this plan but also like she didn’t want to fight my resolve anymore.
Like she finally grasped what Johann had the moment I’d entered the Hallowed Halls tonight.
That this, trying to convince me not to attempt to save the man I loved, was a losing battle.
“He might be mad,” I said, stepping up to Flora, who, after lowering her arms in defeat, shifted aside to clear the way, “but even an eternity of his anger is still better than losing him to the Black Basin.”