Chapter 29
We fell through a hundred thousand deaths.
Children sucked from their beds by storm winds, soldiers with arrows between their ribs, suicides and car wrecks, strokes and seizures, felons thrashing in electric chairs, starved men with swollen bellies, mothers bleeding out in their birthing beds, houses burning in the night, missiles falling from the sky with screams, knifepoints splitting flesh.
I saw Skye floating facedown, limbs loose and weightless, hair fanning out behind her head, a kind of halo.
For a moment, she appeared to be flying.
And then she was gone. Or I was, falling through time again until I slammed back into my own body with a strangled cry. I was standing at the edge of my own backyard, on the cusp of the forest. Death stood beside me; his face was washed in shadow.
I flexed my fingers, lifted a foot, testing the limits of my own body, which felt unfamiliar to me. As if I’d been torn from it for some time. I looked around at the surrounding pine forest, which I recognized, even in the dark. I was home, back in Michigan. “Is this—”
“Yes,” he said softly.
“The same night? The night she—”
“Yes.”
I’d done it. I’d really done it. I’d made it back to her.
Death started forward into the deep thicket, moving through the forest like a deer or a ghost. Something that belonged there. I followed after him.
“You know, you’re braver than I took you for,” he said, turning to look at me over his shoulder.
I ducked under a low-slung branch. “I’m not brave. Just desperate.”
“One and the same.”
We walked for some time before the playhouse took shape, at the heart of a small clearing, lit by a sharp slant of moonlight. The plastic shutters on the windows were closed, so I couldn’t see Adeline within. But I knew that she was there, could feel it, as if she’d called my name.
“You should go to her,” said Death, stopping a few yards short of the playhouse. “She’s been waiting.”
“What will I say?”
“You’ll know when the time comes. Go on, then. I’ll wait.”
But I didn’t move. “What will become of the others after this? Are you going to cling to them forever?”
He frowned at my phrasing. “I’ll cut them loose someday.”
“When?” I needed an answer while I still had some leverage left.
He considered the question, a shadow falling over his face. “When…the story is over.”
“And when will it be over?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.”
I turned to face him in full. There, in the deep of the forest, he looked more human than I’d ever seen him.
Maybe he’d settled into that body of his during his time with the girls.
“They love you; you know that, right? In their own way. As much as souls as small as ours can love an idea as big as you.”
He narrowed his eyes, uncertain—mistrustful, even—like he wanted to hope but wouldn’t let himself. “Do you really think that’s true?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you. Not here.” I paused a beat, torn between Death and the playhouse, wanting to go to Adeline but knowing I had work left unfinished in life.
I didn’t know what was on the other side of this, if I would live to leave this night.
But Death was still with me, and somewhere—through time, in the future, back on that beach—the girls were still alive, and I still had a chance to save them. Set them free.
“You should cut them loose. Not for their sake, but for yours. If you hold on to them any longer, they might destroy you. That’s what happens to things we humans love in the end.
I should know.” I stepped closer to him, raised a hand to his cheek.
I was surprised by its warmth. “All this time, I thought that we were becoming like you. But really, you were becoming like us. Living through us. That’s why you’re so scared to let us go. ”
Death’s expression went blank for the briefest moment, but he recovered himself quickly, his eyes turning soft and fond, gentling. When he clasped his hand over mine, I thought he would kill me. For my insolence and honesty, for daring to see him as he truly was. “I’m not afraid of losing you.”
“Then prove it,” I said, playing a game of my own. “Set them free.”
I slipped my hand from his before he had the chance to answer and took six long strides across the forest floor to the door of the playhouse. I could feel Adeline on the other side of it. But it took a moment to work up the courage I needed to crouch down, grasp the plastic knob, and tug it open.
And there she was, slumped against the far wall. Alive.
My sister was blinking slowly, like she’d only just woken up.
Seeing her for the first time, I expected to feel the full weight of my grief—months and months of it bearing down on me at once—but instead, I felt lighter, like the pain had been taken from me, like I’d reverted back to the girl I was before: Adeline’s little sister. I was hers again.
I stalled in the doorway on my hands and knees, my resolve failing as I looked at her. I didn’t want to go in, and in this reality, on this quiet night, she was alive as long as I didn’t. Nothing and no one could take her from me. I could stop time if I just stayed there, frozen.
But then Adeline raised her head. “Roslyn?”
I sprang forward with a little cry, the door falling closed behind me. I half expected her to disappear when I hugged her, evaporate in my arms. But she was there, just as real and alive as I was. “You’re here. You’re really here.”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, and her voice was weak. “I knew you would come.”
Every intention I’d had—to kill her, to save the girls, to fulfill my bargain with Death—dissipated in that quiet moment. I couldn’t think of anything beyond her.
Adeline looked up at me, her eyes slow to focus. “Did he bring you here?”
I knew she meant Death. “I chose to come.”
“Good. I always wanted it to be you in the end.”
“Don’t say that.” I could barely speak for the tears.
“Why not?” said Adeline. “You know what you’re here to do, and so do I.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“You will,” she said. “You were destined to be the death of me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re the best of both of us. I’m glad that, in the end, you’re the one to make it through.”
“You’re wrong. You’re going to die tonight, and I’m going to be nothing without you because that’s all I am apart from you.”
“That’s not true.” Her words came in a ragged gasp. “And I wish I could make you see that. I wish that I hadn’t—” Whatever she’d wanted to say, she couldn’t. Her voice seemed to snag, her eyes flashing wide like she’d seen something on the other side, beyond me, beyond life itself.
We were running out of time.
“I know about Shiloh,” I said, because I needed to. I couldn’t bear it, the idea that she would die without knowing how sorry I was.
Adeline’s brows knit with confusion. “How do you—”
“Memories of the future,” I said, and then, when she began to ask a follow-up question, I waved her off. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter how I know. I just do. And I need you to know how sorry I am—”
“Roslyn—”
“Not just for the stuff with Shiloh, but all of it. Everything that I said when we fought. The jealousy. The anger. The things I said to you that night—last night, I mean. I apologize for all of it, and I’ve spent every day since then wishing I could take it all back.”
“You don’t owe me any apologies,” said Adeline, in tears. “I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. I should have been there for you, and all I did was make things worse—”
“You didn’t—”
“But I did,” she said. “I was your older sister, and I was supposed to protect you.”
“You did. In your own way.”
“I did for a while,” she said. “But I…Roslyn, I cracked. I broke. And when I did, I think I broke you with me. No, I know that I did. I just couldn’t keep it up.
I wanted to do better, to be better for you, but I just couldn’t do it.
I would see all these sisters who shielded their younger siblings from the worst of the world, the worst of themselves.
And I so badly wanted to be that for you, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I became the thing that I should’ve been protecting you from. ”
“That’s not true.”
But she couldn’t hear; she was lost to herself, as if the playhouse were empty. “I resented you. I wanted what you had. I always have.”
I laughed aloud at that.
Adeline’s face screwed into a pinched frown, the same look she always gave when she felt someone was belittling or talking down to her. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just absurd to me that you even think that. I mean, what could I possibly have that you don’t?”
The question startled her; she looked at me, shocked. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I’m just trying to catch up to you. I always have been.”
Adeline blinked rapidly, shook her head with disbelief. “Roslyn, you have everything. The grades, track, and that weirdly loyal boyfriend—”
“I broke up with him, by the way.” I knew she’d be glad to hear it. It was a small thing, but I wanted to give her as many good moments as I could before the end.
“I’m glad, because he’s an idiot. But that’s the thing; even idiots like him like you. Everyone does. You don’t have to do anything to be seen or heard except be yourself. I’ve always known that, but it was only after Shiloh that I started to resent you for it.”
“Adeline, please. I’m so sorry—”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.
Neither does she. It wasn’t her that screwed me over.
I did it to myself. Because I was so jealous of what you had—and so miserable over what I lacked—that it broke me.
But it’s been that way for a while, before Shiloh ever came into the picture.
She was just a living confirmation of what I’ve always known. ”
I didn’t want to ask the question, but I forced myself to anyway. “What have you always known?”
Adeline spoke so softly I barely heard her. “That I don’t measure up to you.”