Chapter Twenty-Five #4
A shriek in the area the woman stood, a thump like she’s fallen. Elisavet’s sliver beats bright—as if uncovered a fraction. But there is still so much more, more to go. And where is Aven’s soul? And where is Orrin’s? And if I grab at them, will they survive?
The claret-haired woman is moving again in the corner of my vision, weeping in a puddle on the ground, which bolsters me on.
If I was successful—and I don’t sense her soul with Elisavet any longer—and if she survived the returning of her soul’s remainder, that means I can save my sister and Orrin too.
Elisavet casts an uninterested look at the woman before turning back to me.
Her presumption that her demons are simply misbehaving again is what will benefit me.
The next, Orrin’s demon friend from the first party, off leaning against the wall, watching me with interest. I connect their soul right away, a tang of citrus in my mouth, a sharp ringing in my ears.
I pull it hard, imagine it as a child’s ball, tossing it back in their corner as I leap.
They crumple with a silent cry, and I go on, quicker now.
This one, that. My throat going dry and black, like I swallowed burnt toast, my nose filling with the stench of rot, my fingers numb, my feet burning. The shoes pulse, pulse, pulsing as I pirouette. Again, again, again, bodies falling, bodies groaning.
Out of my peripheral vision, I catch Elisavet motioning one of her brutish guards over, frowning. More demons whimpering, exclaimed cries of fear and surprise. Elisavet stands from her seat, scanning the crowd in suspicion.
I stare at my sister, who’s moved off to the side. I dance for her.
I spin out our memories, as I did for Orrin last night. But this time I know what I’m doing. I hope.
Aven. Aven. Aven. Strawberries, warm from the sun, grown right in the patch of grass near our cottage.
Pine needles in her pale hand. Pulling weeds, tending her garden with such care.
Her blue eyes flashing, quick, smart. Her laugh, wide open smile, white teeth.
Dark lines of brows. Hair down past her waist. Big belly, thumping baby below.
Thin band of gold on her ring finger. Wreath of the flowers she’d grown herself, placed just so on her head, her face made up in rosy cosmetics we made together.
Teaching me to read when I got kicked out of school.
Clapping for my graceless first attempts at dancing, encouraging Sélie’s drawing.
Our makeshift motherly sister who held the three of us together, so easily.
Willingly. Who never once made me or Sélie feel like burdens.
I can feel it—see it—that part of her, being held by Elisavet.
What is left of Aven is weaker, soft and fluid, but it is there. I focus on that. I will it to grow. I will it to come back in full. I use the power of the red slippers—and the power within me—to take from me and give to her.
Focusing on her silvery, beating soul, I spin, and I spin some more.
Leaping, I move, feverish, dancing so hard my chest burns, and I choke in some air.
But still, I cannot stop. I think of flowers.
Warmth. Love. The magic burns within me.
Not just the gifts now. Something more. Something that can heal.
Something that can break. Go back, I urge her soul.
Go back! I silently scream, begging it to comply.
This is all the magic that I have to give. It is my love, and I give it willingly, joyfully. Take it, take everything from me. Save my sister, save my sister.
I can feel when it gives, almost leaping its way back to her in its own dance.
Aven’s face tips up and she falls backward, swooning.
I pierce Elisavet with my gaze now. Holding hers. Just as the red slippers won’t let me go, I won’t release her.
I dance for her too. For her pain, her beauty, her sadness. I dance with empathy, even as I hate her. Because she wasn’t always this. Because maybe, somehow, she is still redeemable.
Even as I dance, I know—the red shoes are sharing their power, but they are also taking something they’ve never taken before.
My energy drains with each step. Just as I can feel the souls of the others, so I can sense my own, and it is dwindling.
Yet, I move on. I jeté, I spiral, I chassé, I piqué arabesque.
On and on and on I go, back aching, arms weak, legs like jelly, and still I go on, just as strong, just as powerful somehow.
My body may be weak, but my dancing isn’t.
The slippers keep going, making me jump, making me twist and turn, making me dance harder than I’ve ever danced before, harder than is humanly possible.
I dance until my heart starts to slow and still they force me on.
I won’t stop, not if I can help it. I’ll die before I give up a way to get Aven back home, die before I let Orrin die.
And as if in answer, a trade of another sort has been made—between me, between the slippers, between the magic binding all of us together—and my life begins to slip away.
I offer my soul up, propose my own magical trade to all the powers that be.
Take my life, let me follow Elisavet into death if I get her there.
But spare Orrin. But where is his soul? I frantically try to sift through the rest of the energies surrounding Elisavet, Aven moaning on the ground.
I send her a silent apology for any pain she may be feeling, but panic seizes me. I’m running out of time.
I’ve run out of time.
“Stop dancing,” Elisavet’s cold command, her eyes slitted at me in hatred.
That’s when I notice the seawater pooling at my feet and the chaos created by the humans in the cave who finally seem to have come to their senses—some of them cry with gratitude, some scream hysterically, lost in their own minds again.
It’s dizzying. One of them runs right into the stone wall so hard he crushes his own skull, the horrible sickening crack of it echoing through the cave, even above the racket. I shake my head. No. No. No.
But I keep dancing.
Bile rises in my throat, my stomach twists, my hands and arms and legs shake, my heart slows so much, I think it’ll stop, and I’m cold, desperately cold to my bones, so cold now I suddenly can’t feel a thing, my body is not mine. My life is not either.
I meet my Orrin’s black eyes. Send him all my apologies. I didn’t find his soul—and now Elisavet knows what I’ve done—stolen back her demons’ lives, weakened her. But I didn’t kill her.
Now we’re probably both dead.
I love you, I love you, I dance the words. I give it the last of what I have. It is the love and the passion within me that meets the magic. That strengthens it. My heart slows some more. It stutters out of rhythm.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
And then…something flashes light and darkness both together, something burns, smelling of burnt flesh, rot, sour undertones, and still, the smell of jasmine and poison. The water keeps rushing in.
“No!” With one quick and horrible scream, Elisavet lunges forward, weak, face ashen. She looks weak. She looks like she’s dying.
Because of me, she is dying.
I dance on, giving it my last few stilted breaths, my limbs so weak I can hardly move now.
I will meet her in death if I must. I am not stopping.
For one moment, her eyes meet mine. She looks confused.
Broken. It’s too much for her. She’s too far gone to save, even if she’d wanted that.
Somehow, I doubt she would’ve wanted it.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
And as Elisavet stumbles toward me, Orrin manages to wrestle his knife back from the demon, hurtling it with all his might across the cave.
“Elisavet!” he calls. Behind him, in the shadows, slump the two demons that held him, that cut him. Elisavet turns just in time. The knife lands squarely in her chest, in her heart.
With a scream, quick and horrible, Elisavet deflates…
her skin caving in around her face, eyes sinking into her skull, body turning small and withered as all that remains of her is a shell…
a bag of skin and bones. She, what is left of her, falls on the floor in a flash of light and darkness, cocooned in her bruise-colored dress, pearl necklace shimmering, her body lying next to Mr. Brown’s corpse.
Just an empty shell, sad and lost. Dead.
I grab Aven to me, finding the last bit of my strength. I tug her away from the smoking, putrid pile of flesh behind her, away from Mr. Brown’s bloodied corpse. I clutch my sister to me, not caring if the world around seems to be trembling. “Aven,” I cry, rocking her back and forth like a baby.
She holds me so tightly I can hardly breathe—her wiry arms wrapped around me like they will never let go. This is her.
And Elisavet is no more.
The shoes pulse on my feet, one weak but triumphant squeeze, and realization strikes me.
There is a soul in these slippers. Or something like one. I don’t know what to name it. A soul, a heart, a lifeforce, a spirit, a ghostly presence. A dying wish. A sacrifice.
Or maybe, unfinished business. I sense the truth now, so obviously.
All this time, the red slippers weren’t enchanted by Elisavet.
They were enchanted by Glisa.
With tears streaming down my face, I wrap all of my intentions around the slippers, give them a squeeze, and gently, I let go. I release what is left of her, send it to the beyond.
Someone screams. More now, shocked, horrified, delighted.
There’s a terrible sound of something cracking, something breaking—the rush of energy bouncing around the room, some of the candles snuffing in the whoosh of crackling air.
The people starting to run, startled like horses.
But where is Orrin? I search the crowded place frantically, screaming for him.
“Get out!” someone shrieks. “The cave is coming down!”
I look up as another loud crash sounds, and a giant chunk of stone falls from the ceiling to the floor. More shrieks as people shove each other aside to scramble out of the cave, knocking over the last of the still-lit candles, fire trailing along the fine rugs.
“Fire,” Aven finally says, eyes wide, frozen in fear. I lost you in a fire, I lost you in a fire, she used to say. That’s how our parents died, and that’s what her nightmares were made of.
“No,” I say, my stomach dropping. We didn’t get this far to lose everything now. I scream for Orrin again. Did he survive Elisavet’s death? Where is he?
“I’m here!” A familiar presence presses tight behind me. I cry out my relief, as Orrin’s arms wrap around me, heaving my weak body up. His panicked hands patting me down.
“I’m okay,” I reassure him, hobbling toward the door, his arms propelling me and Aven forward.
“Move!” he screams, as more water rushes into the cave, thankfully extinguishing the flames.
Fear gives me speed and the strength to move.
We race toward the exit, the light from outside streaming its way in, showing us the way.
Our arms flung over our heads in feeble protection, Orrin’s arms huddled around us both as we run.
Rocks thunder as they hit the cave walls and floor.
If we don’t get out soon, they’ll block the door, trap us.
I move, I move as fast as I can, despite my utter exhaustion, my skirts weighed down with water.
I drag my sister with me to the cave opening, while there still is one, reaching an arm out to the dazed harpist with the bloody fingers, the dancer with the golden bangles.
“Go!” I scream, pushing them as we struggle against the water pouring in.
There are people behind us, but when I look back, Orrin heaves me forward faster. “There’s no time.”
“Mr. Brown…” More water rushes in, reaching our waists, my already-heavy gown weighed down even more, making me sluggish, panicked.
Orrin doesn’t have to answer, Mr. Brown is dead. I saw it.
We reach the mouth of the cave, and I shove Aven through it with the last of my strength.
Orrin grips my wrists, pulling me along as another cascade of rocks comes down behind us—a crash, a scream, the splash of water, the taste of salt as I trip and fall under a wave, his cry of alarm ringing in my ears, his fingers yanked from my wrists. I reach, grabbing nothing but air.
I’ve lost him.
I choke the water down, I choke again as it sucks me under, dragging me away from Orrin’s grasping hands, dragging me from the cave, dragging me out to the sea.
In the haze of drowning, I watch my feet moving eerily through the cold water in the slippers, as if in slow motion.
There is no sound except a roaring in my ears.
There is no feeling except the burning in my lungs, the muscles in my body screaming.
Then crying. Then silence. The waves toss me like a rag doll, and I slam into something hard, my vision blurring.
I’ve done too much. I can’t fight anymore.
Beat.
It’s enough.
I have nothing left to give.
That’s my last thought, before the water spits me out.