2. Chapter 2
Chapter two
W ind rushes past my ears and my heart flies up into my throat. My stomach drops against my spine as fear slices through me in alternating waves of scorching heat and ice. Not fear of death—but of pain. I’ve avoided it for so long, sacrificed so much to keep myself out of its grasp. And now, it’s finally ensnared me from the depths of sleep. Inescapable, inevitable.
My muscles tense painfully as the night sky tunnels above me. Horns blare, and I resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut, if only to block out the rush of concrete on either side of me. Instead, I raise my eyes to the sky above. Smog smears the night, and though murky clouds streak across the heavens, one star still shines bright enough for me to latch my panicked gaze onto it.
Its ethereal light shimmers, a wild prism of color spilling into the chilled air. I hold my breath and weave the star’s ray through my mind like luminescent thread. I let it flow through my thoughts, illuminating each space with celestial beauty until there’s no room to imagine the pain to come. The looming concrete beneath me, the buildings racing around me, they all evaporate as my imagination races up to the sky.
It wraps around the star, stealing the explosion of light and using it to color my thoughts so purely, the world itself turns upside down. I paint my imaginings in crisp lines and lush colors, the beauty easing the burning tension in my muscles. The star becomes vibrant enough in my mind I’m no longer falling to the ground, but into the sky. It isn’t hard concrete or unending pain awaiting me, but a glistening pool of silk and light.
I cling to the image so fiercely, I’m able to take one deep breath before the moment of impact. A breath that calms me; that fills my lungs and heart and veins with starlight.
And then I give myself over to the fall.
Endless dark presses in, slippery and ice cold. There’s no air, no light, nothing but one word rising up through the void— fight.
A voice I’ve never heard, one that somehow feels colder than even the emptiness around me. So cold it burns; just like the light of the cosmos, the star I held in my thoughts before I hit the ground.
Fight, the voice echoes, louder now. Fight. It reverberates in the marrow of my bones, rattling me awake.
My eyes snap open like the voice has commanded it, and I blink rapidly against the slithering darkness. I’m not dead. I’m fucking underwater.
Reacting on pure instinct, my limbs begin to move despite their numbness. My lungs burn and my nightgown logs with seawater, as I swim hard toward what I hope is the surface. The water is so dark, I can see nothing, not even shadows of the world above. But that voice—I swim in its direction and hope I’m not swimming even deeper.
My gamble pays off when I finally break the surface a few moments later. I kick my legs and gulp down oxygen in greedy wheezes, searching for the source of the voice. There is nothing but endless water, still and freezing cold. The sky above is just as dark as the sea below, a boundless reflection of swirling violets and iridescent blues. At the height of the infinitely sprawling heavens, shines the same star I held onto during my fall.
My legs begin to burn as I tread in place, staring upward at the familiar star. The thought is insane—how would I know it were the same or not—but just like I instinctively knew the way to the surface, I know the star’s light as intimately as if it were made for me.
The smooth surface of the surrounding water begins to roll and crest, dragging me from my reverie. As if an invisible storm has suddenly blown in, the waves crash against me and the current threatens to pull me beneath it. I will my panic to ebb, scanning the dark expanse of water for a sign of land. I nearly yelp in relief when I make out faint, jagged outlines in the distance. Rock formations nearly as black as the night itself, their sharp spires reaching to the sky like the teeth of a giant beast.
And settled in the center, a soft beach.
I heave a deep breath and swim toward it.
The icy temperature of the water has sapped the feeling from my limbs, and even the brutal swim against the current isn’t enough to restore it. The beach is further than it appeared on first glance, the distance made even more treacherous by the ever-increasing ferocity of the waves.
I try not to think of what could lurk beneath the shadowed depths, nor what will happen if the waves overtake me before I reach the shore. I only let myself imagine the shape of the shoreline lingering on the horizon, and how good the warm sand will feel between my toes.
Acid courses through the muscles of my arms and legs as I force them to work faster. Swell after icy swell crash over me, and though my lungs burn with each desperate breath, I don’t dare stop. Being still is death, and I need no voice to tell me to fight now. I’ve been surviving for so long, it’s ingrained into my muscle memory, carved into my very bones. No longer a conscious decision, but a habit—keep going. Always. No matter the cost.
So I do. I swim and I swim, slowly drawing the shoreline closer with each desperate stroke.
I’ve nearly made it halfway when something silky wraps around my ankle. I barely have time to take a short breath before I’m yanked beneath the icy surface once again. My scream is drowned by frothing waves, and water fills my mouth before I can master my panic enough to seal my lips. I kick frantically as the foreign hold on my ankle tightens, slimy and scaled and impossibly strong.
Bubbles surge around me as I thrash wildly, but the grip doesn't relent. My lungs threaten to expand as I’m dragged so far beneath the surface the light of the star winks out entirely, and I’m surrounded once more in utter darkness.
Now, panic grabs hold of my chest; it winds around my iced limbs and useless fingers, pools in my stomach like cooled lead as I sink further. No, no, no. The words shriek inside my oxygen deprived brain, but they do nothing to stop the pressure of the water against my lungs or loosen the grip on my ankle.
Those who say drowning is a peaceful death have never drowned. The agony of helplessness as your muscles freeze; the burning acidity of the water filling your lungs. It is a painful end, last moments filled with desperation and torment.
I won’t drown in this godforsaken water.
I snarl the words in my mind, adrenaline pulsing through me in hot spikes as I gather what little remains of my energy for one last kick. This time, my foot connects with something slippery, but solid. A horrifying screech echoes through the dark water, the pressure of it against my ears nearly unbearable. But the hold on my ankle loosens, enough for me to yank my foot and free myself.
Black edges my vision as I kick toward the surface. Lungs burning, muscles screaming, desperation floods through me as I realize I’m going to pass out before I make it.
Oh god, it’s too far.
My limbs lock, frozen and heavy, and fire races through my chest as I inhale involuntarily. Water pours down my throat and into my lungs. There is no peace, no acceptance—there is only terror and pain and panic.
My eyes slip closed, and I see Celie’s face, pale and lifeless on the ground of our farm. I see the beige tiled ceiling of an Amelioration camp, and a slimy voice from the past echoes around me: So afraid of pain, aren’t you, Willa? Selfish, cowardly girl. Everyone’s counting on you. How dare you give in now?
The voice settles over me like ice, the agony of the past and present threatening to drag me to the bottom of the fathomless depths, when something hooks beneath my armpit and begins hauling me upward. I’m drawn toward the sky in steady, smooth strokes I’m sure I’ve imagined. Like I imagined the voice and the star. Pathetic delusions to shield myself from the awaiting pain.
My head breaks the surface, and a cool breeze grazes my skin as I blink up at the swirling night sky. I gasp and choke, each cough scraping my lungs with seawater and grit.
“Come now, miss,” a man—no, a boy —says encouragingly, his skinny arm still holding me up. “Take a big breath, you’ll be alrigh’.”
I blink wildly, my breath still coming in painful whistles, and wonder if I’m hallucinating. If I’m still at the bottom of the sea and the boy, with his messy blonde hair and lopsided grin, isn’t here at all.
“That’s it,” he says, hauling me tighter in his skinny arms. “Now kick your legs. Best we get out of the water soon as we can.”
The numb cold of the water has receded along with my adrenaline, leaving every bit of my body aching and sore, but I do as the boy asks, and kick. He does most of the work, hauling me along behind him by the arm as we swim to shore. The waves have calmed as quickly as they’d risen, and whatever ensnared my leg seems to have sunk back into the depths, leaving the waters of the lagoon so smooth, it feels like we’re treading through starlight.
When we reach land, I crawl up onto the beach and collapse face first into the black sand, digging my ice-cold fingers into the warm grit. I retch violently, sea water and whiskey pouring from me in an acidic wave. My throat is raw and though every breath hurts, I count them all until the burn subsides enough to move.
When I manage to flop onto my back, it’s to find the boy watching me with an odd expression. He appears harmless by all accounts, probably only twelve or thirteen-years-old—floppy blonde hair and a mouth of straight white teeth his face hasn’t quite grown into. But something about his eyes leaves me feeling far more chilled than the sea water had.
“Thank you,” I finally say, mostly to break the silence. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged over gravel and probably will for a few days, but if it weren’t for the boy happening by this beach in the middle of the night, far more than my voice would be ruined.
“I got caught by…something—” My head is pounding, and I shake it with a sigh, feeling unmoored. I dig my fingers into the sand in an attempt to ground myself and reorder my thoughts into something remotely understandable. “Something was out there.”
The boy furrows his brow and tilts his head to examine me, as if somehow, I am far more worrying than whatever lurks in the waters of the lagoon.
“Well, of course there is, miss,” he says, eyeing me like he suspects I may be slow. His accent is thick, reminiscent of somewhere near London, but also odd in its affect. Like something has been hollowed out beneath its surface.
“The better question is what were you doing out there? No one goes swimmin’ in the lagoon. Not ‘less they want to spend eternity with the sirens, cheeky monsters that they are.”
Now it’s my turn to furrow my brow. Before the plague, sailors routinely spoke the lore of the sea, stories of mermaids and krakens alike traded up and down the coast as routinely as their wares. But those stories died along with all the others, and I haven’t heard their like in years. Certainly not from a child.
“What’s your name?”
The boy gives me a warm smile that transforms his face, and I chide myself for being suspicious. He’s so young, and brave enough to venture into the bay in the middle of the night to take his chances with whatever monsters he believes swim there. All to save a complete stranger.
“Jamie,” he replies. His gaze darts nervously to the thick foliage lining the beach.
“Nice to meet you, Jamie. I’m Willa. And thank you again.”
I push myself to standing, wobbling slightly on my feet as I take in my surroundings. The sky is at once lighter and darker here than at home. There is no moon, but more stars than I’ve ever seen in my life. Millions of them shimmer between swirling clouds of celestial dust, deep violets and midnight blues that look as if they were painted in giant strokes by the hand of some ancient god.
At the peak shines the same star I held onto as I fell from the roof, the second in a line of seven that shine brighter than the thousands of others. I search the sky for another recognizable constellation, something to indicate where I’ve fallen, but find none that are familiar.
The lagoon is now entirely still, the smooth waters a perfect reflection of the sky above. There’s no sign of whatever grabbed my ankle, or indeed, of any life at all. Perhaps whatever it was slipped between the cage of rock spires surrounding the lagoon and into the sea beyond. The purple sea.
I shiver as a soft breeze rustles the foliage behind me, feeling increasingly hysterical by the second.
Maybe I’ve finally gone mad.
Because one moment I was plummeting to my death in concrete monotony, and now I’m standing on an exotic beach that looks like no place I’ve ever seen, beneath an unrecognizable sky.
“Jamie,” I begin hesitantly, turning back to the boy and attempting to keep my voice from shaking. “Where, exactly, are we?”
For a horrifying moment, I expect him to say something ominous—like we’re dead and this is where we wait to be ferried to the underworld.
But Jamie only gives me another curious look and replies, “The lagoon, miss.”
I open my mouth to insist he be more specific, when his eyes flick nervously to the foliage once more. His gaze has followed the same path more than once, the movement so surreptitious, I doubt a normal person would notice. But I’ve honed my observation skills, always on alert for the smallest sign that it’s time to run. Something has made Jamie jumpy, and for some reason, it isn’t the idea of murderous mermaids in the water.
My breath catches in my throat as I follow his gaze to the lush greenery. Nestled between towering verdant trees is the most exquisite array of plants I’ve ever seen, the beauty of their color and variety drawing me toward them like a magnet. Wide petals of deep blues, creamy pinks, and vibrant yellows glow against the velvet night. Sunset tangerine, deep vermilion, aubergine, all cradled in wide leaves of seafoam, emerald, and forest greens.
The colors evoke something aching in me, and unable to resist, I pluck the nearest one. A beautiful shade of crystal-clear turquoise, like I imagine this very bay would be in the sunlight. I stare at it for a long moment, feasting on the sensuous color like its sustenance and I’m starving. And I suppose I am—malnourished of anything beautiful, ravenous for even the smallest morsel.
Jamie comes up behind me, watching me cautiously like I’ve lost my mind. He’s probably not far off. “Miss, it’s best we not linger on the beach too long.”
His anxious tone drags my attention from the flower in my palm. He dances on the balls of his feet, wringing his hands nervously in front of him. His gaze flits from the flowers to the shadows of the trees, never settling for more than a moment.
“Why? Because of the sirens?” I mean it as a joke, but Jamie doesn’t laugh.
He chews his lip and pops one of his knuckles. “I’ll give you all the answers you could ever want, but we must get off the beach first.” Jamie’s words come out clipped. With the sudden darkening of his eyes and the sharp press of his mouth, for a moment, he doesn’t sound like a child at all. But then he shoots me another disarming grin, cocking his head in manner that reminds me so much of Zenni, my chest wrenches. “If you’d be so willing, miss, that is. It’ll be safer to talk away from here.”
He gestures to my nightgown, the thin material so thoroughly soaked, it clings immodestly to my body. “You must be freezing. We should get you to shelter before you catch your death.”
I glance down dumbly, having nearly forgotten all about being barely clothed and almost drowning. But Jamie’s right, I am freezing. My skin’s gone numb, my limbs are achy and sore, and my teeth have begun to chatter wildly. But still, something tugs at my brain—a hesitation, one borne of a lifetime of lies and betrayal. Something about this feels wrong.
I shake my head in an attempt to rid myself of the ridiculous paranoia. Jamie is only a child. Like Zenni. Like Celie. And he saved my life. “That would be—that would be nice, thank you.”
He grins in relief and gestures to a small path leading up into the forest, through the flowers and away from the beach. “It’s this way. Not a far walk from here.”
I nod, tucking the flower behind my ear and following him into the trees. We’ve only made it a few steps when something in the air shifts. It tightens and loosens at once, as a foreign power reverberates over the beach, so cold, I swear, the shadows themselves shudder in fear.
Jamie whips back to me, his pale face twisted in horror and his hand stretched toward mine. I grapple toward him as the reverberations of power still, and suddenly, the night sky crawls down from the heavens to wrap around me like iron vices. The world is plunged into darkness as the tethers of sky coil around me. I can’t see Jamie—I can’t see anything . It feels like I’ve gone blind, like I’ve been plunged into nothingness.
Reaching out my arms in a disoriented panic, I stumble toward where I last saw the boy.
“Jamie!” I cry out, terrified for him. It doesn’t matter that I hardly know him. It only matters that he’s a child; that I’ve already failed to save Zenni and Celie, and I won’t be able to live with myself if I fail him, too.
“Jamie!”
My pleads are met with silence. Thick and disorienting. I can no longer hear the birds of the forest or even the soft lap of the waves against the sand. My toe catches on something sharp, and with a yelp, I lurch forward face first into the sand, even the sound of my fall muted to my own ears.
The darkness slithers around my body, and though none of it touches me, I feel its pressure against my eyes, its icy presence caressing my skin. Like the night has become sentient and burrowed down into the marrow of my bones, it vibrates behind my heart and tugs violently at my blood.
Is this the end stages of the plague? Is this the madness that drove all those poor souls to hurtle themselves off buildings, slit their wrists, tie nooses around their own throats? Was it all to stop this unending night, this horrible madness?
“Jamie!” I shout as fear slices through me. Fear that if it’s finally taken me, it will take him, too. That it will kill any hope that grows inside him, starve his childlike wonder and mutilate his inherent innocence.
The shadows brush against my ears, their dark whispers sending chills over my skin and heat down my spine.
Death, they say. Rot. Decay.
Carrion.
The whispers are harrowing, but even as they beckon dark waves of horror, they are edged in seduction. Drawing me toward the madness of the shadows, teasing me with their wicked promise.
For the second time tonight, I am drowning. Before, there was no air, and now, there is no time—there is only pure chaos. I try to claw my way upward, to somehow swim through the never-ending dark.
I scream Jamie’s name and the darkness swallows that, too.
Despair billows through me—that I’ll be swimming through the silent horror eternally—but as quickly as it arrived, the unnatural shadows abate. A fresh breath shoots through my chest, but it’s savagely suffocated when a sickening thud sounds beside me. I feel it beneath my ribs: the sound of finality and mutilation.
I twist, my scream of horror buried deep in my throat, as I take in the unnatural stillness of Jamie’s body, the horribly bloated flesh of his once handsome face. The rotted skin sloughing from his bones sends bile surging up my throat, but it’s his eyes—clouded, unseeing, nearly concave like he’s been dead for weeks—that finally unearths my scream.