35
Bengt rests on the hospital bed, while I stand in the doorway. I grimace at the medicinal smell lingering in the stale air and swallow hard. I can taste the chemicals burning in my throat. I know this is a memory, yet I whisper the same words I did when I visited him while he was ill.
“How are you?” I ask, and he looks at me. His gaze tightens my throat.
The weak Bengt isn’t lying in front of me now. My body sounds the alarm – I need to escape. I won’t be able to withstand his anger. Before I can push myself away from the wall, Bengt’s hand stretches like chewing gum and holds me in place. I gasp at the grip.
“Come closer!” he taunts. “Look at what you did to me!”
With that, he pulls me into the depths.
I’m trapped in a coffin. I know it because it’s slowly being lowered, and there’s just enough space in the black box for my body. I can’t breathe. Worms chew through the coffin’s sides, their hissing sound piercing my mind.
I cry and scream. I pound the coffin walls with my hands. The worms crawl over my body.
I scream like a madman, like when I was in the psychiatric ward, like when I thought I had to fight for my life.
“Let me out!”
Someone is throwing dirt on me and laughing.
“I’m already here. Because of you.”
“No!” I scream as the coffin is slowly covered with stale soil.
Only my sobbing and the worms’ rustling can be heard in the dark. That man…
“Let me out, Bengt!” I whisper, and he does. I fall out of the coffin and look back at the open box, my feet rooted to the ground.
I’m no longer lying in it, but a skeleton is.
Mist envelops it. As the yellowish neck twists and the skull’s empty gaze falls on me, it feels like a hammer is hitting my chest from the inside. I scream and start running.
These aren’t my memories. This is torture.
I don’t know where I’m running. I run away from my brother’s skeleton. I don’t want to think it’s there. I don’t want to think that he no longer exists.
I just run, as long as I can breathe. Bengt…
How can it be that my brother died? How can someone lose their sibling so young? How could I have played a role in this?
It’s all my fault. Bengt’s death. The collapse of my family. Why? Why did I have to be born abnormal?
Why me? Why do I have angel and demon blood in my veins? What does it mean?
If it weren’t for the dreams, I’d never have stolen so much attention from my parents that they wouldn’t notice Bengt’s fatigue. Maybe they would have seen it in time? I’ll never know.
Darya… His demons devoured me every night.
It’s as if my soul found this hell every time I fell asleep.
Maybe that’s why I feel so at home? Why I haven’t been scared to death yet?
If they hadn’t suppressed my urges with medication – which didn’t work – Darya would have taken me at five or six years old. I would have become a demon.
Or the angels would have found me, and I’d be one of them now.
And maybe my brother would still be alive. My family would also be alive; they wouldn’t have died with my brother.
I hear a sliding sound behind me. I spin around and clap my hand over my mouth. The skeleton has followed me.
I flee as if shot from a gun.
I don’t understand what’s moving my legs because it’s certainly not me. Every part of me whispers that I deserve to stay with the skeleton. To switch places with it.
Switch places with me.
Murderer.
I stumble into a corridor; gray mist spreads, and blood-red doors line either side. When I feel a bony hand on my shoulder, I burst through the first door.
“Happy birthday, Lotte!” my mom greets as I enter, the whole family by her side. Her mouth stretches into a wide smile. The air smells of sugar. This place is familiar. The door closes, and the room’s warm air envelops me in safety.
I sniff as I try to hold back my stinging tears.
“Mom…” I whisper, and she looks at me in confusion.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asks, and Maya, sitting in the background, snorts.
“She’s probably just throwing a fit again.” She looks at me disdainfully. “Did you take your medication today?”
I want to say no, I haven’t taken them for a while, that I haven’t even thought about them for a while, but the memory treats me like a puppet, and I just nod.
“Then she’s just plain stupid.” My sister shrugs and resumes looking at her phone.
Something is wrong because she’s an adult, and so am I, but the cake only has the number ten on it.
I don’t care that this is a memory. Everything feels so real.
The room, my family, the blue cake on the table with candles burning yellow flames.
Their fire dries my tears. I run into my mom’s embrace and inhale her peppermint scent.
She hugs me back, smiling. My dad stays by the cake.
He hiccups, perhaps an indication he’s over his daily alcohol limit.
He looks so good! He never helped much at family gatherings, but at least he didn’t forget this one.
Maya watches quietly beside him. Everyone is so calm, their faces smooth.
Their blonde hair shines, their blue eyes reflecting the sea, just like mine.
When the door opens, I know why they’re so happy.
Bengt steps in, his smile bringing sunlight into the room. New tears gather in my eyes, and I let them roll down my cheeks.
“Happy birthday, sis!” He laughs, nudging me and pulling me into a hug.
I feel him. The warmth of his body, his salty breath, and his sudden embarrassment at hugging his sister for too long. But I don’t let go yet, even though he wants to pull away. I can’t. I haven’t been happy for a single moment since…
Now I feel whole. Everything is fine again.
Bengt is here, he’s alive. I’m never leaving. This is my happiness; this is my life. Here, with them.
“If you don’t let go, I can’t give you your present.” My brother laughs again, and I reluctantly pull away from him, but leave an arm on his shoulder.
Bengt reaches into his back pocket, and I hear a soft jingling, then he pulls out his keychain. I grimace.
“Wonderful gift, Bengt, but I’d be happier if you kept it yourself. That way, you wouldn’t have to wait hours for me to come home and let you in.”
My brother mimics my words mockingly, and I punch him on the shoulder. Meanwhile, he pulls his keys off the metal ring and hands me the clip that hangs on the chain.
“Did you seriously just give her an empty keychain?” Maya snaps.
“Without a key,” Bengt adds, as if it weren’t obvious.
“Hah! At least I bought her makeup.”
“That’s why we don’t choose gifts together. Yours is never original!” my brother says, then turns to me.
“It suits you!” He smiles as I put the chain around my neck. I’m much happier with it than with anything else. Maya could buy me a car and it wouldn’t mean as much.
The necklace suits me, and I immediately know that, from now on, I’ll feel incomplete without it. It’s become a part of me, and I’ll never be without it.
“I have another gift!” My brother grins, but I frown. Something isn’t right, as if the picture suddenly broke. I almost heard the crack.
“Another one?” I ask uncertainly.
Bengt nods eagerly. He takes out a large, simply wrapped rectangular object and places it in my hands.
The package is heavy, and I slowly unwrap it.
A golden book shines under the paper. A familiar feeling takes hold as I run my hand over the rough cover.
I flip through the pages, knowing where to look.
The image of a beautiful woman glows on the old, yellowed page.
Her almond-shaped eyes meet mine, and my thoughts paint her iris a date color. Her lips move, whispering words that make me hear bells, then stones grinding, as if she’s speaking in multiple languages at once. But I understand everything.
“Memories are dangerous things, Lotte. Go too deep, and you’ll be lost in them forever!”
Where have I heard this before?
I slam the book shut and look around. My parents and Maya stare ahead, faded, as if the girl’s words had carved them into marble statues. I turn back to my mom and shake her shoulders.
“Mom! What are you giving me?”
She doesn’t answer. She just stares ahead silently – like my dad.
As if she’s dead, too.
No! I have to bring them back! They can’t leave me again!
A hand digs into my shoulder, and my knees buckle under its weight. I turn around.
Bengt is taller than me. The flesh has already peeled off his fingers, and with his skeletal arm, he holds me in place.
“This is what you did to them,” he hisses angrily.
I collapse in front of my brother. He takes a knee, digging his bony hand into my shoulder.
“Your selfishness sent me to the grave,” he says, and I hear my mother’s approving voice from behind me.
“I can’t look at you anymore. You killed my son.”
Every word is a stab in my chest.
“We don’t speak anymore because I know what you did,” Maya says, her voice echoing throughout the room.
“I can only talk to your sister. Not you anymore,” my father mumbles to himself, and by the end, I can’t tell whose voice it is.
“You went in there sick…”
“Selfish…”
“You took him when he was weak…”
I cover my ears.
“He died because of you…”
“You killed him…”
“He would still be alive if it weren’t for you…”
I dig my nails into the back of my neck.
“What if…”
“Without you, we could have saved him…”
“I wish you had died instead of me.”
The last sentence is my brother’s, and I look at him. In his gray, lifeless eyes, I see the fire of revenge burning.
Bengt’s eyes.
Revenge.
Burning.
We stare at each other for a while. I blink. Then again. And then I smile.
Bengt was never vengeful. He would never have hurt me. He never wanted me to be sick instead of him.
This is all me.
Which means these are my own thoughts. Not my parents’ or my siblings’. I was right. This isn’t a memory. This is torture.
I am torturing myself.
I reach out toward my brother’s face. I don’t care that the skin is peeling from his bones. He is surprised by my touch.
“How much longer could you have been with us if I hadn’t visited the hospital? Would you have survived, Bengt?”
My brother stares at me blankly, but slowly shakes his head. It feels like my heart is splitting in two, like Pandora’s box.
“I’m so sorry.” My voice trembles, my eyes burn. “I brought the infection to you…”
“Which one do you mean, Lotte?” he asks, and his voice returns to the calm tone I remember. “When I died, I had more than one in me. Everyone knows that. Why don’t you ?”
I start crying. I hug him as tightly as I can, knowing I will never feel him like this again. If I had known there was one last hug, this is exactly how I would have done it.
I cry in his arms, and he soothes me with gentle strokes. I pull away from him because his skin is disintegrating between my arms. My gaze falls on Pandora’s book, and suddenly I remember why I’m here.
“Bengt.” I sniffle toward him as his skin slowly decays in my hands. “I need to find a dagger…”
“The key you seek, leading to Heaven or Hell, is where you can see your sins and hopes,” he says, and his voice is as calm as I remember.
I stare at Bengt. Where you can see … I understand…
I grip his shoulder.
“Bengt!” I shout happily at him. “I know what you’re talking about!”
My brother smiles, just as he always did. I know it still hurts; that I’m not over it yet. But I no longer blame myself.
“Don’t go…” I whisper to him.
The skin on my brother’s face slowly peels away, and the light in his eyes fades. As his face crumbles, the warmth I can feel on his shoulder disappears. I reach out for him, but I can only touch the cold air.
The lake ejects me. Gasping, I try to expel the water from my lungs, vomiting the river’s contents while on all fours. I grab at my neck and clutch the key pendant.
Bengt…
That’s why I needed to come here. To remember Bengt.
The demon and angel blood in me gives all the answers, and the answer was always within me.
I don’t know where I saw that dagger or why I know where it is.
But I needed to remember Bengt before his death, to know that I am not to blame. I didn’t kill him.
I take a deep breath, and next to me, Léthé does the same, but she lies weakly on the ground in her human form, naked.
“How did you get back?!” she snarls at me, and I cough up more water. “You should have stayed! Everyone,” she groans as if speaking is difficult, “everyone stays there.”
I laugh, water still leaving my mouth.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“If we meet in the water again, I will kill you. I don’t care what Darya does to me!”
I’m sure she means it. Trembling, I push myself up and drag myself toward the cave entrance. I have nothing to say to the mermaid. I ignore her struggling form, and the moment my legs obey, I start running. I have to run while I have the upper hand.
I know where to go, but when the path forks in the dimly lit, dark red tunnel, I hesitate. Pandora said to pay attention to the details in my memories. One leads to my cell, and, according to my brother, the other goes to the place where the dagger is.
I should pick the latter, but then they’ll rescue me, and Pandora’s book will stay in my room.
Something tells me I’ll need it. I grind my teeth.
I’m running out of time. I have no idea how much time I spent in the lake, but I need to get the dagger as soon as possible.
I take a step to the left, where I know I should go, but an invisible hand pulls me to the right.
I curse but give in to the urge and run to my cell. I fling the door open, and the huge eyes immediately fix on me, their yellow light almost blinding me.
Great, now they know exactly where I am!
I hurl myself toward the massive bed, left messy from when I abandoned it weeks ago. I grab my backpack and stuff Pandora’s book inside.
“Going somewhere?”
I spin around. Darya stands in the doorway.