13. Chapter 13
Her name was Blathilde, and she tucked my old bones into her bed a couple hours later, pillows strategically wedged beneath my weak points, leaving she and Serich to curl up on the chair and the bench for the night.
Despite the bed and more comfort than I’d had lately, I couldn’t sleep.
My joints ached; my ancient, stuttering heart beat so arrhythmically I was forced to wonder what it would mean for me if the hag’s body suddenly gave out.
Every new position I’d shift into began to hurt eventually.
I could not get comfortable enough to drift off.
I had never paid my body much mind before, but I missed it dearly now.
You’d better hope she keeps her word, It said as I grimaced when my hip twinged. She seems to be enjoying her new toy. Might not want to give it up.
Of course she’s enjoying a bit of youth, if this is what she’s used to.
I punched the pillow beneath one hip with a feeble fist to beat it into a more comfortable shape.
Aching bones and thin joints and little sleep on top of all of it.
I can hardly blame her, experiencing just a taste of it.
She’s been kind to us when she didn’t need to be.
Our clothes were clean, spread across her small table, ready to be hung to dry on the line in the morning.
She’d heated a bucket of water for Serich to wash with, which he had, quickly and furtively in the kitchen.
Blathilde had seemed to find his modesty both silly and slightly humorous, as if it were a waste of time.
It’s just a body, boy, she’d said with exasperation in my voice when she’d offered to expedite the process by scrubbing his back.
I looked up at the cobweb-strung ceiling and sighed. Mellow shadows drifted around the cottage in the flickering light from the hearth. I was reasonably safe and secure but sleep seemed an ocean away.
I can knock you out, It offered.
Not yet. Maybe in a while. I turned on my side, the bed groaning with the shift.
Serich and Blathilde didn’t stir. My body was curled like a cat in one of the chairs, and Serich looked clean and rosy beneath the hearth’s fire, his features calm as he slept.
The shadow of a beard had spread across his jaw, his cheeks.
I found the scruffiness oddly attractive.
Wondered what it felt like. I’d never seen his face anything but smooth.
Stop, It groaned. I beg you.
I closed my eyes, the firelight shining through the shell of my thin, wrinkled lids. Can you tell me about Hell?
Not much of a bedtime story. It sounded surprised.
I just want to know what to expect, should I make it there. What it’s like.
In what way? I felt him recline in his cell, scaly arms crossed over his chest. For the extended-stay guests, or the demons who run it?
Both?
Some souls think they’re dreaming when they wake up in the antechamber.
They can’t believe they’ve done anything to earn an eternity with us.
They don’t understand how a life of little cruelties can add up to what they’ve won.
Some beg. They try to reason with us because they think we can’t possibly be any better than they are.
That if we’re evil incarnate, we can hardly judge.
I could sort of see their point, but It cut across the thought. It’s our job to punish. That’s the entire point of the establishment. You can’t force us into a job and then turn around and call us evil for doing it.
You sound mad.
I’m not, he said, his voice brimming with anger in both clipped syllables.
I don’t think you’re evil. I just think you’re an occasional ass. I’d hardly equate you with the Devil.
There is no Devil, he said, amused now. Hell has no overlord.
I’m not sure where whoever wrote that Book got that idea.
Hell is run by a council. Eve was tempted by her own free will and then punished for it.
Though I guess that makes for a less interesting story.
Gives you all someone to blame when you sin. The Devil made you do it.
What does it look like?
It depends which floor you’re on.
A helpful description. I rolled onto my left side, which turned out to be just as uncomfortable as the right.
It’s not a giant black pit in the ground with an endless wall of fire, It said, as though the notion was ridiculous.
There’s a moat for the ones destined for the In Between.
A gate so demons can come and go. An antechamber for receiving souls.
Judgement Day is every day, but only for a few set hours, so one should try to die between midnight and three in the morning if one doesn’t want to wait.
The crimes of the soul determine which circle they’ll spend their eternity in.
If a soul is guilty of many sins, sometimes the circle regents will fight over it.
Circle?
There are several.
And your mother is from a cold one.
She is.
And that means you are, too.
Partly. I have blood from a few different circles, but I was raised in my mother’s.
And all these—these circles, they fight for the right to rip someone apart for all eternity.
They don’t always fight over souls. You’re not all that interesting. And there’s only ripping in a couple circles.
I swallowed back the lump forming in my throat, my mind shying away from the images he’d brought to life behind my clenched eyelids.
Imagine being ripped apart forever. The constant pain, the sound of it, the agonized, piteous wailing that must certainly accompany it all.
The gore, the miles of flayed flesh, the demons with perpetually red smiles.
I’m afraid of dying. Of ending up there.
I know.
It’s what will happen when I die. I killed the baker, and even if I hadn’t, wouldn’t I still wind up there?
I can’t just suddenly change my feelings on His teachings, pick and choose what I believe and call it good.
It’s all or nothing. And even if I could convince myself to believe in every word, the best I could hope for was to drift, if It could be believed that Heaven was no longer active.
But if Hell wouldn’t have me, my most likely destination would be the In Between, a bleak landscape of fog where souls stumbled through eternity, alone in the dark.
Their reward for turning away from His light.
Surely I’d have some friends should I wind up there, but I would never find them.
Everyone in the In Between walked alone.
I don’t know for sure where you’ll go when you die, but I doubt you’ll be damned.
But what if they won’t let me leave once we get there? Would I be delivering myself to my doom decades before I died?
He laughed like it was a silly thing to fear, and I’m sure it was, to him. He’d grown up there, after all. Hell was his home. Presumably the setting of some fond memories. You won’t be forced to stay, if for no more reason than you’re not dead.
And what will happen if we’re finally separated? If, if, if. If I made it to the gates. If I could somehow convince the demons not to kill me on sight. If whoever laid this curse upon It consented to lift it.
I’m not sure. It’s not a punishment I’ve ever seen happen before.
Then you must have done something terrible to deserve it.
I suppose, It said thoughtfully after a while, that would depend on who you ask.
I woke to the smell of eggs frying and nearly wrenched something when I shot upright in an unfamiliar bed. It had been up all night, I could tell, feeling him survey the scene through my sleep-crusted eyes.
Weak light burned high through the hag’s cottage windows. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ever been in bed so late. The only reason I’d been able to drift off at all was because I caved eventually and asked It to force my sleep.
Blathilde seemed to have been up for hours.
In the kitchen, the dead bird was plucked, its naked skin riddled with gooseflesh.
Wooden surfaces shone, free of dust; her potions and phials in the bookcase gleamed in the flames from the hearth.
The laundry had disappeared from her little table, replaced by a chipped plate and fork. I found no trace of Serich.
“If you’re wondering where your friend is,” Blathilde said, crouched by the fire as she stabbed at the eggs I’d smelled cooking, “he’s tending the chickens.”
“Do they bite?” It seemed like everything did, here.
“No more than usual.”
She stood and I wished she hadn’t. I supposed she had no other option but to wear her usual clothes while mine were drying.
Her black dress may have been a shapeless, billowing sack, but it was also about three feet too short for my body, rippling around my naked thighs as she carried the pan to her table.
I felt It smirk in my head but he at least spared me his commentary.
“Did Serich help you tidy up?” I asked, my voice a ghastly croak.
“Serich snored until I prodded him awake a couple hours ago. Very hesitant to leave you alone with me, he was.” She slid the eggs out of the iron pan and onto the plate.
“I did it myself. It’s nice not to have to reach for a bloody stool every time I need to get something from a cabinet.
Mending a pile of old clothes didn’t do in my hands.
I did stab you accidentally before I’d gotten used to your fingers, but we’ll get that fixed up, I’ve got a poultice that’ll help.
” She showed me an injury that I couldn’t see through her filmy eyes and sat in a chair facing the bed, knee upon knee, one ankle crossed behind the other.
“Young bodies are so resilient. I slept with my knees against my chest and what little discomfort it caused in the morning melted away after twenty minutes of moving around. Come and eat.”
I staggered the few steps to get to the bench opposite hers. “I’m beginning to suspect you wanted my youth for manual labor.”