say again.
I lift my face to the row of Dead, certain they are, in fact, what we suspect they are. “We mean you no harm,” I assure them, my voice quivering and small. “We didn’t mean to disrupt your way of life—”
“You are our way of life.”
The response came from the bald one with one eye who stands protectively near the one we’d pinned to the wall of the ship earlier. Mari was right; the bald one has a woman’s shape. Even despite the lack of hair and the greyness of her skin, she looks almost pretty.
“What?” I return, unsettled by her response.
The woman says nothing more, simply staring at us from across the dark river. The Dead stand so still, one could easily mistake them for another row of lifeless trees, splinters of grey against the black.
I don’t know why I stupidly expected our visit to be so different, as if the Dead were going to welcome us with hot chocolate and marshmallows. I pictured us wandering through a landscape of wonder, visiting quaint villages of happily-living Dead, sitting around campfires and asking about their world. I imagined an exciting adventure that fulfilled the deepest hunger of our curious human spirits; I hadn’t expected us to fulfill something else’s hunger.
“We have your big metal bird,” adds the woman with a certain snarkiness. “If there was a way across the river, we’d have your blood, too.”
“Come,” whispers John. “She’s just trying to scare us.”
“You should be scared,” says the woman, hearing him perfectly. She lifts her chin, her one ghostly white eye shining in the dim light cutting through the fog. “They’re always scared before they die.”
Reluctantly, I let John pull me away from the vile riverbank. My gaze never leaves the bald woman on the other side until the thicket of dead trees eventually blocks her from view. Facing front, I drown in the darkness that lies ahead of me and the grief that lies behind. Soon, the only sound I hear is the careless crunching of our own clumsy Living footsteps. I don’t even care if anyone hears us … or any thing . I’ve lost all my thrill of this horrible place, and quite suddenly all I want to do is go home.
And that isn’t possible anymore because our big metal bird is on that side of the river. Big metal bird. I might prefer that term over hovercraft, except we might have killed said bird. It flew too far from its nest.
And so have we.
After too much time in silence passes, Dana—I still will not speculate how the hell she snuck onto the ship undetected—gives a dramatic spread of her wrinkly hands and then says, “Here, yes?”
It’s a small clearing of trees where she’s stopped. “Here, what?” I ask, annoyed.
She studies my face, her eyes squeezed with emotion. “The spirits are very calm here,” she answers. “They’ve gone swimming in the mists above, perhaps. We do need a place to recover ourselves for a spell, yes?”
I realize that, despite all of her fake diviner crap, this is actually her attempt at being kind. But why?
“You said something to me earlier,” I remind her. “In the ship. You followed me on campus? You—”
“No need to worry about that, now. We’re among the spirits,” she says with a wave of her hands. “They sleep, and so should we. We oughtn’t be caught by them when they choose to wake. Besides, your friend said it best,” she murmurs, her wild eyes flicking to John. “If we stick together, we will be safe, yes?”
How much did she overhear? All of it? “I have no idea what time it even is,” I mutter miserably. “Dead of night. Dead of morning.” My heart lurches suddenly, my eyes filling with tears that don’t drop. “I can’t let Mari just—”
“No,” says Dana right away. “Your friend is fine, just fine. She is not one with the spirits, otherwise I’d sense her.” Dana blinks her big eyes, waves a hand in the air as if to clear it of cobwebs, then adds, “Yes, I see the truth of it. Marigold
I lift my face to the row of Dead, certain they are, in fact, what we suspect they are. “We mean you no harm,” I assure them, my voice quivering and small. “We didn’t mean to disrupt your way of life—”
“You are our way of life.”
The response came from the bald one with one eye who stands protectively near the one we’d pinned to the wall of the ship earlier. Mari was right; the bald one has a woman’s shape. Even despite the lack of hair and the greyness of her skin, she looks almost pretty.
“What?” I return, unsettled by her response.
The woman says nothing more, simply staring at us from across the dark river. The Dead stand so still, one could easily mistake them for another row of lifeless trees, splinters of grey against the black.
I don’t know why I stupidly expected our visit to be so different, as if the Dead were going to welcome us with hot chocolate and marshmallows. I pictured us wandering through a landscape of wonder, visiting quaint villages of happily-living Dead, sitting around campfires and asking about their world. I imagined an exciting adventure that fulfilled the deepest hunger of our curious human spirits; I hadn’t expected us to fulfill something else’s hunger.
“We have your big metal bird,” adds the woman with a certain snarkiness. “If there was a way across the river, we’d have your blood, too.”
“Come,” whispers John. “She’s just trying to scare us.”
“You should be scared,” says the woman, hearing him perfectly. She lifts her chin, her one ghostly white eye shining in the dim light cutting through the fog. “They’re always scared before they die.”
Reluctantly, I let John pull me away from the vile riverbank. My gaze never leaves the bald woman on the other side until the thicket of dead trees eventually blocks her from view. Facing front, I drown in the darkness that lies ahead of me and the grief that lies behind. Soon, the only sound I hear is the careless crunching of our own clumsy Living footsteps. I don’t even care if anyone hears us … or any thing . I’ve lost all my thrill of this horrible place, and quite suddenly all I want to do is go home.
And that isn’t possible anymore because our big metal bird is on that side of the river. Big metal bird. I might prefer that term over hovercraft, except we might have killed said bird. It flew too far from its nest.
And so have we.
After too much time in silence passes, Dana—I still will not speculate how the hell she snuck onto the ship undetected—gives a dramatic spread of her wrinkly hands and then says, “Here, yes?”
It’s a small clearing of trees where she’s stopped. “Here, what?” I ask, annoyed.
She studies my face, her eyes squeezed with emotion. “The spirits are very calm here,” she answers. “They’ve gone swimming in the mists above, perhaps. We do need a place to recover ourselves for a spell, yes?”
I realize that, despite all of her fake diviner crap, this is actually her attempt at being kind. But why?
“You said something to me earlier,” I remind her. “In the ship. You followed me on campus? You—”
“No need to worry about that, now. We’re among the spirits,” she says with a wave of her hands. “They sleep, and so should we. We oughtn’t be caught by them when they choose to wake. Besides, your friend said it best,” she murmurs, her wild eyes flicking to John. “If we stick together, we will be safe, yes?”
How much did she overhear? All of it? “I have no idea what time it even is,” I mutter miserably. “Dead of night. Dead of morning.” My heart lurches suddenly, my eyes filling with tears that don’t drop. “I can’t let Mari just—”
“No,” says Dana right away. “Your friend is fine, just fine. She is not one with the spirits, otherwise I’d sense her.” Dana blinks her big eyes, waves a hand in the air as if to clear it of cobwebs, then adds, “Yes, I see the truth of it. Marigold
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