Shayne takes a step forward, and I’m pretty sure this is it. They’re going to kill each other. “You visit, and you die,” Shayne says.
Reese just gives a wave with his hand and then turns to me. “Did you hear Randy Conner died in the ice storm, Piper?”
Randy is dead because of me. I might as well have wrecked the shuttle. “I heard,” I manage to say.
“Now let’s see, Shayne, where would you put someone like Randy Conner?” Reese puts his finger to his mouth as if he’s considering the question. “The Elysian Fields?” He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what my sources tell me.”
But it has to be. I know in my heart Randy belongs in paradise.
“Shut up, Reese,” Shayne says.
Another wave of Reese’s scent comes to me. I desperately try to push it away and focus on the humidity in the air around me.
“So Randy didn’t make it to paradise.” Reese snaps his fingers. “Asphodel then.”
I glance at Shayne and can tell from his pursed lips that Reese is right. That somehow Shayne didn’t see the good in Randy that I saw. There’s been some oversight. I haven’t been to Asphodel, but I know it’s not paradise.
“Shayne.” I find my voice and manage to get out his name, trying my best to breathe out of my mouth and ignore Reese.
He turns to me, fists still balled. “What?”
“I need to get out of here. Now.” He’s got to hear the struggle in my voice. If I don’t get away from the two of them, I’ll go crazy.
Reese laughs. “I’ll see you soon, Piper, okay?”
“Not okay,” Shayne says. He scowls at Reese, and before I realize what’s happening, he wraps his arms around me, and we start sinking, through the dirt and damp and rock and then into the river of liquid mercury which carries us until we’re there on the bank of the River Acheron. Charon’s just pulling the boat up to the dock when Shayne and I arrive. Charon’s face cracks into a leathery smile which pulls his white eyes almost shut.
But before we walk over to join him, I turn to Shayne. “About Reese—”
Shayne leans over and kisses me, stopping the words, and his kiss erases any desires I felt for Reese.
“It’s okay,” he says once he pulls back. “You don’t have to make any excuses for him.”
I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s like something uncontrollable came over me. “It’s just—”
He shakes his head. “You never have to make excuses for him. He doesn’t play fair.” And his eyes darken. “Which is precisely why I told you to be careful around him. He can’t be trusted. Ever.”
I know he’s right but wish he weren’t. Even though I hate myself for being so weak around Reese, Shayne doesn’t hate me, which is some consolation.
“Why won’t you talk to the assembly of gods about him?” I ask.
The lights from the silver pools shift causing shadows to flicker on Shayne’s face, giving him a more serious look. “Let’s just say some members of the assembly and I are not on the best of terms right now.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because we’re not. End of story.”
I gather not to press him any more.
I remember what Reese said about Randy. If he’d been trying to get under my skin, it had worked. “Randy should be in the Elysian Fields,” I say.
Shayne shakes his head. “I judged him. He’s in Asphodel.”
I glance at Charon who’s watching our conversation but not interrupting. “You judged wrong.” I’ve never felt so sure about anything.
Shayne grabs my hand which I’ve balled up into a fist. “How do you know?”
I shrug and try to relax my muscles. “I just know. I talked to him before…” I can’t believe I was probably the last person to talk to Randy Conner.
“Before he died?” Shayne asks.
“Yeah.” I tell Shayne about the ice storm and about how Randy was watching out for his sister, making sure she got home okay. “He just didn’t seem like such an asshole,” I say. “It was like I could see the good in him.” I don’t mention the blue moss I’d seen on him, but I know it’s a sign. I don’t need anyone’s confirmation on that.
Shayne purses his lips, but he doesn’t say he’s going to change it. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gold coin which he flips off his thumb. Charon catches it and pockets it without even looking.
“You know you don’t need to pay,” Charon says.
Shayne grins. “Don’t want anyone to say I don’t pay my fare.”
I watch the conversation and attempt to relax. Try to shake away life’s worries. But I worry I’ve killed Randy Conner and Shayne’s doomed him to Hell for eternity.
Charon flips the coin around in his pocket. “Nobody would dare say anything of the sort.”
It’s the same banter from before, and I realize this must go on every time Shayne makes the water journey. Eternal friendship.
“Can you move Randy?” I ask.
I hear Charon let out a whistle under his breath.
“No, Piper. I can’t. He’s been judged. He has to stay there.”
“But don’t you ever worry that you’re wrong?” I ask.
Shayne looks out across the water when he answers. “If I worried about that, it would consume me. I judge and move on.”
I process this thought as we get into the boat and decide I’ll come back to it. There has to be some way I can get Shayne to move Randy. Charon boards last and picks up the pole to move us.
“How long have you and Charon known each other?” I ask. We sit on the bow of the boat, side by side still in the darkest part of the cavern. I look out to the black water, seeing the sorrows there bubbling to the surface. Seeing the creatures shimmering below the froth, eating what sorrows they catch. Far ahead, the sky brightens where I know the two suns shine down from above.
“Forever.”
I laugh. “That’s a long time.”
Shayne pulls me closer. “An eternity.”
“So who do you live here with? Just Charon?”
Shayne glances back at Charon whose face is frozen as if he’s trying to not blink. But Shayne quickly turns back to me and smiles. “Don’t forget Rhadam.”
I smile at the memory of the energetic overlord of the Elysian Fields.
“And Cerberus. Not to mention the billions of dead souls keeping me company.”
I think of the sorrows of all those souls, left behind here in the river to be devoured by creatures of the Underworld. “What was Randy Conner’s last sorrow?” The question forces its way into my mind. I can’t pick Randy out of the chorus. All the voices blend together, shifting in rhythm when one gets swallowed by the creatures. Moving to fill the empty space.
Shayne is rigid against me all of a sudden. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.” I think of the shuttle accident. Randy’s girlfriend and tons of friends and classmates at his funeral. His miserable family. And I remember Tanni and her friends by the Virgin Mary. I press my eyes closed and try to find his sorrow on my own, but it won’t come. “I just want to know.”
“Maybe you should just let Randy be.”
But I know I can’t let Randy be. “I want to know.”
Shayne sighs and looks to the river, and I see a bubble rise to the surface. It grows larger and begins to float, and the things under the water stay away from it.
I lean toward the edge of the boat, hoping to hear, but I feel Shayne’s hands grab my arms. He’s worried I’ll fall in.
“I want to hear.” I need to hear.
“You’ll be able to.”
So I lean back into him and close my eyes again.
