Deadgirl

And as an animal, at some point, I came home. I don’t remember why I went back—I didn’t have enough of a human brain to think or remember anything from that time. But I came to with my Olivia in my arms, staring up at me in abject terror. Her face pale and drawn, her eyes listless but wide, like a drug addict having a hallucination. I baked with heat—I was glowing, like my innards had turned into hot coals. And my dear Olivia had become a frozen statue—her icy skin burned my arms.

I turned, to find her there. Isabelle. The melancholy look on her face must have mirrored mine. How long had she hunted me? How many people had I hurt? And how had I, even in my animal stupor, attacked the most important person in my un-life?

With tears in my eyes and my body raging like a furnace, I picked little glowing murderer Grim Reaper bitch Isabelle off of the ground and screamed in rage at her. I remember a flash of agonizing fire, I remember thinking of my little baby girl, Lucy, her neck swelled up like a balloon, my last bit of hope dying. My daughter dying before I even knew who she was. An image too of Mirabelle, long gone, and of Olivia, my love, in my arms, draining away. I remember Isabelle shrieking in pain. Then I remember waking up in the Grey, drifting in the tides, buoyant, and barely conscious on the sea foam.

The waves deposited me in the ash-grey sand, and I dreamed with my eyes open. I let my mind wander, let my borrowed body absorb the native energies of that damned place. I don’t know how long I dreamed. I don’t know how long I wallowed in the shame and terror and cowardice, not knowing how much I had hurt my dear Olivia. And I didn’t have the courage to find out, did I? To face her, to face myself.

Finally I went back—

A tugging sensation, a sudden rush of icy wind caressing my neck. I let out a strangled cry, and pulled myself out of the stolen words. The real world faded back into existence, and I was lying on the ground. Ophelia stood over me, cradling her hand. Even from the floor, I could see how blue and lifeless the flesh on her hand had become.

A sob escaped her lips, and she rubbed her frozen hand and looked at me with huge wet eyes.

“Oh God,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“Forget it,” Ophelia hissed, sucking in deep breaths. “I’m fine. Forget it.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked. I know I was being callous, but I had to know. “What happened after? And who’s Lucy? He mentioned a baby named Lucy.”

Ophelia shook her head.

“It won’t help you in your little quest, will it?” she said. “In fact, it’ll do just the opposite. You got what you wanted, didn’t you? It’s time to go.”

“But—”

“Get out of my house, hon,” she said. “Right now.”

“I still need your help,” I said. “And I’m not leaving without you.”

“Yes, you are,” Ophelia said. She walked out of the office, leaving me alone on the floor with my thoughts of Puck, his death, and the girl he’d had to kill to save his own life.

Chapter Seventeen

Dead Girl Walking

Ophelia rooted around her house, getting ready as I explained the situation. I told her about Abraham, and about Zack and Morgan, trapped in hospital beds in one world and in a dilapidated train in another. It was nice, for once, to see a surprised look on her face.

She came out to the kitchen table with a handful of gauze and finger braces. I think I saw, for a moment, the dimmest flash of sympathy on her sour face.

I spent the next twenty minutes in what you might call extreme agony, as she twisted and braced my shattered digits into something resembling fingers. Her brusque manner and harpyesque tendencies disappeared the instant she set to work.

“Will I heal…faster?”

“Than us chickens?”

“Well, yeah.”

Ophelia shrugged, “Probably. To be honest, I don’t get how they’re still broken.”

I shook my head, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, “if your body is just…energy, or whatever, can’t you just…not have broken fingers anymore?”

It sounded like a possibility. She stepped away from me for a moment, and I did my best Jedi/Shaolin monk concentration on my bandaged hands. But after five minutes of trying to will my fingers unbroken, I was left with only a deep blush. I shook my head, and Ophelia shrugged.

“Worth a shot,” she said, and slapped my shoulder. “Looks like you’re as good as…well…better than…well… you’re bandaged, anyway.”

I nodded and hopped off of the kitchen table.

“So are you gonna help me?” I asked her.

“Haven’t I already?”

“You know what I mean.”

Ophelia didn’t look at me as she tucked her medical supplies away into a little black bag. Her face looked as soft as concrete, and just as forgiving. She fumbled with a roll of gauze—the flesh of the hand I’d been gripping was pallid, gray, with a ring of bruised flesh encircling her wrist. It didn’t look as bad as Kent Miller’s frost-burned forearm, but then again, I hadn’t taken real memories from Ophelia. I’d lifted her impression of a journal she’d read. I wondered if she’d still remember it, or if she would have to read it again to get it back. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how it worked, which made me all the more dangerous, didn’t it?

“I can’t help you,” she whispered.

I closed my eyes. “Why? My friends are—”

I stopped. I covered my mouth and tried to remember how to breathe. It wasn’t easy.

“I can’t,” Ophelia whispered. “I’m old, and tired, and I don’t want to die. Maybe that makes me a coward, but maybe I don’t give a right goddamn about that.”

“I can’t do it alone,” I said. I still hadn’t gotten the hang of breathing without my voice hitching and crawling. “Please.”

Ophelia growled something, low in her chest, and it sounded like ripping canvas.

“I’ll tell you how to do it,” she said, finally. “How to wake them up.”

Breathe. Oxygen. My chest heaved, and I felt a light-headed wave of giddiness scrape up my spine.

“Thank you,” I said. I wanted to hug her, but I had the feeling that would be a really bad idea.

“And then I never want to see you again,” she hissed. “Ever.”

I had to ask. I had to.

“What about Puck?”

“My grandfather’s dead,” she said.

“And so am I, right?” I whispered.

“Right,” she said. Ophelia snapped the black bag closed, ran her fingers through her iron gray hair, and turned those watery, cold eyes up to mine. “Pay attention now.”

I nodded. I listened to her explain medically-induced comas like my friend’s lives depended on it.

When she was finished, she scooped a long black trench coat from a hook on the wall and handed it to me. It had gray lapels and gray cuffs, and was about fifty times more stylish than any clothing I’d expect her to own. I slipped it on. I wish I’d been surprised when it fit perfectly.

“What’s this?” I said.

“It’s cold,” Ophelia snapped. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Getting all soft on me?”

She squawked her horrible laugh, her face twisting in a sneer.