I fussed with the corsage on my wrist, minding the dyed roses that complimented my floor-length emerald green dress. I didn't want to look anywhere else—not at the people moving in rhythm on the dance floor, not at the groups of friends laughing together clustered around cocktail tables covered in black table cloths and gaudy floral arrangements. It was too loud here. And too dark. But it was senior prom, after all; one of the most important events of someone's life.
Dominic laughed with his buddies next to me. He was too distracted by the flask they all passed around to notice that his matching boutonniere was crooked. I stood there, chewing my lip and staring down at the sparkling heels I couldn't walk in. I wondered when he'd finally ask me to dance.
But I also wished to be anywhere but here.
"Damn it!" Webb shouted, his voice way too loud for the tiny room we were trapped in. "He's supposed to be our prisoner, not the other way around! We should've stabbed him through the heart when we had the chance."
By we, he meant me, of course.
I peeled off my other boot and tipped it upside down to let all the sand spill out, making two matching piles on the floor. The storm still buffeted our hide-out. But there was no place for us to go. We'd tried forcing open the door Crow had slammed, to no avail. And there was no chance in heck that we'd climb the ladder back out of the sub and brave the storm. I leaned my head against a pipe and shut my eyes, listening to the ship creak and moan like a haunted house.
But then something tapped on the other side of the door. "Shhh!" I raised a hand to calm the pacing ghost. Vale shut her sketchbook and tucked her piece of charcoal behind an ear. "There's someone coming!" I said.
We all stood in formation with blades drawn when the bulkhead door slowly creaked open, just a crack. A single crow strutted into our chamber. It hacked a curt greeting at us. Then, with a flap of its wings, it hopped up onto the hatch's threshold and cawed again, waiting.
"I think..." I began, knowing that what I was about to say was going to sound very stupid. "It wants us to follow it?"
Another caw was my answer. The bird fluttered off through the doorway.
"Come on, guys," I said to my equally dumbfounded friends. Spear in hand like a wizard's staff, I led the way through the submarine. We followed the sauntering bird toward the bow of the submarine. There wasn't any room to fan out, so in single file we filtered through what appeared to be the ship's galley, stopping just outside another hatch to the next chamber. In the dim luxlight, I could make out the white sheets and the rails of bunk beds. That was the crew's quarters. I held my palm up to my friends to stop them. Just beyond the open doorway, someone hummed a quiet, melancholic tune.
Crow was in there.
The bird ruffled its plumage at our hesitation and strutted right past us into the next chamber before we could stop it. It announced itself with a throaty call.
The humming stopped.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I prodded the hatch open the rest of the way. It was dark in the crew's quarters. But a stream of red light spilled in from the hatchway, illuminating the cloaked figure sitting cross-legged on an upper bunk. Crow turned an ear in our direction. His wrists were still bound. He had his hands cupped, as if he held something too small for us to see.
I saw his lip curl beneath his hood. "Damn bird let you free, did she?"
Sword, spear, and machete lit up the quarters.
The man huffed through bared teeth. "The wind is still crying outside. Our truce still stands."
"C-Crow," I said. Why was it so hard to not stutter before him? "We just want to talk."
Our feathered guide flew up and took roost on the railing next to Crow. The three of us crept inside the quarters. Crow immediately bristled and flashed his teeth at our intrusion. He growled like a cornered animal. And if there was one thing I learned about animals as a vet tech, they only grew more dangerous when cornered and frightened. "Vale. Webb. Let me talk to him. Alone."
Vale shook her head, fixing Crow with the iciest of glares.
"I got this," I insisted. "He's unarmed and still tied-up. Anchored ghost to anchored ghost. I'll be fine."
Though she looked to have some choice words to say on the matter lingering on her tongue, Vale kept them to herself and relented. She shooed an objecting Webb outside, saying, "If he does anything, just yell."
Sure enough, Crow relaxed as soon as they left. I propped my spear against the doorway and held empty hands up to the other hollow.
"Look," I told him. Then I winced at myself. Perhaps that was the wrong word to use. "No weapon. See?" Crap. Did it again. "I just want to talk."
Crow said nothing in response. Perhaps he wasn't feeling particularly chatty after our little spat.
I continued to press. "I heard you singing."
"You are mistaken. Crows do not sing."
"Humming. Whatever. It sounded like a pretty song." Ugh. Small talk was not my forte.
"Someone taught it to me. Cannot remember who. Cannot even remember the words." Crow continued to keep his hands cupped together. And he hummed again. Quieter this time.
It was a sad little song, completely different from the tune the scavengers belted in The End of the Line. His purring voice joined the moaning wind and the creaking of the ship in an entrancing, somber concert.
I hated to break the moment.
"I'm like you, Crow," I blurted. "I'm an anchored ghost."
Crow stopped humming. "Anchored," he repeated, deliberately slow, as if tasting the word. "An...chored...Yes, I suppose I was anchored, was I not? That is what they all said."
There was a flash of white behind his bangs as his eyes darted about. I couldn't see any Light in his eyes, but then again, he didn't exactly have pupils.
"I...I heard it was because you were anchored, that you went...you know..."
I saw Webb's spinning finger gesture in my head.
"That's why you tried to murder Blackburne...your friend."
Crow had nothing to say to that. But at least there was no growling or teeth-baring. So far, so good. One step forward...
I moved to settle onto the lower bunk opposite him, though there was hardly any room to sit amongst the crows and the clutter of blankets and twigs and other random materials on all the beds. "But is it true that you can survive in the Light without—?"
"Do not sit there!"
I jumped back from the bed. "Whoa! Sorry!" Aaand two steps back.
"This fledgling talks too much," Crow said to whatever he held. "You should tell her to leave."
A little pink beak peeked out from behind his fingers. A hatchling crow gaped up at him. "Weh!" it cried. "Weh! Weh! Weh!"
I clapped my hands over my mouth. "Oh my gosh, that's a baby crow!"
The man shushed me. "You are scaring him."
"Sorry!"
From all the bunks, other baby crows; hatchlings, nestlings, and fledglings alike, began crying for attention. Crow had made nests for them all out of materials found in the desert. This room was a nursery.
Some chicks were completely featherless with naked black skin and eyes still sealed shut—fresh from the egg. They couldn't do much besides tremble and gape. The bigger ones had nascent feathers still in their protective sheaths, and they stretched out their skinny necks to peer over their nests, all crying out toward Crow. "They're so small," I whispered through my fingers. "How did they get through the sand?"
A crestfallen look fell over his face. "Most of them do not. They are too weak. Too frail. But I hear them below the sand sometimes. They struggle and cry." He tilted his head, as if listening for buried souls outside the ship. "Sometimes I dig fast enough to unbury them. And then sometimes...I do not. And they are gone."
He stroked his crying fledgling with a thumb, soothing it into silence. "Though they will never know pain or hunger, despite what this one is saying, they still need someone to protect them." The chick sprang from his hands, reaching out with its long legs and flapping its useless wings. Crow laughed as he caught it in his hands again. "This one wants to fly."
The chick preened its tubed feathers that would never grow into iridescent primaries. It was forever stunted. The fledgling would never fly, no matter how much its instincts compelled it.
"Sometimes names unearth themselves in my head and I give them to my flock. This little flier is Albrecht," Crow said. "That bird above you is Nymandus. The fat one over there is Orville. And then there is Seluku, Iltani, and—"
"Why did you save me and my friends, Crow?" I interjected. "If you hate us all so much, why didn't you leave us to die?"
"I would have. If I had it my way. But she insisted." He raised his hands to point at the crow perched next to him, the one that had freed us. "You do not remember her?"
I raised a brow at the bird. The crow cocked her head to the side. "Um. Should I?"
"Crows never forget a kindness," the other hollow said. "You saved her back in your city. So I saved you."
I inhaled the tiniest of breaths. The crow in the snare..."Oh! It's you!" I said. In response, the crow flapped over to nestle on the railing above me. She gave my head a peck, and I laughed. "Yup, it's definitely you."
"That is Nannāru. She is the pesky one."
"Nannāru." Her name definitely sounded prettier with Crow's accent. I ran my fingers through her plumage. I couldn't feel her, but admired, nonetheless, the hidden hues of pink, blue, and green of her black feathers when she moved.
I regarded Crow. "We're also enemies of After. Blackburne insists there's nothing out here in the Dark. But...Orville told me the story about you trying to kill Blackburne and summoning the behemoth. And there was a map on his wall, and we saw the ruins of a city. Was that where you—?"
"Weh!"
Right. Too loud. I sighed and tried again, calmer and more eloquent. "What happened the night you went mad?"
"You already know the story. Better than I do, I am sure. I am the usurper. I betrayed your king and tried to kill you all."
"But why? Why did you do it?"
The man turned away from me and moaned under his breath, "What have you done, Crow?" Then, through tangles of his hair, he said to me, "I do not know why. There was something about that place we found..." A muscle in his face twitched. He shook his head. "It took over my mind. I have not returned to those ruins since that night."
So, those ruins are the key.
I sighed and leaned against a railing, watching chicks flop about in their nests. I wasn't getting any answers from him. My friends and I would have to find them ourselves. "We came out here to kill you," I admitted.
"I know," said Crow. He continued to soothe his chick. "That is what everyone in After does."
"But I don't want to do that. Tell me how to find the ruins. That has to be the key to stopping the shadows. We know it and you know it. You need to tell us how to get there. Or tell us the truth about what happened and how you escaped into the Light..."
"I will not." Then he corrected himself. "I do not remember that night."
"Liar!"
A growl cut me off. Crow leaned down toward me. "There is a tether on your heart," he said. "I can hear how it flutters, just like I can hear all the wails of anguish all the way in After right this moment. But my heart is free. I cannot travel into the Light anymore. I lost my anchor, yes that must be true. Care to know how, little fledgling?"
My stunned silence seemed to please him. He tilted his head to one side. "There is only one way to sever an anchor. I must have killed the person on the other end of my tether."
I couldn't move. My breath remained trapped in my throat.
The prince laughed at me. "Not the answer you wanted, hm? Oh, you are in such pain. You want so badly to leave this wretched place. Ha! You accuse me of being a liar, but you stand there and you lie right to my face. You do not want to save After. You do not care about it. You only care about leaving this miserable realm behind. You are correct. You are like me. A little heartless monster in pain."
All the adult crows in the chamber grew restless. They chattered amongst themselves and fixed me with accusing, beady-eyed stares. I gravitated towards the doorway.
"I tell you the truth," the man continued. "Whether you believe me or not is up to you, and I do not care either way. I do not remember what happened the night the behemoth rose from the sand. Like you, I only know what I have been told. I do not remember anything. Not of my life, or my afterlife before I found After. But I do know that I do not care about you or your damned city and its bastard king!" He held his tiny bird close to himself, protectively. "The storm is ending soon, little fledgling. And I pray that you and your friends will be gone then."
The chicks were all crying in their beds again.
I grabbed my spear and retreated from the chamber while the sound of Crow's gentle lullaby resumed.
It was very hard to slam a submarine hatch in anger. When Crow switched on the lights inside the sub, he must have also activated the strings of red bulbs covering the ship's hull. Outside on the illuminated bridge, I followed the sound of hissing spray paint and found my friends on the lower level beneath the diving planes, covering the side of the tower in color.
"How'd it go?" Vale asked, shaking a can. "Get any information out of him?"
I groaned up to the great black sky. The storm that trapped us here had calmed now. But the wind was still blowing, though with much less rage. Our truce still stands. "He's completely scrambled! He's no help, and he says he can't remember anything! And are you really painting his submarine?"
Vale shrugged. "What? It's not like he's ever going to see it, right? Oy. Webberto. You better not be painting a dick on my mural."
"I'm not!" Webb said. But he shielded his artwork from our view with his body and hastily sprayed over whatever he'd painted.
I took a moment to admire the crashing ocean waves Vale had painted. Beneath the play of dancing light that was the ocean's restless surface, all kinds of vibrant schools of fish looked very much at peace amongst a thriving coral reef. And in the blue sky above, seagulls flapped away toward the billowing clouds on the horizon. It was amazing, really, how she could capture so much movement and life in a single still painting.
"Come on," she said to me. She set her can down and gestured with her head toward the submarine's nose. "I need a break."
We settled together at the very front of the sub. Any further, and we'd definitely slide down the sloping nose and fall into the dunes below. Vale was silent. She stared off into the blackness in front of us. I stared at her.
"Are you okay, Vale?"
She gave me a surprised look. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you almost died," I said. "Back when the ground split open! We all almost died! And for what? We're lost in the Dark, on a submarine in the middle of a desert, surrounded by freakish monsters!"
Vale was silent for a few steady heartbeats, contemplating the heavens while I rambled. "Thank you," she said, which made me shut up. She rubbed at her side, at the inked roses and thorns hidden under her shirt. "I didn't thank you back then when you saved me from frying in that river of lux, so...Thank you, Skye." She turned to me. Those dark eyes inexplicably made me very weak. "I owe you."
I wobbled where I sat, forgetting how to breathe for a moment. "Y-yeah. I mean, you did save me back in Blackburne's keep, so we're even."
Vale shook her head with a laugh. "Nuh-uh," she said. "Then you saved me in that brawl in the End of the Line. God, I never thanked you for that either. I'm terrible."
"Right, right. But then you rescued me from the acolight temple. And then you saved me from Reynard with that wrench."
"Don't forget, you totally spared my life when we sparred up on the rooftop. Our battle was glorious!"
"That so doesn't count!"
"It totally counts!" she contended. "Look at you. You're a bloodthirsty warrior. I was at your mercy, or else I sure as hell wouldn't be sat here right now."
"Okay, okay!" I couldn't help but laugh. "You're right. I guess that makes us even. Now we have absolutely no reason to keep saving each other from now on."
"Yup," she said with a nod. "Next time something else tries to kill you, you're on your own. Good freaking luck, new blood."
We turned to the sound of Webb tossing an empty spray can, his work completed. He caught us staring and presented his masterpiece with an exaggerated flourish. "See!" he said, laughing proudly. "It's not a dick!" An enormous and sloppily painted smiling whale breached the waves. Though it lacked any kind of pectoral or dorsal fins on its weirdly elongated body, and its tail flukes looked rather...testicular.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter.
Vale wore the deepest frown I had ever seen on a human being. "Oh, Jesus Christ."
I called up to Webb, "I think your whale is missing a blow hole!"
Webb reexamined his whale, then snapped his fingers. "You're right!" He found another can and sprayed a hole right at the nose of his smiling whale.
Vale stammered and slapped at me while I cackled like a maniac. Oops. Snorted. I snorted like a maniac.
When our laughter finally subsided, we found our hands touching on the ground between us. We met each other's eyes again.
For a second, I saw Vale's terrified face illuminated by the lux river as we reached for each other in the crevice.
The other girl must've had the same flashback, for she whispered, "You know no one knows what happens to hollows after we die, right?" The gale tugged at her braids and she had to tuck them back behind an ear. "Maybe we arrive in some other plane of existence, one that's even more barren than this one. Or maybe there's just...nothing." She smiled to herself as she exhaled the word nothing. "Sometimes, I think that sounds nice." Her gaze flicked back to me. "I was like you, y'know, when you first got here. A blank slate. No memories of how I died. But at least I didn't arrive in the Dark alone." Her eyes went glassy again. "Christa was with me. My girlfriend."
The both of us observed the dark expense. She didn't pull her hand away from me, so I let mine linger too, our flesh barely touching. I said nothing. My stupid brain was incapable of thinking of anything to say, so I let Vale fill the silence.
"It took a while for my memories to come back to me," she continued. "But I pieced together that one night, our flat went up in flames. We couldn't get out, so we just...held each other until it ended."
Her body was so still. I suppose the suppressed emotions of this place were a blessing. Or maybe she had been stuck here long enough to compartmentalize the events of her death. Either way, Vale was uncomfortably calm for someone explaining the details of her fiery demise.
"Of course, we became scavengers, and...eventually...we joined Blackburne's ranks," said Vale.
And she did it all with a smile, the King had said.
"Before Reynard was Blackburne's right hand, that position was mine. And it was my duty to scour the Dark, searching for—hunting for Crow, the king's mortal enemy. I was just happy to get outside the wall, but Christa...There was something else compelling her. I'd lose sight of her during outings beyond the wall, and after we'd all regroup with everything we found, she'd always look so..." A frown. "So hollow. I can't remember how long it was until I discovered why, but I tailed her during an outing. And I saw her disappear into the Light."
At that, I flinched.
The other hollow just kept speaking, as if she was talking to herself—as if I wasn't there. Words spilled from her mouth like the black mist that poured from shadows. "She was anchored. I followed her into the Light. And I found her in the arms of some other girl." A muscle in her dark face twitched. "The woman she had evidently been cheating on me with in life. I tried to drag Christa back, but it was too late. She'd been in the Light too long. She faded in my arms, still reaching for her other lover."
Silence hung in the air like a heavy fog. Vale turned away from me and hid her face.
"I'm so sorry, Vale," I said. "I'm sorry I made you go in the Light after me—"
"I'd do it again, you know." She turned back to me, her eyes seared into mine. I blinked in return. That emptiness writhed in my chest. "I don't want to see anyone else die that way. Not if I can stop it."
I fully believed her. She'd always watched After from above like its protector, ready to swoop down with a flourish of her cloak, ready to save the afterlife of any hollow at the risk of her own. But I couldn't help thinking about the way the other hollows cast fearful glances at her and kept their distance like she was some predator in their midst. I searched her solemn face. Was Vale searching for any excuse to leave this world, one way or another?
Vale smiled while I gaped at her like a fish out of water. As if she could see all the questions spiraling in my head, she said, "That's what I like about you, Skye. There's something about you that's different from every other hollow I've met. You're still so alive."
Her hand sought mine again. My fingers interlocked with hers. Millions of souls went about their meaningless afterlives far away from us and shadows hunted in the night, but I was oblivious to everything else. All I could think was how pretty this other woman was. Against my control, a shuddering breath that I didn't need escaped my lips. Force of habit, I supposed. In the blood-red lights, we leaned closer to each other. Something about her...Something about us made me feel so...alive. Some emotion I couldn't identify bubbled up in my chest, fighting against the current of absolute nothingness.
But her face fell.
"Vale?"
"I don't want you to have any misconceptions about me," she whispered to me. "I'm not a good person, Skye."
"What do you mean?"
"The king likes broken people. They're easier to control. Every one of Blackburne's echelon is responsible for some facet of After. Blinky is the head of the guard. Inky mans the wall. Pinky is his tax-collector, and Clyde oversees construction. And the King's Right Hand..." A sigh. "Is his executioner. I was the one throwing hollows into the Pit. Christa knew from the start what a shit person I am. I'm sure she was glad to fade in the Light rather than spend another heartbeat in the afterlife stuck with me. And I don't blame her for it." She shrugged. "I just figured you might as well know the truth about me."
That was why the hollows of after kept their distance from the sullen hollow. Why she wanted—no, why she felt she deserved to die.
But I wasn't a good person either. I was selfish. A little heartless monster.
I didn't want sad Vale. I wanted stupid, goofy, laughing Vale back.
There we were, still trapped in the dark between dreams—still wondering what was next for us. But we were trapped together. And I was happy for that.
After minutes of nothing but the wind's song, I stood and reached for her. "Vale," I said. "Mind if I have this dance?"
The other girl's morose evaporated in an instant, replaced by a look of surprise. "Excuse me, what?"
I just smiled and beckoned her with a finger. She still eyed me like I was a crazy person, but she let me help her up. I put a hand on her waist. The other rested on her shoulder. Vale mirrored me, and soon we wore matching bemused expressions. We began to sway together.
"There's no music," Vale pointed out.
"You can't hear it?" There was nothing but the sighing wind and the distant and not-so distant cackling of crows, of course.
But Vale let out a breathy laugh and said, "You know what? I think I can now."
She took the lead, and we spun, rocking back and forth slowly, on the ship's bow. She grasped my hand from her shoulder and twirled me, then caught me in an arm. Vale dipped me low, and we remained that way, just seeing each other. Just laughing in each other's arms.
It all felt like a dream.
Webb face-planted on the metal ground not too far away from us. "I don't think the crows like us painting the sub!" he cried as he slapped at the birds swarming and pecking at him. "Keep them off me!"
And back to reality, we returned.
The boy brushed away stray crow feathers from himself as he joined Vale and me. "So," he said. "We escaped from After, survived the Dark, captured the Prince of Light and Shadows, and we have nothing to show for it. So I guess we'll be leaving when the winds stop?"
Vale rested her chin in a hand, thinking. "We could, but...there is one thing about Crow that bothers me."
I raised a brow at her. "One thing?"
"Blackburne was the very first ghost, right?" she said.
"Right."
She nodded once. "Right. But he was a knight. From like...the fourteenth or fifteenth century."
The male hollow tapped a foot. "Medieval times, yeah. And?"
"You both saw the brand on Crow's arm, right?"
The weird criss-cross symbol on his arm..."Do you know what it means?" I asked her.
"Nope. Haven't a damn clue. But it's cuneiform." Vale searched our faces like she expected either of us to know what the heck that meant. But Webb and I both sported matching blank stares.
"It was the ancient writing system used back in Mesopotamia. They taught us this at university."
"Wow," Webb said. "That art degree is finally coming in use, right?"
Vale scoffed and slapped him upside the head. "Mesopotamia existed in, like, the BC times. Thousands of years before knights were a thing."
I balked at that. Had Crow really been here thousands of years before Blackburne? "Crow says he doesn't remember anything about his past or what he did," I added. "Webb's and my memories are gone, but they're coming back."
Vale gasped at our friend. "Wait, your memories came back?"
The boy shrugged. "Just one. I randomly remembered I could pick a lock. No big deal."
I continued my chain of thought. "Right before we escaped from After, when Blackburne and I were alone on the rooftop together, he cut open his chest and made me touch his heart. And I could see into his memories!" I pointed emphatically at my chest. "What I'm saying is, even if we can't remember them, I think our memories are still inside our hearts somewhere! Crow's memories are buried, but we just have to make him remember, and I know how to do it."
If we couldn't kill Crow, we could still use him, whether he wanted to or not.
My friends and I regarded each other in the near blackness. Finally, the truth was within reach.
The winds stopped.
The storm had passed, and the hourglass had run out.
You make me feel like a ghost
Walking around, talking in my sleep
You make me feel like I'm lost
Up in the clouds, talking in my sleep
I'm talking in my...