X.
The Lost
Shlock, went the sound of a scythe.
She walked into the forlorn chapel of Death’s house, wearing her old brown tunic, her wheat-colored hair unveiled, just as I remembered. I cried and ran to her, my footsteps slapping against the cold, slabbed stone.
I didn’t stop to think or question my sight. She blinked at me, as if surprised. We both were! She was here. Returned! I could have sobbed with joy, but just as I closed my arms over her, she was gone. I embraced nothing save empty air.
The loss tore like a knife through my chest, as if I were feeling it all again, for the first time. I screamed, the sound resounding under the yawning buttresses of the chapel ceiling.
Light movement like the fluttering of a brown bird caught at the corner my eye and I spun. There she was again, standing between the few remaining pews. I forgot all about Death, my task, anything at all but my sister.
“Rochelle,” I cried, my hands up, pleading with her. I walked slower this time. My gaze bored into her, unblinking. “Rochelle, don’t move!”
She made no answer, but she looked at me—looked right at me.
“How are you going to save her?” I heard a voice somewhere that tugged in my mind, trying to remind me of something.
But I could only see Rochelle. I could only think of Rochelle. Iwould not lose her again. I was almost to her. “Rochelle,” I cried again. “It’s me, your sister, Salomé.”
I thought I would reach her. I was so close, my eyes burning with unshed tears. I stretched my hand for her wrist. And she was gone. Nothing but the wind and the chapel dust before me. I screamed again—this time out of frustration.
“That won’t help you,” Death said.
I snapped my gaze to him, my rage leaping ahead of my better judgment. “Is this your trick?”
“How will you save her?” he repeated, insistent.
“Rochelle!” I called. I ran across the chapel. But she didn’t appear. I felt split somehow, half in the past and half in this strange present. My heart pounded a rhythm of her name. Maybe she was in another part of the house. Wild-eyed, I turned for the door.
“Salomé.”
Her voice, her dear voice! I had not heard it in five years. I spun and nearly wept. He could trick me with her image, but not her voice. But when my gaze landed on her, I froze in uncertainty.
It was Rochelle, but not as I’d seen her only a moment before, in her drab brown tunic. This Rochelle was different.
She stood behind Death’s chair, where he still lounged, unaware or uncaring of her presence. Her hair was darker than I remembered and bound up in silky braids. Her arms were pale and strong. She was nearly naked, clothed in some kind of silken garment and a belt of twinkling stars. I’d never seen such a dress and did not have the words to truly describe it. To describe her. She seemed my sister, but older, harder, unveiled in some way. The look of a stranger about her.
“Salomé,” she said. “Sister.”
“Tell me how to find you,” I said to her. I didn’t move this time. Didn’t even breathe for fear she would disappear.
“You must surrender,” Death’s voice rumbled between us.
“How do I save you?” I asked.
“You cannot save me,” she said.
“No. I can’t accept that. Tell me what I must do.”
“Surrender,” Death demanded. But I was focused on my sister and my sister alone.
“You are reaching into a world you do not understand, like a bear’s paw into the trap, thinking only of the bait,” Rochelle said. “You are in danger.”
“I don’t care,” I said. I took a careful step.
Death rose out of his chair.
