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“I’m Marden Crow, and my time is almost out. But let’s see what we can do for your friend.”
“Are you sure?”
She smiles softly at me. “I’ve learned the best thing to do when someone -- or something -- comes knocking on your door is to answer.”
She moves bowls and books from the table in the center of the room, and lays a blanket down, telling South and Hawthorne to place him there. They do as directed and Eric’s chest heaves as if he is using all of his energy, even though he is doing none of the work.
“Where did you find him?” Marden asks, unbuttoning Eric’s shirt and revealing a broad chest, muscular and defined. She reaches for a jar containing a white colored paste and she removes the lid. It’s filled with a salve of comfrey and ginger.
How do I know this? The names of things I’ve never touched, never tasted?
“He was at the river, stumbling around, looking confused,” I explain. “I told him where he was, but he just said that Gaia told him he was coming here to help Harlow’s sister. I have no idea what that means.”
“Gaia?” Marden stops, her hands trembling.
“Do you know her?” I ask, my best friends standing beside me.
Marden nods ever so slowly, taking me in as if seeing me for the first time. I wrap South’s leather jacket tighter around my body, feeling exposed in front of this stranger.
“I know of her.”
“Is it relevant?” Hawthorne asks.
“Gaia?” Marden twists her lips and begins smearing the salve against Eric’s chest. “I’d say she is most relevant to Styx. To Earth. To life and death. To all of us. She is the beginning and the end for many.”
“You’re speaking in riddles I don’t understand,” South says, and his words are exactly the ones I’m thinking.
“It’s not intentional. Gaia is Mother Earth. A Greek goddess. Her web connects us all, whether we want it or not.”
Maybe for someone still living on Earth, the idea of Greek gods would sound ridiculous or foreign -- I can’t say for certain, as I never considered their existence before I was sent to Styx. But I do know what Lennox and Hawthorne have shared of Earth. And that is, no one on Earth believes in Greek mythology anymore. They’re just stories, legends.
But then they arrived in Styx and became believers.
How could you not, when you see the spirit world in the flesh? When Hades is a real, powerful being ruling the Underworld, forcing passage on those he chooses?
Maybe before death, people had the privilege of choosing what they believed; but once you pass through that life to this one, it’s no longer about believing. It is about truth.
And the Greek gods rule this world. So, it stands to reason they would rule other realms too.
“Mother Earth?” I repeat. “What would she have to do with this man?”
“More importantly, what do you have to do with this man?” Marden asks pointedly.
We all look down at Eric, his skin so pale, practically translucent.
He needs to wake up because he is the one with answers.
The answers that I have been looking for my entire life.
6
Tennyson
“He died recently, of course,” Marden says looking him over, her hands on his cheeks, dropping a tincture into his parted lips. “Maybe he was even been buried. But his skin is that of a sea creature. It’s as if he was preserved in salt water, and somehow, he floated from the ocean depths to the marshy land of river Styx. The question is, why?”
“Harlow,” I say. “He said he was looking for Harlow’s sister.” I run a hand through my hair, beginning to doubt this unplanned mission. But then again, maybe Eric is the path I need to take to change my direction.
One day can change everything.
The witch nods. “Why did you bring him to me?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know Harlow?”
“I haven’t a clue,” I tell her honestly. “But I’ve been here since I was four. I know nothing about anything. All I know is the stories people have told me over the years.”
“You’ve been in Styx since you were four?” Marden asks, wide-eyed.
I look at Hawthorne. We’ve always been here together.
“Yes.”
She sputters. “But that’s... How could you... it doesn’t work that way.”
“I know,” I say, blinking back years of loneliness. “I know most people are here for weeks or months and maybe, on rare occasions, a bit longer before passing through to their final resting place.”
“But not you.”
I swallow. “But not us. Hawthorne and I have been here that long, and Lennox and South have been here for years too.”
Her wrinkled face crinkles even more. “How unusual.” As she speaks, her torso fades for a beat, before returning. “He will be okay,” Marden says looking down at Eric. “See, his color is returning. But you, my darlings, are another matter.”
