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Eric shakes his head. “Gaia isn’t evil. She’s only good things.” His hand moves in the water, and then he is staring at it as if mesmerized.
“And why are we even trusting you?” I ask, turning on him. “I mean, honestly, you are a stranger. You could be trying to... I don’t know... infiltrate us somehow.”
“Like he did?” Eric asks directing his words at Hawthorne. “Tell her she’s acting crazy,” he tells the guys.
“Uh, Ten can do whatever the hell she wants,” Lennox says with a scowl.
“She can say whatever the hell she wants too,” South adds.
“Look at us,” I shout. “We’re sitting in a fucking muddy river with a man who pretends to have answers,” I shout.
“Oh yeah?” Eric asks, splashing more and more water on his face as if it’s the elixir he’s been looking for. “Do you have a better idea?”
I look down at my pathetic self, sitting in the river, a soaked through dress and a ruined leather jacket. A sob rising in my throat as I look up, into the eyes of the men. My heart stops as I take in the reality. We are sitting here fighting and losing precious time.
They are going to fade before the day is through.
“Fine,” I say, slapping the water. “What does Gaia think I can do for Harlow?”
Eric gives me sly smile. “Let’s find out.”
And before I can think, he pushes my head into the water.
15
Tennyson
I slap the surface of the water, thinking I’m going to die. Or whatever it would be called. Maybe you can’t drown here. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
No, it absolutely does not matter.
Because under the water I see something.
What Eric wanted to show me, the reason why Gaia would have wanted me to come here.
Under the surface of the water, I see what I lost.
My own river of sorrow.
With my head under the water, my mother’s kitchen comes into focus. The room is filled with people, and it takes a moment for my eyes to land on those of my mother. She sits at the same worn table, a teacup in hand, but I see she has aged nearly twenty-years. With a gasp I realize this isn’t her as I remember her... this is her as she is now.
My mother has aged so much.
I gasp as I take her in. Her clear eyes are blurry, her blonde hair has grayed, her fingers trembling as someone speaks. Looking around, I try to find the voice and I narrow my eyes, trying on focus on sound.
Miraculously I can hear it, ever so faintly. The voice of --
But then I am pulled from the water and shouts surround me. I’m in Styx, so far from the comfort of my mother’s home. My eyes are wild as I try to figure out what is happening. Lennox has his hands on me, pulling me from the water and I struggle to get free from him. He doesn’t understand staying under that water is not going to drown me, it is going to open my eyes.
“Fuck you,” South shouts across the river, pushing Eric into the water.
“I’m not trying to hurt her. You can see things in this water. She can--”
He doesn’t wait to hear him out, South punches him the jaw, pushing him back into the River of Sorrow. South thinks Eric was hurting me but he is so, so wrong.
“Stop,” I scream, as Eric pulls himself for the water lurching for South. “Please,” I shout. “South, listen to me.”
“Stay back, Ten,” he yells. “I’m taking care of it.”
“Enough,” I shriek, this time aware that everyone does what I ask. Apparently, I needed to scream to get their attention. “All of you, listen. Stick your faces in the water and relax. Hold my hands or something. I want you to see what I see.”
“What do you mean?” Hawthorne asks.
Eric pushes his hair from his eyes, glaring at South as he walks toward me. “It worked then?”
“What worked?” Lennox asks, his hand still on what is left of my shoulder.
Eric looks directly at Lennox, and when he speaks, his voice is solemn, “I drank out of the river and saw some twinges of memories. Like, a still frame of Harlow’s face, her pink hair and bright eyes pierced my heart. I saw her, and I hoped Tennyson might too, might remember her sister.”
My sister.
I need to go back there. I tug on Lennox’s hand. “Believe me,” I say. “Look.”
And so, they all follow suit, hearing my wish. We take hands and create a circle, and we kneel in the river, the group of us waterlogged and exhausted, half-faded, nearly dead. Yet, we still cling to one another.
We aren’t ready to let go. Not yet. Not like this.
Again, I am under the water, and I blink, trying to see my men from this vantage, but I can’t. All I see in front of me is my mother’s kitchen once more. Lennox squeezes my hand, and on the other side of me, Hawthorne holds my forearm.
