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“Mallory, Karamoko — take a group a’ seven to follow us on foot. Bring Trash City with you. Don’t let this one outta your sight.” I grab Merlin by the back a’ her neck and toss her toward the two Alpha males I’ve instructed to stay behind. “The rest a’ you, pack up your shit. Fuck the rain. We ride now.”
28 | Echo
Paradise Hole. Again.
The forests of Paradise Hole look exactly as I remember them but, traveling with Freya, are entirely changed.We don’t speak much — try,at all— so I’m left to watch her and the things she does. Such incredible things.
We move slowly because every few miles she calls out and animals come to us — all kinds of animals, big and small. They bring her their young, their old, their sick. The sick she…she…
A wolf limps up to her. The first one I saw terrified me. Now, after two days, I’m used to it in a way that makes me feel like I’ve been doing this my whole life. She steps past the wolf pack that accompanies it — her, the wolf is aher— and Freya bends one knee.
She sinks down in front of the creature, slides her hand over her flank, reaching her back leg. The wolf howls and, when Freya’s finished petting her and murmuring softly into her ear, the wolf bows her head to Freya and leaps away utterly uninjured, unscathed, unafraid.
The wolf Alphas show her their bellies. The bears that come trotting up to her greet her like friends. Small rabbits cocoon her body when she sleeps so she never goes cold. And even if they weren’t there, it wouldn’t matter. She can transform into any creature she wants, whenever she wants. Her gifts aren’t an extension of her body, like mine are. Sheisher gifts, they are her, and there is no separation between them. She doesn’t have to reach or call for them. They just are. They’re beautiful as she is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.
Freya approaches a tree and bends down. At its base, a baby bird lies featherless and screaming. It must have fallen from its nest and appears to be in pain. I look up and see that the nest is now empty, its family gone. Freya lifts the tiny creature and covers it with both palms and I get closer, peering over her shoulder to watch her work. She whispers under her breath. The air, which I imagined would rile up in the presence of this magic, is still. Humid, flat.
And then Freya digs a small hole in the dirt at the base of the tree and tucks the small bird inside. It isn’t screaming anymore. It’s lifeless.
She starts to cover it with dirt and I panic, reach out, grab her shoulder. She hits my arm, knocking me away, and glares at me somethin’ fierce. I try to keep the tears out of my tone, but it doesn’t work. I’m watching the bird, willing it awake. “Why’d you do that? Why didn’t you bring it back like you did the wolf?”
Freya’s eyebrows soften over her face. She returns her attention to the bird and covers it with care. With love. “Most believe that there is…just a thin line between life…and death. This isn’t true…between life and death, there is a vast divide…an ocean. If a life is close to the shore, I will save it. If it is too far from the shore, I help ease its transition…”
“But you could,” I stammer, mesmerized. Horrified. I crouch in the dirt, the wetness of the soil soaking my pants through at the knees. It rained so hard the past few days. “You could bring them back, if you wanted.”
“I do not want.”
“But you could. You could save it.”
She spins and is suddenly in my face, her nose a hair’s breadth from mine. “It is not saving it…it is…ruining it. Too far out to shore, you come back…but not healed. A ghost. Tortured. I havetried. I have seen…” Her voice cuts. I feel my heartbeat race in my chest. My hands form fists against the earth and a shiver racks my frame. “Whichever of the Fates…reanimates the Alphas has the same powers I have. The only thing that separates us…is thiswant. I do not want to see the living suffer. This is why I heal. I do not want to see the dead suffer, either. This is why I give them peace.”
She pulls back and mutters more to herself that I can’t make out. It doesn’t sound human though. More like the soft whistles songbirds make. Maybe it is. Maybe she’s still speaking to the bird in whatever language they share.
I stare down at the newly turned soil long after she pulls her pale hands away from its darkness, turning over her words, turning back time. I think of Adam and the hate that fuels me and wonder, against the chaos of life and the beauty of death and the ocean between them, if hate has any place in this tenuous ecosystem.No. I don’t think it does. But then, does love?
“Come.” Freya turns back to face me and the light above her is brighter than I’ve ever seen it. I can almost see sky. Not quite, but nearly.
I shake my head. She frowns, but before she can speak, I say, “Want is not what separates you.”
“What?” Her pale, almost invisible eyebrows furrow together over her sharp nose. Her pale pink lips purse.
“You said want is what separates you from the other Omega, the one who brings back the corpses. But you’re wrong. It isn’t want. It’s…” I choke, struggling to form words that feel so suddenly damning.
Her expression twists even more. “What?”
“It’s love.”
She stares at me but I can’t read her at all. She stares for a long while though. And then all she says is, “Come.”
I trudge after her, exhausted, beat. I didn’t bring nearly enough supplies for this, grabbing only clothes enough for three days and no food at all. Freya knows where water sources are, but the one time I even hinted at hunting an animal in the forest, she screeched at me like some kind of crow-meets-howler-monkey, the sound so loud I thought I’d burst an eardrum, and it was enough for me to know better than to ever bring it up again. So, I don’t. Instead, I forage with her for nuts and berries and I eat them all happily even though I’d kill for a steak.
Not gonna mention steak to Freya if I want to live long enough to find the man in the cave. Not gonna complain about the stitch in my side, the way my feet are killing me or how much I miss sleeping in a bed, either. It was only a few days, but it’s incredible how fast I got used to city living. I’ll forget though. Or at least, unlearn it. Just like I’ll unlearn all the rest. Even if hate and love play no part in our story — inmystory — I know already that a life of captivity would make me little better than one of the undead. So yes, I’ll unlearn Adam, too.Adam who?There is no Adam. There’s only the Berserker of Dark City and he has no Omega.
“We’re here.” Freya’s voice comes as a surprise and I move faster, climbing the small incline, which isn’t so much steep as it is treacherous. My boots sink into the mud up to the ankles. The chill has already seeped in through the leather to dampen my socks and claim my toes. Still, they’re a helluva lot better than rabbit skins, though.
Reaching the top of the muddy knoll, I grip the straps of my backpack and step in line beside her. I track her hand with my gaze and shake my head. “This isn’t right,” I say. “There shouldn’t be a cave here.”
She ignores me and marches forward into the clearing where there’s just a massive hole leading into the ground. “Come.”
