The Death Seer (Skeleton Key) (8 page)

The Weird Sisters gave us a blanket to share and two cushions to lay our heads on. After they left to their beds, Kord and I sat in front of the fire with some tea the sisters had given us. We stared at the flames in silence for long, motionless minutes.

My mind drifted so that I jumped when Kord spoke.

“What’s it like, back home?”

“Brighter,” I said without hesitation. “There’s sun and it’s warm and comforting.”

“You miss the sun.”
 

“Yes.”

“What else do you miss?”

“My brother. Annie. The smell of her cookies. The smell of fresh cut grass. The smell of hot asphalt and playing basketball. Video games. Hugs.”

“Hugs.”

“Yes, hugs,” I said with a chuckle.

“What about love? Was there love?”

I thought about it. “I was close to love, once. I had a boyfriend for a while after college. We lived together for a year. But it didn’t work out.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Nothing horrible happened, it was just that we didn’t connect enough to stay together. What about you? Is there love here for you?”

“No. No one here can love me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

 
“No, I mean, it’s because I’m not, strictly speaking, from here. People who come here through death already have their established lives and loves, and those don’t change. If they had a spouse, when that spouse arrives, they get to be together. If not, they go on living whatever life they had before. Love has to be established in your world in order for it to carry over here. So I can’t be loved.”

He said it casually, but I had a feeling those words meant more to him than he let on. He set his empty teacup on the hearth and lay down on his pillow.
 

“Are you lonely?” I asked.

“Infinitely.” His sunglasses lay on the floor next to him. His eyes were trained on the rafters.

“Do you want love?”

“More than anything.”

Something ached in my chest. I put my pillow next to his and lay on my side facing him. “Maybe you can come back with me.”

“Would you love me, Brenna?” he asked, his eyes still staring upwards.
 

“Maybe,” I whispered. “But if not me, someone would.”

He was quiet for a long time, breathing deeply and slowly. “It would have to be you,” he said at last.
 

“Why?”

“I think I gave you my heart long ago.”

“We were children.”

“We had hearts, didn’t we? And I gave you mine. I’ve missed you and longed for you every day of my life.”

He said it so casually I had difficulty recognizing the pain behind his words. Slowly it dawned on me, but I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. “You don’t even know me.”

“I knew you then. You seem as you always were. Beautiful and intelligent. Brave. Strong. Adventurous.”

“You’re the same, too,” I realized. “You were always this quiet, thoughtful thing, but still bold and brave. The only thing I recall you fearing was taking off that blindfold.”

“The world’s a scary place. Easier to keep it dark.”

“What sorts of things do you see?”

Abruptly, he rolled to his side to face me, startling me. “We were talking about something that interested me a moment ago, and now you’ve gone and gotten sidetracked.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I lied.

He smirked. “You. Me. Love. Remember?”

“I thought we’d finished with that subject.”
 

He reached out and traced my bottom lip with the tip of his finger. “We’d only started. I’ve enjoyed having you at my side. Makes me feel alive and whole again. Is that what love is, Brenna?”

“I don’t know,” I said numbly, and for some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off his mouth.

“I think it is. I think I fell in love with you ten years ago.”

“I’m not so sure.” My voice fell to barely more than a whisper. I thought he would kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me. He laid his long fingers along my cheekbone making me feel like a heroine in a black and white movie where the kisses were always somehow hard and soft at the same time.
 

Unfortunately, from not far away, we could hear the snores of the sleeping sisters. The cabin was one large room with only curtains partitioning the sleeping area from the rest of the room. Maybe that’s why he didn’t kiss me. Not enough privacy.
 

“I don’t think it was all pretend,” he said, instead.

His fingertips slid from my jaw, and I reluctantly lifted my eyes to his. “What?”

“All those adventures. All those lives we lived. I think they happened.”

I smiled faintly. “Who knows, right?”

“Right,” he said, with a satisfied lift of his chin. “Turn on your side. I want to hold you while we sleep.”

I tried not to grin, tried not to giggle like the foolish girl I felt I was becoming, and turned on my side, facing away. He lay against me, spooning me, bringing the blanket over us both. I closed my eyes. His breath was hot on the back of my head. The fire crackled and spat. Kord’s arm grew heavy over my waist. We fell into sleep together.

A horrendous smell brought me to my senses. I blinked my eyes open. The reddish dawn wasn’t as shocking as the sun in the living world, but it still took some adjusting. As my eyes came into focus I saw an old crone in the kitchen loosening a bundle of dried herbs. “Who’s that?” I murmured.

Kord groaned into my hair and pressed tighter against me. Another old woman entered my field of vision, hunched over under a tattered, brown cloak. She had some sort of feathered creature on a cutting board. She lifted a butcher knife, and before I could process what was happening, chopped the head off the dead creature.

“Kord?”

“Mmm?”

A third crone settled into the rocking chair across the rug from us and took up some needlework. “Up at last?” she said in a craggy voice. “Thought ye’d sleep all day.”

I pushed myself up and out from under Kord’s arm. Clearly our hostesses had aged and uglied overnight. They were the most hideous things I’d ever laid eyes on. “I need to…relieve myself,” I said.

“There’s a privy out back, dear,” the crone said without looking up from her needlework.

I glanced at Kord who was sitting up and sliding on his sunglasses. He flashed me a sleepy smile which instantly brought me comfort. I smiled back and then went outside to the smelly, rotting shed to do my business. By the time I got back, Kord was up and eating some kind of hand-pie while slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Are we leaving already?” I asked, glancing around for my own breakfast. A baking stone held several of the pies, steam wafting off of them. I grabbed one and bounced it from hand to hand until my fingers adjusted to the heat.

“I’m leaving. You’re going to wait here,” Kord said.

My appetite instantly vanished. “I don’t think so. I’m not leaving your side…what if you get lost? How will I find my door without you?”

He grinned. “I don’t get lost. Never fear, we’re not far from the swamp. I’ll be back well before nightfall.”

My heart rate increased, and I felt suddenly light-headed. Somehow I’d become completely dependent on Kord and the thought of being separated from him in this strange place terrified me. “I wouldn’t know what to do,” I said. “I wouldn’t have the first clue where to go or who to talk to if something happened to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be back in a while.” He had the door open and shut behind him before I could jar myself into action.
 

I dropped the pie on the stone and dashed out the door. “Wait!” I shouted.
 

He stopped and turned right at the edge of the woods where the path disappeared into the dark forest. The reddish light was almost golden, or maybe I was just getting used to it. I wished I’d grabbed my bag before running out here, I could have just followed him. “Please, wait,” I said. “Just a moment and I’ll grab my things. Don’t go without me.”

“Brenna, you’re safe, I promise. Just—”

“I’m going with you and that’s that. If you won’t wait, I’ll leave my things and just follow you.”

He stared at me in silence for a long moment. At last he closed the distance between us. He shoved his glasses on top of his head and lifted my chin with his fingertips. His intense gaze bored into my soul.
 

I took a shaky breath. “Sometimes our adventures didn’t have happy endings. Do you remember?”

His frown deepened.

“Like when we played cattle rustlers. Remember? I got shot and bled out in the desert.” I knew our games had just been pretend, but his memories of them were clearly meaningful to him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”

“So maybe this adventure won’t end well, either. And either way that it ends, I want to be together for it. Please. Let me go grab my bag.”

He inhaled deeply. His jaw muscles ticked. He looked down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at me. “I don’t want to leave you here. But this particular part of our journey I have to do alone. I can’t…can’t have you there with me. It’s personal. It takes all my focus and concentration to visit her. I need you to stay here and wait for me. It’ll help me knowing you’re here waiting. Please, Brenna. Do this for me.”

“Can you at least tell me what’s so bad about this place? About her?”

He hesitated again before asking, “Have you ever despaired before?”

“Um…I don’t know.”

“You’d know. There’s nothing like it in the world. And it’s very, very difficult—nearly impossible—to come back from. She’s in despair, my mother. That’s what Suicide Swamp is.”

“Maybe my being there would help you?”

He was shaking his head before I finished. “No, it wouldn’t. It might possibly ruin us both. I already know I can do this…I’ve done it before several times. And now, with you here, I have even more hope to live for. If you stay here, it will help me succeed. So please, Brenna? Stay and wait?”

I steeled myself. It was time to stop being the damsel in distress. He needed my strength and it was the least I could give him. I drew back my shoulders. “Can you at least give me a contingency plan should you fail to return?”

He puffed out his cheeks and blew out a breath. He dropped his satchel to the ground and knelt next to it. I knelt with him while he pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment…his map. He laid it out on the dirt path. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a tiny sketch of a house with three stick figure women standing in front of it.

“Looks like a child drew this.”

“I did,” he said. Then he trailed his finger along a path that led through some woods and to a castle. “This is the way we came to get here. It’s a pretty solid path, but of course King’s Hall could look like anything. They’re always changing it.”

“Okay,” I said. “And which way is the swamp?”

He gave me a wary look. “Don’t follow me, Brenna.”

“I just need to know where you’ll be.”

“I don’t see why. I’ll be back before nightfall if you’ll only let me leave.”

“I’m not letting you go until you show me how to get to the swamp.”

He sighed, frustrated, and pointed to the path. The swamp was represented by a big black scribble. “That’s where I’m going. There’s nothing on the other side. It’s a dead end. So don’t go there. Wait for me. And if I don’t show up by nightfall, then in the morning, go back to King’s Hall and tell Gus what happened. He’ll be able to help you navigate through this world, but beyond that, you’re on your own.”

I nodded, feeling better for having gained a modicum of control over my situation. We stood, and Kord rolled up the map before pressing it into my hand. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, hovering to whisper, “Promise me a kiss when I return.”

“You can have a kiss now,” I replied, baffled by the request.

“No, I want you to promise it to me when I return. I’d do just about anything for a kiss from you.”

“So take one.”

He fell back a step and dropped his glasses over his eyes. “Make the damn promise.”

“You want a formal, declared promise?”

He was backing away from me. “I thought that was fairly clear.”

“Okay,” I said, with a frustrated laugh. “I promise you a kiss when you return.”

“What kind of a kiss?”

“For God’s sake, Kord, any kind of kiss you want.”

He grinned, turned and strode into the dark forest without so much as a goodbye.