Meridian Page 17

  I don't know how many trips I made. Enough that my pile of coats and blankets covering the dead began to take on a shape and life of its own. A small mountain mimicking the larger Sangre de Cristos Mountains around us. I shoved aside luggage and debris so I could clearly see the passengers who still needed help. The train must have been full to capacity with post holiday travelers.

  "My leg is broken. Get me out of here." A man grabbed me, and for the first time since I'd gotten there, I felt only his desperation and fear, not a need to transition. He had to weigh two hundred pounds and he was over six feet tall. He continued, "I'll help you. I can use one leg. I can push off with it. Please, I'm claustrophobic; I don't know how much more I can stomach. It's so dark in here."

  I nodded. "I don't know how to make this not hurt."

  He tried to smile. "Pain means I'm alive. Just help me get out of here."

  I hugged him tight, my chest against his back. "Okay, on three you push and I'll push and we'll get out of here."

  He nodded.

  "One." I wedged my feet against what solid surface I could find and made sure there wasn't anything in my way to the hole I'd been widening with each trip. "Two."

  He braced himself and inhaled a substantial breath. "Three." We said it together and fell out onto the snow and mud, my back and head absorbing the brunt of the landing. Glass shards tangled in my hair like ice crystals and I felt warmth dripping down my back. I wasn't sure if it was sweat or blood. Probably both. The man's moan poured the pain out around us, but he was strong and full of life.

  With the help of adrenaline, I hauled him over to a clear spot, grabbing coats that moments ago had been shielding the eyes of the dead from those of the living. I balled one up and put it under his head, then draped another over his torso and around his legs. I wished for medical training. "This is all I can do,"

  "Find my wife? Please?"

  I nodded. My legs felt like waterlogged noodles. I coughed, then turned and dove back into the chaos.

  Over the course of the next few hours, I was joined by more helpers. They found the man's wife, three teenagers, and several kids. Paramedics were putting the living on backboards and getting them out of there as fast as we brought them out, but the dead vastly outnumbered the survivors. Reverend Perimo leaned over several of the wounded. He appeared to be praying, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I couldn't feel them die, but he closed their eyes and moved on. To the next victim?

  A single tanker truck battled blazes that crept closer and grew larger each time I lifted my head to check them.

  "Are you hurt?" It took me a moment to realize that a face was peering into mine with concern. A fireman whose face was blackened with soot and blood leaned over me.

  "No," I croaked out.

  "Can you walk? You need to get out of here. See those vehicles? Move toward them." He pointed a football field or farther away.

  "There are more people." I said. I felt heat waves, one after another, pulsing like a heartbeat, from the tail of the train.

  "I know. We're moving back for now, though; a couple of tanks could blow any minute. You have to get out of here." The fireman's face reflected the pain that I felt. I was sure he wasn't used to walking away from the needy.

  In the distance, I watched Reverend Perimo disappear deeper into the smoke. He wasn't stopped by anyone.

  "We can't leave them!" I cried, struggling against the fireman's strong grip.

  "We have to." He picked me up and threw me over his shoulder, carrying me away from the wreckage.

  Upside down, I saw the churned-up earth, red and dark. Then the world went black and I faded with it.

  * * *

  "Meridian! Meridian!" Etta's voice came to me against the roaring backdrop of Armageddon. We were in hell, and a sea turtle was telling me her secrets. But I kept hearing my name and it confused me.

  I opened my eyes to see Tens inches from my face.

  He smiled. "You're awake."'

  I nodded, dragging off the oxygen mask that covered my face.

  "You needed oxygen because of all the smoke you inhaled."

  "I'm fine. Let's go home." I wanted space to think about what I saw.

  "There's glass everywhere. Do you need me to carry you?"

  "No." I stood. The adrenaline crash carried me into an abyss and I started shivering. "We should get back in there."

  "They're not letting anyone near it. There's a chemical spill. We won't do any good waiting at the periphery." Tens helped me into the Rover. "Stay with me. Meridian. We don't know how that many souls will affect you yet. Just stay awake. Talk to me." I heard Tens slide into the driver's side and start the Rover. "Talk to me!" he commanded.

  "Etta. Said to learn the lesson," I mumbled.

  "Uh-huh. What else did she say?" He accelerated into a turn so fast that I pressed against the door. I couldn't hold back a groan.

  "Sorry. What'd she say?"

  I struggled to keep my eyes open, but my brain felt drugged and woozy.

  "A gift. Take fear away."

  "Really? What else?" he shouted. So loud.

  "Trapped between without me."

  "Uh-huh?"

  "Hug." My words didn't keep up with my thoughts.

  "Hug?"

  "No, 'brace."

  "Embrace?" He slapped my cheek, jerking me back.

  "Yeah. Perimo is bad. Stole Celia.

  "Hang on, we're almost home." Tens must have been speeding like a race car driver.

  He slammed to a stop and apologized when I cried out. "Sorry, sorry." He carried me into the house. "Let's get you cleaned up."

  "Fine. I'm fine." The words came in mumbles and sputters.

  I felt pain and gentle hands, but the rest of the night slid by in an oblivion of hot water and reassurances.

  Chapter 29

  Memento te mortalem esse sed vim in perpetuum durare. Remember you are mortal but energy lives forever.

  —Luca Lenci

  I stretched like a chicken in the sun without opening my eyes. My head was clear and my heart light. I sniffed, smelled the smoke, and grimaced at the stench.

  "Sorry, no shower yet." Tens brushed the hair from my face. "You're awake."

  I blinked up at him. "I am. Did you stay with me?"

  "You slept over a full day."

  "How's Auntie? What day is it?"

  "She's sleeping. It's New Year's Eve." I sensed there was more behind his words.

  "What aren't you telling me? She's alive, isn't she?"

  "She's breathing."

  "I want to see her, tell her about it."

  "Sure, in a minute. Get your bearings."

  I rubbed my eyes and wiped goo off my cheek. I sniffed at it. "Is that honey?"

  "Yeah. Auntie used to say it works better than antibiotic cream, plus the bears will eat you first." He moved back as I sat up, swimming in a button-down men's pajama top that I didn't recognize. "Those are Charles's old pj's. I didn't think you'd want anything too clingy. Aside from a couple of small cuts on your back, the one on your cheek, and skinned knees, you weren't hurt badly."

  “‘Kay." I felt an odd intimacy with him. As if we'd traveled beyond wherever it was we'd started and now were two people united.

  "I'll go shower now. I didn't want to leave you alone too long at a time." The circles under his eyes were pronounced enough to worry me.

  I nodded. I felt both stronger for having gone in without Auntie and sad for the same reason. "Custos?"

  "Much better. She demanded to go out running early this morning."

  "'Kay."

  Tens opened the bedroom door and slipped out.

  "Tens?"

  He poked his head back in.

  "Thanks." So inadequate a word for how I felt about him. He was steady and solid and always seemed to be there for me.

  He smiled a lopsided naughty grin. "Yeah." He disappeared.

  I eased back onto the pillows, sure I should move, and yet I didn't want the warmth in my
stomach to dissolve. I wasn't sure why I felt so good, but I didn't want to question it.

  Until I remembered Reverend Perimo's comments and pictured him snatching Celia's soul to hell.

  Chapter 30

  A untie wasn't in her bedroom when I went to check on her. "Tens?" I yelled in the hallway, unsure of where he might be. I raced to the staircase, looking into each room as I went by. "Auntie?" I shouted.

  "Meridian!" Tens grabbed me as I stumbled.

  One glance at his face and I knew Auntie wasn't drinking tea in the kitchen, feeling right as rain on wheat. "Tell me," I demanded, crumpling onto the stairs.

  "When we got home she'd moved."

  "Moved where?"

  "To the attic tower."

  "Why?" A sinking sensation accompanied my question.

  "It's time. Soon."

  I ran to the tower, out of breath and heaving. I'd clearly not fully recovered from my work at the accident. There she was, tucked under a large pile of quilts, sleeping. Her breathing was even, but she wouldn't wake, no matter how loud I shouted or pleaded. Tears slid down my cheeks unchecked.

  "Meridian, here."' Tens handed me a card and a package wrapped in rose-printed flannel.

  I didn't want to open it. I knew it was her quilt. By opening it and holding the story of her life in my hands, I would accept her death. I opened the card, Auntie's handwriting so like my mother's looping script. In a few short weeks, my life had turned inside out.

  "I can't." I handed the card to Tens.

  He took it from me and read it out loud.

  "Dearest Little One, you have come so far, so fast. It seems like only yesterday I was sixteen myself, the world so big and unknown. I sit here with hands no longer capable of wilting legibly, no longer willing to quilt a stitch. My spirit is tired. I have done what I came to this earth to do, and so I leave it, and all its possibilities, to you. You have a strong ally in Tens—trust his soul. Learn from your mistakes and from your accomplishments. I came up here, to the room that Charles crafted for me, to be as close to heaven as possible. I am ready for a party; I only wish Charles could be by my side. I will watch you and love you from wherever I am. This is my final birthday quilt for you. Forever, Auntie."

  Tens closed the card and I pushed aside the flannel to unfold the blanket. Gardens of roses filled the front of an almost perfect replica of the house. The borders were filled with airplanes and outlines of countries. Words and recipes were embroidered into the fabric. Portraits of people and stacks of books were interspersed with miniquilts made from tiny pieces of fabric. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

  "I wish I'd told her about Charles."

  "So tell her. She isn't gone yet"

  "But can she hear me?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Oh. Auntie, Charles didn't leave you. He's waiting for you. He said to tell you one-four-three."

  We sat with her in the attic bedroom she'd claimed as her final resting place. She'd waited her whole life for that party in the sky.

  So there we sat, in the upper parapet of the great old house. Tens brought up a space heater and we wrapped ourselves in stacks of quilts so old they'd yellowed and frayed. I could hear her voice in my head: "What good is a quilt if it's unused? The same as a life unused. They're meant to be wrung out and frayed around the edges. That's the way of things. Always has been. Always will be."

  I held her hand. Her fingers were gnarled and crooked like the roots of the oldest swamp trees. Not prissy roots of trees that grew in manicured parks and didn't understand the mess of life. These were roots forced to grow around, and down, and through, to survive. Those trees reminded me of Auntie. She got knee-deep in the muck and managed never to lose her hope or her innocence.

  Time narrowed to each breath. Her chest rose and fell. Her eyelids fluttered. The sun rose high in the sky and dipped back below the horizon. I waited, ready to visualize my window, to see Charles on the other side, to let her go and make sure I didn't tangle. I tried to keep my insecurities tamped down. Can I let go? Can I stay on this side?

  I thought back to before my birthday. I didn't know if I was starting with as much hope in humanity as Auntie was dying with. Have I paid enough attention? Have I learned the stories well enough to recite them in the vivid, vibrant detail she did? Part of me had always known she was there. Behind me. Steadying me. The windbreak for those terrible storms.

  And now?

  Now I must find my strength on my own. Was I strong enough for this? Did I want to be?

  Tens handed me a plate with a sandwich and a quartered apple. "Meridian, you have to eat. And you haven't showered since the train accident."

  I didn't take my eyes from Auntie's mouth. Open. Inhale. Close. Exhale. One breath. One heartbeat. I waited for the next one. "I'm afraid to leave the room. What if I'm not here? I have to be here."

  "It will happen as it's supposed to."

  I blinked. "That's very Zen."

  Tens stomped into my space; he leaned down and got right in my face. "Making yourself sick isn't going to help anyone. You have to be strong so you don't—" He broke off, bracketing my face with his hands so I had to look at him. I had to gaze into those amazing infinite eyes of his and see the reflection of a girl I didn't know anymore. "The world needs you." He rested his forehead against mine as tears dropped from his cheeks onto mine. "I need you, Meridian."

  I sighed and leaned into him.

  "I love you. Don't you know that?" He'd closed his eyes with his confession.

  I let go of Auntie's hand and wrapped my arms around him. I buried my face in the curve of his neck and inhaled the soap and woods and wolf he always smelled of. I pulled back and searched his expression. I closed my eyes and took a breath around my tears.

  Charles's secret code for "I love you" flashed through my mind. I smiled when it came to me, "One-four-three, too," As I heard those words come out of my mouth I knew. I knew that I'd listened. That while I might not have gotten every detail, I knew enough of the lore to keep going. I knew enough of Auntie to make her quilt myself.

  Tens raised his eyebrows. "Wow, a math equation. That's romantic."

  I laughed, stepping back. "I love you, too." It was as if life were held in the balance, stuttered, then moved forward again. Like a grandfather clock slowing for a heartbeat, then ticking like normal. Still, a part of me waited for Auntie to open her eyes and applaud our young love.

  "Little one?"

  I closed my eyes and opened them. I was in my room, standing next to Auntie. Through the window, I watched a crowd of people in the distance walking, running, skipping toward us, full of joy. The sky was the bright blue of Auntie's eyes and the sun was warm and smooth where its rays fell across us as we stood at the window. Crimson petals rained from the sky like confetti, and Charles led the group with his arms outstretched.

  "He waited for you."

  "I heard you. Thank you, little one. That's your family in the distance. Generations of us. Except the few Fenestras who have been reborn. One day I hope we'll meet again. It's time."

  I nodded, embracing her, unwilling to let go.

  "You take care of your young man, okay? It's not over. We'll be right there with you. You have the strength of light on your side, you hear me? I wish I knew how to tell you to fight the Nocti. But trust love, light, life. You've made me proud. Now finish it" She drifted out the window and I reached behind me for something to grab on to as I closed it. I opened my eyes. I was clinging to Tens's hand. My knuckles were white and my nails drew blood along the top of his hand.

  "What happened?"' Tens asked as my legs collapsed under me. He lowered me gently into a chair.

  I turned back to Auntie. Her mouth didn't open, didn't close, didn't move. "Gone?" The question in my heart mirrored in my voice.

  Tens felt for a pulse in her neck. "She's gone."

  Part of me hadn't thought I could resist the attraction and stay in this world.

  Tens gathered me to him. "You did it. I
knew you would."

  "I know you did." I watched the light from the bedside lamp leap and dance against the tiny bits of candy-colored fabric. "That's what she was waiting for, wasn't it? There wasn't unfinished business. She was just waiting for me to decide." And I'd picked love. I'd picked life. "Tens—I—"

  A howl went up from the yard, startling both of us. And then another, farther a field. Then a pack seemed to take up the chorus.

  "That's Custos, isn't it?" The sound of automobiles approached, drowning out the coyotes. "What day is it?"

  Tens became a flurry of activity, but didn't answer me.

  "It's New Year's Eve, right?"

  "Meridian, get your bag. We have to go."

  "Go? We can't go. Where are we going?"

  Chapter 31

  December 22, 1835 I glimpsed the face of a dear Fenestra friend yesterday. She now walks as one of them. At her side was her Protector, her lover, turned Dark as well. The Nocti grow stronger upon our weaknesses & I know not how to battle them. I fear facing one as I fear nothing else.

  —Jocelyn Wynn

  "You hear it?" Tens shook my shoulders. "Do you?"

  "It's people. They're yelling." I glanced at the ceiling. That wasn't the lamplight dancing, those were flames.

  "We need to go. Now!" Tens brushed his hand over Auntie's forehead, a final gesture of goodbye.

  "We can't leave her here. It's just people from the church. They're not going to do anything. They want to scare us. I won't let them!"

  "No, Meridian. Auntie made me promise. She knew she'd never leave this room. Think about it. She never said anything about services or burial, right?"

  "But that's because she knew I wasn't ready to hear it."

  "No. she knew she'd never leave this room. But we have to."

  A roar of wind blasted and rattled the windows. "That's smoke." I sniffed the air. "They're burning another arrow on the lawn?"

  Tens grabbed my arm. "Do you trust me?"

  "But—"

  "Do you trust me?" he asked again.

  "Yes." I grabbed my bag and touched Auntie's still-warm hand one last time. "Where are we going?"

  "Follow me," Tens instructed.

  "Wait, I have to get—"