It’s that thought that galvanizes me, that has me turning around and reaching for the doorknob. I turn it, try to push the door open, but it doesn’t budge. I move to the second door, do the same thing, and it, too, refuses to open.
“No, no, no, no!” This can’t be happening. This really can’t be happening.
I try again, shaking the doorknob, rattling the doors, but no luck. They’ve locked behind me. I shine the flashlight on the locks, trying to figure out if I can pick them with one ofthe bobby pins in my still-soaking-wet hair, but when I do, I realize these aren’t normal locks. There are two dead bolts on each door, and there is absolutely no way I’m going to open them with anything but a key. Apparently, I need to add lock-picking videos to my normal rotation of YouTube videos.
In the meantime, I can’t see any way for me to get back into that room.
And that means I really am stuck here on this platform with a bunch of snakes and there’s nothing—absolutely nothing—I can do about it.
A harsh sob tears itself from my chest before I can stop it, but I swallow the next one down. And the one after that. There’s no way I’m going to just stand here on this platform covered in snakes and crying. If I’m going to die, I’m going to do it with a little bit of dignity.
So I close my eyes, try to block out the feeling of a snake sliding along my hip.
As I do, a picture forms in my mind. It’s that woman again—the one with the strong face and the peacock feather in her hair.
A feeling of peace settles inside me at the sight of her, and I take my first deep breath in several minutes. But she fades away as quickly as she came, and the panic starts welling up inside me again. At least until something else takes her place.
A familiar-sounding male voice deep inside me telling me that it’s okay. Telling me that I should jump.
But I can’t! There’s nowhere to jump to. Just an inky blackness that goes on forever.
Still, I check again, shining my flashlight as deep into the abyss as it can go. But there’s nothing there. Nothing to catch me. Nothing to save me.
“Will you just jump?” the voice says again, and it doesn’t sound so distant this time. It does, however, sound vaguely annoyed.
“I can’t! There’s nothing there.”
“Are you sure?”
What does it mean, am I sure? Would I be standing here contemplating being smothered to death by snakes if I wasn’t?
“There’s nothing there!”
“Maybe there will be.”
“And maybe there won’t!” I shoot back. “Maybe I’ll just plummet to my death!”
This time there’s no answer. I’m all alone again, and the warmth brought by the woman—and the nebulous voice—disappears just as easily.
I try never to do anything without knowing what the outcome is going to be. But from the moment I got to Anaximander’s, that hasn’t been possible. Things have been happening to me that I have no control over from the second I stepped foot on that bridge. Wouldn’t it be nice, for once, to take that control back? Even if it means letting go of everything I know—or at least think—is true?
I can either stay here on this platform because my headtells me it’s the only option and die here. Or I can jump, not knowing if what’s out there is even worse. It seems like a lose-lose situation.
Or a lose-win. The voice is back, but this time it doesn’t belong to anyone else. It belongs to me. And that’s when I know what I’m going to do.
I take a deep breath, blow it out slowly. And take a leap of faith right off the platform and into the inky darkness below.
45.My Way or the Subway
I FALL FOR APPROXIMATELY ONEpoint four seconds. And then I’m slamming through the access panel in the roof of a speeding subway train and landing directly on top of a very disgruntled-looking boy.
And not just any boy. The Hades boy, from my very first day of school.
“It’s about time,” he says grumpily, and I freeze in the act of climbing off him. Because he says it in the same exact voice that was in my head just a few seconds ago. The same voice that urged me to jump.
“It’s you!” I breathe.
“It’s me,” he answers, still sounding a little sour. “Now, if you don’t mind, can you please get off of me? I think you’re crushing my spleen.”
