Vincent
“The shadowborn don’t have a great track record for bringing back souls from the under realms,” Lucian cautioned. We’d gathered in his infirmary—Orcus, you and I—so that Lucian could monitor our bodies while we made our spirit journey.
“We know the risks already,” I said, not wanting to worry you even more. Lucian only scrutinized me closer, his concern over our well-being apparent. I glanced down to find that Spooky had made her way into the room as well. Guards were stationed outside, but everyone knew my cat already, so they must have let her through.
“Coming to see me off?” I picked her up and nuzzled her head. She purred in response, not at all concerned. Maybe she knew something I didn’t? I lay down on a hospital bed situated between you and Orcus. You reached out to grab my hand while Spooky insisted on lying on top of my chest, as she was prone to do. When Lucian went to remove her, I stopped him. “Let her stay.”
“Remember to go toward the light,” Orcus said.
I nodded, not knowing what to expect other than that. It was better this way. My ignorance made me brave. “I love you,” I said to you, and you told me you loved me too. Then, with the prick of Lucian’s syringe, I slipped under to a place that was dark, deep, and silent as a tomb. I didn’t know how long I stayed there, but when I saw a light ahead of me, I headed toward it. You were waiting there, glowing from the inside as though the light were part of you, shining through your pores. The brightness expanded until it cancelled out all other sensation, and my consciousness collapsed all around me.
When I first regained some sense of self, we were standing, ankle-deep, in a puddle of water. The mists surrounding us made it difficult to see anything beyond our immediate surroundings.
“Where are we?” you asked, the rare tremor of fear creeping into your voice. There was a dagger in your hand that you must have conjured yourself. I wasn’t sure how effective it would be in this realm, but if it made you feel safer, I wasn’t going to argue against it.
“The Greeks called it the River Styx,” Orcus said, “though it’s more like a marsh or slow-moving tide. It’s the drop-off point for souls. Do you recognize it, Henri?”
“Not very well. I only ever saw the edge of it from a distance.” You began to advance and Orcus reached out with one hand to halt you.
“Patience, bloodborn. Things move slower here.”
I glanced around at the surreal atmosphere. Sensation was different here than in the dream realm. I couldn’t feel the wetness of the mist, but I could remember what fog felt like, so much so that a damp chill overwhelmed me.
“Why am I so thirsty?” And how could this craving be real if our bodies were little more than cloudy specters?
“Don’t drink the water,” Orcus warned. “It will make you forget.”
“Did my soul make this journey?” I asked Orcus. “When I was human?”
“Most likely. Human souls are led to the shores and asked to continue alone in a conscious decision to leave their former lives behind.”
“Are there some who won’t do it? Won’t cross over, I mean?”
“We’re surrounded by them. They’re calling to us right now.”
I listened for the lost souls as I’d searched for the sirens in your island grottos. Their calls sounded at first like the gentlest rain, but as I tuned them in, the noise grew until it was difficult to hear anything else. It spoke of a yearning for the past and the way things used to be.
“They’re telling us to stay,” you said, unsettled by their haunting refrain. “They’re afraid to leave their lives behind.”
“Are they trapped here?” I asked.
“Not trapped but suffering a stasis of spirit,” Orcus said. “A kind of slow death. Some fade away entirely and others will try to attach themselves to spirits who’ve newly arrived.”
“Like stowaways?”
Orcus nodded. “We have a stowaway of our own.”
I glanced down to find a much smaller shadow threading itself around my legs, its movements distinctly feline. “Is that Spooky?”
“She must have followed you here. How peculiar.”
A small boat appeared out of the mist then, reminding me of the rowboat we used to travel to your islands. There was a tall, lanky figure at the bow holding a long pole. The Ferryman, Orcus called him, a shadowborn like himself, who would take us to our destination. We climbed aboard. The water never seemed deeper than a shallow puddle, but there was movement beneath its surface. The way a school of fish will form shadows underwater on a sunny day; similarly, the souls scattered.
“Do you eat souls in the under realms too?” I asked Orcus. He appeared healthy and almost youthful here, with lush white hair trailing past his shoulders and pellucid, gray eyes.
“The shadowborn were created as keepers of the under realms. We exist in a symbiotic relationship with our environment. The spiritual energy of our realms nourishes us, and it’s only when we travel the earthen realm that we must feed.”
“Then why would you want to colonize the earthen realm?” you asked, suspicious.
