| |
The Sunken Gardens’ depths had fallen silent, the sirens happily munching on tiny strips of flesh, content with their catch. Noah’s body still lay at the bottom, petrified and destitute. The spear, still shy of arm’s reach, glowed before his lifeless body, illuminating faded emerald eyes with a warm ochre. The gentle undulations of the pond pushed the body erratically, tilting his still-outstretched limbs back and forth.
The fountain’s central pump surged open, creating a potent current underneath the water’s surface. With one strong wave, Noah was pitched forward. His extended fingers scraped at the mud, digging long grooves in the lakebed as he tipped further. When the body finally came to rest, landing to face the opposite direction, the length of his spine grazed the elongated metal tip of the spear.
All at once, the runes covering its shaft sprung to life, burning fervently, bringing the surrounding water to a boil instantly. The same archaic designs that covered the spear now spread across Noah’s body, etching themselves in fire through his clothing, along his waterlogged skin underneath. A large slanted N made its home along his upper chest, with an angled S laying to the opposite side on his ribs; a trident-shaped mark scrawled itself wide upon his back. His biceps and fingers wore rings of various letterings, and spirals of the same wrapped themselves around his ankles. Each sigil burned, charring only the skin at their edges. A shallow pulse ran through Noah’s body, sending his stagnant muscles into shock. With the force of a tidal wave, air flooded into his lungs, and a single heartbeat sent renewed blood thrusting through long-closed ventricles and out into in his veins. Once-empty eyes shined as awareness came creeping back into his psyche.
The initial shock stunned his senses, that he was dead and alive all at once. He reached a marked arm around himself, grasping the spear and pulling it to his side. A slight movement echoed through the space, then harder and faster, gaining momentum until massive tremors shook the very foundations of the gardens. The sirens split apart from their prey at the sound, darting into holes and alcoves along the floor.
I will not let her down again, Noah promised as he pulled his lance back, sloshing through the water with incredible speed, and shoved its tip towards one of the creatures, spearing her through the abdomen. The siren’s deathly wail parted the waters, but somehow left Noah unfazed. He shook her body violently before pulling her face close to his. Looking into her eyes, he realized that it was the same siren that petrified him— that took his life. He seized her by the throat, forcing her song to cease.
“Your threats from earlier—that I would watch someone else’s death, was it?—looks like you were right.”
With one great flourish, he ripped the body from the spear’s edge. The creature grasped at her innards, her blood turning the murky depths a ruddy brown.
Noah made a rush for Naika’s battered body. Her face was sullen; puffy cheeks leading to closed, sunken eyes. Both arms were missing slivery bands of flesh from the elbow to the blades of her shoulders. He gingerly wrapped a free arm around her waist, pulling her to his mouth.
Oxygen pushed through purple lips, but Naika did not stir. His mind screamed, in anger, in confusion, at the Fates that led them here. Kicking off of the adjacent wall, he thrust them toward the outside world. The living, breathing, blackened world.
* * *
The water stirred along the left edge of the pond. Sirus ran to it, watching the dark waters for a sign of Noah or Naika.
Noah’s head burst through the surface, sloshing water out of his eyes and hair as he hefted a weight at his side. With one long pull, he drew the burning spear from the water and tossed it into the dry mulch nearby. Sirus stared on as Noah disappeared once more, suddenly heaving Naika’s limp body up and out to him. Fear grasped his senses, and panic threatened havoc on his muscles.
“Noah, she’s not breath—“
Noah shoved him back from the bank, pushing his lips to Naika’s and pumping her chest. “Why didn’t you come for us?!” When she did not stir, Noah turned, grabbing Sirus by the collar.
“You were only gone a few seconds! Look man, we have got to get her to a hospital!”
Noah’s fist balled in pending retaliation. “Seconds?! Where the hell does your stupid attitude end? You’re so caught up in your insecurities and your bullshit that you’d let us die?!”
Sirus slapped Noah’s hand away from his throat, sending electricity through the water standing on his skin. “See for your damned self,” he spat, shoving Nell’s pocket watch into Noah’s face.
12:03:35 was all it read.
* * *
Naika, wrapped in tubes, and cords, and bandages was more than Noah’s mind could take. He stared at her from the bedside chair, watching for any sign of consciousness. He knew that soon, the nurses would force him to leave, reciting the rules for visiting hours like perfectly trained parrots. Until then, he would be her guardian, her company, her family.
The hospital room that housed his best friend was plain— stark white walls that jutted at random angles to match the outside flow of rooms and hallways, a long, rectangular window that gave open view of the nurses’ station, and an old tube television hanging from a bracket in the ceiling that only played channels 3, 5, 13, and 30, all of which were showing random afternoon news or court shows. A commercial played over the screen, its captioning hurried along the bottom in big block letters: “Visit the International Peace Garden, home of the unified border! See the Peace Poles, the Sunken Gardens, and numerous memorials that honor those who have come together in the name of peace!” Families, smiling and drenched in sunlight, covered the screen, their children idly pointing at flowers and skipping along the brightened paths. Noah’s eyes squinted involuntarily under the recorded beams of light.
A quiet knock broke his concentration. A tall, lean man came through the door, dressed all in that sickly powder blue— the blue that signifies you are exactly where you don’t want to be. He clicked away at his pen, focused entirely on the patient chart in his hands. Noah cleared his throat, making the doctor jump back against his will.
“I didn’t see you there,” was all he offered.
“Do you know anything yet? Is she going to live, be able to heal?”
The doctor suppressed a cough. “Uh, well, we’re working on it. If we can maintain a stable condition, then the skin graft procedures can begin. We seem a long way off from that right now, but we’ve managed to kill most of the bacteria in her wounds and each of them has been dressed to avoid further complications. She still isn’t breathing on her own.”
Noah glanced at the ventilator next to him. Encased in a frosted plastic fortress full of wires and electricity, the cylindrical pump collapsed in on itself, then expanded again moments later. His head drooped into already-heavy hands. “Got it. Thanks, Doc... I— I didn’t catch your name.”
“Derzelas. Brent Derzelas.”
A flash of recognition shot through Noah’s mind, too quick to grasp.
“And... your burns. Do you need help? They’re quite intense. And a little unusual, in this doctor’s opinion.”
Noah had all but forgotten the charred runes covering his still mud-caked skin, though nine people had already asked. He eyed the rings at his knuckles. They no longer burned orange, but had settled into a dark magenta between ashen edges.
“They don’t hurt at all. Old marks. I, uh...” He was too fried to be clever.
“I understand,” the doctor replied with a slight smile, hiding something in kind brown eyes.
“Also, uh, do you know where her necklaces are?” Noah inquired, exhaustion apparent in his voice.
The doctor pursed his lips, perplexed. “Necklaces?”
“Yeah, she had two on—a black stone and a coin? A bracelet too, glittery thing on a white string?”
“She wasn’t wearing anything at Admission. They probably took them off in the ambulance and put them into a Personal Effects bag. Normal procedure. I’ll check with the nurses, see if they know.”
Noah nodded, giving an abysmal smile in return. “Thank you, Doctor Derzelas, for helping her.”
The man nodded, dropping Naika’s patient clipboard into the file sorter hanging outside her door. It resonated with a dull thud, as though a rock had toppled into the fragile plastic.
He sunk back into the chair, and closed his eyes. A million thoughts painted themselves on the back of his eyelids, overlapping and weaving together in no particular pattern. He had no recollection of getting to the hospital, or checking in, or coming to the room. How did they resuscitate her? She hadn’t been breathing for so long. I know she—
There came the gentle knock of the Head Nurse. A kind woman, she had wrapped them both in warm blankets, and hugged Noah tight as he stood in shock, staring at his friend’s lifeless body.
“Noah, sweetie? I’m sorry, but it’s time to leave. Family only after visiting hours, all that—you know. And here’s a fresh shirt for you. It’s not the finest thing, but it’ll be better than what you’ve got.”
She held out a plain white t-shirt, still folded and starched. He dragged himself out of the chair, shoving his hands into his pockets. He stared at Naika, willing her to move, to open her eyes, to tell him she was fine, as always.
Just one more time. We can do this, Nai.
* * *
A slow tap interrupted his impromptu nap. A short, petite blonde woman stood close to the row of plastic chairs he was strewn across.
“Sir, we can let you know if anything changes. You can go home and rest if you’d like.”
Noah rolled his head to the side, a pain ripping through the opposite side’s muscles. “I’m okay, thank you ma’am.”
The nurse nodded. “Okay,” she murmured, her tight-lipped expression never faltering.
He sat at attention, wiping sleep from squinting eyes, staring at the blurred waiting room around him. Sirus, hands full of cafeteria food, slid into a neighboring chair.
“Hey... you hungry?” Noah raised an eyebrow at him—the both of him that split his vision—before cautiously taking a thick, white, triangular wrapper.
“Two questions: how did you get this, and is it poisoned?”
Sirus took several fries into his mouth at once. “Let’s just say that being, or practicing at being, Zeus has an unexpected benefit. And no, none of it’s poisoned.”
The sandwich had hardly left the paper before Noah chewed into it, crude bits of turkey and tomato falling into his lap.
“Look man, I’m sorry. I don’t get—“
“It’s okay, Noah. Seriously,” Sirus replied, softer than usual. He studied the burger still wrapped in his lap as though it was an unsolvable puzzle. “I’ve lived my whole life with anger issues. I know what it’s like when it happens. I’m usually on the other side of it, but I get it. I don’t know what happened in the water, but I helped when I could.”
Seconds, he had said. Seconds above the surface equaled hours underneath.
“We both drowned,” Noah said curtly, shifting forward in his chair. “These things in the water attacked us. They were freaky bird-women, they sang and screamed, all that... kind of like—“
“Sirens?”
“Yeah... how would you know about sirens?”
He chomped down into his burger. “My family’s always been in the nautical business. Sailors, most of them. My dad was the first one who didn’t want to just sail someone else’s ship, so he opened the Shipmake, the first of its kind anywhere in the area,” Sirus proudly boasted, imitating his father. “Most folks assume you have to live on the water to build for the water, but here, he could get unlimited lumber, cheaper freight, all that. Plus, we could sail the Missouri River to another port, if freight wouldn’t do. Anyway. All of those seafaring stories were passed down. Every generation learns them by heart, almost a rite of passage to be able to recite them.” Noah analyzed his face as he spoke, realizing how much older Sirus looked these days.
We left home two teenage kids. Now we’re ... what are we exactly? A God-incarnate and a miraculous burn victim.
“It was strange. I was paralyzed, but I could see. Naika hadn’t made any noise or movements for a long time. It felt like an eternity passed before the dark just came. At some point, I—my dead body—touched the spear. That’s when this happened,” he pulled the collar of his shirt down, revealing the N-shaped rune housed over his heart. “And somehow, I was alive again. I was branded to hell, but I was alive.”
“Where’s the spear now?”
Noah straightened his pant legs, smoothing out the various pockets before pulling his feet up to the chair’s edge. “It’s hidden. Not customary, or legal for that matter, to bring weapons into hospitals. Especially ones that are six feet long and on fire.” Both boys laughed quietly, nervously.
“You have to keep tight tabs on it now. Think she is going find it again? You’re not around to save it this time,” Sirus elbowed him.
“Damn, I hope not. And I don’t think I saved it before. It was the other way around. I’d like to say this adventure’s killing me, but the old myths won’t let me die.” He wasn’t sure whether to be thankful for that or not.
“Speaking of the old myths, have you checked Naika’s chart? Some in-ter-esting stuff there.”
Noah’s ears pricked at the idea. “No, I haven’t been back since, uh, what time is it?”
Sirus scoffed under his breath, hiding a smirk. “No no no. No more talking to me about time.”
* * *
The half-typed, half-written page read along in clumsy abbreviations and scratchy penmanship:
PATIENT: NAIKA CONNORS – E.P. #38127
CONDITION: CRITICAL – TRAUMA
ISSUES: Major lacerations; epidermis and partial dermis missing- shoulder to forearm, right side, shoulder blade to trapezius, front of 2-5 ribs to sternum, left side. Lungs experiencing shutdown from active drowning, aware at submersion- fluid level in lungs high. Not breathing.
SOLUTIONS: Avulsion skin graft – split-thickness, allogenic. Lungs expelled/resusc. given at time of pickup. Intubation - Monitor breathing – vent. at all times.
The doctor had signed it in red ink. Noah brought the clipboard down hard, more confused than before. “Okay, I don’t understand half this crap, but where’s the ‘interesting’ stuff?”
Sirus had been keeping watch for passing nurses, ensuring that no one got thrown out for tampering. “You can’t see it? It’s clear as day. Er, well, bad analogy these days. You know what I mean.”
Noah brought the clipboard back up to eye level. Zoning out, he let his eyes idly drift over the page. There, in the faintest red ink, were other scribbles that seemed to rest underneath the black print. Symbols and letters of all foreign sorts covered the page above Doctor Derzelas’ signature. “What the hell...?”
“Yeah,” Sirus mused. “What the hell. I don’t know what it says, but it’s old. Ancient, even. Zeus—I, I guess I should say, it never seems natural—must have known something about it. I could see letters immediately. They glowed right off of the page.”
Noah slid the clipboard back into the file sorter as delicately as he could. He chewed the side of his lip, speculating over the writing and Doctor Derzelas at all once. “When Doctor Derzelas told me his name, it was familiar. I don’t know why, though. Maybe it has something to do with all these,” he indicated his newest scars, “not to mention, he said he understood my burns when I couldn’t explain. What if he didn’t mean the burns themselves, but the runes? What if he knows what’s going on?”
Sirus inspected the marks that circled Noah’s arms. “We’ll find out next time we get the good doctor alone.”
Noah ducked back into Naika’s room, while Sirus leaned in the open doorway. Her limp wrist wore new wristbands, all bunched together on one side: OXYGEN DEP. spread along a yellow band, another had CRITICAL stamped in black on red. The third had her vital information printed plainly in white and black; name, patient number, birthdate, gender, emergency contact. The entirety of oxygen in his chest escaped the instant he read her name.
Chier A. Genley.
He reread the bracelet a hundred times before opening his mouth. “How...?” He muttered, his voice gaining enormous volume as he finished, “HOW is this here?!”
Sirus jerked away from the doorframe. “What? What is it?”
Noah yanked Naika’s wrist forward, not realizing that he had pulled her entire body to the side of the bed.
Amber eyes ran across the bracelet before his mouth dropped open. “Do you think they’ve contacted her already? This could be bad.”
The telephone at her bedside rang, a twangy mess of noise that was made even louder in the small space. Noah snatched the handset up, holding it to his ear without questioning the caller. Seconds went by in silence before the voice spoke.
“Hello? Hello, is anyone there?”
His eyelids slid closed. He held his breath, not responding, just calculating. An exasperated sigh came through the line. “Chier?”
The caller gasped, shocked. “Noah? Oh my God, Noah! I’ve never been so happy to hear your voice! What is going on?!”
He wanted to flood her with new information. The forest. Nell. The mound. Hekate. Zeus and gods and monsters, all living in them. His burns. His love. “Chier, how did you find us?”
She hesitated, hurt by his tone. “I—it’s all over the news! Someone being maimed and drowned at the International Peace Garden, and it’s Naika they’re hurdling away?! The hospital was listed on the ticker, though they didn’t name her as the victim. I’ve gone through so many people to find you guys. I’ve been so worried... I thought you’d be happy to hear from me.”
Noah pulled at the edges of his anger. He knew it wasn’t her fault. “No, Chi, I’m very happy to hear your voice. You have no idea. But it’s incredibly dangerous for you to contact us, or us, you. We don’t need anyone to find out where you are. Or us, for that matter.”
“Noah, I don’t understand. Why? I’m a big girl, you know. I can handle myself pretty well.”
Visions of Eris filled his head. What could he tell her that would help? Be on the lookout for some lady that looks like everyone else, but is an evil goddess who happens to be involved with a life-eating monster?
“You’ll have to trust me. I want you to be safe. This whole thing’s gotten out—“
The line went dead, the off-hook tone blaring in his ear. His mind flooded with panic. He sat the receiver down before immediately picking it back up. The dial-tone greeted him with its pleasant, warm tones. Back down, back up. Nothing but empty lines, waiting to be used. Would he dare call her now, destroying the web of protection he was trying to weave? His hand lingered over the number pad before the busy signal choked the line. It took everything in him to slide the handset back into its cradle.
“Maybe she’ll call back. She doesn’t need to, but maybe she will.”
Sirus squatted down beside him, fidgeting with a straw wrapper between his knees. “Maybe she will,” he reaffirmed quietly. The two of them sat in silence, waiting for a call that might never come.