River
My flesh had never felt so cold before. I couldn’t resist rubbing my hands over my arms as I struggled not to lose my meager lunch.
“Is that allowable?” one of the skelleins called out. “Aren’t they all supposed to prove their merit?”
“What of the laws?” others called out.
The skellein with the cane peered at us before turning to face the occupants of the bar. “I think it will be proving their merit if they all stick together on this. The laws state that we decide if someone is worthy or not to pass through our tests. However, we’ve never come across something like this before, so we shall put it to a vote. Those who are willing to allow one to answer three questions for all of them, raise your hands.”
They exchanged looks before every hand in the bar shot up. “It seems we all agree it shall be fun to try something new!” the skellein with the cane declared before turning back to us.
“I will not allow this to happen,” Kobal grated through his teeth.
“I can do this,” Erin insisted. Her ocean blue eyes burned intensely when she turned to face us. “I really am good at riddles. I can do this.”
“You can walk away,” I said.
“You said you sucked at this, and I can do it, so let me.”
“You owe me nothing for what happened with the canaghs.”
“I know that. I’m doing this for my friend and because I’ve never backed away from a challenge. I’m also very curious as to what this gate looks like.”
“We all are,” Hawk said, and Vargas nodded beside him.
A lump formed in my throat. More objections swelled within me, but I held them back. I would stand by their decision even if I didn’t like it. Kobal’s eyes had become a piercing amber when I focused on him again.
I rested my hand on his arm, drawing his attention away from the skelleins to me. “We have no other choice. Erin can do this.”
“Thank you,” Erin said.
“None of the riddles can be anything about Hell or demons,” Bale declared loudly. “The humans know nothing of our world and the laws have always been meant to be fair.”
The skellein before me rubbed his chin while some chattered their displeasure over those terms and others their acceptance. “The riddles will involve things only dealing with the human realm,” the one with the cane declared. There were happy thuds on the bar following this and disgruntled sounds, but no one argued with his declaration. “Are you all in agreement of the terms then?”
“Yes,” the four of us replied.
Kobal didn’t speak as he watched the walking, talking set of bones across from us. The skellein stared at him before bowing his head. “It is what must be done, my king,” he murmured. “If she were not your Chosen you wouldn’t argue against this. If it were not our laws, we would not disagree with you on it, as you well know.”
A muscle twitched in Kobal’s jaw. “I know, but if this goes wrong, we will fight,” he vowed.
“I hope that does not happen. Truly, all of us wish to only stand with you.”
A chorus of agreement ran through the bar. “For our king,” one of them said and raised its mug of beer.
“For our king!” they cheered, their glasses clinking together before they downed their contents.
“Weirdest fucking demons yet,” Hawk muttered and I nodded my agreement.
The skellein with the cane focused on Erin once more. “Brave girl.” Turning away, he threw his hands into the air and twirled his cane around. “Who will ask the first question?”
“’Tis my turn!” one yelled happily from the restaurant area.
The black bandanna he wore around his head was askew and sliding to the right. Across his left eye was an eyepatch with a pearl in the middle of it. Grabbing his mug from the scarred wooden table, he shoved back his rickety chair and rose to his feet. Pale liquid sloshed over the sides of his glass as he walked.
“Unbelievable,” Hawk muttered. “It’s fucking One-eyed Willy.”
I didn’t know who One-eyed Willy was, but despite the horribleness of this situation, I bit back a hysterical laugh as the skellein approached us. It was all so surreal that I couldn’t quite believe we were actually standing here, preparing to answer riddles from walking skeletons. The first of which believed he was a pirate.
The pirate stopped a few feet away from Erin. He finished off his beer and placed it on the bar. By now, I knew it didn’t happen, but I kept waiting for liquid to trickle out of him like it used to with the one baby doll I’d had as a child.
“I know!” Pirate clapped his hands together beside his right earhole.
The clacking of the bones made me wince. With baited breath, I waited for his fingers to break off and fly in different directions. His fingers remained intact and his jaw pulled back into a grin. Stepping closer to us, his empty eye sockets peered intently at Erin who didn’t break the skellein’s unwavering stare.
“There's a land where there's mummies and daddies but no babies. Books but no libraries. Mirrors but no reflections. Kittens but no cats. Cattle but no cows. Lollipops but no candy, and trees but no forests. It's the land of what?” the pirate inquired.
My stomach sank. I was pretty sure the pirate had spoken in a foreign language. I didn’t know what to make of the jumble of garbage that had spilled from his mouth. I didn’t dare look at Erin; I didn’t want to add unnecessary pressure to her, but I was dying to know if she’d understood anything of what he’d said.
I was still trying to puzzle out what language the skellein might have been speaking, when Erin replied, “It’s the land of double letters.”
The entire bar became silent before a cheer went through the crowd. The skelleins clanked their mugs together; beer spilled over the dark wood surface of the bar in sloshing puddles.
“I guess that was the right answer,” Vargas said slowly.
“Yes,” Kobal said.
Hawk rested his hands on Erin’s shoulders and massaged them enthusiastically. “You got this!”
The one who had asked the question waved his fingers and gave Erin an elegant bow. Turning away, he made his way back to the table and settled in as another one made his way forward. This one wore a baseball cap turned backward and a pair of cowboy boots. It took everything I had not to laugh at the spectacle of those bony legs disappearing into the oversized boots.
The skellein stopped before us and tapped his finger against his chin as he stared at Erin. The click of his finger hitting against his bone sounded like a tree branch scraping across glass.
Finally, he spoke. “I have four wings, but cannot fly, I never laugh and never cry; on the same spot I'm always found, toiling away with little sound. What am I?”
I didn’t have a chance to speculate what that could possibly mean before Erin answered. “A windmill.”
Now, when everyone in the bar cheered, so did Hawk, Vargas, and I along with Corson and Bale. Only Kobal and Erin remained mute and watchful. The skellein gave her a brief salute before returning to his stool to cheer with the others.
“Why are they having so much fun with this if she’s getting them right?” I asked.
“They will take the flesh because it’s the law, but the complexities and cleverness of the mind are what they enjoy most,” Corson replied. “These demons love their puzzles and riddles.”
That was for sure, as I now realized all the things scattered across the bar and tables were some form of a puzzle waiting to be solved. The skelleins were grinning as happily at us as leprechauns did at their pots of gold. If they weren’t planning to tear the skin from our bodies if Erin got a riddle wrong, I may have actually gotten a kick out of these creatures.
Another one lifted his mug and swung off of his stool. His toes clicked on the wooden floor as he did an odd little two-step toward us and pulled off the black felt hat sitting on his head.
“You’re fine competition, miss, but now I’ve got one for you,” he said happily. “The measurement of time that can't be found on a clock, but can be looked upon on a map.
Who am I?”
Erin’s mouth pursed as she contemplated his words. The skelleins settled down once more. I held my breath, my lungs burning as the seconds ticked into minutes on the cuckoo clock. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Erin as a bead of sweat slid down my temple and curved around to my chin. Convinced wiping it away would distract Erin, I didn’t touch it.
I kept expecting her to blurt out the answer with the same ease she had before, but I found myself drawing air into my deprived lungs as another minute went by. The jovial atmosphere of the bar vanished, and a menacing air intensified within it.
More sweat slid down my back, adhering my shirt to my skin. “You must answer,” the one who had asked the question said.
I finally dared to look at Erin. Her finger tapped against her mouth, and her eyes were half closed as she muttered something. At first, I didn’t realize she was repeating the riddle to herself, but then I heard the word “time.”
You can do this, those words remained lodged in my throat so as not to add more pressure to her. Kobal was unmoving, his eyes focused on the bar. Behind Erin, Vargas and Hawk had paled. Erin’s lips moved as she ran through the riddle one more time.
“You have to answer now, or it is a forfeit,” the questioner said.
Erin’s lips moved as she finished saying the riddle to herself one more time. “I am Mississippi?”
The rise of her voice at the end made it come out as more of a question than a statement. I turned to the skellein, my heart hammering as I tried to figure out if she was right. It made sense now that she’d said it, but she’d hadn’t had the same confidence with this response as she had with the first two.
Across from her, the skellein put his hat back on, took a sip of his drink, and lifted his mug high into the air with a loud cry. I didn’t know if his shout had meant tonight we feast on flesh, or if it had been another celebration of a puzzle well solved. Around the bar, all the skelleins cheered and stomped their clattering feet on the ground.
Someone had to let us know if she’d been right before I screamed.
The skellein bowed to Erin before doing his odd little two-step away. He was almost to his stool when he threw up his feet and clicked his heels together at waist level.
“Are they going to skin us or not?” Hawk demanded.
“Bring her again, Kobal!” one of them cheered.
“The gateway is at the end of the hall!” another cried.
I guess that was our answer. Grabbing hold of Erin, I gave her a hug. Vargas embraced her next. Then Hawk lifted her up and spun her around as he whooped loudly. Erin almost fell over when he set her back on her feet, but Corson grasped her arm to steady her.
“Nice job,” Corson said.
“Thanks,” she said and straightened her hair.
I glanced at Kobal as he took hold of my elbow and led me down the hall toward a set of glass doors. As we walked, the skelleins leaned back on their stools and held out their palms to Erin when she strolled by. Her brow furrowed, but then she lifted her palm and began to high-five them as they continued to cheer loudly.
“Smart and pretty,” one of them said eagerly. “My kind of lady.”
Erin blushed but continued to slap the palms facing her, some of them turned to slap five behind their backs too. They were an odd group, a little disconcerting to look at, but their enthusiasm was contagious. By the time we arrived at the door leading to the hall, they were all chattering happily again. The one at the piano burst into a fast-paced song that had many of them tapping their feet to the music.
My smile over their happiness vanished when Kobal pushed open the door to reveal the hall beyond. He kept me close against his side as we made our way down the hall. The dull wood of the wall emphasized the deep-red carpet beneath my feet.
“Were those things demons too?” Vargas asked. “Or something else entirely.”
“They’re a breed of upper-level demon,” Kobal replied. “After what the humans did, I left the skelleins here to protect the unnatural gateway the best they could, and the hounds are protecting the seals.”
“But something is happening to the hounds,” Erin said.
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” Vargas murmured as he rubbed at his cross.
My fingers went to my necklace; they ran reassuringly over the shells as we stopped at the end of the hall and stood before another wooden door. Kobal rested his hand against the knob as he watched me.
“This is it,” he said.
I thrust my shoulders back, bracing myself for the Hell beyond that door. Glancing behind me, I dimly heard the enthusiastic play of the piano as the skelleins continued their celebration. There would be no music beyond this point, of that I was certain.
Turning the knob, Kobal shoved open the door.