“Hey, babe…Uh. Where you going with the scuba gear?” Dave watches me lugging the oxygen tank outside, a pair of fins dangling off my elbow.
“Swimming.”
“I didn’t know you signed us up for more lessons.”
“I didn’t.” I don’t even remember taking any lessons at all. I go outside and slide on my boots.
“Then where you going?”
“The river.” It’s a bit of a hike, but that’s the only reference I’ve found in the journals.
…the place where the river bends around a large boulder that sticks three feet from the water. At the base is a window. It is only partially visible in the summer when the water is low.
It’s winter now, which means the window is submerged since the river will be full. We get a lot of snowstorms and rain this time of year.
“Are you crazy, babe?” Dave runs and stops in front of me. “That water is freezing.”
No shit. “Thus the wetsuit I have on.” Too bad I have no clue how to use an oxygen tank, but how difficult can it be? Turn knob, breathe.
“Lake, I’m not going to let you risk our baby’s life with this insane stunt. What’s gotten into you?”
“Monsters.”
He gives me a perturbed look.
“Oh, and by the way, I know you fucked around behind my back the entire time in college. You’re probably fucking someone now, too, and if you’re not, you’re definitely thinking about it.” I open the tank and throw it on my back. I tap the mouthpiece to see if air is coming out. “And I want a divorce.”
I leave him standing there and beeline for the river. Tall trees, mostly bare now, bow over the edges like skeletons there to witness our doom.
I step into the shallow edge of the water and put on my fins. “Oh, Jesus!” The cold sends a sharp pain shooting up my legs. The rock mentioned in the journal is about thirty feet downstream. I’ll have to cut across the current to hit it and then hope I’m a good enough swimmer to dive before the current pushes me past the spot.
“Lake! Don’t you dare! That’s my baby too.”
Oh no. Dave is back. I pop in the mouthpiece, push myself into the current, and start swimming.
I hope the window is there, because if it’s not, I’m pretty sure I’ll freeze to death. This wetsuit isn’t cutting it.
“Lake, get out of that water! You’ll freeze.”
Yet, if he were a brave man, he’d be jumping in the water to get me out. Instead, he just stands there watching. Coward. How the hell did I end up marrying him?
I struggle, kicking with my fins to center myself in the river, and then I push my face into the freezing water. I should’ve used a mask, but I figured it would just get in the way.
I breathe in and out; the tank is working at least. But when I look underwater, I only see shadows, faint outlines of stones. That’s about it. Please be there. I need to know what happens.
I’m almost to the boulder and dive down. Immediately, I feel something pulling me, like I’m being sucked down a drain. My body lights on fire, and a searing pain courses through my veins.
When I wake, it’s like the times before. I can’t move. My body is “settling,” as the Wall Men call it, part of the process of being picked apart by the bridge and melded back together, piece by piece.
The tank is still on me, and I’m underwater, tangled in a net.
I patiently wait to move a finger, then an arm. I fight the paralysis until I regain movement of my entire body and swim straight for the surface.
I spit out the mouthpiece and inhale the sulfur-scented air. The good news is that I made it to Monsterland, but I have no clue where I am exactly. It’s a massive room enclosing the rectangular pool. The walls and ceiling are made of stone. Slivers of sunlight pour through slits in the walls, where I can see the orange and red sky outside. There are several ledges around the pool with baskets tied to long sticks.
This must be where the water flows into Monsterland and out to the waterfall. They probably keep the nets around to catch any unlucky fish that come across the bridge. Free food.
I wiggle out of my tank and push it up on the ledge. I then pull myself up, grateful for the temperate air. I strip the suit from my shivering body, leaving me in my underwear and bra. It’s Monsterland. They’re not going to care. Most of the women here wear animal hide that barely covers a thing.
My hair dripping and my skin covered in goosebumps, I shiver my way down a long empty corridor with a towering ceiling. The air is still and eerily quiet.
Where are the Wall Men? Where are their people?
I keep going, taking turn after turn, hoping this passage will lead to one of the big halls or Alwar’s dwelling.
“Hello?”
I walk for over an hour, finding empty rooms and more vacant hallways. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Panic starts to overtake me. Like the version of home I just came from, this doesn’t feel right either.
“Hello! Alwar? Where are you?”
I finally reach one of those enormous stone paneled doors hooked up to several pullies. I push, and the thing swings open onto a courtyard bathed in red.
“Oh fuck.” That’s blood. Gallons of it.
I walk outside, my bare feet sticking to the blood-soaked ground, my eyes scanning for trolls, Skins, any danger.
Two War men are slouched over in the corner next to the barrier separating the courtyard from a steep drop-off. Both giants have gaping claw marks on their chests. They aren’t breathing.
A Flier did this. I turn to go back inside, but sitting up against the wall, just on the other side of the open door, is Bard clutching his bleeding neck. He’s huge. Just as big as Alwar.
“Bard?” I run over. There’s blood coming from his mouth and ears. “Ohmygod. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help you.” How is he alive again? How is he a giant? “Bard, where’s Alwar?”
“Alwar?” He coughs.
“Yes. He’ll know what to do.”
Bard’s bloodshot eyes flutter open. “What are you doing here?”
“Something’s not right back home. I changed things or made a mistake, or I don’t know.” I came to see Alwar and figure it out. I put my hands around Bard’s finger and squeeze. “Please tell me what to do, how to save you?”
“There is no saving me, First woman. Now go find shelter with the children in the keep. And seal that door before the trolls get here. They are already halfway up the stairs.”
First woman? “You don’t remember me?”
“Why would I?”
Shit. So I was right; Bard and I never meet. That’s why I marry Dave. “Bard, I need to find Alwar. Where is he?”
“Dead. Along with that fucking traitor, Gabrio.”
No, no, no. “What? When?”
“What do you care? Be gone. Let me die in peace.”
“But you don’t understand,” I plead. “You guys can’t lose. You have to stop the monsters from taking the wall.”
“It is inevitable.” He exhales with a pained sputter. “Now go close the fucking door, stupid woman!”
I step back. I’m not even sure what to say. This is a different Bard, and I’m not just talking about his size. “Just tell me when Alwar and Gabrio died, and I’ll leave.”
“Over two hundred years ago,” Bard mumbles. “When they sided with my fucking traitor of a mother.”
So Bard stayed here, and Alwar and Gabrio went to my world with their mother? That is not how things are supposed to play out.
A loud bark from behind makes me jump.
I turn, and it’s a Great Dane with big expressive brown eyes and black polka dots on his soft white fur.
“Master?”
He growls. Not even he knows me.
“Go!” Bard yells. “Seal that door and take that fucking scholar with you. Let me die in peace, you cunt.”
His words bite down on my heart. Even if he’s never met me, I always believed our relationship was something that defied, well, everything. Worlds, time, death… Was I wrong?
At least now I know part of the reason why I lost the baby. Gabrio and I never meet. Bard neither.
Shrieks and howls sound off in the distance, and high above us, winged black figures form into a circle. The Fliers are coming.
“Okay. I’m going.”
I slowly walk past the growling dog and glance over my shoulder, taking in Bard’s enormous body. I don’t want to leave him. I don’t want to let him die alone. He has no idea what he means to me. I hold back the sobs. “You coming, Master?”
The scholar gives me a distrusting look but follows me back inside. I pull the huge door shut and press my hands against the cool stone, silently saying a prayer for Bard. “Just know you were loved,” I whisper. “In this life and the last one. Goodbye.”