Michael was dead. Susanna supposed she should feel bad about that. She searched her feelings, hunting for a hint of grief, but all she felt was tired. Cold, and bone-tired.
It was his own fault, anyway. She’d done everything she could to protect him. She’d urged him to be faster, but he couldn’t do it. He’d been sick, his body couldn’t take the sudden physical activity. He needed to rest. Just for a minute. And then a minute again.
Well, he’d rested too long. He should have listened to her, believed what she was saying. He wasn’t sick and his body didn’t need to rest any more. It was all just his mind, clinging on to the form it knew.
They hadn’t even made it to the valley. Perhaps that was something to be grateful for. Susanna couldn’t imagine trying to brave it in a blizzard. He’d never have made it the length of that death trap – and if, by some miracle, he had, the lake would have finished him off. Still, it rankled Susanna’s pride a bit that they hadn’t even got past the ‘easy levels’.
That’s how a boy had described it to her once: like the stages of a video game. Beginners started off easy, with simple terrain and manageable ‘baddies’. Then, when they had learned the basics, they moved up to intermediate. That was where things got more challenging – testing the mettle of the player. Survive that and you graduated to ‘expert’. The final levels, where the ‘big baddie’ lurked and had to be defeated in order to complete the game.
Susanna had to admit that his analogy fit neatly into the trials of the wasteland crossing, but still it made her uncomfortable. Because it wasn’t a game. Winning was the difference between life and death. Well, survival and extinction. If you died in the wasteland, you couldn’t go back to the beginning and start again. You were just… gone.
She didn’t say that to the boy, however. He’d been ill his whole short life, a rare condition forcing him to spend his time indoors, away from the world and all its germs and viruses. Computer games had been his reality. He’d seen almost as little of the real world as Susanna had – and she’d made damned sure he made it through every level of the wasteland, past the ‘big baddie’ and safely to the finish line.
Perhaps if she’d tried that hard with Michael, he’d have made it too.
Sighing, Susanna turned from the spot where the wraiths had dragged Michael’s soul under, the snow churned up and stained pink with blood – both hers and his – and began to walk away. As she moved, the crunching snow beneath her feet began to evaporate and the dour grey sky brightened. For a short moment everything glowed a blinding shade of white – Susanna was heartily sick of that colour – then gradually the world began to reform. She was walking on a narrow dirt road beside a river. Vast rice paddies extended out into the distance, their green stalks vibrant in the sun. Not far away, a small village nestled in the hill. Her destination.
As she walked, Susanna felt her hair growing, sliding further down her shoulders until it tumbled along her back. Her strides became choppy as her legs shortened and her reed-thin body thickened. By the time the transformation was complete, she felt awkward and clumsy. She pursed her lips in annoyance. This new form was squat and round, would be unwieldy and cumbersome if they had to run, or fight.
The house was smaller than most, a squat little single storey dwelling with a tiled roof that seemed to dip slightly in the middle. The doorway sat back from a wooden porch, etched and painted with swirling designs so faded Susanna could barely make them out. It had the look of a place that had been well kept, but recently neglected. Flowers fought with weeds in carefully built beds, and the grass had grown until it drooped over the flat stones on the path to the door. Inside, the air smelled like incense, acrid and slightly overwhelming in the small space. An alcove halfway down the hall held a half-dozen incense sticks, blackened on a ceramic burner before a small statue of Buddha, his belly fat and eyes smiling.
The bedroom at the back remained dark despite the warm sunshine outside. Entering, Susanna stared at the small figure on the bed for a heartbeat, then rounded the heavy wooden footboard and opened the curtains. Outside, the real world and the wasteland blended seamlessly together. Though she stood in the wasteland – the curtains in her hands a figment of the woman’s imagination – the world she could see beyond was real. And so close.
The window wasn’t large, but enough light filtered through to reveal a faded yellow colour on the walls, a delicate flowered covering on the bed.
“My Lian doesn’t visit me any more,” a low, warbling voice said, and Susanna jumped. Her gaze flitted to the face of the woman on the bed. Xing You Yu. She wasn’t still asleep, as Susanna had thought, but watching her with calm brown eyes.
“But I am here, Grandmother.” Susanna smiled, taking on the role she’d been assigned.
“Yes, you are here,” the old woman said, shifting to a seated position with a groan. “But you aren’t her.”
“Grandmother?” Susanna frowned prettily, smiling in feigned confusion. She was an exact copy of You Yu’s granddaughter, she knew. Right down to her eye colour, every detail would be perfect.
“Don’t lie to me,” You Yu chided. “I know Death when I see him.”
Susanna said nothing, a bit taken aback.
“You wish me to go with you, I suppose.” The legs that swung round to land on the carpet were as thin as a bird’s, and the arm that reached out to grab the robe slung over the footboard was frail.
“Yes, Grandmother,” Susanna tried again. “I’ve come to take you out for a walk. It’s a beautiful sunny day.”
“Don’t call me that!” The old woman snapped, eyes sharp on Susanna. “You are not my Lian.” Her eyes ran the length of Susanna and the harsh expression softened. “I told you, she doesn’t visit me any more. It makes her too sad. And me too, I suppose.” She sighed. “But it is nice of Death to wear such a familiar face. You’ll give me time to dress?”
Susanna nodded mutely.
They left a short time later, You Yu – as she had instructed Susanna to call her – in sensible walking boots with a simple tunic and sturdy trousers dyed a heart’s blood red. It was too warm outside for the dark green wool-lined jacket she’d also donned, but Susanna didn’t comment, knowing how quickly the weather could change in the wasteland. A drop in You Yu’s mood and they would be facing bitter winds and driving rain.
But the sun still shone as they walked back down the little path. You Yu stopped halfway and drew a deep breath into her lungs, tilting her deep-lined face up to bask in the brightness.
“Emphysema,” she said quietly. “That’s the first full breath I’ve taken in…” a shake of her head, “I don’t know how long.” Hands on her hips, she gazed before her, and Susanna looked too. Though the village square was peaceful, there was still a quiet life about the place. An old man bent over a hoe in his garden to their left, and a young couple with a baby in a pram were walking slowly towards them.
“I shall miss this place,” You Yu said quietly. “I have lived my whole life here.”
“Perhaps you’ll see it again,” Susanna offered.
“You don’t know?” You Yu asked, raising a questioning brow in Susanna’s direction.
“No,” she answered honestly. “I am only your guide for this part of the journey.”
“Hmmm,” was You Yu’s only response. Then, after one last, lingering look, “Well, lead on.”
They took to the road, and You Yu didn’t seem to notice that the gardener didn’t respond to her wave, or the young couple to her smile. They were real, they were there – it was You Yu who wasn’t. She was a hairsbreadth to the left, a step out of time. When they left the village, the road would seamlessly blend into the first tracts of the wasteland. That they were so close to the real world, yet utterly out of reach of it, was still hard even for Susanna to comprehend, and she’d been doing this for… well, she didn’t know exactly how long, but it seemed like forever. The world, reality, life, was so close here. Within touching distance.
Gripped by that thought, Susanna did something she’d never, ever attempted. As they passed by the young couple, who were pointing out what a shame it was that You Yu’s beloved garden was being allowed to fall into disarray, Susanna reached out. She let her fingers trail through the air by the woman’s arm, searching for the soft stroke of the lemon-coloured cashmere cardigan she wore.
Nothing. Though she searched with her heart and soul as well as her hand, she felt nothing. The veil between the wasteland and the world might be so gossamer-thin as to be invisible, but it held.
“Did you just mark that woman for death?” You Yu asked quietly as the young parents continued their walk unaware.
“No,” Susanna replied honestly. “I couldn’t touch her.”
She did her very best to keep the bitter gall of disappointment out of her voice. How had Tristan done it?
How?
Because if he could do it, maybe she could too. Maybe she could be with him again.