Betwixt (42 page)

He could make something here, Ondine thought, walking
past the vast, solid milky-blue canvas that was Lake Michigan. I could make something here.

She was heading toward the rose garden at the center of Grant Park — the taxi driver had told her where to go — and had seen
a small silver fish, no bigger than the eucalyptus leaves they had back in Oregon, lying dead in the grass some distance from
the lake. Too far for the fish to have gotten on its own. A bird must have dropped it from its beak. Its eyes had been eaten
out by ants already, and a silent column of them was entering its body through the holes in its head. Immediately Ondine thought
of Raphael, and envisioned a painting: the silver fish, the water behind, the column of ants, but far, too far, from the lake.

How we get from here to there; how it makes such delicate sense. How every story, even the one she was living, was an attempt
to explain that improbable jump.

It was past season and only a few wilting petals hung on to their frizzle-topped hips. No benches beckoned, and Chicago’s
rose garden — unlike Portland’s pride — was small enough to see entire. So Ondine just stood there, hands crossed over her
chest, looking up at the skyscrapers or at the tops of distant trees, or the blue lake beyond, every so often scanning the
level of the bushes for the brown woman who had served her a club soda at 30,000 feet the day before.

Surely the woman would approach her if she were here.
Surely she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. She looked at her watch, then pulled the napkin out of her pocket, staring at
its neat black letters, slightly fuzzy at the edges from where the ink had bled.

“I’m glad you came.”

A shining voice reached her ears and Ondine looked up. It was she. Deb. Donna. Whatever her name was, who used to sell chemicals
on the road. Her seatmate on the plane, wife of Mike, though she remembered a different voice. With the migraines. Who had
offered her eyedrops, which Ondine refused. Still carrying that purse, black, shiny, which she was reaching into now with
a pale, freckled, bony right hand. Ondine’s heart skipped and something lower slipped. She turned on her heel to run.

She had been tricked. Manipulated. Again. If they had converts on planes, if they could single Ondine out, find her, track
her down —

She started to panic but checked herself. She had almost reached the border of the park. If she could breach it she could
run away. She could go to the police —

And there was Donna again. In front of her. Deb. Diane. How had she gotten here? From there? And it was not a gun or a knife
in the woman’s hand, but a small brown bottle with a black stopper. Eyedrops.

“Ondine.”

When had she revealed her name? How did this woman know her? She was in Chicago now. It was a day later. She had stayed with
her parents last night. Her mother had awoken her. She had eaten no breakfast.

The woman approached her and Ondine backed up into the pathways that cut through the roses like a small labyrinth. The woman,
her dark hair pulled back today to reveal massive purple-gray eyes behind fuchsia middle-aged lady glasses, stepped toward
her, still holding out the small glass bottle.

“Ondine, look at me. Look at me carefully. You know who I am. You came here because you know. We must not spend too much time
or energy on this. There is a cutter after you. The stewardess —”

“Flight attendant —,” she whispered. Was she stoned? What was happening to her?

“On the plane. She will kill you. She tried last night, with the club soda. That’s why I tipped it over. She — or someone
— is here at this park, right now, I am sure of it. She gave you that note to lure you here. I am lucky I intercepted it.
I can stay only for a moment, or she will try to kill me, too.”

What was she doing with her face, this woman? Was it her glasses? Was it the shadow of a building? How did she get it to look
like that, her eyes getting bigger, the black hair pulled back, coiling into a ring of —

“We can change a little, most of us. Our appearance. Obviously we don’t want to do that too often. Humans scare easily with
things they don’t understand.”

Ondine stilled here, aware of nothing but this woman in front of her, the eyes, the light breeze ruffling the leaves around
them. Everything was pixilated and very, very bright. From outside, she knew, the scene comprised nothing more than two women,
one older, one younger, one brown, one pale pink, stopping in a park to say hello. But inside she was that little silver fish,
in something’s beak, about to be let go.

“His name is Tim Bleeker. You know him. He is dangerous. Right now he is planning something with your ring — to hurt your
ring. He has sent another cutter to kill you. You must use these drops. They will help you see clearly. Just use them. Then
fight. We don’t have any time.”

The woman straightened, reached into her purse once more, and handed Ondine a letter.

“Read this. I have to go now. She is coming; I can smell her, and I must go. You have to help them. They need you. The key
is in your blood. Are you hearing me, Ondine? The key is in your blood, and you have to find a way to use it. You don’t need
to understand yet, but are you hearing me?”

Ondine could not do anything. She could only stand and stare.

Beyond the woman she could make out an old lady standing
by the edge of a bank of trees, her hand tethered to a leash, at the end of which was a small black dog.

“You have the power to fold the worlds. But perhaps you are still too young. Have you discovered who you are yet? Have you
had the inkling?”

The woman moved closer now, her quartz-colored eyes wide and staring at Ondine’s own. It was Viv, she realized. It was Viv.
The woman whose egg —

The woman who had donated —

Ondine wanted very much to sit down and cry.

“No,” she whispered. She had no idea why she’d just spoken.

“It’s all right.” The woman reached her hand out slowly and placed the small bottle in Ondine’s palm. She felt herself grasp
it. “If a changeling is given her gift too soon, she risks not feeling its full weight. The burden of her power.” Viv paused,
staring. “It’s why they gave us wings in their pictures. It’s why they make us prettier than them. Power is very heavy. But
you’re ready, Ondine. You’re ready now. You must …”

She was already moving away, quickly now, looking around. “I have to go. Take this and use it.” She looked at the girl one
last time. “I’m sorry this is happening so soon. I’m sorry I could not clear your path.”

Then she stopped. “I love you, Ondine. We all do.”

By the time the words reached Ondine’s ears, the woman was gone, faded into the space between the trees at the edge of
the park. She felt the smooth bottle in her hand. The old woman with the dog lifted her head and walked away.

W
OULD IT ALWAYS GO BACK TO THIS
?

This
meaning alone, in a dark place, looking for something he wasn’t even sure he could see.

It wasn’t until Nix reached a dead end — his feet stubbing an earthen wall, hands searching damp dirt — that he knew he had
lost Morgan. He had told her to be silent; now he regretted it. He could die — or at least, his body could. How foolhardy
he’d been to come down to the tunnels, with no real sense of what he could or could not do. Nix didn’t like being underground.
Every hair on his body distended, sweat trickled down his clammy neck. He was afraid to move lest he touch something — someone?
He didn’t know what was around him because he couldn’t see anything, and the whole reason he’d come down here, to find Neve,
seemed distant as the sun. Something he read in high school came to him:

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Dante.

He had to find her. He had to get close enough to take the light.

He traced his hands across slimy earth and found a corner, turning to face it. Despite the thudding in his chest, he willed
himself to calm down. His throat constricted — what was that bitter smell? — but he made himself stand up straight, thereby
knocking his head against the ceiling and feeling damp earth trickle inside his collar. When had the ceiling gotten so low?

With one hand on the wall he fumbled for the mini-flashlight he had tucked into his pocket before he’d left the squat. He
hadn’t wanted to use it, hadn’t wanted to allow himself to be seen, but now …

A cold, white light illuminated a shoe, and Nix was almost surprised to realize it was his own. What he had thought was dirt
was gray clay, scored with soft, round marks, as if hollowed out by dripping water. He bent to look at them. Overlapping ridged
grooves were interrupted here and there by flatter, rounder, wider impressions — somewhat familiar. Surely he would have remembered
going into a room. Was he that disoriented?

One of the impressions was separated from the others. He traced it with a trembling finger, inscribing a rude, squarish circle,
hollow at the center. He laid his fingers against the wall.

The last creation before the grave.

Palm prints. They were palm prints. Someone desperate in the dark, trying to get out. Then the light was going, searching,
darting everywhere around him in the small cavern. On every surface he could see, in every square inch, overlapping palm prints
pushing against clay.

Nix dropped the flashlight and it rolled away from him. He
grabbed for it and the light skipped over something metallic. With one hand he held the flashlight, and with the other he
pried the necklace from the clay and held it in front of him. It swayed and glinted in the light. Cheap, gold-plated.

Neve,
it read, in cursive hand.

That’s when Nix heard the screaming.

T
HE FIRST THING MOTH SAW
on the other side was the door behind him.

He walked toward it. Was it the door he had just come through? He took a step, reached out his hand to touch it, and found
himself farther away than when he’d started, his hand nowhere to be seen. Another step. Farther again. He turned. It was an
empty earth-lined tunnel Moth saw, but strangely, as if constructed from fading Christmas lights. One corner of his vision
was illuminated and he wondered what it was that gave the tunnel its eerie, ultraviolet cast. Had he already entered the limina?
Was this what it looked like? As if he were playing Xbox with night-vision goggles?

He reached a hand in front of him. His stomach seized when he didn’t see it rise. He dropped it and once more lifted it. Nothing.
All he saw was the light, seemingly brighter now, but a
strange shade of cold blue. Everything else, the walls, the ceiling, he saw as if through a screen.

He turned once more and again there was the door, which he walked toward, reaching his hand out —

He was walking backward. He wasn’t used to paying attention to his eyes, but as he rolled them around in their sockets he
realized: something had happened to them. He swiveled his head. Right was left. Left, right. Even before he reached a trembling
hand up to touch his face he sensed his eyeballs had moved, or grown. They seemed to be on the side of his head now, and larger—much
larger. He reached his hand up, straining his peripheral vision. Finally he caught sight of his hand moving.

He had eyes on the back of his head.

No, that wasn’t right. But he could
see
behind him. He touched his forehead, patting the now-puckered skin. Two eyeballs domed there, the lids pulled back in tight
rings, almost half the size of his hands. Even the shapes had changed, growing ridges and bumps. He could not touch them without
burning.

He felt farther up. Two warm stalks, soft and furry as feathers, sprouted out of his temples. Perhaps an inch high, they arced
into the damp tunnel air, and when he released the one he had touched, Moth realized that he could control them. They responded
to something in the air — not sound, but something else, something more chemical, like a taste.

Smell. He could smell it. Dying human corpa.

“Moth,”
he whispered.

He’d morphed. This was it. What Viv had promised. He reached behind his shoulder blades for wings and felt nothing, just the
smooth stickiness of his leather jacket.