Loss (12 page)

***

—and with a gasp, Billy pulled himself out of the White.

He floated in a world of smoke the color of a winter sky heavy with snow; not white, not pale, but somewhere caught in between. Nearby—so near that all he had to do was close his eyes and leap—the White beckoned to him like a will-o’-the-wisp, urging him to return. Fainter, he sensed the Ice Cream Man lying desiccated and empty on his sickbed, and he felt the presence of Death, so cool and aloof beneath his mask of flesh, but they were little more than peripheral flickers, ghosts hovering at the edge of his vision. Here, in the space between present and past, they weren’t real.

Here, Billy was completely alone.

A shiver worked its way through him. What he’d seen, what he’d felt, was a raw wound in his mind, echoing around him and through him in a free fall of sensation: loss and stolen solitude, despair and bitter determination, and, above all, a lingering terror that started and ended in an expanse of white. Still shivering, Billy rubbed his arms. He’d expected to go into the Conqueror’s memory like a time traveler going back in history: There would be a proper beginning in which he found the Horseman; a satisfying resolution, once the Conqueror agreed to return with him to the real world; and an adventurous middle that neatly connected start to finish. What he’d gotten instead were flashes, like pieces of a movie spliced together out of order. Along with those flashes were thoughts and feelings, swirls of emotion that threatened to drown him. Somewhere within the jumble of images and sensations was the thread of an idea, of an experience, that linked everything together in a way that Billy didn’t understand.

Good,
he thought, shuddering. He didn’t want to understand. Those flashes had been so overwhelming that he’d had to jump out of the White, to distance himself from the insistent
now
of those memories. He hadn’t been merely witnessing what had happened to the Conqueror; they’d felt real, in the way that dreams sometimes felt real. And more than that: Deep in the White, it had been as if those memories, those events, had actually been happening to
him
.

Death’s voice, patient and knowing:
White beckons White.

But Billy hadn’t merely been beckoned. It had felt like he’d been absorbed, eaten away by a cancer of the mind. For those brief moments, he’d lost his very identity. In the White, Billy Ballard had ceased to exist.

What would happen if he lost himself completely in the Conqueror’s memories?

(
You find your way, and you come back home.
)

He thought of Gramps, manic and violent when he walked a world adrift in the past, torpid and monosyllabic when he was anchored in the present. Would that happen to Billy? If, in the embrace of the White, the Conqueror hooked Billy’s mind and pulled him down, would he be no better off than his grandfather, forever battling with dementia?

Would he be worse, because he’d be reliving memories that weren’t his own, and he wouldn’t even realize it?

How was he supposed to go back into the White, knowing that everything he was could be erased?

(
You find your way.
)

Even if he succeeded and found the Conqueror without losing himself, what then? How was he supposed to pull a Horseman out of a memory and into the real world? How was he supposed to rescue someone else when he could barely hold on to himself?

I can’t do it.

Billy hugged himself tightly and curled into a ball. His life was a series of
can’ts
—he can’t fight back, he can’t deal with his grandfather, he can’t kiss the girl, one
can’t
after another with no end in sight, building on one another until they paralyzed him. He can’t go to school. He can’t get out of bed. He can’t face the day. He can’t.

He was sick of his life being defined by can’t.

A hint of frost as a cold breeze whispered along his neck. It almost sounded like laughter.

He was scared to move forward; he felt that fear claw its way through his stomach and squeeze his throat, felt it tighten his chest and shrivel his spine. But staying where he was did nothing other than suffocate him with that fear.

He could lose himself; that was true. He could try and still fail, and therefore be forced to travel the path of the White Rider. That, too, was true.

He could succeed, and be thrown back into his life. That was also true, even if deep in his heart he didn’t think it likely.

If he didn’t try, he would never know if he could have succeeded. And that was the truest thing of all.

Billy took a shaky breath, then unfolded his limbs. Slowly, he pulled himself up so that he stood tall, floating in the gray world of in between. He had another moment of
I can’t
, one that stole his breath and threatened to release his bladder. And then, before he could talk himself out of it, he launched himself once more into the White.

***

He sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/

/he drapes her in a white
chiton,
her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green and violet. The cloth settles over her like a shroud, and he touches her face, once ivory perfection and now mottled with reds and yellows. Her skin is cool beneath his fingers, but he knows she had burned fiercely within, burned her enough to cook her very flesh and turn her fingertips a purple so bruised it looked black. He strokes her cheek once more, then pulls his hand away, and he gazes at her ruined form. He’ll bury her in her beloved garden, will cover her in roses, thorns and all, so that her sickness will be hidden in a bed of blushing petals and lush green leaves/

/he is surrounded by lush greens and earthy browns, here in the heart of the Greenwood, where the very ground thrums with life. Peace settles over him and he smiles, content, as he leans against the broad trunk of an oak tree. Here he’ll stay, away from the world with its never-ending diseases and hunger and battles at every corner/

/he’s seen centuries of battles, of wars erupting over the face of the world like a pox until land and sea were awash in red, but nothing affects him as much as this one boy with his golden hair and honeyed voice convincing thirty thousand children to march to Jerusalem. Dumbstruck, he watches them advance, row by row, an army of them, a river of them, all enchanted with the possibility of succeeding where their elders have failed. Tears wind down his cheeks as the children’s call to battle spreads like an epidemic of the most sinister pox/

/the pox has ravaged his kingdom, indiscriminate of poor or rich or old or young. The healthy had suddenly been taken by a violent heat that started in the head and slowly worked its way down, transforming their eyes to embers, inflaming their throats and causing them to spew blood and reek of sickness. He feels their agony even now, though he himself remains untouched by distress: the coughing, the sneezing, the endless vomiting and spasms, the compulsion to rip clothing away from his overheated body, the urge to throw himself into a rain tank or the river in the desperate need to slake a maddening, ceaseless thirst. But now he wears the Crown and wields the Bow, and he is rejuvenated. He will cleanse his land and heal his kingdom. He will make it right; he will set the balance in his people’s favor/

/he holds her favor, even though he had not sought it. She’s looking at him now, boldly, this woman in black, with her whip-thin smile and set of balances in her hand. The instrument of her office gleams in the sunlight, but it cannot compare with the hungry sheen of her eyes. They share a look, these two Riders, and around them, Romans fall victim to famine and plague. He hardly notices the bodies littering the streets; he’s enamored by the swirl of the Black Rider’s linen
peplos
around her shapely ankles. Something about this woman calls to him, stirs his blood and upsets the balance of his sanguine humor/

/and she tells him the Four are out of balance and he must return, but he will not listen to her. She may wear the mantle of the Black, but she is not his Famine. He turns his back, bristling when he feels the weight of her hand on his shoulder. She speaks of sickness and starvation and dares to tell him of his duty, and he whirls to face her, his mouth twisted in a snarl. Shadows play behind her eyes as she quietly asks that he do this for her, and he laughs in her face. He cannot. He will not, not even for her/

/not for the woman in red who laughs at him when he accuses her of whispering to the golden-haired boy, of dazzling him with images of glory and coaxing him from his home, encouraging him to stir the souls of thirty thousand children and lead them to slavery and death, all in the name of war. She mocks him with her laughter of fire and blood, and she declares herself as the handmaiden of the Pale Rider, the cold one warmed only by her passion, the one who will lead them all to the greatest battle of all time before the end of everything/

/he sees the end of the world, and it arrives on a sheet of white/

***

—and Billy screamed as he threw himself out of the White. He dropped to his knees and retched, dry heaving in the gray of in between past and present. When his body stopped convulsing, he hugged his knees and rocked.

Too much. It had been too much. All the sickness, all the death, the overwhelming sense of despair and horror—how could the Conqueror stand it?

He shook violently as he rocked, alone in the gray. He remembered the looming presence of the Ice Cream Man, standing over him as he played in the sandbox all those years ago, remembered how his face had run like wax melting in the sun. Had his experiences done that to him? Had he literally fallen apart because of everything he had seen, had done?

How was Billy supposed to jump back into the White and not drown?

(
You find your way, and you come back home.
)

A memory winked: Gramps and Billy and Marianne at the community pool, back when his grandfather had been whole and Billy and Marianne were just kids. Gramps was pitching pennies all along the deep end of the pool and giving them thirty seconds to scoop up as many coins as they could. Marianne went first, using one huge breath and managing to grab thirteen pennies. When it was his turn, Billy took a breath and dove, grabbed the few pennies within reach, then swam back up for more air and back down again. And again. And again. By the time thirty seconds were up, he’d scored the entire twenty cents. He’d won, said Gramps, because Marianne had been so busy trying to do it all at once that she’d forgotten she needed to breathe. Billy had won because he’d paced himself.

Yes
, he thought, pulling himself to his feet.
Yes.
He didn’t have to jump into the White and nearly drown; he could take a breath and dive, then come up for air before going back in. One memory at a time; that was the key. One at a time, instead of all at once, and he’d get all the pennies.

The end of the world arrives on a sheet of white
.

For a long moment, he stood at the edge of the White and wished he were brave.

Shut
up, chided Marianne.
You were
too
brave!

Fine. Time to prove it.

Billy Ballard took a deep breath and stepped once more into the White.

Chapter 12

He Skimmed the Surface . . .

. . . of the White, treading the waters of memories not his own. Above him, the bleached sky glittered with stars; around and below him, the White flowed and churned, rolling softly and hinting of storms. He floated, mesmerized. Before, he had just plunged into the depths without acknowledging the power and presence of such a force as the White; if the gray of in between was a place of nothing and nowhere, the White was on the edge of everything, everywhere. Billy felt both insignificant and magnificent, as if he were a speck on the face of grandeur as well as the eyes on that face, the one who could appreciate such awesome splendor. It was a sublime moment in which Billy was both completely empowered and thoroughly humbled, and the combination stole his breath.

His arms and legs moved easily, and each motion brought forth ripples that sparkled like gemstones.

Billy sensed such amazing possibilities, all just waiting for him to dive down and lose himself in the throes of sensation, of experience, of thoughts not his own. The Conqueror was old, Biblical old, and there was so much for Billy to see. To
feel
. Skimming the surface was just a taste, a tease, a tantalizing hint of what else waited for him.

Around him, ripples of memory glinted.

So what if he lost himself? What was he really losing? The identity of a bullied boy who didn’t have the stomach or the spine to defend himself? Who let his mother bulldoze him into babysitting his demented grandfather? Why would he want to go back to that?

In his mind, Death chuckled.
I thought you wanted to escape your life, William.

He did. He wanted out. He wanted to be free of Eddie Glass and his thugs, free of the chains locking him to the man who’d been his grandfather. He wanted to escape the hypocrisy of school with its willfully blind teachers, to run away from the specter of the Ice Cream Man, looming over him as he played in a sandbox.

If he stayed here, in the White, he wouldn’t have to go back.

A shadow passed close by, and for a moment Billy thought he saw his favorite girl in black next to him in the pool, floating in the water and daring him to go down to the deep end.

If he stayed here, he’d never see Marianne again. He’d never know if he’d finally find the courage to kiss her.

Treading in the White, he looked down. He thought he saw pennies scattered on a pool floor.
One at a time
, he told himself.
Remember to come back up for air
.

Billy took a deep breath and dove down.

***

/he drapes her in a white
chiton
, her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green and violet. The cloth billows in the cool morning air, then settles over her like a shroud, covering her ravaged form.