Such Sweet Sorrow (18 page)

“Look who survived!” Hugin cackled. “You all must be very impressed.

“What happened?” Romeo called to Hamlet. “Where did they take you?”

“They took me to the second key.”

Juliet gasped at the sight of him as he drew closer. His face was smudged with soot, the soot streaked with sweat and blood. His sleeves were ripped; blood stained them. He reached for the key, held round his neck on an impossibly slender silver chain. He held it out.

“My god, what happened?” Romeo asked, crossing himself.

Hamlet’s eyes met Juliet’s. There was a haunted look in them that cautioned her to silence.

“I found the second key,” was all he said. Then casting his gaze to the ravens overhead, he growled, “Tell us how to call the third.”

“You don’t just call the third.” Hugin landed on the ground and scratched his feet in the clay. “If you had three sheep, and one went missing, as the shepherd, would you merely stand and call to it?”

“Of course not, you’d go and find it,” Romeo replied. “So what, we use these two like dowsing rods to track the third?”

“Don’t be stupid, dowsing rods don’t work.” Munin landed beside his fellow and puffed out his feathers. “You put them together, the two keys, and they’ll find the third.”

“Be sure to hold hands,” Hugin warned. “Don’t want any of you to get left behind.”

Hamlet put one hand out. He held up the key in the other. “Everyone put a hand in. Hold on.”

“What’s going to happen?” Juliet asked uncertainly. She remembered the unpleasant feeling of shattering in the hall of mirrors and reforming in the waste. If there was no way to avoid that feeling, she at least wanted to be ready for it.

“Who knows?” Munin squawked. “Nobody’s done it before.”

Juliet gripped Hamlet’s hand and raised the other key.

Romeo looped his arm through hers and grasped Hamlet’s hand, as well. “If this doesn’t work…we can’t say we didn’t try.”

“No, that we can’t,” Hamlet agreed, grim.

What had he done to gain the second key? What horrible task had he been forced to endure?

There was no time to ask it. Hamlet brought the tip of his key to touch the one she held. At once, the wasteland began to spin. As it picked up speed, Hugin and Munin became two dark blurs.

“Ooh, watching that will make me sick,” Hugin cawed.

“Good luck,” Munin called to them. “You’re going to need it.”

Juliet shut her eyes. When she opened them, the light was so bright, she stumbled.

“Careful!” Romeo caught her, and she leaned against him, her chin tucked to her chest.

“What?” Hamlet’s indignant cry forced her to open her eyes, and Juliet saw that beneath her feet, the only thing keeping her from plunging into a black void was gossamer light.

“We’ve been here before,” Romeo murmured. “It takes a moment to get used to.”

“I suppose it would.” She lifted her head, then blinked in wonder at the ripples of rainbow light all around them.

“I don’t understand.” Hamlet walked in a very brave circle, skirting the edge of the ribbon of light. “Why would it bring us back here? There is no key to be found. The Valkyrie are in Valhalla; it should have taken us there.”

Juliet followed Hamlet’s gaze. Far in the distance, a shimmering golden fortress stood against a similarly gilded sky. “We’re going in there?”

“We were banished from there. By some very insistent warrior women.” Romeo sighed wearily. “What shall we do now?”

“I haven’t a clue. I suppose we could try knocking on the door and asking politely.” Hamlet stroked his chin as he considered.

A breeze stirred the light, and the wisps of a curl brushed her cheek. There was a familiar sound, so maddeningly faint that Juliet worried for a moment that she had imagined it.

“Juliet?” Romeo asked. He and Hamlet had moved away from her, toward the fortress in the distance.

But her heart pulled her away from them, toward the sound. “I hear something… something from my childhood.”

The tone and inflection were clear, even though they were faint. It was…

“Juliet, this place is full of tricks,” Hamlet reminded her.

But it wasn’t a trick.

“It’s my nurse.”

Chapter Seventeen

Juliet bolted in the direction of the sound, ignoring Hamlet’s shout. Romeo was but steps behind her.

“Wait,” he panted, reaching for her arm. “Wait, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I hear her, Romeo.” She continued on, but slowed her steps so that he could walk beside her. “I know this place is deceptive, but I’ve seen through its tricks before.”

“Not in the hall of mirrors,” Hamlet reminded her as he fell in step beside them. “You didn’t see that for the illusion it was. You had to trust
my
senses.”

“Then loan me your senses,” Juliet demanded. “Follow me or don’t, it matters not. I hear Nurse. If she is here, I will not miss the chance to speak with her again.”

“If she’s here, she is dead,” Hamlet said, and that slowed Juliet’s steps.

Nurse had not been young. And not in the best of health, that was true, but certainly she had not been so close to death.

Surely she had not
died
.

The question only firmed Juliet’s resolve. When she’d arrived in the Afterjord, she had been frightened and confused. Her heart broke to think of Nurse in such a state, dear woman that she had been.

Juliet stopped to face them both. “If this is a trick, then so be it. I will rejoice if it is, for it will mean my beloved Nurse has been spared the horrors of death. But I must know, either way, and the only way to find out is to go to the sound.”

“The key—” Hamlet began.

Romeo cut him off. “The key can wait. I doubt Valhalla will fall in a span of minutes.”

Juliet gave him as much of a smile as she could conjure. It wasn’t much, but she hoped it showed him the depth of her gratitude.

Hamlet was not yet convinced. “We are closer than ever to the escape that will rescue you from the grave. You’re willing to turn your back on that for an illusion?”

She drew herself up tall. “This woman held me to her breast and dried my tears and loved me as though I were her own babe. I would gladly turn my back on a chance at second life to comfort her.”

Romeo and Hamlet looked at each other in silence, and it was Hamlet who glanced away first, a simple defeat expressed in the briefest downward flick of his eyes.

“Fine. We’ll go. But I won’t venture into Sheol again, not for you, your nurse, nor anyone else.”

They made their way from the light bridge to the sturdy stone of a tree-lined plaza. Juliet marveled at the mass of humanity that swarmed the area. Souls of all kinds, from all over the earth, wandered in the space. She recognized it at once.

She recognized, too, the plump woman weaving among the bodies, her gray curls askew. She held her hand to her forehead and shouted, “Juliet! Juliet, where have you gone?”

“Go to her,” Romeo urged. Then, he grabbed Juliet’s arm. “Wait. Hamlet, give me one of the keys.”

Uncertain, Hamlet took the Berserker’s key from his doublet and handed it over.

“Take this,” Romeo said, folding the key into her palm. His fingers burned where they touched hers. “We will look out for the shades that guard this realm, and keep them from you. If we are separated—”

“It takes two keys to call to one,” Hamlet reminded him.

“If we are separated from you,” Romeo began again, ignoring the prince, “Hamlet and I will retrieve the third key and use it to find you.”

Juliet squeezed his hand, took the key, and walked toward the figure that appeared to be her nurse.

“Juliet!” Nurse turned, scanning the sky that was not there. Juliet wondered if she saw the gilded Venetian blue over Verona, and not the cavernous darkness looming above them now.

“Good woman, what causes you such distress?” Juliet asked, and the moment Nurse’s terrified gaze fell upon her, she knew. It was her Nurse, not some vision.

Nurse had died.

The grief in Juliet’s heart surprised her; what mattered life or death when both of them were in the Afterjord together? But the mortal thread that still wound within Juliet wove an emblem of sorrow on her soul. Since the moment Juliet had learned about death, she’d feared most that it would steal away those that she loved.

It did not seem that Nurse recognized her, for her distress did not abate. “Oh, I have lost my sweet babe! I have lost my Juliet! I looked away only for a moment…the river!”

Nurse clutched her chest, and Juliet’s memory gave way to a long ago tale. Nurse’s calm, steady voice rolled through her mind.
When you were but a speck of a thing, barely able to walk, you got away from me at a merchant’s stall. It was midday, market day, and I turned my head for but a moment…I was sure you had slipped over the bridge and into the river.

“Good lady, you misremember,” Juliet said patiently. “That was so long ago. You found your charge, hiding behind the skirts of a noble lady, enthralled by the sight of her pretty lace parasol.”

“Yes…yes, I remember now…” But Nurse’s features did not soften. “She had never seen one before…”

“You found her, and you caught her up and kissed her, and made her promise she would never worry you so terribly again.” Juliet’s tears burned her eyes.

“I did.” Nurse appeared to ease a bit, but her bewilderment did not fade entirely
.
“How did you know that?”

“Because I am your Juliet.” Her heart ached. Nurse did not remember her, and she had not been able to keep her promise. “I am so sorry.”

“Juliet?” Some of the haze lifted from Nurse’s eyes, only to be replaced with sadness. “But Juliet is…”

“Dead. As you are now.” Juliet motioned to one of the trees rising from its huge stone urn, and led her Nurse to sit with her on the edge. “How did you come to this place?”

“I came down with a fever…” Slowly, Nurse came to understanding, horror and clarity at war in her expression. “I had no reason… I had no…”

She’d had no reason to get well, Juliet realized. The last child she would care for was dead, buried in unconsecrated ground. Nurse would consider that an abysmal failure in her duties to the Capulet family.

Nurse gripped Juliet’s hands too tight. “I should have never delivered you to Friar Laurence. I should have never taken messages to the Montague.”

“You had no way of knowing what would happen,” Juliet soothed her. “It is I who failed you.”

“My sweet child…you could never fail me.”

All Juliet had longed for since the moment she’d arrived in the Afterjord had been the comforting arms of her nurse. Those big, soft arms now enfolded her, pulled her head to rest against Nurse’s round, plump shoulder.

In Nurse’s embrace, Juliet felt like a child again. How she’d longed to grow up, faster than her years. Now she would give anything to be that little child again, living happily with her Nurse, hearing daily how clever she was.

She
had
failed Nurse, and Mother and Father, and even Tybalt. She’d turned her back on her family and caused them this pain.

She cried, and her tears were real tears, not some illusion in death. Her sobs hurt her chest, hurt as though she were living. At once, she was back to the night of Tybalt’s death, the bleak hopelessness and cruel despair. She wished she could erase all of it; all of it but Romeo, and that one perfect night on her balcony, when everything had seemed innocent and utterly possible.

She wanted Romeo. She wanted life. She wanted to undo all the death and pain, and the knowledge that she never would twisted cruelly in her side.

“Juliet!”

It was Romeo’s shout that tore her from her dark thoughts, but when she raised her head, there was nothing
but
darkness. It swirled around her, compelled her, tore her from her Nurse and swept her along.

This, she remembered. The clawing terror, the sudden realization that all she had been told of death was a lie, and yet none of it had been, too. The knowledge that her deeds in life were counted against her, and she had been found wanting. It was as if her own despair condemned her…

She’d done this all before, and she would not do it again. If she was sole judge of the destination of her soul, she would not send herself back to Sheol. The key was still clutched in her hand. She brandished it like a weapon against the darkness, and roared, “No!”

She saw the raw edges of her scream ripple through the blackness, and the shade that had held her recoiled. From her, or from the key, she could not say, but she held it before her as a weapon, put herself between Nurse and the creatures who would drag her away.

The mistakes of the past were written in stone, and Juliet was no force to wear them away. But she would no longer punish herself for them. She could not force herself to carry that guilt another step.

“Juliet, look!” Romeo was at her side, hand on the hilt of his sword as the shade faded. She followed the line of his arm, to where he pointed at Nurse.

Flowing white rippled around her, a shade made of light instead of darkness. Its arms enfolded her, urged her toward an arch with a chalice carved into the keystone.

Juliet started forward, and Romeo stopped her. “Let her go.”

“But Juliet,” Nurse said, turning her head to catch a last glimpse.

“I will come anon,” Juliet called after her. “We will not be parted for long.”

Romeo’s hand closed over Juliet’s shoulder. She watched her nurse go toward the arch, and then through it.

“It is right,” Juliet said, wiping at her eyes. “No better mother has ever lived.”

“Certainly not mine,” Hamlet put in sadly, stepping up to join them. “Your Nurse would have gone into Sheol, carrying with her all the guilt she felt for failing you.”

“How do you know that?” Romeo asked, a note of skepticism in his voice.

“The ravens told me, on our walk to the mountain. They said the Afterjord exists to comfort mortals in death.” Hamlet shrugged. “Perhaps for some, eternal torment is kinder than giving up their guilt or facing the shame of their deeds. Not that your nurse had anything to be ashamed off—”

“She thought she had failed me.” Juliet closed her eyes. “That she had failed
me.
”

“Don’t talk like that.” Romeo lifted his eyes to the sky, and Juliet realized he was not simply offering her a platitude. He feared what would happen if she continued with her guilt.

“You needn’t worry,” she reassured him. “I kept them at bay with this.”

Hamlet took the key from her and held it up, turning it this way and that as he examined it. But it remained inert, as it had before. He handed it back to Juliet with a shrug.

“Well, if we’re finished here,” he began, sounding a bit put out at the delay, “We should move on.”

They returned to the bridge, easily warding off a shade that attempted to block their path. The key, it seemed, was more than a key to the gates between the Afterjord and Midgard, but a symbol allowing them entrance wherever they might seek it.

“If I had known how well it worked, I would have used it against the sirens,” Juliet lamented. “It would have saved us a fair amount of trouble.”

“It may have worked against the sirens,” a voice spoke from above them, “but it won’t work against us.”

There was a rush of wings and a flash of arms, and before Juliet could understand what had happened, she was jerked from her feet and soaring through the air, away from Hamlet, Romeo, and the stone plaza entirely.

…

“After her!” Hamlet shouted, grabbing the front of Romeo’s doublet.

It had all happened so suddenly, Romeo hadn’t had a chance to move to grab Juliet from the Valkyries’ arms, and now two of them bore her away, twisting and shrieking through the sky over Bifröst. His slow reaction shamed him, but he could worry about that after they’d rescued Juliet.

Hamlet’s feet skidded on the stone just before the light bridge began, and he tested it with one foot, quickly, saying, “Just in case.” When Bifröst held him, they charged ahead.

“What do they want with her?” Romeo gasped. His lungs burned, and his limbs grew weary long before they’d covered half the journey. He concentrated on Juliet, on the thought of losing her again, and it gave him the speed and breath he’d lost.

“I don’t know,” Hamlet seemed vaguely surprised that Romeo could keep up with him. “But whatever it is, it’s counter to our purposes. Juliet has the other key. Which leaves us with—”

Bifröst disappeared beneath their feet, replaced by blood-splattered stone. Romeo’s head swam at the sudden shift. They stood in Valhalla once more, inside a wide circle of menacing warriors and their villainous counterparts. There were giants, like the fire giant they had battled in the wasteland, and others who were made from snow and ice. Rows of warriors, no less fearsome than the berserker, stood cradling axes and swords, their shields glinting in the torchlight. Above them, clad in flowing white and intricately wrought armor, winged women brandished spears.

And between two of them, Juliet.

One of them glided forward on the air, the toes of her golden boot pointed as she landed on the light bridge. “Welcome to Valhalla,” she said with a malicious smile. “I assume you’ve drawn up your battle terms?”