Such Sweet Sorrow (13 page)

“Gone from you, mortal man,” a lady in pink spat contemptuously. “Are you fool enough to reject us?”

“I would be a fool not to.” A ghostly white hand, covered in scales, reached out for him, and he lopped it off without hesitation. The woman—the creature—it had belonged to recoiled in agony, shrieking in some foul language. The hand itself rose up on its fingers and skittered away, a bleeding, five-legged beast.

“What are you?” he demanded, bringing the point of his sword to the pink lady’s chest. The others fell back at that, and he was emboldened. “If any of you touches me, I’ll kill her.”

She must have been the leader, then, for the rest of them slunk back a step or two. Looking closer now, Romeo saw that beneath their togas, their bodies were painfully thin, their skin a mass of serpentine scales. In place of legs, snake-like tails pushed them along the dusty dry ground.

The grass, the sky, the peace, had all been an illusion. They’d been tricked again.

The pink lady raised her head, and a long, forked black tongue flitted from her mouth as she spoke. “They teach nothing to young men of adventure these days. You were bound to encounter us at sea. Salt water brine seasons your kind so nicely…”

“Shut up!” Every instinct in him recoiled from these disgusting creatures, and he knew he should run. But he couldn’t run, not without Juliet. “Where is Juliet? What have you done with her?”

“The same we’ll do to you, dear one,” the woman in pink promised. Her eyes glowed golden, black slits for the pupils. “Sisters, you may feast!”

The snake women fell on him, but Romeo had never been in a fair fight in his life. He kicked one away, shoved another as he speared a third with his blade. The metal slashed up and up before he could free it from the demon’s body, green blood spraying him.

He could fight, but not forever, and there were so many of them. With his sword, he cleared a path, severed arms, hands, heads falling as he charged toward the broken colonnade and the hard-packed clay slope beyond it. When he reached the edge, he had but a heartbeat to make his decision. He sheathed his sword quickly and jumped, rolling down, his body beaten by the hard ground.

Though his head swam, he bolted to his feet, ready to dispatch any of the creatures who had followed him. But they were gone, the hillside, too. Romeo found himself in a strange, barren wasteland.

He was alone.

Of course he was alone. He deserved to be. He’d forgotten about Juliet the moment a few pretty girls had surrounded him. Surely that had been a trick of the Afterjord, but why had he not resisted harder? Why had he accepted their attentions? Had his temporary jealousy of Hamlet left him witless?

Because of his foolishness, Juliet and Hamlet were both gone. Romeo had no one to blame but himself.

Chapter Twelve

Above Romeo’s head, dead olive trees reached their tangled branches to the black sky. Thunder rolled, purple lightning flashed.

His chest ached; his mouth was dry. He dropped to his knees, panting, dizzy from his fall. He wished he had taken the cup the sirens had offered him; he might not have been so thirsty now.

Was Juliet still trapped with them? He forced himself to his feet once more. He looked toward the place where the ruin had been, but nothing remained. Nothing but barren, seemingly endless dusty gray spread toward the black horizon. The scent of olives was gone from the air, replaced by brimstone and ash, and the strange, airy smell of lightning.

Juliet was gone. Hamlet was gone. Separated in the undefined, ever-changing Afterjord, Romeo despaired of ever finding them again. They were lost, or he was lost, and now there seemed nothing left to him but to walk.

He set off from the trees and had gone but a few steps when he heard his name, faintly, from the grove behind him. He turned, a hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Romeo…” it came again, a voice maddeningly familiar. Was it Hamlet? Romeo supposed it could have been, but everything they’d encountered in this nightmare world had been some trap or another.

“Hamlet?” He called out, taking a cautious step toward the trees. “Juliet, are you in there?”

The branches seemed darker than they had been before, like menacing black thorns hungry to catch his clothes, his hair, his flesh. He drew his sword and hacked at one, lamenting the damage it would certainly do his blade. But the moment it made contact, the branch disintegrated into ashes and embers. They were burnt, every last tree, standing frozen in death.

“That’s a comfort, isn’t it?” he muttered to himself, then called again, “Hamlet?”

The voice replied again, just Romeo’s name, and he held his sword at the ready as he navigated down the row of burned trees. He thought he saw a flash of red in the gaps of the trees, but when he turned his head to track it, the color was gone. Again, the mysterious voice called his name.

“Show yourself, demon!” he shouted. “I have seen too much already to fear mine own name!”

“Romeo.”

The voice came from behind him this time, and he whirled to face his tormentor. What he saw made his blood run cold as ice, cold as the saltwater wind that had blown about the sirens.

Tybalt stood before him, hale and healthy as the day he’d died. His doublet and breeches were red, like the blood that had spilled from him when Romeo had avenged Mercutio’s death.

“You’re dead,” Romeo said. The fear that gripped his throat almost cut off his denial. “I killed you myself.”

“I remember.” Tybalt’s dark eyes were frozen with hate. Romeo saw the reflection of purple lightning in them.

“You’re not real.” Though Romeo believed it to his bones, he still took a step back as Tybalt came forward. So many things in this place had been unreal, he could not accept that this was truly Tybalt. But the man had a sword strapped to his belt, a glittering gold version of the simple, efficient weapon he’d used to dispatch Mercutio and so many other friends Romeo had lost. Too many, for his young years.

“You killed me, Romeo,” Tybalt said, pushing back the hood of the short cloak he wore. “You took me from my family, my sweet cousin. You harmed her with my death. No wonder she cannot love you.”

“I gave up my life for her.” Romeo couldn’t stop himself arguing with the phantom before him.

“You tried, and you failed. You could no sooner end yourself than you could protect Mercutio.” Tybalt drew his blade and slashed at the air.

Romeo hated that he flinched. If any of his fellows in Verona had accused him of fearing this Capulet scum, he would have demanded satisfaction. The Prince of Cats was nothing but a kitten, he would scoff to them, but he’d often feared that tensions between their families would eventually force a serious confrontation. Romeo had seen Tybalt duel before, knew he was skilled and brutal. The night Romeo had slain him, it hadn’t been luck or skill that had allowed Romeo to gain the upper hand, but rage. Pure rage at the death of his best friend.

He had rage in him again.

“I don’t know who you are,” Romeo began, dropping his hand from his blade. “But you have made a grievous error.”

Tybalt stopped in his slow, stalking pursuit.

“You took the one thing from me that made me want to go on living.” Romeo held up his hands. “There is nothing else for me to lose. I don’t care if you slay me.”

Tybalt threw his head back and laughed. “I never took her from you. You ruined everything on your own. You killed your wife’s kinsman. You left the city without her. She drank the potion because you abandoned her.”

“I am not solely responsible for the foul deeds that took place in Verona,” Romeo said calmly. “There was more at work than simple murder.”

“If your conscience is so clear, you will kill me again.” Tybalt took another step, his blade at the ready.

“I won’t. You aren’t Tybalt. You’re some shade sent to torment me, to test me for your own sick amusement. I won’t be tested. I refuse. The game is over. You have won, now take your revenge if you must. For if I cannot be with Juliet, if I am condemned to walk this bleak and horrible place alone for eternity, I would rather you slay me and send me to Sheol, where I can sleep without dreaming or remembering her face.”

Tybalt roared, raised his sword, and rushed at Romeo.

He didn’t know what would happen to him if the false Tybalt killed him. He would likely die, and find himself in some other hellish part of the Afterjord. But he held out hope, slim though it was, that it could be different. That he might wake in a true paradise, free from the pain and fatigue of his long journey on earth and the long journey that followed.

The blow never came. As the point of Tybalt’s sword touched Romeo’s doublet, the vision crumbled. In the space the false Tybalt had stood in, three wrinkled and weathered faces peered at Romeo.

It took him a moment to discern that they were three different old women standing close together, and not one terrifying shapeless blob with three heads. That he had guessed the latter first seemed only natural, after all he had seen.

“You wouldn’t fight,” the crone in the middle snapped, her sour expression folding her toothless mouth comically inward.

“I knew it wasn’t Tybalt.” Romeo could not help but imagine their faces as rotting fruit. On the left, a long, unfortunate grape withered by the sun. To the right, a mushy plum. In the center, a decaying apple with wormholes for eyes and speckles from orchard parasites.

It was that one who raised her hand and pointed accusingly at him now. “Would happier not it make Romeo to see cruel Tybalt again laid low?”

“It would have made me dead. I am not the man who killed Tybalt. Not anymore.” He looked them over calmly. “Your manner of speaking is strange.”

“Stranger than thy manner and dress?” the one resembling a raisin snapped.

“Respect the sisters of the Wyrd, thou foolish mortal,” plum face added. “For thou knowest us beyond thy recognition of our countenance.”

“If I had met three terrifying crones before, I would surely have remembered, regardless of what disguises you might have worn.” He cocked his head. “How do I know you’re not just a vision, like Tybalt was, sent here to terrify me?”

“The fearsome power spun into our thread sews together souls both living and dead.” the middle one warned. “From no vision born of earthly doubt could spring so true a hold upon man’s mortality.”

One of them held up a skein of rather plain looking thread, and turned it this way and that before her.

“What are you going to do, sew me to death?” He shook his head. “I have seen far too much in the last few hours to fear a spool of thread.”

“I told you he’d be too ignorant to think in verse. Don’t waste them on him,” plum-face harrumphed.

“This is the thread of mortal life, the thread of the universe. All that is and ever will be,” the raisin said, in a voice dry as old bones on the floor of a tomb.

“You’re the Fortunes, then?” That piqued Romeo’s interest. “You can see what will happen? Undo what has already taken place?”

“No one can change the past,” the one the in the center said. “My sisters and I are in charge of maintaining the balance of the universe. Not destroying it.”

“Who are you?”

“Veroandi,” snapped raisin face.

“Skuld,” replied the plum.

In the center, the middle one drew herself up. Her saggy face was full of mean pride. “Wyrd. We are the Norns, boy. We hold your fate in our hands. So you’d better start treating us with some respect.”

…

Juliet woke beneath a black sky.

No, not a sky. A ceiling.

She sat up, wincing at a pain in her head.
Pain
. She half-laughed, reaching cautiously to touch. She hadn’t felt pain in such a long time, she’d almost missed it.

Beneath her fingers, her hair was brushed and bound up, sleek against her skull. Ringlets cascaded down her back. She looked at her gown, and her arm dropped to her lap. Her eyes followed the long sleeve of black velvet, from its wide, pointed wrist to where it narrowed into a sheath of fabric tight around her elbow.

Raising her gaze, she saw her reflection, a beautiful, young woman sitting in a pool of black velvet. She got to her feet, took a few staggering steps. The dress was accented with white, and she matched the chessboard floor beneath the slippers on her feet.

The walls all around were mirrored. Juliet turned in a slow circle, taking in the room around her. When she caught a glimpse of blond hair in one of the mirrors, she gasped. Dressed in black and white as well, Hamlet blended into the floor. She was grateful she hadn’t trod upon him.

Careful of the slippery marble beneath her delicate heels, she went quickly to his side. She sank down beside him in a rustle of velvet, leaned over and slapped his cheek. “Wake up. Wake up, your highness!”

She wondered if slapping him would rouse him. Probably not, so it wasn’t worth the attempt. Romeo might have taken some pleasure out of it, though.

The prince’s eyes slowly opened—thank goodness!—and he blinked as he took in his surroundings.

“Where are we?” He raised an arm to examine the white and black doublet he inexplicably wore. “Who changed our clothes?”

“The last thing I remember, I was rolling down a hill, hoping you hadn’t been killed in the fall.” She shook her head. “What was wrong with you? We needed to find Romeo. But I couldn’t stop you from volunteering to get eaten!”

“You’re welcome.” When she only stared at him in disbelief, his eyes widened. “What? You’re never going to get the chance to push royalty down a hill again. You’re just some noblewoman. Do you people even have princes in Italy?”

“We do. The prince of Verona banished Romeo, and that’s how we got into this mess.” She got to her feet, suddenly not feeling very nurturing. “You knew the sirens would use their influence on you. You warned me. So why couldn’t you resist, just for a moment?”

“I tried,” he argued. “I wanted to help you look for Romeo, but the draw of the sirens’ power was too great. You can resist it, you’re not mortal. Perhaps if you’d drunk from their cup, you would have been just as powerless as I was. But you were smarter than that. Smarter than Romeo, clearly.”

Juliet shook her head, hating the tears that rose to her eyes. She’d spent the last days of her mortal life weeping and powerless, and she did not wish to be in such a state ever again.

“We’ll find him,” Hamlet said quietly, looking up at her from his place on the floor. The effect of the alternating tiles behind his form made her dizzy, and she swayed on her feet.

She wouldn’t let him see her weak. She was through with weakness. “I know I will. Death couldn’t keep us apart. I doubt this place can.”

“Wherever this place might be.” Hamlet rose and took a few cautious steps. Juliet noticed a distinct pattern to where his feet landed; at first, only on the white blocks, then, timidly, on the black.

“What are you doing?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Checking for traps.” He shrugged. “The Afterjord hasn’t been particularly friendly so far, has it? Even the most benign settings have proved to be full of monsters. It’s only fair to assume the same is true of this place, even if it is entirely empty.”

“I’ve walked on the floor. It’s fine.” She did consider his reasoning though. By all accounts, it really could be a terrible place waiting to trap them. They seemed fairly trapped as it was, since there weren’t any doors. But the hall stretched on, out of sight, with seemingly no sign of changing or ending. “What if we go that way?”

Hamlet looked in the direction she pointed. “Why that way?”

“Because it’s as good as the other.” She folded her arms over her chest. “Look at us. The Afterjord took great pains to fit us in here. We’ve been transported, costumed, and deposited. I doubt whatever force did this to us did it because we were meant to sit quietly and wait for something else to happen.”

Grim admiration showed in Hamlet’s expression, though he quickly dismissed it. “Fine. I would suggest one of us travel in one direction, et cetera, but I think it would be unwise to separate our group further.”

As they walked, Juliet scanned the walls, looking for some means of egress. The mirrors reflected them on both sides, copies of Juliet and Hamlet going on and on, into eternity, until she grew dizzier with every step. “I’ll go mad in here.”

“Why?” Hamlet examined the ceiling as they went along.

“The mirrors. I’ve never liked them; they make me nervous.” As a child, she’d been so frightened of the polished silver mirror in her room that she’d begged her nurse to cover it with a cloth at night. These were worse, their reflections supernaturally flawless compared with the murky images in the silver one at home. She felt as though Juliet in the mirror could reach out and grab her.

“Someone who looks like you should have no fear of mirrors,” Hamlet said, but it wasn’t a compliment. It was a simple statement of fact, and Juliet wasn’t sure if she should take pride or offense at that. “Besides, I’ve always found mirrors a comfort. Father had a terribly expensive one in his chambers, angled so he could see the door from anywhere in the room. ‘If you can’t have eyes in the back of your head, a mirror is the next best thing,’ he’d always tell me.”