Fates (3 page)

“He's right, you know,” Karen said quietly, after Luc had sat down. “Your sister has to learn to take care of herself.”

“You don't understand,” he muttered.

“Then try to explain it,” Karen said.

For a second, he imagined what he would say if he blurted it all out:
My dad's been hitting the bottle again; my fifteen-year-old sister tripped out and had her stomach pumped. I'm worried she's going to be like Mom.
Luc looked away. “I can't.”

Karen crossed her arms. “Right. As usual. Come on, Luc. You're not her father.”

“She's my sister. She's all the family I have,” Luc said, too roughly. Then: “Sorry. I'm just in a bad mood.”

Karen sighed and rubbed her eyes. “No, I'm sorry. I know you have … shit going on. Lots of it.” Karen spun her water glass between her palms. She kept her eyes on the table. “It's just sometimes I feel like I'm on the outside of all of it, you know? Like I'm locked out.”

His anger dissolved. She looked so uncertain. Karen never looked uncertain.

“I'm sorry.” He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “I'm here now and you've got all of my attention. And I'm all yours at the party tomorrow night, too. I'll even get there early, promise.”

“I hope you do.” There was an emotion on her face that he couldn't quite read, but she blinked and it was gone. In its place was her trademark sexy grin. “You really don't want to miss it.”

After dinner, Karen wanted to go over to her friend Margot's house, which had its own private screening room; Margot was having people over to drink and watch old horror movies. Margot's talent was inventing drinking games for every kind of entertainment.

But Luc was tired. He'd been at the gym at five-thirty that morning for weight-lifting and sprints and had run drills with the team for another hour after school. And that was
before
scrimmage—which Luc took as seriously as any real match. It went nearly two hours, and he played hard the whole time.

Karen had said nothing when they split up, just given him a hug and a quick kiss, no tongue—but he could tell he'd disappointed her. Again.

On his walk down Market Street, he tried listing constellations but got stuck after Cygnus.

The wind was picking up. He'd been dialing Jasmine's cell nonstop, but it went straight to voice mail every time. After what had happened last week, they'd made a deal: she had to check in every few hours and let him know where she was and what she was doing. And she couldn't be out past nine.

But it was already ten, and it had been at least four hours since he'd heard from her. What if she OD'd again, only this time, no one was there to save her?

He caught a bus back to Richmond, pushing through the crowds of commuters and tourists. Standing at the back of the bus, he couldn't help automatically scanning the faces, hoping for a glimpse of that small, stubborn chin and the long, familiar dark hair. But there was no sign of her. Luc held on to the overhead straps as the bus sped across the city.

It wasn't long before the bus emptied out, until only an old man in a crusty-looking leather jacket remained. Luc sat down and turned, forehead pressed against the cool glass in front of him. The rocking of the bus, minute after minute, began to tug him toward sleep. Darkness broken by streaks of light—like multicolored shooting stars—raced in and out of view, hypnotizing and rhythmic.

They past a block under construction, half-finished, littered with
keep out
signs and wooden barricades. Luc saw rebar protruding from cement, the spokes of unhung metal signs, chunks of concrete.

Steam hissed out from a grate just behind a section on the street. Luc stared at it, watching the steam twist and curl, as though trying to condense into a solid shape.

Then it
did
—condense, take shape, change.

The bus seemed to slow to a crawl and everything went silent. He watched a woman step into the steam, her long black hair billowing around her head. The mist undulated around her body like a serpent. He blinked. In an instant, she had faded away into nothingness, as if she had disintegrated into the fog itself.

Sound and motion returned, bringing Luc straight up in his seat. His forehead banged against the glass when he pushed forward, trying to look back at the site, toward the vanishing woman.

Nothing.

What the hell?

He turned toward the old man in the leather jacket, seeking some kind of confirmation that he wasn't crazy, but the man's eyes were closed and his body rocked in time with the motion of the bus. Luc pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. People didn't just disappear into thin air like that.

He dropped his hands and returned his gaze to the window, half dreading another vision, but the city sped by, same as always: looming dark buildings, pinpoints of light. He must have imagined it, or fallen asleep for a few seconds.

At his stop, he jumped out and half jogged the six blocks to their apartment, sucking the cool night air deep into his lungs until it burned.

The breeze coming off the ocean carried a familiar fish smell, mixed with the unmistakable aroma of clove smoke. Above him, on the second-floor fire escape, a figure was sitting cross-legged. Against the muted light of the open window behind her, he could make out her familiar silhouette, her long dark hair, the flash of her ring as she brought the cigarette to her mouth.

His sister
had
been home all along. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or angry. For the past week, every time he saw her, he saw the other her, too: pale, unconscious, her dark hair scattered across the hospital pillow, her nails blood-red against the white sheet, still wearing some awful glittery shirt cut practically to her belly button. A little bit of puke at the corners of her mouth.

His sister—his baby sister.

The memory made his throat tighten. “Jas,” he called up.

She stood, then grabbed the ladder at the end of the small platform and gave it a tug. The ladder descended, squeaking and shuddering.

He climbed carefully, never quite trusting the way the metal creaked under his weight, then pulled himself onto the small grated platform. Jasmine had leaned back against the bricks, one arm slung over her knees. A clove cigarette dangled from her fingers. He knew it was more for show than for actual smoking, but it still killed him. The smoke made its way into her clothing, into the couches, into his bedroom, even—then he went to practice smelling like a hippie's ashtray.

She wore black skinny jeans and a torn, off-the-shoulder gray sweater, definitely not her usual club getup.

“Where were you tonight? I tried to call a hundred times and you didn't answer. Remember our agreement?” He sat down hard next to her.

Jasmine shrugged, trying to detangle some of her long, curly dark hair, then giving up. “I was home before nine, if that counts for anything.”

She fiddled with the ring with little circle cutouts he'd won her at the carnival years ago. Then she took another drag from the clove cigarette, blowing out the smoke without inhaling it. She always fidgeted.

Their mother used to smoke the same type of cigarettes, though Jasmine probably didn't remember it. Every time he caught a whiff of the familiar aroma, it made something twist in his stomach—half longing, half nausea. They were so alike, Jas and their mom—both thin and stubborn and always moving.

Sometimes Jasmine would say something or gesture with her hands and it would bring back a memory from the dark place Luc had buried it.

He rubbed his eyes again, feeling the exhaustion sink down into his bones. The accident. The fight with Karen. Looking for Jas. Everything seemed to catch up with him at once, just like after an overtime game, and he wanted to close his eyes for a week.

“So, how come you didn't answer your phone?”

She picked at an invisible thread from her sweater for several long moments before she answered. “The ringer must have been off.”

“Yeah, but you could have been hurt, or …” His voice trailed off as he thought about the woman slumped over that steering wheel.

About the girl with those crazy eyes.

“Dead of boredom?” She pulled her phone out and made a production of turning the ringer back on.

“Wow, Jas, thanks for the extra effort.” Luc stretched out his legs on the narrow iron stairs. “You know, I heard somewhere that the point of phones is so people can actually call you.” But he was relieved. “Anyway.” He nudged her with his shoulder, “What the hell
did
you do tonight?”

“I rode the bus for a few hours.” Jas pushed him back with her shoulder, something they used to do for hours while sitting on the couch watching cartoons when they were younger. It became a game, who could get the last nudge in. “Some crazy artist lady talked my ear off. It was kinda funny.”

“Why funny?”

Jasmine didn't answer directly. An expression—almost of pain—passed quickly over her face, but it was gone before Luc could identify it. “Don't worry,” she said abruptly, stubbing out her cigarette, “I'm sorta over late-night bus riding now. Besides, I've heard the real crazies hang out under the boardwalk.”

“Yeah. And the serial killers.” Luc rubbed his forehead. He was still wound up. Jesus. He needed to relax. “Karen's party is tomorrow,” he said. “You could come with me.”

“I thought I wasn't allowed out after dark.” Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Besides, Muffy and Buffy and the rest of them make me want to puke. Seriously, Luc, you could do better than Karen. She isn't going to magically make everything better, you know.”

Jasmine's words—sudden, unexpected,
true
—shocked him into silence for a second. Jas was like that: flaky, fidgety, distracted one second and the next saying something that cut straight through Luc, straight past the layers of bullshit.

“I like Karen,” he said shortly. Karen was smart and funny and made him feel like someone. Any guy in his right mind would be in love with her. Most guys
were.

“What do you two even talk about? Trust funds and Jet Skis?”

Luc could feel Jasmine staring at him, but he refused to meet her gaze.

“Karen's super smart, Jas.” He tried to work up a sense of outrage on behalf of his girlfriend, but he was simply too tired. “She got into Stanford on early admission, remember?”

“Doesn't her dad have some campus building named after him?” Jasmine asked. “That's how it works with rich kids, right? They don't have to earn anything. It's just handed to them.”

“That's not how it is with her.” He paused. “Besides, it's not a building. It's just a decorative bench.”

Jasmine snorted. “La-di-da.” She nudged him again, and finally, Luc couldn't help but smile. He would never admit it to Jasmine, but sometimes, he felt the same way she did. He never
exactly
felt like an outsider, but the thought was always there, in the back of his mind:
Different.

“Just come with me,” he said. “It's on Karen's houseboat. That'll be cool, right?”

“In what universe is that cool?” Jas said, raising her eyebrows.

“It's cool, trust me.” Nudge. “Got you.”

“We'll see.” She leaned her head back against the bricks and closed her eyes. “Why not use their on-land mansion I've heard so much about?”

Luc shrugged. “Maybe they're having the tennis courts cleaned.”

Jasmine cracked a smile. “Maybe they're getting the vomit cleaned out of their pool from the
last
party.”

“The great thing about a houseboat is people can barf right off the balcony, no cleanup necessary.”

“Well, when you put it
that
way …” Jasmine laughed.

This time, Luc laughed with her, and they eased into a natural silence. He gave his sister a sideways glance; at certain angles Jasmine's resemblance to their mom was striking. She tilted her chin up toward the sky with that same restless look in her deep-set eyes.

“Seems funny to care about all this bullshit,” she finally said, “when the universe is so much bigger than this … than us.”

“Funny,” Luc said noncommittally.

“Seriously, though. Think there's life out there somewhere?”

God, she was so innocent. He knew Jas was attached to the idea that something must come after death. It was probably the only way she could handle what happened to their mom. “Not really sure,” he finally answered. “You?”

“Oh yeah.” She smiled. “It's everywhere.”

B
y the time Corinthe stopped running—almost half an hour after fleeing the accident—her lungs burned and she'd nearly worn through the soles of her flats, even as the tiny firefly fluttered continuously in her palm, wings beating rhythmically like a miniature pulse.

Each time her feet connected with the pavement, spikes of pain skittered up her legs. There was no energy in this concrete place, no way for her to draw sustenance from the walls of brick and steel, the rivers of poured cement.

More than anything else, what Corinthe missed about Pyralis was the physical bond: the constant, flowing, physical sense of connection to everything and all. The energy in Pyralis
was
food; you had only to inhale to be nurtured.

When she'd first been exiled, she hadn't thought she'd be able to survive. Her body burned all the time, as though every cell in her body had been ripped apart. She was sure the Unseen Ones wished her to die.

She hadn't died, though. And ten years later, only echoes of that excruciating pain remained, a reminder of the penance she must endure because she had been too eager, too curious, too questioning. And though the pain never truly went away, she'd grown used to it—except in times of exhaustion, when the pain seemed to double in intensity and she was consumed by a craving she couldn't name or satisfy.

Finally, she reached the massive pergola at the Palace of Fine Arts. Her footsteps echoed on the sidewalk as she slowed to a walk, sucking in deep lungfuls of air.

The soft gurgling of the fountain sounded like music. The air grew thick with the scent of flowers. For a moment she closed her eyes and inhaled. It reminded her so much of home. Regret burned her throat.

She threaded her way along the path that wound between rows of looming columns. Across the lagoon, Corinthe could see warm lights shining out of the windows that lined the buildings across Lyon Street, casting dazzling reflections over the surface of the water.

She watched it, mesmerized by the way the colors danced across the surface. This was her favorite time of night, when the day was put to rest under a sky streaked with deep purples and reds.

The sound of low voices startled Corinthe. She quickly ducked behind a column as a couple of teens wandered into view—a guy and a girl, arm in arm. A dog trotted happily in front of them, sniffing, tongue wagging.

Every few steps, the couple stopped and kissed.

Kissed.
A word—a concept—she had never known until she came here, to this world.

She watched the boy's hand move up the back of the girl's white peasant blouse and into her hair. A strange tightening sensation gripped Corinthe's gut. It was the same feeling she'd had when the boy touched her in the car today. She turned away and pressed a hand to her stomach.

She heard the light pitter-patter of paws on stone, the jangle of a bell, and suddenly the dog had rounded the column and stood looking at her, panting.

Corinthe broke into a grin. She crouched down and with her free hand stroked the dog's fur, kissed its wet nose, inhaled the dog-skin.

“Hey, boy,” she whispered quietly. She could sense the life, the joy, moving just below her fingertips, flowing hot through its body, but she was careful not to draw any of it.

In Pyralis, she had known and seen many animals, but she had never had one as a pet. Nothing in Pyralis belonged to anyone else, and yet everything, and everyone, belonged to the great order. Here, in Humana, she found that animals were drawn to her. It was as though they shared a common understanding, a common language of need that couldn't be expressed in human words.

The dog woofed as Corinthe stroked its head. From the other side of the columns, a girl cried out, “Sammy! Sammy!” And the dog peeled away from Corinthe and disappeared, responding to its owner's call.

Corinthe straightened up and listened for the sound of their retreating footsteps. When she peeked out several minutes later, they were gone.

She hurried to the middle of the rotunda. The recessed lighting pulsed softly in the honeycomb ceiling. The lagoon winked at her through the arches, between breaks in the shrubs, and gold rippled across its surface. She began to relax.

Almost done.

She walked to the farthest arch, the one overlooking the lagoon, and stopped. A low buzzing filled the air, too quiet for any human to hear: the sizzle and pop of tiny Messengers dissolving into the water. The firefly's wings batted furiously against the soft flesh of her palm. She breathed a sigh of relief and opened her fingers to let the small spirit free.

The Messenger zipped straight up and joined thousands of others like it. They looked like miniature shooting stars cascading from the sky as they plummeted into the still water. There was no splash as they hit—only the slight hiss of their tiny lights extinguishing. After a few seconds, weightless opaque marbles bobbed to the surface in their places and gently floated away, disappearing into the darkness.

She felt the familiar ache of a memory, and for a moment, she was wading into the river of Pyralis again, like she did all those years ago. Back then Corinthe and her sister Fates would sort through the marbles, finding the murky, imperfect ones as the others flowed past and off the edge of the waterfall. The purple twilight made her skin glow as she swept her fingers across the glistening surface, sorting through the marbles bobbing in the lazy currents.

Most destinies would be fulfilled on their own, but the clouded marbles, the damaged ones that she and her sister Fates gathered, needed extra attention. These she would give to the Messengers. Though she never knew what happened after that, she knew that she was special—that her actions, and the actions of her sisters, kept the universe in balance.

It had been their job to sort the imperfect marbles from the river and deliver them to the Messengers, but she and her sister Fates had made it a game, too: whoever could find the most in a day won.

Her sister Fates: Alexia, Alessandra, Beatrice, Brienne, Calyssa … She wondered whether they ever thought her name.

Corinthe felt the sharp tug of longing. She knew that the lagoon must contain a Crossroad, a way back to Pyralis; that was how the Messengers traveled between worlds. Often she had fantasized about swimming out, trying to follow them home.

Would her sisters cry with joy? Would they even remember her after all this time?

She could do nothing but wait. She had been banished for flouting the laws of the universe once. She could not go back to Pyralis until the Unseen Ones permitted it.

So instead, she stood at the edge of the lagoon and watched, wondering momentarily about the other fireflies, about the fates that had been fulfilled—most of them without any help at all.

During her first few days in Humana—what the humans called Earth—Miranda had taken her out to the lagoon just before the sun rose. They watched silently as two Messengers flickered green in the dawn and dove straight into the water in front of them. The light went out and weightless marbles bobbed up to the surface in their place.

“In the morning we collect them.” Miranda scooped up the marbles and handed them to Corinthe. “And at night we send back the ones you've fulfilled.”

“Fulfilled?” Corinthe had asked. That was before she'd heard of the Executors and what was required of them. That was before she'd learned she had become one of them herself.

Corinthe had looked at the marbles cupped in her hands. They were murky, and instantly she knew: these marbles had been sorted by her sister Fates and brought here by the Messengers. And she had known, too, that she was no longer a Fate.

“You have a new job here in Humana,” Miranda said, as though reading her mind. “There aren't many marbles today, but some mornings there will be dozens—and those are the days you'll need to work quickly.”

Miranda explained that when the universe was particularly in balance, there were fewer marbles arriving in the human world. It meant that destiny was taking place according to the natural order.

“Are those the other marbles in Pyralis? The ones that fall off the edge of the waterfall?”

“Don't think about them,” Miranda said gently. “It's not your concern.” But Corinthe
did
think about them—more and more as the years in Humana passed. Those marbles were deaths, and births, and falling in love; they were accidents and chance meetings.

It shouldn't matter, really. Her job as Executor was to carry out orders, not to consider the humans affected. Still, she always found the marbles riveting. Such tiny vessels, they held immense lives, immense possibilities.

She was too curious. Too fascinated by the Messengers, by anything forbidden. That was why she'd been banished here in the first place. The Unseen Ones—the unknown beings who controlled the whole universe, and ensured that order was maintained—had cast her into Humana to do her penance. She now had to do their bidding, carrying out unfulfilled destinies.

And yet, it wasn't just the beauty, the mystery, the power of the Messengers and the marbles that fascinated her now. She
did
think about the humans—about the lives impacted, and ended, and begun—which worried her as much as the blood on her temple.

Something was changing.

She
was changing.

She had to talk to Miranda about it. Her Guardian had the answers to everything.

At the northwest pillar, she paused and glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching. Carved into one of the columns was a faint rectangle, barely discernible. She pushed her fingers against it firmly and heard the familiar click. A narrow door, disguised as part of the ornate panel, swung open, and she quickly stepped inside.

Within the large column, it was almost completely dark. She made her way down the narrow stairway, tracing her fingers along the stone walls as she counted thirteen steps under her breath. She knew every cool, jagged edge of the walls.

Corinthe often wondered about the other Executors. What were their homes like? Were they hidden away like her own? And did they live together, the way humans did? She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind; Miranda always said she was too preoccupied with things she couldn't know.

The temperature dipped; she shivered. At the bottom of the stairs, the hall opened up into a series of cavelike rooms. Corinthe turned right, into the first room, lifted an arm gracefully, found the string on her first try, and tugged. Two bare lightbulbs hung from the low ceiling, illuminating the space.

Years ago, the rooms had been used to store the Exploratorium exhibits, but no one except Corinthe and Miranda had been down here in over a decade. Corinthe moved across the packed earth floor to the battered deacon's bench, which took up most of one wall. Quickly, she lit an assortment of votives and pillar candles. A dancing pattern of light and shadow flickered over the walls, and she felt a warm rush of happiness.

Home.
A small word for such an immense thing—just like the marbles, so small, but vast enough to enclose a whole life. This was her home for now. Miranda had done her best to find the things they needed, like the hot plate that balanced on a rickety old stand, next to a tiny sink, to heat water for tea. Or the dented wooden cupboard they managed to nail into a crack in the wall, which held a mismatched collection of jars and bottles and teacups.

A month after Miranda brought her here, Corinthe had complained that the dirt floor was too cold. Miranda found them a large, threadbare Oriental rug that took up most of the room. It wasn't much to look at, the colors so faded they were all the same dull wash of brown, but Corinthe loved being able to take off her shoes and knead her toes along its surface. If she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could even pretend that she was walking across a carpet of soft moss that blanketed the surface of Pyralis.

One corner of the room was dominated by a huge chipped claw-foot tub. Neither Miranda nor Corinthe knew why someone would install a bathtub in an underground storage room, but the water ran hot, and it didn't take long for them to appreciate the small luxury of a bath.

Her gaze drifted to the painting hanging on the far wall: the only decoration in the room, it had either been forgotten or deliberately left behind. In the painting, a small boy and girl probably no more than six years old had their backs turned to the observer. They were on a cobblestone pathway that wound through a manicured garden of colorful flowers. Their small hands were clasped together as they gazed out toward the horizon, which blurred into a pale blue sky.

Were they contemplating leaving the garden? Or did they find comfort in its limits? The painting's beauty wasn't in its composition but in that question. Corinthe used to spend hours lying on the worn rug, staring up at it, wondering.

It was the only piece of sky she could see from her new home.

Corinthe turned away and caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the small cracked mirror that hung over the copper basin sink. She stepped closer and studied her reflection, gingerly touched the dried blood on her temple. Her fingers shook.