The backs of the crows felt as slippery as stones in a river. The rush of cold air numbed her feet, her toes, and she felt weak, the weight of the baby bearing her down. The air roared with the beating of countless wings, like a flash flood careening down a steep canyon.
Her arms held Baby G more firmly as she kept on running, the living, flying bridge weaving, undulating. The drowning roar.
Almost, she promised herself. Almost there!
“Oh!” she heard her mother gasp.
Relief that she was still alive flared inside Melanie's chest, quickly to be quashed with terror. Had her mother lost her footing? Melanie dared a quick look back.
Her mother and father lagged several yards behind her. Weak, unfit, they struggled to keep up, the bridge of crows bending horribly beneath their weight.
But it wasn't the unsteady bridge that had caused Fumiko's cry of fear.
On an upcrest of the bridge, Melanie could see the hopping, leap-frogging forms of creatures chasing after them. Much faster than her unkempt parents, they were almost upon them. If the crows broke apart, her parents would tumble into the abyss with them.
A sob escaped her lips.
Melanie kept on running. A cool, distant part of her mind finally understood Jade Rat's abandonment. It seemed so long ago. It was very clear. Her thoughts clicked like clockwork, as her body shifted to automatic. Even if she turned back she could not support her parents' weight, stop them from falling.
Then four people would die instead of two. Two . . .
The creatures that chased them.
They wanted Baby G.
Give them what they want. Throw them the baby. What did it matter? To do one small evil to save the lives of three innocents? They had done nothing to deserve this life! Baby G could grow up into Mr. Glueskin again.
But then it all would start once more. Locking all the Realms into the cycles of suffering.
Throw him into the abyss.
The keen wind shrieking like a shrike, Melanie wrestled with her conflicting thoughts, her writhing feelings.
She ran. She ran.
The mountainside that had seemed so far away loomed, sudden and inexplicable. Like the time travel of dreams. As simple as cool solidity beneath the sole of her foot. She had reached the safety of the ledge. And Baby G was still in her arms. The bulge of relief that filled her chest felt like a bursting heart.
She lowered the baby so he lay in the crook of her arm. Silent so long, was he even alive? Maybe he had been overjostled and killed.
Baby G stared up at her with the certainty of innocence. His large dark eyes were more beautiful than she could bear.
The reality of solid rock brought home the raw panic of falling. Melanie backed to the rock face, the ledge littered with small, dry, brittle bones. They crumped into dust beneath her feet.
Hope and dread formed a chimera inside her, clawing at her throat as if it were trying to birth itself into the world.
Hair whipping in the wind, the rushing roar of thousands upon thousands of wings, Melanie held Baby G in her arms, her feet planted, a fierce look upon her face.
She looked across the divide for her parents.
The bridge had bowed low with their weight. As the Half Worlders raced down to reach them, Fumiko and Shinobu clambered up toward the ledge. No longer able to stand, they were on all fours, scrambling, grasping at the brave birds with their hands, as if they were desperately trying to run up a scree. They clasped each fluttering crow with their hands, their feet pedaling upon a stream of birds that perpetually fell away.
Fumiko's and Shinobu's harsh rasping breath. Their throats raw with terror.
The crows bore them, silent, as each bird, squeezed by hands, pounded with desperate feet, dropped into the abyss like a stone.
Fumiko and Shinobu panted, frantic. The crowsâthey could not raise them any higher. They were trapped, trying to climb upward, but only injuring crow after crow, without gaining any distance.
The bird-headed man had almost reached them. Close behind was the woman with eel arms. She stuck out her black eel tongue with a lewd grin. A boy-headed dog, as big as a wolf, scampered close to her heels, a monkey with an old man's face clinging to the fur of his back. The bone people clattered close behind.
The crow bridge would scatter at any moment.
Melanie dropped the remnants of Jade Rat on top of the baby and slammed her palm against the flat rock face. “Gatekeeper!” she screamed. “Gatekeeper! Come out now! Be more than your role! You can make a difference by choosing to act instead of doing your duty,” she cried hoarsely. “Change the cycle!” She smacked the stone so hard the small bones of her hand were on the verge of breaking. “Help us now! Choose!” Melanie's voice cracked. Her eyes were squeezed tight with rage, despair. To be this close! It wasn't fair! It wasn't right! She pounded and pounded until her palm was raw, numb, so at first she didn't notice that the rock wall was moving.
With a great groan the giant Gatekeeper wrenched free of her prison and the mountain shook, stones falling from high above, bouncing painfully off the top of Melanie's head. The ledge lurched and Melanie staggered, seeking to regain her balance, even as she hunched over to shelter the baby's exposed face.
Creaking with the weight of tons upon tons of stone, the giant stiffly turned toward the edge of the cliff and swung her arm like a heavy pendulum. Her great rocky hand swooped below the lip of the ledge and plucked Fumiko and Shinobu from their perpetual fall.
The giant gently set them upon the rock ledge and they pressed themselves against the hard surface, almost prone, as if they could still feel gravity yanking them downward.
The crows shrieked with release, with mourning, with exultation. They burst free of their formation, and the Half Worlders cried out in a single voice as they hung in empty air for an eternal moment.
They tumbled down, down, becoming smaller and smaller until they disappeared.
Melanie stared, throat dry. Heart pounding. Her parents still clung to the stone ledge as if it were a life raft in a storm.
The Gatekeeper was not looking into the abyss. Her stone eyes, the same color as her body, gazed implacably at the horizon where a gray light shone.
But the giant had chosen; she had taken action. . . . “Thank you.” Melanie's voice was as dry as sand. “From every bit of my heart. I thank you.”
The giant looked down, her neck grinding. She stared at Melanie, her expression utterly unreadable.
Melanie gulped. Why did she stare so? Her ears began to grow warm with embarrassment. Why would stone need to blink at all, idiot? she admonished herself.
The giant slowly nodded her chin in acknowledgment.
Baby G still in her arms, Melanie crouched beside her huddled parents. “Shhhhh,” Melanie soothed. “It's okay. We made it. It's going to be fine.” A warm light swelled inside her and hot tears trickled down her dirty cheeks. Somehow they had made it! “See. We're on the ledge. We just have to go through the portal and we'll be back home! Together!”
Fumiko looked up first. Shuddering, she forced herself to gaze back upon the frightening divide long enough to see that the Half Worlders were truly gone and that the last remnants of the bridge of crows were distant specks of black in a pale gray sky.
Relief bloomed across her face and she finally smiled, calm as moonlight. She tugged Shinobu's arm so that he sat up. Together, they bowed their gratitude to the Gatekeeper who had plucked them from an eternal fall.
“Come on!” Melanie cried. “Let's go home!” She glanced at Baby G. Exhausted, he had fallen asleep, his chubby hand clutching the red strings of the broken jade amulet. She did not see her parents looking at each other. Shinobu stroking Fumiko's hair gently. Reassuringly.
They rose and drew Melanie toward them so her back was pressed near their chests. She could feel the strong thumping of their hearts. Fumiko and Shinobu placed a hand upon each of her shoulders as they tilted their heads back to meet the Gatekeeper's implacable eyes.
“Melanie and the infant seek passage to the Realm of Flesh,” Fumiko uttered in a steady voice.
“Whaâ” Melanie began.
“You must pay the toll,” the Gatekeeper groaned.
“What!” Melanie whipped her face from the Gatekeeper to her mother. “What do you mean! I came to get you! You can't abandon me!” Fear, anger, began to writhe in her chest. She glared at the giant. “You helped us! Can't you just open the Gate? Don't make us pay the toll again!” She was breathing hard, her feelings growing large and monstrous.
“Breathe slowly,” Shinobu said gently.
“Shut up!” Melanie shouted. “Shut up! You've never been in my life before! Why would I start listening to you now! You're not my father! You never were!”
Shinobu smiled a trembling smile. “You're right,” he answered softly. “I wasn't there. I am sorry for that. To have missed you growing into such a remarkable young woman.” He shook his head with regret. “I am so grateful that you came across to help your mother. That I got to see you, even if it's only this one time.”
His calm voice deflated her rage as quickly as it had flared.
The terror she felt was worse.
She dragged her aching hand across her eyes. “Mummy,” she implored. “Mummy!”
Tears welled in Fumiko's eyes. Her smudged eyeliner looked tawdry and cheap. But her voice was strong. Clear. “Your father and I cannot return to the Realm of Flesh. We are not Flesh. We never were. We cannot live there, with our Half Lives. I think I was able to cross into the Realm only because I carried you: I carried Life. And I was able to live a kind of Half Life because I was near you these fourteen years. But I was already fading. I would have faded into nothing if I had stayed any longer.”
Melanie rubbed her tearing eyes with the back of her hand, quickly, angrily. “Then I'll stay here!” She gulped at the enormity of what it meant. “I can get used to it. . . . ” Her voice trailed off.
Her mother and father were both shaking their heads.
“It cannot be,” Fumiko said. “You have Life, as does this infant. This is a condition that cannot be argued. If you willfully break the cycle you disrupt the natural patterns. And no good can come from that. Look at what the division of the Realms has created. Creatures like Mr. Glueskin. Worlds decaying, deteriorating, violence and monstrosity. And we do not even know if Spirits still exist; they have been cut away from us for so many millennia. Melanie, you must go back to the Realm of Flesh. For the good of all things.”
“I don't care about the good of all things!” Melanie shouted. “What about the good things for Melanie! And the Realms are already a mess! Why should I worry about my actions making it worse? How much worse can it get? Who cares anyway! We just live our stupid pathetic lives and then we die.” She began to sob. “We just die, and I'll die alone. With no one.”
Melanie bawled. For all that never was, all that she had hoped for and would never happen. She bawled for the child she could no longer be.
Fumiko and Shinobu and the giant silently bore witness to her pain.
In time Melanie's sobs grew quieter, shuddering now and then for air, until they, too, ended.
She felt empty. She had cried everything away. She felt clean, though her face felt dry and tight from the salt of her tears. Melanie opened her eyes to see that Baby G was staring up at her, his large dark eyes looking sad and wise, the remnants of Jade Rat still tightly clutched in his tiny fist.
He must be getting cold, Melanie thought. I should cover him with something. I hope he doesn't pee on me. . . . She almost smiled.
She felt her mother's hand cup her cheek with aching tenderness. “You're the best thing that's happened to me for all time!” Fumiko said fiercely. “Never forget that. Never doubt it.”
Melanie nodded slowly.
“It's time,” Fumiko said. Her voice was firm, but Melanie could feel her mother's fingers trembling.
Melanie spun around. She thrust Baby G at Shinobu and flung her arms around her beloved mother. She held her, hard, despite the shards of mirror adorning her mother's dress.
“I love you,” Melanie whispered fiercely.
“Melanie.” Fumiko's voice wobbled. But she caught her breath, and when she began speaking once more she was filled with certainty. “I will love you through all time, from across every Realm, for eternity. My love will be near you wherever you go. You are not alone. I promise you this!”
Melanie could not answer. She did not dare try to speak now. Her father returned Baby G to her arms. He raised both hands to cup her face, but stopped before contact. “May I?” he asked humbly.
Melanie nodded once more and her father cupped her chin with his palms and kissed her tenderly on top of her sweaty and dirty hair.
She felt suffused with love.
“The toll must be paid or the portal will not open,” the giant intoned, her voice deeply regretful.
Melanie bit her lip. She did not think she could do it. The thought alone filled her with dread. It was so stupid, she thought. She just ran across an abyss over a bridge of flying crows. But that had been in panicked desperation. To do something like amputate your own finger, soberly, as a conscious act . . .
Fumiko tugged off the long gloves she was still wearing. She did it so quickly Melanie did not have time to say the words to stop her.
The wet crunch came sudden and awful and Shinobu turned his head to the side.
Black blood stained Fumiko's teeth. She spat out her second pinkie onto the rocky ledge. “Do you accept this toll?” she asked, her voice shaking.