Everneath

She deftly moved her hands under the table, a reflex action. “It’s been passed down through my family for generations.” She took a bite of soup and roll. “To the women,” she added. “But you can’t have it.”

“Oh. Well, it’s beautiful,” I said.

The lunch line was starting to thin out. Mary swallowed, took a drink of her water, set the cup down, and leaned forward. Her hands started to shake. “Help me, Nikki.”

The statement came out of nowhere. “Um, okay. What can I do?”

“I’m confused. I was ready to go. And now I don’t know what to do.” Was she talking about dying? “What’s waiting for me?” she asked.

I slowly shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“But what do you believe?”

A year ago, my Christian upbringing would have told me the answer: paradise. When I used to ask my dad where he thought my mother was, he would tell me she was above, looking down on us. But now that sounded like another lie people tell themselves to feel better. I knew nothing of heaven.

“I don’t know what’s waiting for you,” I said. Her face fell. “But it has to be better than this life,” I added. “It just has to be.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and I realized how tense she had been. “Thank you.”

As we were cleaning up after the lunch rush, the braid girl came over to me. “Sorry you got stuck with Mary today.”

I bent down with a dustpan to scoop up some crumbs. “It was fine. I feel sorry for her. I tried to ask her about Penelope’s daughter, but she just seemed confused.”

“Persephone,” braid girl said.

I popped up. “What did you say?”

Braid girl shoved a bite of leftover roll into her mouth. “It was Persephone’s daughter,” she said with a full mouth. “I remembered. Only she said it all formal, like Daughters of Persephone.”

She tied her trash bag and took it out back, and I was left in the middle of the floor, holding my dustpan.

Daughters of Persephone?

Too weird.

The following week, I couldn’t get Mary and the Daughters of Persephone out of my head. When I got to the soup kitchen on Saturday, Mary had already been through the line and was sitting at a table with a woman I didn’t recognize. She looked like she was my father’s age, maybe a little older. Her clothes were the kind I’d expect at an art gallery, not a shelter kitchen.

I waved to Mary. She looked at me, but she didn’t wave back. Her head was lowered, and her shoulders sagged as the woman sitting across from her did most of the talking.

I slid into my place by Christopher. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No problem. I’ll just dock your pay,” Christopher said with a little wink.

I served up a couple of bowls, but I could tell I had missed the lunch rush. “Who’s the woman sitting with Mary?” I asked Christopher.

He looked up from his bread basket. “Don’t know. Haven’t seen her here before.”

“She looks familiar, though, doesn’t she?”

He squinted. “Maybe a little. Something about her, but I don’t think she’s ever been here before. Look”—he pointed with a piece of bread—“she’s not eating. Maybe she’s just here to visit Mary. Many of our patrons still have family, you know.”

I watched for a few minutes. Mary wasn’t talking much, except to give a one-word response or to nod. I glanced at the tray in front of her. She hadn’t touched it. I noticed Mary’s wrist. She wasn’t wearing her bracelet.

She didn’t look happy, and I hoped the woman would leave soon so I could talk to Mary and make sure she was good. Toward the end of the lunch hour, the woman stood. Mary leaned toward her, as if to hug her, but the woman turned and walked away before she could. Once she was gone, I went to Mary’s table.

“Can I sit down?” I asked. She looked at me and motioned toward the chair. “Are you okay, Mary?” I said.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Who was that woman here with you?” I asked. “Was she family?”

Mary looked at me warily, and nodded. “She’s my mother.” She slumped a little in her seat and looked at my face. “You don’t believe me,” she said.

I put my elbows on the table and tried to sound understanding. “It’s not that, Mary. We all get confused.”

Mary nodded. “She’s mad at me.”

“Why?”

“I have something that belongs to her. That’s the only reason she came. It’s the only way I could get her to talk to me.”

“What do you have?”

She took her spoon and dragged it through the soup. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already disappointed her enough.”

I reached over and put my hand on her arm. I understood about disappointing people. “Friends forgive each other.”

She looked up from her bowl. “I don’t think you believe that any more than I do.”

I drew my hand back, and Mary stood and grabbed her tray.

“Wait,” I said. “I wanted to ask you about the Daughters of Persephone. Maybe I could—”

“Stop trying to help,” she interrupted. She turned around and took her tray over to the garbage. I sighed. Maybe she was beyond help.

NINE

NOW

My bedroom. Four months left.

Time’s flying for you, Nik.” Cole was sitting in the darkest corner of my bedroom, his guitar lying silent beside him. I wasn’t sure why he only ever showed up in my room. I didn’t complain anymore. His visits were my chance to learn more about the rules of the Everneath.

The scar on my shoulder began to prickle, as if it were waking up. It did that whenever Cole was around. I wondered if the Shade inside me could feel the presence of an Everliving.

Cole couldn’t know I thought about any of this. I nodded and flipped through my notebook on top of my desk, trying to fight the urge to go sit next to him. Now that I was prepared for the pull between us, it was easier to ignore it, but it never went away.

“Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Cole said.

“It’s everything I allowed myself to hope for,” I qualified.

He sighed, then grabbed his guitar and picked out a classical melody. I thought it was Bach, but I wasn’t sure. “Where’s your family?”

So we were going for small talk now? I turned around. “My dad’s at his campaign headquarters and Tommy’s at my aunt Grace’s.”

He picked through another few measures of the melody. “So you came back to be with your family and friends, and yet you sit alone most nights.”

I turned back to my desk.

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Nik.” He leaned his head against the wall with a soft thud. “I can take you now. You’ve only seen the Caverns and the Tunnels—and yes, those places are all about the awful—but the rest of the Everneath isn’t like that. It’s like the Elysian Fields.”

I gave him a quizzical look. “Elysian Fields?”

He rolled his eyes. “You haven’t been doing your homework. The Fields are a place of light, of happiness, where nobody is dying the slow death of mortality. And all of the good emotions inside you are expressed outwardly in your surroundings. I think it’s heaven.”

“Except for the part where you have to steal energy from other humans to survive.”

He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was muted. “It’s a small price to pay for heaven.”

“Show me,” I said.

He blinked. “What?”

“Show me. Like you showed me the Tunnels. Only this time, show me the Fields.”

He glanced away as he considered it, and then shook his head. “It’s too hard.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d have to use my own energy.” When I protested he continued. “Too much time has passed since I’ve been in the Everneath. I don’t have any extra energy to waste giving you the five-cent tour.”

His refusal made me want to see the Fields even more. I sat down next to him on the floor. “Please, Cole. Help me see what I’ll be missing.”

He frowned and sighed. “Enough with the sad eyes. I’ll do it. But it’ll have to be a quick glance only.”

I nodded.

“Hold still,” he said as he brought his hands to my head and placed them on either side. “You don’t have to hold your breath, Nik.”

I hadn’t realized I was. I let out a sigh and heard him chuckle softly, and then my bedroom melted away. I was standing in an open field, surrounded by light. A soft breeze with clean air—not the dank stuff in the Caverns, but clean, crisp air—ruffled through my hair. I looked at my hands. They were no longer sickly pale.

I filled my lungs with air, expanding them to capacity, and then even further. I was so caught up in the delicious air, I forgot where I was, or how I’d gotten there. All I knew was that my bare feet longed to be running. I took off toward the center of the field, the length of my stride growing with each step until I thought one more step and I would be able to push off from the ground and never land. It was the sweetest feeling, as if nothing would ever burden me again. One more step and I would fly.

But I didn’t get to try. Too soon, the field disappeared and I was back in my bedroom, acutely aware of how hard my chair felt against my body and how heavy the air was here. It was like coming down from a high.

Cole struggled for breath beside me. He lay down on his back, put his hands over his eyes, and tried to even his breathing. He looked like he’d just crossed the finish line of a marathon.

“Are you okay?” I asked, distracted. I wanted back inside the vision.

“Nothing a little mouth-to-mouth won’t cure,” he said, but he couldn’t muster the energy to laugh at his own joke. “You’re no good for me, Nik,” he said in between gasps.

“What do you mean?”

His breathing slowed a little and he looked up at me. “I can’t say no to you.”

I scoffed. “If that were true,” I said, “you’d find a way to let me stay here. For good.” I knew it was impossible; when you choose to be a Forfeit, you belong to the Everneath, and the pact is as strong as any other force in the universe. Defeating it would be like defying gravity, a power beyond Cole. Maybe I said it to show how weak he really was.

He closed his eyes. “You know I can’t challenge the Shades.”

He was telling the truth. The Shades only cared about the harvesting of energy, and in the Everneath, their word was law.

“The vision … did it work?” Cole asked hesitantly. He breathed easier now, and sat up next to me, watching me for my answer.

“I saw the Fields.”

He waited as if he expected me to go on and on. When I didn’t he said, “And were they as amazing as I told you?”

“Better,” I said. I didn’t continue, because I wasn’t sure of my own strength. If I could press a button right now, here in my room, that would take me straight to the Fields, would I be able to refuse? I didn’t know.

“So are you coming with me?”

“Would I have to drain people?” I reminded myself it always came back to this.

“Why do you get hung up on things that don’t matter?” He grunted in frustration. “Nik, if you come with me, together we could make a run for the throne, and that would mean you wouldn’t have to drain people.”

I raised my eyebrows skeptically.

“Other people would do it for you if you were the queen. That’s the power of the High Court. The queen’s deepest fantasies become reality. She never has to search for her own food.”

“You’re saying slaves would do it for us.”

He nodded. I thought back to the night at the Shop-n-Go, how Maxwell had talked about making offerings to keep the queen and her court fed. How the old man, who may have disappeared that night, was reluctant to go.

“Do you have to do that for your queen? Do you … bring her sacrifices?”

He hesitated and then narrowed his eyes, and I worried I’d said too much, but then he gave me a mischievous grin. “I’d tell you if I could, but I can’t. I mean, I’m physically bound not to tell you. Unless, that is, you say you’ll come with me. Then I can tell you everything.”

I let out a small sigh. I didn’t want him to know I’d seen him at the Shop-n-Go, because I wanted to learn more first.

“Look, Nik. I can’t lose you. We can be partners. With you by my side, and with the band backing us, we could take over. I want you by my side in the High Court.”

“What does that even mean? We’d be … together? Like, together, together?”

Cole gave a sly smile. “We’d rule hand in hand. And as far as being together, we’d be as together as you’d allow.”