Chapter 25
When We Dead Awaken
– when we dead awaken… we see that we have never lived –
They got married by the Dozmary Pool in Cornwall, a small but very pretty lake on the moors, where the Greengrass ancestors had served the Lady of the Lakes. They didn't have the money to rent a venue, so Arlene called Anise for a favor. Anise was all too happy to oblige, for not only did it not cost a Sickle, it also allowed her a subtle but firm move on gaining more control from her mother-in-law, Lilith Greengrass, who would not easily give up her hold as the Lady of the House.
They didn't rehearse, and really they didn't need to for such a small audience of close (still alive) friends. Anise was, of course, her maid of honor. They had sent an invitation to Larka, the grieving ex-fiancée of Sirius, because it only seemed right. They didn't expect to see her and they didn't. Flynn was Remus's best man (Remus wasn't on good terms with most of the remaining ex-members of the Order, because of the way he pulled out of the most dangerous missions that didn't require him specifically, which was as much a betrayal as anything).
Still, it was a beautiful wedding. Arlene made sure of that. She knew that Remus wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but she had painstakingly planned every detail down to the intricate lacquered design of the dining napkins. Arlene didn't need his acknowledgement though, as the wedding was really for her: they were as good as married, had been this way ever since—
But today was beautiful and should remain that way.
Arlene straightened her spine, perked her chin, and walked down the aisle. Her 'uncle' was doing an admirable job of pretending to be her uncle beside her, full of joyous tears and a threatening scowl for Remus, standing at the altar fidgeting with the cuff of his rented tuxedo. The performance was a little too much, since he was supposed to be her distant uncle, but that was a drama student for you. They had the Advanced Ibsen class together and he was mostly a quiet presence, which was why Arlene asked him this favor. She had been too embarrassed to ask anybody else.
She arrived at her place opposite of Remus right on the last note of the classical song (called Spring, something Remus picked out). This was a very twisted romantic tale, Arlene thought: to have each other as their whole world in this way.
"I do," they repeated in unison. Once upon a time Arlene would have thought she was the type to write her own vows. She gave a wide, happy smile for the onlookers and threw the bouquet, falling in a pretty arch straight into Chelsea's hands. She made her happy at least.
The band that Anise hired started playing the first song (the sappy Casablanca song, her choice this time) and they danced. It was nice to do so. They rarely displayed affection in public now, despite Arlene's penchant for it when she was younger. All the guests were visibly comforted by the sight of them swaying in each other's arms. Their love was a staple to all of them, something that persevered from their Hogwarts days, both a reminder of good days past and a promise of getting to those good days again.
They broke up after the third song (Frank Sinatra, not Lover Come Back to Me though, something more appropriate), tired of dancing and demonstration. Remus picked out the chocolate macaroons from the hors d'oeuvres platter next to the cake, while Arlene looked past the cake at the lake.
The setting sun cast a thin layer of liquid gold onto the lake, a sheet of breaking and remolding shine that was even more spectacular than the sky. The local mermaids were singing from the depth of the lake, and although mermaids were incredibly ugly creatures, their songs were beautiful, looping through the brisk air like light birds in flight.
Soon, they were going on their honeymoon—a cheap enough Muggle cruise that Anise helped fund. Arlene was (had been) used to being generous herself, so she had accepted generosity without lingering guilt (unlike Remus). The cruise liner was coming to gather them from here, a special request, and Arlene could already see the smote of ship in the distance, sailing slowly towards them. They were going to some—other—lake. Arlene wanted to pretend that it was that place Anise went for her honeymoon, in Iceland, where the glacial divide between the two continents of Europe and North America gave birth to a deep cleft into the waters, a crack that descended into the center of the world.
The painted surface burned an impossible white in the sun, hurting Arlene's eyes when she tried to look at the incoming ship for too long. In its wake, the song of the mermaids become clearer, a rich resonance inside her body. Mermaid song was infamous in the Muggle world, but the wizards treated them like canaries that did not live past a fortnight caged, and so prized their voices like they prized everything that could not be captured. They were singing in an ancient language long lost to the modern people, and Arlene wondered what they were saying.
It was as if Remus could read her mind, because he said, "I can translate what they're singing for you."
She turned to him, his face a pale gold and his eyes a honeyed brown; she melted, something in her heart crumbling at the sight, "Can you?"
He nodded, "They're singing, 'I fear no fate for you are my fate, my sweet. I want no world, for beautiful, you are my world. And it's you whatever a moon has always meant, and whatever a sun will always sing is you.'"
Arlene did not believe him, because nobody—not even the faultless Remus—could understand the secret language of Arthurian days, but it was so perfect that she didn't care. So she pretended that the mermaids were indeed singing that for her, and rested her head on his shoulder.
It was to be a long week that followed.
The ship had dismal insulation, really: the rooms below were awfully stuffy, and despite the relative coolness there, Arlene spent as much time as possible on deck.
She liked to pretend that it was the vast Arctic Ocean they were travelling upon—it secretly thrilled her to imagine that she was treading upon the large body of water connected to the remote North, that every little droplet of water in every corner of the world had made it to where she was, that precise moment, in the long, ancient haul of time. It terrified her. Nonetheless, she leaned nonchalantly against the railings as her mind protested and her knees grew wobbly, and peered into the opaque depth.
They left behind them a small patch and a long trail of foaming water. Sometimes a fish caught in their gears would turn up dead and a great white bird with black lined wings would dive from its hovering and snatch it away. Arlene felt sorry for the fish, and felt an irrational guilt tugging away at her, a voice in her mind telling her that it would be alive and happy flipping its fins had she not been here. Which was nonsense, since the ship would have left even if she cried and dragged Remus off with her. It was times like this that she feared for her sanity, and wondered how many little voices were actually in her head—perhaps they had tea together, and read the newspaper even though none actually cared, but did so out of a general wish to appear well-informed and intelligent? Perhaps then they had balls too, and some would starve for a few days beforehand, which would explain her sometimes arbitrary headaches.
Arlene liked her days here, despite boredom being ever present and they weren't making love constantly in the way that a honeymoon demanded. The food was plenty but atrocious, there were too many bodies and some of them smelled, and in general it wasn't pleasant. But she liked it.
She liked watching the waters after dark, a coldness settling over the entire horizon. She even liked being cold, feeling numb in her fingertips and her feet asleep, not helped by even an abundance of furs and blankets wrapped around her. The ocean was calm but austere, the waters an endless darkness stretching away from her, even darker than the sky mottled with starlight and a sliver of moon and sometimes the shadow of a flying albatross. They weren't too far from the shore, and sometimes Arlene could catch the gaze of a lighthouse on the coast, stabbing the night with shafts of cutting light, long-short-long-short, in some sort of circular dance. Arlene briefly entertained the thought that it was a signal of some young lover to his sweetheart, or a beckoning to aliens, or something, something that made sense, that had purpose. But she supposed it did not matter to the kerosene if its dying light had meaning.
In the daytime, she still stood here, watching the distant mountains dappled white, gray and khaki, and the frozen tips glistening with snow that would survive spring and summer and eternity.
And it was alright, where she was—where they were, Remus and Arlene, Mister and Missus Lupin, imagine that—no matter how they came here and where they were going. She was going to tell this newfound revelation to Remus, but never could for some reason. But she would soon; she had to, because despite being smart, Remus would never know it with certitude unless she told him (people were stupid like that sometimes).
"Arlene," he found her, carrying a plateful of food, "Have you eaten yet?"
"No," she wasn't hungry.
He offered the plate, "It's much better than the usual fare today. They're serving some sort of duck I think, try it?"
"I'm not hungry," she told him as such, despite somehow feeling guilty about refusing him this small token of effort. To mitigate, she immediately said, "Why don't you have it."
He didn't seem too bothered. (Which was only reasonable, Arlene told herself.) He smiled at her softly, "Well I already ate, what do you say we—"
The ship suddenly jolted to a stop. The shift was abrupt and harsh: although they weren't moving at great speed, the inertia still threw everybody off balance, and Arlene crashed into Remus. The passengers looked wildly around them, and after a moment a few began yelling for the captain. Remus had a dark look on his face, used to speculating the worst.
Somebody made a terrible joke about the Titanic.
"Attention," the loudspeaker turned on, "passengers, this is your Captain speaking. There seems to be, uh, some technical error with the ship's overriding control system, but we have a technician looking into it. It should pose no trouble and we'll be on our way shortly. In the meantime, please enjoy the beautiful day and complimentary be—"
Arlene, along with the rest of the passengers, waited for the captain to finish his sentence. Silence stretched on. Murmurs broke out in the crowd.
A faint voice came from the loudspeaker, "Captain, are you—ahh!" the voice turned into a scream. The thick murmurs turned into varied shouts and people began to push in different directions.
"What's a proper honeymoon without an impending sense of doom?" Remus joked as he circled Arlene with his left arm, creating a human shield against the crowd, and with his right hand discreetly reached for his wand.
Arlene gave him the smile that he was waiting for although his attempt at humor failed to lighten her mood, "What do you think happened?"
Remus's face hardened but didn't answer her. They both knew what he feared: the worst. The war had been over for years now, but at the single drop of a hat all the panic and terror returned, as if never gone.
"Maybe he spilled wine all over the control panel," Arlene put a hand on his arm, right where his short sleeve ended on his upper arm, tucking two fingers underneath the fabric to feel the tense muscles. She took a step back towards the rails and steadied herself against it. She looked down at the water and gauged the jump, then thought hard about how long it was since she last saw land, but couldn't remember. Strange, as she hadn't done anything but look at the scenery for days now. Worst comes to worst, they could dive into the water and Apparate, despite that being a highly risky trick.
"Dead!" a man screeched as he stumbled towards the deck, "they're dead!"
A wave of screams and indignant shouts followed. "What do you mean 'dead'?" somebody with a booming, authoritative voice demanded, "Who's dead?"
"Them! The captain! And Alicia!—the, the stewardess, a-and Cole the cabin boy! Just dropped dead!"
"Oh my god!"
"Fuck!"
"Murder! We have to get out of here!"
"Don't we have police? Or guards? Or somebody?"
"Call the Yard! Somebody call the Yard!"
"No call the ambulance!"
"The boat! The lifeboat!"
The last was directed at a burly man who was tugging the ropes tied to the lifeboats. He drew the boat near, at the same level as the deck, and in one swift, vigorous jump, heaved himself into the lifeboat.
And promptly fell down, hitting the bottom like an anchor, transformed into a lifeless lump.
A woman, presumably his friend or kin, screamed and scrambled to the lifeboat, jumping over the small gap to see to the man. The moment her legs were off the main ship though, she too fell like a deadweight onto the lifeboat, all life mysteriously sucked out of her.
Arlene watched this bizarre episode and couldn't form a coherent response. "Did you feel—?" she asked Remus in a whisper.
"I didn't, did you?"
"No," she said quietly, "no magic that I could feel. It can't be anything else though—that was, they were, they couldn't have just dropped dead. Literally."
"Something's going on," Remus growled, "in any case. Stay alert."
The ship had descended into mad upheaval by this point, people desperately trying to find something to do in the face of this uncanny turn of events. A few tried jumping overboard, but plummeted into the water and floated up, lifeless as well. Many phones were taken out, but none had any signal. A self-proclaimed doctor was inspecting the two bodies on the lifeboat from the ship, careful to never step out of the boat. Some knelt down to pray fervently, while others ran down to the cabins and locked themselves in. Families herded together and friends grouped anxiously. One set of teenagers screamed loudly as one of them dropped to the floor, his hand gripping a wand tightly.
Arlene and Remus looked at each other: the boy must have tried to Apparate out of here.
"Do you think this is—?"
"I don't know," Remus answered grudgingly, "it doesn't seem like His usual tactics though, too much confusion and no enough systematic terror."
"What else could this be?"
"I don't know," he repeated.
"It would take a tremendous amount of power to cast something of this scale," she analyzed, "even if this," she gestured to the ship vaguely, "is something that can be cast."
"Must be a group," Remus continued her line of thought.
"But what are they after? What do they want to achieve from this?"
"I don't know," Remus said a third time.
Arlene tried to be logical: there was no reason to be cross with Remus, she herself had no idea as well, but god what was he good for?
The sun was overhead, a red angry orb in the wide sky. In the distance, the waters melted into the sky, all a shimmering web of blueness so intense that it hurt the eyes. There was nothing—no ship nor bird, not even the wisp of a cloud—around them, just the deep, endless blue. A slight shimmer surrounded them as well: Remus had covertly set up a guardian shield. Arlene questioned how much that would help, but added one of hers as well. Hers didn't shimmer quite so convincingly.
People were dropping abroad the ship now as well. With absolutely no warning or sign, not a groan or a sound, they dropped to the floor and remained there. Screams filled the calm skies. People were running, crying, screaming, dying in a panicked blur, a ball of chaos on the still water.
"Remus," Arlene said hoarsely. Blood was pounding in her ears. She couldn't think. She could barely breathe. She didn't know where to look. She tried to look everywhere.
"Keep calm," he replied, looking as cool as if they were just enjoying a movie. "Breathe regularly, calm your heartbeat. We need to be able to think."
Easy for him to say, Arlene thought bitterly. Then caught herself thinking bitterly and was immediately ashamed beyond words—it wasn't a privilege to be so used to life-and-death situations. "Remus," she repeated, not knowing what else to say.
"Should we risk Apparating?"
"I—"why was he asking her? Shouldn't he be the one making decisions? "I guess not? It seems like a sure way to die, whereas, well, here, it's…"
He frowned thoughtfully. Arlene clutched his arm with even more force, hanging on to support her trembling legs.
The man hyperventilating next to her stopped breathing and dropped like a sack of potatoes, awkwardly and with a loud thump. Nothing like the feigned drop that she saw in drama class. God, she thought emphatically, suddenly wildly interested in being religious. She almost started praying as a last resort, but all the praying people aboard were no less susceptible to this sudden death, and Arlene doubted that her prayer would ring truer.
There were barely a dozen of them now, but somehow Remus and she managed to stay alive. A secret hope started blossoming in her: maybe, maybe they would get through this. Maybe like everything else, other people would die, leaving them, only them, the sole survivors of everything. Guilt was much preferred to death.
Remus's arm stiffened suddenly. "No, no, no, no," she cried out incredulously, reaching instinctively for his hands. He was unresponsive in a way that could only mean the passing of life, but she holstered him up, as if being upright would prevent anything. "No, no," she shrieked with desperation, "Remus please, please, no, god, REMUS!"
It was no use. His face had turned to her before his neck stopped working, his lips trapped in a twist that was the beginning of a smile. Arlene groped for her wand with quivering fingers that refused to listen to her, got it out and started casting every healing spell that she could remember, pouring her magic over him, stuffing his throat with it, willing him to just fucking get better.
His eyes remained glassy. And he remained—
Arlene couldn't bring herself to think of the word. She was bent over him, sobbing uncontrollably now. It didn't occur to her that she might be next, and really it hardly mattered. At the moment, none of the things that had seemed so important, so impassable mattered. So what she spent too much money, or he failed to maintain any job, or she had no idea what she was doing in life, or he could not move on? So what if they fought, or things rarely felt like they did, or she constantly felt the pressure of doing something but not knowing what to do, or he sometimes avoided her like she was a disappointment or worse, that he was? So what if he had nightmares that he wouldn't share like scars she didn't recognize, or that some days it felt like a nightmare that they couldn't wake up from, or he shut her out and she him until they were isolated in their beds, or there seemed to be nothing to be done? These were all trivialities. Why had she ever thought otherwise?
"Remus," she crooned out, with hope and denial and despair, her face buried in his neck, where she was so familiar with but now it felt so jarring. The rest of the sounds she made were incoherent, but the meaning was all the same.
"Well now," somebody said out loud. Arlene didn't bother raising her head from where it lay, where it belonged. "The two of you didn't eat the albatross I guess."
"Fuck off," Arlene whispered vehemently.
The person—woman?—was undeterred. "Usually he's more thorough. Though he can't win all the time, right, that makes it boring."
Arlene looked up if only to curse her away with more fervor, but the sight before her made her freeze. It was a woman, but never had Arlene seen a woman like this. Her skin was whiter than the color white could be, a pallor so shocking that it hurt the eyes, as if her entire body was casted in the most severe case vitiligo. Her hair ran free and golden, burning as much as her skin did. She was grinning, a savage red on her lips, cheekbones protruding on her sunken face. Noticing Arlene's attention, she tapped her fingertips on her chin, the nails long and curling in spirals and clean, despite the layers of dust that shrouded her robe.
"What," Arlene began but corrected herself, "who are you?" Definitely not a passenger, she would have never been able to get on, and even if she snuck in Arlene would have heard some gossip or other about her—just look at her. No, the air also thickened around her, congealed, like it didn't know quite what to do around her. This was some magical being, which was undoubtedly related to the catastrophe at hand. "What have you done?"
The woman grinned wider, but before she could answer Arlene broke her off. "You know what, doesn't matter. How can I get Remus back?" The woman gave a quick glance at the man pooled around Arlene and quirked an eyebrow in response. Arlene fumed, the audacity of her!
Fine, whatever. At now she knew this was definitely magical, and definitely brought on by someone (something). It begun to feel like something understandable, manageable, reversible. She looked at Remus, skin already tinged gray with, with—
She still couldn't bring herself to think of it. She tried to swallow, a slow determination flowing through her, calming her. Her throat felt foreign, like it was some bizarre appendage that was just now attached to her. Then she closed her eyes—she needed her memory sharp, to remember everything Anise and Sirius had said, that one night, full of firewhiskey and beginning to smoke. It was some Seventh Year night, she couldn't recall the time, didn't matter, it was a bunch of people lingering on after some party she threw, again whatever, the only two that mattered were Anise and Sirius. The both of them were such thorough bluebloods, despite Sirius's hatred for his family and their doctrines, and despite Anise's resignation—they actually read the old tomes in their libraries. James never held such curiosity, and Lily and Remus plainly didn't have the privilege. There were things kept away from even the Forbidden Section of the Hogwarts library, dark things that may or may not have taken place far earlier than their age, this age of dwindled magic.
'There's a thing they did,' said Sirius offhandedly, 'that broke the rules and shattered the earth and brought the dead with the living.'
'Are you—?' Anise left her question open.
'Yes," Sirius said, less offhandedly now, 'the only taboo even in the Black household. I suspect that you, and perhaps only you here, would know of it.'
Arlene brought her thoughts closer and stood up. The woman was observing her with burning eyes, anticipating something. To hell with her. Arlene went about, moving the dead bodies to the sides, clearing a space on the deck. She didn't care that she was being disrespectful of the dead—they were dead, what would they care? Along the way, she scrounged a pocket knife from one of the corpses, a glint of burgundy and wooden handle of a Swiss knife.
Circling back to Remus, she drew a horizontal line on his wrist. Squeezing his forearm for a bit of blood took some work, but Arlene managed to gather enough to smear her face. The pattern and place didn't matter, mostly ceremonial, as long as she became him, and her blood became his.
'Walk slowly, with a bell and little light, by fire if possible,' Sirius instructed.
The sun was setting but Arlene couldn't wait. She looked down at her arm, a pale canvas of tender flesh, gritted her teeth and cut deeply into herself, a sharp, jagged line down from the crook of her arm to nearly the wrist, careful to miss the main artery so as to, you know, not kill herself. Blood immediately burst through, a wet, messy flood of thin liquid, turning color and texture in the open air.
She started walking, careful to pace a circle, holding her wand and lighting a blue-green fire at the tip. She had no bell but this would do, she thought. Maybe. It had to.
"Remus John Lupin," she called. With every three steps, she shook her arm and shed some blood at her feet. "Remus John Lupin," she called softly but clearly with every step she took. The air seemed to turn cold and sticky around her, enveloping her with the sort of dread that she read about in plays.
"Remus John Lupin."
'It takes a while, and it's not sure to work, but that's the inconvenience of blood magic,' Anise analyzed scholarly.
"Remus John Lupin," she continued. Resorting to blood magic, she laughed to herself humorlessly, imagine that. Dumbledore would have a fit if he ever got wind of it. But Daddy—he, he might have been proud (she still couldn't really bring herself to think of him, even after all these years and all these deaths, she still ran from that.)
"Remus John Lupin."
"Yes," a sigh came from behind her.
'Don't turn around.'
"Remus John Lupin," she said, a tremble in her voice, straining every muscle in her neck to refrain from turning.
"Remus John Lupin." Her neck was on the verge of spraining, but she kept it up.
"Yes," again, this time like his breath was crawling down the back of her neck all the way down to her spine.
'Whatever you do, don't turn around.'
"Remus John Lupin," she said doggedly, despite the tears running down her cheeks.
She felt something—hands?—on her shoulders, a symmetrical if surreal weight.
'Carry the burden that you sought.'
The blood she had shaken off had now drawn a circle, closed and continued in splotches of dropped blood.
"Remus John Lupin," she said, blinking to see clearly.
"Yes," he—for it could only be Remus, right?—whispered, climbing up to her shoulders so that his legs rests against her back, his feet flopping around at her bottom in ways that ankles should not have moved.
She controlled her breathing and started to drag her feet to create a five pointed star within the circle, ramming her fisted wand hand down her arm to get more blood.
Almost there.
'The dead rejoins,' Sirius said, 'on the back of the living.'
A dark robed figure stood at the center by the time Arlene finished the star. She wasn't sure if the ritual was finished yet, so she tried to swallow and kept her head forward.
"Speak," the figure said, a low, raspy voice that was hard to distinguish any characteristics—gender, age, accent, the usual of a human.
They never went over what to say specifically, and Arlene wildly sought out words. "I, give Remus John Lupin life, so that he may live among the living, as one of the living, a normal life and eventual death, as if this trip never happened." It didn't hurt to be overtly explicit, ambiguity never served well in these kinds of situations, if myths and television were to be trusted. Not like she had better sources.
'But there's a price to be paid,' Anise said, a sadness welling despite of herself.
'Of course,' Sirius replied as sadly, for the topic deserved no less, "as with all things bargained for.'
"Of course," the figure replied as calmly as he began, for the occasion called for no less.
Arlene blinked and waited. Because this couldn't be it—this was never 'it' with forbidden magic.
"I won," the woman—Arlene had almost forgotten about her—with the pale skin and red wound of a mouth said gleefully, "I won this one from you, at least!"
Arlene had a sinking feeling that she did something wrong.
The dark-robed figure lowered its hood as if conceding, but spoke again, "And in return—"
Here it was, Arlene groaned, both terrified and relieved, as if the second boot had fallen.
"—Life-In-Death shall take half of your life. In what remains to you, you shall know no home or hearth, receive no help or love, the memories of you will be nothing but the ones you make from now as the Storyteller, the one who brings a somber note to every encounter, who moves to keep things whole behind you."
What? Arlene looked on with confusion but the figure disappeared, without a sign or sound. Bewildered and bemused, she looked to the woman for clarification.
The woman just shrugged.
"But what did it mean," Arlene demanded, "What do I do in return?"
The woman looked at her inquisitively, "You know not?"
Arlene shook her head quickly.
"Then how did you know of this ritual? Matters not. Half of you belong to me, and half of you to Death. In plain, common words," she said that as if the very notion disgusted her, "you are to travel. To recite, to tell, to warn, to let them remember of us, of what happens when people forget. You will never call one place home, because you cannot stay in one place for longer than a fortnight, and you will receive no help because no one will have memories of you, your life so far would be blank." Catching Arlene's look at the dead—but will be alive soon—man at the base of the bloody star, the woman confirmed, "Yes, him too. He won't know you."
Arlene collapsed.
"What did you expect, sweet thing? Things won from Death are hard to keep, after all, especially if they're won by me, and I won you fair and square." And with that she disappeared as well, without so much a puff of air.
Arlene crawled to Remus and sat there, crumbled, for what appeared to her to be years. Only now she noticed that there was another woman on this ship alive, hiding behind a corner, looking at her with fear. Oh fuck, the woman did say 'the two of you'. She probably had to erase her memory or something.
Oh. No she didn't. The woman wouldn't remember her, right. She reached for Remus's chilled hand jealously. For now, at least, he was still hers. Then she realized that he was breathing, if shallowly, but didn't dare to check his pulse, still too scared to give in to hope.
The sun was rising already. She felt a prickling around her still bleeding arm that soon turned into pain as the brilliant edge of the warm disc came into view. She closed her eyes, but even then the light pierced her eyelids, and silently she urged the sun to come up quicker, for the imminent punishment to begin, for this excruciating wait to be over, like a bullet fished out of her body in swift and enduring pain.
"It'll be a romantic adventure, you'll see," she told herself, "Such great adventure, going to places, telling wild stories." Who was she kidding?
The waves swallowed all her tears.
Silently, the sun rose.
This is where you have led us now; this is your romantic destination, your melodrama fate.
CURTAIN