CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Precipice
The air was cool and crisp and the sky dark as Mina clutched her knees to her chest and stared out over the terrace. Lights from nearby apartment buildings and restaurants were just beginning to flicker on. A lit cigarette dangled between her forefinger and middle finger. She hadn't smoked in years, not since her late-teen rebellion. After her dad walked out for good, Mina, between Gap commercials and regional theater, started to hang out with the bad kids. They would meet at the convenience store and hassle the band kids who came in for slushies and Twizzlers. But now, Mina didn't feel rebellious, she felt anxious. In fewer than five hours, they would be entering the Negaverse.
Mina stuffed the cigarette out on the ledge and flicked the butt over the side. She ambled into her bedroom, collapsed onto her bed, and hugged Marley the Bear. "This could be it, you know," she murmured stroking his fur. Age had worn his once plush coat into a matted mass of coarse tufts. "I wish I could take you with me."
She lovingly traced a circle around his remaining glass eye and moved her finger down to his throat where his red ribbon still shone brilliantly as if no time had gone by between her father passing him to Mina's small, eager hands to where she now sat, an adult, ready to face the fight of her life. She gently tugged at the ribbon, which came loose easily in her hand. When she'd untangled it from Marley's tender throat, she brought it to her vanity and inspected herself in the mirror. Beautiful, she thought. She had been told as much throughout her life. Fans, co-stars, magazines, lovers, friends, strangers. Everyone thought she was beautiful, but it was only now, as she threaded the red ribbon, the only memory of her father, through her golden locks, that she finally saw it.
….
"Two eggs…one cup brown sugar…one teaspoon vanilla…" Lita furrowed her brow as she whisked her ingredients into a smooth, creamy mixture. Tiny beads of sweat dotted her hairline as she whisked furiously. The thick aroma of sugar and butter hung heavily in her kitchen. She had been baking all day. Twelve racks of cookies cooled on the dining room table, four loaves of banana bread were wrapped in cloth napkins and huddled together in a large basket, and two lemon meringue pies decorated the coffee table in the living room. She found that cooking kept her calm and with only four hours until they were to meet Kunzite at the top of Starlight Tower, Lita needed all the distraction she could get.
A buzz from her intercom snapped Lita out of her distracted reverie. She wiped the flour that had lightly dusted her palms onto her apron and crossed the apartment to the intercom.
"Yes?" she spoke into the speaker.
"Lita? It's Andrew. Can I come up?"
Lita paused. She had been moody and sullen lately and Andrew had borne the brunt of it. Rather than respond, she pushed the button that unlocked the door, counted to five, and released. He would be up any minute. She unbolted her door and dashed into the bathroom to give herself a quick once-over. Her face was smudged with white dust. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection and tied her hair up in a high ponytail and flushed her face with water. Patting her skin dry, she managed a smile and exited the bathroom. Andrew was just coming through the door. He smiled cautiously. It must have been raining outside because his sandy blond hair was shining as droplets trickled down and sailed to the floor before bursting into tiny fireworks on the marble floor of the hallway.
Lita's lower lip began to quiver as she watched him watching her. She began to approach him slowly, wringing her hands together anxiously as she moved. He didn't say anything but outstretched his arms and waited. She fit perfectly within his grasp and rested her head on his sturdy shoulder.
"I missed you, babe," he whispered.
"I'll miss you too," she replied, hugging him tightly.
….
Amy typed furiously away at her laptop. There were only three hours to go and she was petrified she wouldn't finish in time. She'd spent the morning scrubbing her apartment from top to bottom, burning her diaries, and closing out her credit card accounts. But she'd saved the most important task for last.
"Personal property, real property, intellectual property, shares of CelesTech, dividends…"
Had she remembered everything? Had she thought of every contingency?
"Annuities, life insurance, retirement benefits…"
She saved her document and scrolled to the top. I'll read it over one last time, she thought. Hopefully I got everything. She pushed her reading glasses up the bridge of her nose and began to read: Last will and testament of Amy Lynn Anderson…
….
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine was largely empty save for a few tourists who wended their way in and out of the sacred chapels that surrounded the nave. Raye had been kneeling before the altar of Saint Savior for so long, her knees were bruised and sore. Two hours to go, she thought. Mind over matter. A sound mind is half the battle. Her hands were clasped together so tightly her knuckles were solid white. Her raven hair splayed out onto the floor and surrounded her like a macabre veil. Please, God, give me the strength to do what needs to be done!
….
The cool porcelain soothed Serena's flushed cheek, which was hot and grimy and coated with a thin film of sweat. She felt utterly wretched and had spent the better part of the day making intimate acquaintance with her toilet. She knew she didn't have the flu, but was wracked with nervous anticipation. She was never much for travel and in less than an hour she'd be making a trip that, as far as she knew, no one in human history had made.
Luna tried to reassure Serena that she was perfectly capable of facing Beryl in battle. "You can do this," she said, placing a paw on Serena's knee. "It's in your blood."
"Luna," said Serena impatiently. "My mom writes kids' books and my dad's in pharmaceuticals. I think I'm a little out of my league here."
"I don't mean your Earthly family, Serena. I mean the generations of queens from which you descend."
Serena hung her head miserably. "I don't remember much of that. Most of my memories from that time have to do with…" Her eyes began to well and she stood up and crossed her small apartment to stare out the window.
"He'll be all right, Serena," Luna tried to reassure her.
"What are you basing that on, Luna? If it's up to me to save him, he's as good as dead!"
"Don't say that!"
"But it's true! I'm not a hero. I can barely get my own life together!" The tears were freely falling now. "Look at me!" she exclaimed. "A year ago I was happy. I was just plugging along living my life. Then you show up and I've got monsters after me and I'm told it's my job to save to planet from these evil forces I never heard of! And now I've got to go to the freaking Negaverse to fight some witch and she'll probably kill me, which won't really matter because she's going to take over the whole planet anyway!"
Luna didn't speak for a few minutes. Finally: "Serena. First of all, you weren't happy a year ago. I watched you for a long time before I ever spoke to you and I know you weren't happy. There was a constant sadness clouding your eyes. You were desperate for some meaning in your life. You may not see it, but you come alive when you're Sailor Moon. When you throw your tiara and it rips through the flesh of a demon that means to do harm to your friends or to innocent strangers, you're consumed with a passion you never knew from anything you ever did before. It may not be clear to you now, but you know it. You know it deep in your soul. You were meant to do this. You were meant to fight and you were meant to win."
Serena looked away. She wished she shared Luna's confidence.
….
The five huddled together just outside the doorway on the rooftop deck of the Starlight Tower. A sense of foreboding hung stagnant in the air. It was a few minutes before midnight.
"So," Lita began, trying to make small talk. "How did you all spend your last day on Earth?"
"Don't be morbid, Lita," said Mina. "We're all coming back in one piece."
"I've been doing a lot of mental preparation," said Raye. "They have home field advantage. We need to be ready for anything."
"Did you all prepare your wills?" asked Amy innocently. She was met with blank stares.
"And you call me morbid," Lita muttered.
"It isn't morbid," Amy insisted. "It's practical."
Their nervous banter came to a quick conclusion when a crash of thunder shattered the air and Kunzite appeared just above them. His electric white hair danced around his head as if moved by a breeze felt by no one but him.
"Good evening, ladies," he snarled. "Wise of you to show up."
The girls said nothing, but their fear was palpable. Kunzite ripped a gaping hole into the sky and beckoned them to follow. Nobody moved.
"Come on," Raye whispered to Serena. "Get going."
Serena gulped and took a step forward. In an instant, she was levitating a few feet off the ground. Slowly, the girls rose behind her and they were carried toward the hole which buzzed with electricity. One by one, they each disappeared into the darkness. This was it. Either Beryl was going down, or they were.
