~28~
Now
It had been a long time since Anna had discovered this place that existed beyond all fear. The day had been endless, and there had been no word from Haley. When Kristoff got to her hotel, he couldn't convince the manager that he was family. He had to slip some money to one of the chambermaids, and she let him into Haley's room, watching him the entire time.
The room had been clean, and empty.
Anna had been deafened by the news. This deep place, scraped incessantly by the murder of Cub and the torture of Tim and Casey's letter and Renee's news and Elsa's scars; Anna had to close her mind to it or go insane. Renee and Elsa seemed to understand, for they got quiet as well. When Renee got more news, she only shared if Anna and Elsa asked.
Time was not kind. It passed in various speeds.
Nightfall was too close.
Finally Anna could take no more of it. She stood, and shared a glance with Elsa. Elsa stood as well, and took Anna's hand, and they didn't need to tell Renee where they were going, what they were doing. The plan had been made; these were her last hours with Elsa, quite possibly the last hours ever.
There was only one way Anna wanted to spend them, so that every moment could paint over her fear just as Elsa had painted over the viciousness of the red and blue markings on the bedroom walls.
No hesitation. Elsa's need was as hungry as Anna's own.
They had barely shut the door behind them when Anna pushed Elsa against the wall, fastening her mouth on hers. Her stitches were heated and incandescent, and Anna didn't care. Elsa was being cautious for her sake; she kissed her hot and hard, but kept her hands soft and strong on Anna's waist.
Not good enough.
Anna pinned her against the wall, holding her wrist up above her head as her other hand moved decisively up Elsa's shirt. The fabric gathered at her wrist as she pulled up and up; they broke the kiss only long enough to pull the shirt up and over Elsa's head. The room was warm and dark and intimate; their lips latched greedily on to each other, rearing and forcing.
As Anna darted even closer, holding Elsa's hand over her head, Elsa grabbed at Anna's clothing with her other hand and pulled up. The moist sounds of Anna's kisses over Elsa's collarbone halted momentarily, just long enough to dispose of the shirt, and then they came together again.
Anna released Elsa's hand, and Elsa dipped it immediately in the fiery depths of Anna's hair, holding her neck and head as their kisses quickened and intensified. Anna's hands were blindly groping for the waistband of Elsa's pants. She had no patience for pants or panties; Anna broke the wild kiss and dipped down on her knees, tugging Elsa's pants down as her mouth explored Elsa's abdomen, finally swirling in her bellybutton for the last moment before Elsa lifted her ankles long enough for the pants to be drawn off.
As Anna stood back up, quick and darting like small birds, Elsa ran her hand under Anna's skirt, lifting and seeking. Anna didn't quite give her the chance; she pressed even harder against Elsa, her cuts afire, her fingers darting to Elsa's mound, so slick, so essential.
Elsa broke their kiss to gasp as Anna's fingers slid inside her; a downy gasp of delight and wonder. Her breathing quickly turned savage and she began to squirm on those warm and knowing fingers. Anna pressed Elsa against the wall even harder, nearly trapping her hand, forcing it against her clit. Each of those Elsa-breaths; they were wondrous and free, yet Anna wanted to capture them with a butterfly net and preserve them forever. Could they remind her of this when Elsa was gone again, and nothing stood between Anna and the hell that snapped at her heels?
Elsa began whimpering under Anna's questing hand; her bare toes slid on the hardwood floor, looking for anything to brace against. The inside of Elsa's body was rippling and textured and slick; Anna sought those spots she had found a thousand times before; the spots that would drive her lover wild and make her squirm. Elsa finally wrapped her free leg around Anna's skirt-covered legs, and her chin exploded upward as Anna buried her fingers deep, pumping, twisting, curling.
The night was Elsa's other lover, and darkness slipped over her heated body, pooling into her curves with delicious intent. Anna nibbled on Elsa's collarbone as her fingers slid in and out of Elsa's core, eliciting more of those bright and high gasps, each one rippling over the stitches and cuts on her skin like ice. She breathed in the scent of Elsa's neck as she mapped out her honeyed confines; would this sustain her forever?
"Anna," Elsa moaned, her leg almost slipping on the floor, and Anna released her hand so she could prop Elsa up once more. Elsa was seeking any sort of purchase with which to stand her ground, any leverage to intensify the beloved fingers.
They had hours, but only hours, and Anna needed to inscribe all of these memories inside her, to be tattooed with them so they would last until they could be together again. Would Elsa remember her when Anna finally returned, slipping through death to emerge upon the mists of the unseen world?
Elsa's face was wet with tears of brine. Anna tasted each of them.
And as Elsa arched her head back once more, her body dancing like a marionette on Anna's hands, Anna forced herself to slow down. She stopped her frantic thrusting into Elsa's body and instead grazed the length of Elsa's clit with her slick thumb. Once there she massaged it slowly, so very slowly, and Elsa's gasps were now breaking like fine glass, slivering apart under the torturous pressure.
It only made Anna hotter, and wetter, and she ground herself into Elsa with even greater fervour, lifting her own head to gasp with the pain of her wounds. Elsa's mouth hovered by her nicked ear, and Anna heard occasional broken words, unintelligible under the wave of love that was drowning them both.
Elsa shuddered under Anna's hands, writhing on the fingers that burst inside her, and there was one last moment of stillness wedded with the dark.
Like glorious fireworks, she came, with guttural exhales and a body that flensed into full-muscled quaking. With her fingers deep in her core, Anna could feel every slick and warm flutter of her lover's body, her thighs clenching around the hand that was anchoring her to this moment, this arrival, falling over the precipitous chasm of passion and need.
Elsa had to grab on to Anna's shoulders for balance, and her lifted leg crashed to the ground. Anna's thrusts slowed, getting smoother and gentler as Elsa twitched and jerked in her arms, pinned there against the wall. Anna watched every moment of Elsa's orgasm, memorizing the play of silver light on her lips, the sheen of sweat on her body.
For a moment there was a silence of ragged breathing and sparkling eyes.
And then.
Not gentle now, no, all wounds and armours forgotten, Elsa grabbed Anna with her strong arms and propelled her to the bed. Her hands decisively yanked down Anna's skirt and panties, and Anna was pushed down to the bed, her legs hanging over the edge of it, her breasts high and delirious under her bra.
All then nearly all sight of Elsa was gone, as her love buried herself between Anna's legs, her hands under Anna's pelvis, tilting and lifting. Elsa looked up, her lower lip adorably caught between her teeth, her eyes wide with mischievous excitement, dark and erotic. It nearly made Anna's heart break with agony and imminent loss; 9 o'clock was coming, and then Elsa would be gone.
Forever.
She had no more space in her frenzied mind to ponder the trench of loss that was coming to separate them; Elsa lowered her mouth to Anna's mound and began to nibble the soft flesh of her thighs, her tongue stroking the creamy and slick skin.
A brief pause, and Anna nearly went out of her mind.
Then a long and slow lick, caressing every minute portion of her slit, and Anna grasped the bedcovers with both fists, her lower back arching under Elsa's hands. Nothing else existed, except this swirling tongue, silky lips, a most desperate and final adoration.
Elsa shifted Anna's thighs, opening her even wider, and dove deeper. A long and tremulous moan arose from her, drawn out like a note from a lute. Another brief and soul-wrenching pause, and Elsa lifted one of Anna's legs over her shoulder. Lapping, fluttering, stroking; her tongue reached every part of Anna's core, and she could feel the dark precipice coming, the sweet oblivion beckoning, but she was desolate without the press of her lover, was alone except for this tongue, these hands; as Anna trembled on the brink she reached down to pull Elsa up to her.
Elsa scrambled up to her; she slid her fingers deeply inside Anna, straddling her on the side of the bed as she continued her most important work. Anna gasped for the abraded stitches, the bristles that raked Elsa's soft skin, but there could be no halting; she hungrily pulled Elsa's mouth to hers and tasted herself there.
The kiss broke as the chasm loomed.
"Don't go without me," Elsa whispered as Anna's eyes widened and darkened. Anna felt like nothing except an outline of pulsing light; a hungry flame trapped in a human body, incandescent, coruscating with emotion, the sparkling of stars and the solid whisper of midnight, the midnight she would never see with Elsa again, for as she once sacrificed herself for Elsa, so Elsa would sacrifice likewise, and the ledger could never, would never be balanced.
Elsa's fingers thrust inside her. They were connected now, far deeper than this slickness, this heat. Born of snow and the cry of a crow, dead through the caress of bitter water, reborn again to each other through the filters of the world, the filter that hovered now, the veil that shimmered, the curtain that vibrated like the blessed reality of Elsa's fingers.
And now, as before, the filter shattered, the veil was sundered, and their agonized cries sped up to the heavens, not blockaded by window glass or skeins of cloud, not halted or turned aside; their joy and love rocketed upwards and would never end.
When Elsa was gone, Anna could remember. That Elsa explored her, mapped her, memorized her, and possessed her.
Loved her, and every inch of her. It was a love that had survived all things. It could survive even this.
Pulsing lights, white-hot heat, joy and desire and the explosion that rippled shock waves throughout her entire system. Their eyes were open; they feasted on each other as darkness and pleasure feasted on them.
A tear spun from Elsa's eyes, and it fell onto Anna's cheek. She removed her hand and cradled Anna close, now shying away again from the angry bristles. "I wish I didn't have to go," she whispered.
"Don't say it, please, Elsa," Anna begged, her heart breaking again. "I barely have enough strength to let you go, to let you walk out of my life again. Don't say it, please."
Elsa kissed her, and her lips trembled in softness and despair. Salty tears dashed their cheeks and she kissed Anna again and again, their hunger for each other never abating, never subsiding, and never enough now that 9 pm was so close.
Just moments away now.
Anna would die first, as she always did, and would Elsa's sacrifice really free her? Did she really want to be free? Wasn't this half-life better, somehow, than a whole life with no Elsa in it?
Anna broke the kiss. "I'm going to try and take control tonight," Anna whispered.
Elsa lifted her face to look at her, and her face was blessed with shadow and light. "Are you sure?" Elsa asked.
"I have to find out what's going on. I pray that I won't find Haley there."
Taking control of her imprisonment within the unseen world was risky and dangerous. The last time she tried was the last time they had come so close to capturing the fortune teller; Anna had red nights for days on end, and her exhaustion left her dim-witted and languorous.
She would risk anything for Haley, just as she would sacrifice everything for Elsa.
It was too late to save Elsa now, but it might not be too late for Haley.
"Anna, I love you so much," Elsa whispered. "I'll love you forever."
Anna couldn't respond as she wanted; her time was done, and her tongue was shattered by loss.
It was starting.
A slow sweeping sensation, almost blissful and narcotic; the surrender before sleep. Her resistance and will flowed before it, was swallowed inside it. A sensation of cold heavy weight against her chest, and her mouth filled with illusory water. Anna wished she could tell Elsa how beloved she was, how essential, but the words would drown under that memory of water.
The unseen world touched her toes, rippled along her limbs, and then with the slow grace of a cobra, it swallowed her whole and spat her out into the gray plains of the Marketplace of Souls, where a chain of adamant forged by the fortune teller encircled her ankle.
This night she would push her chained boundaries as far as possible. The living could never be found here; this place was reserved for the dead alone. Anna remembered the murdered girl and began looking for Brin, knowing it was her connection to a Haley who must still be living, surely she was still alive!
It should have been easy to find her, even among the billions who resided here. Identity was eternal, and the dead were compelled by her call. She would have power and knowledge beyond the ken of the world if she desired it.
Red and blue pinpricks of light floated through the mists. She shied away from the red ones; their violent deaths would suck her in like a whirlpool and she had work to do.
Brin could not be found. Just as Anna realized what that meant, she felt something change.
A familiar presence had arrived, and it was red.
Then
Haley stood in the bathroom, clutching at the sheet as if it were a lover.
She had never felt so utterly alone.
Anxiety tortured her, wrung her out like an abused towel. There had only ever been one other time when the fear hurt this bad; Dr. Steve had knifed her with his desires, brutal and affirming thrusts into her body, and when her blood had seeped from her in exquisite bliss he had kissed her and left.
She had been delirious with happiness and hurt, yet appalled at the blood and the surprising pain of the act itself. He came to her the next night, and the next, and her need for fulfilment was yet another surprise. He had been a considerate lover until he decided he didn't want her anymore.
For a while she thought he had taken part of her with him, a part she could never have back.
At this moment, she was sure she had it back, for whatever part of her heart it was, it was faltering again, dying as surely as little Casey in her body-prison. Soon it would be buried in a casket next to Elsa and her doomed family.
Elsa's scarf was still in the middle of the tiled floor. Haley stared at it, for she could not bear to look at the scene unfolding before her.
Don't interrupt. Don't interfere. I love you.
The surprisingly strong fortune teller had heaved Anna's sodden and inert body from the bathtub. Rills of water were screeching away from her.
And then the fortune teller did nothing. Anna was dead on the floor. When Haley started to move in the most genuine fear that had ever captured her, so much more than the night of Danny and the haint, Katja had hissed at her. "This is your test now," she said. "Do not move. Do not speak. Have faith."
There was a weight in the room, a thick presence that Haley recognized.
Her skin pebbled; the hairs that stood on the back of her neck prepared to flee.
Long ago she had been enamoured of this feeling; so dark, so dangerous, so intoxicating. She had perched with her childhood friend Danny within a protective circle of sand; she called to the dead, and heard their cry from the dust. The warrior had appeared suddenly and with fierce displeasure; he had gripped a spear and though his words were unintelligible, Haley knew she was being rebuked.
What right had she, or anyone else, to tread in the unseen world while living?
An unexplained mirror hung above the tub.
Anna's lips were blue, and her face was the colour of stale rain. She was dead. She had just been killed by the fortune teller, and drowned in a bathtub, and Haley did nothing to stop it.
Her world had collapsed in on itself; swallowed and buried in water like the lost city of Atlantis. She was intuitive enough to know that this was the moment that all good things faded, leaving behind only a slim reflection, shimmering and inconstant upon the surface of water.
It was not enough to lose her capacity for love. Nor was it enough to lose the shining and muted girl who ate peanut butter sandwiches and devoured library books. No, she would end up losing Anna as well. So much of her heart taken away by her beloved ones, carried as trophies into the unseen world.
The scarf wavered in her vision as if alive; then Haley realized that her legs had gone unresponsive, and that she had sunk to the ground.
The fortune teller sat by Anna's inert body, and she held Anna's wrist. There would be no whisper of blood, for Anna was dead.
There was no mistaking what then occurred. Haley had been staring right at Elsa's scarf.
It burst into flame, erupted quickly into a blossom of smoke. Stupefied, Haley watched as it cannibalized itself, until it was reduced to a pile of ash.
The fortune teller's eyes rolled into the back of her skull, until all Haley could see were the whites. She held Anna's wrist, and then the fortune teller expelled a vast and impossible plume of water from her lungs.
It splashed on the still-smoking remnants of the scarf.
And Elsa returned in its place.
And the return was sudden and precipitous, a vaudeville hook snagging her from the unseen world and drawing her through every filter, back through the curtain of flesh and blood and bones, depositing her here, naked and breathing.
Alive.
"You may move now," Katja murmured, her voice splintered and sore. She had come back to herself, and her dark eyes were immensely heavy. "The sheet," she continued.
Anna was splayed like a dead fish on the floor, and Elsa had not yet moved, either. There was no mistake that it was Elsa; there were scars on her throat and her left hand had only two fingers and a thumb. She could never wear a wedding band.
Averting her eyes for Elsa's modesty, Haley furled out the sheet to cover her, and then crouched nearby. Neither of her beloved friends had yet moved.
"Elsa?" she asked, willing with all her soul that she was not dreaming. She needed this to be real. God, please let it be real!
Elsa's eyes opened, her eyelids fluttering, and her awakened eyes were the colour of warm spring rains, they were the freshness of alpine gentians, they were the bedewed glory of droplets on a skein of spider web at dawn. Her fingers trembled, and her sundered left hand grasped the edge of the sheet, wrapping it around her with the shy folding of flower petals at night, demure and alluring.
Haley had to touch her. She was not a believer.
She grasped Elsa's elbow, and Elsa's glorious eyes were on her, and she somehow lifted her from the floor and then wrapped her in an embrace. Her hand flew up Elsa's spine, encircled her neck, and when she finally stroked the lacework of scars on Elsa's throat, she finally believed.
Elsa's heart thudded against her chest, and her hair somehow smelled as it always did in life, of orchids and cassis. Elsa seemed stupefied; it took her some time within this embrace to realize where she was and what was happening.
The fortune teller was still kneeling next to Anna. The wet and bedraggled girl was still in the coils of the cobra water, the chains of the unseen world. Still dead.
"Anna?" Elsa asked, squeezing Haley's arms before tucking the sheet tighter to her body and moving to the inert form of her love. As she walked, the sheet lifted to reveal her perfect pale legs, lithe and strong, her small toes. Haley wondered what was going through Elsa's mind at the pallor on Anna's lips, the evidence of her second near-fatal encounter with water.
Correction. Fatal encounter.
Elsa touched her, ignoring the fortune teller. "Anna?" she asked again.
Nothing. This would shatter them all.
"What did you do to her?" Elsa demanded, forgetting about her modesty; the sheet lifted to display more pale skin as she drew Anna into her lap. She chose instead to clothe herself with Anna's slight form, one hand about Anna's waist and the other stroking her forehead and hair.
"I killed her," the fortune teller replied, her voice sandpaper. "I killed her so she could bring you back. It was the only way. Death for death, and life for life. The price is paid."
Elsa cast a despairing glance in Haley's direction. "She's dead?" Elsa asked. "She died so she could bring me back? What sort of freakish hell is this?"
Then she looked at Haley, her eyes blazing. "And you let this happen," she said, malevolence in her voice.
Haley wanted to open her mouth and redeem herself, but the truth hurt too much. She had let it happen.
"Damn you both," Elsa whispered, stroking Anna's dead hair.
"This is your test now," the fortune teller said, heaving herself from the floor. "She paid the price, but the choice is yours."
"What kind of fucking choice is there if Anna is dead?" Elsa spat. "I get yanked out of heaven for this?"
"Wait out the dawn, and you will see."
The sheet dipped enough to expose Elsa's breast, so Haley pulled it back over the shoulder; Elsa reflexively tugged it close, tucked it under her arms. Haley stood back, and she wasn't a comet anymore. She was doused with water and could never be whole again.
The strange vigil began.
Haley ached with exhaustion, but Elsa didn't seem to need sleep. She held Anna's body, occasionally shifting her position to appease the pricking of her newly resurrected limbs. Haley would have given almost anything to know what was going on in Elsa's head.
How long would Elsa remember the unseen world? Or would it vanish completely like the haint?
The fortune teller left them to brew a pot of tea. It was strong and hot and infused with lemon. Haley drank hers automatically, but Elsa left hers to ferment on the bathroom floor.
Midnight came, and then midnight went. Anna's skin was dry now, though her clothes were still wet. Elsa was everlasting.
Anna had said goodbye was a second chance. Apparently the second chance wasn't for her. She bought back Elsa's life, drew it from the heavenly shelf, and used all her own blood in payment.
Death for death. Life for life. The price is paid.
Haley slept in thin snatches of nightmare; she dreamt of Patricia and the betrayal of Dr. Steve. She dreamed of Danny and the haint.
Elsa was now laying completely down on the floor; she had tucked Anna along the front of her body, placed Anna's mouth near her abraded neck and covered them both with the sheet. Whenever Haley roused enough to take in her surroundings, she noticed that Elsa's eyes were always open. She had on the set of clothing the fortune teller told Anna to bring; she must have dressed herself while Haley was sleeping.
At 5:55 in the morning, the fortune teller came back into the bathroom. Elsa stared at her in spiteful heat, and reflexively clutched Anna closer to herself. Sweet, dead Anna. It had been almost nine hours since she last breathed. Haley would think this impossible if Elsa was not standing before her. Resurrected from the unseen world.
"Now for the moment of truth," Katja continued. "Put Anna back into the tub. Submerge her with water. Wait four minutes, and have faith. If you can survive this, you can survive all."
For a moment, it looked as if Elsa would rather punch the fortune teller than pick up her dead partner and put her in the tub. Faith was laughable; a fairy tale or a ghost story. There was no truth in it, no beauty.
But then she looked at Haley, and Haley nodded. The sheet cascaded as Elsa rose from the floor, and she picked Anna up, one hand under her knees, the other under her shoulders. She turned and dipped Anna's body into the tub with all the gentle grace of a lover, bending Anna's compliant knees so Anna could lay on her side and be completely immersed.
Haley had never witnessed such a bizarre baptism.
Finally Elsa kissed Anna's dead lips, and then let Anna's head sink under the water. She knelt at the edge of the tub and looked at the form of her girlfriend within.
Damn you both.
...
A/N: I have been moved to joy and tears for all the recent love shown to me and this story in reviews and in private messages. I am so glad I chose to share this story with you, because it is a story so near and dear to my heart. And now, dear readers, wait for Saturday, and the end. Va pup.