~30~
Now
Casey rested her forehead against the cool car window, watching the puff of her breath obscure the landscape hurtling by. After a few moments, she pulled away from the window and then wrote in her best backwards writing, "Casey was here". She sat back and stared as her artwork vanished, reclaimed by the jealousy of the window glass. She wondered how long Elsa would let them stay there before erasing them with Windex, or if Elsa would choose to clean around it, resting her forehead in precisely the same spot and with her own breath recall the last words written by a dying girl.
It didn't actually matter. Casey finally had company on her pathway to death; when she died, Elsa would fade as well.
But both her mom and Anna would live. They would see midnight again, and use mirrors to put on their makeup, and eventually they would forget everything they had learned in the unseen world.
They would forget nothing of Casey and Elsa. Life was a tapestry, after all, and when the threads that made up Elsa and Casey were gone, the warp and woof would be forever altered.
Casey looked at those vanished words on the window and decided it didn't really make much of a memoir. She had made precious little impact on this world. Time was a paintbrush, really. It would cover everything.
She hoped that her mom and Anna would eventually live again, actually loving, actually laughing, and not spending reams of time in misguided mourning for two souls who were always doomed to die. For herself, all Casey wanted was for the fight and the pain to be over.
And Elsa?
Sometimes God loved people so much He called them home early, by whatever means necessary. It hadn't worked the last two times; the marsh and the bastard seawater.
Three times is the charm.
Casey shifted in her seat, carefully, for the pain was considerable today, and looked at Elsa. No one talked about it much, but Elsa had died once. She drowned to death, and she was put in a casket, and there was a funeral, and flowers, and devastation.
Elsa was driving the car through a great white landscape. Casey had always been envious of Elsa's hair; it spilled over her shoulders like a cascade of new fallen snow, and glinted with the autumn sun that shone through the windows of the car. Those beads of sunlight that condensed on Elsa's hair made Casey certain that love was just like prospecting for gold in rutted and cynical river beds. Once you caught a glimpse of it you'd do anything to attain it, and you'd be more inclined not to share.
Elsa hadn't slept all night, but she hadn't needed to. Tiredness and exhaustion had not carved new trails in the roadmap of her face; she simply looked old and worn-out, stretched thin by everlasting life like toffee pulled too long and made brittle as a consequence.
Because of Casey, Elsa hadn't slept in nine years. The fortune teller had not quoted that price, either.
Once upon a time, all Casey wanted when she grew up was to be just like Elsa.
Yet in their conversations they had while hurtling down this road to the Pacific Ocean, Elsa had revealed some truths that thirteen year old Casey could never have imagined.
All Elsa wanted was to grow up as well. To a child, the aspirations and lives of adults seem so monotonous and strangely fulfilling; children could not understand that grown-ups didn't have all the answers, either. They had just learned how to fake it.
Elsa looked over at her and smiled. It was a more true sunrise. She was so beautiful. With all her heart, Casey wished that Anna could be with them. Anna should be the one commanding the last of Elsa's hours, not her.
Elsa had tried to be strong, but last night she had wept on the phone in the motel room as she spoke with Anna. It was good news that Anna had, that Tim had been arrested, that Haley had been found and treated for her rough imprisonment at his hands, that her Uncle Rick had survived the dusk to dawn ritual of the fortune teller.
That Brin was alive again, but not for much longer. She had been sewn up and discharged from the hospital, but with Casey's death, she would fade along with Elsa.
Then they had spoken of love and soft remembrances; gestures and tastes spanning the ten years of their companionship. Lamb and labneh, cocoa and cream, life and love as tender and delicious as Anna's cooking. The sound of her quiet weeping broke Casey's heart.
When Elsa handed the phone to Casey, she wasn't sure she was strong enough to talk to Anna. Would Anna hate her forever for taking Elsa from her, for robbing her of Elsa's last moments of life?
"I'm not mad at you," Anna had said. "Because of you, I got Elsa back. We had nine more years together, years we would not have had. I'll love and miss her forever, just as I'll love and miss you. Besides, I think we all understand that we don't always get a happy ending, even if we deserve one."
Anna was still revenant, just like her mother. Elsa had whispered into the phone as Anna died for the night, far away on the other side of the country. Dead for now, but not for much longer. Life and wholeness awaited both Anna and her mother the moment that Casey succumbed to fate.
"Deep thoughts, kiddo?" Elsa asked.
"Deep and meaningful," Casey replied.
"Want to share?"
Casey paused, and then said, "I'm dragging you all back to the unseen world, aren't I?"
"I think you are," Elsa replied, speaking slowly. There was so much sadness in her voice.
"Are you mad at me?" Casey asked, feeling about two inches tall.
Half of a smile rose on Elsa's lips. "Sweetie, I'm not mad. We all knew it would end eventually. Besides, I've known for a long time that this life of yours isn't much of a life at all. I get a little mad, sometimes, but not at you. Life just sucks sometimes."
"And then you die," Casey said. "Anna told me last night that at least she had you back for nine years, that you had the opportunity to make a life together. At least you got to make something of your second chance, with the inn, with your books. But every time that my mom stole time for me, capturing it in my own mirror, the time I was given wasn't all that great. Sure, sometimes I had a remission long enough to do some cool things, like go horseback riding with my cousin, and dig for shells on the beach. But they never lasted long enough.
"My mom is a fool, Elsa. She used to hate it when I talked about fate. To her, fate is a monstrous dog trying to protect his property from all poachers. Somewhere she learned that you can throw fate a bone, divert fate's attention for a little while. I think she did that somehow, used the fortune teller and all these sacrifices to call fate off my scent, and then she picked me up and began running in the opposite direction."
Elsa nodded. They passed a sign that welcomed them to Salem, Oregon. Casey hadn't known how one side of America was just a mirror image of the other; Portlands, Salems, Newports, each on opposite ends of the country.
She had been enthralled with the past five days of her journey with Elsa; this America was just as big and grand as all the songs said. Spacious skies, amber waves of grain. Purple mountains majesty, and cities of alabaster.
God was shedding his grace on all of them, mortal and revenant alike.
Her own dreams were flat in comparison to these towering ideas. But how does a dying one dare to dream, when each breath upon the window pane was one less in the bank? Soon enough she would withdraw all her breaths, and her account would close.
And with the connection to the mirror severed, all those brought back to life through it would dissolve back into dust. So many deaths, all to buy Casey more savage time.
She found she still could not hate her mother. Love to shatter the boundary of heaven was rare.
"So that's what your mom thinks. But what do you think about fate?" Elsa asked, stirring Casey from her thoughts.
The answer was already formed. She had had plenty of time to do thinking.
"It certainly isn't a dog, Elsa. Maybe there is a bigger purpose. Maybe I was supposed to do something with my life, contribute some way to the world. Maybe each time fate is diverted, I'm given the chance to do something important, to validate all the hurt and all the pain. I might have been the first woman President of the United States. I might have written books, like you, sharing magic and wonder with every word. I might have composed music to be remembered long after my death."
Casey took a sharp breath; pain jangled her nerves. Everywhere they went, staying in motels as they crossed the country, paying cash so they could not be traced, people would stare at her bald head, at the central line jutting from her chest, and at the abyss of fingers on Elsa's left hand. Casey didn't know why her mom hadn't set the police after them; for the first day of their journey, she and Elsa wondered if Amber Alerts of kidnapping would be broadcast on the radio. Maybe the note she had left for her mom did the trick, as Casey pleaded for her chance to enjoy the last few days or weeks of her life.
The health she had stolen from her Uncle Rick wouldn't last very long. If she had stayed at home, her mom eventually would have found another victim, another way to leverage time into Casey's balance sheet.
The last victim had been her cousin, Brin. Brin, whom Casey adored, in whom Casey found a kindred spirit. Poor murdered Brin. Just like Elsa and the four others that the fortune teller had harvested for Casey's mirror, Brin would die again the moment Casey did.
No more. No more sacrificing on her behalf, lambs on an altar to buy her more time away from the death that hovered nearby; her most attentive lover. Not when the victims, like the helpless lambs they were, had no idea what they were really doing, what price they would eventually pay.
She had her mother to thank for that.
"Does it hurt to die?" Casey asked, not looking at Elsa anymore, not wanting to see the flash of pain over Elsa's face. Far better to stare at the frosted world around them and know she was in her last best adventure. Newport, Oregon, was a little town. She hoped the beach was secluded; she didn't want any strangers to see her die.
"Yes," Elsa admitted.
Casey wondered how much it hurt to die, but then realized it couldn't hurt more than living.
"Are you sure this is all you want?" Elsa asked.
Casey had not missed the flash of pain on Elsa's face when she had said she wanted to die with her toes in the Pacific Ocean. Elsa had drowned in an ocean, once. She came back, but she didn't come back whole.
"Yes," Casey replied. Elsa had told her that Casey could have anything she wanted for her last days on earth; she could eat nothing but steak and ice cream, she could bounce on the motel beds, she could go on all the rides at the amusement park until she puked (vomiting not really a deterrant from certain activities because she had certainly gotten used to the bitter taste of it).
No Disneyworld, no cruises or meeting with celebrities. No such foolish desires for her. All Casey wanted was to know that she had dipped her toes in the waters of America's oceans. First the Atlantic, now the Pacific; it would make an admirable bookend to her life. Once there, some of her skin cells would slough off and begin a most tremendous journey that might end on the beaches of Mauritania, or the shores of Finland, or taken up in the gentle evaporating hands of the sky to fall as snow on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Would her Uncle Rick ever go there, after Brin vanished again? Would he struggle up its slopes, battling altitude sickness and exhaustion, and when the clouds would coalesce around his legs, would he know that some part of Casey would be in them?
That future was yet unwritten.
Casey felt thin in body and spirit; she knew it was almost time. When they arrived in Newport and checked into the motel, Casey could no longer walk on her own. Elsa carried her into the room and tucked her into bed. At various times during the night, Casey would shift in her pain-filled sleep; each time her eyes opened she could see Elsa either writing on her laptop or gazing into the moon-drenched sky.
In the morning, Casey asked, "What story are you working on, Elsa?"
Her smile was lush and growing. "It's yours, Casey."
Then
Thursday, October 26, 2000.
It was seven thirty at night, the man she was waiting for was late, and Gerda was nervous. When she thought that no one was looking, she wiped her palms on her pants and looked at the clock over the bar. She was sitting in the furthermost corner of the shady restaurant; had scooted in when a sudden press of people had provided adequate cover. Why did so many bars have to have mirrors behind their wares?
The waitress had popped bubble gum and seemed perturbed that Gerda dared order a drink from her table instead of sauntering to the bar to get it herself. She took her time in returning to Gerda with a glass of rum and Coke, and the glass looked dirty and previously used. A pink parasol was in her straw.
Gerda still sipped it. She was nervous. From behind the bar, the man who was making drinks seemed overly solicitous, even flirting? Gerda realized she should have been flattered by his attentions; after all, she looked young and she had taken off her wedding ring.
Everyone here was a stranger, and Gerda wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Would they remember her when she was gone, as the loner who sat as far from the mirror as she could and pretended that she belonged?
The parasol protecting her drink was ripped on one side, as if it had been passed from glass to glass, just waiting for someone to love it long enough to take it home and put it in a memory book beside the words, "the night so and so said he loved me."
Such petty wishes, a reflection of a nation similarly doomed to mediocrity.
They had no idea how much the world could bite back. It was ravenous.
Finally the man came through the door, and slouched over to the bar, almost frightening in his normalcy. There was nothing about him that was out of the ordinary; he seemed to exude dullness like an invisible cloak. No one would ever remember him coming and going, and that's exactly what Gerda was looking for.
It should have been harder to find a hired killer.
She smoothed back her hair, almost surprised when she didn't feel the bun nearly screwed to the back of her head. Tonight it flowed long and luxurious, over her shoulders, and she wondered if Kai would ever forgive her.
Her contact picked up a beer, chatted amiably with the barman, and then sauntered to her table. She could hear the noise of a football game on the TV, some shrill laughing from the waitress, some manic beeping from VLT's; would the noise protect their conversation as it needed to?
Gerda couldn't look at his face. She looked everywhere else; the wall, the scarred table, his hands. They didn't look like the hands of a killer, though she had no idea what she expected a killer's hands to look like. His hair was a dark dun, and cropped close to his skull.
"So you're Gerda," he said, his voice sandpaper and bullfrogs. Had he smoked his entire life, or was this gravel natural?
Gerda nodded.
"I'm Tim. Let's dispense with the last names. I understand that you have some work for me?"
She was glad he called it simply work. She could handle that. It was just a little job, a little favour.
Worth ten thousand dollars and Elsa's life.
Gerda forced herself to think of Casey. The latest relapse had been horrific, and the doctors warned her that she would only have four or five months. That's all. Death was inevitable; Casey would go into the little box and into the ground.
Make your arrangements, they urged.
Gerda made different arrangements. She had already been stripped of her own little good soul, and her time given to Casey through the mirror. She could not sacrifice herself again. It would need to be someone else, someone they knew, someone who already had a connection with Casey.
Casey, her miracle baby, the only fruit of her womb. She should have the opportunity to live forever.
Whatever the cost.
Tim sipped his beer and stared at her, waiting for her to speak. Was he judging her intent, her strength? How long could she hold the jaws of the lion shut?
"Yes, I have work for you," she said, her voice husky. She tried not to look furtive as she pushed over a plain manila envelope, unsealed.
Tim drew it from the table and peeked inside. Gerda had memorized its contents already. A picture, instructions, and cash. Lots of cash. Even in hundred dollar bills, ten thousand dollars took up substantial space.
He looked at the picture, and there was a strange flash in his eyes. "So who is she?" he asked, looking at Gerda.
"Her name is Elsa Kelly."
"She's very pretty," he said.
"Is there going to be a problem?" Gerda asked, worried and brittle.
"Nope. Work is work. There is only ten thousand in here."
"You get the other ten after you do the job exactly as I tell you to. The instructions are inside. You have to follow them precisely."
"Isn't dead dead?" he asked, then he took a long gulp of his beer. Foam clung to the insides of the bottle, trying to escape his gullet.
Dead was never really dead. Sometimes goodbye was a second chance. She counted on it.
Gerda chose not to answer him; her silence would be her weapon, along with all the knowledge she gained through the unseen world. She had glimpsed the future, she knew how to manipulate destiny. She would be damned before she danced on the Wheel of Fortune to the whims of fate.
Yes, she would be damned.
Her silence was enough. He drained the last of his beer and stood up, tucking the envelope into his pocket. Before he left, he looked at her. "You realize we'll be bunking together in hell, don't you?" he asked.
"Just do it right," she said. "I may have more work for you after this."
He walked away, and no one noticed.
Gerda sat in thought. Her rum and Coke was empty, but the girl did not wander over to get her another. She told herself to get up and get home; she had to be back before 9 pm.
Tim was a fool; a mortal. Gerda knew the truth. The mirror had stolen her soul, so hell had no fury, not for her.
All Gerda wanted was time and her daughter.