Page 132 of This Divine Revelry

‘Will you take him?’

She nods, biting at her lip. ‘I can’t believe after all this we’re not even making it across together.’

‘I know,’ I say thickly. There are no burial rites for a child swallowed by the ocean. No coin to pay the ferryman. And another will not land in my palm.

‘I’ll give him mine,’ Opora says. ‘You can take him and –’

‘No, no, look at you both – you’re barely here. You need to get to the other side.’

‘What about you?’

‘I have more time,’ I say, raising my arm against hers. ‘Maybe there’s another way. Or I might be able to negotiate for someone’s spare coin – I’m the wife of Dionysus, that must hold some sway with someone here.’

She clearly doesn’t believe me but she’s aware of how few our options are too.

‘Icarus.’ I turn back to him. He is so faded his blinks are slow, his gaze unfocused – and it is a miracle he saw and recognized me at all. ‘This is my friend Opora. Do you know how the boat works?’

He nods, and though it takes him a moment, he adds: ‘It takes you on. To paradise – right? Where my mother is?’

‘Yes. Take this coin, and hold it very close until the ferryman asks for it. Opora will go with you.’

‘You’re not coming?’

I force a smile. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

Opora holds her hand out and Icarus, with only a moment’s hesitation, takes it.

I walk them to the riverbank, like I might be some form of protection.

At the edge, she pauses. ‘I’m so glad we at least get to say goodbye this time.’

I feel that lurch again – the way agony, when you are only a soul, encases every part of you.

We have spent so much of this clinging to each other, like it might make it all less painful. And now she loops her arms around me once more and she holds me until the boat moors itself on the shore.

I hold her hand to steady her as she climbs on to the boat and get down on one knee to give Icarus a step up. Charon glowers at me from beneath the hood of his cloak like I might dare try to smuggle myself aboard without paying the proper fee. But I don’t. I step back, making room for the others who have the appropriate fares, and then I watch as the boat pushes away and, finally, vanishes over the horizon.

‘Very few people would have made that choice,’ a voice says. I turn to the soul but it’s difficult to make her out. It takes me a moment, and then I can see the edges of layered skirts and the haze of curls – and I realize it is the woman from the banks, the one who led everyone in a dance.

‘When souls give up, when the despair becomes too much, they walk into the river and become just another wail in its currents,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘I’m not giving up,’ I say – but my voice is quiet because how long until that ceases being true? I have all eternity upon this shore. I might have the strength to wait for years, or decades, or even millennia, but the Underworld has a patience that will always master mine.

‘Join us,’ she offers. ‘You can build something here. They would have you believe happiness is only possible beyond these shores but they’re wrong. There are people here, joy to be had here. You need only create it.’

‘It’s not the same, though,’ I say. My voice is strained, rough – and gods, this is it. I’m dead and this is the end – no path forward, no path at all. Just these banks until I forget the world above and all that came before.

She places her hand on my shoulder, and I can barely feel a thing. Is it her translucence or mine?

‘It’s not,’ she agrees. ‘But it’s something. It’s a choice where they would leave us with none.’

To be happy in spite of it all?

Yes, ordinarily yes, but … but I’m not done yet. I refuse. I cannot be stuck on a shoreline once more, ready to scrounge for a new sort of survival.

‘We can’t accept this,’ I say. ‘It’s not fair that so many souls are stuck here. Why? Because someone up above didn’t bury us properly?’

She arches a brow. ‘Some of us didn’t leave a body behind to bury.’