A Different Kind of Despair (3 page)

He stared at me for another second and grabbed
me by the hand.

"Leo, I'm borrowing the tent!" he
called.

Leo nodded across the green. He and the last
man returned their focus to a map in their hands.

The room was filled with the glow of gas
lamps. I cringed and dug my heels into the earth, my eyes darting
to the floor.

"Put them out." Marvin turned to me. I heard a
quaver in my voice I didn't recognize. "Put... the fire
out."

Stern Marvin did as I asked without question
or complaint. He sat me on the cot. It was so dark that I could not
see his face, and he could not see mine. But I heard his breathing,
steady and paced like the tides. Its consistency, its existence,
was the rock that I clung to.

Any time I opened my mouth in an attempt to
speak or ask a question, faces of my friends and family swam before
my eyes. Hot tears of shame left angry trails down my cheeks. How
could I run? How could I live?

"Miraj'a."

The childish way of saying my name, normally
the fastest path to my temper, made me think of my mother's face.
It grounded me long enough to stab at my heart. I sat in the
darkness of the tent, and I felt myself dying.

Years ago, I'd criticized Marvin for an
explanation he gave, something about how a person can both be dead
and alive. I was in awe of my ignorance back then. My monumental
stupidity.

"A different kind of deadly," I murmured,
recalling his words from back then. "Isn't that what you called
it?"

I heard him shuffle, slowly making out pieces
of his narrow face as he entered my lonely bubble. I felt his arms,
comfortably larger than my own, wrap around me. The scent of
medicinal herbs, the scent I'd fallen asleep to so many times, was
on his shirt.

"Release me," I hiccuped, fighting the onset
of tears.

"It's okay, Miraj'a," he spoke to my hair.
"It's okay to cry."

"I am Hikari," I said, as though the words
meant anything. The name I took so much pride in now felt dead
against my ears. "I must be strong."

"You are strong."

"If I were strong," the words were losing to
my grief. "Then I could have saved them. Some of them. Just one." I
dug my nails into his back, felt them pierce the thin fabric as
they sank into his flesh. "Just my mother."

"Your mother would've wanted you to
live."

I shoved myself off of him, momentarily
breaking his grasp.

"You dare speak of living?" I demanded, my
throat tight. "What sort of doctor abandons his people as they lay
dying?"

He did not deserve my outrage. I knew it, but
like so many times, I could not keep my mouth in check.

"I am not a doctor."

The answer was an unexpected one.

"I am a necromancer."

"A... what?" My mind was racing, picking up
fables, stories, bedtime tales. Necromancer? A necromancer was an
evil spirit in mortal skin. It raised the dead and forbade them
peace. A necromancer existed to steal and rape the souls of our
loved ones -they were nightmares whispered into the ears of
misbehaving children in the thick of night.

Marvin rolled up the hem of his
pants. I once watched him carve wooden pegs on which to stand, but
this was not wood, but bone. He had fashioned entirely new skeletal
shins and feet. I swayed at the revelation.

"You really are," I said dumbly. "B-but you're
not evil. There's no way my mother would've allowed a man such as
you among us otherwise. Did she know?"

"She knew," Marvin answered. "It wasn't the
first time she encountered one."

"There's no way -she would have told
me."

"Miraj, did your mother ever tell you anything
about your father?"

My chest clenched. I could see where this was
going. "Only that he was a traveler."

"Your father," Marvin said, "belongs to House
Soma. His name is Larry. He's Leo's uncle, so that actually makes
you and Leo cousins."

"Hah." Uncertain laughter trembled out of my
throat. "Cousins? With that giant?"

"For now, we're headed back to Nethermountain,
our original home. You'll be safe there until we can plan a new
course of action."

The thought of living among necromancers did
not appeal to me, but I could not think of a reason to protest. I
selected one to be my husband. Surely, they couldn't have been that
bad.

"...why are you telling me all this?" I asked,
wondering at why one of his most private secrets was revealed to me
when he'd done so much to keep it safe before.

"Because I want you to know that you haven't
lost everything, Miraj'a. You still have a family, just one you
never had a chance to know."

While nothing in this world could substitute
what I'd lost, Marvin had broadened my horizon in the space of a
sentence. Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. This time there was no
shame in shedding them.

"Thank you," I sobbed, throwing my arms around
him. "I love you, Marvin. I love you so much right now I feel as
though I could die."

"Please don't," he said factually. "I already
had to tell Leo not to touch my stock; I don't want to fight over
your corpse too."

His analytical side, to the point of being
dense, made more sense to me as I thought of him as a necromancer.
It was no wonder he knew our bodies so well.

"Miraj?" he asked. "Are you coming down with a
cold? You're shivering."

"Marvin... do you... not like living
people?"

"What?"

"I mean, would you love me more if I was
dead?"

He snapped, pushing me on the ground so
quickly that my head was spinning.

"You will
never
ask me such a
stupid question again."

Moonlight peeled through the shadow, blinding
us for a moment until I recognized the blonde man in the
door.

"Really, Marvin? Was all that talk about being
a criminal just for show?"

I processed how this scene might look through
the eyes of a stranger. A grown man was on top of me, and there
were still tears on my face.

"Will, it's not what it looks
like-"

"Your friend makes sense!" I decided. "You are
also Hikari, Marvin. Let's repopulate the tribe together!" I kept
him there by the collar of his shirt.

"Will," Marvin struggled. "Aren't you going to
do anything?"

"I'm watching, aren't I?"

"Dammit, Will!"

"Alright, alright. Quit your bitchin'." He
lifted Marvin back to his feet, breaking my grip as though it were
nothing. "Go talk to Leo. We've found a shortcut through the
Moor."

"The Moor? Are you crazy?" he snapped. "We
can't take Miraj through that place!"

"Would you cool it? It's part of Purilo's
tunnels. We'll be safe."

Marvin groaned, stomping out the door. I heard
the sound of arguing a moment later.

Will barred my path before I could
go outside and join them.

"Of all the people on this forsaken earth, you
choose Marvin for your husband?"

I sniffed primly. "I don't owe you an
explanation."

"Then take this advice as my wedding present,"
Will sneered. "Unless you look like a doll, that guy won't even
give you a second glance."

4: First For Everything

I don't recall sleeping that night, but I
did.

It was dreamless; deathly. I awoke feeling
heavier than a pile of rocks. Will's words from the night before
made up the first conscious thought in my head.

What the hell was he going on about with
dolls?

The familiar sound of grinding filled the air.
I looked to the side to find Marvin crushing something with a
mortar and pestle. A wondering little smile tugged at my lips, that
he would think to pack such tools before running for our lives the
night before.

Two years ago, he was a scrawny thing. His
frame was good, but due to his lack of muscle, he appeared like a
young boy rather than a man. Once he'd fashioned himself  set
of pegs and affixed them to his stumps, I watched him in the
mornings, hobbling along while leaning on a cane for
balance.

With time and no small amount of effort,
Marvin rarely needed that extra support, until one day I saw it was
gone altogether. Though I strongly doubt he noticed my observance,
I was filled with such great pride, as though his accomplishment
was my own.

The man I saw now did not have the physique of
a child. I do not know what additional training Marvin put himself
through, but he was stronger, almost to the point of being an
entirely different person from the one I spotted as he
arrived.

"I see you're awake," he said.

"How can you see if you didn't glance at me
once?"

"You stopped snoring."

"I do
not
snore!" I shrieked, my face
blaring red.

He stifled a laugh, finally giving me a
sidelong glance. Mischief danced in his clouded eyes. "Your
breathing pattern changed. You've fallen asleep in front of me so
many times that I can tell when you're close to waking."

Somehow, that explanation made my
heart pound harder than before. It seemed that he observed me as
much as I did him. I sat up, quickly patting down my
hair.

"Don't do that," he chided. Marvin took the
pestle and whispered an alien phrase to its ivory surface. I looked
on incredulously as it transformed into a comb.

"What magic is that?"

"One way to use necromancy," he replied. "It's
bone, so I can reconstruct it any way to suit my needs."

It was a bit unnatural for my tastes, but I
couldn't deny its usefulness.

Marvin sat a bit behind me, clicking his
tongue on the roof of his mouth.

"So many knots," he sighed in
dismay.

"I'll kill you if you rip my hair
out."

"Leo will just bring me back if you do," he
said. I felt him grab a section of hair and hold it against my
scalp. Marvin began to comb through the wild strands. One by one, I
felt the tangles disappear in painless segments. I always hated
brushing my hair because the gnarled wise women were so rough when
they taught me how. Marvin was gentle. His touch was so
kind.

"You're shockingly good at this."

"I've had a lot of practice."

There was something in his voice I didn't
recognize. It wasn't quite a smile, or pride, but it was tinged
with a note of bitter remembrance.

"On your sisters?" I asked, digging for
answers.

"I'm an only child."

"Then your mother?"

Marvin snorted, "Definitely not."

I waited for him to pause, tilting my head
back, a little embarrassed to see how close our faces were when I
did.

"Who, then?"

"A doll."

Will's words sent a violent chill down my
spine. I didn't like the way Marvin was looking at me... looking
through me, I should say. It was as though he was staring at a face
that was no longer there.

"A doll?" My throat tightened. I sat straight
again so he couldn't see my face. "What kind of doll?"

"The most beautiful doll in
the world." Roses of admiration bloomed through that sentence. "She
had skin so white you could see it in blacked out room, and
dark,
dark
brown
hair. I'd spend hours brushing it, just like
this."

That kind touch of his suddenly felt
uncomfortable. I felt the birth of an ugly emotion rearing its head
on my temperament. It made me queasy, as though I were about to
vomit. I couldn't ask Marvin to stop his explanation; I needed to
hear it, though all I wanted was to run away and hide.