Bottled Abyss (39 page)

The River is not deep, is not shallow,

     
An Abyss is never bound,

Not by up and down.

She sang the song for an eternity. She could sense her organs rearrange, tiny fishes seep into her veins in place of blood, and above, in the lands of the living, she started to appreciate how full Nyx’s coffers would get, how roaring this grim economy would come to be. This thrilled her, but one idea didn’t sit as well. Perhaps in time it would, but right now, it still riled the remainder of human emotion she possessed. It was the idea that her baby, her Melody, had been a voided check, that her husband, Herman, was the same. They were worthless…of all the souls waiting on the shore with coins in their hand, Melody and Herman would not be among them.

But millions of strangers already were, and Vincent Baker was among them.

His soul had value.

And without prejudice she would board him and the others, to give them passage to the Underworld.

Tears wanted to form in Janet’s eyes, but even if they had, this place would not let them exit the husk that used to be her body.

You’ve learned much quickly.

Janet trembled. Then, with tenderness, slippery cold arms slid under her legs and behind her head.

Cradled her.

2

“You wanted to go on…I would have never suspected you wanted to live so badly.”

Janet heard what Nyx whispered in her ear, but it hardly made sense. She would have debated the God had she not been drunk on ambrosia.

Nyx suspected her disagreement and added, “I was prepared to have a long arduous search—because in the past you have embraced death, unlike most mortals who shun it. I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve ended up like the rest…tired of pain, but wanting to breathe all the same. You should have come by your torment honestly, but you’re a fake, Janet Erikson.”

Janet grinded her teeth into the nipple. It was thick and tasted like seaweed and saltwater, and at times, blood, but not by any of the damage she was doing. Another draught of clean ambrosia spilled in her mouth, casting its golden path down her esophagus and into her stomach. Her body had been unbelievably unnourished on the mere dribbles before that, as though she’d grown different muscle groups and couldn’t operate them without more food.

Nyx roughly pushed on her breast to let down more milk.

More ambrosia did come and Janet eagerly sucked at it. Nyx had to readjust her breast for a moment, the nipple came free of Janet’s mouth, and the agony of the mere separation drew Janet into a sorrowful rage of wailing and thrashing. Her face filled with hot blood and tears came out of the sides of her eyes in bubbles. She was lost, so small, a disaster of creation, hideous, absolutely hideous without her sustenance. The violence of her fit made her regurgitate some of the golden fluid and it spread throughout the dark waters in thinly brilliant threads and snakes.

Such a loss! How much had that vomit been worth? All of this milk had made her stronger and her mind clearer…to waste it because of a weak stomach was catastrophic and unforgivable. How much had it been? A teaspoon? Tablespoon? Cup? If someone could sell a cup of this beautiful drink, how much would it go for? A million dollars to start, and maybe a few hundred slaves to add? No, more. It must be more.

Since being drawn down into the God’s seaweed palace, Janet’s mind had been preoccupied on the value of everything great and small. She couldn’t help it; Nyx was teaching silent lessons without saying much of anything, but those lessons were heard and appreciated. Most of Janet’s past life had been shoved to the farthest point of her selfish mind, much in the way her need for alcohol or suicide had been. She could still access them and recall what they meant at one time, but it was all so…worthless now. All of that stuff was elemental, transient, and should just vanish by way of the ever-flowing waters around her.

“Gently,” Nyx warned, as Janet tore excitedly at the nipple. The God would say these things more for a display of humanness and less for a reaction to any pain, if such a thing existed for the being.

Janet’s new eyes could see underwater with more clarity, though there wasn’t much to see except swaying seaweed and swirling currents carrying particulates and pebbles in dynamic helixes. It was a lonely place, the River, but Janet was beginning to understand its purpose; this was the only stepping stone into the Underworld, a place where a soul would retain its consciousness even after the death of its host body. As a mortal, such a place would mean offering a payment for safe passage. The coin became part of the River itself and made Nyx vital.

The ultimate joke played on the mortals was never truly appreciated, for it was a secret only Nyx and now Janet could know.

All of a mortal’s life memories were extinguished upon reaching the Underworld. Their love, their pain, their beginning, their middle, their ending. Gone from them and cast into the brew that was the River. The consciousness of a mortal did continue on though, as promised, but in the form of a dull-witted ghost that wandered through a godless, lifeless place, which Nyx gladly thought of as a waste dump.

There is no Hades? No Lord of the Underworld?
Janet thought while feeding.

“Once, there were five Gods of the Underworld. This Hades was not one of them, nor was he a real entity, but even if he had been, he would have gone extinct with the rest. Mortals were given too many privileges in life and in death, and it all came to a head.”

How did you survive?

“I was wise enough to employ someone like you who valued the River and couldn’t bear to see it dry up forever.”

What is the River really made of?

“Tragedy.” Nyx’s black smile opened in the waters above. “It is the only potent memory mortals leave behind in their lives. It has the greatest worth. Every other memory is laid to waste.”

But not everybody has tragedies.

“You are greatly wrong. There is no other common memory shared among mortal kind. It is inevitable mortals find something dark to dwell upon in their last moments. Death is not a process for them like with animals. It is an abomination they have no use for… even older mortals, full of pain and rot, may wish for release, but no longer desire death when it comes.”

What about the fly? I used the River’s waters on a fly. It yielded a coin.

“All life, even plants—even microbes, experience tragedy in their way. It isn’t human tragedy of course and it is never as nourishing, but I welcome it all.”

How can that be?

“That fly experienced something you couldn’t appreciate and it has nothing to do with grieving over its death or the death of the eggs it would never have a chance to lay. That fly had one note of discord ringing through its heart as its systems shut down:
How will I ever be a fly now?
That is a common premise with lower life forms. Humans are the only who feel sorry for themselves and think nothing about their value as living things. They place value on things outside themselves and generate more pain and tragedy in one soul than a whole world of flies could.”

I was like that. I feared I’d live down in these waters, suffering all this pain and misery, and being alone the whole time. I wanted to live again so I could find somebody to spend time with. That
is
why you found me, wasn’t it?

“Yes, if you had embraced misery, I would not have found you. That need to live brought you to me. Now that you’ve shed those deplorable traits, you can help bring me back. Soon, you’ll ascend to the living world and finish this.”

No! I want to drink more.

“Then do so, but remember that I’m not whole yet. This can’t go on for much longer. My milk will not last another feeding.”

Janet wanted to bawl her eyes out for the news, but she knew that doing so would detach her from the ambrosia supply and that was something that positively could not be suffered.

Faye sat at the table, staring at the full glass of water. She wasn’t thirsty, but had poured the glass and wanted to finish what she started. Evan pensively studied her, waiting for her to respond to his heart-pouring-out. She didn’t want him back in the house. It had taken her a while but she had come to grips with the woman from the orange groves. That wasn’t an alternate self, it was who Faye really was, and the doppelganger had been the woman once called Evan Ledbetter’s wife.

He could never process this, but Faye had a feeling Janet could. Faye didn’t hate herself for walking out on Janet that day at the pond, but she didn’t much care for how long it had taken her to finally forgive her friend.

Now Janet was missing when Faye could really use her help, especially after the doctor’s bad news.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Evan prodded. “I’m telling you I was wrong. I’m saying I made a mistake and I want you and our child back. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Faye picked a couple errant bread crumbs off the table cloth and flicked them on the floor. The act was a little unnerving and it didn’t suit her. She supposed her new-self and her old-self still would be walking every crumb over to the trash can, but they shared in that happiness.

“Faye?”

“I heard you.”

“Which part?”

“Everything,” she said with a sigh. “But there is something you don’t know and I’m not sure how you’re going to take this.”

“After all we’ve been through, it’s safe to say I can handle whatever it is.”

Faye straightened her shoulders. “Okay, I’ll tell you then. I lied about the doctor’s appointment. It didn’t go well. It isn’t good Evan… it…”

He looked about ready to spring out of his skin. “What the hell, Faye? Tell me.”

She swallowed and let the words roll forth. “The baby, if it even survives to term and then delivery, will not survive more than a day or so. A miracle would be a week or so, on life support, but the heartbeat is already faint.”

Evan rounded the table. His horrified face was sincere and it almost made her cry. He put a quaking hand on her stomach bump. She let him keep it there and stare down, as though he had x-ray vision and could see what mayhem oxygen-deprivation could inflict on a fetus.

Evan’s voice shook. “No…”

His eyes filled and he bowed his head. “Faye,” he said sadly. “What do we do?”

“It’s not your problem.”

His face snapped up. He wasn’t used to her not kissing his ass and it took him off guard. “Are you going to… what are you going to do then? Without me? What will you do?”

“I can figure it out without you.”

Evan flushed with humiliation and resentment. He stood over her, muscles going taut in his neck. He appeared to her like a man about to throw down, but she knew he wouldn’t hit her. He would take a drive to clear his mind and then he would return to plead his case again.

“I’m going to take Lester for a walk.”

Or that.

He grabbed the leash off the water cooler and plowed through the back door.

Faye waited there, feeling cold and alone in her little unhappy home. She glanced up from her glass of water to the water cooler. The fluid
glub-glub-glubbed
and still sloshed around from Evan’s hand bumping it.

That water, so sparkling and crystalline, curative…