38

Outside there was a crystal world devoid of men, inside there was warmth and a murky dimness that could be mistaken for cosiness.

Marith stood in the vicar’s private quarters, behind the modest organ and the lectern. She was wearing a black pantsuit and black patent leather pumps.

Her cello was tuned, the bow was waxed, her hair was meticulously curled by Lieke. She was ready.

When she heard a door behind her open and close she intuitively turned the cello around on its pin, so that the strings faced her body.

She arched her neck to find out it was Nate. Marith felt a pang around her diaphragm. They still hadn’t really talked.

“How did you know I would be performing today?” She said, faking a smile wider than the Grand Canyon.

“I have my connections,” he smiled back at her, teasingly.

She stared back at him, with squinted eyes. “You’re abusing your powers as a Prophet to ambush me.”

“Aren’t you happy everyone came?”

“What do you mean?” She wondered.

“Haven’t you peeked inside? Every Pupil of our Chain is here right now. Even Pavan, Keymaker and dr. Sybling came.”

For some reason that knowledge made Marith even more tense than she already was. She appreciated their efforts, but their presence made the recital even more real. If she made a mistake she wouldn’t just make it in front of an elderly, half-deaf audience, she would make it in front of her peers.

“I’ll find you after,” Nate stated. He kissed her on her forehead. “Our bestie is here,” he added, before he disappeared into the little hallway.

“I know,” Marith whispered. She had picked up on a peculiar energy being pushed their way.

Her grandfather had always told her, before any big or particularly stressful recitals, that the hardest part of having a successful performance was to make something that was technically challenging look like it was the easiest thing in the world.

In this case she could play the pieces she was supposed to for the Christmas recital perfectly, even while either drunk or asleep, but the presence of the pianist was going to be the challenging part that day.

“Marisjhh,” was all he said.

He entered the room through the back entrance as well. After Marith had acknowledged him he calmly hung his heavy wool coat, his hat and his designer scarf on the coat rack by the door.

“Shouldn’t you be on fire right now?” Marith asked Samuel dryly when he joined her.

“Aren’t you Jewish?” He informed.

“I come from a household of mixed religion,” Marith answered. “My mother is Jewish... ish, at least, and my father comes from a Protestant family.” She might as well tell him. She figured it was harmless information and he seemed to know an unholy amount of details about her anyway.

“Tsssk, ungodly,” he replied, shaking his head. “Did you know that in the old days, say less than a hundred years ago, you would have been considered a child of the Devil for that?”

“I thought that was you,” Marith answered dryly.

“I am definitely worse. Which is why you won’t win.”

“I haven’t seen so many young people in this church, since the fifties,” Lucille shared, shuffling in behind her walker, entering through the door that led to the little hallway that led to the church. At the sight of Samuel she abruptly halted, turned around and left.

Within twenty seconds Pavan appeared through the same doorway.

“Are we keeping things civil?” The Elder asked, with a warning glance at Samuel.

“Of course, sir,” Samuel answered innocently.

“Less than five minutes now,” Pavan shared, putting up the five fingers of his right hand, before leaving again.

If he is surprised at Samuels appearance he is hiding it extremely well, Marith thought.

Until that day nobody knew if Samuel was going to be there for the Christmas celebration. Nobody actually wanted him to be present and since he hadn’t been sleeping in the lake house since the ‘cliff incident’ nobody had really expected him at the church.

“What would you like to discuss in the meantime?” Samuel asked Marith as courteous as was possible for him.

“How about, I don’t know, the music we are going to have to play in a few minutes from now?” Marith suggested tersely.

“Music is so fleeting,” he side-tracked in his familiar, drivelling voice.

“How so?” Marith asked, clenching her jaws.

“We play it and it’s gone. It just flies away. You can’t capture it, like a picture.”

“So?”

“It’s not enough, for me.”

“Because you’re such a special creature?”

“Well, yes.”

“Maybe it does fly away, but it is captured and stored somewhere.”

“And where would that be?”

“In our brains for instance. It becomes a memory, that we can recall. That way it will be a part of the Well forever,” Marith explained.

“Funny how humans keep telling themselves fairy tales to feel more comfortable with their mortality.”

“Funny how you keep denying the Well, so you don’t have to deal with the fact that you can’t escape this world.”

“I have never denied the Well,” Samuel answered flatly. “I am just suggesting that humans are a mere speck of dust in the grand scheme of things.”

“Oh, and let me guess, you’re a whole dust bunny?”

“Ssspeaking of bunniesss,” he jumped into the opportunity that Marith had created for him.

“Did you know that almost every culture has tales and myths about people turning into animals?” Samuel asked calmly.

Marith’s stomach turned and she clenched the neck of her cello, as she remembered the contents of the diaries that their Elders had written for them. Samuel knew that the Chain knew about the nymphs.

“It only goes one way,” he lisped. “They can’t change back. They’ll be vermin forever. You can pick what kind, as long as they’re easy to stomp on.”

His smile bared his horrendous crooked, yellowing teeth.

He didn’t need to clarify that he was talking about the visitors of the church. Marith got it. She closed her eyes and did some quick breathing exercises to keep her breakfast down, before she spoke again.

“How are we going to do this?” She asked snippy, ignoring his threats to the best of her abilities. They hadn’t practiced at all together and that was a problem.

“You lead, I follow,” Samuel decided, readjusting his cuffs, not making eye-contact. “We both know that I have the best reflexes to adapt when necessary,” he congratulated himself.

Marith snorted. How precious he was.

When looked at from a certain angle, through a certain lens they sure would have been caught as being mythological creatures, but that was not how most humans viewed the world. Most people looked at reality through a cloud of mist - the fog being thicker for some than for others, of course - and are completely fine with that. The Kid made sure of that.

For certain people - the ones who still believed everything the news fed them, that managed to laugh during late night shows and lived for cancellations of people they had never met - the banks of mist couldn’t be heavy enough. That’s how they enjoyed their lives, oblivious and in the dark. Ignorance was indeed bliss.

The Pupils had been Rebirthed, the Chain had been formed. They knew how the world was to be taken in. They had seen behind the curtains and now they couldn’t un-see it. Each and every Pupil in that church had instantly spotted the translucent nymphs like a hawk would a mouse.

And in the same way a hawk would dive down to hunt that mouse Kyle made an instant leap for the women that had stolen from him and Watchmaker.

He had come in late and while the other Pupils had reserved a spot for him he immediately stomped over to the tall, pale creatures.

Vanessa locked him in an invisible bubble which stopped him dead in his tracks. Mara, Mynthia and Melania noticed and all three waves a haughty little wave at him which infuriated the young Prophet even further.

Marith had seen the whole ordeal leaning against the doorpost. Samuel stood next to her, satisfied with how the day was going so far.

The group wanted to take him on, they really did, but like any war fought by gentlemen this one was interrupted during Christmas.

The vicar gestured that he was ready for them to enter the church. Where the chancel was usually situated a black baby wing was placed, rolled into the centre. In front of the piano a stool was waiting for Marith and her instrument.

When they walked in the audience clapped excited. Marith smiled a mandatory smile and took it all in, before she took a seat. The nave of the church with its beautiful architecture, the audience, the sounds they made, the Christmas decorations, the smells coming from the branches of fir and pine, used in the garlands, wrapped themselves around her like a warm blanket.

James joked in a whisper that Marith and Samuel looked like two MiB agents on a mission, which made Brad and Jonathan snicker. Nobody else, besides the Kid, had heard.

After Marith sat down she pushed all the negative energy away, to the darkest dungeon of her mind. The lingering remnants of her fight with Nate, her lifelong struggles with Samuel, the ghosts from her upbringing, they were all forced to be quiet for the next hour or so.

They opened with ‘O come, O come, Emmanuel’ to then move onto more challenging pieces. Marith had to silently and reluctantly admit that Samuel looked smart in his black, tailored suit and that his piano playing was more confident and dashing than she could ever be on the cello.

She had never heard Samuel play, but she found out that he hadn’t lied about his reflexes, or his aptitudes. He could really play.

There were no words in the English language, or the Dutch language for that matter, that could accurately describe Samuel’s gift. Marith could only compare it to natural occurring beauty, like blossoming flowers, the fluttering of the wings of a hummingbird, or to other great art, such as Bernini’s statues or Rembrandt’s portraits.

As soon as his fingers hit the keys the soundwaves made love to her eardrums. She had to remind herself to actually play the cello.

This was the first time Nate actually heard his girlfriend play – apart from in his visions and dreams – and he was mesmerized. He was enchanted by her focus, her movements and her passion. Her ability to learn all that by hard and then to perform it in front of a group of practical strangers in the presence of the creature that had tormented her and her peers for decades was puzzling and magical.

He was happy for her and glad that so many people had come to support her and listen to her performance. They sure as hell hadn’t come to church for the pianist, although his piano playing wasn’t too shabby either.

He wished he could see Marith too, but it was too dangerous. Nick and Lieke were in the audience. The risk was too big, so he stayed hidden behind the organ, knowing they wouldn’t need it during this particular recital.

He closed his eyes and opened his mind until he heard applause again, signifying the end of the recital.

Afterwards there was a service that everybody patiently attended as well, including Nate. Only Samuel didn’t. Marith still wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t spontaneously combust during a sermon, which was probably why he slipped away almost immediately after the standing ovation.

She had taken a seat at the front row, where the vicar had been sitting previously. Halfway through the service she arched her neck to look at the audience behind her and instantly noticed the nymphs had left as well. She wasn’t surprised. When she sought eye contact with Kyle he shrugged back at her. Of course, none of them had seen or sensed them leaving. Those nymphs were starting to become a bigger issue than any of the Pupils had initially thought.

“Marith, can we talk?”

She was just buttoning up her coat and putting on her gloves in the backroom. Her cello was back in its case, resting on its side next to her. She was almost ready to go, to be alone for a while and think. She was good at that, being alone and thinking. She had been doing it for most of her life now. Sometimes she threw in a podcast here or there or a book, to shake things up, but she definitely felt most safe being by herself, with her mind mulling things over and over and over.

She had told Nick and Lieke that she was going to have lunch with her friends. She just hadn’t told her friends about that. Most of the church goers were still inside, chatting and socializing, and so were the Pupils probably.

The pressure of the performance had drained her of energy. She was also avoiding Nate. She knew herself and walking away from him felt best, even though she knew it wasn’t healthy or normal in the slightest.

With strangers her social skills seemed semi-normal on a good day. She also didn’t have any trouble telling people off, if they bothered her, but with loved ones it was different. There was this magnetic push and pull between her and Nate that she couldn’t get a handle on. Right now, she felt herself pulling away.

Another pang around where her stomach should be plagued her at the sound of his voice. Her insides twisted and turned somewhat when she realized she was still mad and, most of all, disappointed with Nate’s inability to understand her.

If there was anything Marith hated more than large bodies of water it was the constant overstepping of limits by her parents. Now, as an adult, she seemed to be allergic to that kind of behaviour.

“Sure,” she mustered, turning around to face him, her shoulders tense.

She recognized his specific tone of voice and she felt her mind slipping. She couldn’t focus on his face, so instead her eyes lingered on the black buttons on his coat and the laces on his shoes.

“Let’s go outside,” he suggested.

He held the door open for her. She pick up her cello and stepped into the white winter wonderland that seemed oddly blurry.

They started walking, shuffling actually, towards the cars.

“I owe you an apology,” Nate started.

“No, you don’t,” Marith breathed.

“Yes, I do. I crossed some boundaries and I am sorry for that. I am really, really sorry for what happened… the last time we were together… alone,” he added, since they had also seen each other before, during and after the Ritual.

Unfortunately they had constantly been in the presence of other Pupils and there had been no room for private conversations.

“I’m sorry too. For reacting the way I did and leaving so suddenly.” She knew she had been weird about it and admitting that was strangely relieving.

Nate awkwardly grabbed her gloved hand as they proceeded towards the cars.

The shocking thing for Marith was that his apology sounded sincere. Not some fake excuse she used to get from her parents, so she wouldn’t leave them after growing up, such as ‘I am sorry you feel that way’, ‘We are sorry you keep interpreting your childhood like that’ or ‘We are sorry you understood us wrong’.

What they were basically saying was ‘We are sorry you figured out how abusive we are’, ‘We are sorry you didn’t swallow our bullshit more gracefully’ and ‘We are sorry you are ungrateful for the one stress-free, semi-normal day we would give you once or twice per year’.

Nate sensed she was upset and halted. He cupped her face in his wool gloves and gave her a careful and brief kiss on the lips. Marith closed her eyes, so he wouldn’t see the wetness in her eyes and think she was mentally unstable.

“I don’t want it to be like this between us,” he said. Then he paused for a few seconds, still holding her face. “Also, I believe you.”

“What do you believe?” She wondered hoarsely.

They resumed walking towards his car. They were holding hands again and Marith concentrated on not slipping on the black ice on the lot in her heels.

“I know that your past has been hard and hopeless at times.”

“Okay,” Marith nodded. She had only scratched the surface of the abuse she had been through growing up and she wasn’t sure whether or not she had to tell him about the rest.

“I also know it was much worse in reality.”

“Really?” Marith asked taken aback, scared to say anything else. She knew she was on the brink of crying again. Her tongue rested heavily in her mouth, her eyes glazed over and her bottom lip inadvertently started to tremble.

“I’ve seen your ex-boyfriends,” he started hesitantly, since that was nobody’s favourite subject, “so I’ve also seen your past. Your upbringing wasn’t better, just because your parents didn’t die.”

“Thank you,” Marith managed to respond, blinking tears away and sighing deeply.

She felt grateful for this man.

Nate was everything Marith wanted to be. Kind, compassionate, patient and a generous and loyal person in general. She realized how much she needed Nate. She wasn’t sure she deserved him, but she needed him.

He pinched her hand.

If I hadn’t become a Pupil and met Nate there would probably be a career as a serial killer in my immediate future, Marith thought bitterly.

“Maybe it would have been better if they had died,” Nate continued cautiously, recalling the shards of misery he had occasionally picked up when they had been together. “My grandparents were saints. I wish people like them existed for every kid.”

He was right. No kid should be always ‘on’, always alternating between flight, fright and fight, always carefully weighing their words and actions, because a massive blow-up could occur at any point.

“Were you grandparents Elders?” Marith suddenly wondered, rubbing her eyes, happy to change the subject. It had crossed her mind before, but she couldn’t ask Nick, of course, and whenever she was together with Nate they were otherwise engaged.

“No, those were our actual grandparents. We did have ancestors who were Elders. They built the Bellevue, which was a nice building for its time, for their fellow Pupils. That way they would have a safe place to grow old. They died when my parents were still alive, but I have never met them.”

“Did your parents know about them?”

“No, not really. They thought my Elders were their great-aunt and great-uncle, with a share in the Pine family company. Dr. Sybling told me later who they really were. Their construction company, that Nick now runs as well, also built the lake house and was involved with the development of the Corridors. The tomb was obviously already there. Over many centuries the maze was added, with the help of the magic of Watchmaker, as you know.”

“What about the clockstore?”

“What about it?”

They had arrived at Nates car. It was parked on the far end of the parking lot, as to be inconspicuous.

“Well, it doesn’t seem to serve a direct purpose, apart from selling, mostly just showing, clocks and orreries and such.”

Nate chuckled. “Not everything has to serve a higher purpose, does it? Watchmaker still fixes clockworks in the back of the clockstore. At least, he did, before the Kid woke up. It used to be his safe space on Earth. Did you really think Kyle fixed those clockworks by himself?”

“No.” Marith let out an involuntary giggle. “I can’t even imagine him replacing the batteries of a watch.”

“Exactly.” Nate chuckled his deep, manly chuckle again.

“But isn’t Watchmaker supposed to live with Oracle?” Marith asked.

“Actually, no. The engineer of our segment of the Web should live here, don’t you think? You can’t run a country you’re not living in. You shouldn’t maintain a quantum field you never experience. He is supposed to live here, just like First Watchmaker. Unfortunately, he can’t right now. Practically every Watchmaker, since the First, has lived in the Clock in the Sky on and off, but that doesn’t make it right.”

Marith agreed by nodding. Nate looked over her head, past the cello on her back, scanning the parking lot.

“Want to come with me?” He wondered.

“Yes,” she nodded again. She felt relieved, light, now that they’d had the conversation she had been dreading and she actually felt confident in spending the day with him.

She strapped her cello in the backseat of his truck and sat in the passenger’s seat next to him.

Before she stepped into the car she looked at the sky to determine if it would snow again that day and noticed the eagles spiralling roughly above where Sweet Lake should be. Jonathan had been right. The birds were able of sensing certain levels of evil. Mara, Mynthia and Melania had no doubt returned to the lake house with their master to continue their monster-making, or whatever it was that they did.

Jenn Grant was on. They listened to it quietly. Until it was over.

Oh, my hero tried

But I fought too many times

Seeing blue and green

When I was supposed to see white

Hold me close into the night

While we stay up one last time

Never knew we were living in the beautiful wild.

“I thought only Pavan could enter people’s minds like that?” Marith told Nate, after she had turned the volume of the music down.

“Right, I cannot just march in there, like Pavan. I can only see things if you’re really open for it,” Nate admitted. “So you must have subconsciously been longing to share your past with me.”

Marith swallowed and nodded. That was probably true. She just wanted someone to understand her and accept her as she was. Subconsciously she had chosen Nate as that someone.

The rest of the ride they spend in silence, which Marith loved and Nate tolerated. They drove out of the tri-lake area to a place where Nate could let his mind roam free to receive visions from the Web. They travelled to an area where the clockworks emitted healthy, colourful nebula’s again.

Her connection to Nate always turned time and space turn into a blurry haze. So she wasn’t sure how much time had passed or how much distance they had covered, but after what seemed like an hour and a half or so she found herself on a deserted trailer-park in what felt like the middle of nowhere.

“I feel like such a princess,” Marith joked, stomping through knee high snow with frozen feet.

“My deepest apologies for the accommodation,” Nate answered sincerely, scraping his throat. “If there had been anything better available during the holiday season I would not have rented this,” he defended himself, gesturing at the trailer.

“Where’s the Air Stream?” She inquired, as he fumbled with the lock.

“In storage,” Nate answered.

“I think I would rather be there,” Marith mumbled.

“I would rather be at the beach house,” Nate replied.

“Yeah, the beach castle,” Marith reminisced. “Now that was a nice place to stay.”

“It’s too far out right now,” Nate said, holding open the door for her.

She stepped into a musty, elongated place with bad lighting and sticky linoleum floors.

He stepped into the trailer after her and locked the paper-thin door behind them. Marith took off her coat and threw it over a little plastic table with stains on it, before she landed on a small greenish couch with yellow stripes. Nate took off his own coat and without offering her anything to drink he flopped down next to her.

“I’ve been lonely without you… and I mean that in the least manipulative way possible,” he started.

Marith recognized in his eyes what he wanted. Most women, even non-supernatural ones, were capable of sensing that.

He played with her hair somewhat before he went in for a hot, sloppy kiss. With one hand he held her face and with the other one he unbuttoned her colbert and then her blouse.

With every movement Marith noticed how he was much more experienced than she was and she realized that this bothered her. Her black suit was nonchalantly hanging over the scattered furniture before she knew it. The way his hands stroked her hips, the ease with which he unhooked her bra and the manner in which his lips played with hers all gave away his familiarity on the matter. How many women had he entertained before her?

Somehow they landed onto a lumpy bed on the other end of the mobile home. To Marith’s relief the bed did appear to have fresh sheets.

She was laying on her back on the bumpy mattress. Nate was hovering above her, his legs between hers. She unbuttoned his shirt and tore her mind away from some dark feelings that were surfacing, while he breathed a hot breath into her face.

Olive, Nick’s backyard, snow, trees… so far so good. She walked around the frozen garden with Olive and followed the dog into the forest. She was wearing boots and a thick skiing jacket. She was finally dressed for the weather.

She looked over her shoulder. There was a distance between them and the house. The white building looked tiny, like a model, but they hadn’t been walking for that long.

Something was off, a vibe or an energy that failed to match that of the trees and the birds. She took her clockwork out of a pocket and flipped it open. There were no swirling clouds. The forest around her started spinning. Where had the nebula’s gone to?

Something else was amongst those trees. Olive was pulling the leash, wanting to go home. Marith gave in to the dog’s demands. Goose bumps were running over her neck and shoulders. They ran downhill, back to the white mansion.

The next moment she was in the dark, feeling cold and wet, laying on the hardest surface she had ever felt underneath her body. A road? Was she on a road? She fought to open her eyes. It felt as if they were sown shut. When her eyelids finally moved a little she saw… Nate.

Marith looked up over his shoulder, while he kissed her neck, assuming she liked that. The ceiling of the trailer was stained, badly. How did those stains get there? A leaking roof?

Suddenly she felt queasy. Her body stiffened. She wasn’t into it anymore.

Just when she put her hands on Nate’s bare shoulders to stop him his breath stalled. Something had suddenly shifted in his demeanour. He turned cold almost immediately.

Marith jerked up. He crawled away from her over the bed. She sat up and covered her chest with his shirt, before she decided to just put it on.

Nate was silent, too silent. He stared at the bedsheets with a deep frown on his face. He didn’t make eye-contact until he had processed what he had seen when he kissed her.

“You’ve felt it? Right?”

Nate was quiet for another long fifteen seconds before he spoke again.

“It’s hard to miss,” he whispered.

His eyes wandered over her half-naked body, but they didn’t really register Marith anymore. He swallowed. At first Marith wasn’t sure if he was angry or not, but then she saw he was fighting back tears.

“Nate, I might die young, but I won’t die yet.”

It wasn’t the first time she had seen snippets of her own impending death, but ever since the Pupils merged during the Ritual her old visions had started to return, carrying more details with them every time.

She moved towards him and kissed his listless lips. They felt like wet cardboard. To her surprise he actually started crying.

“You won’t die yet, but it will be soon… otherwise I would not be feeling it this strong.”

Marith nodded, while she caressed his face. Neither of them knew exactly how or when it would happen, but the vanishing of Marith Merryfield was taking form in their minds. At first it was a slow disappearance, as if it was already decided, but not executed yet, and then it was a sudden exit. They had both sensed the same things. Either everybody in the Chain had received these messages or Marith had accidentally passed her own premonitions onto Nate.

Maybe they had arrived in a post-linguistic stage of their love, she thought.

“How could you be so stoic, so calm about this?” He seemed agitated.

“I am not,” Marith whispered. Now that it was out in the open it was more painful than she expected.

“I guess I’ve always known that what we have is too good to last.” A tear rolled down his wry face and hesitated on the angle of his jaw, before landing on his bare chest.

Marith couldn’t help but cry too now. The prophecy had been really intense this time.

They held each other awkwardly on the side of the bed. It was not so much the ‘losing her life’ part that hurt her, it was the ‘losing her love’ part that was so unspeakable.

“Don’t do it,” Nate said.

“In my visions I don’t do anything. It just happens,” Marith defended herself.

“Meaning Samuel is involved. We will find a way. We will fight him,” Nate spoke determined, seeking eye contact with her.

Marith held him tightly, not wanting their embrace to come to an end.

“I feel like my whole life I have just been waiting around to die eventually. I have not lived an exciting life at all and I have not accomplished anything extraordinary. Up until recently. I just feel like I started living when I came back to Sweet Lake... when I met you… and that is worth everything to me... It just isn’t right.”

“What isn’t?” Nate wondered.

“Life! There is always something wrong, something missing, something eating away at me.”

“That’s life! We can spend it together, if you let us.”

“Is it even up to me? Is it really?”

“I don’t know!” He fought himself free from her arms, spread his arms heavenward and walked a half-naked, frustrated little circle in the tiny bedroom.

“Aaah, Marith,” he brought out in what sounded like both a deep sigh and a call to a higher spirit.

Nate violently rubbed his face and when he was done he pressed the palms of his hands against his forehead. Marith sat helplessly on the bed.

“Do you know who the first member of our Chain was?” He asked.

“Vanessa?” Marith said. She wasn’t sure, but she had always assumed it was her.

“No.” He shook his head in angry frustration.

“But she got her Push from Keymaker.”

“Because I wasn’t living in Sweet Lake anymore.”

Marith’s expression twisted in confusion.

“You were the first? Then who gave you the Push?”

“Nobody did.”

Marith stared at nothing for a while, forcing her brain to think of an explanation. Then the blood drained from her face.

“I jumped.”

She let out a sudden burst of air. Their eyes locked in frightful understanding.

“Your Rebirth was never supposed to happen…”

Marith started crying again. Not for herself, but for him. If it had been up to Nate he wouldn’t be here right now, they would have never met and they couldn’t have completed each other like they had in the previous months.

Nates cheeks were just as wet as hers. He shook his head again, as the memories of his painful past started to flow back to the present.

“I was going to therapy at the time. Dr. Sybling was my therapist. You know, because of the visions that I couldn’t control, because of…”

“Yes,” was all she said. Because of the accident.

“I just didn’t see another… my parents had died… because I had failed to understand the things I had been shown.”

“But why would you jump then? Didn’t the therapy help?”

“One day after therapy I was walking that trail through the forest.”

Marith nodded. She knew the one. She had hiked it many times in the past few months.

“You have to do it within 10 minutes after deciding it,” Nate continued darkly. “The cliff was there. I don’t know. I was just done with it all, with the struggles, with the guilt.” He shook his head again, as the memories flooded back. “I genuinely thought I had died… that I had fallen into some sort of afterlife.” He smiled wryly at his own naivety. “It turns out dr. Sybling had slipped a clockwork into my coat. She had seen me take that jump, before I had even thought about it.”

She wanted to hug him, but she also realized that wasn’t helpful at all, so she stayed on the bed.

“Nate, listen,” she said instead, oddly determined. “If anything happens to me…”

“It won’t,” Nate told her, shaking his head again.

“But if it does, you have to go see Nick,” she told him with the fiercest eyes she could muster under the circumstances.

Nate put his hands on his hips and looked heavenwards, at the stained ceiling, probably fighting back new tears. “I know,” he whispered.

“He hasn’t forgotten you, Nate. You can go back to him and you should.”

He nodded at her.

“Promise me, you will, Nate. Once I am gone all you’ve got is each other.”

This time Marith stayed. They spend the rest of the day together in bed, staring into each other’s blood shot eyes, occasionally talking, but mostly just touching and connecting.