I realize I’m holding my breath. I exhale only to suck in another one.
“I told you, Kara, no need to be afraid,” she murmurs this time, though the laughter stays in her voice. Like all of this is so amusing. At least it is for one of us.
“Are you saying I shouldn’t be afraid of you…or…?” I look over to the now calm waters of the tub.
“Either. Acceptance would be my advice. Fear only begets fear here.”
I have no idea who she is or why she’s come to see me, but through the whir of my thoughts I decide her advice is sound. No point cowering in fear at every turn. Easier said than done, of course, in a place so foreign and fearsome.
“Who are you?”
She makes a small sound of understanding. “Of course. You wouldn’t recognize me this way.”
Slowly she unwraps the covering, letting it collect in a dark swath around her neck. She’s gaunt but strangely beautiful. Her short dark hair is slicked tight against her scalp. And her eyes are as deep and penetrating as I suspected they were behind the veil.
Do I recognize her? How could I? I have no friends here.
All I have…
“Are you—?”
“Yes, of course. I’m your grandmother.”
I nod mutely, reconciling the creature in front of me with the few photos I’ve seen of her. In most of them, she’s arm in arm with my grandfather, playing the part she was sent to play. I always wondered at what point in their history he realized her betrayal. Were his smiles in those photos truly loving or a classic Hollywood facade designed to fool the cameras and all the onlookers on his highly publicized life?
But after one look at the woman—the incubus who gave my mother life—I can clearly see how she could bewitch my grandfather. Yet her beauty only spurs more questions.
“You look like me. I mean, you’re…” I nip nervously at the inside of my lip.
She laughs again. “Are you trying to say I’m not a heinous ghastly beast?”
I can’t fight the returning smile. “Well. Yes. Basically.”
She glances over my shoulder briefly and winces before carefully winding the scarf back over her face, her humor fading. “Little side effect of my time on earth. Sometimes… Well, sometimes we just don’t come back the same.”
“That’s not completely terrible.” In fact, the circumstance gives me hope. Maybe I really can navigate hell without the face of a demon.
“Depends how you look at it.” She sweeps her hand over her face, then gestures to the mirror behind me. “It’s certainly nothing to celebrate. Not here anyway. You’ll learn soon enough.”
For a second, nothing’s remarkable about our reflections. I’m the same as I was moments ago, but she isn’t. I truly see that now. She’s all sharp lines and waif elegance, but something’s wrong. Her nails are grayed and jagged. Her skin is bruised with rot. Her clothing, sleek and sensual, looks ridiculous on her sparse demon body.
I swallow hard and look back at her, meeting her eyes through the veil.
There’s understanding there but also a shared misery. I’ll have to hide too.
“Mirrors are the carriers of truth, Kara. The eye of a little god. Remember that,” she murmurs quietly.
I nod, committing her sad wisdom to my mind. It leads me to another recognition. The mirror isn’t the only truth bringer in the room. Something in her voice carries it too. I can feel it, for the first time since finding myself in this cold, sad place…the palpable energy of another. It’s oddly invigorating. All I’ve been able to feel in Hades’s presence is my own wild fear. It’s been so overwhelming, wielding too strong a hold for me to access anything else. It’s like Hades himself is an impenetrable wall, which poses its own problems for my purpose here.
Fresh worry lodges in my gut as conflict takes over my mind. I hunger for more advice from my grandmother, so many more answers to all my questions, but I dread what those answers will be. I’m tempted to wade in my ignorance the way I’ll soon languish in these baths.
But how can I, with my grandmother inches away? What if she can help? Or at least be my guide, easing my way into this new world. Isn’t that what an elder is for?
As I ponder all this, she crosses her arms—a motion that makes her look important and impatient at once. “You may call me Charlena. Familial names and endearments aren’t quite the norm here, as you might imagine. Even if they were, we’re hardly familiar.”
“Of course,” I manage.
Being forced to refer to Gramps by his given name was strange, but calling this woman any version of grandmother would be far weirder. Past that, I have no idea what attachments if any she might have to me. She’s a demon, and I defied her ruler.
Still, she’s here. That could mean anything, and I won’t take for granted that it’s for my benefit.
“What’s brought you here?”
She sighs, looking me over. “Existence here affords us few delights, but I’ll admit that seeing you is one of them. Time means little here, but I expected the wait to have you join us to feel longer.”
I startle, though I fight to hide the violence of my jolt. “Am I going with you? I—I mean now?”
Or even eventually? And shouldn’t that idea make me happier, not spike me with worse dread? I don’t even know how to ask what the rest of this existence will look or be like. It’s the question I’ve likely been avoiding the most, for what feels like good reason. I’m cold with fear. Shivering with trepidation.
She shakes her head. “No, not now. He’s…” She glances over her shoulder briefly, then back to me. “The fact that he’s given me any time with you surprises me, to be honest. I expected him to want you all to himself, in consideration of the time constraints. But I also underestimate his laziness. He’s given the task of touring you around to me.”
I widen my eyes. “He has?”
My trembling abates, at least a little. I can’t know what that means, or if suddenly I should feel differently about an introduction to this awful place now that it’s being given to me by my demon grandmother.
Charlena makes a small humming sound. “He scares you, doesn’t he?”
I expel a heavy sigh, filled with relief that she might empathize.
“Of course. He’s…the devil.”
She laughs softly. “Right. He’ll never get what he wants from you if you’re paralyzed with fear, though. And it seems to me, you should figure out a way to give him what he wants.”
I nod in agreement, even if I disagree in my ice-stricken bones. I don’t want Hades in my head, but I’m more worried about the horrible, and eternal, alternatives to that invasion.
“Smart girl,” she says. Her gaze flickers to the mirror, then the tub. “Take your soak and get some rest. You’ll need it. You’ll end up looking like the rest of them if you never sleep. I’ll find you afterward.”
I nod, cherishing the advice now only because it comes from her. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t move, as if the gratitude strikes her like an insult. Perhaps here it does. A moment later, the woman dips her head in a silent goodbye and slinks away as gracefully as she arrived.