Watching her leave fills me with mixed emotions. I decide to take Hades’s advice and wash away what ails me—the turbulence of my time here and all the uncertainty I can’t shake. Silently, I undress and lower myself into the tub, grateful for the warm embrace of the water. I sigh and let the heat work its magic on me. With my eyes closed, I can almost imagine I’m not here. That I’m home and safe. That this is all a dream. A terrible nightmare that I’ll forget with time…
A long time passes that way. The peaceful reprieve is everything that was promised. Relaxed and ready for sleep, I open my eyes and lift myself to the edge of the tub, lazily gazing upon myself in the mirror before me. It isn’t vanity that holds my attention there. I find myself searching for Charlena in what I see. And wondering if her half beauty is a blessing or a curse, same as mine.
In the end, why does it matter?
The mirror carries truth, she said—and at once, I know why. Ultimately, her beauty is an elaborate illusion. A grand lie. But if her demon appearance is her true self, what does that say about her heart? Her soul? Can she love? Or feel anything important at all?
My eyes droop with sleepiness. The bath should be cooling, but another unexpected ripple in the water brings a wave of heat with it. Thick steam rises off the water, swirling up and collecting on the expansive mirror next to the tub. I rise to my knees and wipe at the condensation. A childish instinct, maybe. But I’m uncertain because the water seems to be acting on its own. But why?
I’m not given a moment to fathom that answer. Whorls of steam billow up between the wide mirror and me, seducing me with shapes and movements once more. I’m like a little girl staring at the clouds, trying to make sense of them, except this is more than whimsical imagining. Quickly, it becomes alarming. I push back a little, even admitting I’m afraid. Is the vapor going to solidify? If so, into what? Or whom?
I keep staring intently—and am finally rewarded by an answer. A feeling that starts in my soul and, like the fragrant steam, puffs to life in every corner of my mind. And it makes me smile.
I’m no longer looking for signs of Charlena in my visage. I’m looking for a sign…
I’m looking for Maximus…
And the vapors don’t let me down. His face appears through the steam. Clear enough to make out but distorted, like he’s underwater. I rise up quickly and press my palms to the mirror. The water sloshes around me.
His lips move, but I hear nothing.
“Maximus!”
My smile dies. Once more, my desperation sets in. It echoes off the walls. All my panic. I slam my palms against the mirror once more, the only answer I can muster.
Chapter Seven
Maximus
Cautiously, I open my eyes.
With even greater care, I roll my head to the side. No way do I trust my neck to hold it up if I lift it. I feel like a cat who jumped in a swimming pool, only to learn the water was actually fire. I’m not ruling out the possibility. Just a month ago, I was teaching plots like time travel, talking forests, and themed hell circles as fiction. None of it compares to my strange truth these days.
Illustrated clearly by this moment.
I jerk back to awareness when my right ear is inundated by slopping noises. After a couple of seconds, I realize it’s the mud bath I’ve landed in.
I have no idea where I’m at—or if this nothingness qualifies as anywhere at all. I stand and try to reset my bearings, but nothing registers as familiar anymore. It’s quiet to the point of disquieting, and my stare can barely penetrate the thick fog. When it finally does pierce the damp view, I don’t make out much except tall, leafless trees that seem to be returning my intent stare. I breathe deep but am penalized for it with nostrils full of sulfur. I grimace and emit a few favorite cuss words but barely to the point of being audible.
A groan off to my left sounds like a weak but clear response to my eruption. I rise and walk that way, my bootsteps making prominent schlops through the mud while I hope—and even pray a little—that the source of the sound is Gio and not some stranger or strange thing for which I’m unprepared.
Relief doesn’t come a second too soon. Gio’s covered in more mud than me. Despite the groan that brought me over, he seems mostly unharmed—except for a dark scrape up the left side of his face. As soon as I see it, I grimace.
“That bad?” He gingerly fingers his wound. “Ah, it’s just a scrape but a fair reminder of why I never tried out for baseball.”
I extend a hand, ready to help him stand. “Some guys were meant to be baseball stars. And some were given the gift of golden words.”
As I pull him all the way up, he actually chuckles for a few seconds.
“You’re being kind, but you don’t have to be.”
“It’s the truth,” I say. “I read your screenplays one afternoon. The trophies in your cabinet are well earned.”
If the compliment has sunk in, he has a strange way of showing it. “You read all of them? In one afternoon?”
I flash a lopsided smirk. “I was on a mission.”
“To stuff a load of Hollywood schmaltz into your head?”
“To learn as much as I could about Kara. Which meant learning about the people she loves too.”
A good half of his tension fades. “Good answer.” But the stiffness quickly returns, back up his spine and across his shoulders while he opens his crossbody bag and efficiently checks the contents. Then he cocks his head toward the mist that’s doubling as a sky. “So if my estimations are right, we’ve officially reached the Vestibule of Hell.”
“Which apparently…is a swamp. And that’s a gigantic compliment.” As we’ve been sinking slowly into the putrid mud, many other designations have definitely come to mind.
“I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.” He punctuates the Dante quote with a surprising smirk. The springs in his next steps are equally interesting. I don’t remember noticing them before we left.
He strides past me as if an inner compass has just dinged in his head. Perhaps the same hypersenses drive him toward the moans and cries that cut through the fog and trees. It’s a sound for which I have no accurate earthly comparison, each scream a unique wraith on the merits of its agony alone.
And it’s merciless.
Endless.
A din of despair that invades my ears without mercy—and without stopping.
As the fog dissipates, the wails worsen. And now I’m trailing a good ten to fifteen feet behind Gio, pushing through the roars and sobs and screams as if they’re a howling wind. The metaphor isn’t far off, since my eyes are watering, my hair is whipping behind me, and my face stings from brutal chapping.
How has anyone ever survived this?
The answer is dauntingly clear.
By the time someone tromps this way, they’re not usually concerned about survival.
By the time we reach the edge of the forest, I’m gazing at Gio Valari with new respect. All those years of hiding out in the granny pad behind the fancy villa, when everyone thought he was filling his time with random writing projects and old movies, the man had already earned stripes like none other. I want to tell him he deserves another gold statue for his impressive performance as a ditzy old man—but as we approach the far riverbank, I suspect the decibel levels will climb. We’re in the chat-free zone now.