Page 37 of Spelunking Through Hell

“Oh, I got rid of that ages ago,” I said. The damage the Bidi-taurabo-haza’s venom had done despite the intercession of the crossroads had been severe enough to leave my left calf dented in and make long skirts a requirement for my job at the library. Hard to look like a demure lady who never causes trouble when something has so visibly taken a bite out of you.

Thomas frowned, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “I need you to be completely honest with me now.”

“I didn’t come all this way to lie to you.”

“Did you find a way to make a bargain with the crossroads so you could come after me? I won’t be angry if you—no, that’s a lie, and if you’re not allowed to lie, neither am I. I will beabsolutely furiousif you made a bargain with the crossroads after promising me you wouldn’t, after seeing what it cost up close. But I’ll understand.” He looked briefly regretful. “I would have made another bargain after they took me if it had been the only way of getting back to you. I would have done virtually anything. But they never answered when I called. They never even let Mary come to see me.”

“She wasn’t allowed to tell me you were still alive,” I said, stepping forward and taking his hands. Even being able to do that was a small thrill, and my hands remembered the shape of his so well that it was like finally remembering what shapeIwas supposed to be.

Your partner shouldn’t complete you. Everyone is an entire person all on their own, and you don’t need someone else to make you whole. But sometimes you know what the world is supposed to be so absolutely that when it changes without your consent, the absence of the people you’ve chosen as your own can be a gaping wound. Holding onto Thomas’ hands, standing close enough that I could see him breathing, made me feel like that wound might finally have a chance to heal.

That’s good. Some injuries are too dire to carry for long unless you want them to go septic. This one had started killing me a long timeago. Allowing it to heal wasn’t going to take the damage away, but it might stop it from getting any worse.

“So how—”

“The crossroads promised you they’d never let me make a deal, and they wanted me to suffer,” I said. “I got downstairs while the rift was still open, and Mary wouldn’t let me go through after you because it would have hurt the baby. They took you while I was pregnant, so they’d have a head start on hiding you someplace I couldn’t reach on my own. If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have been right behind you.”

“Then I’m so glad you were,” he said as he freed one hand from mine in order to cup my cheek again. “No one should have been here the way it was when I first arrived. This is a dead world.”

“It’s a dead world in a dead dimension, technically,” I said. “That’s why it’s so hard to get in.”

“I’m afraid that’s on me,” he said. “The nature of this reality is more connected to the reason that no one can getout. No one can manage it. Not even a Johrlac without the processing power of their entire hive mind behind them. Anyone who crosses the boundary is trapped in a world with no exits.” He glanced down, eyes going dark. “I tried. For so long, I tried. I beat myself bloody against the walls of this place, I did everything I knew how to do and some things I had to intuit on my own, and some things I probably shouldn’t have, and nothing changed a thing. I was trapped. We all are.” He looked alarmed. “You shouldn’t be here. You won’t be able to leave. The children—”

“Are in their fifties now, and aren’t my biggest fans,” I said. “The grandkids will miss me. I’m sorry not to meet the great-grandkids. But our kids never met our grandparents, and they turned out okay.”

“They did?” he asked, voice aching with need.

I smiled, nodding. “They did. They both got to grow up and start families of their own. They keep colonies in their walls and put up with me bopping in and out whenever my travels take me back to Earth. The mice call Kevin the God of Decisions Made in Necessity, and they call Jane the Silent Priestess, and they’re happy, and they’re loved, and they lived.”

“It was a girl?”

“Yeah. She was a girl.” I smiled a little, wistfully. We’d both been hoping for a daughter, someone to keep Kevin company and give the mice a new priestess to focus their adulations on. The birth of a God was exciting. The birth of a Priestess was a week-long revel that hadcome close to breaking several windows and had almost been enough to break me out of my misery for a few moments. Not quite; I’d been sunk so deeply in despair at that point that if not for Laura and Mary practically holding me down, I would have been halfway to the crossroads before the baby was even dry.

Jane and I never bonded, not the way Kevin and I had. She was born into a world with two missing parents, even if I was physically there for the first several weeks while I waited for my traitor body to recover enough to let me run. Laura had placed her in my arms, and she’d looked up at me with those big, dark eyes, and I’d felt nothing but resentment for the fact that she’d been the thing that kept me in Buckley when I needed to be going after Thomas.

Was it right? No. Was it healthy? No. But we learn who to be by watching who our parents are, and for most of my life, my example had been my father, the man who never learned to love in a way that allowed for letting go. I couldn’t let go of Thomas. Kevin already adored Mary almost as much, if not more, than he loved me—he’d be fine. Loving Jane would have destroyed us both, and so I didn’t even try. I looked at that little girl and I saw a punishment, and I hated myself for doing it, yet I did it all the same.

“She was beautiful,” I said. “She still is. She and Kevin live near each other in Portland, Oregon, with their families. The kids stayed together.”

He smiled a little, grief in his eyes. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m sorry to hear they aren’t your biggest fans.”

It wasn’t a question. It still felt like one. I shrugged, not meeting his eyes, and said, “They didn’t really know me when they were little. They mostly grew up with Laura and the Campbells. Kevin was apparently one of the best midway barkers they’ve ever had. The show still tries to lure them back when it passes through the Pacific Northwest.”

“Alice...” His fingers fell away from my face. “Why did our children grow up with your mother’s carnival, and not with you? Where were you?”

“I think you know where I was.”

“I knew you’d have gone looking for me before you showed up here, but Alice...fifty years?”

“The minute I was well enough to get out of bed after the baby was born,” I said. “In case they were still moving you farther away from me, I had to catch up. I had to reach you as fast as I could. And look—even with a start that early, they kept you away from me for fifty years. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Oh,Alice,” he sighed, and folded me into his arms, and held me. I didn’t resist. I just leaned into him, letting him hold me up and hold me to him in the same moment, and I couldn’t imagine a world where I would have wanted to pull away. If I could chase the man for fifty years, surely I could hold onto him for just as long?

Eventually, however, he took a step back, tugging me along with him. I blinked. “You’re leaving?”

“We’regoing someplace where we can have slightly more privacy.” He shook his head, wryly amused. “And more furniture.”

“Privacy works for me,” I said, although I really didn’t care that much about the furniture part. I pulled my hand out of his and took a few steps away. He watched me go, looking hurt and oddly calculating at the same time, like he was measuring my gait in some way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It made me uncomfortable, which wasn’t right—Thomas watching me walk should have been the sort of thing that made me want to swing my hips harder and make him laugh, not something that made me want to stand perfectly still until the watching stopped.

---