Page 148 of Katabasis
“But why—” He stopped himself, then rephrased. “But then you came for nothing.”
“Not nothing.” She traced her thumbs down his cheeks.What a marvel, she thought;his face, his jaw, the prickly stubble where his hairline meets his temple. God carved this boy.“Not nothing. I gained everything.”
His fingers wrapped around hers. “Oh, Alice...”
“Listen, Peter.” She hesitated. The problem wasn’t a lack of what to say, it was where to begin. How dizzying was this feeling—to have someone look at you, really look, patiently trying to understand you. But there was so much she needed him to know, and it was all so tangled and thorny and full of feelings good and bad, and when she did find her tongue, the best she could get out was, “I wanted to say, I’m sorry.”
“Oh.” Peter tilted his head, considering. “Well. I’m sorry too.”
Language failed them here; it did not come close to capturing the depth of feeling, of guilt and relief and shame and love. The abyss was still there; they had not bridged it; they had only waved at each other from across the gulf. Maybe parallel lines could meet at infinity. Maybe. There was so much else to say and miraculously, now an entire lifetime to figure out how to say it. But she felt that apologies, offered and accepted, were not a bad place to start.
Peter glanced down at the tree. “What’s this?”
She beamed. “Our ticket home.”
“The Dialetheia!” He reached; she passed it into his arms. The petals stretched toward his face, and the glow of him then was the loveliest sight she’d ever seen. “It’s wonderful!”
“Isn’t it just?” Alice turned to King Yama. “My lord, I’m ready to barter.”
He gestured for them to come closer. Hand in hand, Alice and Peter approached the throne.
“What are your demands?” King Yama asked.
“Journey back up top,” said Alice. “For one.”
“For one?”
“For another, we want our lifespans back.” Alice clutched the Dialetheia close. “We’ve had a very bad time, and we didn’t get what we came for, and I feel we ought to get a refund.”
King Yama fell silent for a moment. She could not read his face. Slowly he said, “You feel you ought to get a refund from Hell.”
“Alice,” Peter muttered.
“It just seems I did you a favor.” Alice was still buzzing. She felt this was worth a try; she felt anything in the world was worth a try. “I rid you of some pests, I mean. And I get that, in the eternal scale of things, a few years with Grimes and the Kripkes is a mere blink to you. But so, too, should be the return of our lifespans. It’s a fair bargain, don’t you think?”
The Lord of Hell sat silent.
Alice could not see King Yama’s mouth beneath his mustache. She could only see his thick brows furrowed, his eyes glaring intensely as he did in every image from her childhood, but she could never tell whether that expression was a laugh or a frown.
Her parents had prayed to King Yama in their youth, before they took entrance exams. But why, she’d asked; what does the Underworld have to do with your college admissions? King Yama hates corruption, they told her. He is a benevolent bureaucrat. He is harsh to cheaters, but he rewards hard work. He is nothing to fear.
At last King Yama spoke. “You know, you magicians believe the funniest things about the world. You think your spells work because you’ve fooled the world. You think you’re simply so clever that you’ve talked circles around the rules, that the world is so baffled it has no choice but to obey your commands. You don’t realize that nature knows you’re lying. You draw your little circles, and we bend and pretend, the same way parents pretend when their toddlers lie.” He scratched his chin. “But we deities are lenient, you see. We do love to be amused.”
Alice dared to hope. “Have we amused you then, lord?”
“You have certainly been worth watching.”
He pondered a moment further. At last he announced, “I will return half of the years you gave up in your journey. Consider the rest a payment for a lesson learned.”
Alice opened her mouth to argue, but Peter tugged at her arm. “I think that’s very fair, lord.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “If that’s the best you can do.”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Yes, King Yama.”
He extended his hand.
