V: Phoenix isn't gone yet

《 ASPEN GRISWOLD 》

“Are you gone?” I whispered to Phoenix. Through the blanket touching his chest felt like touching a person, someone still burning up with fever and not someone, something, cold and lifeless. “You're gone, aren't you?”

I rolled onto my back, raking my fingers through my hair, and stared up at the ceiling. Rio hadn't come upstairs and it was well past lunch time, so I was starting to get worried, but not enough to get up and go check on them. Instead, I lay on the bed feeling miserable and talking to a statue.

“I think you are.” I continued my monologue. “And you still want me to take them away? Even if I already took care of Willow and the others? Even if there's no one left alive?”

For a while I was able to fool myself that there was still a way to get Phoenix back, and that all I had to do was stay in the cottage. That if I could fix his Walkman, he was going to wake up out of pure gratitude and then we'd save the world together. But it had been over a month and I wasn't holding my breath anymore.

I reached under my pillow and held Phoenix's Walkman in my hands. The plastic was cool against my fingertips, the cracked part smoothed by the protuberance of dried super glue. After a moment of hesitation, I put on the headphones and pressed play.

When the electric guitar and a deep rumble of bass filled my ears, I wondered what about it made it superior to Phoenix above all those bands he couldn't stand. Maybe it was because the singer had such an unique voice. It was somehow craggy and high pitched at the same time, and I wasn't sure if I disliked it or liked it a lot.

But there was this song on the B-side of the cassette, which was unlike all the other songs. I could imagine Phoenix laying on his bed, letting the dark and dragging beat company him when he couldn't sleep. Thinking about it both comforted the hurt that was my new constant, and made my chest ache with acute longing.

It was a self-pitying song about heartbreak, and it was my favorite, because it was like someone had seen inside my brain and written a song about it. Which sounds stupid and sappy said out loud. But who cares.

I know I don't.

In the middle of my favorite line, The world is a lonely place, the sound faded. As it did, the air turned stagnant and time slowed to a crawl. The hair on my arms stood on end, and just for a second or two, it was like Phoenix was right there in the room with me.

“Phoenix?” I choked out, sitting up and gaping at his sleeping form. I waited for him to open up his eyes and strained my ears to hear him call back for me. Repeating inside my head: please, please, please.

But then the front door going downstairs broke the spell. The heaviness was gone from the air and my skin was no longer on goosebumps. The singer finished the line with a long-suffering you're on your own, and I yanked the headphones off my head, tossing the Walkman on the bed.

I buried my face in my hands and pulled at my hair, letting out a wailing sound that was half-sob half-groan. I couldn't go on like this, imagining Phoenix's presence when he was nowhere to be reached or found. It was time to admit to myself that Phoenix was gone.

I drew in a shaky breath and let it out in a calm, collected exhale. I did it over and over again, until my body had ceased to tremble and I clambered up from the bed. I could hear the faint rise and fall of Rio and Rain's voices, and I followed it downstairs. I asked them to drop the dinner preparations for a moment and gestured to them to join Najwa and I in the living room.

Najwa was curled up in the armchair, and she said nothing when she saw us gathering on the couch. She did lift her gaze from the tarot deck, which she turned face down on her thigh. Rio was leaning in, their eyes puffy and red, like they had been crying, while Rain sat so close to them that their knees were pressed together.

“Before Phoenix.. turned to gold, he asked me to do something.” I dug my fingernails into my palms to keep my eyes from watering up and my voice from turning shaky.

“What was it?” Rain asked. I hated to see that glimmer of hope, no matter how momentary, in his eyes when all I had to offer was bad news.

“He, uh..” I furrowed my brows and drew in another calming breath. “He said that when he's gone, I should take you with me and tell everyone that it was me who.. who killed him.”

“And why the hell would we do that?” Rain snapped. Next to him Rio had fallen into silence, while Najwa stared at me with blank eyes.

“He wanted to make sure we’ll be safe. All of us.” When Rain opened his mouth to snap something, I lifted both my hands, palms up in surrender. “I told him it was never going to happen and that we weren't going to leave him behind. But, just.. hear me out.”

I explained it to them, speaking more at once than I had spoken in a month. It was getting chilly in the woods and the water in the well and on the stream was going to freeze over. No more water, no more fish, nada. And even if the cottage remained liveable through winter, we would still fare better in the city; we could search for food and survivors.

“It barely goes below zero around here in the winter.” Rain's jaw was set and he was determined to find a reason for us to stay in the cottage.

“You said it yourself, the weather's been unusually cold.” Rio whispered, unable to meet Rain's gaze. “I'm sorry but Aspen has a point. If it snows, we’ll run out of food and water in no time.”

“I can't be on my leg that long.” Rain moved to his second argument against leaving. He looked up at me, and just for a second his smile was as triumphant and cold as it was joyless. It didn't take me long to find out why. “You'd have to heal me first.”

Rain and I both knew how terrified I was of my magic, and I couldn't blame him for using that against me. The thing is that I didn't want to leave either, I just didn't think staying was doing us any good. There were too many memories of Phoenix, not to mention that we were living with his corpse. It didn't smell or decay, but there was no life left in whatever it was that was laying in our room.

“I'll heal you.” I promised, even though the mere idea sat like a stone in my stomach. When the color drained from Rain's face, I felt as triumphant as he had felt a moment ago. “I'll even do it right now, if you want me to.”

Rain let out a huff of breath and stood up, glaring down at Rio and me in turns. But his glare wasn't angry, it was desperate. He turned on his heels as if to storm out of the room, but then stopped. Even from where I was sitting and even with the little daylight streaming in from the windows, I could see his body shaking.

“I can't believe you. You want to leave him here all alone, after everything he's done for us?” Rain turned back to look at us with bloodshot eyes. He swallowed hard before continuing in a thick, strained voice: “What if he wakes up and finds out we've left him here like he's.. like he's.. dead.”

“He's not going to wake up.” The words were shards of glass, tearing my chest and throat into bloody stripes as I forced myself to say them out loud. It shut Rain up fast and he slumped back on the couch. When Rio tried to comfort him by touching his shoulder, he whispered a pained don't.

“He’s not gone yet.” Rain sent a wild look at Rio first, and then at Najwa when they didn't back him up. Najwa didn't say a word, but the tears spilling from her eyes spoke volumes. Rain shook his head before burying his face in his hands, and this time, when Rio reached out to touch him, he let them.

Silence hung over us, heavy with the realization that none of us knew how to go on without Phoenix, but that at some point we had to try.

Promise or no promise, I was going to make sure that Najwa, Rio and Rain got their happy ending. There wasn't going to be one for me, not when I have to carry the burden of taking all those innocent lives. Maybe after I got the others to safety, I could take the easy way out. That would keep the world safe from me ever causing another wave of Gold fever.

“Should we vote?” Rio suggested. “Hand up, who wants to go.”

I lifted mine, even though it tore me apart to do so, and Rio's pinched expression told me they felt the same as they lifted their hand. It was no surprise that Rain didn't lift his hand, but it meant that Najwa was the one who settled the outcome; either it was going to be three against one or a tie.

Najwa stared at me for an eternity, her eyes unreadable. The tears on her cheeks hadn't dried up yet, but she wasn't crying any longer. I waited, holding my breath until my lungs burned with the lack of oxygen, not knowing whether I wanted Najwa to lift her hand or not.

At length, she mouthed the word sorry to Rain, her dark skin gray-ish in the dimming daylight. She lifted her hand.

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Sorry for the slow and angsty start. I promise there will be more action in the following chapters, just hang on a bit longer. :) ps. The song Aspen was listening to is Solitude by Black Sabbath. It's pretty good.