Vial of Tears, page 25
Still, the other two tannîyn were close behind.
Ahead, Sam spotted a ship with purple sails, its hundreds of oars striking the water in rhythm, heading toward Kition. It must have been coming to help. The water around the boat roiled like boiling tea as the sailors pounded the surface and propelled the ship with astonishing speed.
Eshmun seemed to be directing the white tannîyn straight for the ship. He leaned forward and spoke commands into its ear. Sam glanced over her shoulder at the other tannîyn trailing them like rockets, tightening her grip on Rima until she yelped.
“Eshmun?” Sam called. What are you doing?
At the last second, he barked a word at the white tannîyn and it suddenly lifted upward. Sam’s stomach fell and she gulped back a wave of nausea; Rima screamed.
A hundred arrows shot upward from the deck of Eshmun’s ship, sinking into the evil tannîyn’s bellies. A wing smacked the mainsail of the boat and the vessel tipped precariously.
“No!” Sam cried, turning to look back.
One of the tannîyn skipped across the surface of the water like a stone, and then it crashed and sank, its head straining to stay above the waterline. With a final, garbled shriek, it vanished into the depths.
“They got one!” Sam shouted to Eshmun. The boat had righted itself and was rowing away into calmer waters. The second tannîyn screeched at them like a bullet. “The other one is still coming for us!”
“Then let it keep pace if it can!” he shouted back.
A long chase began. Sam’s legs went numb as the minutes and then hours stretched on and on. The tannîyn neither gained on them nor fell behind as they flew for what felt like an eternity. She could feel Rima’s heart beating through her own chest as she pressed her close. The sea swept beneath them like an endless gray highway. They glided over a small coastal city and then the blackened forest of cedar trees. Her arms quivered from holding on for so long.
Ahead were the mountains with their steep and narrow passageways. Eshmun leaned forward and spoke again into the tannîyn’s ear, and the white beast suddenly ascended, making Rima scream all over again. Sam squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach lurching from the quick ascent.
The air grew thin and cold. Their tannîyn soared straight for a snow-capped mountain peak and came to a landing.
Eshmun jumped off. “Lie flat,” he told Sam and Rima.
Sam slid off the tannîyn’s back and collapsed into the snowpack. “No problem,” she said. She couldn’t have stood up straight if she’d tried.
Sloughing off her bow and quiver to lie down next to Rima, she closed her eyes and thought of home, long ago. The two of them dressed in winter coats, making snow angels in the backyard while Dad stood on the back porch watching. His breath coming in white clouds and the steam from his coffee swirling up into the frigid air.
The white tannîyn stood over them and spread its wings, making a canopy of itself, camouflaging them with its brilliant white hide. Sam heard the evil tannîyn shrieking, the volume rising and then falling, piercing her ears and then fading away. She shivered so badly her teeth chattered, and she almost worried the sound was loud enough to give them away. This would be another way to die, she thought, frozen to the core, lying in a bed of snow. She held Rima’s icy fingers in hers.
“Is it gone?” Rima whispered finally.
“I think so,” Sam said.
Still, they waited a long time, a very long time. Sam was sure she could feel her heart slowing, hardly beating at all anymore. She exhaled and looked for the cloud of breath above her face, but there was none.
Eventually, their white tannîyn sat back on its haunches, retracting its wings. Its long tongue curled out of its mouth as it panted. Bright-eyed, it considered its passengers.
Sam reached out and stiffly patted its leg. “Th-th-thanks for the r-ride.”
“Sit up,” Eshmun said, and he put one hand on Rima’s back and the other on Sam’s.
Warmth poured through her, making her feel strong and awake. A tingling sensation spread along her spine. Pain dissipated like a fine mist rising off a lake and burning away in the heat of the sun.
She chanced a glance at her hand. The dark lines had receded into her palm, but they were still there. Her fingertips were as black as a moonless night. She would show Eshmun later. She didn’t want to scare Rima.
Eshmun cupped Rima’s chin in his hand and looked her in the eye. “Give me my coin,” he said.
“She doesn’t have it,” Sam said. “You know that. Our landlord picked it up in our backyard. He has it now.”
“Actually…,” Rima said, opening her fist. A small parcel of fabric lay in the center of her palm. She peeled the corners back and Sam gasped.
There was the coin.
21
Eshmun’s hands trembled as he took his obol from Rima. He stifled a sob and looked up at the sky. “Mother,” he said, his voice cracking, shoulders shaking. He pressed his hands to his face, and when he took them away, tears streamed down his cheeks.
“I found it on the amphitheater floor,” Rima said. “I saw it falling from the sky.”
Eshmun held the coin to his chest and began reciting his list of names again, his friends and family who waited for him.
“Wait,” Sam said to Eshmun. “This means you’re going to… die now? Helena said you have to be dead for the obol to take you to šmayyà.” She gripped his arm and he put his hand on top of hers. Would he place the coin underneath his tongue and walk right off the side of the mountain? “You can’t leave the underworld yet. You have to say goodbye to Teth and Helena. You have to find the way out for everyone. You have to find out what Môt did with Ba’alat Gebal.”
“I am not leaving. Not yet,” he reassured her.
Rima cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but can we get off this fucking freezing mountaintop?”
Eshmun nodded. “We turn back for Sidon now that the tannîyn searches ahead.”
Since she was out of arrows, Sam left the bow and quiver behind. They mounted the white tannîyn and flew again, soaring away from the mountains and above the scorched cedar forest until Sam could see the outline of Sarepta and its marketplace. Past that lay the sea, and finally the rocky beaches of Sidon itself. Eshmun’s fleet of ships sat in port, their purple sails like a field of lavender across the shoreline.
After a gentle landing, they slid off the tannîyn’s back and Sam patted its side. “Thank you,” she said. A moment later it took flight and disappeared over the twinkling sea.
Eshmun was already walking toward the stone bridge, arching over the water, that led to his home. He waved them along, straight through into the center of the fortress, out to where the patio opened up toward the sea and the indigo sky. There were no guards this time. All of Eshmun’s men must have been on the boats to Kition.
Rima sat on the stone floor, pressing her back against a wall, while Eshmun paced along the railing, looking out at the water. Sam eyed the covered pit of snakes, then went and slid down next to her sister.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m tired,” Rima said, resting her head on Sam’s shoulder. “Very, very tired.”
Sam nodded. She closed her eyes, too. “So how does California sound? After you graduate high school. There’s a lake Dad and I picked out as a fishing spot. Road trip, and then spend the summer? Maybe I could get a job at a tackle shop.”
“Maybe you could open your own tackle shop.”
Sam smiled. “Maybe.”
Rima’s voice was hollow. “I know we’re stuck here,” she said. “I know we’re never going home.”
“Don’t say that.” Sam heard footsteps and opened her eyes, looking up at Eshmun as he walked toward them. “She needs to sleep, and then we both need food.”
“This way,” Eshmun said.
Sam helped Rima to her feet and they followed him into the small bedroom. Rima settled underneath the fur blanket, and Sam nestled next to her. Eshmun excused himself.
“You don’t seriously like him, do you?” Rima asked once he was gone.
“Eshmun?” Sam asked.
Rima rolled her eyes. “No, the big bear man.” She sat up and frowned at Sam. “He’s a prick, you know that.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Sam said. “I don’t know. Is he?”
“He tied us up,” Rima said. “He kidnapped us. I don’t care how hot he is, or mysterious, or that he’s a half-god prince, or whatever. He’s an ass. Seriously, Sam. You’re going to end up like Mom.”
Sam threw her hands in the air. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You deserve better.”
“Stop, okay? A lot happened after you disappeared,” Sam said. “And why are we fighting right now? I’m not in love with him. We just understand each other at this point. That’s all.”
“Sorry,” Rima said quietly. She squinted at Sam, chewing her lower lip. She sighed. “Maybe I’m afraid I’m going to end up like Mom.
“You know, because I’ve had some time to think here. About what I would change,” she continued. “I made some serious promises to higher beings. If we could get home, I would hit the reset button and fly straight. No more crazy parties or shoplifting. I swore on it. Maybe I could even get a soccer scholarship somewhere. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters,” Sam said quietly.
Rima put her head down. Sam ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face, until Rima suddenly caught her by the wrist. “What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Sam lied. “I… burned it on a torch. Eshmun will fix it.” She saw the worry in Rima’s eyes and tucked her hand under the blankets. “So I wonder how Mr. Koplow is doing,” she said, trying to change the subject. “He’s here, somewhere.”
“He probably likes it just fine,” Rima said. “This place is right up his alley. He can be a sleazy slumlord.”
Sam laughed. “You’re probably right. Now go to sleep, will you?”
“Shut up so I can sleep.”
Sam smiled and patted Rima’s hand. Within minutes, Rima’s eyelids fluttered closed and her breathing fell into a peaceful rhythm. Sam was nearly asleep, too, when Eshmun came back into the room.
“Come with me,” he said, hooking his finger at her.
She quietly slipped out of bed, and they returned to the patio. Sam stepped over the hole in the floor covered by the layer of opaque glass. A constant motion still churned underneath, just as it had when Sam had climbed into Eshmun’s house from the sea.
“Why do you keep snakes in there?” she asked. When Eshmun responded with raised eyebrows, she added, “I looked when I broke in. I know it’s snakes.” She shrugged innocently.
“Of course you did,” he said, giving her an admonishing smile. They leaned against the stone railing under a sky that had turned pink and violet. The air was rich and humid with the smell of salt water. “Their venom can be quite useful for curing certain ailments. It seems counterintuitive, does it not? That poison can be curative? How we so often need the very thing that can kill us.”
“For life and death are one,” Sam said. “Even as the river and the sea are one.” She paused. She could practically see the green highlighter on the page. “That’s from my mother’s favorite book of poetry.”
Eshmun nodded. He gazed out at the water. “They captured me in Kition because the Alchemist took on your appearance. I ran into his open arms without thinking.”
Sam opened her arms now and wrapped them around his waist. “Thank you for sailing to save my sister. And thank you for getting us out of Kition,” she said. When she pulled away, he took her hands into his and studied the dark stain that spilled from her fingertips down into her palm, pressing its way into the veins in her wrist.
“Can you heal it again?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. He mumbled an incantation and pressed Sam’s hand between both of his. When he withdrew, the blackness was still there.
Sam choked back a whimper of fear.
“Wāy!” Eshmun cried. “What is this darkness, this ḥešukā?”
“It’s getting worse,” Sam said. A stone of dread lodged itself in her chest. How long would the ḥešukā take to kill her? She couldn’t die here. She couldn’t leave Rima here alone.
“I have cleansed the marks of ruḥā before,” he said. “But this is something deeper.” Eshmun raked his fingers through his beard. “If only I could confer with my mother and my ancestors who healed before me.”
“You could,” Sam said. “You have your obol. You could go to your ancestors to talk to them.”
“But then how would I return to you here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
He turned away and was silent, his eyes scanning the horizon as if all the answers could be out there somewhere. Sam looked at her hand again; she flexed her fingers. “I have my great-grandfather’s hands. Helena’s son’s hands.”
“Strong,” Eshmun said.
Sam thought of the old photos they had of Jiddo, sitting on his stone porch, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. “He’s the reason I’m here,” Sam said. “In more ways than one.”
“I thank him for that,” Eshmun said softly. “I saw the way you protected your sister, how you fought for her. Your love of family runs strong within you. You chose to come back into this world. You could have stayed home.”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I…” Her voice broke off. Had she seen her mother for the last time? “I can still hear my mom screaming my name. The way she was reaching…”
“She is here.” He pressed a hand to his chest, to his heart. “I will find a way to help you,” he said. “There is an ancient remedy I can try to distill.”
Try. Sam could read the doubt on his face.
She turned her head toward the sea. “I know why it won’t go away.” She held up her hand. “This. This is what happens when you cling to the dead.”
“You held the ruḥā too long.”
“Yes. I’ve been holding on too long,” she said quietly. “I need to accept that he’s gone. That my father is gone, and he’s not coming back.” She pulled in a ragged breath.
“Perhaps I have been grasping at an illusion as well,” Eshmun said. He furrowed his brow. His keyhole pupil swirled.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“Now that I have my obol,” he said, “instead of feeling fulfilled and charged with courage, I only feel… confused. The coin called to me with such force, but now that I have it, it is silent.”
“It’s not time for you to go yet,” Sam said.
He took her hands again and twisted them to look. His fingers lingered on the small white scar across her left wrist.
“It’s not what you think it is,” she said.
“Will you tell me now?” he asked. “How it happened?”
She nodded. “I got this… crazy… stupid idea. That if I took some of my father’s things outside under a full moon, and if I dripped my own blood across them, somehow it would bring him back.”
“Did it work?” he asked.
She squinted at him. “Of course not. I was a kid, and my mother went through this woo-woo stage, and then there was this old Scooby-Doo! episode.” She looked up at Eshmun’s perplexed face. “Never mind.” At the time it was a very big idea. It felt ceremonial and magical. She did think it might work.
“It was practice, was it not?” Eshmun asked with an eyebrow cocked. “You wanted to know if it would be difficult.”
“No.” She pulled her hands away.
“You were testing the possibility.”
“No,” Sam said. “I wasn’t. I was just trying to get him back. I would have done anything to get him back.”
Eshmun nodded and took her hands again. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and closed his eyes. The warmth started as a small flame and then it spread.
She yanked away. “No,” she said. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you to erase that scar. It’s a part of me. It’s a reminder of my father and how hard I was willing to try to have him home again.”
Home.
She was supposed to be graduating from high school. She was supposed to be taking entrepreneurship classes, starting the rest of her life. She didn’t belong here. She wanted her future, and not one that was spent waiting for her father to come home, or for her mother to act like an actual adult. You make your own destiny, Sam had told Eshmun. Leaving is a choice.
But now that Eshmun’s obol was here in the underworld, there was no chance of anyone else back home summoning him. His obol would not pull him—or her—back to Michigan… ever again.
Her mind raced. Couldn’t there be other obols on Earth, waiting to be touched? In museums. In ancient tombs or other buried jugs. In coin collections…
… or in locked velvet boxes full of good-luck crystals and trinkets.
She sucked in a breath and put both hands on Eshmun’s face. She held him close. “There was an old woman in Sidon who thought I had her obol. She thought I’d summoned her before. Her hair is pulled up into a tall point. She has white eyes. She looks absolutely ancient.”
“Sbartā,” Eshmun said. “She is a descendant of Ba’al Saphon, and she is one of the few who has been called to Earth.”
“Yes!” Sam’s heart thumped inside her, the idea pounding its way forward.
“What of her?”
“Whoever touched her coin… whoever summoned her looks just like me,” Sam said. “It could be my mother. Sbartā said she saw a box, maybe my mother’s velvet box. And she said she saw a man with an eagle and an anchor. I’m sure of it now—that’s the Marine insignia. She saw a photo of my father, holding a flag. I know that photo.”
Eshmun’s eyebrows came together. She’d had to switch to English for the words Marine and photo.
“What are you telling me?” he asked.
“What if I’m right? What if my mother has Sbartā’s obol?” she asked. “When I first arrived, you asked if I’d ever seen a ruḥā on Earth. Teth said they can cross the boundary to haunt people in their dreams.”
