Vial of Tears, page 27
“Take it!” Sam said suddenly, yanking Rima sideways. She reached behind her. “Just take the tears and go!” she cried, thrusting the green vial at Zayin.
Zayin grinned and licked her lips before snatching the vial away from Sam. She was tipping it back toward her open mouth when a voice cried out.
“Fool! It is poison!”
It was Zayin. Another Zayin. This one was dressed the same as the one Sam had met in the mountains. Thigh-high leather boots, and a necklace made of teeth. “Ah, and here we have the spy from Gadir, the messenger from Ugarit.” Her kohl-blackened eyes turned and swept over Sam, coming to rest on her new ring. “Pretty bauble,” she said. Her bare hands were flawlessly young.
“Hello again,” Sam said.
The shapeshifter lowered the vial of poison. “Thank you for the warning,” she cooed.
But the real Zayin drew closer to her mirror image with a fast, purposeful stride. Before Sam could understand what was happening, she pulled a dagger from her belt and leaped onto the shapeshifter, stabbing her in the chest and twisting. She pulled out the bloody blade with a grunt.
The shapeshifter wheezed and pressed her hands to her wound as she slumped to the ground. Her face twisted into a grimace. She coughed, spraying blood across the patio. And then she morphed. She was Mom dying, her lush hair spilling across the stone patio like a silken scarf. Dad dying, his flannel shirt soaked with blood. “Sam,” he said, reaching out for her. “Don’t let me go. You wouldn’t do that to your old man, would you?” Rima dying. Her long legs thrashed uselessly. And then Eshmun. Dead. His face as pale as a tombstone.
“Stop it!” Sam cried.
Slowly, the shapeshifter’s gray skin darkened and wrinkled. He shrank and shriveled into the shape of an old man, paper-thin flesh hanging from his bones. His eyes were sunken, his head too small for his bony shoulders. Finally, the gnarled hands matched the rest of the body.
“How dare you impersonate me,” Zayin said to the shapeshifter, kicking his face with the crack of a breaking nose. “And my master, Melqart. To think I shared my bed with you, you foul demon!”
The shapeshifter’s blood ran across the stone patio, pooling black. “Have mercy,” the Alchemist croaked. “I cannot grow old and die. I will not allow it. I will not be forgotten. I am the next ruler of the underworld. I have been waiting for the death of Môt…” He paused to cough again, blood burbling across his lips. “Have mercy.… Give me… tears…”
“Mercy?” Zayin laughed. “After you put your lizard tongue in my mouth? After you stole my hawk? My beautiful face? I shall tie you to a post in Baalbek and let the vultures eat you.”
She tipped her chin toward Sam and Rima, batting her long eyelashes. “Do give Eshmun my regards.”
With that she took the fresh vial of tears from the railing, heaved the bleeding shapeshifter onto the hawk, and then mounted it as well. Its wings beat the air with a whump-whump. As they lifted away, a feather swirled to the ground, and Sam reached down to pick it up.
Instead she gasped and stumbled backward.
Rima grabbed her by the wrist. “What the hell?” she cried.
Sam wrenched her arm away. The ruḥā stain had suddenly crept past her elbow. The black lines were like lightning bolts, zigzags of cracking ice. Sam looked at her sister; she could feel tears stinging her eyes. “It’s moving faster. I think it’s in my veins.”
“We shouldn’t have let Zayin take those tears!” Rima said. “You need them!”
Sam felt the patio tip sideways underneath her. “I’m dizzy. I need to lie down.”
Rima draped Sam’s arm across her shoulder and helped her back to the bedroom where Rima had slept earlier. “Where is Eshmun?” Rima asked, tucking Sam under the fur blankets.
“I am here,” he said, rushing into the room. His eyes widened when he saw Sam’s arm. “Wāy,” he whispered.
“You can fix it, right?” Rima asked. Sam flinched at the sound of Rima’s voice, high and desperate. “You can make it go away.”
“We cannot let it reach her heart.” Eshmun sat on the edge of the bed and pressed a wooden goblet to Sam’s lips. She choked down the liquid, which was thick and tasted metallic. “Where are the tears?” he asked.
“Zayin took them,” Rima said.
He growled as he opened a jar and a smell wafted through the room. Mint and alcohol. It was a gritty lotion, and he rubbed it into Sam’s arm, pressing deeply with his thumbs. “L-kun w-netiheb šal,” he murmured.
“Does it hurt?” Rima asked.
“No,” Sam said. She looked at Rima. “Did you know that birds have hollow bones? That’s what it feels like. Hollow.” The room was foggy. She felt like clouds were rising up from underneath her. They would carry her off. “I’m a bird. I could fly away.”
Sam saw Rima give Eshmun a hard look, and then she raked her own fingernails down her arm, drawing blood. Eshmun nodded. He put his hands on Rima’s scrapes and tilted his head to let the tears fall into Sam’s mouth.
But the blackness did not fade or recede. Sam’s heart pounded out a slow beat, counting time, the moments she had left. The ruḥā’s touch would reach her heart and then death would be pumped throughout her body, reaching every vein and vessel. She would turn to ash.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Sam told Rima again.
“Eshmun, I’m going to stab myself,” Rima said. “We need a bigger wound for you to heal. More tears. Give me a knife.”
“No,” Eshmun said. “If you die, I cannot bring you back a second time. I have had my turn. Death will take his.”
“It’s not so bad,” Sam said. “It’s not terrible.”
“No!” Rima sobbed. “You can’t leave me!”
“You have Helena. That’s her there,” Sam said, lifting her good hand and pointing to a woman who was walking into the room. “That’s Jiddo’s mother. I told you about her. Our great-great grandmother.”
“This must be the sister Samira so valiantly fought to find,” Helena said. She turned to Sam with a sad smile. “My sweet Samira,” she said, sitting next to her on the bed. “What has happened to you?”
“I didn’t know when… to let go,” Sam said. Her voice rattled. It was getting hard to breathe. “I… I held on too long.”
“Keep holding on,” Helena said. She made a fist. “Fight it.”
“Where is… Sbartā?” Sam asked. “Is she coming?”
“She is on her way,” Helena said, nodding.
What if Mom forgot her dream? What if she’d been drinking, and her memory had been too blurred to keep Sam’s message safe? But then again, this was Mom. Believer in ghosts and cosmic energy, crystals and horoscopes. She would cling to any sign the universe gave her.
“I want to go outside,” Sam wheezed. “I want to see the sky.”
Eshmun nodded. He carried her to the patio and kept his hands on her, chanting and cursing, trying a hundred prayers. The blackness crept on: Sam looked down at her chest and saw its inky fingers reaching, invading. She closed her eyes and remembered what the attendant in Môt’s dungeons had told her:
You are cursed.
She gripped Rima’s hand. “I want you to scatter my ashes over the sea,” she said. “That’s probably…” Her voice failed her. She could hardly breathe. “Probably where Dad is. At the bottom…”
“Shut up,” Rima said, sobbing. She pressed her wet cheek against Sam’s. “Just shut up.”
Beyond Rima, Sam could see through the center of the castle. Sbartā was running across the bridge. She was screaming. “It calls to me! It summons me!”
“There!” Helena suddenly said, pointing skyward.
Sam turned her head to look. A low, circular cloud moved toward them. “Is it?” she asked.
“Yes!” Rima said, tugging on her arm. “Come on, Sam, stand up. Stand up! You have to rally one last time. We’ll get you home. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
“Your mother heard your wish,” Helena cried. “She heard you, einee!”
“Come,” Sam said, her voice hardly a whisper. She drew in another shallow breath. “With us.”
“No,” Helena said with a kind smile. “This is my home, here in Sidon.” She hooked an arm underneath Sam and helped lift her. “I will be staying.”
Sam nodded. I understand.
“May you have a safe journey home,” Helena said. “I am so happy to have met both of you, the daughters of the granddaughter of my son.” She kissed Sam’s forehead and then Rima’s. “I will never forget you.”
“Go on,” Rima said to Sam. “Kiss your prince goodbye. Hurry.”
Sam folded herself into Eshmun’s arms. “Thank… you,” she breathed, looking up at him, his keyhole pupil ablaze. She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. He rubbed a finger across the emerald-and-gold ring she still wore.
“No matter how long… you will lead them… to šmayyà,” she wheezed. “You are the door… the gate… the tar`ā.”
“Stay with me,” he said. “Marry me.”
Sam searched his face. “Can’t,” she said.
And I can’t bring my father back, and I can’t save my mother from herself. And you shouldn’t leave this world, not yet. She looked over her shoulder at Rima. It’s time to go home.
Eshmun pulled Sam tight against him, and for a moment she was afraid he wouldn’t let her go. He stroked her jaw with his thumb, kissed her lightly on the cheek, and then allowed her to pull away. She nodded at him.
And as she stepped toward the funnel with Rima, she raised her blackened hand and managed to whisper, “Goodbye. Goodbye.”
EPILOGUE
The bells on the bait shop door jingled as Sam stepped through. She felt the stares of a few customers, but most of all, it was Chase at the cash register. “Hey,” he said, dropping a stack of receipts and coming around the counter. For a second she thought he was going to hug her. “You’re back,” he said. His green eyes were bright.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m back.”
“And you’re okay,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m okay.”
He was the one who occasionally gave her supplies for free, though she always paid him back. The owner probably never knew. For all the favors he’d done for her, they’d never exchanged more than a few words. She knew he was a year older, taking college classes online. Once or twice she’d seen him out on the lake, fishing.
“The aliens released you,” he said.
“Huh?”
“That was one of the rumors going around town.” He pushed the hair out of his face. It was longer than she remembered, blonder. Maybe the summer sun was making it lighter. “You were aboard the mother ship.”
She laughed. “That’s not what people thought,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I swear.” He pulled in a breath. “People… well, I thought… the worst. Everyone was worried.” He cleared his throat. “I was really worried. So… where were you?”
“Um,” she fumbled.
She reached inside her shirt and thumbed her new pendant. The sun, šemšā. It was $59.99 at a nice jewelry store at the mall, worth every penny. The ancients say the only cure is the sun, the women in Môt’s dungeons had told her. And when the funnel pulled her up and into her backyard, the heat of high noon had kissed her. The sunlight poured into her. Her skin drank the light. She opened her mouth and swallowed it. She breathed it in, and the stains of death faded from her chest, her arm, and then finally down to the last of her fingertips.
Sam pointed to the sign behind Chase’s head. “I need a cup of worms and some ice for my cooler.”
“Sure, yeah,” he said. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”
Sam had an official story, but she didn’t like telling it: She and Rima decided to do a cross-country fishing trip that Sam and Dad had once planned. They’d shown the cops a map with bright orange star stickers marking each of the destinations. They didn’t tell Mom anything about the trip because they knew she’d say no. They’d stolen the cash from her casino winnings. They’d taken buses and rideshares, and then walked the rest of the way to Bull Shoals Lake, where they fished and camped. And then they got on a bus toward Florida when they realized they were running out of money. They’d gotten off and turned around and taken a bus home. Sam had looked up Greyhound routes and schedules, and some campsites on the internet to make their story sound true. She said they didn’t sleep well along the way. They shouldn’t have gone. It was a bad idea and they were very sorry. No one believed them, she could tell. But they were home and not dead, so their lies were good enough for the necessary paperwork.
“So how about some cherry pie?” Chase asked.
“What?” Sam asked.
“I mean…,” Chase said. “I, uh, I promised myself that if I ever saw you again I wouldn’t chicken out.” He paused. “So.” He took a deep breath. “Do you like cherry pie?”
“Of course,” Sam said. “It’s required if you live here, right?”
“The tree in our backyard is loaded with them right now. A little early this year. Cherries.” He ran a hand through his hair again, brushing it away from his face. “So, is that a yes or a no?”
“Wait. Are you asking me out?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Will you have pie with me?” He shook his head. “This all sounded so much smoother in my head.”
Sam smiled. “I’ll have pie with you.”
“Yeah? Okay?” he asked, grinning. He put a hand to his chest. “Okay. Um… Tonight?”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m meeting my sister for ice cream,” she said. “We’ve kind of been obsessively craving Dairy Queen lately. I promised her.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked, undeterred.
“She’s got a soccer game,” she said. His face clouded, so she hurriedly added, “But I’m free Saturday.”
“Awesome!” he said. He cleared his throat, adjusted his voice back to a normal volume. Tossed a shoulder up with a nonchalant shrug. “Okay, yeah. I can do that. Pie.”
Sam stifled a laugh. He was adorable. Why hadn’t she noticed before?
“So… I’m gonna go fishing now,” Sam said, hooking a thumb over her shoulder toward the lake. “I’ll catch up with you in a couple hours. Will you still be here?”
“I’ll wait for you.”
On the boat, out on the lake, she thought of Eshmun. Her gold-and-emerald ring was home, safely hidden. She would probably keep it, no matter how much it might be worth if she sold it. He still felt close, so nearby, like she could reach through a crease in the sky and find him. She wanted to tell him. Late at night in her bunk bed, staring up at the mattress where Rima slept, she’d seen it, imagined it.
She understood now. She knew where the gateway was.
The prophecy of the sun. The key Helena had mentioned, the key that would unlock paradise for all the trapped souls in the underworld. It was to be made of Chusor’s gold, but not a gram of it existed in the underworld.
Not until now. Because Eshmun’s obol was made of it.
His obol was the key.
All he had to do was take it to the blacksmith in Sarepta, to Mhaymnā, who had divine blood and could turn a ring into a necklace over a fire. He could certainly turn an obol into a golden key. The key would be melded to the tip of Rugzā, and it would go into Eshmun’s keyhole pupil.
It had to.
There had been so many little signs. She could see them now, fitting together like puzzle pieces. The knife sliding into the tannîyn’s eye, the way it seemed to fit, like it was meant to be there. The animal urge she’d had to stab Eshmun through his pupil while he slept in the mountains. Even the letter from Jiddo. He’d written the Arabic word einee, my eyes. Eshmun had been looking for a door, when he was the door himself.
But what was Sam supposed to do? Spend months or years or a lifetime searching through museums or caves in Lebanon until she found another Phoenician obol so she could go back? Sbartā had claimed hers from Mom, and there weren’t any more in her collection of charms and coins. Sam had looked.
No. She shook her head at herself. Saving the underworld was not her job, and the plan was in place. Her plan, for herself. She would stick around another two years until Rima graduated high school. She would save money and take business classes. Then she and Rima would move together, somewhere sunny where her fishing venture could run all year long. Clear Lake in California looked good.
The future was hers. There was no looking back. Though the conversation she’d had with Mom hadn’t been easy.
“I’ve sort of realized. Other people will make you feel like you’re supposed to be something or do something,” Sam told Mom. They were in the backyard again, working on the garden. “But I don’t want to stay here. It’s not my…” She’d faltered. She wanted to say It’s not my responsibility to take care of you anymore. It never really was. But she was afraid of hurting Mom’s feelings. “It’s not my dream,” she said. “I need to think about what I want from life.”
Mom had wiped a tear from Sam’s face, sending a streak of gardening dirt across her skin. She smiled. “I’m proud of you,” she’d said as she hugged Sam close.
The promise she’d made her father had been too big.
And so was the burden of saving the underworld. It didn’t rest on her shoulders, either. It wasn’t her quest; it was Eshmun’s, and his alone. She didn’t owe him anything, she reminded herself. She was right to leave. She would have died there in his arms.
And yet, she would never forget him. She never wanted to. Whenever the sun warmed her cheeks, she could almost imagine his laugh or his healing hands. Whenever she felt hope, she could hear his voice, calling her name.
Sam paddled toward the center of the lake, thrusting herself forward. Out in the fresh air with the sun shining above, she threaded a worm through her hook and tossed her line into the water. She thought about her date with Chase and cherry pie served with fresh whipped cream.
It was hard to tell from this distance, but she could see something standing on the opposite shoreline. Her heart pounded a little faster. From where Sam sat, it looked like a rat.
