Page 82 of The Catacomb King
I stared at the jewel, my mind whirring. No. There was no way Calix had been given a whole-ass War Police squadron in the three days I was underground. He had to have been planning this for a long time. When he’d barged into my mother’s house, when I’d shown him my reservoir idea — had the War Police already been on their way?
“Just think, Persephone,” he was saying. His fist clutched the jewel, which shone as brightly as his eyes. “We’ll kill all the godlings out in one fell swoop. No more kidnappings, no more fear, no more of their dark influence. Limer will finally be able to flourish. We’ll become a great city, a city like Corcagia —”
“You can’tkill all the godlings,” I hissed. “They’re born of Chaos Himself.”
Calix scoffed at this. “The god?”
“Yes. The god.”
But I could tell he was dismissing this as legend or superstition. “I can’t believe you’re being so difficult about this. You should hate the godlings. Yet you act like you miss them.”
“I don’t hate anybody,” I said, tiredly. “And I don’t miss anybody except my mom.”
That, finally, got through to him.
His shoulders slumped. He stopped berating me. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked at me with a confused expression: half sympathetic but half insistent on getting his way, which, I had to admit now, was the way Calix had always looked at me.
I wanted to slap the arrogant half off his face. But part of me wanted to reach out to to the sympathetic half, too. He looked all at once like the old Calix, the child-Calix, the one I’d… did I dare even to think it?… the one I’d once fallen in love with.
He touched me briefly on the shoulder. On the cheek.
Something in me swayed and cracked.
And Calix swayed, too.
My body tilted toward him. It slid toward the place it had been in three days ago — or, better yet, fifteen years ago, when both of my parents were alive. Our hut sturdy, our larder full, the earth outside flush and wet with rain. And me, troubleless, playing hide-and-seek with Calix in the town square. Knowing that at the end of the day, I would always let him find me.
One of the soldiers at the edge of the graveyard whooped.
Calix jerked back.
I felt the muscles in my face stiffen. I stared at him, shocked and hurt. The son of a bitch ducked his head and stammered. He began to walk backwards, away from me.
It was all I could do not to touch my lips. “Are you kidding me?” I cried after him. “You’re leaving me forthem? You don’t even have anything to say?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’ll understand later. When we’ve conquered the underworld. When I’ve made you safe.”
“Safe?” I screamed. “SAFE?” But Calix was already gone. Enveloped among his War Police. They clapped him on the back and jeered and swept him off.
I was alone with the gravedigger.
The gravedigger looked at me with pity. Even the fucking gravedigger felt bad for me! “You want a minute alone?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I choked out.
He stuck his shovel carefully in a pile of soil. He squeezed my shoulder as he left, as Josie had.
I had never had cause to visit the graveyard since my father’s funeral, but it occurred to me to wonder if he was the same guy who’d buried my father.
And then I was alone. Just me and the gravestones and the hot sun and the dry wind.
I waited a moment to see if Calix or the gravedigger would come back. Calix especially.
They did not.
So I hiked my skirt above my waist, climbed down into the six-foot-deep pit, pried open the casket with the gravedigger’s shovel, and lifted out my mother.
She reeked of formaldehyde and a little bit of rot.
