Strains

The next day isn’t as awkward as I thought it might be. We’re pretty good about ignoring the whole kissing situation. I like to think of it as impressive, you know, considering I was once certifiably crazy. I certainly feel it. Just the thought of me thinking Matthew and I could be a couple is insane. It was never anything I considered at Near Elysium, even if it weren’t against rule 127, so either it’s the stress or I’m beginning to lose my mind again.

But maybe staring in the face of immortality does that to you.

Matthew orders in a fancy breakfast spread that we eat together. I doubt we’ll be able to pull off staying in this hotel much longer, so it’s finally time to talk about next steps.

“What do you think we should do after we leave here,” I ask.

Matthew finishes his English muffin while he ponders the question.

“I’m not entirely sure. There are plenty of hotels here, so I can keep us off the street. But it’s definitely no way to live.”

He’s right. Besides, I don’t know how long Matthew would be able to do his psychic tricks before I started feeling bad about the whole thing. We got lucky with Mr. Moneybags being a grade A dirtbag, but how many more would we be able to stumble upon?

“Can we really stay here? My picture might not have been in the paper, but someone might recognize me anyway,” I say.

“So we leave? And go where?”

I couldn’t think of a single place Topside that I would want to go. Matthew was more of a survivor than I was, he could make a life here somehow. But how would I?

“Do you think it’s possible that we could make it back to Near Elysium?”

He drops his fork and it clatters onto the plate.

I know he’s surprised, but I’ve actually given it a lot of thought. The reality is that neither of us has anything here except each other. What if he got fed up with me? We hardly know each other and yet we are staring at a much bigger commitment than marriage. How would I handle the passage of time? What if I lost my mind again? I could end up where everything, well, ended.

“You want to go back?”

I nod. “It’s the only home I have left.”

He frowns. “I know. I can see it in your eyes, just like all psychics when they lose their ties to Topside.” He takes a sip of his orange juice. “There’s just a few issues with going back. First off, you’re the only one who can get us there. Second is that we’ve both been missing for a while, and the last thing we need is to go back with another thing for the council to be suspicious of.”

“You could teach me to use my strain, can’t you? And maybe no one has noticed yet, it’s only been a day and a half.”

He doesn’t look like he’s buying it.

“Come on, Matthew. There must be some way.”

He looks at my left hand.

“If it is what you truly want, then just let me think about it.”

He closes his eyes and puts his head back. He stays like that as I finish my breakfast and set the dishes outside our door for pick up.

I’m watching TV in the bedroom when a loud groan comes from where I left him. That’s the first noise he’s made in hours.

“Matthew, what’s wrong?”

His hands are covering his face when I find him on the couch.

“We need that damn librarian.”

“You want to explain why?”

“He can help us find a portal. They shouldn’t be closed from this side. If you’re sure that’s where you want to be, I think you can get us there, especially if the portal here does half the work, we only need you to use your strain to bypass the closed one. We just have an idiot to find first.”

With a plan half-formed, Matthew and I begin to brainstorm where Caiden might have gone. Obviously, we figured he’d look for Catherine since he was convinced she was still alive, even though the portal had been shut for a hundred years. But then there was the research that he had done at my school library. Why was he so interested in what happened two years ago?

“What do you know about Catherine?” I ask Matthew. When he doesn’t say anything, I add, “I know you felt some type of way about her before you became friends. So spill it,” I say.

He looks ashamed but nods. “Anything in particular you think would help?”

“She came here every Sunday, right? Do you know what she did when she’d come Topside?”

“I think she was going to church.”

I didn’t expect that. We didn’t speak much about religion back in Near Elysium; mostly because no one had a convincing argument for anything in particular. Some of us believed in Heaven and Hell, some spoke of the fates, but we couldn’t really prove who was right.

“So we just have to look for a church next to the Near Elysium portal. Should be easy enough.”

Matthew shakes his head. “Doesn’t work like that. The portals will take you wherever you want to go, just like your strain did.”

The needle in the haystack we were looking for just turned into finding a single plankton in an ocean. Matthew gets up from our table and rushes into the bedroom. He comes back with his enforcer robes and begins rifling around in his pockets.

“She gave me this a long time ago,” he says, handing me a small book no bigger than a wallet. I look it over and try to refrain from laughing. She must’ve been really religious or incredibly funny to give Matthew a pocket version of the New Testament.

Whatever the reason she had for giving it to him, he loved it enough to wear out the cover and carried it around even as the pages yellowed. It probably wouldn’t help us, but it did make me think Hercules was right when he said Matthew had been repenting for a long time.

“It was probably more of an insult than a genuine offer, but she would always invite me. I should’ve gone, at least once.”

I flip through the book, and some writing on the inside cover catches my eye.

“Looks like that invitation was an eternal one,” I say, showing him an address in bubbly cursive. “And lucky for us, it’s here in town.”

***

We decided to leave the luggage and its contents behind in the room. I had convinced Matthew to mail Mr. Moneybags’ wallet back to him, but I wasn’t able to sway him into returning the money inside. Now, we were browsing the gift shop of the hotel with the illegitimate bounty.

“Get anything you’d like, but if it’s too big to put in your pockets, get two,” Matthew says, grabbing two jumbo bottles of his now favorite water. It doesn’t make the most sense, but according to Caiden, Matthew is an expert at getting things to cross over so I take his advice.

As I wander through the aisles I can’t see anything that I really want. What could I take back that would make that place better? Nothing that I could fit in my pockets came to mind. Matthew only had water bottles in his hands, so I’m guessing it wasn’t going much better for him either.

At the back of the store, I find a bookstand packed with novellas and magazines. They’re more suited for reading on the beach or on a plane ride. And of course, there isn’t a copy of Sheeted Fangs to be found. Matthew comes up behind me.

“Find anything?” he asks.

“No, but it’s fine. Maybe I’ll just grab some extra samples from the front desk,” I say.

He nods and heads up to the register to pay while I stay back and flip through a newspaper that has no mention of me anywhere.

***

The address that was written in the book was for the church attached to the old mission in town. They still held services, even though half the building was a designated historical attraction. That made it significant enough to have its own dedicated trolley stop, so it would be easy to get to from the hotel.

The problem was me. I had volunteered, at my mother’s behest, at the historical portion of the building every year once I turned sixteen. And then there were the festivals that I never missed because I never passed up the chance for free food.

So Matthew had covered me in his enforcer robes to hide my identity. I have my doubts. Matthew hasn’t been around long enough to realize that, in this day and age, showing up to a church wearing all black could attract unwanted attention.

We get off the trolley as we get to the church. It was the middle of the week, so there wasn’t technically a guarantee that Caiden would be there.

“What do we do now?” I ask from behind my mask.

“Let’s look around. This is the only place that makes sense for him to come to.”

If he could find it. It’s not like the newspapers had mentioned this place.

We wander the grounds, finding absolutely nothing. The sun was beginning to set, and soon the trolleys would stop running. But still, we stay and walk around the grounds, over and over again.

Once the streetlights come on, I’m ready to call it a day. There has to be an easier way to find him. Maybe Matthew could use his strain to get a P.I. to find him for us.

Man, our plans suck.

Matthew grabs my hand and lifts me from my seat on the cathedral steps.

“What are you-.” Matthew covers my mouth before I can finish and drags me behind the stairs.

After a moment, I understand his sudden moves. Footsteps hit the pavement and then go up the stairs above us. Then, the wooden doors to the cathedral open and slam shut.

“Let’s go get the idiot.”

“If we need his help, we probably shouldn’t call him that,” I whisper.

“It’ll be a miracle if I don’t kill him. Come on.”

We head inside the cathedral. We were trying to be as quiet as possible but it is completely futile. The cathedral ceilings are so high that every half step we make on the marble floors echoes off the walls in thunderous claps.

Then his figure comes into view. He’s sitting in the front pew, in the darkest corner possible. We walk up to him, and he doesn’t look at us, even as we stand right in front of him.

“Caiden, we need to talk,” I say.

“I figured,” he says flatly.

I can feel Matthew already getting irritated beside me. I step closer to sit beside Caiden.

“Did you find her?” I ask.

“She’s not here,” he says, trying to veil his sadness, without much success. I could almost hear Matthew’s incessant ‘I told you so, idiot’ that had to be on the tip of his tongue.

“Sorry, Caiden. We were actually going to try to get back to Near Elysium, do you want to come with us?”

Matthew shuffles. Obviously, this isn’t exactly part of his plan, but I can’t just leave Caiden here. I take his hand.

“Just show us where the portal is, and we can go back together,” I say, getting to the point.

Caiden sighs and finally looks at me. He stares at me for a long moment before he says, “For you, I will.”

The trolley driver eyes us suspiciously as we get on the last trolley of the night. We go straight to the back and sit on a bench I know is within his line of sight. Hopefully, that’ll put him at ease. I sandwich myself between Matthew and Caiden, who even after all this time, do not speak to each other.

“So,” I say, trying to thaw out the bench. “How have you been?”

The moment I say it, I regret it. I never know how to navigate this awkwardness. Caiden pats my hand.

“Everything is fine.”

I decide that will be the final word as we stay on the trolley until the end of the line. We get off outside the aquarium, which is already closed for the day. Matthew and Caiden both offer me their hand to help me off the trolley, but I manage to get out just fine on my own.

“How did you find a portal here?” I ask Caiden.

“He can sense them with his strain,” Matthew answers.

We follow Caiden to a sitting area on the boardwalk outside the aquarium entrance. When I would come here on field trips, this is where our class would meet up. There are plenty of benches, a memorial fountain, and even some viewing telescopes. Tossing coins in the fountain and trying to get one inside one of the dolphin statues was a favorite pastime of mine.

“So where is it?” I ask.

Caiden points to the fountain, at the spot where the tails of the stone dolphins create a circle. Instead of the seasick-like nausea I got from the portals under the library and in the forest tower, this place somehow makes me feel light.

I can see the stars clearly beyond where Caiden is pointing. There doesn’t seem to be anything there at all, just like all of the other portals I’ve seen. But unlike the others, this one almost seems to be calling me closer as if it were a living thing.

“Are you sure about this?” Caiden asks, looking straight at me.

“It’s where I want to be.”

“Hopefully that’ll be enough to get you back to the academy then.”

I turn towards him, but Matthew speaks before I get a chance to.

“So I take it you aren’t coming with us?”

“No. I’m going to stay here and take care of what she loved. I owe her that much.”

Matthew walks up to him and holds out the pocket bible. He doesn’t say anything, but Caiden takes it and marvels at Catherine’s writing on the inside cover. Caiden then pulls out his own book and hands it to Matthew.

“Don’t forget, you still owe her too.”

The two men nod at each other. Caiden walks over and gives me a long hug.

“Watch over the library for me. And once you graduate, make sure to come get me for the ceremony, got it?”

“You’d actually come back to campus?” I ask, not able to stop the smile spreading across my face.

“For that, I would make an exception.”

Caiden nudges me towards the portal. Matthew is already standing on the lip of the fountain. I give Caiden a final hug before taking Matthew’s hand and stepping onto the fountain beside him.

“Using your strain is one part intent and one part instinct, Elizabeth. Try to mimic the thoughts and feelings you had when you brought us here.” He laces his fingers in between mine.

“Now, take us home.”

I reach my hand towards the empty space created by the dolphins. I want this to work. Please work. Just give me a second chance to live the afterlife I want to live.