Fifty-Four ◑ The Cell

"No," Lucille mumbled through numb lips, her entire stomach hard with suppressed despair. "No. . . ."

This couldn't be happening. Keiran had told her that there was a chance of them fading into time, but surely this wasn't it. Surely this was just a mistake, or a trick of the light, or a glitch in her mind. Anything but this. . . .

Without giving it a second thought, Lucille swept her arm towards Dimitri to test her theory.

But instead of passing through, her arm collided against solid flesh, and the back of her hand smacked him right on the cheek with a loud sound.

Dimitri stepped back, his eyes wide with shock. "Ow."

"I can touch you!" Relief and guilt filled her to the brim. "And I'm so sorry."

As she rushed towards him, Keiran laughed. "Wow. You just back-handed the God of Death. Consider me impressed."

Lucille shot him a glare and softly punched him in the gut. "Maybe I'll slap the God of Fate too."

"Easy there, lady." Keiran held his palms up. "It's not my fault you're being too dramatic. Of course he's solid. I think you just needed an excuse to touch his face."

Dimitri stepped away from Lucille, his face red from the slap and his brother's comment. "How about we just shut up and set up camp?"

"Fine by me," Keiran answered merrily, picking up their supplies and marching away into the snowy forest. "Another forest camping."

Dimitri just shook his head, taking the robe they'd been proffering and securing it around Lucille's shoulders. Then, the three of them navigated the smelly, cold environment to find a spot that would shield them both from the weather and possible attacks.

Fortunately, they found a secluded area deep into the forest, a rocky formation that served as a makeshift cave. Even more fortunately was the fact that they found it quickly, since their exposed toes were growing numb in the cold. They stuck close together as they walked, shivering from the wind and coughing from time to time from the waft of pungent smells from the nearby village.

They basically collapsed when they found the cave, pressing against each other to maintain the heat. Lucille's wet hair didn't help matters. She felt like her scalp was falling off. The inside of the cave was miraculously dry, filled with air that was a little warmer than the outside.

Lucille backed against the wall, hugging her knees. "We did pack dried wood from Rome, right?"

"We did," Keiran said. "But it's hard to get even a spark going on."

"How about the candle?" she asked. "That can be used, right?"

"In theory," Dimitri answered after a pause. "But I just don't feel comfortable using it since it's tied to . . . you know."

But Lucille was already retrieving the golden box. Steeling herself for what she was about to see, she lifted the lid and looked inside.

There was only about one inch of the candle left inside.

Her breath got hitched in her throat momentarily, her eyes fixed on the little flame dancing merrily on the wick. An inch. All their lives were literally depending on an inch of red wax.

She’d recovered a substantial portion of her memories now, and the candle was nearly gone. Yet there were still a lot of questions left: how did Agnes play into all of it? Was Lucille’s grave sin related to her in some way? What happened to Cade after her death?

These were questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to be answered, but the candle was nearly burnt out. And she was so, so—

“Close,” Keiran suddenly said. When Lucille whipped around to face him, he rolled his eyes. “I’m so close to freezing over it’s not even funny. Are you going to use the fire or not?”

Dimitri frowned at him disapprovingly, but Lucille just took one of their dried sticks and dipped it close to the wick. It caught fire quickly, so she brought it over to the pile of wood that Keiran had just arranged close to the mouth of the cave. Soon enough, they had a small bonfire that provided them just enough heat, staying ablaze even when Dimitri started tossing some branches from outside.

The three of them gathered close to it, lying down on the remaining spare robes side by side. Dimitri curled up next to Lucille as she faced the fire, which was great, but Keiran had to ruin it by wedging himself between them.

“Tell me a story,” he teased Lucille.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Dimitri grumbled. “You’re gross.”

“Gross?” Keiran said incredulously. “Hey, I give you dating advice. I deserve some respect.”

Lucille lifted her head to look at Dimitri. “Dating advice?”

The God of Death was visibly red-faced. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing. Yeah, right.” Keiran turned to her. “So, what did you see in your latest flashback?”

“Did you see Keiran running around in his loincloth?” Dimitri asked, earning a flick on the forehead by his brother. He retaliated, and soon enough they were elbowing each other.

“Hey!” Lucille broke them off. “I saw my own death. Stop arguing.”

The brothers froze. Keiran slowly rested back on the pile of robes. “Oh. I remember that.”

“Technically, you didn’t cross the threshold,” Dimitri said. “You were still alive when we found you.”

“Barely so,” Keiran whispered.

Silence stretched between the three of them, punctured only by the crackling of the wood in the fire.

“How do you feel?” Dimitri asked her.

Lucille began to relax. The air was getting considerable warm now, and being asked about what she felt added to that warmth, even though she couldn’t fathom what she really felt.

“A part of me understand and grieves for what happened to me that night,” she said after a pause. “A part of me feels distant, separated from it. There’s still so many things missing about it, so I can’t really decide.”

“Well, you don’t have to decide now,” Dimitri assured her.

“True,” Keiran said, yawning. “Now sleep. Let Dimitri watch out for lions, and most possibly wandering humans who haven’t invented toilets yet.”

That made both Dimitri and Lucille laugh, even as Dimitri got up to watch over them. Meanwhile, took his extra robe and covered Lucille with it. “What are we going to do without you, kiddo?”

He said it lightly, almost jokingly, but it resonated in her heart. However, it was Dimitri’s smile that made her wonder: what would she do without them?

◑≡◑≡◑≡◑

The first thing that Lucille noticed in the morning that she failed to sense the other night was the smell. It was intense. She’d completely forgotten about the lack of hygiene and sanitation in this era. The three of them had to cover up their noses the moment they got up, occasionally coughing and gagging as they cleaned the little cave.

“Mission number one,” Keiran said upon leaving the cave, “find a body of water and get the fuck out of here.”

Once again they traversed the forest, which turned out to be only partially covered in snow. Judging by the bright sun in the horizon and the growing green leaves on the trees, it was nearly spring in this time. The mountains and the villages would come alive soon.

It would’ve been a beautiful sight, except for the smell.

Also, they had one little problem: there was no water nearby.

“Does it have to be water?” Lucille asked as noon began to draw closer. “I feel like it doesn’t have to be. Maybe we can just purposefully find danger so I can create a portal.”

“Too risky,” Dimitri said, frowning around the landscape. “I’m pretty sure we all don’t want to be attacked by medieval people.”

“Oh, I’m sure alright,” Keiran put in. “I’m also pretty sure that our last two jumps were triggered by your memories, not danger. You seem to find your place of power when you’re underwater.”

“I see your point and it makes sense, but our dependency on water doesn’t make sense,” she said.

He shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

They walked more, swerving into different directions, constantly in fear of being found. This ruined all the chance of them appreciating the hillside. By the time the sun began to dip lower into the horizon, they were losing hope.

Lucille almost suggested that they find their way back to the cave, but then they all simultaneously notice a worn path cutting through the forest.

With flushed faces and numb feet, they followed the winding, muddy path until they reached a well in a clearing.

The well was almost charming, nostalgic, even. With its little roof and bucket attached to a rusty pulley system. The bricks that surrounded the hole in the ground were a bit weather-beaten, some of them crumbling, but all in all, the whole thing looked serviceable.

“I think our prayers have just been answered,” Dimitri said blandly, regarding the well with slight distaste while Keiran basically swooned.

As they approached, Keiran pushed the supplies into Dimitri’s arms and pranced towards the well, gesturing at it as though it was a prize in a gameshow. “Hop right in, Lucille! Let’s get out of here.”

“No way!” Lucille stayed rooted in her spot. “We’d taken great caution when we were at Rome and now you just want me to jump into a well?”

“You know what, good point.” He raised a finger thoughtfully before rolling the pulley and testing the ropes. “I think there’s a way to lower you safely.”

“I’ll just go in first,” Dimitri volunteered. When she began to object, he added, “I’ll wait for you down there. Don’t worry.”

Bad idea. She knew it was a bad idea. But half a tantrum and five protests later, she was now being lowered into the deep well, holding onto the thick, slimy ropes as tightly as she could with her feet in the bucket. The fact that Dimitri was waiting for her below was a proof that the ropes wouldn’t snap easily, but her stomach was still rolling in nerves. It didn’t help that it the journey down was slow, and that Keiran’s smiling face was all she could see above.

As her eyes adjusted in the pitch black, she was able to see that Dimitri was up to his chest in the dirty, sour-smelling water. He held his arms up to guide her down as the ropes reached their limit, and she willingly let him carry her away from the bucket. Soon they were facing each other, their bodies pressed close as she got submerged neck-deep.

“Concentrate, Lucille!” Keiran yelled, his voice echoing around the slimy bricks.

Lucille made the mistake of looking up. God, he was so far away. The rim of the well was now a mere ring of light above. It made her think like she was in the throat of a gigantic monster.

Dimitri found her hands underwater and held them tight. “You got this.”

She met his gaze, nodded, and closed her eyes.

Concentrating usually took long, and she expected it to take longer than usual now that she wasn’t alone and was in a cramped well with pungent water. But to her surprise, her mind immediately jumped into the task and traveled far, farther than what she’d anticipated.

However, instead of going to her life as a princess in Crete where it all began, she was transported into that house where Agnes and Cade stayed.

Only this time, Agnes was completely alone.

And she was behind a locked cell, staring through the thick metal bars, her face now entirely black and withered.