You’ve got to be kidding me. What is his obsession with Peter Pan?
“Anyway,” Bell says, “I really appreciate you doing me this favor. Once Kuutar gets me to the sea and guides me home, I’ll be reunited with Vellamo and my sisters again.”
“But you’ll be small.”
“I’m sure it will have its advantages. After all, the giant pikes are giant, no matter if you’re my size or if you’re full-grown. But the sisters will take care of me.” A serious look comes across her face. “But while that takes care of me, it doesn’t help you much, does it? You want to know how to get out of here, don’t you? Back to your homeland? The Upper World?”
I nod eagerly. “Yes. Yes, more than anything. Please.”
If I could escape from here, I could be reunited with my father, who will be cured of his cancer. I’ll have a do-over for everything. I can bring him back home with me to LA, or we could move somewhere else in Finland and I could get a new job, it doesn’t matter anymore. Wherever he will be, I will be there too. I’m never letting go of our second chance.
“Then take it from me,” she says gravely. “Because I’ve been in your shoes. Whatever Death wants, you do it and you do it with a smile on your face.” My face must immediately fall because she cocks her head. “I mean it. Be as charming and seductive and willing as possible. You want Death to want you, not just physically—I’m sure that’s a given there—but emotionally. That’s the key. That’s what I didn’t have the strength or the foresight to do, but I think you could do it. You seem strong enough.”
I slowly blink, my stomach sinking. “But you…originally you were into him, were you not?”
She laughs dryly, the sound echoing off the glass of the tank. “I was. I’m a mermaid. And he is the king. The ruler of the land. There is something…undeniably sexy about that.”
I make a face, which makes her laugh again. “I take it you haven’t seen him without his mask on,” she says.
“Mask?” I repeat, leaning in. “He’s wearing a mask? I thought he was just a skull.”
“It’s a mask,” she says. “He has many of them. He wears them outside the castle to instill respect and fear in anyone in Tuonela, but especially the City of Death. After all, he has a reputation to uphold. He wants the newly dead to fear him so that they behave. He also wants the Stragglers to fear him too, but that’s another story.”
“What are the Stragglers? I keep hearing them mentioned.”
“They’re the original dead. When Death was brought in to rule the land, and lift it out of Kaaos, the dead had the choice to either join the new afterlife in the City of Death, or stay behind. A lot stayed behind, fearing their lives in the City would be worse. Some of them may have been right. Maybe a lot of them, because Inmost is a horrific place, and most of them deserved to be in that place for all the things they’d done. So in other words, the worst of the worst opted to stay behind in Tuonela. Some say they’re plotting an uprising against Death, some say that they’re under control of Louhi.”
“Who is Louhi?”
She gives me an incredulous look.
“I’m sorry,” I explain. “I literally know nothing.”
“Louhi,” she says softly, as if she’s afraid of being overheard. “Is the Goddess of Death. Or the ex-Goddess of Death.”
“Death’s wife?”
“Ex-wife. They separated long ago. She ran off to the Star Swamps with Ilmarinen, a shaman, and built a new home there. No one has seen her in years. Even Lovia doesn’t see her and I don’t think Tuonen, her brother, does either. Some say she’s also a witch, but she’s always been part demon, and that part is the one you’ll know her by.”
Again, so many questions, but I know I have to let some go for now.
As if reading my mind, Bell licks her lips and says, “I don’t think Death realizes I’m still alive and still here, so I would appreciate it if you don’t mention me. When Raila is here, don’t talk to me. Or look at me. Or mention me. Just pretend I don’t exist. Otherwise I’m afraid he’ll take me away, or worse.” She shudders, perhaps picturing herself being eaten as fish food.
“I can do that,” I tell her. “I don’t want you taken away. So, I can’t trust Raila?”
She makes a so-so motion with her hands. “You can trust her in that she won’t hurt you and she won’t purposely go and tell anything to Death. But he is her master so under oath, she may blab. On the other hand, there are rumors that one of the Deadmaidens is part of the uprising. It might be her. Might not be. Best to just keep your mouth shut when it comes to important matters.”