Veiled (Ada Palomino 1)

Hope is what’s missing down here.

Hope resounds in my mother’s voice.

She’s still here.

I’m still here.

Perry is out there, her face fresher than ever.

Jay is . . . somewhere.

I will not give up until there is no hope left.

And I know, I know, there is still some.

Despite the spiders filling up my throat, my gut, skittering into my veins, I open my eyes.

I stare at what should not be stared at.

I take nothing of it in, but I give it every ounce of myself. All my scorn and all my power. I aim to freeze it in its place.

And the funny thing is, I think it works.

Its hands drop away from my mouth and in a second the spiders are gone, pouring out of me like vomit.

In that same second I start to run, wiping them from my mouth as I go.

I don’t know where I’m going.

I just need space.

Some space.

The subway tunnel looms ahead, no trains.

My mother’s echo floats down from one end.

I head there.

The demon is laughing, not even bothering to run after me.

It doesn’t know.

But it will now.

In the seconds before I leap off the platform and onto the train tracks—the same train tracks my mother died on—I pull up something from deep inside of me. I imagine my soul a pool of white downy feathers. I bring up something to protect it.

I land on the train tracks, rolling to my feet and when I look up at the platform, I see the devil. The devils. Only one but with many trapped inside.

It stares down at me, radiating amusement along with intense hatred.

The walls go up.

First a steel one at the end.

Then the other side.

The demon swivels its head in surprise from one end of the platform to the other.

Finally one in the middle.

I hear its furious cry, like mangled machinery, in the seconds before all the walls seal shut.

It is trapped on the other side. It can’t see me. It can’t feel me.

For now, I remind myself, all sense of clarity coming back. I feel like my brain is getting resuscitated by the second, if only seconds mattered down here.

Ada! My mother yells.

I’m here! I call after her, running down the tracks, my legs pumping as fast as they can go.

There is no light at the end of this tunnel. Only darkness. More darkness. But my mother’s voice is getting clearer.

Stronger.

We call to each other back and forth, back and forth.

Until finally I see a faint glow up ahead. Maybe another station but in any case, it flickers like fire.

And as I get closer, I see it is fire, burning neatly in the middle of the tracks. It’s the only thing I’ve seen down here that has any symmetry or beauty at all.

So beautiful.

So perfect.

The flames.

I reach out to touch them.

Don’t.

A hand grabs my wrist.

It is my mother.

She’s got the same appearance that Jay did, like her pieces don’t quite fit together, that she’s just a shell, a pretty coating. But it’s still her. My heart thumps happily like it’s springing to life.

I might cry.

I might scream.

I just stare at her, taking her in, feeling her love.

I feel it, everywhere, giving me the future.

Mom, I cry out softly, not daring to open my mouth.

She gives me a sad smile and reaches out to brush my hair from my face. You look like you but not like you. Still my beautiful baby.

She pulls me into a hug and I’m hit with a hundred shudders of grief and sorrow and joy, all flowing through me at once, a raging, unstoppable force.

It’s okay, she says soothingly, petting my hair like she did when I was a child. I’m now so thankful for her cool, calm demeanor, present even down here. She’s keeping me together when I can no longer be.

I don’t know how long I cry into her. I know that there is an hourglass with sand tumbling toward an end. But I’m so afraid of what happens after this that I would rather stay like this forever. In her arms, being loved, feeling safe.

Ada, she says, pulling away and drying my tears with her hands. They’ll find us here. They always do. This is their world, not ours. She pauses and looks at me with remorse. You shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have asked. I knew you were my one hope, I understood it, felt it, but I shouldn’t have asked. No child should make that sacrifice for their parent.

No parent should make that same sacrifice for their children, I counter. You took the demon out of my body and held it in yours. You killed yourself for me, for us. I had to repay you. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, live with myself otherwise. And I know now what happens to those lost to their own guilt . . . I would have ended up here anyway.