The End and Other Beginnings Read online

  Everyone had a death song, no matter how young or healthy they were, and everyone had a life song, even when they were dying. Everyone was both dying and living at the same time, but the death song grew louder as death approached, just as the life song was loudest at a person’s birth. She could hear Christopher’s death song, so faint it was barely over a whisper, but she thought she could hear an organ in it, and a clear voice.

  “I stayed here all day, hoping you would come back,” he said. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry for last night, how I acted.”

  “You could have asked them for my room number,” she said.

  He frowned, like this hadn’t occurred to him.

  “Well,” he said, “it felt more like paying penance, this way.”

  Darya couldn’t help it—she smiled a little. Then she remembered how hastily he had shoved the ear covers back on, and her smile faded.

  “It was overwhelming,” he said. “Your song. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Even while I was listening, it was too much . . . it was too much to bear, so I had to stop.” He showed her the first sheet on the stack of paper he was holding. Written at the top was Daria. She ignored the misspelling and stared at what was beneath it—crudely rendered musical notes, line after line of them.

  “I wrote some of it down,” he said. “Do you want to hear it?”

  Did she want to hear her life song? Of course she did.

  Slowly, Darya nodded.

  “Come on, then,” he said. He reached for her hand, and led her out of the waiting room. Darya stared at their joined hands as they walked through the hospital corridors. Then she stared at the side of his face, which was also covered in freckles, but these weren’t as dark as the ones on his arms, except on his long, narrow nose.

  He led her to a set of double doors. The one on the left was marked Chapel. Christopher pushed it open, and they walked down the aisle between the pews. No one was inside, which was good, because he was heading straight for the piano.

  He sat down on the bench and put the first few sheets of music on the stand. He looked at her furtively from beneath his eyebrows, set his hands on the keys, and began to play.

  At first the song was unfamiliar—a few chords, some isolated notes, slow and methodical. After a few seconds she felt like she recognized it from somewhere, though she could not have said where. Was it simply that a person always recognized their own life song, whether they had heard it or not? Because it belonged to them, maybe?

  His fingers moved faster, pressing harder into the keys. The notes swelled, became loud, fierce, as if giving a voice to her own anger. And then, when they began to clash, she knew where she recognized them from.

  She put her hands on the piano, an octave above Christopher’s, and played, as best she could, the section of her mother’s death song that had been going through her mind since the night before. It fit in perfectly with a section of her life song. It was not quite harmony but not quite repetition—sections of notes matched up perfectly, and other sections layered above her life song, bringing out by contrast its richness, and still other sections were similar but came just a second too late, like her mother’s song was chasing her own across the piano.

  And she realized that her mother was like her—angry, weak, complex, sensitive—everything, good and bad, moving together in this song that made Darya’s song more beautiful. Darya had never seen the similarities before, but they were there—buried, but emerging in her mother’s occasional lucidity, emerging in Khali’s memories of a woman Darya had barely known, and now, emerging in Darya herself.

  She felt herself smile, and then laugh, and then cry, and then all at once.

  “It’s not exactly beautiful,” Christopher said as he played the last note on the last page. He glanced at her. “I don’t mean that as an insult. I’m very attached to it. It keeps following me around.”

  When she didn’t respond, he looked slightly alarmed. “I’m sorry, was that rude?”

  Darya shook her head, and set her left hand on top of his right, guiding it to the right keys. His fingers warmed hers. He glanced at her, smiling a little.

  “Play that again,” she said quietly, pointing at the place in the music where the section began. She took her hands from the piano, and listened as Christopher played the section again.

  She closed her eyes and swayed without knowing it to the rhythm of the notes.

  She had been wrong to say that death was the mystery, not life.

  Edie bent over her tablet, stylus in hand, reviewing her sketch. Vigor, the super-strong heroine of the Protectors, stood on the edge of a building, her fingertips bloodied from clawing a stone in half. Edie had dotted Vigor’s nose and furrowed brow with freckles as an homage to the fan-fiction writer whose work she was adapting into fan art.

  It was almost done. She just had to get Vigor’s cape to look like it was fluttering.

  After the day she’d had, she was glad to have a distraction. She had been asked to prom—twice. And though her friend Arianna insisted it was a “nonblem”—a problem that wasn’t really a problem, like having too much money to fit in your wallet—Edie still felt short of breath. And not in a good way.

  She shaded the underside of the cape, the corner tipping up in the wind. Vigor was one of four superheroines in “the Protectors,” a line of comics featuring Edie’s favorite superheroines. Vigor was half of a duo with her sister, Vim. They developed superpowers after being exposed to a radioactive explosion. Separately, Vim had boundless energy, never requiring sleep, and Vigor had super strength, but together they could summon a crackling, destructive energy they called the Charge.

  Her phone buzzed against the desk. She leaned over to read the new message. Arianna, of course.

  Arianna: Pros for going to prom with Evan: good-looking, smart, good conversationalist. Cons: Pretentious. Totally corrected my grammar that one time.

  Edie scowled at her phone. Arianna was just trying to be helpful, but she had been hounding Edie about her decision all day. She had a point about Evan, though. Their flirtatious friendship formed around smoke breaks in the field across from the high school during their lunch hour. He was the only person who would talk to her about the human brain for more than five minutes. But all the stories he read were about listless men who didn’t care about anything or anyone, and he had asked her to prom between two puffs of a cigarette.

  Edie: Well you did use “between” instead of “among.”

  Arianna: Shush.

  Arianna: Pros for Chris: hot, funny, allegedly a good kisser. Cons: You dated him for a year, so high potential for drama.

  She had loved Chris Williams once. Or at least, that was how it had seemed, in the dark in the back of his car with his hands on her, or swimming in the lake behind his house in the heat of summer. She loved the glow of his smile against his dark skin, and the way he always opened doors for people, even if it made him late. But their relationship had been like a house with no foundation—one little storm washed it away.

  Well, maybe it was more than a little storm.

  It had been a heap of twisted metal and a wooden box lowered into the earth.

  Edie’s stylus wobbled on the tablet screen, and she swore, hurriedly erasing the stray line that ruined Vigor’s cape. She had that hot, tight feeling in her throat again. She’d gotten another text, and it sat open on her desk, waiting for a response.

  555-263-9888: Hey! It’s Lynn. Want to go with us to see the Vim and Vigor movie tonight?

  Lynn had attached a selfie, and in it she was wearing Transforma’s signature purple lipstick, her lips pouted in an air kiss.

  Lynn was one half of what was left of the Protectors Comics Club Edie joined in middle school. Originally, there were four members—Edie, Kate (the founder), Lynn, and Amy—just as there were four superheroines in the Protectors—Vim, Vigor, Transforma, and Haze—so they had each taken on a superheroine name and identity. It was cool at the time.

  They had been all but insepa
rable for four years. Then Kate, who was always full of questionable ideas, suggested they drive to the local 7-Eleven for slushees one night, even though she only had a learner’s permit. It was supposed to be a twenty-minute quest for sugar, and it ended in a car crash.

  Amy was gone now, her resting place marked by a simple headstone in the Serene Hills Cemetery just outside of town, with a little slot for her data next to her name. At such a young age, her “data” amounted to a few files of childhood artwork and her school records.

  555-263-9888: Opening weekend! (!!!!111!)

  At one time, the Protectors Comics Club had talked incessantly about a movie based on Vim and Vigor coming out, but it had looked unlikely until last year. Kate even texted Edie when the movie’s release date was announced, but Edie hadn’t known what to say back to her. And now it was here, and she didn’t know what to do—not about prom, not about Kate and Lynn, not about anything.

  Deep breaths, she told herself. Her therapist told her not to fight the anxiety when it happened, to just count her breaths and accept it. She tried that. When her heart was still racing a few minutes later, she fished around in her purse for the little tin of pills that had been prescribed for exactly this purpose. Her fingers felt clumsy, almost numb. Edie popped one of the pills in her mouth and swallowed it dry.

  Then she typed a reply to Lynn.

  Sure. Time and place? Gotta support the cause.

  They always talked about the Protectors like that, as more than just a bunch of comics. They were a cause, because they were stories about women being heroes, not just spunky reporters or love interests who were sacrificed to the latest villain.

  After the text sent, she picked up her stylus and started to draw again.

  Edie waited outside the theater for Lynn and Kate, her little purse clutched close, feeling self-conscious. She spotted Kate from a distance because of her huge, baggy Protectors sweatshirt, with the symbol of the group on the front, curved and blue. And Lynn was easy to find because she was wearing her bobbing, horned Transforma headband. Transforma could shapeshift into any animal or alien the Protectors came across, though in her “human” form she always had red horns. And purple lips.

  Kate stuffed her hands into the center pocket of her sweatshirt and gave Edie a little frown as she approached. Her freckled nose scrunched a little.

  “Hey,” Edie said. She wondered if Kate knew that Edie still read her fan fiction. She definitely didn’t know that Edie still sketched it. Would she like it, if she knew? Or would she think it was pathetic?

  Edie didn’t know why she still kept up with the Protectors, or with Kate’s work. She didn’t know why she stored all her Protectors stuff in the closet instead of tossing it. Or why it was easier to let go of Kate herself than the thing that had brought them together.

  “Hi!” Lynn said, a little too cheerfully. “Well . . . shall we? We want good seats, right?”

  They went in, scanning their tickets at the entrance. Conversation was sporadic at best. It was like they were all leaving space for a fourth party to contribute, only that fourth party wasn’t there. Amy had always been critical of the comics, more so than Edie, Kate, or Lynn. Edie thought she didn’t even like them, for a long time, before she saw Amy’s bedroom, and all the posters tacked to the walls there, and the stack of Protectors-themed T-shirts in Amy’s closet. It was just Amy’s nature to pick at things.

  They settled themselves in the middle of the theater, in the middle of the row. The floor was sticky under Edie’s shoes. She’d smuggled a box of candy into the theater—chocolate-covered raisins, her favorite. She buried her fingers in the box, and Kate eyed her for a second before sticking out her hand, silently asking for some. Edie provided them automatically, her muscles remembering how to be Kate’s friend even if the rest of her didn’t.

  “I’m excited to see how they portray the Charge,” she said to Kate, across Lynn’s body. Lynn was a good mediator, and she had trouble taking sides. Amy had started fights and Lynn had smoothed them over, time and time again. But Kate and Edie weren’t having a fight now, not exactly.

  Edie ran her fingers over the dark red velour that covered the seats, worn where most people’s legs pressed against it, and watched the little screen as she waited for Kate to respond. It was so early the theater was playing trivia instead of coming attractions.

  “I’m nervous about that,” Kate said. “The budget wasn’t that high for this movie. You know, because it’s not a sure thing.”

  “Yeah, we all know ladyhero movies don’t make money,” Edie said, rolling her eyes. “Except, say, that Wonder Woman movie . . .”

  “And Black Widow!” Lynn piped up, her horns bouncing on their springs.

  “They’re just looking at the facts,” Edie said with false firmness. “Don’t get so emotional about it, ladies. Are you PMSing, by the way?”

  Kate laughed.

  “Shh,” Lynn said suddenly. “The lights are dimming.”

  And it all came back in a rush, that breathless feeling when all the expectations and hopes and fears formed over years were balanced on a knife’s edge. When you had loved something for so long and for so many reasons that all you wanted was for that love to expand inside you.

  She clenched a hand around the armrest, and watched, forgetting about the chocolate-covered raisins spilling into her purse, and the tension that had driven her further and further away from Kate until they couldn’t even speak to each other anymore, and the way Lynn chewed so loudly Edie could hardly hear the quieter lines.

  She watched Vim and Vigor stumble out of uncertainty and embrace their heroism and save the city.

  She watched them grow up together, then break apart, and come back together again for the sake of something greater than either of them was alone.

  And in the climactic moments where it looked like Vigor might be lost in the power of the Charge, directing it to destroy instead of to heal, Edie locked eyes with Kate and smiled.

  “And the part where Vim was double-fisting coffee cups with all those stacks of paper around?” Kate laughed.

  “Classic Vim. Can’t go anywhere without making a mess,” Edie said, almost proud, for some reason. After all, Vim had been hers.

  “The final act was a little fast, pacing-wise,” Lynn said. “But I liked the rest. Wonder if it’ll do well.”

  “Hope so,” Kate said. “I really want a sequel.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Edie said, a little wistful. By the time a sequel came out, they would all be in college, and what if she didn’t find anyone to share the Protectors with there? Would she have to pretend like she was over it, like she did with Arianna?

  Kate checked her phone. “It’s still early. Want to go back to my place?”

  “Sure,” Edie agreed, though a second later, she regretted it. Lynn had that look on her face, the one that said she was about to say no.

  “I have to head home,” Lynn said. “I didn’t finish my physics homework, and it’s not like I’m acing that class.”

  Kate gave Lynn a knowing look that made Edie realize how little she knew about Lynn’s life now. She had no idea if Kate or Lynn were acing their classes, or if either of them were dating anyone, or if they had had their first drink, their first grope, their first anything.

  And Edie had already agreed to go to Kate’s house. If she backed out now, it would be obvious that she didn’t feel comfortable alone with Kate anymore.

  “Um . . . meet you there?” she asked Kate.

  “Sure,” Kate said, sounding just as uncertain.

  Edie couldn’t help but think that everything would be easier if she could just say what was going on. Look, you and I clearly aren’t comfortable around each other without Lynn there, so maybe another time? But that just wasn’t what people did.

  Edie was always running into the barriers between people, wishing they were easier to break.

  Kate’s house was stark and modern, pale floors and white walls and stacks of glass blocks instead of
windows. When she got there, she walked straight to the kitchen, where she knew Kate would be, dumping popcorn in a bowl and rustling in her white refrigerator for another can of soda.

  “Want one?” Kate asked her.

  “No, thanks,” Edie said. “Where are Dr. and Dr. Rhodes?” Her affectionate names for Kate’s parents, one of whom studied brains and the other, history.

  Kate’s dad—the famous Dr. Russell Rhodes—invented the Elucidation Protocol, simulated reality technology that aided in clarity of thought and decision-making for people in high-stress fields. It essentially used extensive research, psychological and sociological principles, as well as personal beliefs, to reveal the likely outcomes of particular decisions through virtual reality. He had envisioned it being used to help world leaders make decisions, but it was the legal sector that had taken to it the most. It was currently used in prisons to rehabilitate criminals, and in crime prevention with high-risk populations.

  “On a date.” Kate’s mouth twisted. “They do that now. They make out in the kitchen, too.”

  Edie grinned. Her own parents slept in separate beds these days, claiming that her mother’s snores were the reason, but Edie knew that wasn’t all.

  “So.” Kate turned her soda can around in a circle. “Did you notice the Haze cameo at the end of the movie?”

  As if Edie could have missed the Haze cameo. Haze was the youngest superheroine in the Protectors, and the movie had set up her origin story, showing a teenage girl staring on from the crowd as Vim and Vigor claimed their victory over the supervillain.

  “Haze” was what they had called Amy. She had been the youngest of the four of them, too.

  “Yeah,” Edie said. “Good casting, though. That red hair.”

  “Remember when Amy tried to dye her hair red in her bathroom, and stained the tub permanently?” Kate smiled at her soda can. “Her mom was so mad. . . .”

  “Yeah, and it turned her highlights pink,” Edie pointed out. “Which I could have told her would happen, if she had asked, but no . . .”