Nine

“No, I just kind of imagined it happening, like when you day dream or walk through something in your head before you go put yourself in that situation if that makes sense.” Anna tilted her head. “It made sense to me that envisioning what I wanted to happen, the way I wanted things to go-”

“You were using power before you realized you were.” Femnik frowned.

“It didn’t feel like it did when I was using an imaginary bazooka or blowing the grate up. That felt like… I’m not sure how to explain it. But the day dream thing was more like asking the dream to flow in a certain way. Like! Oh! If I frame it as water, one was like when you use your hands to make water squirt out? Like when you catch it and squeeze it and it has nowhere to go but the way you’re aiming it. The other was more like breathing on a leaf floating on top of the water.”

“It still requires some power.” He smiled faintly. “You should be very careful with what you have left.”

“Is it just me or was that very rude for that guy to not to tell me that part when he was encouraging me-”

“You were abrasive and they feel you’re dangerous-”

“It’s f*****g rude.” Heavy said firmly, “I wasn’t even there and I can tell you that. It’s like handing someone a bomb to deliver and not letting them know what it is or to be careful with it. You’re trying to get them to blow themselves up.”

Anna sighed, “Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense to me, they got themselves locked into a horrible prison by being complete a******s who don’t care about what happens to other people but they get let out and go right back to it. How did they not learn some kind of lesson?”

“Some people are just like that.” Heavy shrugged.

“Being an a*****e isn’t like eye color or height, you’re not born with it and it’s not something you can’t do anything about. It’s a choice, or a series of choices. At any point they could choose to do things differently. If something you’re doing isn’t working out for you what do you do?” she gave Heavy a wry smile as she asked. “Me, I take a second and think about what I’m trying to accomplish and then readjust.”

“For most things I make other people readjust,” he chuckled.

“You know what it makes me think of? I saw this skit with four people who came to a gate, like one of those lift bar gate things? The first one did a no hands flip over it, the second one limboed under it, the third grabbed it and did like a show of strength to lift themselves up like a gymnast and swing their legs over, and the last one looked at the gate, looked to the side where it wasn’t actually attached to a fence,” she paused as Heavy started to laugh, “and went around.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re the one who went around. I’d be grabbing it and going over.” He grinned and glanced at Femnik, “What about you, Diavach, you said?”

“Yes.” Femnik beamed, “I think I’d go under it. No need to jump or perform an act of strength, no need to take a few extra steps, just,” he gestured, “slip past.”

“Can I ask, why do you have different people call you by different names?” 

“Do strangers call you what your friends call you?” Femnik gave her a mischievous smile. “Or what people you don’t like call you.”

“I suppose they don’t but there aren’t many people I don’t like, and I usually just avoid them.”

“And if you couldn't?” Femnik made a face. 

Anna put on an insincerely cheerful look of surprise, “Oh hiii! It’s been so long! I didn’t even recognize you! We really should catch up sometime, darling! I’ll call you!” She followed it by a pair of air kisses. “No one I dislike sees anything real from me or gets any ammunition to use against me. They get saccharine sweet, short interactions and everyone in ear shot knows that I will never, ever call because I don't care enough about them to even remember who they are.”

Heavy broke into laughter.

“If you call people you don’t like ‘darling’,” Femnik gave her an exasperated smile, “What do you call your friends?”

“I call them what they want to be called. That's respectful and friendly. ‘Darling’ is an offensively inoffensive term that is almost exclusively used when speaking to someone whose name you don't intend to waste your time learning or remembering. At least it is in my family.”

“Speaking of names,” Femnik tilted his head with a small smile, “I’ve noticed that you call,” he hesitated, “Heavy, Mr. Mazzuca when speaking about him.”

“She’s being respectful.” Heavy grinned.

“Exactly. I’m Ms. Fitzroy-Grenfell to people I’m not on informal terms with and because I expect that level of respectfulness I give it to others. However, if I’m speaking about him outside of his presence to anyone he’s Mr. Mazzuca. I appreciate being allowed to call him Heavy but partly because he’s older than me and partly because I’ve never called his wife anything but Mrs. Mazzuca, calling him Heavy is a face to face, personal situation only, informality.”

Chuckling, Heavy nodded, “I like that. You should give Ange another shot if you live through this. I could see you as my daughter-in-law, Annie.”

As she opened her mouth he waved, his hand, “Sorry, Ann-uh. I don’t get why Anna is okay but not Annie.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation, I want to make that clear, but I’ll give you one because I don’t think you’re trying to insult me. My mom’s name was Annmarie Orphen, with an ‘e’, no middle name, and when she was a kid she got constant Orphan Annie jokes. Adults thought it was funny, you know a foster kid named Orphen, and kids are f*****g merciless. She didn’t want to name me Annabella because she was worried that I’d be called Annie. Dad convinced her because his grandmother’s name was Annabella and my grandfather adored his mother. Giving me that name was a peace offering to the rest of his family. My middle name was a peace offering to Mom, sort of a consolation prize because she wanted to name me Isabeau and call me Izzy.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You mind if I call you Izzy?”

“Not at all. My mom did and my dad still does sometimes, but pretty much everyone else I know calls me Anna.”

“Izzy fits you better. Anna has an uptight sound to it and you’re not uptight.”

“I can be. Femnik pointed out the difference in how I am when I feel like I have a task and when I don’t. I hadn’t noticed.” She  made a face and the feathered creature beamed.

“I like you when you’re like this. You should have seen her when she was demanding that all of the doors be opened. She spat blood at us when Hallai struck her.”

“She hit you?” Heavy looked at her speculatively.

“Yeah, and I yanked down big stone blocks and tried to smash her for it.” Anna shrugged and he nodded with a satisfied expression. “It would have been wrong to leave anyone behind. I felt like I needed to get them all open and I was not going to tolerate interference. We almost didn’t make it down to get you. I would have pulled down the ceiling and killed all of us rather than allowed myself to fail at opening all of the doors. 

“I firmly believed that they were all aspects of myself, manifestations of the dream, and they were fighting me on doing the right thing. Conundrum-”

“Groaluzzech.” Femnik interrupted. “His name is Groaluzzech.”

“Oh. Okay, Groaluzzech, tried to strangle me because he was pissed off at Yvenalyn, the one who belongs in this meat suit-”

“Did you hit him back?” Heavy looked at her curiously.

“No, I didn't hit you back either, come to think of it. The situations were different, though.”

“How so?” Femnik smiled curiously.

“Groaluzzech wasn’t attacking me, he was going after Yvenalyn. It was clarified and he didn’t do it again. I like him and, frankly, if she locked people into those horrible cells she deserves whatever she gets. I don’t know that I could ever forgive that, or what kind of apology would be needed to let me move past it in his position or yours for that matter.

“And when Heavy grabbed me, I was being rude and not treating him like a person when he had just gotten out of a horrific situation. Like with Groaluzzech, I understood it.”

“You didn’t understand when Ange gave you a little smack.” Heavy frowned sternly.

“That situation was like with Hallai. I was right. Both of them hit me because they didn’t like my tone or my attitude, not because I had done something wrong. Ange could have said, ‘Hey, you’re being disrespectful and I don’t feel like you’re hearing me, maybe you should go sleep at your own place and we can both think about things.’ I would have apologized on the spot for my tone but the content of what I said was right. 

“And Hallai could have said, ‘Hey, I don’t like your attitude coming out of that face. You can ask but you can’t demand.’ And just like with Groaluzzech I would have not only cut her slack for her attitude but I would have made an effort to be more polite, possibly to everyone. I have a bad habit of forgetting that this is not my meat suit and this is the face of someone a lot of people have really good reasons to be angry at.

“I’m smart, but I can be oblivious sometimes and I know that about myself. Point out the problem to me, tell me my tone is unacceptable, and odds are I will apologize. Smack me and you can go f**k yourself if you don't like my attitude.”

Femnik huffed a laugh. “I like you much better than Yvenalyn.”

Heavy frowned pensively and leaned back. “Yeah. I can understand that. Some people you can’t talk to, though.”

“That’s true. The easy solution is not talking to them. Avoid them.”

He sighed and gave her an annoyed look. “Sometimes you can’t do that either.”

“I have never been in a situation where I couldn't see more than one option. Sometimes all the options suck but they’re there. I have minimized and cut contact with family members, I have walked away from opportunities because of who they came from or who I would have to interact with to accept them.”

“It’s like the gate thing.” Heavy shook his head.

“It is. Just because you’re used to doing things a certain way doesn’t mean that you can’t choose to take a second to look at the options. Like what Femnik said about it, even knowing the other options he’d still go under, maybe if you looked you’d still do it the hardest way possible because it makes sense to you, or maybe you’d go around, or under if you recognized those options.

“This sieve is about choices, who you are and what you’ll do is always a choice. You make it over and over again. I’ve heard people say that who you are when things are good is who you want to be, and who you are when things are bad is the real you. The decisions we make when  things are ideal may or may not be the same ones we’d make when things seem like they can’t get any worse.

“I want to be a kind person, I want to be thoughtful, I want to be someone who makes a difference. But what I am is a mixed bag. I’m kind of a b***h when I’m tired and hungry. Or, like my dad’s family, I can be ruthless if someone is going against what I feel needs to be done. And like my father, if I’m feeling helpless I will let the current take me until I snag on a reason not to. None of these can really be counted as good traits to have. On the other hand though, my first impulse is always to wish people well. I try to think about things to judge my options and make a choice that is better for more people than just myself. 

“Mix it all together and you get me. I’d have stepped over my own corpse if it meant getting every door open, and apparently I may have basically done just that. I don’t regret it though. All of the doors had to be opened. Leaving anyone behind would have been wrong.”

“Even Perciovar?” Femnik gave her a mischievous smile.

“Who?”

“The one you dropped the grate on,” the feathered creature offered.

“Oh. Yes. Even if I had known he would want me dead I would still have opened his door. It was the right thing to do. None of you should have ever been put through that and even if some, like Yvenalyn, might have deserved to suffer a little bit for their part in all of it, the innocent people they traded places with did not deserve that.”

“I thought I’d died and gone to hell.” Heavy gave a small laugh. “I might have deserved it.”

“No one deserves to be locked in a pitch black cell, no food, no water, with only mold and mildew to keep them company. If someone deserves to die, if they hurt kids or were serial killers or something, then they should have their freedom taken away so they can think about what they did and then get a clean death. Torture doesn’t bring anyone back and it puts our humanity in doubt if we allow it.”

He studied her face with a small smile, “If you live you should give Ange a second chance.”

“He’s across the country wading through supermodels and celebutants. Even if he weren’t, the only ambition I have is to live a happy, comfortable life. I want to play my music for people who want to hear it and have a laid back life. He wants someone to match his hustle. We’re at different points in the cycle.”

“The cycle?” Femnik asked with a wide smile. “What do you know of the cycle?”

“I read once, it was kind of a joke, there’s this guy who’s been out fishing, he brings his boat in loaded up, and a rich guy comes up and says, ‘You know, that’s a really good catch, you should use the money you get to buy a few more boats and catch more fish.’

“The fisherman asks, ‘Why? I have enough for my family and that would be a lot more time away from home and a lot more work.’

“The rich guy says, ‘Well, yes, it would be more work and you would lose some time with your family but it would be more money. Your family would be able to do so much better with more money and then after you make enough in thirty or so years, you can retire and live off the money you saved.’

“Fisherman nods and asks, ‘What do you do when you’re retired?’

“‘When you’re retired you’ll have time to go out on your boat and fish or spend time with your grandchildren.’

“Nodding some more, the fisherman says, ‘You want me to work harder, miss out on time with my kids so that in thirty years I’ll be able to do what I’m doing right now? Do I have that right?’

“The rich guy sputters and says, ‘But your family would have more money and you wouldn’t have to work in your old age.’

“‘We have enough and I’m where I want to be. In thirty years I’ll be out on a boat either way.’”

Heavy gave a small snort and then nodded.

“What’s the joke?” Femnik’s brow furrowed.

“The joke is that the rich man is trying to get where the fisherman already is and telling the fisherman that he should be trying to move into the rich man’s position. It’s a cycle. My family already did the hustle. I have enough and I can live a life I enjoy. I will be bringing in money, not just living off of my trust fund. I will have a job I like and be able to spend time with the ones I love. Or I would have had it if I wasn’t dying in the bottom of a well right now.”

Heavy sighed. “I hope you don’t die, Izzy. I hope you get that life.”

“I appreciate that, Hea-”

“Pop, call me pop. If you live you’re going to be my daughter-in-law. I’ll straighten Ange out and you’ll come around.”

Anna blinked and then burst into laughter. “Even if I could get past things, if you got a look at me and then took a look at the girls he’s seeing now-”

“You said he’s smart?” Heavy leaned toward her slightly.

“Yeah. He and Val are the two smartest people I know.”

“I’ll straighten him out. You’ll get past it and marry my kid. I’m not saying I hope. I’m saying you will.”

Anna folded her arms and studied his face, “You’re serious?”

“I’m serious. It doesn’t matter how pretty those girls are, if he’s going through them like that they don’t mean anything. You two were together for a couple years?”

“Yeah, but-”

“He never proposed?”

“No. I know Mrs. Mazzuca told him not to even think about it until he was twenty-five. I think my aunt had a word with her about the relationship. I know she told me that first relationships never work out and not to get too invested.”

“You date anybody after you broke up?”

“I’ve let my family set me up a few times. I figured out pretty quickly that if I reverse engineer the conversations that make me want to stab a fork into my leg as a reason to excuse myself, that I can make them want to never talk to me again just as effectively. So if they go on and on about their boat, their car, their job, etcetera, I just talk about my music and nothing else. Keep redirecting the conversation back to it and they’ll leave on their own. 

“These are polite, wealthy, well-bred, family adjacent young men so I need to have a reason my family will accept not to date these guys. He’s duller than dishwater and makes me wish I’d been born without ears is not an acceptable reason. Letting the guys come up with polite reasons not to see me anymore is so much easier.”

Femnik laughed and Heavy grinned at her.

“Like I said, I’ll straighten Ange out and you’ll give him a second chance.” He leaned a little closer, “You call me Pop, got it?”

With a sigh she shook her head, “I can do that if you’re sure, Pop.”

He straightened with a beaming smile, “Yeah. See, that feels right.”

Glancing around, Anna asked, “Where did everyone go? Didn’t they say something about finding some food?”

Femnik leapt up. “I’ll go see.”

Osros’ apartment was utterly silent after Femnik left and Anna gave Heavy a small frown. He put his finger up to his lips and started looking around, picking up a small table, he yanked off a leg. On the floor against the wall where it had been she saw something glint and she picked it up. 

“It’s a piece of the stone in Osros’ necklace,” she whispered.

“Diavach said if we see any of those to hold onto them.” Heavy held out his hand and she gave it to him. He slipped it into the left pocket of the robe he was wearing and gestured for her to go under the bed.

Anna crouched next to it and he waved for her to go under. In the other room there was the sound like a floorboard creaking and he moved closer to the doorway.

For a moment she considered going under the bed but the thought made her nervous. 

“Pssst!” Femnik’s voice hissed from near the other door out of her sight, “Heavy! We need to go!”

“Izzy-”

“Leave her, they’ll hunt her-”

Heavy came to grab her as she was scrambling up from the floor and pushed her toward Femnik. “She didn’t leave me. I’m not leaving her.”

They followed Femnik down to the courtyard toward a garden water feature of a man pouring water from a pot and then the feathered creature vanished.

“Where did he go?” Heavy asked quietly.

“There! As I said, they wish to destroy the sacred shrine of Osros!” a smug man’s voice echoed in the courtyard and people began to pour from the doors.

Shoving her behind him toward the fountain, Heavy squared off against the armed men and two of the demigods, the one who hadn’t told her there was a cost to using the power given to her and the one she’d dropped a grate on.

“They dare not use their power here-” 

Lifting his hand to beckon, Heavy yanked the smug demigod into range to hit with the table leg and the sound of his head connecting with the wood made her think of a melon being hit by an aluminum bat. It shattered but so did the demigod’s head. The man fell and began to rot immediately.

“Goddammit!” Heavy tried to shake the black blood welling up off of his hands. The drops that hit the water sizzled.

“Perciovar!” The other demigod ran forward with what looked to Anna like a glowing shield of glass held up.

Heavy attacked with his fists and the shield broke like tempered glass, first going milky with cracks and then giving where his hands hit it. The demigod tripped and fell as he tried to move backwards.

“He has a piece of the stone!” the demigod shouted moving back as quickly as he could.

“Don’t use what you have, Pop!” Anna grabbed his arm. “If they’re trying to kill us they’re trying to kill us. You need to live. I’ll clear a path.” 

As she imagined the crowd being gently pushed aside and moved her hands nothing happened. “Don’t dare to use-they’ve done something so that I can’t use my power. You can because you have a piece of the stone. Give me-”

“No. I’m not going to be helpless.”

“Then put it in your hand and let me hold it there.” Anna said firmly. “You need to live, Pop.”

“No, you’re going to-”

She shoved her right hand into the pocket he’d put the piece in and pulled it out, clearing the path with intent and raising glowing glass walls like the demigod’s shield.

“I told you-” Heavy scowled and grabbed her hand.

The blood burned and she bit back a scream, “Go! I don't know how long the path will stay up!” 

He dragged her by the hand down the cleared path but at the end was another, of a slightly different color.

“Is that yours?” 

“No.” Anna panted, “but mine is falling in, we have to go somewhere.”

He trotted down the path, still pulling her by the hand, and it led them back to the temple where the others were waiting with a handful of priests.

“I’m sorry I-” Femnik stepped forward with a pained expression, “I had to give them-”

“Save it.” Heavy snapped. “This is why I don’t like people.”

“I had no choice!”

“There’s always a choice.” Anna swallowed as the pain in her hand started to fade. It looked like it was rotting away in Heavy’s grip. “If I’m going to die I’m going to make sure he lives with whatever I have left.”

“There is no need.” Groaluzzech lifted his hand with a grim expression on his wrinkled face. “We will take him to safety, it was promised that they would be satisfied with-”

“You learned absolutely nothing.” Anna gave him a withering look. “Anyone saying just sacrifice this one or that one is untrustworthy and is just waiting to stab you in the back. They picked you off one by one didn’t they? Alone you’re weak, together you’re strong. All of you are safe or none of you are. You’ll get worse this time and you’ll deserve it because you know better and you’re doing it anyway.”

She put her left hand on top of Heavy’s even though it felt like it was burning the second she touched his blood. “Pop, promise me you’ll do better when you go back. Even if you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

“Izzy-”

Closing her eyes, she bowed her head and imagined a stone dropping into water and the ripples moving outward, followed almost immediately by the thought of a star imploding and shimmering stardust spreading across the darkness. “All of it needs to be better.” Anna set her will to sending out the desire to be kind and resolute, to have it spread like stardust. 

“Izzy! Anna!” Heavy’s horrified voice sounded distant.