8. Eva

Chapter 8

What I hear as we gallop through the woods is the pounding of the horses' hoofs on the ground, overwhelming the sound of Patty's ragged breaths. She rides between Theo's arms on Blacky, still unconscious. I believe her survival is as likely as our own and not likely at all.

I can't believe that doctor had a map—a map of all things. It gives me the willies. How did he get it? What had he done to get a map? What illegal business? And we are trusting a criminal stranger like that with our lives.

If Patty doesn't succumb to her infection, we might still be killed by furyies. If we aren't killed by furyies, the dragons will get us. If we aren't killed by the dragons, we'll be killed by a Magi if one finds us with the map. How would my own Magi—I guess he isn't mine at all—how would the Magus feel, would he spare me if he found us with the map? The Magi are not known for killing people senselessly, but nor are they known for their mercy when finding someone with an illegal item. The thought of the Magus looking at me with his frozen blue eyes, drawing his sword, slicing my head off…

I try to focus on the sound of the horses' hoofs. I can't think of anything else if I do—ah, I am such a pessimist. I need to think positively. I try to focus on the sound of the horses' hoofs.

Does Theo hate me? I would if I were him. I'm practically delivering him and his mother to their deaths. Does Patty hate me? She should. She really should. It is my fault that she is in this position. It is my fault that she is dying.

We set up camp only when the horses are in danger of collapsing. They're another two beings I have surely condemned to my death with my existence. There is no shelter here; if a fury were to attack, there is nothing we could do. There are only trees, getting taller and taller, the farther we travel.

I try to say sorry to Theo as he unpacks, starts a fire, draws out rations, and cooks. I try to apologize for my uselessness, for drawing his mother and him into this mess, for my idiotic words and actions.

He looks at me, smiles, and says, "Eva, that's enough. That's enough. You have nothing to apologize for. This is our choice, and we knew. I knew what I was getting into. This is a risk we accepted."

It might be the tears brimming in my eyes clouding my vision, but I think I see tears in Theo's eyes too. He has always been so tough; I don't remember him crying.

Patty is small and swaddled in blankets, like a child next to him. Shivering and mumbling to herself, talking to her dead husband. She is going to join him soon. I don't want to think she will but…

I sit down next to her, stroke her hair, and murmur, "You're going to be okay, Patty, you're okay, you're okay, Patty, you're going to be fine."

"Winston, Winston, is that you?" she says, weakly struggling to remove her arms from the swaddling.

Winston died soon after Theo was born. Theo grew up without a father, and Patty raised him without a husband. She is the bravest woman I've ever met. I wish she had raised me too. She can't die. If she dies…what is there? What is the point of any of this? If I had stayed with the Magus, we wouldn't be in this mess. But then, technically it is the Magus's fault I exist. This is all the Magus's fault. I hate him.

"Shush, it's okay, Patty. You're going to be okay, and we're all going to be okay," I tell her. I wish I could believe my own words, even for a moment.

I don't want to look at her leg, but when Theo changes the dressing on it, I see that it is blackened, white and black, with pus, and infection. She is sweating and burning. There's the fire next to her, and there is Patty, and they burn with the same fever. The wood will go out by the night's end, but will Patty burn out as well? Morbid thoughts.

We need her to survive. I need her to survive. "You're going to be okay, Patty," I say, "you're going to make it. We're all going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to make it. We're going to make it."

Theo wraps his big, solid arm around my shoulders, "It's going to be okay, Eva," he says, "We're all going to be okay, don't worry."

Why is he comforting me when there is Patty right here? Mumbling and feverish—she's in the most pain. Why is he trying to comfort me?

"We're going to be okay, Eva. I love you."

"I love you, Winston. Don't leave; don't leave. I love you."

I fall asleep with those words echoing in my head, what is that, what does that even mean—love?

Is love when you sacrifice everything for someone, only to watch them suffer? Is love when you insist on someone being near you? Is love marriage and gifts? I don't know. Love seems to be insanity. If I love Theo, and he loves me, what we feel for each other is insanity because what we are facing is destruction.

I dream. In my dream, I have long hair again. Long, soft, perfect hair, and I'm happy. I'm nauseous, but I'm happy, as I drink ginger-flavored fizzy water to settle my stomach that is turning from seeing, and participating in, pulling a cadaver apart. Doctors should not have weak stomachs. They should be able to see organs and blood and tissue and be able to distance themselves from it and understand that the body is simply an object we occupy. We are operating on the machinery, not the soul, when we cut someone up. I should be able to look at the body of the woman we cut up and see it as nothing more than a broken-down junk car, a machine. I gag and take another sip of the fizzy water—soda—the word comes to me.

I should have trained as a butcher before I enrolled in medical school, so I wouldn't have such hang-ups about meat, but oh well. Such is life. Live and learn. In my next life, maybe I'll be a butcher, I think to myself and smile. Yeah, right, me, a butcher? My parents would love that.

He is leaning against the wall, and he's laughing. "What are you smiling at, girl?"

I smile bigger at that, trying to make my smile more mischievous. Then I look away. "I'm not smiling, Caesar. I have nothing to smile about—not when you're around."

He laughs, "Oh yeah? Shall I leave then? You don't want me around? You don't like me. You don't like me anymore, Eva?"

"Not at all," I say, "not at all." I take another swig of the ginger soda that Caesar brought me. He's been so sweet to me lately. He's so good to me. Ginger soda because he knows I'm going to be nauseous on cadaver day. Taking time out of his back-breaking labor just to bring me a soda. His black hair is still damp with sweat, his cheeks are still flushed, and his cargo pants and shirt are smeared with dirt. He must have come straight here from work without resting. Part of me feels bad about it. I am following his dreams while he is being forced to cheer me on from the sidelines.

But another part of me is selfish. Now that he can't focus on pursuing his dream, I seem to have his undivided attention. I want to be all that he thinks about. His blue eyes are on me right now, and that is where I want them to stay.

"Give me a sip of that," he reaches for my soda.

"No," I say, "it's mine. You gave it to me, and you can't have any. It's mine; it was a gift."

"Give it."

"Nope, not happening." I take a swig. It's such a big swig that I almost choke. I try not to snort any of it out my nose with laughter as he tries to grab it from me.

"It's mine!" I cough. "You can't have any. I backwashed already. It's disgusting. You can't have any."

"Girl," he says. "Girl, I would drink your sweat all day—your spit. Your spit. I mean, you spit. I'd drink your spit. And your sweat. And every other liquid that comes pouring out of you. I'd like to make you wet." He leers at me wickedly. He knows exactly which of my buttons to push. He knows me better than anyone else. Dimples crinkle his eyes at the corner.

Oh, Jesus. I look around, hoping none of my classmates or professors heard him, but we're alone with the cadaver. I give him a light shove, "Jesus, Jesus Christ Caesar, you're so, so!" I'm at a loss for words.

Caesar takes the opportunity to take the soda from me and give it a larger swig than I could ever manage. He grins at me and places it gently back in my hands. He doesn't even like ginger soda.

I love him so much.

He looks at the cadaver. "She died of an untreated infection that turned to sepsis, didn't she?"

What the fridgity-fritt is wrong with me? Is my first thought when I return to my senses. I don't really remember my dream, something about doctors, but I do know I woke up to a smile on my face, and now is not the time to be smiling about anything.

It is still dark out, though there is a soft glow in the sky suggesting that morning will be here soon. The fire has gone out, but Patty is still alive. She is lying between Theo and me, breathing softly. I scoot up as quietly as I can and rest the back of my hand against her forehead. She feels warm, but she isn't burning up like she was last night. Something that was wound up very tightly inside me loosens. She will survive; she's going to make it. We're all going to be okay after all. If we made it through this, we can make it past furies and dragons and Magi, no sweat!

Patty blinks awake at my touch.

"Eva are you awake?" she whispers.

"Yes," I whisper back. I squeeze her in a hug, so happy she is no longer delirious.

"Thank goodness," she sighs, "I need to tell you something, I need to get this off my chest before I die."

"You're not going to die," I give her another squeeze, "You don't need to tell me anything."

"Just listen to me, Eva, I need to tell you. I can't bring this to my grave, but I'm not ready to tell Theo. I don't want him to hate me."

"What is it, Patty? Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"It's about Theo's father. As far as I know, Winston isn't dead. I thought he loved me. I loved him. I let my love for him get the better of me, and when Winston asked me to have sex with him, I did…I was worried that he would leave me if I didn't. I thought he would marry me, but instead, he left me right after I told him I was pregnant. First, he asked me to kill the baby, saying it didn't have a soul yet. Then when I refused, he told me he could never marry me because he could never trust a woman who had opened her legs outside of marriage to remain faithful in marriage—even though he was the one I had opened my legs to. I thought that he was just nervous, that he would come around and claim me and my baby, but I was wrong. He left the parish, and I never saw him again. I don't think he even said goodbye to his family. I had shamed him that deeply.

"When your Magus showed up and brought me to your village to be his maid, I jumped at the chance. I don't know if the Magus knew Winston and Winston had asked him to take me in and save me from a parish that was ostracizing me or if he took me because I was the first unwed woman with a bastard son that he could find… I lingered in the village so long before I left. I know it is stupid, but I never stopped hoping Winston would come back for me. I still don't think he was a bad guy…I think he must have just been scared of fatherhood."

There are so many things running through my head right now, but foremost is my outrage at this Winston guy and my astonishment at Patty's stupidity. How could she think that this Winston guy wasn't a complete hawsehole? Does love transform otherwise intelligent people into such complete idiots?

She goes on, "I don't blame him. You see, no one, not even my family, would speak to me after they found out I was pregnant. They knew that I was a slutty woman who had sex without being married. Even getting married to Winston after I had already gotten pregnant wouldn't have changed that. They would have figured it out.

"It was so difficult, trying to get by on my own without my family or a husband. The parish priest let me stay out in a shack behind the church and made sure I had enough to eat, but that was it. No one spoke to me, no one even looked at me, except Winston's family, who would spit at me, curse me, and make the cross over their hearts when I passed. It was like I was dead, an unwanted ghost. I deserved it too."

Patty chose her son over her own happiness. I know what Patty is telling me right now isn't about me, and I shouldn't think of myself right now, but God, oh God, I wish Patty were my mother. I wish I had a mother. It isn't fair. What am I really, a copy of someone? Did that person have a family, a mother? I don't have any of that, and I never will.

There is a blanket between me and the ground, but I can still feel how hard it is. I'm not comfortable. I wish Theo would wake up. I wish Patty would tell him her story instead of me. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to think about this.

"So, when your Magi came along and offered me a job in a new place, where I could change my identity from a bastard's mother to a widow with a child, I jumped at the chance, even though I never, ever trusted your Magi. He saved me from my situation and, and I guess he sort of saved you from your head injury, but…" Patty's voice trails off.

How would she react if I were to tell her what I really am–a copy of a stranger? I wonder, probably with horror. She'd think I'm a freak—that's what I think, and I am me. I'll never tell her. I'll never tell anyone what I am. I will take my secret to the grave.

Patty's voice cuts through my musings again, "But if I could go back and do it all again, I would. Theo is everything to me. That's why I don't want to tell him any of this; I don't want him to hate me. Eva, please watch after Theo when I'm gone. And please tell him about Winston, when you think the time is right."

"You're not going to die, Patty," I say, "You're going nowhere."

I ignore the envious nettle prickling at my heart, whining, why is Theo everything to her? Why couldn't I be her real daughter? to squeeze Patty tighter.

We say no more, and Patty soon falls back into a deep sleep.

I, on the other hand, lay awake for hours, unable to go back to sleep after Patty's revelation. I can hear her gentle breathing and Theo's steady breathing beside her—they are my people. I want to make it to Esseff, get Patty entirely cured and back on her feet, and leave the past, completely, totally, one-hundred-and-ten percent behind us. I want to forget about Winston, about my marriage to the Magus, the Magus himself. I want to forget what I am and live my life as a normal woman. I want to cut loose the knotty thread of my past and start weaving a new future. But why do I keep chewing on the past when I should be looking forward to the future? Or sleeping. I wish I could go back to sleep. The ground is hard and cold. And the stars are shining so bright in the sky I can see them when I shut my eyes.

And why hasn't the Magus caught up to us yet? Is he really not going to chase us? Is he going to simply make another copy of me?

Eventually, the glow of sunrise grows into the unmistakable light of day and birds are conversing excitedly in the trees, talking about their dreams and nightmares, if the old wives' tale is to be believed.

I shut my eyes when I hear Theo stirring. I pretend to be asleep. I know it is pathetically childish to pretend to be asleep, but I have taken pleasure in the gentle way he has woken me up the last few days, touching my shoulder, and whispering my name. He's been waking me up before Patty, and I think that is because he wants to spend a moment alone with me before she joins us in wakefulness.

Sleep—it is strange how we can all be physically present but mentally gone. It is like there is an artificial wall between sleepers and wakers, dividing us into two worlds.

But today, Theo doesn't try to wake me up first. I hear rustling and Patty's sleepy moan of assent as he wakes her.

"Good morning," she whispers, and then, "You shouldn't bother. I'm dead anyway." I feel him shuffling her into a position to re-wrap her leg.

"Don't say that," he says, his voice low and husky.

"I'm not going to lie about it, like an optimistic fool. I'm as good as dead, Theo."

"I won't let you die. If you died, who's going to cook me pot pies?"

"I'm sorry I didn't do a better job teaching Eva how to cook."

"It's not your fault she has no taste buds."

I consider ‘waking up' to defend myself, but they would probably realize I have been awake the whole time…And in all honesty, I am a terrible cook. But it isn't like Patty is a great cook either.

They don't speak again and all I hear for a while is the sounds of Theo's boots crunching on leaves as he packs up.

Finally, Theo is shaking my shoulder, "Wake up Eva, it's time to go."

There is something in Theo's voice that doesn't come out right, almost as if he is being strangled, and when I open my eyes, his expression isn't right either. His lips are tight, his green eyes are wide—if I didn't know better, I'd say he looks scared.

From where she is perched already on Blacky's back, Patty says, "Gosh Eva, you sleep like the dead!" She laughs too hard. There is a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

I'm up and ready in a moment, but it isn't fast enough.

"Please, Eva, hurry," Theo pleads, handing me a piece of bread and cheese for my breakfast.

"I'll eat as we ride."

Theo nods, and we're off. Theo rides ahead of me, with Patty a huddled figure secure between his arms.

The pace Theo sets is hard on the horses and hard on my behind, but I don't complain. The hours pass, and when the sun is high in the sky, we don't stop for lunch. Even though my stomach is tight with hunger, and the hot humidity is thick in my lungs, and my throat is dry with thirst, I don't complain. For hours, I keep my eyes trained on his broad back, letting every thought drop from my head, letting him lead the way.

But when Theo doesn't pause as he splashes Blacky across a clear, shallow stream, I've got to say something.

"Theo, Theo, wait! We've got to let the horses drink."

For a moment, I think he doesn't hear me then he says, "You're right." He halts, but he doesn't turn Blacky around.

"Patty could probably use a break too," I say, "Patty, can you drink some water?"

"No," Theo answers for her, "Mom doesn't need a break. She doesn't need water." His voice is strangely flat. The snake that has been quietly coiled around my insides rears back and strikes, biting my heart. I hurtle, clumsily from Horsey's back, letting go of her bridle, I splash through the stream to Blacky, to Theo, to Patty.

To Patty, who is slumped forward on the horse, oddly still, oddly stiff. A fly walks along the bridge of her nose, pauses, cleans its head.

Frantically, I wave my hand over her face, shooing the fly away. Theo just watches as I pull Patty's dress up, as I rip the bandage from her leg.

I vomit bile; it's a good thing we didn't have lunch. A meal would have been wasted on me. Patty's leg is a swollen stump, webbed with black veins, her wound, once a single pink scratch, is now a gaping cavern, crawling with fat, white maggots. It doesn't even look like a leg. The stench of it hits my nostrils, putrid, too sweet. My stomach keeps flexing, urging more vomit to come up, but I am empty.

"No. No. No," the voice, hoarse from burning bile, doesn't sound like my own. It comes unbidden, as vomit, "No, no, no." The words sound like the whimpers of a dying dog. "No!" My knees buckle, I collapse into a crouch. Shaking, sobbing, "No, no. Patty's dead. She's dead, she's dead, she's dead, dead, dead."

I feel Theo wrapping his arms around me as I rock back and forth, sobbing, screaming, cursing.

"It's going to be all right Eva," he says. "It's going to be all right."

He's wrong. It's not going to be all right. In what world is this the definition of all right? Not this one, that's for sure.

"No!" I scream.

I don't know how long I've been like this, but eventually I run out of tears. Eventually, my voice is too hoarse to scream anymore. I wipe my face on my sleeve, I stand up, my eyes fall on Patty, and I collapse again. I thought I had run out of tears, but they stream down my face for another ten minutes or so. This time, when I stand up, I know I am fully empty. Empty of everything but sorrow, a sort of apathy, and a sort of acceptance that nothing will ever be all right again.

Theo keeps putting his arms around me, and I keep trying to shrug him off and pushing him away. It feels indecent to have him being kind to me when Patty is dead. In front of her body, we shouldn't have any kind of solace in each other.

"How long?" I find myself asking, "How long has she been dead, and you didn't tell me, you didn't say anything?" I don't mean it to be, but my voice is an accusation.

I don't look at Theo. I can't look at him. The maggots crawling in Patty's calf mesmerize me: insect babies cradled by rotten meat. They aren't a new development. Patty knew she was going to die, and now I can see why. There was no saving her. And Theo must have known that too, at least since he changed Patty's bandage this morning. Why didn't he tell me?

"I wanted you to think she was alive. I wanted to delay your pain as long as possible. I wanted to save you whatever pain I could," Theo's voice is the voice of a stranger. I don't know this man, I think. Who is he? What am I doing here?

"I'm sorry, Eva," he says, "I'm sorry." There is nothing else to say.

A coldness I didn't know I had—a reptilian, survivor part of my brain—takes over because I can't handle it anymore. The survivor in me takes a flask from Horsey's pouch and fills it with water from the stream. She gulps it down, fills the flask again, and hands it to Theo.

"Drink, we've got a long way to travel still," I say.

Theo drinks, and the horses do, too, eagerly gulping down water. Blacky doesn't seem to notice his macabre burden, and Horsey doesn't seem to care either. Nature doesn't care about one human's death. Patty's corpse doesn't matter when there is thirst and when there are living bodies to attend to, bodies that want to survive.

I retrieve rations from our packs, handing some to Theo and taking some for myself. "Well, at least our supplies will last longer now that we only have two mouths to feed." How can I say that? How can I find humor in the situation? I laugh bitterly.

Theo looks at me and shuts his eyes. I wouldn't want to look at me either. It is his mother that died. Not mine. And yet, I'm the one who siphoned comfort from him, not vice versa.

"I'm not hungry," he says.

"Eat. You need to eat," I say.

We sit on the ground, side by side, saying nothing, chewing, swallowing. This is not what you would call companionable silence. My tongue burns with bile, but the taste of it fades as I swallow. The meat, the cheese, the bread, tastes good, but the sweet smell of Patty's leg is foul. Several times, I find myself swallowing fresh vomit. I need to keep food down if I want to survive. And I do want to survive despite everything. It suddenly seems to be something I very much want. Maybe seeing Patty's corpse is what does it for me. Life is there, and then it isn't—a tenuous thread, and I want to wrap it around my fingers tight enough to cut off the circulation.

I don't want to become a stinking corpse. I don't want to die. Maybe I deserve to die; maybe it is my fault that Patty died; maybe I should never have been brought to life. Patty wouldn't have gotten the scratch if I hadn't tripped in the creek. If I hadn't run away from the Magus, if I had never been created… If, if, if. If ifs were wishes, beggars would ride—Patty used to say that. I don't know. My mind is a tangled knot.

I finish the bread, cheese, meat—meat that was part of a living being and will now be a part of me. I wipe my fingers on my trousers.

"What," I say, "Are we going to do with the body?" I can't call it Patty. I can't associate that dead slab of meat with Patty.

Theo swallows his last bite of bread, "I want to give her a proper burial. She deserves at least that much. I want to bring her body to Esseff and bury her." He pauses, staring at the blank sky as if it holds answers. "I know it would be more practical just to bring her head, but I don't think I could bear to cut it off."

"She's your mother," I say. I don't say, Let's leave her. Let's leave it. She's dead weight. It's dead weight. It's a corpse. You're being overly sentimental. I don't say any of that because what I do, say is true: it is Theo's mother. He has the right to decide what happens to her. And I can't say, let's just bring her head, because I, of course, don't have the guts to cut her head off either. The thought of trying to hack her head from her neck, cutting and sawing through muscle and tendon…The thought of Patty's head being carried in a sack, lifeless, lolling…

If I had my way, I would burn her—all of her, including her head, including her brain. I would burn away every trace of the infection and turn what is left of her into ashes. Scatter them in the trees, float them downstream. Destroy every trace. Give finality to her nonexistence.

The priests would call me sacrilegious for that. And I guess I am. It is said that one day God will awaken us from the dead, awaken blessed brains, and insert them into perfect, healthy, beautiful immortal bodies. But a brain can only be awakened if the brain is properly preserved and prayed over by a priest. Some say that to burn a brain, to let it break into pieces and scatter, is to curse the soul to walk the Earth as a ghost, forever futilely trying to reconstruct the brain it once had.

Personally, though, I don't think that ghost bit makes sense. If the brain is the seat of the soul, and the brain gets destroyed, doesn't that simply mean the soul gets destroyed too?

I don't think Patty would become a ghost if we burned her brain, though. I think she would simply cease entirely—which I think would be better because on judgment day, if her brain is preserved, God will undoubtedly judge her to be a sinner for having a child out of wedlock. He would still awaken her brain, but instead of putting her brain in a perfect, young body, He wouldn't put it in any body at all. He would leave it without sense or sensation, alone forever to contemplate its sins in its own mental Hell.

Our priest was quite gentle and always emphasized God's mercy. He often said that being a disembodied, conscious brain isn't a punishment unless you perceive it as such. In his sermons, he celebrated the idea of attaining eternal life, even for sinners, explaining that God doesn't withhold bodies to punish sinners but to spare them from further temptation. According to him, it is the body that sins, not the brain, which remains innocent. However, despite his assurances, many still thought that existing as just a brain would be akin to the worst kind of Hell. Initially, I believed the priest, thinking that such an existence could be tolerable if one used their imagination to dream. But as I've come to know myself better, I now find the idea naively optimistic. Being trapped eternally with one's own corrosive thoughts, devoid of distractions, companionship, or any love other than self-love, would be a nightmare. Complete destruction would be far more merciful.

Theo says, "She's waiting in the other world now. She lived a good life, and she'll be rewarded on Judgment Day." Theo's voice is so flat that I don't think he believes his own words. He must be saying them to comfort me and possibly himself.

I hope he's wrong, and there is no Judgment Day, no life after death at all because if there is, Patty is going to suffer. And I'll undoubtedly suffer too.

A crow caws in the trees, sounding like it's laughing at us.