The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(30)

“Hello, travelers,” the old woman said, her voice cracked like autumn leaves. “Do you seek to cross the river?”

I looked out across the waters to our left, seeing no determinable end to them.

“Is that possible?” I said.

The woman’s smile grew wider, almost so wide that it no longer fit on her face. My whole body wanted to shudder at the sight, but I kept my feet planted firmly in the sand.

“It is possible,” she said, “but only if you shed the outside world.”

“Our clothes?” I said, looking up at the kimonos. “And what happens if we do?”

The old woman gestured to the water. “A bridge will appear over the river, and you may enter into the town of Yomi.”

I turned to Neven. “She wants our clothes in exchange for a bridge across the river,” I said in English.

He looked up at the hanging kimonos with unease. “You’re not considering it, are you?”

I bit my lip and watched the different colors of fabric stir in a silent breeze. Shinto texts hadn’t spoken of an elderly gatekeeper to Yomi, so I had no idea if she meant us any harm. I turned and looked across the black waters leading forever into the distance.

“Well, the alternative is that we can swim across, and there’s no way I can hold a candle while doing it.”

Neven shook his head quickly. “I don’t know what’s in that water.”

I imagined us swimming through the water in total darkness, no idea of what was above or below us. If we became disoriented, we’d never find our way back to shore. No, I wouldn’t do that to Neven.

I turned back to the old woman.

“I will go, but my brother will stay here,” I said.

The woman nodded, eyes crawling over my clothing.

“What did you tell her? Ren?”

I handed him the candle. “Just keep your eyes on her,” I said, shedding the first layer of my skirt. I handed it to the old woman, who snatched it from me, her long fingernails scraping the back of my hand. She examined my skirt and pressed it to her face. As she did so, I slid my clock from my pocket into Neven’s.

“When the bridge appears,” I said, “use your clock.”

He held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded and turned back to the old woman, one hand in his pocket.

I’d expected to feel cold as I stepped out of my clothes, but the underworld apparently had no temperature. I finally handed the old woman my slip, detesting that my brother was standing so close to me at that moment, but at least he was determined to look absolutely anywhere but at me.

“There,” I said.

The old woman shook her head. “Continue, dear.”

I frowned. “I’ve given you everything.”

“Continue,” she said again. “You must shed the outside world.”

“There’s nothing more to shed,” I said.

“Continue.”

“Ren,” Neven said.

“We had a deal.”

“Continue,” the woman said. Something stringy tickled the back of my ankles.

“Ren!”

The light from the candle shifted sharply, illuminating another withered tree to Neven’s right. Strips of flesh draped over the branches, great blankets of skin hanging dead and torn around the edges. I could make out flattened faces and stretched scalps with black hair that shuddered in the breeze.

The gray hairs in the water locked around my ankles and pulled.

“Neven!” I said as the ground fell out from under me and I splashed backward onto my elbows. The hair climbed up to my waist in long stringy tendrils, razor sharp on my bare skin.

Then all at once, the river roared up and devoured the woman.

Waves rocked the water, submerging me and dragging Neven down, too. The grip of a thousand needlelike hairs fell away, their sting soothed by the tepid water. The river had swallowed the candle, plunging us into darkness and so much water that I couldn’t tell whether I was swimming to the surface or deeper into the darkness. I thought of the freezing waters of the channel, of the monster with the silver hair that could seize me by the toes and drag me down, of Neven tossed and spun around in the darkness that he feared so much.

Then the water rolled over the shore and laid me down on the sand like a child tucked into bed, the current still lapping at my feet.

“Neven?” I said, sinking my hands into the sand and pushing myself up. “Neven, where are you?”

The only answer was the ripple of settling waters and the crunch of sand beneath my hands as I clawed across the shore, feeling around for Neven. A light in the distance arced closer, like a distant star shooting across the night sky, but I couldn’t worry about that until I found Neven. If he wasn’t here, I would have to go under the water again. I would sooner drain the whole river and dig through its hollow trench in total darkness than leave him out here alone.

Then the water surged with a sudden wave that splashed against my side, and a heavy weight crunched into the sand near me.

“Neven?”

I crawled toward the sound, my fingers slapping against metal buttons, then someone’s face and eyeglasses.

“Ow, Ren!” Cold hands slapped mine away. “Do you know how hard it was to hold on to my glasses underwater? Don’t break them!”

I sank back on my knees. In the privacy of the darkness, I took a moment to fold into myself, biting the side of a hand to hold back the urge to scream from relief. I hadn’t lost everything, not yet.