The Game of Love and Death(90)

Flora leaned into him and wept. “Take me too. I don’t want to live without him.”

Death’s heart filled with relief.

“You won’t have to,” Love said.

Flora lay down next to Henry, cradling his body. She put her hand on his chest. Henry opened his eyes. He found her hands with his and turned to look at her.

“Are you sure you want to be here?” Death asked Love.

Love nodded.

The planet spun; the window darkened. Death sat next to Flora and Henry. She looked at Love, and he held out the piece of paper she’d entrusted him with so long ago.

“Please,” she said. “Keep holding it. Just a little while longer. I’d rather do it this way.”

He held the paper as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Death reached for Flora’s and Henry’s hands, which were still clasped over Henry’s heart. The rhythm had almost left him. His heart, the one Love had chosen, limped like a wounded soldier, but the music it made pleased Death still. She looked at Love and thanked him silently for his choice. And then Henry’s and Flora’s hands were in hers, and their lives began to flow away, all of those somedays that they’d hoped for, and had.

Death gasped at the beauty of it all. Sunsets that pounded Puget Sound into a gleaming copper bowl. The taste of warm ginger-bread on cold fall evenings. Two lines of tiny wet footprints made by their just-bathed children. The way these two children, a son and a daughter, looked as they slept, chubby arms and legs flung wide as if they’d fallen from heaven.

And there were sounds: of airplane propellers rising into the blue. Traffic rushing down past the Hudson River in New York. The swing and blare of gigs in Seattle, San Francisco, and Shanghai. The sweet burst of their son banging chords on his piano, and their daughter blasting high notes on her trumpet.

There was silence too. Particularly that of the moon. Hanging sideways over an island in the Pacific. Gleaming like a cup of honey over an ancient temple in Rome. Rippling in a puddle in a rubbish-choked gutter.

Oh, the moon.

Everywhere the same and yet different, and so worth finding as it traveled overhead each night, scoring the passing days in the sky.

In this rush of life, Death felt the strange pain of love, something that had once been so unbearable but now felt an indelible part of her. She realized something as their lives filled her. To love: She’d had the power all along.

And this love between Henry and Flora … at first, it was a small, uncertain thing, like the glow of the morning sun on the horizon. And then it was its own wild animal, bucking against the world and anything that threatened it, so hot it could burn and sometimes did. And then it was quiet, as quiet as a snowfall, covering everything, certain of its place, even as it was certain it could not last forever.

And then, everywhere all around and inside her, it was still. Flora’s and Henry’s hearts had stopped. Which one beat last, Death could not tell. It felt as if they’d ceased their work at the same moment. Death hoped that was so, that neither had to spend a moment without the other.

She laid down their hands. Gently, even as that no longer mattered, it still felt the only way to let go.

The room was dark. And then there was the hiss of a match and the slow, steady spread of light. Love had lit a candle.

“No two flames are alike,” he said.

“Some are,” Death whispered. “Some are exactly the same.”

He held out the paper to her. The one she’d written on in blood and tears so many years ago. The ink had faded. You could hardly read what it said anymore. But she remembered. She always would.

Flora.

Henry.

She reached for the paper. And as they touched hands, she gave him a gift: all of her memories of Flora, so that her player would continue within him. She hoped Love would not mind that she kept Henry and his perfect heart for herself. And for the first time, even as it was lost, the Game was also won by both Love and Death. For in this way, the players lived on.

Love touched the corner of the paper to the candle. He flung the burning scrap into the air. It flared, split apart, and fell to the ground, petals of a fiery rose. It smelled of smoke and lilies and blood and ash, and it made Death weep once more, tears as black as the hollows of space. But she did not mind this time, because she felt so full, not just of life, but of that other thing.

“Shall we?” Love offered Death his arm. She took it. They walked together into the living room.

“I can’t bear to leave just yet,” Death said, her strength returning.

“We have all the time in the world.” Love found a record. He laid it on the player. The music started again, scratchy from age, but so sweet and beautiful and deep.

Someday.

And there, in the darkness, Love and Death and the ones inside of them danced until the song was done.

And then, when all around was silent and still, they disappeared.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS



I have had years of love and support from my editor, Arthur A. Levine, as well as the rest of the crew at Scholastic: Nicholas Thomas, Emily Clement, Cassandra Pelham, Andrea Davis Pinkney, Becky Amsel, Nina Goffi, Antonio Gonzalez, Tracy van Straaten, Elizabeth Starr Baer, Bess Braswell, and Lizette Serrano.

My literary agent, Sarah Davies, is a voice of support and sanity. Likewise, the book has benefited from the professional attentions of Jill Corcoran and Elizabeth Law, as well as Jordan Brown, Anne Ursu, and Denise Hart Alfeld. I’m privileged to work with my film agent, Josie Freedman.