If Arron was hungry, he didn’t show it. He just sat in front of the fire, staring into the flames.
I turned my back on everyone and looked out toward the mountain opposite us.
Aisha continued grumbling to herself for the next hour before she slid up against a corner and closed her eyes. That left just me and the Hawk awake. I had been avoiding looking at him, but to my dismay, he stood up and approached me. He sat down three feet away, joining me in watching the tunnel opening.
I shifted a few inches from him, feeling unsettled by his presence. He cleared his throat.
“There’s probably a fifty percent chance that you would survive the surgery if the witch agrees to do it,” he said in a low voice.
Thanks for that piece of information. As if my mind wasn’t already weighed down enough. I gritted my teeth and shot him a glare. “And your point is?”
He shrugged. “No point in particular…” His hand traveled into the folds of his robe, and when it reappeared, he was clasping a small glass bottle filled with a light blue, transparent liquid. I stared at it, wondering if it was some kind of alcoholic beverage he’d carried with him from Aviary. But he made no motion to break open the lid and take a swig. He just held it in his hand, cradling it in his palm and swishing the liquid as he stared down at it.
“Fate doesn’t have to be as straightforward as life or death,” he said slowly.
I furrowed my brows.
“Sometimes there can be… other choices,” he continued. His eyes took on a glaze, his expression calm and relaxed, as he continued rolling the liquid. “Like humans, supernaturals can sometimes contract dangerous and fatal diseases. Diseases that make life unworthy of living. That make one wish he could give up his body entirely just to no longer feel the pain… But death is a scary thing.” He glanced at me casually, though his grey eyes gleamed. “Nobody knows what truly lies beyond death. So, understandably, it’s the nature of living beings to want to cling to what they know, however miserable an existence they might be leading.”
I still wasn’t sure where he was going with this, though I understood why he was talking in such a hushed tone. He didn’t want Aisha to overhear what he was saying.
He held the potion higher and looked at it thoughtfully. He let out a slow, deep breath. “This potion,” he said, “I considered taking it a number of times after the war with the Elders, and after I lost half of myself…” His expression filled with bitterness as he eyed the stump where his arm had been, and gestured his head backward to his missing wing. “The physical pain was only half of the agony. It was the mental pain that crushed me. The feeling of defeat, it was enough to destroy anyone’s soul.” He twisted to face me fully and caught my gaze again, his sharp eyes filled with intent. “Do you know what this is, Benjamin?” he asked, more quietly than ever.
“Why would I know?” I looked back at him warily.
“Would you like to know?”
“What is it?” I asked, taking the bait.
“It’s a remedy administered by witch doctors. I picked up this bottle from Uma’s sister while we were on her island. It’s intended for those who no longer wish to live, but are too afraid to die. It allows for a kind of existence between the two states, in that elusive place between life and death. Where there is peace, lightness, absence of pain… ”
Slowly I caught on to his train of thought. “You mean, like… a ghost?”
He looked pleased by my question. He nodded. “Like a ghost. This remedy detaches a person’s soul from their body and allows him to continue living in a subtle state, without a physical, tangible form, and hence also without pain.” He must have noticed the dazed expression on my face. “Understand, Benjamin, that there is much more to all of us than flesh and blood. There is the mind, the consciousness, the soul. Do you really think that when this body expires, you cease to exist? That you fall into some oblivion, as if you had never been alive at all? No. There is a place beyond death for all of us, whether we be humans, or supernaturals… But as I said, most aren’t willing to find out.”
He paused, and as he did I realized just how engrossed I had been in his words, in spite of how strange they were. I found myself impatient for him to continue.
He nodded back down to the potion. “Those who take this elixir wish to stay in their former lives, but without the burden that comes with the physical body.”
My mouth felt dry as he picked up the vial and placed it on the ground, close to me. He stood up. Again his movement was casual as he glanced down at me, though his eyes were anything but. “Just something to think about,” he said, before turning and heading back to the fire, where he resumed his seat in front of it.
I stared down at the small glass bottle. The firelight danced in the innocent-looking light blue liquid.
My mind was still reeling from what Arron had told me. Ghosts? And this potion… That was what he’d seen Uma’s sister for. A potion created by the witch. It appeared as though, if there was any truth in Arron’s words, supernaturals used this potion as a kind of mercy killing… except it wasn’t exactly killing. The person was supposed to live on as a ghost.
My fragmented mind, already blown to pieces by revelation after revelation over the past few days, had just splintered further. I didn’t know how much more my brain could handle before it exploded.
So ghosts really do exist? But, according to Arron, not everybody became a ghost. When a human or supernatural died a normal death, they left for… the beyond, wherever Arron thought that was. Becoming a ghost wasn’t a natural consequence of dying. It had to be forced… by this potion? Could this really be true?