romeo remeemed

chapter 30

Failed, failed, failed, and she’s nearly there, and his arms are open and a demented smile is on his horrible face. The realization beats me down until the weight of my failure feels like it will force me through the boards beneath me and I’ll fall and break and burn in the fire roaring below and finally—Finally. Break. Burn. She’s in his arms now, his fingers curling around her neck, but it’s not too late. I don’t think anything else, for fear he’ll read my intentions on my face. I move. Quickly. I close the distance in the time it takes Rosaline’s lashes to sweep down. By the time they sweep back up, I’m so close I can smell the smoke on the friar’s cassock, I can count the wrinkles on his brow, I can see the light in Rosaline’s eyes. Ariel. I see her rise in Rosaline, but I don’t hesitate or wonder or fear. I smile. Because I know my sweet, savage girl. And she knows me. I move and she moves, and our bodies work in perfect synchronicity, as if we’re parts of the same creature. Our fingers claw into his robes, our knees bend, and we drop to the ground seconds before the friar’s hands sweep over our heads. And then we’re tipping him over our shoulders, shoving him out into the empty space at the center of the tower, and he’s falling, falling, screaming, falling … I turn to watch, but I still can’t believe it. Even when I see the shock in his eyes, even when his robe kisses the rising flames and goes up like dry grass, even when the black bulk of his body hits the ground and the outline of a man blurs and begins to melt away, I’m still squeezing my fists together, waiting for him to rise and come for me again. “Mercenaries can’t survive fire. It’s one of the few things that can destroy them,” I say, as much for my own comfort as Ariel’s. Ariel. I turn to her, terrified that she’ll be gone again. Before I can say her name, her arms are around me, her lips on mine. We clutch each other tight, every movement sealing us so close that no one will ever tear us apart. The thought brings old words rising inside me. “Set me as a seal on your heart,” I whisper against her lips. “For love is as strong as death.” She pulls away with tears in her eyes. “Shakespeare?” “No. A psalm.” “It’s beautiful.” “And true. I don’t know how else to explain …” I cup her face in my hands. “I thought I’d lost you. You thought you were another person, the girl I told you about when I—” “Rosaline. I know.” She lets out a shaky breath. “She wasn’t another person. She was me. Just a … different me. At first I thought I’d be trapped inside her version, but then I heard the friar saying the same things he said in my dreams, and I pushed hard enough and she …” She pauses, searching for the right words. “She faded. Into me. She didn’t love anything the way I love you. She couldn’t. She was still afraid.” “And you aren’t. Not anymore.” “Because of you,” she whispers, eyes filling again. “And I mean it this time. I trust you, no matter what. No more lies. Ever.” “Never.” I kiss her, and hope rises inside me in a dizzying wave. The friar is dead. We’ve won, and now we’re going to put all the wrongs right. Me. Her. Juliet, too. For the first time in my life, I have faith. I have faith in love and the magic it can work. I end the kiss and grab her hand. “Let’s get out of here.” “How?” She casts a nervous glance toward the center of the tower. “The stairs are on fire, and we don’t have a knife to cut the bell rope.” “Do you trust me?” “Of course,” she says with a humbling intensity. “Always.” “Take off your dress,” I say, pulling off my own cloak and shirt. I take the hem of the cloak in my hands and pull—hard, harder, hardest—until finally it gives with a great rrrrip. I tie the ends of the cloak together and see Ariel’s face light up with understanding. She stands beside me in the loose chemise women of this time wear under their clothes, her dress already off. Because she trusts me. As much as I trust her. The madness of the Mercenaries and the Ambassadors is behind us. When I look into her face—her big blue eyes, her sharp nose, those too-thin lips that feel so perfect against mine—I see everything I was too stupid to want for so long, every simple, miraculous secret in the universe revealed in the magic of her smile. She is mine; I am hers, and this life I’ve been given to share with her will be filled with more enchantment than the past seven hundred years combined. “I love you,” I say again, knowing I can’t say it too many times, and that even those three words will never be enough to convey how much she means to me. She puts her hand on my cheek, a fleeting touch that leaves me warm to my feet. “Me too. Now tell me how I need to tear this. I want to live to hear you say that a few thousand more times.” I turn back to my shirt, tying the sleeve to one end of the cloak. “If we can get twenty or twenty-five feet of rope, we’ll be able to fall the rest of the way,” I say. “I’ll go down first so I can catch you when you drop.” “So you can look up my shift, is more like it.” “That too.” I wink and she rolls her eyes, and I wonder how it’s possible to feel so brim full of life with death roaring below us, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the room. “Rosaline’s father is going to be very upset to have his daughter brought home to him in nothing but her slip.” She starts where my knife accidentally tore her skirt and rips the dress in a circular pattern, longer and longer until I feel the last of the worry bunching my neck fade away. It’s going to be enough. We’re going to make it. “I’ve never had a father before, but I’m guessing someone’s head will roll.” I take the end of her skirt and knot it tight to the other end of my cloak. “All part of the plan, my sweet.” “You already have a plan?” She watches me tie the sleeves of her dress around the top of the nearest bell and toss our rope of torn clothes out the window. “Would you expect anything less?” I put my arm around her waist, and she loops hers around my neck. “No. I wouldn’t.” She peers up at me with those old eyes of hers. “But from now on I want you to tell me about your plans. And I’ll tell you about mine.” “The second we’re on the ground.” I pull away and move to the window. “Wrap your leg in the rope,” I say, showing her how. “That way, if you lose your grip, you’ll still be tangled in it and won’t fall as quickly.” She nods. “We used to have to climb a rope in gym class. I’m not afraid.” She really isn’t. I wish I wasn’t afraid for her. “See you on the ground,” I say with a smile. I don’t want to leave her, but this is for the best. She’ll still make it to the ground long before the fire reaches the top of the tower. And this way I’ll be there to catch her. Just in case. I shinny down, hand over hand, with only one heart-stopping moment as my shirt rips a bit before catching on a seam. Soon I reach the end of our makeshift rope and risk my first glance down. The fire in the nave of the church illuminates the hard earth below, helping me judge the distance left to fall. Only ten feet. Twelve, at most. It won’t be a soft landing, but as long as I keep my knees bent … I let go, and the ground rises up to meet me with a punch that takes my breath away. Even with bent knees, the impact is enough to send me sprawling. I roll through the dirt, coughing, curling my knees, checking in with my throbbing spine to make sure nothing is broken. But I swear it feels like my bones are still rattling, rumbling, bud-a-bump, bud-a-bump, bud-a-bump.… The sound gets louder, expanding outside my body, overpowering the roar of the fire in the church. I’ve only just recognized it for what it is—horses, more than two or three —when a man’s voice booms through the crackling night. “Romeo Montague! You are under arrest, by order of the prince!” Suddenly the ground is alive with pawing hooves. I look up, catching flashes of gray and purple in the firelight. The prince’s livery, his castle guard. I know they’ve been ordered to escort me to the dungeon if I’m caught violating the terms of my banishment. I killed Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. I am an enemy of the prince and his friends, the Capulets, and now his men will take me and hold me until they decide on the particulars of my execution. If I’m lucky, it might be a private affair with only the prince’s inner circle in attendance. If I’m unlucky, they’ll drag me to the square and hang me until death while the entire city watches. While Ariel watches, unable to do anything to save me from the sins of my former life. “Please! I was on the road to Mantua!” I shout. “But I saw the fire, and went in to help. Rosaline DeSare is—” “You more than likely started the fire!” one man shouts, while another voice orders him to—“Ride! Get every able-bodied man to help. Tell them we might keep the fire from spreading to the trees in the churchyard if we work quickly!” The man who accused me of arson turns his mount back toward town and takes off, stirring up a cloud of dust. When it dissipates, I get my first clear look at the man in charge. It’s Adolfo, an elder guard whose family sat only a pew away from mine in this very church. “Adolfo! Please! Rosaline DeSare is trapped in the bell tower,” I shout. “And Juliet Capulet is alive in her tomb. They need help!” But he isn’t looking at me. He hasn’t heard me, or maybe he simply doesn’t care to listen to the ravings of a murderer. I look to the tower, hoping to see Ariel climbing out the window, but the clothes rope is empty. My blood rushes faster. Where is she? What happened? Has she been overcome by the smoke? “Please!” I raise my voice, shouting so loudly that Adolfo is forced to turn my way. I jump on the moment, knowing it might be my only chance. “Rosaline is in the bell tower! She’s trapped! And Juliet Capulet has been buried alive in the Capulet tomb. There’s been a horrible mistake.” I’m on my knees. Begging. Please, please let him see that I’m telling the truth. “Tie me up and leave me, but you have to send men to—” A cry cuts through the night. And then another, and another, a chorus of shocked voices echoing from the front of the church, where a few of the men have fetched shovels from the caretaker’s shed to fling dirt on the fire that is spreading onto the grass. But by the time I look their way, they’re dropping the shovels and backing away from the figure staggering toward them from the graveyard. “A ghost!” one shouts. But he’s wrong. It’s Juliet. In her true body. Out of her tomb. Alive! The blue dress she’s wearing is rumpled and filthy, her long brown hair falls in wild tangled curls around her shoulders, and she’s so weak she can barely walk, but she’s alive! I jump to my feet to go to her, and find Adolfo’s boot in my chest. “Please,” I grunt. “She needs help. And so does Rosaline.” I turn, stomach pitching as I see the window of the tower still empty. “She’s in the bell tower. The stairs are impassable. She’ll burn to death if we don’t—” “Bonfilio, Marzio,” Adolfo shouts. Two of the nearest men turn, the voice of their leader more compelling than even a girl risen from the grave. Adolfo points to the tower. “There’s a girl alive in the bell tower. Ride to the barracks and fetch the ladders. Quickly now! The rest of you, back to the fire!” He begins shouting more names, giving each man a specific task in an attempt to organize the confusion. I take advantage of his distraction and bolt, racing across the yard toward Juliet, heart doing strange things in my chest at the sight of her. I’m so happy to see her alive, so full of guilt and remorse, so frightened that I’ll have to break her spirit all over again. We’re married. She loves me. I’m her soul mate. Or at least I was … before I fell in love with someone else. I’ll have to tell her about Ariel. No … Rosaline. Damn. Juliet knows I was courting Rosaline before we met. She won’t understand. She’ll feel betrayed, heartsick. There’s no way she’ll believe the outrageous truth, but I have to tell it. I’ll confess everything and hope she believes enough of it to be glad to be rid of me. No one but the friar and her nurse knew of our marriage. Her nurse won’t betray her, and the friar is dead. So long as I keep my mouth shut, she won’t be ruined. And I will keep it shut. I mean her no harm. I want only good things for her. I … love her, though not the way I once did. Still, it’s love. Warm and real. Joy that she’s been spared the misery I brought upon her in another life makes my feet light. I run faster, reach out to her, wanting to help her to safety, to find her water, to send someone to fetch her father while I get Ariel out of—“Stop!” Juliet holds up a trembling hand. In the writhing light of the fire, her eyes look positively mad. Of course, she has been buried alive for at least twenty-four hours, maybe more, depending on what day it is. Shame burns inside me, evaporating the joy I felt at seeing her whole. Maybe she isn’t whole. Maybe her mind is damaged beyond repair and I am to blame for her ruin a second time. “Juliet.” I stop a yard from where she sways on her feet. She looks as if she’s about to topple over. My mind screams for me to get close enough to catch her, but her expression keeps me where I am. She looks terrified, almost as if she doesn’t remember … “It’s me,” I whisper. “Romeo.” “I know. I haven’t forgotten your real face.” Her voice is hoarse, ravaged from her time in the tomb. “You have a living body once more. I couldn’t believe it when she told me, but … here you are.” My head shakes numbly. No. It can’t be. She can’t … Yet here I am, with all my memories of the past and the future still intact. But I was sent here by Ambassador magic. Could she—“Did your nurse send you here?” I ask, fresh hatred for the Ambassador rising inside of me for making me believe Juliet was lost. “Did she know you were alive?” “I don’t know who or what sent me here. After you shot me, I was dying. I reached out to my specter, ready for peace. Instead I woke up in the tomb.” She startles, clutching her dress as more men on horseback clatter up to the church to join the fight. Her eyes flick back and forth—from the men, to the church, and back again—finally seeming to realize there’s a fire, and we are in the way. “Come,” I say, holding out a hand. I glance at the bell tower once more, hope sparking inside me when I see a flash of white hair by the window. Ariel! But she’s hiding for some reason.… Why? The urge to run across the yard, to scream for Ariel to climb down the rope to safety, is almost overwhelming. But Juliet is still swaying on her feet, making no move to get out of the way as more men and horses pour into the yard, many of them not watching the ground the way they should, in their haste to get to the fire. “Come,” I say more firmly. “We should move.” I back away from the flames. After a moment, she begins to follow, but stumbles on her filthy skirts. I reach out to catch her, but her slick, sticky hands slap mine away, making it clear she prefers to collapse in the dirt rather than accept my help. “What happened?” I ask. “Are you hurt?” “I’m fine,” she murmurs. “But your hands. They’re—” “I’m fine!” She lies at my feet, looking so small huddled on the ground that something inside of me breaks. “Juliet.” I go to my knees in front of her, rest my fingers ever-so-gently on her shoulder. “Please forgive me. If I could take all the suffering into myself and spare you, I would.” “Nurse is dead. She was in another woman’s body, a woman with red hair and … But I knew it was her.” Juliet’s breath hitches and her shoulders shake, but she doesn’t shrug off my hand. “The friar slit her throat, but somehow she made it to the tomb and pushed away the stone. She said … She … She died. In my arms.” Head still bowed, she lifts her hands. They look black in the firelight, but I know they’re not. They’re red. Wet with the blood of the woman who saved her, damned her. “She begged for my forgiveness too.” “As she should have.” “And then she begged me to kill you, and Ariel. She said you both have to die or the world is lost.” She lifts her face, and for a moment I am taken aback by her beauty. Even covered in dirt and grime, Juliet is extraordinary—with her full lips and soft brown eyes and skin so clear and lovely. Objectively she is three times the beauty Ariel could ever be. But in my heart, Ariel is the loveliest thing on earth. Hers is the face that takes my breath away. And now Juliet has been ordered to kill her. “She’s innocent,” I whisper. “Kill me if you must, but please—” “You love her.” “I do,” I say, hoping she can read the truth on my face. “Nurse said you would find love and happiness. She said I would have as well, but …” She blinks, as if trying to focus her thoughts through a haze. “She changed things with what she did,” she whispers. “Giving you a chance to become an Ambassador.” “I’m sorry.” “It doesn’t matter.” She stares into the fire, the sadness on her face so profound, it takes my breath away. “He’s gone.” “I—” I bite my lip. I can’t say I’m sorry again. It isn’t nearly enough. “I thought I was doing the right thing, I truly did, but I—” “Promise me something.” Juliet turns back to me, her eyes calm and focused for the first time. “Anything.” “Promise me you will live an honorable life,” she says. “Be good, Romeo. Truly good. Prove her wrong.” “I am not truly good,” I say, unable to lie to her. “I doubt I will ever be. But I will be kind. And I will do what I can to bring light to the world. I swear it.” After a moment, she nods, seemingly satisfied with my answer. “Then go. Find Ariel and get out of here before someone remembers they’re supposed to take you to the dungeon.” I rise to leave, but stop when Juliet calls out again. “And, Romeo?” “Yes?” My chest aches as I watch her push weakly to her feet, wishing there was something I could do to give her back what I’ve stolen. “I forgive you.” My breath rushes out, her kindness hitting me like a fist in the gut. “But don’t come back. Even if the prince grants you a pardon,” she continues. “I don’t ever, ever want to see your vile face again.” I smile. Because I am vile, at times. But she forgives me. And Ariel is waiting in the tower and she loves me and—“Romeo! Are you mad? What have you done?” A familiar voice from the road makes me turn to see my cousin Benvolio’s horse riding toward me. With Benjamin Luna on top, dressed in my cousin’s clothes, speaking our native language. I am simultaneously shocked to the core and not at all surprised. Because where else would Ben Luna be? If the girl he loves is here? I’m beginning to think there is only one truth that matters, and time and space and alternate realities are as insignificant as the metaphorical spiderwebs I pushed aside when Ariel and I traveled together to this place. Ben shakes his head as his horse trots closer. “Why are you—” “Ben?” Juliet murmurs, fear and hope and every deep thing she feels for him mixing in his name. “Ben!” But Ben doesn’t slide from his horse. He knits his brow, clearly confused by the intimacy in Juliet’s voice. Like Ariel when we first arrived here, and the Benvolio I met in the future, he doesn’t seem to know the things Juliet and I know. He has no idea that he loved her so many hundreds of years in the future. “Juliet?” Even her name is unfamiliar in his mouth. “But I thought … they … Your parents buried you. Two days ago.” “Ben? Don’t you … It’s me.” Juliet sways. I reach out to catch her as she falls, half expecting her to shove my hands away again, but she doesn’t. She lets me guide her to the ground, too weak to repel my touch. Ben—Benvolio—is off his horse and kneeling beside us a moment later. “Is she all right?” “Of course not,” I snap, finding I don’t care for him any more in this time than I did in the twenty-first century. Thank god I’ve been banished and won’t have to call him “cousin” on a daily basis. “She’s been buried alive.” “Good lord.” He brushes Juliet’s hair from her forehead with such tenderness that I know. I know he will love her, even before he mutters “You poor girl” with such feeling, it brings a smile to Juliet’s tired face. “Ben.” She reaches for his hand and holds tight, though it’s obvious she’s getting weaker by the moment. “Mother calls me that,” Benvolio says, wonder in his voice. “Did you tell her?” he asks me. “I didn’t tell her a thing.” I shift Juliet into Ben’s arms, knowing it won’t be long before he remembers she belongs there. “She needs water. And rest. And a protector. Take her to your parents’ estate. Don’t let the Capulets get their hands on her until she’s well, especially her mother. Don’t let anyone hurt her.” “I won’t,” he promises, eyes still fixed on Juliet’s face even when he says, “You should go, Cousin. Take my horse. There’s already talk of a hanging. I heard the soldiers on the road.” “I will, but first I—” “No! I won’t go! Let me die!” The scream comes from the tower, high and desperate above the roar of the flames. I spin around in time to see Ariel—