She threw the syringe past him into the campfire. There was a bloody smudge across her fingers. She brought herself up to sitting, seemed to swoon a little before she steadied herself with her hands.
She looked at Sweeney and said, “I don’t think you have to save yourself.”
She pulled the comic book into her lap, leaned toward him over her knees. Her face started to fade and there were flashes of light behind her as if someone were taking pictures.
The last thing Sweeney heard was, “I’ll see you on the other side.”
LIMBO COMICS: FROM ISSUE # 9: “The Castle on the Cliff”
. . The freaks rode in steerage out of the interior plains, packed in the darkness and stench of the elephant trailer. At night, they slept in open fields, under a moon that looked too big and clear to be real. And if they had heard the collision with the Resurrectionist, none of them spoke of it.
Though there was traveling money, they chose to scavenge their food from the wilds in order to avoid seeing others. They shared a need to be alone for a time, as family. To bind into one another in preparation for whatever lay ahead. And as they moved toward the western shores, they found even more untamed territories in which to hide. Much of Gehenna, it seemed, lay unconquered. The troupe spied the occasional sign of civilization, towns and villages that had sprouted around railstops. But from a distance, these settlements appeared more outposts than anything else, precarious — and maybe temporary — havens for the restless and the pursued.
Again they kept to the back roads and the wooded pathways. The chicken boy told Bruno when and where to turn, made all the forkin-the-road decisions. His seizures were getting more severe if less frequent. And when he returned from Limbo, he rarely had much to say about what he had learned. He studied the sun and the stars, gave directions to the strongman, and withdrew more deeply into himself. Kitty was both hurt and worried. She watched as Chick scribbled ferociously in his diary. She tried to ignore his nighttime wanderings away from camp and into the dense forests where the troupe hid.
The chicken boy’s confession finally came on the night that Aziz first smelled the salt of the ocean. They had pulled into a grove of enormous trees and were moving through the usual camp-making routines when the human torso tossed his head back, pulled in air through his nose, and announced, “I think we’ve reached the shores.”
All of the other freaks froze in place and began to imitate Aziz. And after a moment they started to nod and then murmur their agreement. In the wake of the murmuring came the celebratory sounds of a homecoming — though, of course, none had ever been to the western shores before. Their joy and hope were born of a sense of destination achieved. The fact that this destination was an unknown landscape didn’t matter very much at first.
Durga, Jeta, and Antoinette danced together in a small circle. Vasco and Marcel did their own little jig. Nadja and Milena embraced and hooted. Aziz hopped around on his knuckles like a frog. Only Chick maintained the gravity of the road, opening his beak in an effort to taste the salt that hung in the air. As if needing to confirm something.
Seeing the look on the chicken boy’s face, Bruno tamped down the revelry and called the troupe to a meeting. When they were all settled on the ground, the strongman put his remaining hand on his hip and spoke.
“It seems,” he said, “that we’re very close now. The ocean is less than a day away. And, believe me, I’m as anxious as all of you to get off the road and rest for a while. But I think, right now, that the one who brought us here should say a few words.”
He lowered himself to the ground with only marginally less grace than he’d once possessed.
Chick looked hesitant as he stood before the clan. He toed the earth as he thought about how best to begin. He scratched absentmindedly at his feathers and avoided eye contact.
Eventually, he said, “We’ve come a long way.”
The words triggered a whoop of affirmation from Fatos. Chick ignored the mule and pressed on.
“I want to thank all of you for having faith in me. You took a great chance. A great leap. I’ve never claimed to understand what happens when I go into Limbo. I just know that I hear and see things. And that those things feel true and real to me. So I want to thank you for trusting in something that none of us understand. Your faith is what makes it so hard to tell you this last bit.”
He paused and let the mood of the group change, felt the joy and excitement start to turn to anxiousness and suspicion.
“I know that we’ve all been looking for the same thing. We’ve been looking for a place where we can be our true selves, together. We’ve been looking for a haven. A place of refuge and sanctuary.”
Jeta nodded her agreement. Milena began to scowl and lean forward.
“But the fact is, I can’t promise you that place. It might be at the end of our road. And then again, it might not.”
Kitty reached over, took Nadja’s claw. Vasco and Marcel brought hands together nervously and cracked knuckles.
“All my life, I’ve been searching for my father. I think it’s my father who led me through the Limbo. I think it’s my dad who brought us to where we are tonight. And now, I think, he needs our help. And I think, if we help him, that he’ll help us in return.”
The chicken boy went quiet for a second and studied his comrades’ faces. The freaks looked back at Chick, unsure of what to say or do. Except for Bruno, who decided to push the boy.
“Tell us,” the strongman said, “exactly what you have to tell us.”
Chick looked at Bruno and nodded.
“Tomorrow,” Chick said, “we’ll arrive at the western shore. And at the castle of Dr. Fliess.”
At the mention of the name, Jeta burst into tears. At the sight of the tears, Antoinette became hysterical. Durga pulled both of them into her breast and looked to Milena for help. But the hermaphrodite only smiled at the fat lady and remained placid and unmoving.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bruno said, standing and walking up to Chick in order to tower over him. “We spend this entire time running from Fliess. And now you tell us we were actually running to him.”
“I didn’t know,” Chick said, weakly. “Not until the last few days. Not for sure.”
“You said your father would be waiting,” Bruno said, confused.
Chick nodded. “Fliess has my father. And we have to free him.”
“You want us to go to the castle?” Vasco asked, incredulous.
“And demand that Fliess hand over your poppa?” asked Marcel, outraged.
“No,” said Chick, backing up as more of them rose from the ground and came toward him. “Of course not. I have a way in. There are tunnels. A series of caves that lead into the castle. I know exactly where to find my father. And I know, if we can free him, he can help us.”
That there was anger and outrage, disappointment and fear, did not surprise Chick. His own reaction to the knowledge of what lay in wait at the end of their road was profound sadness. The clan had relied on him to bring them to refuge. And instead, he had delivered them into their greatest terror and deposited them at the feet of their enemy. So he understood the bitterness that lay at the bottom of the troupe’s surprise. And beyond this, he felt his own particular brand of grief surge back into every feather of his body, the anguish that had simmered, for years, from the beginning, just on the edge of his consciousness. And he realized that whether or not his freaks abandoned him in the end, he would go to Fliess’s castle. And he would be saved or damned. But he would find whatever last truths were available to him. Because to live forever with a grief that deforms the heart is unacceptable — an abomination that must not be tolerated.