Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Lord of Mictlan witnessed the brave woman giving birth. She heaved and pushed, sobbed and groaned, but her labor lasted thirty hours. At last her son came into the world. The mother collapsed back against the pillows, almost instantly falling asleep. Just as she drifted off, the nurses heard her breathe “Adam,” so they knew what name belonged on the child's birth certificate. The nurses whisked him away to clean him, weigh him, and measure him, and to count his fingers and toes.

The bleeding wouldn't stop. “Nothing to be alarmed by,” a kind nurse said. “This happens to so many of us,” one fellow mother reassured her. But the bleeding didn't stop until the mother's life poured out with it. Her soul was consecrated to Huitzilopochtli, and the Lord of Mictlan bowed his head.

Aaron paced the four rooms of the funeral home, unable to sit still. The flight from Connecticut to Colorado had been a long, cramped affair.

“Sarah was beautiful,” his wife Rae whispered, setting the picture frame back down on the table. “It's a pity I never met your sister.” Aaron lips pursed. Rae's hand crept into his.

When Father Carpenter arrived, one look at the couple told him more about Sarah than he'd ever gleaned during her three years of sporadic attendance at his parish. Aaron stiffly sat down on a couch across from the priest and Rae perched at his side. Aaron spoke slowly at first. Then the words poured, tears slid out, until Rae and the priest were weeping for Sarah, too.

“Do you have any other family I can help you contact?” Father Carpenter asked.

Aaron shook his head, and Rae repeated the answer they'd told the funeral director: “It's been just the two of them for a long time.”

The priest nodded. Then, “Well, I'm glad I have you both sitting down...”

The day of Sarah's funeral, Aaron stood up before the small huddle of mourners and spoke for his sister. He told of their childhood together, of their mother's insistence that they learn German, their father's passion for pipe tobacco, and the struggles of being left alone together in America by the time they were in their early twenties. Aaron's pride for his sister glowed in his eyes, and his listeners wept with him by the end of the brief eulogy.

Aaron stepped down from the pulpit and strode to his wife's side in the first pew. Rae turned and offered him the small white bundle in her arms. Before leaving for Connecticut, they brought the child back to Father Carpenter and christened him Adam Levi Amfeur. They introduced him to their sons as a new baby brother.

Chapter Text

Adam slowed the Corolla for the light and flicked his left turn signal on. He had never been too enthused about grocery shopping, but at least these Saturday morning excursions with Rae gave him the opportunity to use his new driver's permit.

“Oh!” Rae exclaimed, “I forgot to put butter on the list.” She bent down to fish the list from her purse, pen at the ready.

Adam smiled and shook his head. Prompted by the green arrow, he slid the car forward into the intersection, then angled left. Neither of them saw the pickup truck flying in the opposite direction. The impact sent the little car spinning. Adam's head collided with the side window, and the world went dark.

Adam stood on a narrow, winding path lined with bones. The air was thick with dark fog. All around him were shadowy shapes who groaned and wailed, all moving in the same direction. Carried along by their momentum, he began to walk, too. Then a rushing, fluttering sound began to build, until a cloud of bats came flying over them. The heavy air filled with their shrill voices. The shapes of the people around Adam began to panic, to run into one another, to scream. Adam fell, the shapes passed over him, and he was left alone.

Out of the fog a menacing figure materialized. His body was tall, thin, and sinewy, his head a bare skull crowned in a headdress of feathers. His hands were stained with blood. Necklaces of teeth and bones hung down across his bare chest. The gaping jaw did not move, but the figure spoke in a hissing voice.

“My son, my son...you are not ready.”

Adam lay on the ground, transfixed with dread. Horrified as he was, he could bring himself neither to move nor look away. The figure strode toward him, and he began to tremble. One of the bony hands reached out and gripped his head. Adam's throat opened into long shriek. His ears pounded with rushing blood, and then he felt nothing.

 “Hey, you're awake.” Mark's easy grin greeted Adam's newly opened eyes. Morning sunlight streamed in through the window of the hospital room. Adam was entangled in wires, connected to an IV, blood oxygen sensor, blood pressure cuff, heart monitor, and more. Even so, he couldn't help but smile back at his brother.

“So are you. Isn't this about your bedtime?” Adam said. Mark's tales from college were filled with late parties, early practices, and Delta Phi hijinks.

“Actually, I didn't sleep.”

Joe strode with a pair of coffees. “Says you! You snored.”

“Not as loud as you.” Mark countered. He reached for a coffee.

Joe handed off the cup, then settled into a chair. The brothers were carbon copies of each other: broad, athletic, sandy haired, confident.

Adam fidgeted with his blanket. He didn't want to ask. “Mom?”

Mark's smile evaporated. “She was in surgery most of yesterday, and we haven't heard much since. Dad's been with her since last night.”

“The other driver?”

“He's fine. They didn't even keep him overnight.”

A nurse overheard them talking and came in to check Adam's vitals and fuss over him now that he was awake. Finally, she left him with a menu for breakfast. When the tray arrived, the brothers decided to scope out the cafeteria for food of their own.

“We'll be back later,” Mark promised, “We'll find Dad in ICU and let him know you're awake.”

The two boys strode out, leaving Adam alone with his thoughts. A while later a doctor stopped by, looked him over, and proclaimed his recovery remarkable. She approved his release for that very morning.

While the nurses prepared the inevitable paperwork, Adam changed back into his own clothes. He found his belongings in a plastic bag in the closet: wallet, phone, lighter, jacket. When he pulled the jacket out of the bag, he was surprised to find a few extra items underneath. He turned the bag upside down, spilling the contents onto the bed.

A leather sheath held an obsidian dagger, sharpened on both sides. The blade gleamed when Adam turned it in the light. He also found a silver ring topped with an inlay of bone. He slipped these items into his pockets. As soon as the nurses would let him, he left the hospital room.

Adam followed the signs to the ICU, then asked for his mother's room number at the nurses' station. He found Joe and Mark with their father outside in the hallway. Aaron shared the unhappy news: Rae was stable, but had been pronounced brain dead soon after her arrival at the hospital. Together they went in and stood by her bedside. Her body was a nexus of tubes and wires, attended by a chorus of beeping, whirring machines. A doctor came in and addressed Aaron, using phrases like “allow her to rest” and “put an end to her pain.” Aaron seemed to shrink in size and spirit, his shoulders slumping and his face pale.

Adam knew Aaron would never have the heart to stop life support. Rae's life would stretch on, no longer a life at all – a shadow of a life. As if he could speak directly to her soul, Adam willed her to die without prompting, to save her beloved husband the painful responsibility of releasing her. He reached out and took her hand.

The machines chirped and flashed as Rae's vitals scattered all over the charts, then disappeared from them entirely. The doctor pushed past Aaron and started CPR. A nurse ushered the family members out of the room, then closed the blinds. Aaron sat down hard on a chair, his head in his hands.

Adam bent to place a hand on his shoulder. Then Rae emerged from the hospital room. Adam realized with a chill that the door hadn't opened. The world fell silent except for the cries of “Charging...Clear!” The muffled sounds of CPR still wafted into the hallway.

Rae forlornly approached Aaron, her feet not touching the ground.

“Mom?” Adam tried to say, but the word came out a strangled sob.

Rae's eyes locked with his. She looked around at her family. Mark and Joe stood heads together, carefully keeping their emotions off their faces. Aaron stared blankly into space, his eyes unfocused. The door of the hospital room opened, and the doctor walked out. He stood next to Rae in front of Aaron, and grimly began to express his deepest sympathies.

Rae was still looking directly into Adam's eyes. “Thank you,” she said, “Take care of them.” She turned away, passed through the doctor, through a wall, and vanished.