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It was in the winter months that the ground of the meadow opened up, and the young girl went down to see the King of the Underworld, and everyone shook their heads and said, how tragic, how tragic, as the warmth leeched from the earth and cold sank into the marrow of humanity’s bones. It was her brother’s grief that froze the world; the siblings had no mother, and no father, and indeed nobody in the entire cold world but each other. There were people on their periphery, of course; a feather-footed god had taken them under his wing, so to speak, and the sister had once lured a young mortal to heel and he’d never quite gone away.
But now she was gone, and the mortal vanished in the wind; the brother mourned his loss, too, because unlike his sister it was likely he would never see the mortal again before his lifespan stretched out and snapped and ended.
The brother and the sister had no names, originally; they were not like the humans, who came from each other and named each other in acts of attachment and connection. Still, in the cracks between the years, the two had each gotten their own name, from who-knows-where. The brother, left behind in the earth, was called Oswald; the sister, taken to the underworld, was called Lacie. These names had once delighted their mortal companion; now, all they did was haunt the brother, Oswald, as his grief chilled the earth further and further.
When so many mortals had become so many ice statues, when the winter winds blew chill across the lands and still could not freeze away Oswald’s heart, he went to their feather-footed god-fatherbrotherfriend, stood outside his periphery in the cold and the snow, and waited.
This god’s name was Levi, and long ago he had claimed Oswald as his successor; if there was anyone in the whole world that Oswald could go to for help, it was Levi. After all, mortals went to their fathers and their brothers and their friends for help; though Levi was useless, he ought to fulfill those roles if he claimed them.
Levi laughed when he saw Oswald, frigid and tinged with blue. He laughed when Oswald told him that Lacie was gone. He laughed when Oswald explained the snow—the world froze when Lacie was gone, Oswald froze the world when Lacie was taken. He laughed and he laughed, he was always laughing, and his laughter was like the ice on the ground: if it was gone, then you were no longer mourning Lacie, if it was here, you slipped and fell and pain ricocheted up your bones through your elbow, and you knew you were alive because you knew how you hurt.
Oswald thanked Levi, and he left; he thanked Levi, and he walked a long way, through heart-numbing snow, deeper and deeper until he reached a cave that the mortals said was cursed. Levi had not told him to come here, not really; Levi had only laughed. Levi had entered this cave himself, once, and when he came back his neck was broken, twisted all the way around, to stare and to stare and to stare, and to laugh. When he came out, he told Oswald that he was next; only once Oswald went to the cave, and cursed himself, would Levi be free again.
Why would Oswald curse himself? Lacie had laughed, had taken Levi’s laughter, had joined in his laughter and thrown it into his face, had said no, Oswald would never go through the cave, would never face its trial, would never look forward nor back and would never take on any curse. But now Lacie was gone, and the world was so cold; now Lacie was gone, and nobody would hold Oswald back from the cave, tell him don’t curse yourself, tell him don’t take on anyone else’s pain.
He stopped inside. It was dark, and not-cold, though it wasn’t warm either; as he walked further and further inside, the rough-stone walls rubbed away his skin, his meat, his bones, his marrow, his very self, until he was walking, and walking, and then he was the King of the Dead, sitting cold on his throne, and his sister stood beside him and told him you’re stupid, you’re stupid, why did you come here? well, I won’t be the one to leave you alone.
Then it was over; then Oswald stood alone in a great hollow room, with a great staircase leading up to a great chair. Seated in that chair was the King of the Underworld, the god of the dead, and standing beside him was a woman, a sister, with eyes like blood and a strange smile on her lips.
Oswald walked across the throne room, he walked for an eternity, he did not slow, he did not stop. He knew who sat in that throne; he knew who had taken his sister. Once upon a time, Levi had been Glen Baskerville, god of the dead; after he had gotten Oswald and Lacie, he was just Levi, the god with feathers on his feet. Perhaps Oswald could leave here and hunt, free himself, someday, return to the world of ice and cold until he forgot his grief and the world thawed once more, and the mortals rejoiced, and said praise the gods of the seasons, summer has returned. He could have done this.
But he didn’t.
He walked and walked, until he reached the foot of the stairs. He reached the foot of the stairs and then he knelt, as mortals knelt to gods, said please return my sister to me, she’s all that I have, please, I will give you all that I am, all that I ever will be, all that I have to give.
The god’s silence was deafening; of course it was, the god was Oswald himself, and Oswald would never give up his sister to a stranger, even one who knelt at his throne in supplication and promised everything in the world.
The woman standing beside the throne looked down at him, and her eyes were the cold red eyes of a sister’s, and Oswald knew she had no pity for him, because if he had never come after her she would never have been snatched by death in the first place. He would have no help from her corner. So he had to appeal to his other self, the god of the dead, the King of the Underworld; he had to make it known that he was himself, not a stranger, not a threat, just Oswald, come to take Lacie home.
He knelt for hours and hours; when neither he nor his other self recognized anything in their faces, he tried again to think. Thinking was alien to Oswald; it was something mortals did, not something he was any good at.
How to recognize himself? How, when he had scraped away all that he was or would ever become, all lost to the curse? Levi had laughed and laughed and broken his own neck, so that he might always look back; what would Oswald do?
When Lacie had lured and caught her mortal, she had done so by song. This song was a song that Oswald had written; the mortal, upon learning this, had given it Lacie’s name. He had had her name and her song on his lips, always, but his lips had only ever tasted of himself, of water, the slightest flavor, quenching your thirst and keeping you always coming back for more. Mortals needed water, they could not live without it, and though Oswald was no mortal, he loved it too, cool water, clear water, deep water, water that quenched your thirst, water that drowned you and stole your breath away.
He had not brought that mortal into this cave with him. He had not brought that mortal anywhere with him. But he knew, even as a god, even as the god of the dead, he would recognize that mortal. He would know that song. He would know who it was, kneeling at his throne, asking for his sister, identifying himself through the song that that mortal had loved.
He reached to his side. He took out a lute. He began to play, the first note, and then the second, and the third, and then—
He did not see her, until she broke his wrist. He did not see her, until his hand had twisted backwards, fingers sticking up in the air like so many uncut blades of grass, he would never play the lute again.
“Walk away,” said the sister, the woman who had crushed his bones, Lacie. “Walk away, walk up and out of the underworld, out into the sunlight, out into the air. Walk away, into the living, Nii-sama, and don’t you ever look back.”
And the seasons changed, because even grief fails you eventually, and the cold came, and the cold went, and he could not break his own neck, so he did not have the strength to look, and the seasons came, and the seasons went, and the next boy who squeezed himself raw in the cave was untaught, untrained, and took the throne without splitting himself, and the woman watching him was not his sister, and she smiled, and turned, and vanished into the dark and the wind, to find her brother and become a sister once more.