Ashes
I hoisted my pack onto my shoulders and walked into the hallway that led to my room. I got to the door, turned to push it open and instinctively felt that something was wrong. The door seemed crooked, off its hinges. I tapped it and it swung open.
The house looked as if it had been torn apart. I gasped at the mess and then noticed Loki sitting on my couch, perfectly still.
“You’re back.” he spoke softly. “It was good of you to run away.”
“Excuse me?” I said, completely shocked.
“They know.”
“What?”
“Hel. She knows about me. And she knows about you. They came to round you up, so to speak, but you were gone. They had no idea where you were.”
“And so you’re going to sit here on my couch in the middle of this mess and let me know I’m in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s nothing she can do to me. I know that now. But they can do anything and everything to you.”
“How do you know that? How can they implicate me.”
“For one,” he said, shaking his head at me. “You didn’t get rid of this. I thought I made that abundantly clear.”
He pulled out the box that still contained all the artifacts he had given to me.
“And second, they don’t need a reason. They can do anything they want and there's nothing you, or I, or any universal justice system can do to stop it. Dotta’s already gone. I went to her house already on my way back in and it looked torn apart, worse than this one. I haven’t been able to find her and I have a guess that she’s already been swept up.”
“And you’re here to protect me or something?”
“We’re going to leave.”
“Where will you take me?”
“You’re going to wander with me.”
“Wander where? Why can’t we go back to Asguard where you’re from, if it actually exists.” I said snidely, frustrated.
“I can’t go back.”
“Yeah, that whole deposing the king thing you tried to pull off?”
“Yes, that, and other things.”
“Like what?”
“There are things you don’t need to know right now.”
“What loyalty do you have to me that you’d come back for me? You got out once, but who’s to say you can’t do it again.”
“Because I didn’t fall in this time. This time I came in, quietly, secretly, deliberately. I’m going to use the way I got in to get us both out.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Trust me. But we need to get a move on. They’ll undoubtably be back.” He got up from the couch and went over to my deep porcelain sink, still carrying the blue box. He pulled the letter out from the bottom and handed it to me. He set the rest of the box on the counter. He quickly pulled the dirty dishes out of my sink and set those on the counter, too.
“Did you read it?” he asked, turning on one of the burners of my stove.
“Yes, I did.”
“What does it say?” he asked, eyeing the evidence in the box.
“That I was loved.”
He held one of the photographs over the burner until it caught on fire, and then dropped it in the sink just as it became too much to handle, the ashes flying up and the smoke curling in wisps.
“Was it enough?” he asked quietly, picking up another photograph, burning it, and dropping its ashes into the sink also.
“It was everything, Loki.”
“I didn’t read it.” He said as he repeated the process over and over until all the photographs were burned, my memories nothing more than curled, charred paper in the sink.
“I know. I trust you.”
“He didn’t.” He held the box with the items over the sink, and it too burned, but strangely, with a green flame. “He said I would read it.”
I looked at the box, unaware that physics could work that way, that lighting a paper box could destroy everything inside of it. He noticed my confusion. “I suppose I should have made it more clear. I made this box so that you could burn it up with the items inside of it. It’s not from here.”
“I’m not that intuitive. I thought I was going to have to smash everything with a hammer or bury it or something.”
“Yes, I know that now.”
“Give me the letter. I need to destroy it.”
“No.”
“Give it to me, Autumn.”
“No.”
“You can’t keep it. It’s too dangerous.”
“No. I’ll...” I looked around. “I’ll hide it.”
“You can’t keep it, Autumn. You know it by heart. I know you do. You know every word, line, sentence. Every explanation, every intent behind the words. You know the cadence, Autumn. Even if you give me the letter you’ll still have it. I know you. I know how it works with you.”
My face began to heat up and I willed my heart to steady and my eyes not to cry. “I can’t give it to you, Loki.”
He walked slowly over to me. He looked tall and stately in a way I had never noticed before, but his face was soft, and his eyes showed no malice or anger in their steel.
“Autumn. I need that letter.” He stooped down and put his long, thin hands on my face, gently tilting it upwards. “I need you to understand that I know that it is the most precious thing you have, but I need it.”
“You’re going to burn it up, and all I have and remember of my love,” I choked, “Is going to be ashes.”
“No, no,” he said quietly. “It can never be ashes, because the love that wrote that letter still lingers on Earth, and passes forward just as the time moves there. It will never repeat itself, there will never be another copy, but love like that, it only goes forward, weaving together the filaments of the universe. Even though you are not there any more, you never really did leave it. The love you knew shapes the love that he knew, that he's teaching to his child, to everyone he meets. You are loved in a way that can never be destroyed, never crumble, never be anything less than what you know it to be.”
I dropped my head, hoping my hair would hide the eyes that were spilling tears out. They were rolling down my face, onto my chin, then onto my shirt. Slowly, I held the letter out to him. He snatched it quickly, and in one clean, crisp motion walked over to the stove and stuck it on the burner before I could change my mind.
As the smoke rose up and the ashes fell he looked at me, with compassion.
“I’m sorry, Autumn.” he whispered.
“I know.”