Persuasion

“I was warned that you would come,” the old shopkeeper said as he slowly folded the reading glasses he was cleaning and set them in his pocket. “I can’t help you, Hector.”

Hector entered into the man’s dim-lit shop and closed the door. Sunlight peaked in from thin windows at the top of the room, barely illuminating the dusty wares. Hector paid them no mind, his gaze fixed on the man before him. 

“I know what you want,” the shopkeeper continued. “But it wouldn’t help you.”

Hector said nothing but stepped closer to the shopkeeper. His heavy boots caused the oak floors beneath him to sigh.

The shopkeeper’s voice softened. “This isn’t something you can heal. Death has no cure.”

“Then it is a good thing she isn’t dead,” Hector finally spoke, his voice low and steady. “Where is it?”

The shopkeeper sighed and stepped from behind his desk, placing a wrinkled hand on Hector’s arm. “Grief and love are a package deal, son. Your loss…is irreparable. But that doesn’t mean that you stop living. She wouldn’t want you to stubbornly hold on to her forever.”

When Hector made no moves or signs of responding, the shopkeeper let out a resigned sigh. “But I guess that is something you need to discover yourself, eh? No one listens to the words of wise old men any more.”

The old man shook his head and reached into his apron pocket, pulling out a silver disk and placing it into Hector’s palm. “I had to try.”

Hector cradled the object, nodded, and stepped out, letting the door close behind him. 

Now that he was in the sun, he could see that the object was a thin compass. On its face, there was no indication of North or South. Instead, a thin blue line danced across the silver face, fidgeting until it pointed toward the entrance of the village. Hector slipped the compass into his pocket and started walking. 

People glanced up as he walked past. He saw his old neighbor shake her head sadly. Two young boys stopped their game of tag and began whispering to one another. Hector ignored them. 

Many of the villagers were out today, enjoying the sun and scraping the black pus that had crawled up the walls of houses and littered the ground created by the fathomling that had threatened the village just a week before. 

Normally, a fathomling was a death sentence for a village as small as this one. They were large creatures born from the earth that vomited a dark sludge until it enveloped its target and consumed it. Only then would it return to its home below. However, this village had not suffered a single casualty.

None except her. 

Before the sun had set, Hector found himself at the edge of the woods outside the village. The sludge was thicker here, making it harder to navigate. He paused at a large patch and took out the compass. It remained steadfast towards the setting sun. Hector lingered, staring into the dark forest. He stood frozen, his heart rate rising as he remembered his last time here. 

Hector’s hands dug into the earth beside her, chanting the words over and over, violently, incessantly. 

Flowers sprung up from the ground with each of his breaths, and vines began to crawl up the woman before him, but she remained still, her eyes shut. 

“You’re trapping her Hector!” Someone screamed beside him. Hands frantically gripped at his arm, but he threw them off and continued chanting. 

“Healing incantations won't work if she’s dead!” The voice sobbed. “You’ll only trap her soul.”

Hector shook his head and kept walking away from the forest where he knew her body still lay, wreathed in flowers. He vowed not to return until he could bring her back. 

Hector followed the compass line until he heard running water. He had followed it about a day’s walk from the nearest road and deep within a series of caves. Now, he found himself in a large cavern filled with murky pools only visible by his torch. Hector frowned and knelt at one such pool and listened. What he had first thought was running water was really a faint whispering. He peered into the pool and saw a muted blue light that appeared to be far below the water. 

“Who are you looking for?” 

Hector jumped up and thrust his torch toward the voice. Before him stood a young boy in a long gray robe, grinning widely. 

“You hear voices, don’t you?” the child continued, not bothering to wait for an answer. “Maybe that’s because you haven’t slept in days.”

The boy stepped forward, and Hector noticed that, as he moved, his form flickered like candlelight. A shiver ran down his spine. 

“The fathomling was supposed to kill you, you know,” the boy said, giggling. “Your whole village. Fate told me so. But then your woman intervened. She was quite a marvel. Still…I guess a life debt had to be paid.”

Hector’s grip on the torch tightened. “Then I will pay it. How do I find her?”

The boy shrugged. “How true love is always found, I guess. But that doesn’t matter. I’m here to tell you that this is where your journey ends.”

Hector turned his attention away from the boy and pulled out the compass again. The thin blue line had resorted to spinning rapidly. Hector sighed and began searching the pools. For what exactly, he did not know. 

“Hello?” The boy complained. “I just told you to stop.”

When Hector ignored him, the boy flickered in front of him again. “Most people would be asking me questions at this point. Like, why does my journey have to end here? Or, which pool will lead to the in-between realm?”

Hector let out a long sigh and continued searching. “Would you answer those questions?”

“No,” the boy pouted. “But it would be nice if you asked. I didn’t even get to warn you about the consequences of picking the wrong pool.”

Finally, Hector looked up. The boy grinned again. “Now do I have your attention? Choose the wrong pool, and you join the whispers trapped within them.”

The child’s grin turned maniacal. “You’re not the first one to try and bring someone back from the dead. Love fades, Hector. It dies, as do all things. Bury it and let it lie.”

The boy blinked out completely, leaving Hector alone with the whispers of the cavern. They were more discernible now. Voices crying out to their loved ones, eternally searching for something lost. 

Hector inspected the pools for hours. They all seemed the same: murky waters with a blue light deep below. The whispers grew louder the longer he stayed, becoming frantic, begging him to leave and end his journey. 

Hector paused, sitting on the damp floor. The voices echoed off the walls, piercing his skull. He doubted he could stay much longer without going mad. Exhaustion weighed on him, and soon, he fell asleep.

Hector dreamed of her as he had every night since he lost her. This time, it was a more pleasant memory. 

Hector had been ten at the time, sent by his father to retrieve the governor’s daughter from wherever she had wandered off to. He had complied but complained the entire time. The governor’s daughter was always running off to explore, and they always sent him to find her. To make matters worse, everyone revered her. She had inherited a unique power from her mother, which somehow made her special. Nothing annoyed young Hector more than the governor’s daughter.

After what felt like forever looking for her, Hector plopped down on a rock near a barn and held his head in his hands. Hector was going to miss dinner. He began to leave, planning to tell the governor she was gone. But a soft voice made him stop. Through an opening in the barn, he saw the young girl in the loft, singing. 

Hector stood watching, enraptured. Her young voice cracked as she attempted to sing her song at a higher and higher pitch. She laughed at herself and then started to sing as loud as she could. When she laughed, Hector was sure he had never heard anything so beautiful in his life. 

Too soon, the girl noticed Hector staring, mouth agape, and stopped. Her face turned red, and she screamed at Hector. He, in turn, yelled at her for making him search for her all the time. For months, she refused to speak to him, unable to forgive him for “spying” on her. 

Hector, however, never again complained about being sent to search for her. Secretly, he knew he would never grow tired of looking for her. 

Hector awoke abruptly. It took a moment before he realized something was off about the cave. Then, he realized: the whispers had stopped. Instead, a singular, soft voice filled the cave. Her voice. She was singing the song she had attempted to that day so long ago. Her voice emanated from a pool near the back of the cave. Hector ran to it and peered inside, where the blue light had shifted to gold. 

The ghostly boy’s answer to Hector’s question finally made sense. How true love is always found. Hector smiled. It isn’t, he thought. It comes when you least expect it. 

Without hesitation, Hector dove into the pool.

“You’re stubborn, aren’t you?” Hector swung around to find himself in a vast expanse of nothing but sand, standing in front of a tall woman wearing a gray cloak similar to the boy from earlier. The woman made a sweeping gesture with her hands, her image flickering as she did so. “Welcome to the land in-between. It seems you could not be persuaded away, hm?”

With a small wave of her hand, the sand shifted before her to create two throne-like chairs. She sat in one, then gestured toward the other for Hector to sit. Hector, however, remained standing. She peered at him a moment longer, then said, “If you are looking for a soul, you’re in the wrong place. Souls are only here for a moment before I, Fate, guide them onwards.”

“Only if that soul is dead,” Hector said.

Fate grinned. “Ah! So you do speak. And you’re right, of course. You would know—you’re the one who trapped her here.” She motioned, and a pool appeared at her feet. On its surface appeared a faint outline of a woman, her eyes closed. 

Hector gasped and knelt, tenderly touching the face of the water. Fate laughed when the water only rippled and slipped through his fingers. 

“Silly man!” She chided. “You can not grasp a soul. It takes a special vessel to contain it.”

Hector’s eyes remained locked on the reflection in the pool. She was right there, yet completely out of reach. He quickly rose and faced the apparition. “Where do I find this vessel?”

“Well, normally, that would be a body, stupid.” Fate chuckled, leaning into her chair. “But I might have other means.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re a man of few words, aren’t you?”

The woman sighed when he did not reply. “You’re only proving my point. The truth is that a soul can not return once it has left the body. I let someone try…once. Offered them the same vessel. But you simply can not bring back the dead.”

“She’s not dead,” Hector said insistently. 

The woman shrugged. “Fine. Regardless, I am not in the business of letting souls return. Not unless you can offer me something of value in return.”

“My soul,” Hector said without hesitation. “Grant me the vessel to return her soul, and you can have mine instead.”

The woman shrieked with laughter. “Boring! That story has been done. Any good hero would make such an offer.”

Fate leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. “No, if you want her soul, you’ll have to persuade me to give it to you.”

Hector faltered. “How?”

“You journeyed all the way here with no idea how you would actually bring her back, didn’t you? I admire that.” She laughed and motioned to the seat beside her. “Tell me about her.”

“Just…tell you? Then you’ll let her go?”

“Maybe. If I enjoy your story.”

Hector faltered. Any other challenge he could have faced. He would have fought another fathomling. But to bear his soul to Fate?

“Start by telling me her name,” the woman said softly, her demeanor changing. 

Hector stayed quiet for a moment, staring at Fate. He did not know where to begin. Words failed him. His gaze shifted once more to the pool where his wife’s pale reflection lay. He had always been able to talk to her. Hector looked at Fate, waiting expectantly, then back to the pool. Maybe he did not have to face Fate. He only had to speak to the woman he loved. 

“Ayla,” Hector spoke softly. 

Fate smiled. “Tell me about her.”

Hector spoke of the barn. He recalled how, now, years later, the two of them had looked back and laughed at that memory. Ayla thought it was silly how long it had taken them to love one another. He didn’t tell her that he had loved her since that day at the barn. 

Hector described her laugh and how love seemed to exude from her soul. 

He told Fate of how excited Ayla became when she learned something new and how her first reaction was always to come and tell him about it. He told her that there was nothing he loved more in the world than sitting and listening to her recount her latest discovery in a single breath. 

Hector told her about the first time Ayla had allowed him to hear her sing. She had made him turn around as she did so. When she had finished, he had turned around and blurted out that he loved her. When she had gotten over her shock, Ayla had called him stupid but confessed that she loved him too.

Hector laughed as he told the story of his proposal. She had wanted a sunset proposal, but he took too long asking her and the sun had long ago set. He jokingly finished his speech by saying she was the only light he needed, and she had lovingly punched his arm as tears glistened in her eyes. 

Tears dotted Hector’s eyes now as he gazed at Ayla’s reflection. “I proposed to her in the very forest she died in.”

“Tell me about her death.”

Hector shook his head. “I can’t.”

This time Fate remained silent. Hector closed his eyes and tried to recall what he had so desperately blocked out. 

“There’s a saying,” he started. “Once you realize a fathomling is attacking, it is too late. So when we felt the rumblings of a fathomling emerging from the earth, everyone knew it was the end. Not Ayla, however. She stubbornly insisted that she could stop it.

“Her mother had possessed a power that Ayla thought could defeat a fathomling. A power she had inherited. So she ran to face it. She—” Hector faltered. “She died saving the village. Died saving people who, days after her death, moved on. They didn’t deserve her or her sacrifice.”

Hector’s voice was raw. He didn’t realize he was so angry. “I tried to bring her back. I used every healing incantation I knew until I lost my voice. But…”

“But you only succeeded in trapping her here,” Fate finished.

Hector nodded. “Yes.”

Fate nodded. “Do you think there was value in the villager’s moving on?”

“What?”

“Without Ayla, everyone, you two included, would have died. Instead, because she chose to sacrifice herself, only she died. She died so that those villagers could be happy once more. So that you could be happy. Maybe by moving on, they honor her sacrifice better than you do.”

“Are you…” Hector’s voice cracked, grief overwhelming him. “Are you saying that you will not help me?”

“No,” Fate said softly, smiling. “You’ve more than persuaded me. I just want you to remember why she did it in case this doesn’t work.”

With her words, Fate held up a small golden ring: Arya’s wedding ring. She dipped it into the pool and waited as Arya’s form flickered and disappeared. “I have never had a soul linger here so long. Maybe that means she can return. But, if she doesn’t, remember why she died, Hector. She died for you.”

Hector's breath hitched when he realized where he was. No longer in the in-between, he now stood in the forest back home. Below him, cradled in the earth and wrapped in flowers, lay Arya, her bodily perfectly preserved by his healing incantations. 

Hector knelt down and tenderly grabbed her hand. For a moment, he could do nothing. Once he put the ring on her finger, he could no longer avoid her death. Either it would work, or she would finally and truly be dead. At this moment, however, hope remained. 

Hector sat there, memorizing the details of her face in the light of the setting sun. He tried to remember the words of Fate. Ayra had died in order that he might live.

“I promise, Ayra,” he whispered. “No matter what happens, I will live, and I will love you.”

Just as the sun finally slipped below the horizon, Hector slipped the ring onto Ayra’s finger. He waited, silent, hoping. 

But Ayra did not awake. 

Hector cradled her body, sobbing silently. He prayed that now, at least, her soul would be allowed to move on. 

“All I wanted was a proposal at sunset Hector. Why do you keep waiting until the sun is gone?”

Hector leaped back and yelped, causing Ayra to laugh. There she was, sitting amidst the flowers, alive and laughing. Hector was sure he had never heard anything so beautiful in his life.