“The past is never where you think you left it.”

Katherine Anne Porter

Emily held out her phone to illuminate the stairway as they descended. The darkness around them seemed to absorb what light there was, so that they could only see a single step in front of them. The worn wooden steps creaked and groaned as they descended, and Bethany began to wonder when the stairway would end. She started to count the steps on the way down. At fifty, the wooden steps became black stone speckled with flakes of gold, guiding them forward. At one hundred, Bethany glanced towards the ceiling and saw speckled light above them, as if they were gazing out at the night sky. At two hundred, Bethany could see her breath hanging in the air, as if it were deep winter, though there was no cold.

Bethany lost count after three hundred, where the basement walls disappeared, leaving nothing except for darkness and a long fall if they should stumble. Bethany’s heart raced, and she found herself having to dig deep for the bravery to take each perilous step.

“Dad used to take my sister Emma and I mountain climbing when we were kids,” Emily told them after Rocky nearly stumbled. “He told us to point our feet straight down and let gravity do the rest. You’ve been walking your whole lives, my children, he told us. Why would walking on a mountain be any different than walking down the sidewalk? He always had a way of making me feel brave, even when I was not.”

Bethany felt a little bit braver after that, and every step became easier. Her heart still raced in her chest, but it felt more controlled. As if she were in control of it, rather than the other way around.

Soon after that, the darkness faded away. Bethany could see their destination below. It was a large room, elegant in its simplicity. The room was constructed in a circle, the perfection of which would have made any engineer jealous. The walls were a perfect neutral grey, without a single distinguishing feature. The floor was composed of the same stone as the stairs, sparkling in a faint light. Bethany looked up and saw that the library was no longer there. It was the night’s sky, starlight twinkling across an endless expansion as a full moon illuminated the room in its gentle midnight glow.

In the centre of the room was a stone table, as perfectly circular as the room. Three stone chairs sat equidistant from each other around the table, waiting for the companions to complete their descent.

“I was in court once. It felt like this room,” Rocky remarked. “Powerful. Almost heavy, as if the weight of the world were pressing down on my shoulders.”

“Why were you in court, Rocky?” teased Emily. “Is the gentle giant I know a facade? Perhaps, buried deep within your chest lay the heart of a criminal?”

Rocky simply gave her a sly smile, and Emily laughed until they reached the bottom.

Bethany felt a wave of relief wash over her as she took the final step into the circular room. She did not know what lay in store for them now, but she was glad to be off those stairs. She glanced up at the staircase, its black and gold stone steps nearly invisible against the stary night sky. She started to wonder if they would have to climb back up but pushed the thought from her mind. Right now, they needed to figure out this room.

“Do we sit?” asked Rocky, walking up to one of the stone chairs. “It feels… familiar.”

“I guess so,” answered Bethany. She wondered if she should explore the room before she sat down, yet there seemed to be little reason to do so. She felt pulled towards the chairs, as if the room itself was tugging at her mind and drawing her in.

It pulled her not to any chair, but to one specific chair. Her chair. She felt it in her bones and knew it in her soul. This stone chair was to be hers, and in that moment, nothing else seemed to matter.

It had grown eerily silent. Rocky and Emily walked over to their chairs and sat down, as if they were in a trance. Bethany wondered why they had done so, but then suddenly found herself seated in her own chair. The stone was cold and unforgiving, and once Bethany had sat down, she found herself unable to rise. They were stuck there, bound in place, until its creator allowed them to leave.

“What… what the hell,” Emily spat angrily, breaking out of her trance. “Let me out of this chair, or I’ll make you regret it.”

A voice began to speak from the full moon high above them. Every syllable was heard crystal clear in their minds, so that there could be no mistaking its meaning.

Thoth Arena. Judgment challenge. Subjects: Bethany Fox, Emily Desjarlais, Rocky MacMillian. Goal: Decide the fate of the souls of your dead. Time limit: Unlimited. You lose if the fate you decide for your judged soul deviates too far from the allowable range based upon their actions in life. Penalty for failure: Your life will be forfeited, and you shall share the fate decided for the soul you judged.

“Wait, what!” shouted Emily with disbelief, struggling to leave her chair. “What the hell kind of challenge is this?”

“So it is a courtroom,” Rocky said with certainty, staring towards the middle of the table. “And we are the judges.”

Silence fell across the room, and in that silence three silhouettes formed upon the stone table, once in front of each of them. Each was transparent and featureless, as if a thin mist had taken on humanoid form. Yet the longer Bethany stared at her apparition, the more she could sense a familiarity about it. It was as if she could see it coming together in her mind, taking shape into someone that she knew. The bond kept growing stronger, and Bethany thought she knew…

“Emma?” came Emily’s cry from across the table, interrupting Bethany’s thoughts. She looked over to see tears streaming down Emily’s face as she reached out and touched her apparition’s hand. “Emma, is that you?”

Bethany and Rocky’s apparitions vanished, and Bethany felt a tear in her heart as the growing bond was severed. Bethany felt the pain of loss and knew she had felt that pain before.

Emily’s spirit started to take shape. Its form became denser, and its features grew clearer. It formed a nose and mouth, fingers and toes. It formed itself into a young girl wearing a green dress covered in mud. She was smiling from ear to ear, her two missing teeth granting her the type of childhood adorableness reserved for Christmas movies.

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“Emily, is that…” Rocky started, wanting to run over and comfort her.

“My twin sister,” finished Emily, her voice cracking with grief. “I remember the day she wore that dress. We went out to the creek after church to catch frogs. We were out there for hours, and Emily caught two. She gave me one because mine kept hopping away. We took them home and mom freaked out.” Emily laughed softly at the memory, cutting through her grief.

The apparition began to change. Bethany watched the ghostly Emma age, becoming taller and more gangly. She started to get pimples and her hair was cropped short. She wore cut-off jeans and a white blouse, still stained with mud. Emily sat in awe as she watched her twin’s life flash by in the silent shifts of the apparition. Bethany saw the tears streaming down Emily’s face, and knew this story being told did not have a happy ending.

“Please, don’t show me this,” Emily whispered, pleading for the apparition to stop growing up. All the bravery within Emily seemed to have failed her, and loss and guilt had taken its place.

The room began to spin around them. Images appeared on the grey walls, growing into three dimensional projections as Emma aged. It was as if they were inside Emma’s memories, watching and judging her most pivotal and precious moments from life. Bethany could now hear cheering around them, and the air smelled like her high school gymnasium.

Emma was sixteen now. She was the star of her school volleyball team and was competing in the provincial championships. Her parents’ passionate cheers could be heard in every corner of the gymnasium. It was a tied game, and she jumped high to spike down the winning shot. Only her foot slid from under her as she leapt. She landed hard on the floor and Bethany heard a sickening snap. The ball sailed wide, and Emma went down in a heap, clutching her knee in agony.

A blinding flash of light filled the room, and the next moment they were in the hospital. Emma’s leg was in a cast, and the doctor was whispering instructions to her parents. He handed her parents a bottle of pills as Emma wept.

There was another flash. They were in Emma’s room, her blankets thrown to the floor and her leg propped up on a pillow as she lay in bed. Her eyes were glazed over, and she stared mindlessly at the ceiling. The bottle of pills lay beside her, opened. Her schoolbooks were scattered on the floor below her, forgotten.

Flash. Emma was no longer in her cast. She stared at herself in the mirror, wishing she did not feel so weak. She stared at the empty bottle of pills that lay upended on the bathroom counter, then reached into her purse and withdrew a small baggie and a needle. She needed this. The pain was too much.

Flash. Emma was seventeen. She was lying on the kitchen floor surrounded by paramedics. Emily was screaming over her, begging her to come back. Emma sputtered and vomited on the floor, and the paramedics took her to the hospital.

“Please, I can’t live through this again,” begged Emily. “Just let it end.”

Flash. Emma was eighteen. She was skinny and her face was covered with open sores. She hadn’t been to school. She was crouched in an alley with a needle in her arm, already wondering where she would get her next fix. She cried in shame when Emily found her lying there and gently withdrew her needle.

Flash. Emma was nineteen. Her parents were arguing with each other as she swayed at the kitchen table. Their eyes were exhausted and grey, their passion for their daughter long since left behind. Her mother was going through Emma’s purse and removing her stolen earrings and necklace. She handed the baggie of pills to her husband to flush down the toilet. They called the rehab clinic to make another appointment.

Flash. Emma was twenty. Emma watched from a daze as Emily stormed out of the house, throwing her last suitcase in the back of her car. Her parents pleaded with her not to go, but Emily could no longer be responsible for Emma. The sister she had loved was gone, and she had her own life to live.

“It was the last time I ever saw her,” Emily whimpered, her voice thick with intense guilt.

Flash. Emma was twenty-two. It was her fifth attempt at rehab. This one had been expensive because no other provider would take her. She had lasted two days.

Flash. Emma was twenty-three. She leaned up against a dumpster in an alley, another needle in her arm. Her head rolled side to side as she tried to find that mindless bliss. Her parents had put their house up for sale that afternoon to pay for another attempt at rehab. She’d been such a burden to them. Perhaps this time, she would use two needles to numb the pain. Perhaps, it was best that she not wake up again.

The memories ended and Emma’s apparition stopped changing. Her arms hung limply at her side as she stared at Emily with lifeless eyes.

Bethany wiped the tears from her eyes. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

Emily’s face was pale and drained. The stone table below her face was wet and she made no move to stop the flow of tears as they fell.

“Choose the fate of her soul,” spoke Thoth, the Voice of Judgment.

“Is that actually her soul?” Rocky asked clumsily, staring up at the moon.

“Thoth does not deal in falsities and fabrications. I left Emma’s soul unjudged for this moment, so she could be judged by her twin sister,” answered Thoth, his voice cold and distant.

“How can I?” Emily said weakly, her voice laced with deep sorrow. “How can I judge her? I abandoned her. I left her to die. I was too selfish to stay, so sick of not being able to live my own life. I left her to rot away in that alley.”

“Emily, you did what you could,” comforted Rocky. “There is no one to blame. Not your parents. Not Emma. And not you. Not you, Emily.”

Emily dropped her head to the table, covering it with her arms. Her weeping echoed off the walls of the room, and Bethany felt her sorrow pierce her soul. Bethany and Rocky sat in silence, and let Emily process her grief as their own tears fell.

It wasn’t Emma’s fault. Rocky’s words rang in Bethany’s ears. Her father was an alcoholic. An addict. Yet Bethany blamed him for the suffering he had inflicted in her life. Would she ever forgive her father for that? Bethany shook her head. The concept was alien to her, and it was not a thought she wanted to explore.

After some time, Emily stopped crying. She slowly raised her head from the table, sat up straight and looking into Emma’s eyes.

“Emma, I miss you. I miss you so much. You will always be my sister. I’m sorry I was not there for you.”

Emily looked up towards the moon. “I know the judgment I want to impart. Emma’s life was stolen from her, so I chose to give her a second chance. I want her to live the life she could have had.”

“You choose reincarnation?” asked Thoth curiously.

“If that is what that means, then yes, I do.”

“Then know this, Emily Desjarlais. If this is your judgment, your sister’s soul shall lose all memories of this life. When you pass into the afterlife, you will not be reunited with her. And when her soul returns to the afterlife after her second chance, you will know her, but she will not know you. That knowledge will stay with you for all time. Do you still believe your judgment to be correct?

Emily hesitated. She stared up at the soul of her sister, gazing into her lifeless eyes.

“I do,” whispered Emily, her judgment filling the room.

There was a tense silence as Thoth considered her judgement.

“This judgment….is within the bounds of allowable justice. Her spirit shall begin anew, free from the memories and burdens of her past life.”

Emma’s spirit started to fade away. A small smile appeared on the apparition’s face, and there was a spark of life in her eyes before she vanished. And then she was gone, and Emily was alone.

“May you find your peace, Emma.” Emily prayed, wiping away her last tears. “And I will try to find mine.” She wiped away her last tears with the back of her wrist, then slumped forward in her chair, exhausted.

Bethany wanted to run over and embrace Emily. But she was still unable to move from the stone chair.

Rocky and Bethany’s spirits returned to the table. Bethany felt the bond that had been growing between her and her apparition return and begin to strengthen once again.

And she wondered which of them would be next.