Page 85 of A Song to Drown Rivers

“Good,” he says softly, his eyes no longer on the boy but on the river, as if he can see miles and miles beyond it, to where it reaches its end. “Make sure they all know it. It is the ending she deserves.”

The boy nods and scampers off.

When he is gone, Fanli kneels and touches his hand to the dirt of my grave, a lone silhouette in the bleeding darkness. “Xishi,” he whispers. “Please, believe in me. I will come find you.”

I believe him.

Time in the underworld passes differently than for those in the mortal realm. The years flow by like water, rush past like arrow through light. Above us, the world goes on for the living. The same domestic worries and looming disasters; empty grain stores, separated lovers, cold porridge, brutal murders, warm bedding, permanent scars, missing children, ailing parents, loud festivals. They reunite and part, celebrate and grieve, hate each other and love each other fiercely, irrationally. The moon continues rising and sinking, the sun offering up its new light every morning, wiping away the blood spilled in the previous night.

Those who have died after me have already drifted on, to be reincarnated into the next lifetime and enter the cycle anew. But I stay here, waiting, watching.

Perhaps a century passes. Perhaps only a decade.

All I can be certain of is that for the longest time, there is only darkness, the bone-deep cold of the dead, everything as blurry and insubstantial as white fog—then, one day, on the opposite shore of the Yellow Springs, I see him. His soul is brighter than the rest, a stunning blaze of silver, but this is no surprise. It is what I’ve always known.

I swim, crossing the water, pushing past the harsh currents until I reach the shore. There is so much between us; the years and the yards of distance. I run through it all until I am standing before him, the darkness devoured by his beauty.

He smiles, and the fog lifts.