The end of Sheila's story. The beginning of the Sinister Saint.
Sheila didn’t fall, so much as the ground itself closed over her body like a great fist, and squeezed. It pulled her down, as sudden and swift and gentle as an avalanche, and she plummeted into darkness, the crushing stone and earth bearing down on her from every direction.

She felt bones breaking, lots of them. Something hard hit her in the face, and she swallowed gravel mixed with broken teeth. Her hair was pulled, and her scalp tore free with a sucking sound she could feel in her whole body. Sheila fell, faster and faster, the vertigo and the weightless sensation in her stomach her only points of reference in this dark hell of pain and pressure. The descent lasted hours, the crushing grind of the earth interspersed with horrendous falls through black caverns, where Sheila would slam against the floor without warning only to have it swallow her again. Deeper and deeper, and always the stones cutting, smashing, pulverizing her as she went.

After a long, long time, she was jerked to a stop. She opened her eyes, but could only see out of her left one. She was dangling, held by a stone fist a hundred feet above a pool of lava. The air itself burned her, and she struggled weakly, shying away from the heat even as blisters rose on her ravaged skin. “You die, now, woman.” The voice resounded through the huge cavern, causing rocks to break free of the ceiling and plummet into the swirling, shining pool of molten stone far below. She watched with sick fascination one of her feet falling as well, it having been shaken off the scrap of skin that had been the only thing holding it on. She couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel much of anything except dull pain, and it seemed like there should be a hell of a lot more of that. She'd been pummeled enough to be killed a dozen times over, shouldn't it hurt more than this? The huge fist around her chest heaved her back and forth, and she flopped like a rag doll. “What, no prayers? Not going to beseech your God to save you?” She saw the glowing pool of magma recede, as whatever it was pulled her back up toward the ceiling, preparing to launch her into the pool. Prayer? Why?

Her lips moved, trying to tell whatever it was to fuck off, but no sound came. Her face and tongue were half cooked by the blazing hot air above the pit. Her lips and teeth were shredded and broken from her passage through the crust. Her lungs had collapsed, unable to inhale, and what air did come in seared and burned whatever it touched. Why wasn’t she dead?

“Call out to Him! I want Him to hear you pray for help that He cannot give! I want your final thoughts to haunt Him! Do it!” The hand squeezed, and organs burst. Her pelvis snapped, and she felt her spind grinding itself into powder. A fresh cloud of steam rose to envelop her, as her bodily fluids rained down only to sizzle and boil away, the vapors burning her all the more. It was the rock man, she realized. He's not letting me die. When I fall into the lava, what if he doesn't let me die then? Oh, shit.

“Pray!”

She thought of Todd. That's who he meant, obviously. She remembered how he'd looked, so tall and strong as he’d run into the clearing where the panther had attacked her. He'd been coming to save her. His footsteps had blazed with white fire, and his eyes had looked so deep, like windows into forever. He’d become some kind of god in this place. Maybe literally a god. And yet, even so…

She didn’t love him. She'd never loved him, she realized.

Faces came to her. The Mysterious Stranger, the man Todd had killed, the anti-Celestine figure who’d seduced her so amazingly, so thoroughly, so exhaustingly. Wonderfully. It had been wild and frightening and so, so liberating. She’d felt like she was riding a tiger, and while it was dangerous and insane it was also unlike anything she’d ever imagined. And then he was gone, and the next time she saw him Todd had killed him. She’d been upset about that, but hadn’t wanted to say so. She wished now that she had.

Thunk. Big and strong Thunk. Quiet and slow and patient Thunk. He’d been so sweet when she’d seduced him in the upstairs bedroom of Ralph's house. He’d told her that he’d loved her for so long, but hadn’t wanted to ruin her relationship, or his friendship with Todd. She’d shushed him, and given him permission to use those huge, gentle hands. In his arms, she’d felt so safe. He accepted her, asking nothing, denying nothing. Thunk would have been content to hold her forever… and then Todd had come in. He’d done something to Thunk that day, she thought. Todd blew out his light like a candle, and nothing remained but some kind of loyal zombie.

Pray to Todd? Not likely. It felt like every time she thought she found something good, somthing hers, Todd came along and destroyed it. Killed it. She'd never really thought about it, but before the House of Mirrors she'd kind of thought of herself as an accessory. As something incomplete, defined by the men around her. So Todd treated her like that from time to time - is that even his fault, or was he just giving her what she'd been asking for? Did it even matter? Friendships that interfered with their relationship, cut off. Jobs that took time away from Todd, gone. Some fired her, because she'd been absent, others she'd quit. Still gone. Even her own life – being uprooted from work and school and whisked on some bizarre quest to find the Carnival was just the latest example. The last. Holidays, friends, sultry summer nights, crisp autumn days... all over now, because of Todd. Because she'd let him... made him... become her world. Fuck Todd, she thought.

The pressure eased. “You do not worship the Todd?” boomed the chamber.

I don’t even like the Todd, she thought, I was so going to break up with him, but you never gave me the chance! The great stone hand opened, holding the smoldering shattered woman in its palm. Something dribbled down her chin. She wondered idly what was leaking out of her nose. Was that – oh, shit, it was brains.

He was cruel to you?

She convulsed, desperately trying to fling herself down to the lava, or do herself enough damage to die. No, but I never let him see me. I was using him to punish myself, I think. Not his fault, but I'm done with it. Are you going to kill me yet?

She wanted Thunk, and was a little surprised by it.

Her father would have fainted to see her now. Her mother would have retched, or hooked her up to expensive machines and kept her safe in a locked room forever. Todd wouldn't know what to do, but would probably have some theory or other, some carnie he could track down and force them to wish it all away. She wanted Thunk. She wanted him to hold her, one last time. She knew what he’d do, how he’d carefully make the pain go away, and mourn her afterward. He’d do it without even being asked, because he loved her. She'd spent most of her life not knowing herself at all, but Thunk had known her the whole time. Fucking tragic, but there it was.

The giant hand crumbled, and she tumbled down, down into the fumes and the magma. Falling ahead of her, she saw the fucking golden ticket. It glowed with a brilliant radiance, and seemed to get bigger and bigger as she fell.

Well, fuck. she thought, as it wrapped around her and she landed in the pool of lava with a bone-shattering impact. The ticket melted and dissolved, and then she did, too.





She was rising through the ground, faster even than she had fallen. This time, though, there was no pain. The earth slid away as she approached, roots and insects were immolated by her fiery touch. She felt the heat, felt the heavy, slowly churning of the metal and magma that had become her body. It was glorious. Sheila broke the surface, and laughed at the blast of pressure as the ice she touched exploded into steam at her touch. It tickled, and she did a little pirouette, delighted with it all. Was this what it felt like for Todd? Was the power this sensual, this delicious when he used it?

The clouds of steam thinned, tugged up by the draft of hot air rising off her. A figure was revealed, chained to the ice. She stepped closer, enjoying the tickle as each step devastated the snow, shattered the ice, threw up more steam and seared the soil to blackened glass. Who was that? He looked familiar…

It was Thunk. She smiled. Of course it was. Somebody had cut off one of his arms, and chained him naked to a glacier, by the looks of it. Silly damn thing to do to someone, but who was she to criticize? She was pretty sure that she’d just died. He stared at her, and she let him. If she looked as good as she felt, then it'd probably be quite a treat. The updraft from her heat caused the steam to swirl around them, particularly around her, and she wore it like a dress, letting it conceal and reveal at random.

Thunk, for his part, seemed to approve. His approval jutted from his groin in her direction just like he wasn’t bleeding to death from that missing arm. She smiled at him again, arching an eybrow and enjoying the way her whole body was making musical little pings as it cooled. Water was beginning to condense on the supple metal. She raised her hand, wanting to touch his face, but hesitant to do so. She might still burn him.

She saw elaborate Victorian filigree work etched all over her body, particularly prominent in her fingernails. It was the same pattern that had bordered the golden ticket. Thunk was straining toward her, reaching with an arm he didn’t have, nearly breaking his remaining arm as he fought the shackles. She felt the ghostly touch of his missing fingers, caressing her cheek, her lips, tracing down her neck. It made her shudder. She stepped closer to him, holding his hips and feeling him press his body against her. The vapors around them were settling again, more fog than steam now. While hot to the touch, she wasn’t hurting him, and she was glad. Was this really Thunk? Really him, not the mindless minion Todd had made of him?

She held him tight, and knew that it was. This was the real Thunk. The glacier was inside him, in his heart or soul. Parts of him were missing, she felt. Todd's power is only to destroy, not to remake a person. So he'd wiped away everything that wasn't loyal to him. He'd destroyed the world inside Thunk's being, locking him on this glacier, but letting him see the light, the fire, that was Todd. It reinforced the bindings.

Thunk tried to embrace her, but was stopped by the shackle on his right arm. His left arm caressed her back, reminding her of his careful, tender manner that day in Old Ralph’s place. It held her with the strength of a whisper, and she wanted more.

The shackles.

Those were Todd’s doing. She knew she couldn't break them, or unlock them. She knew the stone man had sent her here, perhaps in apology, and wondered what she was supposed to do...

She pulled away, looking into his eyes. He could remain here, imprisoned on the ice forever. Or she could help him get free, she realized. The knowledge was there, a parting, final gift from the stone man. Neither of them could break him free alone, but perhaps, just perhaps, if they were together… “Do you want me?”

He moaned, his eyes glazed and semicoherent. She writhed against him, relishing the feel of his skin, the pressure of him against her abdomen. What a damn shame, to only realize what life was about right at the end. Still, there was some comfort in the fact that she'd always be with Thunk. Always.

The fires in her core roared to life once more, and she felt herself once again becoming the blazing hot creature she'd been when she first arrived. Thunk didn't burn, but strained all the closer, as though starved for warmth, so hungry for her heat that he ate it before it could burn him. She held him so tight, even as she melted. She flowed into him, through his skin and his mouth as they kissed, sinking into Thunk and lending her fire to his heart, her steel to his spine. She filled in the places that had been accidentally destroyed by Todd as he came into his power. She faded, her consciousness falling away into the place we all go, as she gave everything she'd been given by the stone man to Thunk. Her last thought was a smile at how fitting it all was. Thunk accepted her, and she loved him for it. And then she was gone.

Neither of them were aware of the shackles melting away, falling in glowing droplets as Thunk stretched. His arms extended up, one of them shining metal, the other strong and solid flesh. They didn't notice the wave of heat that rolled off him like an explosion, shattering the entire glacier and relighting the sun high above.

Thunk missed it, because he'd regained consciousness in the tinker's workshed. All he knew was that he felt better than he'd ever felt. More complete, somehow. The old Thunk was gone, since once destroyed, certain things cannot be replaced. The man who remained was twice touched by divinity, remade in steel and fire and steam. A kind of holy man, perhaps, of a sort new in this world.

Sheila missed it because she was gone.
She'd found her peace, at long last.