by Joseph Fink
The muzzle was directly perpendicular to my body as the shot went off. The explosion was a golden spark and charcoal puff. If I was not dead before, I was certainly dead now. She was an excellent shot. Whatever I thought I knew about Eleanor, it was not everything. I failed to know she was as skilled and steady as a pistoleer. I wondered what else I had failed to know about her.
But in the moment following the shot, I felt no pain, no impact. In the corner in which I hid, I felt my neck and my chest. I was intact. I turned behind me. I put my fingers to the wall and felt a hole where the lead shot had gone through. The wall was buckled, sharply frayed, and hot to the touch. I do not know how the shot had missed me. Or if it had missed me after all.
Eleanor did not move. She stared in my direction, weighing her options: collect the dead body of her intruder, or reload the gun. I weighed my own options, which were either to flee or to confront. I heard men shouting from the hallways and I knew my chances of escaping this situation were narrowing. Even so I chose the latter.
I stepped forward, the moonlight revealing only a swath of embroidered jacket and still-wet trousers, the remnants of what I was wearing in Venedict’s bar. “Eleanor,” I said, almost pleading. “Of all places on the earth, I arrived here. In your room, having never met you, but knowing exactly who you are. I need to know why.”
Eleanor gasped. She wanted to step back, to run away screaming. I could see it in her raised shoulders and swaying knees. But her resolve was strong, and she stayed in place, a protective hand across her swollen belly.
“Show your face, coward,” she told me.
I took one more step forward, the moonlight cold across my face and neck.
Eleanor’s eyes widened. She drew in a slow breath. I waited for her response: a scream, a sigh, a conversation even. The door of her room buckled under the thumping fists of men outside.
“Miss Eleanor, open the door,” came one shout, amid several similar others of frightened concern.
“I must go now,” I said to the still frozen Eleanor, “but I will return.”
The door finally gave way and three men stumbled inside, immediately surrounding Eleanor.
“Ma’am, we heard a gunshot,” said one man.
“Are you okay?” said another.
The third man walked to the bullet hole and caressed it.
Eleanor said, “I thought there was someone in here, but it must have been the wind.” She looked to where I had been standing, but I was not there.
I was outside the door, peering in on the action. My movement was neither human nor ghost-like. I did not walk with legs. I did not drift through walls or hover off the ground. I had gravity. I could feel the floor against my feet. I could (occasionally) hold things, but I was still learning how to do so consistently. My elderly body was an infant in many ways.
Underneath the feeling of skin contact, though, was something less tangible, more powerful. My connection to Eleanor.
I watched her stand stupefied and indifferent to the adolescent panic of the men who designated themselves her protectors. They were employees of her husband who had taken over ownership of the young woman from her father last year, on the day of their wedding. These men lived in fear and awe of Eleanor’s husband, a European trader who had inherited great wealth from his father. They were chivalrous and noble men who would come to the aid of any white woman of a certain class, but their protection of Eleanor was entirely an act of self-preservation. She did not need them, and felt more irritated than comforted by their presence. Still they clucked about her, because should something have happened to the boss’s wife they would face more than unemployment. There were frightened whispers about how powerful and dangerous her husband’s family was. These are the things I knew without knowing, but what did I not know? My connection to this wealthy American woman confused me deeply.
Their wedding was a business arrangement between Eleanor’s father and her husband’s father. The European had arranged for his only son to marry the American’s only daughter. Money and accounts had changed hands. Graceful stags and handsome alligators had been gunned down on chummy hunting excursions between the two old men. The wealthy protect their wealth by combining it into more wealth.
Eleanor’s husband was set to arrive by ship on Thursday night, so that he might be present for the birth of his first child, a son. Arriving with him was his elderly father. And before I heard the name of Eleanor’s father-in-law said aloud, I already knew it.
E
dm
o
n
d
“Theodore and his father Edmond will be here soon,” said one man.
“He’ll be glad to know you are safe,” said another man.
“Do you want us to tell him of this?” grunted the third man, still gingerly touching the hole in the wall.
“No,” said Eleanor, her expression unchanging, “let me rest, gentlemen.”
They left the room. She remained standing.
Suddenly I was no longer in the hotel but sitting at the end of a gnarled wood fishing pier hissing his name.
Eddddmmmmoonnnnnd.
I inhaled the first syllable and exhaled the second, as I kicked my bare feet in the moon-dusted water. My feet were colorless and enormous beneath the surface of the sea, warped and wavering beneath restless ripples.
I knew Eleanor because I hated Edmond. The petty gods of my forebears were real enough to let me play this game of righteous vengeance, and I would not disappoint them.
I did not know what year it was outside of Eleanor’s hotel, but Edmond was in his mid-eighties when I drowned in Nulogorsk, and still he lives. Still Edmond lives in the wealth, peace, and fatherhood he always desired, free from justice.
In the stars above I imagined dotted lines and arcs, trying to find a divine message, but it was folly. They were only stars, and even if they were something greater, they kept their secrets. Below the stars, I saw, at the edge of the dark horizon, a single sail ship. It was lit not by the moon, but by the radiant stacks of crates upon its deck, and atop it a flickering black flag with a white labyrinth emblem. Like the stars, the Order would forever remain immutable and beyond the reach of my influence.
I let my legs farther into the water. The cold water soaked into my trousers and raced up my hips. I no longer feared the deep and I dropped my whole body in. The trauma of temperature and atmosphere caused me to cry out. The chilly brine seared my skin, and the silence of the midnight air was replaced by the dull roar of the ocean. A low, loud thrum that undulated imperceptibly, each change in pitch taking place over hours as the tides shifted, neap to ebb, the heartbeat thrum of the ocean. I felt alive. I did not believe I was dead.
I stared upward at the would-be gods in the sky and saw only warped dots shakily drawn on a fake firmament, a theatrical set piece for the play of my life. It was here, under the water, that I felt most real.
Two worlds, top and bottom, dead and alive, land and sea. Maybe I belonged to both. Or neither.
My chest began to burn and my vision darkened. I could not breathe. Lost in my joy at Edmond’s eminent arrival, I had drifted several feet down from the surface. I tried to swing my arms to get back to the surface, but I could not move. At one moment my intangibility saved me from a mortal gunshot wound, and at the next it doomed me to drown.
Edddddmmmmooonnnnd, I hissed with my last usable breath. I wanted Edmond dead in my arms. I wanted him to cough his last blood-splattered breath right into my lap. From below the water, I looked back at the stars, wiggling like silver worms in the wavy surface of the ocean. The stars became still. My lungs stopped burning. I could breathe. Upon saying his vile name, I was standing, full of anger and purpose, on the gnarled wooden pier again, facing upward to the sky. In my rage, I can be anywhere, do anything. Vengeance is my path, and I must never once veer from it.
3
If I were to kill Edmond I would need to master my movement and most certainly I would need to be able to grab t
hings. One of the men in Eleanor’s room carried a knife on his belt. That would do just fine.
The stars disappeared. I was inside the hotel once again.
I stood over the sleeping body of the man with the knife. I did not like this man. His trousers and shirt were folded neatly atop a chair next to his too-small bed. His bulbous feet hung over the edge of the mattress.
I reached into the clothing to find the knife, which I did, but it was difficult to grab.
Eddddmmmmooonnnnd, I thought, and the bitter name clenched my hand, and I made contact with the hilt. Before I lost my ability, I yanked it upward.
I was angry, and I was armed. I held the short dagger aloft. My instinct was to plunge it into the chest of this sleeping man, but I resisted. A mysterious murder the same night as a discharged pistol might prevent Edmond and his son from wanting to land here.
Before I could turn to leave I felt a sharp tickling at my feet. I crouched low and noticed a white rat just under the bed. It had perched itself onto my toes, its nose turned upward searching for food or sensing potential predators. The rat was beautiful and rare with its dark red eyes sunken in pink. The fur was pure white but mangy or at least scarred from near misses with the hotel’s cats.
I held my hand out to the rat and it climbed onto my palm, a trusting companion. I left the room to find the hotel’s kitchen. I took a bottle of molasses from a cupboard and returned to the room.
I set the rat onto my shoulder and uncorked the bottle. I peeled back the sailor’s bedsheets, poured molasses over his body and placed the rat on his chest. It began to lick furiously at the thick syrup. Its licks were wild, open-mouthed, revealing rusty, jagged teeth. In its hunger and enthusiasm, it had begun biting the man’s belly, little bloody divots began to form on his skin. He twitched in his sleep, the pain surely would wake him soon, so I pulled the sheets back up over his body, up to his chin and pulled them tight around his neck.
He awoke in confusion. He began to twitch and squirm.
“What is that? What is that?” his excited voice lifting on each iteration. “Ow! Oh, God. No! No!” he fought and squirmed but I held the sheets tight.
I leaned in close to his ears and whispered, “It’s an adorable albino rat who’s very hungry. Let him eat in peace.”
He didn’t even look to the voice in his ear. He screamed and thrashed his head about.
I had achieved what I came to achieve. I had physically manipulated an object. Several objects, in fact. And I had acquired a knife. I let go of the sheet. Double-checking my work, I reached for the open bottle of molasses and successfully grabbed it. I tossed it onto the man’s bed and left.
Then I was back at the fishing pier listening for his screams in the cool night air. They were faint but satisfyingly audible.
The remainder of the week, leading up to Thursday, I practiced picking things up: rocks, fistfuls of grass, glasses of wine. I cut my initials into the side of several tree trunks. Often I dropped the knife and spent fifteen or more minutes attempting to pick it back up.
I would breathe steadily and hiss Eddddmmmooonnnd until I had a firm hold again.
Whatever life my body had, it was made manifest by my rage toward the man who had killed me.
On Thursday evening, from below the gnarled wood planks of the dock, I watched as a brig pulled into port, but well before that I felt Edmond’s arrival. I planned to kill him on Friday night.
From the damp below the dock, I watched a cavalcade of the soles of men as they escorted the hunched Edmond, along with his much younger son, down the walkway into a carriage which carried them toward the hotel.
That night I entered his room and rifled through his belongings. I found a diary, detailing the mundanities of daily life on a merchant ship. There were no mentions of any thefts or bribes or even murders. I found the date only about two years earlier when Edmond left me for dead in Nulogorsk. All he had written was “Pietr caught a marlin today. He saved the bladed snout and plans to craft it into a decorative sword.” I found fur hats and polished leather shoes. But inside a small wooden box, I found another knife. It was dull and bent slightly near the tip, a lesser blade than the one I had just procured, but I knew this knife. I bought it in Rome—how many years ago—and had thrown it at Edmond (and missed) the last night we faced each other.
I watched Edmond sleep. He was so peaceful, and I was enraged. The audacity to find solace in such an insidious life.
I crawled into his bed and curled my body next to his. I leaned my head against the side of his and whispered, “I’m alive, Edmond. I want you to see me when I end you. I want to cut you from chest to navel. I want to show you what you’re made of. I want you to see your weak humanity spilling out of you. And the last thing I want you to see before mercy swaddles you in her arms is my face.”
“Edddddmmmmooonnnnd,” I hissed, and he stirred. I steeled myself as he began to turn his body toward me.
“Edddddmmmmooonnnnd,” I hissed again as I grabbed the knife at my side. I would not wait until Friday night. I would end him now. I did not know if his death would return me to my own, but I did not care. My life ended when he killed my father and took me from my home. I could not miss what I never truly had.
Edmond gasped and rolled over. And as he did, he grabbed a bell by his bed. He tried to ring it, but his clumsy hand sent it jangling to the floor. There was a knock at the door. He did not respond. I could see his labored breathing, his eyes staring up toward the ceiling. Another knock and the door opened. A servant stepped inside. “Sir?” the servant said.
Upon seeing Edmond’s still body and registering no response, the servant ran from the room, and I could hear him calling down the hallway.
“Edmond,” I said, trying to grab him, but I could not get hold of his body or nightgown. The small dagger that was a second ago clutched in my fist had fallen onto the plush duvet. “Edmond,” I urged again, my tangible body failing me.
From the door emerged two people: Eleanor and Theodore. I recognized Edmond’s face in Theodore’s, but Theodore’s complexion was more wan, and his eyes heavier somehow, in spite of being several decades his father’s junior.
Eleanor leaned down to Edmond, cradling her unborn with one hand and touching Edmond’s face with her other. Theodore stood uneasily back. Eleanor and Edmond had not registered my presence on the far side of the bed, but Theodore clearly sensed something that he did not like.
“He has no fever,” Eleanor said.
“Father, can you hear us?” Theodore asked.
Edmond stirred, a flash of recognition, and he lifted both his hands toward his children. They each took one of his hands, and they both began to weep. Softly, not heaving sobs, but gentle tears that fell off the jaw like drops off a melting icicle on the first spring day.
“My son,” Edmond rasped. “My exquisite daughter-in-law. I wanted to see you once more.”
“You have no fever, father. You’re going to be okay,” Theodore protested, but his voice belied his knowledge that this was the end. “You’ll see your new grandson very soon.”
But Edmond would not. He had lived a long and happy life, a life of safety, of pleasure, of privilege, of wealth, of success, and finally, of family. He had seen his son live with the same joy and comfort.
“That my children are here with me as I leave this earth is all I ever wanted,” Edmond said. “Know that my life has been happy, and my death even happier.”
I lifted up my fists to strike him, and let out a rasping scream of anger and despair. A smile curved across his aged face. My fists came down and connected with nothing. I groped for the dagger, but in my frenzy, my body would not cooperate. I made contact with nothing. No one in the room could even see me. Edmond squeezed his son’s hands and let out a soft exhale that rattled as gently as a breeze through a leafless tree. And with that, Edmond died.
The couple held each other, and wept quiet tears. I longed to sob too, but I could not. Once again, for the final time, my life had
been taken from me, yet I was not dead. Crying, even wailing, could not truly express the desperate, perfect loss I felt in that moment.
I could not even open my mouth to begin such an expression. Where had my mouth gone? Where was my face?
As the younger couple comforted each other, I lay silently, curled next to Edmond’s body, the shape of a mourning wife. All hope was lost, and I wished I were alive so that I might die. But that would not happen. It may never happen.
4
I believed the invisible path I followed had misled me, had betrayed me as Edmond had betrayed me, leading me with false promises and theatrical deception, only to drop this curtain upon my head just before the final scene.
Days later there was a funeral. Everyone wept but me. I stood behind a tree and watched, unnoticed by anyone except for Theodore. He looked even worse than the night his father died, his eyes dark and haunted. At one moment I felt him looking straight at me, but as I studied his eyes, I saw nothing. Like the eyes of a fish, they were upsettingly empty.
I spent the next several weeks in the coastal water of St. Augustine, as Eleanor and Theodore moved forward with their lives. Eleanor was exceptionally healthy, but Theodore continued his pallid decline. His condition could be attributed partly to a half-knowledge of my presence, but I was beginning to believe he was also ill in some way.
My curiosity pulled me, at least for a short time, out of my depressive state. I followed him, watched him eat, bathe, talk, attempt to conduct business meetings in town with Eleanor’s father, but everyone, including Eleanor, had noticed his weakening health.
One night, I watched him in his room. He turned in early, as Eleanor was still preparing herself for bed. He had already fallen fast asleep atop the covers when Eleanor, in her silk nightgown, entered from the toilet and stood over the frail man, her skin and hair radiant, her posture like an Athenian sculpture. Theodore, in a too-large night frock and thick socks, looked like a troll too tired to ask his riddle.