by Ellen Datlow
She closed the lid, but kept hold of the box. “Then why are you?”
He looked around the room as if an answer was hiding in the shadows behind a steam trunk or under a mid-century end table. Or as if someone might hear. “Because, I think it’s what you’re looking for. Do you want it?”
She hesitated. It was awful. This wasn’t a thing borne through a lifetime that someone held on to for comfort as their final moments passed. This was . . . different. It wasn’t a thing near loss. It was loss.
She wanted it.
“How much?” she asked. The bell at the front of the store cut off the man’s reply before he could quote her a price. His head whipped around to look through the gap in the door and his face went paler. He turned to June and glanced urgently at the emergency exit in the far back of the store room. He was urging her to flee.
She stood her ground. “How much?”
“Geoffrey? Are you back there?” Mr. Jackson called out.
“You’ve got to go,” the man whispered as he lurched toward the door. He stood in the crack and poked his head through. “Hey, Miles! What are you doing here?”
“I came to catch up on a little paperwork. No rest for the wicked.” He laughed. “You feeling all right? Need me to watch the front for a minute?”
The man—Geoffrey—waved his arm at June to go. She shut the box and set it in the larger, plastic container. Putting the thing away felt bad. It tugged at her. She hadn’t paid, but she wasn’t leaving without it either. She told herself she could return some other time and pretend that she’d picked something else up while Mr. Jackson was out. That was it. Go now and come back later to settle up.
Geoffrey waved again at her from behind the door to go. He said, “No, I’m good. Just got out of the bathroom. But you know, now that the tank is empty, I’d love a cup of coffee. My treat, if you run out to get it.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll cover you. Take a break and go get yourself something. I want to get started on the inventory. I feel like I need to purge the storeroom. I can’t stop thinking about that ghoul who came in last night. Can you imagine trying to sell such a thing?” He groaned. “The thought of it makes my skin crawl.”
Geoffrey faked a laugh and agreed.
June felt a pull from within her arms. She turned and started for the door. The space in the back of the store was tight with clutter. She had to suck in her stomach to brush between a secretary desk and a bicycle. Behind her she felt some small thing catch on her clothes. It shifted with her and she stopped, hoping it would also stop along with her. It didn’t. She wasn’t quick enough to catch it and it clattered to the floor, shattering with a bright sound.
“What was that?” Mr. Jackson’s footsteps were hurried and heavy. June was frozen. She clutched the box to her chest. Geoffrey started to say, “It’s noth—” but Mr. Jackson had the door open before he could finish.
“Ms. Porter?” Mr. Jackson said. “What are you doing back here?” He seemed surprised, almost pleasantly so. His reflexive smile started to appear, but died as his eyes tracked down to the box cradled in her arms. His face flushed red. “Ms. Porter!” He turned. “Geoffrey! What is going on here?”
June spoke up. “Geoffrey was trying to—”
Mr. Jackson silenced her with a stare. “I know what Geoffrey was doing; I’m not an idiot. Though, I am surprised at you, Ms. Porter. I thought better of you than this. But then, it’s your standing order that brought that to my store in the first place.”
“I don’t . . .”
“I have other eccentric customers, to be sure. But this is beyond the pale. I can only imagine someone thought that was a thing he could sell to me because word has gotten around about your . . . tastes. Well, if you want to collect . . . medical oddities, this is not the place for you. My reputation is worth more than you spend here.” He turned toward his employee, who seemed to be trying to slowly slide through the door Mr. Jackson was blocking. “And you, Geoffrey, are fired. Get your things and get out.”
“But, Miles!”
Mr. Jackson raised a finger and Geoffrey flinched. “You heard me. I’ll send your last paycheck tomorrow. Don’t bother coming in to get it.”
Geoffrey looked at June as though he wanted to complete their transaction. Like he was signaling her to meet him outside. Or even just offer him cash right then. She felt sure he’d paid out of his own pocket for the box, but she didn’t imagine that Mr. Jackson was about to let them conclude their transaction. Still, whether or not she was able to reimburse the man for what he’d spent, she wasn’t leaving without the box.
She began to walk toward the door. Mr. Jackson held up a hand. “You’re taking that?” he said. She didn’t say anything, just held it closer. “Fine. Get it out of my shop. I’m happy to be rid of it. But leave through the back. I don’t want anyone seeing you come out of here holding that.”
June didn’t wait for him to change his mind. She turned and, stepping over the shards of whatever it was she’d broken, pushed through the steel door into the alley.
The smell of a dumpster broiling the waste from the Chinese restaurant next door hit her solidly. Sweet rot. Her stomach turned, but she held her sick down and rushed as fast as she could past it and out of the alleyway.
She stepped from the shade into the open street, and the sunlight on her skin felt shameful, as though she was lit with judgment. It shone on her brightly, reflecting off the blank tan box in her arms like she carried a piece of its starlight with her. A beacon that blinked a message to everyone who saw her.
Ghoul.
Feeling too uncomfortable to take the subway home, she hailed a taxi instead. She did her best to hide the box as she climbed into the back seat. The driver didn’t ask. He drove her home in silence, looking at her the whole way in the rearview mirror. At the end of the trip, she threw cash through the window in the divider and jumped out of the car as soon as he unlocked the doors. He squealed his tires pulling away from the curb.
The feeling of breathlessness subsided. She was home with the box. It was hers. She covered it with an arm to conceal it and climbed the steps to her building.
3.
The box sat alone on her dinner table and she felt a sting of shame at having brought it home. Mr. Jackson had been a friend, though a distant one. Though he hadn’t said it, she was sure she wasn’t welcome in his shop any more than Geoffrey was. But in the moment, she’d felt compelled. That Geoffrey had lost money didn’t matter. That Mr. Jackson has lost respect for her didn’t matter. The box mattered. But not the box. What was in the box. Not even that, really. What the box invited was what mattered. Though, that feeling of urgency had worn off now that she was home with it. And it wasn’t pushing or pulling at her.
She opened it and pulled the smaller container—the cradle—out. She set the plastic case on the floor under the table and stared at the brass inlays and what she realized now were faux pallbearer handles on the front. As if the miniature casket would be borne to the grave by other tiny hands.
With trembling fingers, she opened the lid and peeked in at the satin bag. June had a good idea what she’d see if she untied the ribbon holding it closed: a tiny body, barely formed—arms and legs no bigger than twigs and eyes that had never opened. Was it pink or brown? Was it some other color? Gray? Or purple, like rot. She both wanted to know and didn’t. It didn’t matter. It was here and hers and whatever it looked like didn’t matter.
June traced one of the laurels with a finger. The fear that she might outlive her child had always been there in the back of her mind, urging her to say things like, Be careful, Don’t talk to strangers, and Look both ways. And while she’d thought maybe, some distant day, she might survive her spouse, she’d never imagined losing her entire family at once. And then, there was no one to say any of it to anymore. A car crash crushed her child’s body before she could say, Look out. There was no sleeping lover to whisper Good night to when she came late to bed, because of that one deafening, wordless
moment. And then forty years passed like some kind of dream and she woke up and realized that all her life was spent looking back until there was almost no more ahead.
She stood and moved over to the ritual table with her collection of other people’s treasured things. One by one she removed them from the table and placed them in the plastic outer box under the dinner table until she could think of a better home for them all. Perhaps, in her storage unit in the building basement.
Unlike the small things, the cradle didn’t seem to fit anywhere except at the center of the star. June moved the candle out of the way and set the cradle down. She lit the wick and whispered her invitation.
“Please come. Please stay.”
Nothing.
She hadn’t had time to ask about the box. Who first owned it, who sold it, and why? Was the woman who’d filled it still alive? Even if she had asked, Geoffrey probably hadn’t gotten any sort of provenance for it or its contents. Mr. Jackson’s reaction suggested this transaction was performed in the same alley to which he’d banished her. She imagined that was how things like this were always sold. In secret places, hushed voices in the dark bickering over price and no more. No questions asked.
June closed her eyes and sat in front of the table waiting for something to change. But nothing did. The neighbor upstairs continued to pace, while cars honked on the street below, and people shouted to one another in both pleasure and frustration. The air conditioner hummed and only cooled the dinner table.
That feeling of embarrassed regret returned. Reality and self-consciousness returned and said what she was doing was absurd and stupid and she was a fool for wanting to believe in ghosts as badly as she did. If it weren’t for Kat and the girl in the trees, maybe she never would have done any of this. Maybe she would have gone on dates and maybe had another child. Once, she’d still had time to have a whole other life.
The thought that she should get rid of it came to mind. She hadn’t spent anything on the casket. She could dispose of it respectfully, make a couple of calls and ask if she could pay to have it cremated or buried. She could bury all of it. All the things that should be in coffins in cold earth with their owners.
She could let go of it all.
And then she could go apologize to Mr. Jackson.
She stood and pulled the plastic box out from under the dinner table. Filled with the things she’d piled in it, there was no room for the little coffin. Not if she wanted to replace the lid. She upturned the box, and dumped its contents out onto the ritual table with a clatter and a heavy thunk. The pocket watch tumbled out last and fell into the open casket. It clanked against the jar. She gritted her teeth waiting for the sound of cracking glass and the smell of formaldehyde and . . .
She didn’t want to think about it.
Nothing broke. No horrible smells revealed what an awful thing she had brought home. She reached down to pluck it out, but hesitated. The air near the cradle felt thicker. Colder. She pulled her hand back and the cold reached up for her. The chill radiated out of the cradle and brushed up against her belly. It wasn’t an unwelcome touch; it felt like a caress.
There was a hint of something like a whisper in her ear. She thought it sounded like I’m here. Or, perhaps, Come here. She leaned closer. The cold caress moved from her belly up over her breast, to her cheek, where it stopped like a loving hand holding her face still before a kiss. She closed her eyes and waited for the pressure against her lips. But the touch faded.
“No. Don’t go,” she said, her eyes springing open. “Please stay.” Her breath billowed out in front of her. It faded in the hot apartment and was replaced by her next and the one after that. She was panting with excitement, her heartbeat thundering in her ears like the thrum of the ocean.
She picked up a class ring and the dog tags and the glasses and dropped them all in the casket along with the watch and jar until it was overflowing. The chill enveloped her and she felt movement around her sides and behind her. Small breezes that ruffled her clothes and made her hair dance. She thought, a hand on her hip would be so welcome—that little push that moved her around the floor in tandem with a partner.
The speakers behind her began to peal with Chet Baker’s trumpet and she spun around to see who’d started the record player. Something shifted like a movement out of the corner of her eye, though it wasn’t in the corner, but dead ahead. She tried to track it, but the distortion faded before she could get a bead on it. She took a step toward the stereo. The pull of something that didn’t want to be far from her stopped her. A clinging presence begged her to stay, holding her skirt. Like her daughter had always done.
“Janice?” she said, whispering her girl’s name. “Is that you?” The tug came again, harder. She faced the casket on the low table and felt cold.
The lights dimmed and there was pressure on her shoulders. A brush against her neck that flipped her hair away. She laughed, tears falling down her cheeks wetting thin lines that felt the cold more than the rest of her face. More hands. There was pressure at the small of her back, and encircling her legs. She felt unsteady, like she might fall. Another touch righted her and stuck close.
They’d come.
They were all around her.
She tried to take a breath. She couldn’t get a deep one and wheezed, trying harder. The cloud of exhalation that hovered in front of her mouth was smaller than before and took longer to dispel. The air was thick and felt impossible to draw in.
She staggered a step away from the table. The presence clutching at her skirt pulled, and the one at her back held on, and the others all around her slowed her movement. It felt like pushing through water. Clutching hands with insistent fingers pulled and pinched and held her.
“Not . . . all . . . at once,” she gasped. It was too close, too intimate. There were too many. How many of their things were in the apartment with her? How many had she collected? Dolls and rings and necklaces and favorite books and crosses and a knife and the watch. And the glasses. She reached for Kat’s glasses.
Don’t be afraid, the familiar voice said in that same voice that had once told her. It was the heat and the Ramos gin fizz. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
Her wedding ring tingled and felt heavy on her finger.
We’re here for you.
A tug at her skirt again.
Here for you.
Her chest hurt.
Always together.
Like fingers squeezing her heart.
She opened her mouth, gasping. Everything was cold and quiet. Though it turned, her record was silent. The neighbor upstairs had stopped walking. The cars stopped honking. All she heard was the faint murmur of voices inside her apartment.
Stay with you.
Always.
Together.
June picked up the cradle with trembling hands and carried it around to the sofa, holding it close so nothing spilled out. She sat heavily, falling more than lowering herself carefully. The glasses rattled next to the jar. She steadied everything inside with a hand, and balancing the cradle in her lap, looked at her treasures. There was just enough room for one more thing. She slipped off her wedding ring and dropped it in along with everything she’d collected from the dead. It made a small noise as it settled into its own space among everything else that she’d been able to fit inside. She closed her eyes and listened to her ghosts as the air got colder and thicker and harder to breathe. The pain in her chest spread up her neck and down her arm and she felt afraid.
What if she dropped the box and it spilled?
What if her ring fell out?
And she was left out.
What if none of this was really happening, because there’s no such thing as ghosts?
She let out a shuddering breath and waited while the dark got darker and all the voices hushed until she couldn’t hear anything at all anymore.
Some people just faded away and you never heard from them again. The kids called it ghosting.
Mee-Ow
Gart
h Nix
Jules was on his usual run, just before dawn. On the side of the road, facing the traffic—not that there was any at this time, but just in case—the reflectors on his GOrun shoes and his Saucony vest flashing up every time he ran into a pool of light from a street lamp, fading into the darkness between. Half the lights were out, the council skimped on replacing bulbs to save money, but this was no new thing. Jules didn’t mind the dark.
There were a few other runners who ran the road down to the beach and back this early, and there’d be a lot more later, once the sun was up. Jules usually met one or two early birds, the usual suspects. He was faster than all of them, particularly going uphill, something he prided himself on. Thirty-two, no sign of slowing down, and he could still see off the younger runners who fired themselves up the hill but couldn’t keep the pace going all the way to the top.
So he was surprised when he saw someone out of the corner of his eye, catching up to pace him. He hadn’t heard the other runner, which was also a surprise, because he never wore earbuds to listen to music or podcasts or whatever, unlike nearly everyone else. Blocking out the situational sounds was an invitation to get run over, Jules always said. He liked the early morning noises anyway, the birds waking, the crash of the surf as you got closer to the beach, the rhythmic slap of his own feet on the road.
“Hey,” said the runner. A woman, her voice low, not out of breath, though they were halfway up the hill and getting to the steepest part where it wound anticlockwise in a sweeping turn that made cars shift down three gears and trucks and buses groan up at a snail’s pace. A lot of runners walked the steep turn.
Jules grunted something that could be taken as hello. He flicked his eyes across to take a look at her, and almost tripped over his own feet and did a face-plant into the road. She was wearing a hoodie, hood up, but there could be no mistake. The runner was Samantha Finegold, a friend from long ago, back in his university days. An ex-girlfriend, kind of, at least they’d hooked up once, one time Jules had mostly managed to forget, not because the sex hadn’t been great because it had, but because of some other stuff that went on, and then they’d just drifted apart, and he hadn’t seen Sam since graduation, and had only thought of her maybe once or twice, hearing that Rumbelos song she loved or seeing a particular kind of weird batik shirt that was her favourite and he’d always made fun of.