by Shane Lee
“I am glad to hear that,” he’d told them. “If you need anything else or have trouble, Patricia would be the one to speak to. But I am sure that will not be needed.”
Mullen was right about that. The quarters were spacious and clean, but still cozy enough for the siblings to not feel too far apart from one another, even in their separate rooms. Monty did have the chance to briefly meet Patricia, an older blonde woman who walked stooped over but looked strong enough to throw him ten feet through the air. She was businesslike and pleasant, thanking him for being a tenant, and Monty didn’t probe into whether or not she knew the money was coming from Judge Mullen. Probably she did.
It was just before Meera Sand’s visit that Monty was thinking that living in town—really living there, not just having an eight-by-eight space tucked into the Commons—was actually quite nice. They’d spent two nights there so far, and he wasn’t pining for home the way he thought he might, nor did Terra seem to be homesick. Not for the house, nor for their tiny former quarters.
“Imagine having a whole house here,” Monty was saying to Terra, before their conversation was cut short by a knock at the door.
It was the first visitor they’d had. They knocked again, three taps that weren’t heavy or particularly loud. Monty knew how the Judge knocked, and it wasn’t like that. Perhaps the landlord?
Monty opened the door to see the plump, solemn face of Meera Sand. She quickly lowered her raised fist, folding her hands in front of her.
“Hello, Monty,” she said, adding, “and Terra,” when she joined Monty at the door.
“Oh—hi, Meera.” Monty wanted to ask why she was here, but wasn’t sure how to do it without sounding rude. His mom would have known how.
“I heard you two were living in town,” Meera said, moving her gaze down to Terra and putting on a small, sad smile. “I wanted to come by and offer my condolences for the loss of your mother. I hadn’t had a chance to say so.”
Monty tried not to think about the burning, and how Meera had almost certainly there been there to see what happened.
“Um, thanks, Meera,” he said, the words coming out awkwardly, while Terra nodded along.
Meera moved right along, not perturbed. “I wish I’d known the two of you were here sooner. I’m sure your space could use some warming up. You don’t decorate, do you, Monty? Terra?” Before either of them had finished shaking their heads, she continued, “I have some lovely hanging shawls that would really brighten the walls in here, especially with all the light coming in.”
Monty thought that the walls were plenty bright. “Thanks, Meera, but that’s okay. We’re still getting used to the place.”
“Aren’t shawls for wearing?” Terra asked, but Meera either didn’t hear her or thought she was joking, because she just smiled and kept talking.
“Everything could use a little brightening.” The smile slipped off her face, and she leaned forward a bit, her hands still held together before her. “It’s been so terrible lately, but you know that, don’t you, Monty? Town courier and all. So many people are getting sick, and from what I hear, Dr. Tobias doesn’t know the first thing about it. Even after looking at all the bodies!”
Monty glanced down to Terra, but she didn’t seem bothered. “I know, it’s—”
“Yesterday they sent three people at once! Just stacked up the bodies on a tiny little pyre and lit them all! I’ve never heard of anything like that.” Meera sounded truly horrified. One of her hands came up to her chest, pressing against her heart. “Neither of you are feeling sick, are you?”
“No.” Terra had to answer for Monty, because he was stunned. Three people being burned at once? Dying, right after the other?
She’s getting stronger. Strong enough to live in multiple people, or to kill them so fast she can go to another one before the day is over.
“That’s good, that’s good.” Meera’s voice quavered. “It’s all happening so fast. If my Ed got sick, I don’t know what I’d do.”
And this is all happening while I bury my head in the sand inside this house.
He was ashamed. He’d been running without even realizing it.
“Don’t worry, Meera,” Monty said, and it felt right to put his hand on her shoulder, so he did. He looked down at her shorter frame. “This will—this will run its course.”
“I hope so,” Meera said, and her voice was a whisper, but she did meet Monty’s eye. “I’ve lived here my whole life, you know. Ed moved here some twenty years ago, but I’ve been an Irisa woman since I was a babe, and I’ve never felt this scared of my own town. Both of you stay safe. Stay inside, maybe, just in case.”
After she left, Monty closed the door but didn’t move. He said to Terra, “This is getting bad.”
“It’s already pretty bad,” she responded. “Do you really think they’re sending a bunch of people at a time?”
“I don’t think she lied about it.” He looked back toward Terra’s bedroom, where he knew the book she was reading—a new one, now—rested on her bed, the corner of her blanket tucked between the pages to mark her place. “Is there anything about Nal’Gee in that book?”
“Nothing,” Terra said with disappointment. “I wish there was someone we could ask. It might take me forever to find the right book.”
Monty had never heard about Nal’Gee from anyone but his parents. Could he pull any information from the Gartens? Not Mr. Garten, that was for sure, and his hopes weren’t much higher for his wife.
“I want to take a look around town,” Monty said. “You wanna come?” It felt like he hadn’t really paid attention to Irisa since his mother’s sending, just drifting through his work and not listening to what people were saying.
It shouldn’t take Meera Sand arriving at his door to show him how bad things were getting.
32
It only took a quick jaunt through town and a few conversations to show him that things were even worse.
Before the unsettling news started coming in, they went to Kettle’s, surprised to see it open and doing business, with the usual amount of people—maybe a little less—walking in and out. The sight made Monty smile, and he imagined Henry working behind the counter.
“Let’s go in and say hi,” Terra said, heading towards the store, but Monty stopped her.
“I don’t know if Henry would want to see us. I mean, I’m sure he would,” Monty corrected, “but it might bring up some bad memories. I was in his house when Audrey died, and mom’s sending was the last big one with the whole town...” Monty wasn’t sure if Henry had been there.
Terra said, “I didn’t think about that. Maybe you’re right.”
“Come on. I want to keep going.”
Their stroll through town took them to sharing a meat pie at the west corner bakery, Bradley’s shop. The same man who burned his ear with talk of poisoning and conspiracies turned out to be the one who let him in on the next piece of information.
Monty had expected Bradley, garrulous at best and a blabbermouth at worst, to have something to say, but he didn’t expect it to be useful. When he asked Bradley how things were going lately, Bradley was quick to spill.
Very quick.
“Business would probably be worse with all the people dyin’, except that no one is able to leave town,” Bradley said. “So I have lots of folks coming here for lunch and dinner and talking up a storm. I’m thinking of starting to open up early for breakfast now, if people—”
“What did you say?”
“No one’s able to leave?”
Monty spoke first, then Terra a split second later. Bradley stopped his jawing and looked back and forth between the two siblings sitting at the small table outside his bakery.
“Well, yeah, you ain’t heard? I was about to ask you about it, courier,” Bradley said, a smug smile settling onto his face.
“I hadn’t,” Monty said, annoyed with the man but needing to hear what he had to say.
“I think Henry was the first,” Bradley said, tal
king again the moment Monty’s lips closed. “Henry Kettle. Heard he tried to pack up his store and take his family elsewhere. Can’t blame him, I guess, even though I know he makes more gold than he needs without even tryin’.”
“All the Kettles are gonna leave?” Terra asked.
Bradley shook his head. “Were. Henry went to talk to the Judge—selling the building back to the town, or somethin’—and I dunno what all was said, but the bottom line was that Henry couldn’t leave. Violation of contract or somethin’. Henry didn’t put up much of a fight. Just went ahead and reopened the store instead.”
“So he—”
“But he ain’t the only one I heard of.” Bradley put the heels of his hands on the table and leaned in closer, but he didn’t lower his voice. “Townspeople, too. I mean, folks here who ain’t got businesses or land. They talk to the landlords and the officials about movin’—cuz they’re scared, lot of ‘em. And they’re either talked out of it by Mullen himself, gods know how, or they’re strong-armed into staying.”
Monty looked at Bradley until he moved back a bit, giving him some space. “How can they do that?”
Bradley shrugged, standing up straight again. “Relocation fees. Unpaid taxes, plenty of that in Irisa. And if that don’t work, threatening ‘em, straight up. Heard the Judge got himself a well-paid crew of...I guess you can call ‘em ‘residency enforcers.’ They’ll dangle tax levies, and they’ll break your wagon wheels if that ain’t enough. Even some travelers got trapped, someone was saying.”
Terra scoffed, a sound Monty had never heard from her before. But he felt just as skeptical.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Monty told him.
“Ain’t nothing official.” He gave another shrug. “Just what I heard. People try to leave, they find reasons to make ‘em stay. Not that I’m going anywhere.”
Monty nodded, although he hadn’t asked. “All right. We’re gonna eat now, Bradley.”
Once he was gone, Terra asked, “You think that’s true?”
“Not all of it,” Monty said. “Probably not even most of it. Bradley’s known to exaggerate. But...”
“But you think some of it might be true.”
Monty grinned before taking a bite of the pie while it was still hot. “He’s not an outright liar. He’s just a little stupid.”
That made Terra laugh. They finished their lunch with lighter talk, but Bradley’s rumor drilled its own little space into the back of Monty’s head, nesting. Even if it was only partly true, it was something unheard of. Just like burning multiple bodies at once.
The final piece dropped into place after lunch. They were moving steadily towards the east side of town when Monty was stopped in the street by the frantic housekeeper of Tobias Pelkin, or as he was more well-known around town: Dr. Tobias.
The housekeeper grabbed his arm with both hands and pleaded for him to come with her.
“He was fine earlier, I think he was,” the young woman said to him, after pulling him off the street to Dr. Tobias’s front door with Terra in tow. Monty knew her name was Bella—she was the one who took messages for Dr. Tobias when he wasn’t around. “But he hasn’t been himself all day, I think he’s sick, I was making him some soup and cutting bread and—”
“Stop, stop,” Monty said, holding steady while Bella tugged on him. “What’s going on?”
“I think he’s dead,” Bella whispered, and then the tears came. “I think he got what’s getting everyone else. I can’t bear to look, but I saw his head poking out of the covers, and it was—his hair’s all...”
Dr. Tobias was dead?
“He was talking to me, and then I think he fell asleep for a little while, that’s when I went to cook, but I went to go check on him cuz he was so awful quiet and he just...he looks small. Under the blankets. Like...like what happens to the people who die of the black.”
The black. So it had a name now.
“Monty.” Terra was tugging on him now, pulling hard on his shirt. “We should go and see.”
“Terra, you shouldn’t—”
“Please come inside,” Bella sobbed. “I don’t want to have to do it myself. I can’t bear it!”
“I found something about Nal’Gee,” she said to him, and the look in her eyes was urgent. Insistent. “I didn’t tell you yet because it wasn’t anything big like we wanted. But if she’s really in him right now, I think we can see her.”
33
Monty let Bella take them into the house, and he made sure to shut the front door behind them. He needed to talk to Terra, but it would be better if Bella didn’t hear anything. She was worked up enough.
“Bella, go and sit down. Let me check on him. If he’s—then I’ll take the news to Judge Mullen. You don’t need to do anything.”
“Okay, okay,” Bella said, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. “I’ll just...the soup...”
She wandered back towards the kitchen. She didn’t seem to notice that Terra was there, the small girl looking curiously around the house from where they stood.
Monty ushered them a little farther away, into a branching hall. The house was big, and Bella hadn’t told them where Dr. Tobias had been lying down. But if he was dead, they’d find him. The smell would take them there.
“Okay,” Monty said, hushed. “I really don’t like taking you in here, but...”
“I saw mom, you know,” Terra said, her lip quivering only a little bit. “I’ve seen stuff like this.”
That doesn’t mean you should make a habit of it, Monty wanted to say, but now wasn’t the time to argue. They were in this together, till the end of it. Instead he asked her, “What do you know?”
Terra’s eyes flashed with a moment of guilt. “It wasn’t exactly about Nal’Gee, the story. But it sounded like her. It wasn’t a story about one spirit, but just...how they work. Um, usually.”
They jerked at a noise from the kitchen, shattering glass or porcelain. Bella had dropped something. As she muttered to herself, their broken tension eased back into cohesion.
“So?”
“So, yeah,” Terra said. “The spirits—the evil ones who try to steal bodies—they don’t like to leave the body until it’s empty. They can, but it’s harder, I guess. So when someone dies and their soul goes to the beyond, that’s when they like to leave.”
“When someone is sent,” Monty said.
Terra nodded. “Or when the rites get read, you know? They’ll leave then. They don’t have to. They can leave before, but it’s harder ‘cuz they’re attached, it said. But...” Terra looked down the hall, where Dr. Tobias’s body was surely waiting. “There’s signs. If you’re watching when they start to leave, you can see it.”
“Signs like what?”
“The book said...” Terra closed her eyes, thinking back. “Their hair moves. Rustles, it said. Like there’s a breeze, even when there’s no breeze. The eyes open if they’re closed. If they’re open, they’ll, um, they’ll gleam. The body might move, or roll over for no reason. And the book said sometimes the body will talk, but that sounded kinda silly. I think it was just trying to make the story good.”
“I don’t know, Terra,” Monty said. “I’ve been to a lot of these readings. I haven’t seen any of that.”
She shrugged, catching his eyes. “Were you really looking?”
“I...” He didn’t want to admit it, but that was a good question. Of course he hadn’t been paying attention to those specific things, and he’d been a little out of it, especially with Audrey’s...
“Audrey moved,” he said slowly, the memory flooding him. “When Mullen was reading the rites, she moved, at least I think she did. Just a little. I thought she was still alive...”
He remembered staring at her body, praying to the gods and saints that she wouldn’t move again, fearing that she would come back to life and open her eyes and see them all.
“It was her,” Terra said, nodding, like a sage.
Monty almost wanted to snap at he
r, tell her that she hadn’t been there and she didn’t know what she was talking about, and he bit it back.
I just don’t want her to have to deal with stuff like this, he told himself.
Yet he was also more and more sure that he couldn’t do it without her, no matter how much he wanted to. She knew things, and she would learn more. She paid attention to things that he missed.
“I smell him,” Terra said, still quiet. “It’s what...it’s what mom smelled like when I found her.”
Yes, the smell was there now, brushing at him. The smell of death. The smell of the black. And Terra had noticed first, while he was busy reeling about something that had happened weeks ago.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Before she leaves again.”
Bella cried loudly in the kitchen.
34
It was easy to find the room and the body, and not just because of the smell. Pieces of a broken bowl were scattered where the hall turned. There was no spill. Bella must have been carrying an empty bowl, walking back to talk to Dr. Tobias, and lost it when she stumbled back from the room.
More shattered porcelain, Monty thought. Expensive. He’d probably be mad if he weren’t dead.
He was glad Terra was here.
The bedroom awaited them, the door hanging open like a gaping mouth. Darkness lay beyond.
“Are you ready?” Monty asked her, but she was already going in. He followed after her.
Terra hesitated once she reached the bed. The smell was strong and sickening, as it had been before. But it was the sight of the body that stopped her in her tracks.
The blanket was down past Dr. Tobias’s chest, which was just as narrow as his shrunken skull. His body, like the others, was blackened; not wholly black, but tanner than the tannest leather Monty had ever seen sold.
Terra wavered, standing a foot from the bed. “It really stinks.”