Haunted Nights

by Ellen Datlow

  Anna May looks up from Jack’s shiny, smelly shoes to the lantern in his hand, to his face, and then suddenly back to the lantern.

  “Is that a—a turnip?” she asks incredulously.

  “At one time, that’s all people had.” He sounds smooth, but there’s a little nervous undertone in his voice. Or maybe that’s my wishful thinking. “Back in the old country, that is.”

  “And which old country would that be?” Anna May asks.

  Jack oozes some more charm. Is it working on her? I don’t see how anyone would buy it, but I’m not desperate and dead. “I lost my accent ages ago. You couldn’t possibly guess.”

  Is the son of a bitch flashing her an aura? I use another charm app on my phone; sure enough, he’s glowing emerald green. Anna May doesn’t see it, but she can feel the suggestion.

  “I’m tempted to say Ireland,” she says finally, “but I don’t know why. And I don’t think that’s right.”

  “How many folks from the auld sod have ye met, darlin’?”

  “You sound like someone in a musical comedy,” Anna May says, laughing a little. “I don’t believe you.”

  He drops the lilt. “Then tell me—what do you believe?”

  Anna May gives another small laugh. “Can you be more specific?”

  “Do you believe in eternal life? As in being able to live forever?”

  “I don’t think it matters one way or the other, seeing as how I’m dead forever.”

  “What if you’re wrong about that? What if life could be yours just for the asking?”

  “You mean resurrection?” Anna May is skeptical. “I thought that was just at the end of the world.” Then she whirls around, peering through the darkness. “Is that why it got dark so early—it’s the end of the world?” She looks up at the sky. “I thought it would be a lot noisier. Or is this just the preliminary? How long before things really get going?”

  “Calm down, dear, it’s not the apocalypse. Not that one, anyway,” Jack says. “In fact, this could be the beginning—the beginning of something amazing, more wonderful than anyone ever dreamed of—for you. And only you—”

  That’s my cue. I stroll out of the shadows holding up my own lantern—my cell phone, with the flashlight app. “You’re busted, Jack. Take your turnip and hit the road before you overstay your welcome.”

  Anna May Perlmutter goes pale, and I mean all over so that for a few moments, she’s barely visible before fading back in again, looking like she’s seen a ghost.

  Jack blinks at me, genuinely astonished. “How old are you—twelve? Kid, you’ve got lousy parents, turning you to witchery before you’re old enough to marry.”

  Witchery? He’s really dating himself with that one. “I’d be flattered,” I say, “except at your age, everybody looks twelve. Ms. Perlmutter, you need to move away from him.”

  Anna May Perlmutter’s appearance suddenly settles at what could be her late forties or early fifties. “Why?” she asks, suspicious.

  “He means you harm. I only want to protect you.”

  She laughs at me, in a hard, unkind way. “You’re a little late, honey. I’m dead.”

  “Actually, you’re not all that dead. Not as dead as she wants you to be.” Jack gestures with the lantern. “Not yet.”

  Anna May looks from him to me and back again. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She turns to me with a troubled frown. “Were you spying on me? What kind of person spies on dead people?”

  “I wasn’t spying.” I can’t help feeling a little impatient, even though I know it’s just Jack’s influence. Family is family, no matter how many generations separate them. “I don’t want you to get talked into something you’ll regret forever.”

  “I. Am. Dead,” the woman says, enunciating like I’m an idiot. “What’s he gonna do—kill me?”

  “I’ll explain, but I’d rather there be more space between you and him,” I tell her. “Even just two feet.”

  “Or two miles,” Jack says.

  “Or ten miles. I vote for ten miles,” I say.

  Jack looks at Anna May, who hasn’t budged. “Sorry, kid, you’re outvoted,” he says, breezy and dismissive. “Now, go play with a poppet or something, the grown-ups are trying to have a conversation.”

  Anna May hasn’t moved away, but she hasn’t moved toward him, either. Or toward me. If she were alive, she’d think we were both lunatics. But she’s not alive.

  And Jack is family. It’s extremely difficult to obstruct a family connection when one relative is desperate, dead, and looking for a way out of the grave, and the other one seems to be offering just that very thing. Anna May is not a naïf; she knows if something’s too good to be true, it probably is. But that’s a fact of life, and she’s dead. She’s dead and he’s Uncle Jack, and all bets are off.

  “I’ve lived so long, you wouldn’t believe it,” Jack is saying.

  “Tell me how long, and I’ll decide if I believe it or not.”

  “Go ahead, tell her,” I say carelessly. “She’s family, she has a right to know.”

  But that’s the last thing Jack wants to do, and I know why—it might sound so utterly absurd to her, it’ll snap her right out of his influence. It won’t matter how much he swears and promises and pleads it’s the truth, she’ll be done with him and he’ll have to hit the road. If he stays too long in one place, the ember will burn through the turnip and he’ll have to carry the fiery thing in his pocket. It won’t kill him, or even do much damage, but it’ll be a serious pain till he can find a farmers’ market open at night (he can’t shop indoors; they always throw him out for smoking).

  “Really you won’t believe it,” he says after a bit.

  “Give me a ballpark figure,” Anna May says. “Half a century? A whole one?”

  “Much, much longer than that,” I say, enjoying this. I can’t wait to write it up after I get home. Too bad I didn’t get it all on video. Although it’s not too late; I take out my phone, hoping I can catch her reaction when Jack tells her he’s 1,537 years old. It should be priceless. Normally the dead don’t show up on video, but I have a charm app for that, too. Sometimes it’s hard to believe smartphones are actually tech from the natural world side of the veil; you can cram in all kinds of charms and spells as software. What a great time to be alive.

  “Suppose I said I’m a little over fifteen?” Jack says coyly.

  “Fifteen what?” Anna May says. “Leap years?”

  Jack just smiles. After fifteen centuries, the bastard figured out how to forestall giving her a straight answer. He’s starting to make the devil seem like a lovable old rogue. Hell, he makes Richard Nixon seem like a lovable old rogue.

  “Forget it,” Anna May tells him, sounding really annoyed now. “I can do the math—leap years would make you a lot younger than I am. Or was.”

  “All right, it isn’t leap years,” Jack purrs, trying to come off as mischievous.

  Anna May’s not having any. “Then what is it?” she demands. “Fifteen what? I insist you tell me right now, or this conversation is over.”

  No getting around that one; Jack has to answer truthfully. “Centuries,” he sighs.

  Just because Jack has to tell the truth on request, however, doesn’t mean I can’t call him a liar. “Centuries?” I laugh. “You expect anyone to believe that? The lady’s dead, not stupid.”

  “Shush, both of you!” Anna May snaps. “I’m trying to think.”

  Jack has the nerve to smirk at me. If Anna May’s trying to think after his ridiculous-sounding claim, it means he’s still in with a chance.

  “Fifteen-plus centuries,” Anna May says finally. “If that’s true, why quit now? Who’s after you?”

  “I haven’t an enemy in the world,” he says smoothly. It’s true, but not the whole truth. He doesn’t have any friends, either. He’s nothing to anyone. “And while I could easily go on living for another fifteen hundred years, lately I’ve been thinking that’s rather…well, selfish.”

  “Real
ly.” Anna May sounds completely neutral.

  “Really. Then I just happened to hear of your passing, and I thought, why not keep it in the family?” That smile is a thousand watts. I’d like to punch it, but I’m magically restrained from committing physical violence in the absence of physical danger, even though it would be in the service of good. It’s something about might corrupting right.

  “So just hypothetically,” Anna May says, “how would it work? How do you transfer your…uh…”

  “Extended life span,” Jack says helpfully.

  “How do you transfer that to me? And what will happen to you? Will you suddenly crumble into dust? Or do I get your body while your soul goes somewhere else?”

  “Oh, you get your own body back,” Jack tells her.

  “I should have known there was a catch!” Anna May draws back. “Being eighty forever? Forget it!”

  “You won’t be eighty,” Jack says quickly. “When you live forever, there’s no old age. And no illness. People who live forever don’t get sick. They don’t even catch colds. No allergies, either.”

  I can see that sounds a lot better to her. “I suppose I’ll have to move every few years so people won’t notice I’m not getting older,” she says. I doubt she even knows she said I’ll, like it’s no longer hypothetical.

  “Who knows, you might even decide you’d rather be on the move,” Jack says. “Most people never get to travel as much as they want to. All the interesting places you could see, the people you could meet—I can’t even begin to tell you.”

  “I always did want to see the world,” Anna May says, more to herself.

  “Not like that you don’t,” I tell her.

  “Are you still here?” Jack says to me. “If you really want to argue with someone, go find a bar and pick a fight with a stranger. This is private family business.”

  “No, it’s a con,” I say to Anna May. “If you go for it, you’ll be in a world of more hurt than you ever imagined.”

  “Ever had chemotherapy and radiation?” she asks me evenly. “Didn’t think so. Check back with me if you ever do. Then you can talk about a world of hurt.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly,” I say. “Ask him about how he’s been making a living for the last fifteen-hundred-plus years, ask him how many places he’s lived—”

  She tells me to shush. To Jack, she says, “Why are you really offering this to me?”

  “I told you. I felt—”

  “Selfish, yeah, yeah, heard you the first time. It’s gotta be more than that. Is the Mob after you? Or a bunch of jealous husbands? Are you a fugitive from the law? What happened that’s so bad you’d rather die?”

  “It’s not that I’d rather die,” Jack says carefully. “I just have a feeling deep in my heart that it’s time—long past time—to pass the torch. Or in this case, the lantern. And as I said, I want to keep it in the family.”

  “You still haven’t told me what’ll happen to you. Don’t you know?”

  “Not for certain.” He practically simpers. “If I don’t move on to the afterlife immediately, I’ll live out a normal life span as a mortal.”

  “You won’t find some way to come after me in a couple of years because you changed your mind?”

  “I swear to you, by all that is, ever has been, or ever will be that I’ll never try to take the lantern back,” he says cheerfully. “Now come here and stand in front of me—no, facing away—”

  She’s going for it. In seven times seven generations, nobody in our family business has ever failed to prevent Jack’s tricking someone living or dead into taking the lantern from him. If it happens on my watch, I’ll be making it up to the devil for decades, even if he manages to catch Jack before he can sneak into the afterlife. And if he doesn’t—

  If Jack somehow slips past all the safeguards and alarms and sentinels and whatever else they have to keep trespassers out, I won’t be the only one who pays for it, it’ll be my entire family, past, present, and future. They’ll yank my forebears out of their afterlives like mad dentists on a teeth-pulling binge. Future generations will find themselves born into disgrace and futility; most will probably never know why, and when death comes, it will be no respite, just more misery.

  Don’t think for a moment I’m exaggerating. The devil is still as mad at Orpheus for trying to break Eurydice out as he was the day it happened. And Orpheus didn’t even get away with it. Or how about “Prometheus”—does that name ring any bells? You know, the guy who can’t hang onto his own liver because a frickin’ eagle eats it every day? Which I happen to know is no picnic for the eagle, either.

  Any of those things could happen to me and my family, and being dead won’t save any of them. I have to do something. What do I do?

  “—put your hands right where mine are,” Jack is saying.

  “But they’ll go right through yours,” Anna May says. “We can’t touch.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jack says. “Just keep your hands curled around the handle as if you were holding it. Concentrate on your intention to take it while I concentrate on my intention to—”

  I dart forward, and before she can get her hands into place, I push Jack backward. It’s just a little push, nothing that could be called violent, but it catches him off balance and he moves out of position. Anna May yells as I pass through her, a faux pas made worse for my doing it on purpose.

  Automatically I start to turn toward her to apologize, then think better of it. Too late—Jack’s reflexes are fifteen hundred years ahead of mine. The handle of the goddamn turnip lantern is in my hands before I know it, and Jack is sidling away, both hands empty.

  “Isn’t this an exciting development!” Jack says, practically squealing. “Not what I originally had in mind, but screw it. Plan B works just as well.”

  For a few moments, Anna May can only make outraged noises. “That’s supposed to be mine!” she says finally. “Give it back!”

  “No, thank you!” Jack’s actually dancing with joy.

  “Then you give it to me.” Anna May tries to move into position in front of me, and I dodge her.

  “Sorry to tell you, she won’t,” Jack says. “She’s not nasty enough. Not right now—maybe in fifteen hundred years. Or maybe it won’t take that long before she’s trying to play Let’s Make A Deal with dead relatives.”

  “What the hell?” Anna May is so emotional, she produces a chill both Jack and I can feel.

  But an otherworldly chill is the least of what I’m feeling. The life that I saved Anna May from is sinking into me, and it’s worse than I ever could have imagined. To know that I can never have a place to call my own and where I belong; to know that no matter where I go, I’ll be out of place. To be among people but never of them; to pass by, to be passed by; to exist always in a neutral state, without influence or effect or even acknowledgment; to always be unattached to anyone or anything, not unwanted, just unthought-of and unremembered. Alive only because I am unwelcome in either heaven or hell, and easily spotted by the gatekeepers in both those places because I’m carrying the only thing I own—an ember of hellfire Old Nick tossed at me when he refused me entrance, so I could find my way in the unending nighttime where I live my useless life.

  No, that wasn’t me, that was Jack. Was Jack, but now it is me. And it’s only what I deserve for being such an idiot. Anna May will never thank me. She has no idea what I saved her from. Grandma and Mom—

  “So how’s martyrdom?” Jack asks me. “Is it everything you ever hoped for? Hey, heaven called—they were trying to get in touch with someone who matters.”

  And all at once, I have this crazy idea. I must have lost my mind, I think, but what the hell—I’ve lost everything else.

  “Well, Jack, if you’re already getting calls, you might as well take my phone.” I toss my cell at him, and he snatches it right out of the air so easily, I can’t help admiring his skill. After fifteen hundred years of having things thrown at him, he could probably field for the Yankees.


  I move so Anna May is directly between us. “Oh, and Anna May, if you still want to live forever, here—catch!”

  She automatically puts her hands out, but she’s a ghost; there’s no way she can catch anything. The turnip goes right through her, straight at Jack’s midsection. I’m really gambling that since he just caught my phone, his reaction will be equally automatic; if the lantern hits the ground, the ember will burn through the turnip, and I’ll have to carry it in my pocket till I can make a new one.

  Merciful fortune smiles on me. Jack drops my phone and catches the lantern before he gets a chunk of hellfire in the belly, which in his now-mortal state would be a terribly painful way to die.

  He lets out a long stream of profanity in a register I wouldn’t have imagined he could reach and at twice the volume I’d have thought was humanly possible. It’s a while before he runs down; when he does, he collapses in a heap on the grass. Careful to keep hold of the lantern, of course.

  “Okay, I think we know how you feel,” I say after a bit. “Now if that’s all, I think you’d better pick your sorry, no-good, not-welcome-even-in-hell ass up off the ground and get outa here before you wear out your welcome.”

  For a second, he doesn’t move. Then he slowly pulls himself to his feet and walks off without another word.

  “What just happened?” Anna May asks me.

  “We both just dodged the biggest, most horrible poison bullet there ever was,” I reply. I’m so relieved I don’t even care that Mom and Grandma are gonna kick my ass when I get home for almost screwing up.

  “Yes, but what just happened?” Anna May says again.

  “Jack happened,” I tell her. But I can see she’s not going to let it go at that. “Jack, who really is part of your family tree, I’m sorry to say—”

  “But not a direct ancestor,” she puts in. “An uncle.”