The Mortician’s Daughter

by Nan Higgins

  He led us out and down a few doors to one that was slightly open. He gently pushed it open and motioned for us to come closer. Sloane and I shared space, standing so close our arms pressed together. I pulled my arm across my body. The only thing I’d miss about AfterCorps was this closeness with Sloane, and I wanted to distance myself from her so it wouldn’t be so difficult to leave her behind. Of course, I felt pretty bad that my leaving would probably mean the end of ghost training for her. I hoped she would understand that I was only doing what I had to do.

  The agent behind the desk gave a split-second glance in our direction before turning back to the prior. He was a broad-backed man with salt and pepper hair, and he held a picture in front of the agent. “I brought that doll back from New York for Rebecca. I was on my way to give it to her when…”

  The agent took the picture and made some notes in a small notebook, the kind I’d seen police officers use. “I understand, Mr. Studebaker,” she said. “We’ll work on making sure the doll gets to the little girl.” She handed the picture back and picked up a sheet of paper from a file on the desk. “Now, we need to get to the business of a disagreement you had with your sister, Cathy.”

  Nick pulled the door so it was only open an inch. He began walking toward the grand doorway at back of the room, talking softly as we followed him.

  “In the next several months, you’ll have the opportunity to shadow clerks and field agents as they go about their work. In fact, as part of your training, you’ll be working with several interpreters at different levels. It’s key in establishing what your interests and strengths are, and it is vital to understand the big picture of how things happen at AfterCorps, regardless of what job you have.”

  We arrived at a marble archway that was so grand and luxurious, it looked completely out of place in the drab room. Mahogany double doors with wrought iron handles stood directly ahead of us, and off to the side stood an ancient, tiny man with the thickest glasses I’d ever seen. His eyes looked huge, like an owl’s, and I wondered how big they were when he took his specs off. He stood behind a podium with a stack of papers on it.

  “Nick!” he yelled and stepped out to shake Nick’s hand. “We haven’t seen you down here in a while.”

  Nick smiled and shook his hand. I noticed how gently he held it, as if afraid it might shatter in his large, mitt-like palm. “Good to see you, Bernard. I’m here with some new trainees.” He gestured to us. “Meet Sloane Dennison and Aria Jasper.”

  Sloane and I rushed over to Bernard when he began to hobble over to us.

  “I’m Aria,” I said when he shook my hand.

  “Sloane.”

  Bernard’s eyes got somehow even bigger when he shook Sloane’s hand. “You’re Sandy’s daughter. I’ve seen many pictures of you over the years.” He smiled. “Sandy is always a love.”

  “Thank you,” she said and flashed her crooked smile.

  “Bernard, I’m showing these young people around today. We’d like to see some court proceedings while we’re here.”

  “Certainly,” he said. “Go on in; things should just be getting started.”

  “Thank you.” Nick opened the door on the right. When I saw the level of effort it took for him to pull the door wide enough for us to get through, I wondered if I’d be able to open it myself.

  More of those hard chairs formed rows in the courtroom, and half a dozen people sat in them. We followed Nick to a set of stairs on the left and went up to a small balcony. We had just sat on a long bench that reminded me of a church pew when a voice said, “All rise.”

  We stood and saw a tall woman with deep dark skin and silvery gray hair step out and into the judge’s seat. Unlike judges I’d seen on TV, she wore a bright blue robe. The bailiff, who wore a bright blue suit, continued:

  “The honorable Judge Vivica Jenkins presides over hearings on this day, the twenty-first of June.”

  “Thank you, Paul,” Judge Jenkins said. “Who is first on the docket today?”

  “A Mr. Jack Dugan and his representative, Agent Striker.”

  “Mr. Dugan, Agent Striker, please step forward.” She took a file from the bailiff and leafed through it.

  A man with a black leather jacket and shiny dark hair stepped forward to the table facing the judge, and an older, stocky man in a beige shirt and jeans stood beside him.

  “Good morning,” Judge Jenkins said. “Mr. Dugan, I see you were charged with four counts of first-degree emotional embezzlement and have performed fifteen hundred hours of dominion service, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Jack said.

  “Agent Striker, have you found that Mr. Dugan has successfully and in good faith completed his dominion service to the extent that retribution has been served?” The judge paged through the file, not looking up.

  “I have, Your Honor,” said Agent Striker.

  “In that case, Mr. Dugan, I recommend to the board of relegation that you be approved for your final transfer as quickly as it can be arranged.”

  Jack Dugan burst into tears. “Oh, thank you, Your Honor.”

  The emotion coming from the ghost was raw and palpable. I was startled to find tears fill my own eyes, and I blinked to keep them from falling. I’d never been a sympathetic cryer in the past, and it shocked me that I was overcome with emotions for this stranger. A quick glance at Sloane and Nick confirmed that neither of them were struggling with any tears.

  The judge did look up then and nodded at him. “Safe travels, sir.” She handed the file back to the bailiff. “Next case, Paul?”

  Nick stood and motioned for us to follow. We went down the steps and back to the mahogany doors. We filed out in a single line, and as we did, Agent Striker escorted Jack through the doors beside us. The prior brushed against me when he passed, and I felt stabbing pain in my head, like the worst brain freeze I’d ever had. I stopped short, grasped my head. and caused Sloane to bump into me.

  “Aria, are you okay?” Her hands were on my shoulders, guiding me forward. I kept my eyes closed and let her push me through the doors.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sloane said. They sounded really far away.

  I crouched, my fingers interlaced over my scalp, waiting for the searing pain to subside. Never had I felt pain like this in my life, and I was scared. It felt as if I would die if it didn’t start to fade away, and I began to panic. Finally, when I was beginning to think it would never end, it did. It only lasted a minute or two, but it felt like the longest moments of my life.

  When I opened my eyes, Sloane crouched in front of me, and Nick bent at the waist, both looking at me with concern.

  “That was the strangest thing,” I said. “He bumped me and then my head…”

  “Phantom frost,” Nick said.

  “What is that?” Sloane rested her hand on my knee.

  “Sometimes, being touched by a prior, particularly one who has been here a long time before their transfer, causes that kind of pain. The longer they’re here, the colder the air around them feels. Phantom frost indicates a sensitivity to the breakdown ghosts go through when they are earthbound for a long time.”

  “Will it stop happening?” I asked. “When I’m not so new to this?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “But you build up a tolerance to it.”

  Great.

  “Are you okay to stand?” Sloane asked.

  “I think so.” I took her outstretched hands and let her help me back into an upright position. I felt unsteady and disoriented, and focused on the feel of the solid marble floor under my feet and the warmth of Sloane’s hands around mine.

  “Are you two ready for the last stop on the tour?” Nick asked.

  Sloane looked at me. “Are we?”

  I’d never felt less ready for anything, but I did want to get this over with. “Onward and upward.”

  * * *

  It turned out that we actually went downward. We went down a little corridor past the ma
hogany doors, and at the end of it stood an elevator. Nick pushed the down button, and the doors opened. The three of us stepped on and began a rapid descent. I couldn’t tell if my stomach was uneasy because of the speedy elevator or from nerves. My head still throbbed with a dull ache after my brush with the ghost, and who knew what possibly painful experiences awaited me where we were going? Moments later, we stepped out into a room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were made of shiny black granite.

  “This is a little ominous,” I said.

  “Granite is the perfect material for helping priors travel to their final destination,” Nick explained. “Lessons on that to come in future classes.” He spoke quietly, but his words bounced off every surface and echoed. “This way.”

  A man in a bright blue robe like the one the judge wore stood at the opposite end of the room. The single light in this cavernous space came from a little alcove filled with blinding white light a few feet from where he stood.

  “Who is it?” asked the man in the robe.

  “It’s me, Edgar,” Nick said. We walked closer, and Nick turned to us. “Don’t look directly into the light.”

  “Ah, Nick. Who do you have with you?”

  “Aria Jasper and Sloane Dennison,” he said. “My new students. Aria, Sloane, this is Edgar Blevins. He’s been the Chief Officer of Transfers for nearly fifty years now.”

  “Fifty years come August.” Edgar smiled. I was close enough to see that his eyes were the color of snow: white with a pale blue shift. It took me a few moments to understand that he was blind.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Edgar walked toward my voice, his hand outstretched. I glanced at Nick, and he gave a curt nod. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, so I simply let the blind man rest his hand on my forehead when he reached me.

  “Aria Jasper,” he said. “Great, great-granddaughter of Myron Jasper, the founder of modern interpretation. Powerful skills are within you, more powerful, even, than your father. You come from two lines of extraordinarily gifted interpreters, and if you are able to harness your talents, you will be unstoppable.”

  He removed his hand, and I realized the warmth of it had removed the final lingering of my phantom frost headache. Could I truly be as powerful as that? In the months since finding out I could see ghosts, I’d felt everything from devastation to horror, but I’d never once felt extraordinary or talented. I would have recognized those untapped talents in myself by now, if they were there. And yet…if I was honest with myself, I hadn’t given myself a chance to recognize anything other than my unwillingness to participate in this new way of life.

  “Sloane Dennison,” Edgar said, placing his palm on her forehead. “Ambition burns within you. Ambition and a great desire for adventure and justice. You have a warrior’s spirit that, I daresay, is only equaled in your teacher.”

  He took a few steps back. “Be wary as you start your life of service to AfterCorps. Your strengths are also your weaknesses, never truer than when working with the dead. To find your true calling within our fine organization, you must first shed your expectations. What you desire may not be your calling, and in the end, we must always remember that we are here to serve the dead as we will one day want to be served by the living: with honor and dignity and the yearning to send these people forward to the place where they can live once again.”

  His speech echoed and repeated, allowing us to hear every word several times over. Minutes seemed to go by before the chamber was silent again. I felt every word as they seemed to bounce onto me. I had been raised among a lot of discussions about death and what it meant for the people still living, but my parents hadn’t talked much about their views of the afterlife. On the rare occasions I had talked to them about it, they’d said I would form my own opinions on the subject when I got older. I had always sort of thought that death was the end, and now I had learned it was a beginning. A million questions flew through my mind about what it meant for the dead to live again. The gravity of the realization felt like an anvil on my chest, and for the hundredth time, I wondered how my parents could have kept me so in the dark.

  “Thank you for your time, Edgar.” Nick turned to us and tipped his head in Edgar’s direction.

  “Thank you,” Sloane and I chorused.

  Edgar gave a small bow, then turned away and shuffled back to stand sentry at the blinding alcove.

  Nick herded us to the elevator, pressed the up arrow, and we got on.

  “Was he blind before he became Chief Officer of Transfers, or was that an occupational hazard?” Sloane asked.

  “The COT must give up his or her sight when they are appointed to the job,” Nick said as the elevator doors opened.

  “What?” I asked.

  “He is with every prior when the transfer occurs, but we are not allowed to see what happens when the transfer takes place. It’s one of our most stringent decrees that must never be broken. Even in the death work we do, there are very few things we know about what happens in the next destination. Some of our ancient predecessors did learn quite a bit about the Cosworld when they were establishing the primitive ways of interpretership, and many of them suffered greatly from it.”

  “Suffered in what way?” I asked.

  “Madness, mostly. We’ve discussed a bit of what happens to priors if they remain on earth too long; it breaks them down mentally, emotionally, and physically, being in a world in which they don’t belong. That goes both ways. We are not meant to know the in-depth goings on of the Cosworld, and so we protect that with all of our resources.”

  What must it have been like for interpreters hundreds or even thousands of years ago? Having to figure out the needs of ghosts through trial and error sounded absolutely dreadful. I’d felt so lost trying to acclimate myself to being an interpreter, but I couldn’t imagine having to start from scratch with no help from anyone. How lonely and scary that must have been.

  We walked through the beige open area we’d first come in through and out to the waiting area for AfterCorps.

  “Nick,” I said, “why did Edgar say I come from two lines of interpreters? Did two lines merge into one at some point?”

  He nodded. “Something like that. Although your father would be the one who could give you more information about your lineage.” Annoyance and anger bubbled in my stomach at the thought of asking my father anything. Would he tell me the truth? Would he tell me anything at all? The breakdown of my relationship with my parents was a wound that continued to grow, with no sign of healing. It was a big part of the reason I was so ready to run away from all of this. Not only had I been catapulted into this world I’d known nothing about, but my mom and dad had barely given me any explanation about all of it. I felt so alone, and I wanted to escape that feeling almost as much as I wanted to run from my responsibilities to AfterCorps.

  We reached the top of the stairs in the back hallway of the funeral home and stepped outside into the muggy day.

  “It’s a little after two-thirty,” Nick said. “I think this is a good time to stop. I have some surface funeral business I need to take care of this afternoon. See you both in the morning.” He looked into the sky and inhaled deeply, then turned and went back inside.

  “So,” Sloane said, “if I remember correctly, we have a study date this afternoon.”

  “Oh, uh…”

  “You’re not canceling on me, are you?”

  “I don’t want to,” I said, and nothing had ever been truer. “But it turns out I have some death singer duties this afternoon. Probably the same funeral Nick has to tend to.”

  “Really?” Sloane asked. “I didn’t think our surface duties were supposed to start until we were a year or two into the program.”

  “Yeah. I guess, since I’m already trained on my surface job, they want me to get started sooner.”

  She tipped her head to the side. “Can I watch?”

  I laughed. “The funeral is probably going to last at least an hour, and my song will only be about t
hree minutes long. Trust me, you don’t wanna hang around for this.” I saw my mom pull up in the parking lot. “Anyway, my mom is here, and we’re going to practice for a bit before the funeral starts. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sure.” She completely surprised me by leaning in and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow.” When she turned, I pressed my hand to my cheek.

  It felt stupid to want to rearrange my plans, give up on my dreams, and stay somewhere I didn’t want to be, all because of the heat I felt from a kiss by a girl I’d known for only a few days. I frowned and thought about that. It wasn’t exactly true that I was having second thoughts only because of Sloane. I’d been having mixed feelings since being in the depths of AfterCorps with Edgar. Somehow, those few minutes with him had been more meaningful to me than any other conversations I’d had about being an interpreter.

  Mom crossed the parking lot to me, and I had to set my thoughts aside. “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Sloane. My classmate.”

  She studied me. “Just your classmate?”

  “I hope not. We’ll see.”

  She opened the door, and I walked inside and followed her to the practice room.

  I’d sung “Amazing Grace” more times than I could count, so the practice was mostly getting me warmed up and telling me where I’d sit during the service and where I’d stand when it was time to sing.

  Shortly before the funeral started, Mom and I went into the large parlor and took our places. She sat at the piano and began to play the opening hymn, and I sat in a folding chair just behind her. The last time I performed, it was in a venue with nearly a thousand people; now here I was, a death singer.

  A young woman walked past, her sobs muffled by the tissue she held over her mouth. A wave of guilt washed over me as I realized I’d been about to enter yet another reverie, lamenting all I had lost, when I was surrounded by people who’d lost someone they loved. I made the decision to be present for this funeral and do my best for the people who’d come to say good-bye.