by Sawyer Black
“Amélie?”
Henry waited, but saw only darkness around him.
“Amélie?” he screamed his whisper, waiting through more of the horrible silence.
Amélie was gone for good, and the black she left behind felt somehow worse than the black in her coffin. Losing her for the second time made him feel even more helpless, even more confused.
His body grew hot, and he felt his anger building, as if he were going to flare. He breathed. In and out and in and out. Enough times to be sure his rage wouldn’t bloom. He stood still, knowing that the only thing keeping him from rampaging through the house was a focus on the emptiness inside him.
Stay calm.
He turned to the couch. “Daddy! Daddy! Are you there? Daddy!”
He spun, flailing his arms for balance. “I’m here.” Henry’s hands flew in front of his body, swatting the air in search of his daughter. “I’m here,” he whispered again, as loud as he dared without waking Samantha and drawing her to the attic. He was too weak to hide if she came up to see what was going on.
“Daddy!” Amélie’s shape grew brighter. Her body more corporeal and her voice a bit louder.
“I’m here, baby girl. I can see you! Can you see me?” Henry said, grateful for the hoodie and the attic’s dark.
Amélie nodded. “Only a little.”
He blinked, trying to make the tears move backward. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know, Daddy. I’ve never been here. How do I know where a place is if I’ve never been there? Do you think you’ll be able to tell, if I describe it?”
“I can try.” Henry wasn’t sure he wanted to recognize wherever she was.
“It’s so cold here.” Amélie’s scant image shivered. Then all of her blurred.
She fell silent, her mouth moving but muted, lips forming rapid words he couldn’t read.
Does she realize how fast she’s talking? Or know I can’t hear her?
A million questions fell atop the first two. Henry felt the sudden, tangible possibility that he was dreaming the encounter. Or that maybe he’d lost his mind.
He was torn. Dreaming meant she’d vanish along with the day. Reality meant danger had found his daughter. The thought chilled his body, Was he somehow communicating with his daughter’s ghost? If so, was she as lost as he was?
He had to help Amélie with whatever she faced, talk her through it as best he could. He’d failed her once, and that had ended her life. He couldn’t fail her again.
“Look around you, honey. What do you see?”
There was a long pause, as if Amélie was using every possible resource to absorb her surroundings and consider her words.
“Are you there, sweetie?”
“Yes, Daddy. I’m looking around. There’s lots and lots of shadows. And a lot of space. It’s everywhere. Some of it white, the rest is less than that. Sometimes there’s color, but never for long. Everything is broken, and old. It looks like buildings used to be here, but they’re all crumbly now.”
Oh, God, no.
Henry wanted to scream for his daughter, but he had to be strong.
She doesn’t deserve this.
Amélie is better than Nowhere.
Doesn’t a child deserve to pass GO and advance straight on to Heaven?
He asked, “Have you seen a Tree?”
“A tree?”
“Yes, baby girl. A giant Tree.”
“No.” The image flickered with her shaking head. “There’s nothing alive here. I think I see blue sky behind me.”
“Okay, sweetie. Turn around and start heading toward that blue sky behind you.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Are you walking?” It looked like she was moving, but Amélie still faced Henry, as though some nonexistent camera had spun around.
“Yes, I’m walking. When do I know to stop walking?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, Daddy.” Henry’s heart warmed at his daughter’s steady march, as if the only fuel she needed was a little girl’s faith in her father.
“Everything is still broken. Everywhere, Daddy. How long do I keep walking?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I might know how to make everything closer.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“You’re going to see a Tree soon. Do you believe me?”
“Yes. What will the tree look like?”
“It might change from time to time. But I think it will be big. The biggest thing you’ve ever seen, and once you see it, you can’t doubt it. Like believing in Santa.”
Henry wasn’t sure why he was suddenly certain about the Tree and how it thrived on belief, but it felt right, Again, like understanding that seeped inside him while sleeping, perhaps collective knowledge shared by all who’d been in Nowhere. He hoped to God he wasn’t steering Amélie the wrong way or giving her bad advice.
“Okay, Daddy.” She walked faster, her face more determined.
After a minute, Henry said, “See anything?”
“No.” Amélie looked at the ground as she walked, as if feeling guilty for her disappointing answer. A minute later she squealed, “I think I see a Tree, Daddy!”
Henry felt a smile flush his cheeks. He wondered if it looked as twisted as the rest of his face.
Amélie gasped. “It’s so pretty, Daddy. But cool, too. Like a tree from the Alice in Wonderland by the Nightmare Before Christmas guy.”
“How big is it?”
“The biggest thing I’ve ever seen.” Amélie was almost too awestruck to whisper. Her eyes went wide and her arms shot into the air. She started to run, racing toward the Tree as if answering a call.
“You’ll get there soon,” Henry said. “When you do, you’ll find a garden. If you’re in the right place, you’ll see a long stone table. Look for the old man wearing all white and playing chess. His name is Randall. He’ll help you until I can get there. I will find you, Ami. Whatever you do, don’t say anything to the man in black if you see him. And don’t listen if he says anything to you. Only the man in white. Okay?”
Amélie’s mouth moved without sound, like before. She flickered several times before disappearing. Henry’s heart pounded while waiting for her return. Then she finally came back, but only long enough to say, “I’m so scared, Daddy,” her voice full of static.
Henry reached out to hug his baby girl, pull her closer to him. Maybe he could turn their two nightmares into one, then find a way to end it together.
But Amélie was gone.
Henry sobbed, trying to outrun an insistent thought. Life after death was a curse.
He had wanted to return and protect his family, but ended up barely better than worthless. He wasn’t needed in his old attic. He was needed by his daughter, who was stuck in Nowhere and crying for him to save her.
“Boothe!” Henry yelled in a whisper, pacing the attic, nervous over the noise but unable to curb his rising frustration. “Boothe!”
The demon was Henry’s only hope of returning to Nowhere and rescuing Amélie from whatever had her so frightened. He had to find him.
After minutes of pacing and failed cries to bring Boothe to his attic, Henry figured he’d go to the demon directly. Ezra could lead him to Boothe.
Henry went to the attic window, then lifted the sash and started to climb out onto the roof. Halfway out he realized he was halfway too far.
Henry’s tank was empty.
He fell back through the window, hard against the wood, and passed out.
CHAPTER 13
Henry could’ve sworn someone tapped him on the shoulder.
His body lurched from the couch, launched with a jolt that shot to his fingertips. His head slammed against the sloping attic ceiling, cranking his neck to his shoulder and scraping the side of his already fucked-up face. He landed on the floor with a crash and an aftershock. He rubbed his temples, more annoyed by the sound of his landing and the blur of slowly waking than the ringing between his ears.
He stood, t
rying to remember his dream. Something long, horrible, and … he was quite sure, immediately important. But Henry remembered nothing and could barely recall sneaking up into the attic before plummeting into sleep.
He closed his eyes and rocked his head back and forth, trying to remember. With a sudden horror, Henry’s mental projector went live with the memory of Amélie standing at the entrance to his attic office.
That wasn’t real, was it?
What was real? A starving and famished Henry. His bones felt like they belonged in a graveyard. He headed for the stairs and the kitchen but paused at the first step, thinking back to Sam’s mysterious phone call the night before.
He turned back and went to the window, peering through the glass and looking outside toward the pool, where Sam liked to sit and stare at the water while sipping her coffee.
She was nowhere in sight. Something inside Henry insisted she was at the carport.
He tore from the attic, dropping to the second floor and running to the far window. Samantha was outside, climbing inside her pearl-white Porsche Cayenne. He didn’t feel energized enough to chase her, but he had to know who she’d been talking to last night.
FUCK!
Henry flared, and surprised himself by blinking to the carport, right beside his own nondescript Lexus as Sam pulled out of their driveway. Dizziness rocked him on his feet, and his vision narrowed to a compressed dot of gray. He shook his head, leaning on the car for support until it cleared.
Henry opened the door and climbed inside. He opened the glovebox and scrabbled his hands through the papers and old gum. He slid the key out and fired up the Lexus. Like all of Henry’s cars, it had tinted windows just a hair above the legal limit. Grateful for the masking, he tore from the carport and raced down the drive, pulling out into the street in time to see Samantha hang a right. He followed for three miles, until Sam pulled into the parking lot of the Burg Spires Church of Hope.
Samantha opened her door, but then immediately shut it and leaned her head against the steering wheel, sobbing for several minutes. He could barely see her, but Henry could somehow feel her crying. The shock of her emotions lit his mind with surprised pain. It was almost as though he were seeing the hues of her true color.
A thin black cloud darkened and swirled around her. After a few moments, it dimmed and parted, tendrils still clinging to Samantha’s hair as it faded. She dried her eyes and climbed from the Cayenne, then she crossed the parking lot and stepped through the side entrance of the beautiful old church.
Henry shot from the interior of his Lexus to the shadow of a Camry. Three patches of shade after that found him wrapped in the shadows of the church’s entrance.
She was being greeted by Pastor Owen, their regular man of the cloth, spiritual adviser, and occasional marriage counselor — all three jobs designated by Sam. Henry would be fine having nothing to do with any of it. Though raised Catholic, he had never bought into any of the pious bullshit while living.
Now dead and consorting with demons, he could finally start to believe. And being a demon himself, Henry supposed the last laugh was on him. Sam was right. There was a God. And a Devil, apparently. But he still didn’t think the church had their shit together and was damn sure most organized religion was clay. Shaping itself around man’s attempts to exert his will unto others. And of course, to exploit fear while getting rich in the process.
Henry figured God was too mysterious for an animal as dumb as man to truly understand Him. Still, he never transferred that lack of faith to his family. He occasionally went to church, and to the counseling sessions, out of respect for Sam. Sometimes he felt like a sucker for playing along, feeling he should stand his ground and refuse to participate in something he didn’t believe in. Instead, he defended his honor in the one way he knew how. Humor.
Henry was a comic, not a pretender, so he would unleash the occasional joke, such as referring to the pastor as Samantha’s “Patty-cake Pastor Owen.” He didn’t play patty-cake, at least not that Henry knew of, but because he was clergy, Samantha found Henry’s joke disrespectful. She didn’t forbid it, but the one about the dead priest and his magic rabbit?
Now, though, Henry’s absence made him grateful she had someone of faith to console her. He was maybe thirty yards away, in a building designed to carry the voice to the seats in the back. He could hear perfectly as the pastor pulled her into an embrace.
“How are you?”
“A disaster. Sorry I called you so late last night.”
Pastor Owen held her for five seconds, and another five after she didn’t pull away. “It’s okay. Everything will be good again, Samantha. And it’s good to grieve. Grieving is the right thing to do.” He smiled and held out his hand. Sam’s fingers fell inside the pastor’s palm as he led her through the nave and down a short hallway toward his office.
Henry followed, cloaked in shadows, gliding along the walls and ceiling, spreading into the gnarls of darkness among the hand-hewn beams. His movement felt almost dreamlike in his ability to float and propel himself from one surface to another and cling to the walls. Or at least the shadows. It was as if his weight had been reduced to almost nothing inside them.
The pastor guided her along the wall under the stained glass windows. “You know you can tell me anything, right? You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Samantha nodded. “Yes. Of course, Pastor Owen.”
“I promise He has a way of making all the wrong things right when you let Him.”
“I’m happy to let Him. I just need to know how. Right now, I can’t believe what I’m feeling.”
“And what’s that, Samantha?”
“Guilt.”
“Guilt?” The pastor stopped at his office door.
“Yes, guilt. And it’s horrible. I feel like I’m dancing on Henry’s grave.”
“I’m sure you’re doing nothing of the sort.” He opened the door and smiled gently. “And don’t worry, there’s no such thing as a wrong thought. We can’t help how we feel about something, but we can control what we do. That’s what counts.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Bible to me.” She stepped into his office and sat. “The Good Book seems pretty clear on right and wrong thoughts.”
Henry slipped by Pastor Owen, sliding from one bundle of darkness in the hallway to another in the corner of the high ceiling. The pastor stepped into the room and sat at his desk, letting the door close behind him. They sat across from one another at the pastor’s desk, seemingly oblivious to Henry clinging just a few feet above them like a fly on the wall.
“Not all churches are the same, Samantha. You should know that by now. Evil only exists beside good. Everything has two sides, each always needing the other. Sometimes your worst thoughts are there to surface the best. Whatever you’re feeling, there’s a reason. Would you like me to help you find that reason?”
Samantha nodded, clearly trying not to cry.
“Tell me why you’re feeling guilty.”
“I don’t know … It’s like I want to scream at Henry.” She laughed. It sounded accidental.
Pastor Owen smiled. “You want to scream at Henry for what? For leaving you?”
“No, not that.” She shook her head as though unsure of her next words.
“You often wanted to yell at Henry. Surely you don’t think that’s abnormal? I’m certain you and your husband have unfinished business, like every other married couple.”
Samantha laughed again, covering her mouth with her hand.
“You know this tragedy couldn’t have been avoided, yet a part of you is angry with Henry for leaving you alone. After all, his success invited those murderers into your home in search of easy opportunity. Those murderers took your husband, daughter, and life. Amélie’s dead. It’s either your fault or Henry’s. At least according to how you’re probably thinking. Best for your sanity if you let Henry take the rap, for now.”
“All of that’s true. But it’s not what I mean.”
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��Oh?”
“Yes, I’m angry with Henry. But it has nothing to do with … what happened. I’m pissed at him for a million other things, stuff we never got to hash out, mad he never took our sessions with you seriously. Counseling was always a joke or an obligation to sit through. Like being on a talk show he didn’t want to do, where he had to smile and say all the right things. He even had a routine about coming here, but I hated all three minutes, and told him that if he took our therapy on stage again, that was it.”
“Unfinished business,” the pastor said. “Perfectly normal.”
Samantha ignored him. “Remember the W.A.A. joke I told you about?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t think I ever forgave him, even though I promised him I had.” Sam waited through half a minute, gathering her thoughts. “I understand Henry had to be funny, and that our future was born from that humor. I got it then, I get it now. It was always part of the deal. But, Pastor, that man has no filter. Or had no filter. There are basic boundaries of everyday decency that apply to offstage life that should be carried onstage, too. Life’s not lived with a microphone in your hand.”
Samantha’s speech grew fast, almost high pitched, like it always did when she told the Waa! Story. “I was the charity director for Women Against Abuse, and that bastard called it Waa!, like the women were all crying over spilt milk. He had no right to ruin that for me. When that video hit YouTube, I had to resign from something I cared about, something I believed in. Something I was great at and did good for. He knew that joke wasn’t okay. And if he didn’t, that’s worse. Almost. Nothing’s worse than it seeming like he didn’t even care. Acting like it wasn’t even a big deal that I quit and saying it wasn’t like the job was making us rich!”
The pastor nodded, just like he had every time the story was told in one of their counseling sessions.
Watching Sam sob was horrible. Worse was choking on his laughter after remembering the joke’s rhythm and reciting it in his head. He cared that she lost her job, but Henry was also pissed that the organization would get so bent about a joke that was clearly ironic. He wasn’t making fun of battered women, ever. He was making fun of the idiot misogynists who made stupid jokes like the Waa! Story.