The Barrow Will Send What it May

by Margaret Killjoy

  “What were they going to try out?” Thursday asked.

  Vasilis looked to the floor.

  Heather answered instead. “Resurrection. Loki wanted to hunt a bear and bring it back to life.”

  “Oh, fuck that,” Brynn said.

  “So they went out to the backcountry wilderness in the dead of winter to go kill a hibernating bear—which by the way doesn’t count as hunting—and turn it into a zombie bear, and then they didn’t come back?” Thursday asked. “Gee, I can’t think of anything that might have gone wrong with that plan. What a mystery.”

  “Thursday,” Doomsday said.

  “No,” Thursday said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Mystery solved. They got killed by winter or the bear and frankly it’s hard to claim they didn’t have it coming.”

  “What about Gertrude Miller?” I asked. “She told us she was dead six months, then was resurrected.”

  “Honestly,” Heather said, looking at Thursday, “when they didn’t come back from Glacier, Vasilis and I thought the same thing you did. But then Isola came back. Okay, she’s shell-shocked and doesn’t want to talk to us.” Heather turned to me. “But then Gertrude came back. She was dead. For six months.”

  “She was telling the truth about that, then,” I said.

  Heather nodded.

  Vulture clapped his hands together. We all looked at him, and he tried, and failed, to wipe the smile off his face. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just . . . we have our first mystery!”

  Thursday sighed. “We’ll start first thing in the morning?”

  * * *

  Dinner consisted of reheated couscous, baked potatoes, and green salad. There were too many of us for the table, so we ate on the couches and easy chairs. We talked about friends in common who weren’t dead or missing. The state of the anarchist movement and its role in fighting the rise of fascism and nationalism globally. Then, more interesting to me, the state of magic.

  “How many practitioners do you think there are?” I asked. “Until a couple days ago, I’ve gone my whole life without seeing an ounce of real magic, and I’ve met plenty of people who spend their time trying.”

  “It’s hard to answer,” Vasilis said. “I’d guess that, worldwide, we’re talking about a few hundred, maybe a thousand people who are real magicians, who are tapped into what the endless spirits have to offer. Then below that, I don’t know, a couple million people who stumble upon magic here and there but mostly fail?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As far as I can tell, there’s only one system of magic that actually works with any consistency, and that involves appealing to—or summoning directly—the endless spirits. But there are a lot of rituals that end up tapping into that power kind of by accident, through a side door, that people stumble upon from time to time as they practice other systems. Most of those side doors are for magic that only affects the practitioner. Like, rituals to grant you courage work well. Rituals to heal yourself work a little less well. Rituals to heal other people—almost never, unless you’re communicating directly with a specific spirit.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If there’s a system of magic that works, why doesn’t everyone know about it? Keeping information ‘rare’ is harder and harder these days.”

  “Oh! I know!” Vulture said.

  We all turned to look at him. He’d finished his food already and was lying across Heather and Brynn on the love seat.

  “It’s the magic feds!” he said. “I’m on this forum, right, and I dunno, a lot of it probably isn’t true but there’s this thing people mention and no one knows its name but it’s the magic feds and they’re like Mulder and Scully but evil. Well, not evil from their point of view. But evil from my point of view.”

  “Yeah,” Vasilis said. “It used to be the church. Now it’s the state. Still an inquisition.”

  “Wait,” I said, “should we be worried about this, then?”

  “I mean,” Vasilis said, “as long as you don’t do something crazy and spectacular like set an endless spirit against your enemies in broad daylight, you’ll be fine.”

  Brynn started laughing.

  “So,” I said, “yes. We should be worried.”

  * * *

  There was a spare bedroom—it had been Isola and Damien’s—and we piled in with our bags. Doomsday claimed the bed for herself and Thursday, and I laid my sleeping bag out on the floor. Vulture said he was going for a walk, Thursday said he was going to stand watch because something felt off.

  Brynn was out in the living room, still talking with Heather.

  I was exhausted, but as soon as I laid my head down on my balled-up hoodie, I was awake.

  Too much, all in one day. Too much, all in one week.

  I wanted Brynn there. I wanted to hold her. We’d been cuddling, most nights. I hadn’t kissed her or anything. I hadn’t really been sure I’d been ready to do something like that, and vice versa.

  But I wanted to cuddle with her.

  She was out in the living room, talking to a high-femme, gorgeous stranger. That was fine.

  It would be fine.

  The rain had let up, but there was still thunder in the distance. Other than that, everything was quiet. Small towns are strange at night—none of the people noises of big cities, none of the car noises of busy rural roads, none of the wildlife noises of the countryside. Just that thunder, and the sound of Brynn laughing from the living room.

  It wasn’t fine.

  I was being an idiot, and I knew it. Brynn didn’t owe me anything, and she wasn’t doing anything wrong or even weird or mean. Knowing I was being an idiot didn’t make it better.

  Couldn’t I just think about the car crash instead?

  Lightning lit the room. Doomsday started snoring.

  Worry became anxiety, anxiety started on its way toward panic.

  I got up, pulled my hoodie on, slipped on my boots, and went out to the living room. Brynn and Heather were leaning against one another, talking sweetly. Brynn caught my eye and smiled. It was fine.

  I went down the stairs and out the front door.

  Thursday was on the porch, staring off down the street. His backpack was in his hand, concealing his gun.

  “Couldn’t sleep again?” he asked.

  “What is there to keep watch for?” I asked. Talking about something other than me would be good. It was what I needed.

  “Hell if I know,” Thursday said. “I’m just . . . I’m just trying to be useful.”

  “I feel that,” I said.

  “I’m not always this way,” Thursday said.

  “What way?”

  “I don’t know. Protective? Kind of macho?”

  I nodded.

  “I love Doomsday more than I love life itself. I’m worried about her, I’m worried about the rest of us. So I don’t know what else to do besides watch out for her best I know how.”

  “What are you like usually?”

  “Believe it or not, I think I’m usually the funny guy,” he said. “When shit ain’t serious, I ain’t serious either. It’s just . . . shit’s real serious right now.”

  “I can feel that.”

  “You like Brynn,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He’d seen the two of us together.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked over at me, took in my expression for moment. “You’re jealous of her and Heather.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  He didn’t say anything to that.

  “I guess I am.”

  “Want to know why I think that is?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Because you don’t know where you stand with her. That’s it. That’s all. You figure out where you stand with her, you talk it over with her, and none of that shit will bother you anymore.”

  He was probably right.

  “Doomsday and me, we know where we stand. She fucks someone else, hell she falls in love with someone else, it wouldn’t bug me much. Because she makes it clear where she and I st
and.”

  “You all are poly?” I feel like most of the people I know are polyamorous, but it still surprised me. The Days seemed so, I don’t know, traditional. In a “wandering occultists with a bounty on their heads” kind of way.

  “I wouldn’t worry about her and me unless, I don’t know, Idris Elba decided he was single and started hanging around.”

  “Doomsday has a crush on Idris Elba?”

  “Hell if I know,” Thursday said. “I’m the one with a crush on Idris Elba.”

  I laughed at that.

  “Glad to know I can still be funny when shit’s serious,” he said.

  “I’m glad I met you all,” I said. “This is hands down the weirdest week of my life, but I’m glad I’ve gotten to meet you all.”

  “You too, Danielle Cain.”

  “I’m going to go back and try to sleep again,” I said.

  “Don’t say anything to her.”

  “What?”

  “You’re in sad-sack mode. I get it. We’re all sad sacks sometimes. But if you go talk to her right now, you’re going to come across wrong, you’ll come across controlling. Just go to bed, and if she cuddles up with you, cuddle right back, and if not, try not to stress about it.”

  “Thanks for looking out for us, Thursday.”

  “Sleep well, Danielle Cain.”

  * * *

  On my way back through the library, I saw three rats on the checkout counter. I have a hard time getting mad at rats. All the best animals are scavengers, squatters.

  On my way back through the living room, I saw Heather sitting next to Brynn. Heather’s arm was across Brynn’s lap, and Brynn had needle and ink in hand. She was tattooing Heather. I couldn’t tell what the design was.

  Brynn looked up at me and smiled, sweetly, and I knew Thursday was right. If I told Brynn I was sad, hell, if I said anything at all, it would come across wrong and Brynn wouldn’t be smiling so sweetly no more.

  I smiled back, then went down the hall to where my sleeping bag waited for me.

  It was fine.

  I was fine.

  THREE

  Morning came too soon for my taste. I’d scarcely been asleep before the first birds announced their desire to herald the dawn. Brynn was spooning me, and the idea of staying there, like that, was a lot more interesting than getting up to go chase down . . . what? A demon? A resurrectionist? Zombies?

  There’d be coffee, though, if I woke up.

  Sometimes I think I let myself become addicted to coffee not because I liked it, not because caffeine did me any favors, but because it takes the urge of a physical addiction to provide any kind of upside to getting out of bed in the morning. It didn’t bother me, thinking that.

  Brynn liked coffee even more than I did, so as the dawn light came in through the window, I untangled myself from her and went off to figure out the kitchen.

  Vasilis was already there, chopping potatoes. He brought the blade down slowly with each cut, working silently so as not to wake the house.

  I found myself the coffee grinder.

  It would be fine. Waking up was fine.

  * * *

  Over breakfast, we worked out our plans. Vulture and Thursday would take the library’s car—actually the old bookmobile—and head up to Glacier for the day, see what they could find. Doomsday and Vasilis were going to go through the library, see how much information they could dredge up about The Book of Barrow and resurrection. The rest of us—Heather, Brynn, and myself—would see what we could find out in town. Presumably, we’d start by talking to Isola and Gertrude. We’d reconvene at sunset, or whenever the boys came back from Glacier.

  Now that I was awake, fed, and caffeinated, I was actually fairly excited to get this thing figured out. Everyone likes a good puzzle. Turns out, a puzzle with magic in it is twice as interesting.

  Brynn, Heather, and I hopped on bicycles—janky old cruisers perfect for a town as flat as Pendleton—and went off to find Isola. I had my travel pack with me, emptied in case we found anything.

  The few people we saw looked friendly enough. Outside the gas station/grocery store/diner combo, an older fellow waved at Heather, who waved back. The tattoo on her arm was fresh, a simplified ouroboros.

  “This town actually likes its punks?” I asked.

  “We run the library. Vasilis and Isola are from here too. Well, Vasilis is from Greece but he’s been here twenty years. People don’t really understand us, but they also don’t really mind that they don’t. If that makes sense.”

  It did. I’d never really stayed put long enough to get that kind of feeling in a town, but I’d met a few folks who had over the years. It sounded nice. A bit lonely, though. Living in one place always sounded kind of lonely to me.

  It took us maybe ten minutes to bike out to the western edge of town. It had been a tourist town, that was easy to see. The gateway to the great outdoors or some shit. We must have been closer to Glacier than I realized.

  The last block of town held four bed-and-breakfasts in a row. One of them, the first one we passed, even looked like it was still probably operational: the lawn was maintained and a little fountain shot water up about a foot from some rocks in the front yard. The other three B&Bs, though, were boarded up and overgrown and, to my eye at least, all the more beautiful for it.

  “This one’s it,” Heather said, parking her bike along the wrought-iron fence of the last house on the block. The building itself was small, barely more than a cottage, but its yard was expansive and it backed onto forest. If I was rich, I’d live somewhere like that.

  Or, you know, since I was poor, I’d squat someplace like that. It would be nice to live somewhere where you didn’t have to worry about the cops kicking down your door, but the trade-off of being law abiding didn’t sound worth it.

  We didn’t lock the bikes. We didn’t even have bike locks.

  “You two might want to go up there alone,” Heather told us. “I think if Isola wanted to talk to me, she would have by now, you know?”

  So Brynn and I opened the iron gate and started up the front walk.

  “Never been on a zombie’s doorstep,” I said, after I rang the doorbell.

  “I figure it’s more like Lazarus’s doorstep.”

  “The guy Jesus resurrected?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What’s the story with him?” I asked.

  “Hell if I know. Just that Jesus brought him back from the dead.”

  “Why was he so special?”

  “Go away.” This last bit came from inside the house, right on the other side of the door.

  Brynn and I looked at each other.

  “We, uh, we come in peace?” I offered.

  “We’re not cops or nothing,” Brynn added.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think the two crust punks at the door were cops. But I’m not trying to talk to anyone.”

  “Why not?” I asked. That’s a shitty question to ask, and I knew it. Isola wanted to be left alone. She’d made that clear in a thousand ways. Yet here we were, prying.

  “I’m going to open the door, but only because I’m too tired to yell through it,” Isola said. “You can’t come in.”

  “Alright,” Brynn agreed.

  The door swung open.

  I don’t know why I expected her to look like a zombie or something. I mean, I’d met Gertrude already, and she looked normal enough. But I legit assumed Isola was gonna look like a zombie.

  Isola didn’t look like a zombie.

  She looked, instead, like, well, one of us: she wore a slip dress that showed off her full figure, and her hair was tied up in a loose bun, revealing tattoos across her neck even though she probably wasn’t a day over twenty-two. She had a claw hammer in her hand. No, wait. Both hands. She had a claw hammer in each hand, it’s just that only one of the two was raised.

  Instant friend-crush.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked. “You’re going to get yourselves killed.”

  “On a
long enough timeline,” Brynn agreed. She had her hand hovering near the folding baton on her belt.

  “No. I mean, if anyone sees me talking to you. I don’t know what’s going to happen. You might wind up dead.”

  “That’s an argument for letting us inside, then,” I offered.

  “That’s an argument for y’all leaving,” she countered.

  “True,” I agreed. But we didn’t go. “Who would kill us? Barrow?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought about it. “No. Not Barrow.”

  “What happened to you and everyone up at Glacier?” I asked.

  She put the hammer down and met my gaze, unflinching. Somehow, this was even more intimidating than when she’d had the weapon raised.

  “We all died.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

  “Okay.” I waited for her to tell me more anyway.

  “Look, you’re wasting your time talking to me.”

  “Who should we talk to, then?” I asked. “Gertrude? What’s she got to do with it?”

  “No, no. Gertrude’s innocent. I don’t think she knows anything.” Isola sighed, then set the hammers down on a table near the door. “Look. If I tell you where to look next, I’m guessing you’ll die. Magic is too fucked up to be safe, at all, for anyone. Hunting down madmen with access to it, that’s worse. You really, really should just skip town and never look back. Forget the name Barrow. Forget the name Pendleton. Forget me, forget Gertrude.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen, though,” Brynn said.

  “You want to know what’s going on, you want a man named Sebastian Miller.”

  “Gertrude’s husband?”

  “Ex-husband,” Isola said. “He runs the gift shop, on the east edge of town.”

  “With the dinosaurs?” I asked.

  “With the dinosaurs. Don’t confront him. Don’t let him know you’re investigating him. Don’t let him know you exist. Don’t tell him I talked to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She started to close the door.

  “Wait,” I said. “I still have so many questions to ask.”