For Centuries More

by Ethan Johnson

  Agnes had felt a chill as she began to realize the ramifications of this truth. “Then Inanna knows where I am.”

  Yes, she does. And of greater concern to you, she knows she does.

  “Why isn’t she coming to get me, to hurt me?”

  You aren’t interfering with her or her associates. If you keep a respectable distance, she is content to ignore you.

  That line reverberated in Agnes’s head as she knelt on her bedroom floor, slowed her breathing, and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t be a minute. Inanna would be none the wiser.

  Warehouse.

  Black smoke swirled around her, and she felt her spirit form float out of the apartment. She saw the Chicago skyline illuminated against the night sky as the smoke cleared, and she headed toward the building where she last saw her brother alive. In seconds, she found herself hovering over the building, which appeared to stand idle. She landed on the street and moved slowly toward the nearest bay door on the side of the warehouse. She glanced around for signs of anyone loitering around the building. To her knowledge, Inanna was her chief threat, but perhaps others had similar abilities. She just needed to confirm that Marc was okay.

  It took a moment, but she realized something was wrong. The street-facing building struck an imposing figure at any time of the day, but especially at night. Normally, a blend of street and interior lights lit up its façade, but tonight it was darker. Agnes looked up and didn’t see overhead lighting of any sort; not even stars, or the full moon.

  She was enveloped in utter and complete blackness. Not simply “darkness”, as this was darker than any night, and blacker than the deepest black. She felt a sensation like suffocation, which in turn inspired a jolt of panic. She tried to float up and away from the strange blanketing veil, but she was held in place. She dropped to her knees and tried to crawl away from it. She felt herself crawling but couldn’t see anything. She curled up into a fetal position, and felt the blackness settle over her ethereal form. As a last resort, she broke the connection, forcing a return to her physical self.

  Agnes’s eyes snapped open. She put her hand to her cheek, checking to make sure she had returned successfully. As far as she knew, she was back in her body and fully focused in physical reality. But a sick feeling spread in the pit of her stomach. She tried to rise from the floor but lacked the strength to do anything but lay down and press her cheek against the scratchy carpeting. She pulled her knees up and curled into a fetal position.

  Three black forms passed through the wall behind her and slipped silently through her clothing, and under her skin. Agnes writhed and trembled with sensations of utter hopelessness as each form entered her. With each passing moment, she felt her inner light grow dimmer, leaving only pain and darkness in its absence.

  Five forms in total took up residence inside of her. After the last shape disappeared through her shirt, a single tear slid down Agnes’s nose.

  CHAPTER 4: CHECKING IN

  Jacqueline’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. She rolled onto her right side and checked the time: 10:38 P.M. She scrunched up her face as her phone blasted blue light against her retinas. Well, I was asleep, she thought. She rolled onto her back and rubbed her eyes. The dream that jolted her awake was fading quickly from her memory, but she still remembered enough of it to be disturbed by its content.

  She dreamt she was in her office, tending to various matters when her email displayed a new incoming message. She opened it instinctively, expecting a meeting invite or technical white paper. Instead she was greeted with a jittery graphic that said something like, “They’ve got her, what are you going to do about it?” The details were unclear now.

  She remembered cocking her head and sliding her mouse to the top of the message to delete it, when the graphic changed to a picture of her sister Agnes, beaten and battered. This image stuck with her after all other details faded away. She vividly recalled her black eye, split lip, and blood-streaked cheek. She recalled the outrage and disgust that she felt at the sight of it. Who would do such a thing to anyone, let alone Agnes? She forced herself to awaken from the dream rather than spend one minute more confronted with such imagery.

  She took a deep breath and tried to focus on something else. She felt her fingers twitch, anxious to pick up her phone and check on Agnes. That was silly, she thought, just a bad dream. Besides, she reasoned, Agnes was home with their parents and if anything was wrong, Mother would take care of it. She took another deep breath and tried an affirmation that she read about in an in-flight magazine she flipped through on a recent business trip: I am in control of my destiny.

  She exhaled slowly, whispering the affirmation softly as the breath passed through her lips. She inhaled slowly, placing her hands on her abdomen as she did, feeling it sink as her lungs filled with air. She held her breath for a few seconds, then breathed out slowly once more.

  Her cell phone rang. Jacqueline’s breath left her in an instant as she rolled onto her side and snapped on her reading lamp. She squinted at the phone and saw that her mother was calling. She brushed her hair away from her right ear and answered the call.

  “What is it, Mother?”

  “Jackie? Sorry to call so late, but something strange has happened.”

  Jacqueline sucked in her breath. “What’s wrong? Is it Agnes?”

  There was a pause at the other end. “What? Agnes? Heavens no. It’s your brother.”

  “Marc? What happened?”

  “Well, I’m not really sure. We got a weird thing in the mail that says he’s being sued. Something about his apartment burning down, and they’re blaming him. I tried calling him, and it says his number is disconnected. So, I know you’re busy and this is a long shot, but by any chance have you spoken with him lately? Do you know if he has a new phone number?”

  Jacqueline rolled onto her back and pressed her left hand to her forehead. This was not the sort of conversation she was anticipating. She hadn’t spoken to Marc in months—since Christmas, to be exact. She had seen him, or at least pictures of him in Dubai a few days afterward. She wasn’t sure how to explain that to Mother. Or that Phillip, her former business associate blamed Marc for far worse things than arson.

  “I… I haven’t spoken with him, no. Can you send me whatever you received, and I can have my attorney look it over?”

  “I suppose I could.”

  “Mother… is Agnes okay?”

  “I suppose so, why?”

  “It’s… nothing. I just had a strange… feeling about her and wondered if she was alright.”

  “She seemed fine when I called her earlier.”

  Jacqueline cocked an eyebrow. “Called? Isn’t she at home with you?”

  “Heavens no, dear! She and her sister live in Chicago now.”

  Jacqueline sat bolt upright. “She what?”

  “Oh, I guess we forgot to mention it. Yes, a few months ago. They got an apartment together. Gracie even got a job, doing something in an office. Agnes is still job hunting, but it sounds like Gracie makes enough to clear the rent and utilities, at least, so that’s something.”

  “Huh. Yes, I suppose it is.” Jacqueline couldn’t imagine what sort of office would hire her youngest sister.

  “I’ll send you their new address and home phone number when I mail this blurb from the law office, or whatever this is.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Is everything okay with you? How’s Richardson?”

  Jacqueline rolled slightly to her left and stared wistfully at the empty space on the bed where he normally slept. “Richardson’s fine.”

  CHAPTER 5: STAKEOUT

  Gracie cut her used car’s engine and turned off the headlights, leaving her in near darkness. The closest streetlights bathed the ground in yellow light, but avoided her parking spot, which suited her fine. She didn’t want to be seen by anyone, especially by a certain someone who had a hair salon across the street from her vantage point.

  Gracie sighed and looked out the side window wistf
ully. An approaching car on the other side of the street lit up the storefront, and the familiar lettering of the Hands-On Hair Salon flashed briefly into clear view before fading into illegibility.

  Gracie rubbed her nose. This wasn’t the plan. None of her life was going according to any sort of plan: She stumbled upon her job at Modern Roofing Supply as a data entry clerk, she moved to Chicago at Agnes’s urging—and with her seed money—and now her attempt at living up to her crush’s expectations were looking grim indeed. Trixie went for derby girls, and unless a miracle occurred, she wasn’t going to make the cut with the Downtown Dolls. Gracie glanced over at the sparsely lit Green Submarine sandwich shop and thought back to the one and only time she had eaten there, and the first time she laid eyes on Trixie.

  Despite Agnes’s encouragement, Gracie remained convinced that Trixie was far and away out of her league. She ran her fingers through her hair and flipped the sun visor down to check herself in the mirror. She thought she could use a haircut, but she wasn’t ready to face Trixie again. Even though her circumstances had improved considerably since the last time they met, there were other complications. Yes, she lived nearby and had a full-time job, and even an apartment. But her name wasn’t “Marcie”, and she wasn’t a derby girl. They could flirt and make lusty eyes at each other as much as they pleased in the time it took to run clippers and scissors over her head, but nothing was going to happen as far as Gracie could tell. She flipped the sun visor up and sank back into her seat.

  She crossed her arms tightly across her chest. She really needed to let Trixie go. She needed to stop driving out here late at night and staring longingly at the hair salon, trying to work up the nerve and the scripting to start over, and get onto solid footing. She imagined the scene, as she entered the salon and caught Trixie in-between customers, sweeping up a pile of black hair, and looking up to see Gracie walk in, alone. She’d say something like, “Well, hello Marcie,” and Gracie would say something like, “Can I talk to you?” Trixie would reply with something like, “Is that all you want to do, is talk?” She’d start unbuttoning her top and then Gracie would…

  She yanked her right hand away from her waistband and crossed her arms tightly once more. Dude, not in public, sheeze, she admonished herself. This was the other major issue Gracie was dealing with: was Trixie just a fantasy? Or did she want to have a real relationship?

  After breaking up abruptly with Aimee (formerly Lacey), Gracie found herself longing for a long list of attributes and scenarios in her next serious relationship. She hated thinking this, but the thought that she would be rebounding too quickly with Trixie, let alone placing massive expectations on her to be all the things that Aimee wasn’t did cross her mind more often than she cared to admit.

  And yet, their chance meeting felt right. Gracie wanted Trixie, Trixie wanted her, and maybe that was enough.

  A pair of oncoming headlights flashed across her face and panned left as a car pulled up to the curb across the street from Gracie’s parking spot. She watched as its headlights turned off, and she sucked in her breath as she got a good look at the vehicle: A black hearse, with a vanity plate on the front that read HANDS ON.

  She saw a woman remove her seat belt and push open the driver’s side door. Gracie anticipated a stilettoed heel and a sleek calf to drop down onto the street, but instead observed a black low-top sneaker drop down from behind the door, with a denim pant leg directly above it. A woman got out of the car, with short spiky black hair and a white t-shirt with black sleeves. This was not at all like the image that Trixie had projected. Was it one of her friends? Or had she… met somebody? Was Gracie too slow, and Trixie had given up on her? Gracie tried to get a good look at her, but she also didn’t want to attract any attention by gawking.

  The woman slammed the car door and jogged a bit toward the salon door. She fumbled with her keys and sorted them out to find the salon key, which she inserted into the door and gave a vigorous twist. This had to be Trixie, she thought. She assumed the woman had done this often, whereas a new hire or new fling wouldn’t be so deliberate. Gracie watched the woman pull the door closed and twist the locking knob before walking quickly out of view.

  Gracie considered pulling her car forward a bit to get a better view. The streetlight was going to shine directly down onto her and she wasn’t ready for that degree of exposure. She hated not seeing everything that was happening, but her best option was to stay put, and wait.

  Moments later, the woman emerged from the salon, clutching a vinyl pouch. Gracie had seen Warren use something similar when he would total up the bank deposit at the skating rink. She wanted to hop out of the car and say something, anything, but she didn’t feel as though the timing was right. Trixie, or whoever this woman was, might be spooked by somebody approaching her late at night while she held a bag full of cash, or whatever she might be carrying. The woman spun the salon key around the opposite direction and pulled it out of the door. She looked around nervously and jogged back to her car. Gracie felt her stomach churn as she watched the woman get into the car, pull the seat belt across her chest and pull the door shut.

  Gracie wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, the woman with the black heels and Bettie Page hair didn’t just make a pit stop at the salon, but on the other, she got a good look at the woman’s face, and if she wasn’t Trixie she was practically her twin. The hearse snapped on its headlights and the engine rumbled to life. The hearse rolled past her car, and the woman stared straight ahead as she passed by. Gracie gulped and sat back a little so as not to be recognized.

  She flipped her cell phone over on the passenger seat and checked the time. She had work in the morning. Stakeout time was over.

  CHAPTER 6: HAMILTON

  Gene Swolski was a wanted man—or so he believed. The truth was, he had no window into his former life as a supervisor for the Chicago Streets and Sanitation department. Circumstances were such that he left town with approximately $450 in stolen cash and hopped a one-way bus to Bennington Vermont. When pressed for a destination, he heard that word on a loudspeaker behind him and we went with it. He meandered his way westward to Albany, New York, then out to a town called Altamont.

  Circumstances further required a name change. He stuck with Eugene as his first name, figuring it was easy to remember and sounded like a name that might be reasonably common out east. For his last name, he needed something a bit more regional. An overheard conversation on the bus provided the answer, when a woman was telling her seat-mate all about a musical her daughter wanted to take her to called Hamilton. And so, Eugene Hamilton was born.

  From a certain point of view, Gene Swolski was a murderer. That point of view was shared by everyone who witnessed him gun down an unarmed man in cold blood in a warehouse that he and his late associate Sharon Meier had snuck into to snoop around and get answers as to why a small army of homeless people were gathering up trash and bringing it to the warehouse. Now Sharon was dead, though to this day Gene wasn’t exactly sure how. Her head had been rendered in clay, and he awoke many nights afterward in a cold sweat recalling the sickening splat it made on the cement floor of his makeshift cell when he was caught by the warehouse staff. Maybe it was carved to scare him, and she was being held prisoner somewhere. Maybe she was killed some other way. Maybe they let her go, and she went back to work, puzzled over Gene’s whereabouts.

  Whatever the case may be, he was done with that life. Now he worked as a groundskeeper for a stately manor somewhere in rural upstate New York. He had done a few odd jobs for the proprietor, gaining his trust. As spring began to set in, he offered Gene a full-time position complete with room and board. Gene said he hadn’t applied for his New York driver’s license yet. The proprietor waved him off.

  “You seem like the honest type,” he said. “My driver will take you into town, as often as you may require. My chief concern is reliable help. Are you reliable, Eugene?”

  Gene recalled nodding to this, and based on some shoveling and minor elect
rical repairs, he found himself gainfully employed and safely under the radar.

  He didn’t concern himself with the goings-on at the manor itself. It seemed like an airy New Age-y retreat of some sort. He overheard lots of talk about meditation and spirit guides. A boy of not more than 18 tried to strike up small talk with Gene, which he squelched. The less people stuck their nose into his business, the better, he thought. He’d replace light bulbs and rake leaves in exchange for complete privacy.

  Gene found himself at the main dining table at the proprietor’s request this morning. He sat at the far end of the table, hoping to be left alone. He had a fence to repair out on the edge of the property and he much preferred to be out there alone rather than in the manor, amongst the staff and students. His hopes of leaving a chair to his right as a buffer were dashed when that awkward kid sat beside him, adjusted his glasses, and said, “Good morning.” Gene sipped his coffee and grunted.

  As breakfast progressed, the table became chattier. Students talked amongst themselves, staff sat admiringly as the proprietor held court at the head of the table, and the awkward kid to Gene’s right hunched over his plate and ate in silence. Gene did the same and did nothing to encourage conversation. The proprietor called down to him at one point to get him to acknowledge the praise he’d been given on his attention to the grounds, but Gene just grunted and took a bite out of a piece of wheat toast.

  “Oh my, a man of few words, few words indeed,” roared the proprietor, merrily. “He reminds me so much of a man I met on a journey through Peru. We were five days in the mountains, when…” His story droned on amid oohs and aahs from the enthralled staff. Gene blew a puff of air up through his mustache and refilled his coffee mug.

  The boy to his right had finished his breakfast. He turned to the nearest staffer and asked to be excused. She gave her approval, and the boy pushed his chair back and stepped away from the table. Before leaving, he put his dark-skinned hand on Gene’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “You weren’t wrong to let her in.”