Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts)

by Trish J. MacGregor

  With her anxiety skyrocketing, she pocketed the phone and concentrated on fixing something to eat. She eyed the ingredients she had set on the floor: a small container of olive oil, two cans of tuna, wilted lettuce, some nuts, flat bread that probably had mold on it, a container of live bean sprouts, a bag of browning radishes, carrots that had seen better days.

  She turned the frying pan over and used the bottom of it as her cutting board. She tossed pieces of carrots and nuts to the parrot, who ate pristinely, holding this or that in her claws, nibbling and watching her. The repetitive rhythm of the chopping and dicing stirred yet another memory, of herself and a man in a kitchen, where he chopped and diced with utter fury while something pummeled the building over and over again. She could only see the man’s hands, but the memory of the pummeling terrified her.

  She scooped everything into her hands, dropped it all inside the frying pan, added olive oil, and fired up her little grill. Another vivid memory burst forth, of herself on a back porch somewhere, cooking on a regular propane grill, one that was waist high and had both a grill and a side burner. The grill stood on a porch overlooking a long boardwalk that jutted across a salt marsh and ended at the edge of a beach. The porch’s screens were ripped and flapped in a steady, humid breeze. Some of the trees in the salt marsh tilted at extreme angles, others looked ravaged by a savage wind. Pieces of the boardwalk were missing, the end of it had collapsed.

  She could suddenly place the memory: the rear deck of her mother’s home in Key Largo, Florida, in the aftermath of a hurricane in 2005. The city’s power had gone down; that was why she was cooking on a propane grill. A hurricane seven years ago: was she missing seven years of memories? Or was she missing decades more than this? Key Largo was in Florida. Yet, she had no memory of ever being in Florida, much less living there. And she couldn’t even envision her mother in this place. And who was her father? Did she have siblings? Pets? What was her work, career? What were her passions? Whom did she love?

  Her head ached with questions, so she turned her attention back to her cooking. When she finally bit into her wrap, juice dripped down the inside of her arm and she welcomed it, licked at it, couldn’t waste a single drop. Afterward, she sat there for a few minutes, eyes closed, savoring the sensation of fullness. She felt like a sloth.

  She finally pushed to her feet, took the dirty frying pan into the back room and washed it in the sink. She also brushed her teeth, which went a long way toward making her feel human again. She packed up her little camping grill and supplies, brought out her sleeping bag and spread it open on the floor. She removed her shoes and socks and padded barefoot through the store, helping herself to a couple of flashlights, a package of batteries, camping pillows. She put the knife, one of the slingshots, and several of the smooth stones inside her sleeping bag. Once she was settled inside of it, she picked up her iPhone again, scrolled through the text messages, reread the one from this guy named Wayra and responded.

  OK, no idea WTF u r, but need answers. Am @ deportes del bosque

  She waited five minutes for a response and when nothing came through, she dug through the pack for a charger, didn’t find one, and turned off the phone to conserve on power. Then she squirmed down into the sleeping bag, her head sinking into the pillow. Her last thought was the parrot’s name started with a k.

  She bolted awake sometime later and called the parrot by name. “Kali.”

  The bird landed beside her. “Bienvenida, Tess.”

  Tess. That name again. I am Tess, she thought, testing the name, trying it on for size. It didn’t feel any more familiar to her now than it had when she’d tested it earlier, but she decided to claim the name. Why not? It was better than no name.

  “I am Tess,” she said aloud. “But how do you know my name, Kali?”

  Kali trilled softly and preened herself. As Tess dropped off to sleep, she wondered again how it knew her name. When she woke the second time, a tall man sat beside her, Kali perched on his shoulder. She reached for her slingshot, but since the parrot apparently didn’t feel threatened by the man, she didn’t, either. Besides, she recognized him from her iPhone contacts. Wayra.

  “Do you remember me?” he asked.

  She wanted to, needed to, but didn’t. “No. But I know your name is Wayra because you’re in my contact list.”

  “Even if you can’t remember me, Tess, I hope you can trust me. We should move on. Neither of us is safe here.”

  “I’ve been perfectly safe right here for a while now.”

  “That may be. But if these bozos catch us, we’ll probably be stoned to death.”

  “Stoned?” She thought of the two men in the park. “By…?”

  “The ones who were in El Bosque when it disappeared. The … transition screwed them up. Question: can you see the dead birds everywhere?”

  “Yes. But these two guys who tried to steal my stuff … I don’t think they could see the birds. Why would that be?”

  “I don’t know,” Wayra replied, “Maybe it means your memories will return more quickly. Let’s get going.”

  She and Wayra gathered up her belongings, piled everything into her cart, and the parrot perched at the end of it, squawking noisily. Wayra pushed the cart out of the store, onto the twilit street. She peered up and down the deserted road. Her head hammered, her heart beat way too fast, she felt like throwing her arms around this stranger, Wayra, and begging him to tell her what she needed to know. Instead, she barely managed to ask, “What’s going on here, Wayra?”

  “A battle.”

  “Between who and who?”

  “Chasers, brujos, shifters, the living and the dead. I don’t know. None of the boundaries are clear anymore.”

  “I don’t know what chasers or brujos are. And what are shifters? My memory is seriously damaged.”

  Wayra’s frown thrust down so deeply between his eyes it threatened to divide his face in half. “Jesus, Tess.”

  “I know. It’s bad. Thanks to my phone and iPad, I have images of people who are apparently close to me, but I don’t remember them. I don’t know much of anything about myself. But what I really want to know is, how do we win this battle?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  “Now that worries me,” she said. “How do we escape this place, this limbo twilight?”

  “I’m clueless. What I do know is where we’ll be safe from the crazies. And they’re numerous.”

  “So let me get this straight. I supposedly know you well, you’re apparently here to get me out of this Bosque place, you managed to get in, but you don’t have any idea how we get out. Does that about sum it up?”

  “No. But that’ll do for now.”

  “Well, shit, give me a reason to go with you.”

  Wayra’s dark eyes locked on hers, he kept his hands in his jacket pockets. “Proof, in other words.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s what I need. Proof.”

  He rocked back onto his heels and slipped his left hand from his pocket. But it wasn’t a hand. It was a paw, mostly black with streaks of white, the fur reaching nearly to his elbow, where the human joint and skin began. She didn’t know what to think of it, so she reached out and touched it, a real dog’s paw, the fur soft, the feet webbed, the claws well worn at the ends.

  “I’m one of two ancient shape shifters in existence. The other one is my wife, Illary. There are two other shifters that I turned three years ago, when I rescued your niece, Maddie, from Cedar Key and the brujos.”

  “But what’s with the paw?”

  “Whatever is happening here prevents me from shifting fully, has stolen your memory, keeps chasers out, and traps brujos in their virtual forms. In other words, everything is fucked up.”

  A memory stirred way down deep inside Tess and she relaxed into it, willing it to surface, allowing it to enter her awareness. And when it did, she saw herself waiting outside what appeared to be a bus depot, with a man who looked like a movie star, and a friendly black do
g, a Lab, that got onto the bus with them.

  “A black Lab,” she said. “I remember you as a black Lab, Wayra.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “And I remember Illary as…” Tess felt another memory surfacing and relaxed into it. In her mind, a beautiful sparrow hawk circled above her, against a magnificent blue sky. “A hawk. A sparrow hawk.”

  Wayra grinned. “Will you come with me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Let’s get to a safe haven, Kali,” said Wayra, and the parrot fluttered upward, into the twilight, and they hurried after her.

  Fourteen

  Charlie and Karina

  1.

  Charlie and Karina stood outside the virtual home that Maria had built who knew when. An eye-catcher. Constructed of recycled materials, it was camouflaged by a jungle of trees that grew in the Brazilian Amazon. “I like our place better,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Let’s get this over with, Karina.”

  “It’s going to be ugly.”

  “It’s already ugly.”

  Thick ferns shrouded the long, curving sidewalk, beds of colorful, exotic flowers blanketed the rolling grounds, purple and red orchids grew from the trunks of nearby trees. The attention to detail in this place, Charlie thought, revealed a great deal about Maria herself.

  When he rang the doorbell, John Lennon sang “Imagine,” and it sounded as if he were standing right next to them. A creative touch, Charlie thought. But the music didn’t match Maria’s sour expression when she threw open the door. She looked ravaged—emotionally, intellectually, spiritually—and bore little resemblance to that gorgeous, reserved babe from the last council meeting. He could hardly believe she was the same person. Her colorful dress looked as if she’d slept in it for days, a coffee stain shaped like Sicily stained the front of it, she was barefoot and the toenails on her right foot were painted bright red, the toenails on her left foot had no polish on them at all.

  “Oh. Charlie, Karina.” She stepped out onto the porch and quickly shut the door behind her. She stabbed her fingers through her long, tangled blond hair, flicked it over one shoulder, fussed with it. Her toes curled and uncurled against the wooden landing. She knew she looked like shit. “What’s up?”

  “We need to talk,” Karina said. “May we come in?”

  “Now really isn’t a good time, Karina. The—”

  “Now is the only time!” Charlie moved past her and opened the door.

  Newton stood just inside, his eyes wide and startled, like those of a teenager who has been caught having sex with his underage girlfriend. His longish gray hair was stringy and greasy, as though he hadn’t washed it recently, and his clothing—jeans, a T-shirt—looked soiled, old, faded. “It’s, uh, not a good time, Charlie, to talk about anything.”

  “It’s the perfect time.” Charlie swept past him, into the spacious front room of Maria’s carefully constructed home.

  But nothing inside the place looked carefully constructed. The living room, though spacious, faded in and out, a testament to the fact that neither Maria nor Newton had their acts together enough to keep things solid, real, tangible. Magazines and books spilled off a coffee table to the floor. Dirty dishes and glasses and piles of discarded clothing lay everywhere. Animals scampered around—meowing cats, barking dogs, squeaking hamsters racing around in cages, birds that shrieked and cried. Cat poop, dog poop, hamster poop, bird poop dotted the counters and had been ground down into the grout between the floor tiles.

  “Chaos,” Charlie murmured.

  Karina wrinkled her nose. “Stinks, too.”

  “You can’t just barge in like this,” Maria snapped, coming up behind them. “Get out, just get out of here.”

  “Stay,” Newton pleaded. “Please stay.”

  “What gave the minority of the council members the right to disappear El Bosque?” Charlie demanded. “Several hundred people—including my daughter—were in there when you did that.”

  Newton sank into one of the chairs, his face etched with such abject misery that Charlie almost felt sorry for him. But only almost.

  “It was her idea.” He stabbed his thumb toward Maria. “She got Simon and José to help her. I told her it was a mistake, that I didn’t want any part of it, that it went against the way we’ve always done things. I refused to help them.”

  Maria, apparently locked in a full meltdown, shouted, “That’s a goddamn lie,” and lunged at Newton.

  Karina grabbed the back of Maria’s dress before she reached Newton, jerked her back, and shoved her down on to the couch. Maria’s face went radish red, her eyes flashed with rage, and she threw up her arms, trying to knock Karina’s hands off her shoulders. When she didn’t succeed, she demanded, “Take your hands off me, Karina.”

  “As soon as you’re calmer, I will.”

  Maria raised her hands. “Okay, I’m calm, I’m calm. I won’t kill him. I promise.”

  “He’s already dead,” Charlie remarked.

  “Yeah, exactly,” Newton spat. “But Maria’s intent on our reincarnating as soon as Esperanza has been removed from the physical world. That’s what the rush is about. She forgot to mention that.”

  “Why does Esperanza have to be disappeared before you reincarnate?” Charlie asked.

  “Once the city is taken back to where it came from,” Newton said, “our obligation to Esperanza is finished.”

  “Others on the council have reincarnated,” Karina said.

  Maria rolled her eyes. “Get your facts straight, Karina. Only one member of the council has reincarnated since Esperanza was brought into the physical world.”

  “So, Maria, have you already chosen your parents?” Karina asked. “The place? The details?”

  “No,” Newton said.

  “That’s not true,” Maria said quickly. “I’ve got some possibilities, Newt.”

  “Yeah, all of them in shitty rural towns in South America. No, thanks. I’m going to be reborn in the U.S. or Europe this time, and not in some backwater town, okay? And I’m not going to be coerced into an arrangement I don’t like.”

  “Uh, excuse me,” Charlie said. “You two can argue about your next lives when you’re alone. Right now, you need to reverse the travesty you’ve committed and free El Bosque and everyone who got caught up in its disappearance.”

  “It can’t be reversed,” Maria snapped.

  Charlie felt such sudden and profound despair that for a moment, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t even move. Then anger swept through him, freeing him from his paralysis, and he seized on the first idea that leaped into his mind.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Newton, there’s an obscure rule that allows any council member to request that another member be suspended for making decisions based on self-interest rather than for the common good of Esperanza and her people. Maria has clearly done that. So I’m invoking my right to kick her off the council.”

  “What?” Maria looked horrified. “There’s no such rule. Show me where that rule is written down, Charlie. This is such bullshit.”

  Charlie didn’t know whether such a rule existed. Victor had first told him about some obscure rules that had been in force when there were fourteen council members. He’d said he would research it and find out if they could invoke one of these rules to prevent the council from removing Esperanza from the physical world. But Victor had never gotten back to him. Even if such a rule didn’t exist, it should, Charlie thought. Judging from Newton’s bewildered expression, it was apparent that he was as much in the dark as Charlie.

  “Newt, tell him,” Maria said, growing agitated again. “There’s no rule like that.”

  “I…” Newton stammered. “I, well…”

  “Actually, there is such a rule,” Karina said with a gleeful snicker.

  Charlie struggled to hide his surprise.

  Maria rolled her eyes again, more dramatically, and flung her arms out at Karina. “You are so transparent, Kari
na. You’re just saying that to support Charlie.”

  “No, that’s something you would do. During my earliest years as a chaser, I worked as a researcher for the council. The law Charlie is referring to was used only once, thousands of years ago, to remove the fourteenth member of the council.”

  “These are lies, all lies,” Maria burst out. “Newt, why was the fourteenth council member removed?”

  Newton shrugged. “How the hell should I know? It was well before my time.”

  “But you’re the oldest member of the council,” Maria rushed on. “If you don’t know, who does?”

  Newton tilted his head toward Karina. “She obviously does. And she has studied our history.”

  “The fourteenth member was removed from the council because she went against the majority at that time by advocating for council members who represented animals,” Karina said.

  It was news to Charlie. Was Karina making up this stuff?

  “Animals?” Maria burst out laughing. “That’s ludicrous. Souls aren’t confined to any species, certainly the fourteenth member must have known that.”

  “But just as some souls are predominately male or female,” Newton said, “it’s also true that some souls prefer reincarnating as animals.”

  Maria’s cheeks flared with color again and she shot to her feet and faced the three of them, hands on her narrow hips. “You can’t just kick me off.”

  “Yeah, we can,” Charlie said. “You, Simon, and José. Be sure to let them know.”

  Newton pushed up from the chair, and he, Karina, and Charlie turned their backs on Maria and clasped each other’s hands. It was what a herd of elephants did when one of their own had died.

  Without uttering a word to her or to each other, they walked toward the front door. Newton opened it, stepped outside, and Karina followed him. Just before Charlie joined them on the porch, he glanced back. “If the three of you reverse what you did to El Bosque, then we’ll reconsider.”