by Eli Constant
“Victoria Cage.” I bite my lip. “Most people call me Tori.”
Kyle’s face breaks out into a wide grin; his teeth are white, shining from between mauve-hued lips and a single dimple sprouts to life in his right cheek. A curl of his black hair falls fetchingly over his forehead. Maybe I don’t mind longer hair on men after all. “Now, Dad might not talk about me much, but he sure as hell talks about you. Pretty sure you’re the daughter he’s always wanted.”
“Oh, um…” I’m at a loss for words. Again. Jim’s never let on to me that he feels that way. We spend most of our time talking over work things. It’s not even really my work. It’s work I’ve taken on because I’m compelled to, because of a gift I can’t tell anyone about. And he, well, I guess he’d have to have a soft spot for me to risk pissing off his unsavory patrons. “I didn’t know he felt that way. I mean, I think of him,” I pause, not knowing what word to use. I’d told Jim I thought of him as a father figure, or a grandfather rather, “very fondly.”
“Very fondly.” Kyle nods. “Well, that’s a great deal more than most people think of him.” His grin widens, if that’s possible. “Especially his ex-wives and my mother.”
“Well, he has you.” I smile. “That’s something.”
“Yes, I think of him,” Kyle pauses for effect, “very fondly.”
We both laugh then, reserved sounds so as not to wake Jim. Although, honestly, we’ve not kept our speaking voices down. Any tension that existed between us melts away.
“Loud as a damn herd of cattle out there.” A very grumpy voice pushes its way past the cloth and assaults us. “Can’t get any damn sleep around here. Nurses waking me up every hour, poking and prodding me like I’m a pin cushion. I want to go home, Kyle.” His voice has gone from grumpy to nearly whiney. I’d never heard Jim talk like that.
“Manners, Dad. We’ve got a lady present.”
“Damn a lady.” Jim mumbles, although he sounds like some of the vinegar has bled out of his voice. “They’re all ladies. Nurses upon nurses. Except for that one man. Had bright blue hair. Who the fuck has bright blue hair? And in this profession. Half of them have tattoos and piercings. What the hell happened to proper bedside manner?”
“And when was the last time you were in a hospital?” There’s mirth in Kyle’s voice. “When your mom was in labor? That was the Ice Age, wasn’t it?” His hands go to the curtain and he pulls it open enough to reveal me.
When Jim sees me standing there, still wielding my damp umbrella and fidgeting like a child, he smiles and the resemblance between him and Kyle is so apparent that it’s like looking at the same man, separated by time and somehow standing side-by-side. Soon though, the smile fades into a blank stare. And the blank stare morphs into something more alive behind the eyes.
“Tori! I had the strangest dream about you.”
I freeze, the plinking of water hitting the linoleum once again pounding against my brain. “You did?”
Chapter Thirteen.
“Kyle.” I turn to Jim’s son. I don’t know him well enough to send him on an errand, but I need him to leave, in case Jim says something that I’ll regret. Besides, requesting things of total strangers is par for the Queen Awkward course. “Can you get me a cup of coffee? Do they have that nearby?”
I was fairly certain the hospital only had vending machines in the various wings and one had to go to the cafeteria for anything fresh.
“Not nearby, but I can get one.” He doesn’t seem to be taken aback by my request, though I’d be if a practical stranger asked me to run off and fetch a beverage. “You want anything, Dad?”
Jim shakes his head, still looking at me in a strange way that makes my stomach turn. He can’t remember. If he does, I have to find a way to play it off as a dream. I have to convince him that it wasn’t real. It was just delusion on the doorstep of death.
“Be right back then. Don’t get too cozy while I’m gone. You’re past the days of wooing women in their twenties.” His voice is chiding, in a joking way and he’s looking pointedly at Jim and a little frown forms between his eyebrows when Jim doesn’t look over and acknowledge him.
I watch Kyle walk out of the room, posture straight and carrying himself like a man who’s confident in his abilities. I like that, but I also find it a bit intimidating. Taking a deep breath, I turn my face to Jim. He’s still caught in a trance. His mouth hangs open slightly.
“So what was this dream about, Jim? It better not be anything icky. I’ll never look at you the same if so.” Deep down though, I’d prefer it be something sexually untoward rather than what I suspected.
Moving to a chair that’s pulled close to Jim’s bed, I sit down. It’s the type that reclines flat so a visitor can rest overnight. It’s sat completely straight now and the rear of the seat feels too formal against my spine, like I’m sat in an interrogation room or awaiting trial… a trial that will lead to a hot, hot death. “You okay?” I reach out and touch his hand.
He flinches away like he’s been stung. His other hand moves to rub the one my fingers have momentarily brushed. There’s a look of panic spreading across his face now. “I know what you are.” His voice is low and raspy, and it’s not from living life in a boozy, smoke-filled bar.
My heart drops into my stomach. Those five words are my world crashing down around me. Shards from the looking glass. Ash from the fire.
The end.
Earlier, I’d debated burning down my home and saying goodbye to my life. I’d changed my mind. But now it seemed that fate was making the choice for me. The umbrella is forgotten, once on my lap, but shifted now to cram between my thigh and the side of the faux leather hospital chair. It’s still, amazingly, damp and now soaking my leggings.
“What in the world are you talking about?” I try to act calm, leaning back in the chair like I didn’t just touch him and he didn’t just jerk away like I was the devil incarnate.
“You know what I’m talking about, Tori.” He’s stopped rubbing his hands and he folds them over his stomach, which is a mountainous hump that makes him look nearly pregnant the way he is laying. “I always wondered how you came by so much information, how you could possibly help the police. Do they know what you are? Do they let it slide because you help them?”
Stay calm. Stay calm. He’s just assuming. He doesn’t know anything for sure. “What the hell kind of meds do they have you on, Jim? You sound insane.” My voice isn’t quite as calm as I want it to be.
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, Tori. Never insane. I’m as real as it gets. And when I say something, I mean it. When I know something, I know it.” His words are metal shards, falling from his lips to cut me one by one. I fear that soon I will be nothing more than a mass of stringy, ruined tissue.
“Jim, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lean forward slightly, holding my hands out, palms up.
“How did you survive The Rising?” His keen eyes are small, appraising slits set into his wrinkled, weathered face.
“Jim, come on, I was a baby when the war ended. I survived because I was wearing diapers and drinking every meal from a bottle.” I put steel into my words, tried to chip away at his sureness. Jim wasn’t having it.
This was it. The moment I had feared. The moment my father had feared. He and Grandmother had seen how necromancers were killed during The Rising. The government had televised some of the executions as a warning. Grandmother told me about it. Her stories had been brutal and so detailed that I could still, to this day, close my eyes and see it happening.
Necromancers weren’t just killed quick and easy. They were tortured. The ungodliness beaten out of them. They were cleansed, their spirits made pure again before being doused in holy water. We died as easy as any other person. They could just put a bullet in our brains and be done with it. No, though. They had to torture us.
And then burn us.
“I should have seen it before. That time I caught you talking to an empty chair at the bar.”
He chuckles and the sound is like a lion laughing, eyeing his prey before pouncing. “You were only talking to yourself. Just being a bit loony. Nothing too abnormal. I believed you.”
“What are you accusing me of, Jim? Just say it.” I spit the words out. I want them to be some specialty breed of throwing knives, each syllable able to separate and embed in a different part of his body.
“You’re a necromancer.”
The word is like the atom bomb. It falls between us and creates such an explosion that we are made deaf. We are burned. There is no turning back.
I sit there, glued to the chair and unable to speak. It is several moments before I gain command of my tongue again. “You’ll turn me in.” I sound so feeble, whispering what I’m sure is absolute fact. There’s no chance for me now. He’s probably already notified someone. Maybe that’s where Kyle has really gone. Not for coffee, like I asked, but to get help. To drag the big bad necromancer out in handcuffs to await an unjust trial.
He doesn’t confirm or deny. To me, that is affirmation. Jim plans to throw me to the wolves. Somewhere, deep in my heart, I thought he cared enough about me to forgive me this sin that I was born with, this blight on my character that is beyond my control.
Looking down at my hands, I speak. I feel it’s important to say my peace before the end. “I’ve never hurt anyone, Jim. Never. I’ve used my gift to save people. Even now, I’m trying to save people.”
“But you can’t control it fully, can you? None of them could.”
I’m surprised to hear a note of sadness in his tone now. He’s not so coldhearted that he doesn’t feel some modicum of grief.
“No, I can’t control it completely. There are times when a body rises without my consent. The soul still clinging feels my presence, it comes to me. Normally with some unfinished business to settle. But don’t you see,” I look up, fingers digging hard into my thighs and bunching up the leggings, “even then, I’m helping someone. I’m helping them move on to the other side.”
The tears begin to fall then. I cannot stop them. They come in a flood, streaming quickly down my face and wetting my sweater. Nearly black spots begin to spread across the green material. I would not be surprised if the dampness continued to grow until I bore a giant ‘n’ on my chest.
“You okay, Victoria?”
I jump at the sound of Kyle’s voice. Looking up at him, I simultaneously pull the sleeve of my sweater over my hand and I wipe swiftly at my face, hoping to erase the tears. It’s too late though. He’s seen them of course. He seems genuinely concerned. His Dad hasn’t told him yet. When he knows, he won’t look at me with kindness ever again. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just glad your Dad’s okay.”
Kyle hands me a cup of coffee. Cinnamon and cream wafts out of the little drinking hole and brushes gently against my face, drying the leftover tears. “Didn’t know how you liked it. That okay?”
“Smells wonderful. Thanks.” I look from Kyle to his Dad. Jim is staring at me again. His expression flexes back and forth between decision and non-decision. Maybe I am not doomed yet.
But I will not hope. Hope can be deadly.
Chapter Fourteen.
Kyle wants to walk me to my car when I leave. Jim protests, tries to come up with something to keep his son by his side rather than escorting the devil woman out, but he fails, not quick-witted enough.
More than anything, that hurts me. I would never hurt Kyle or anyone else.
He walks a little behind me as we move, letting me lead the way. I don’t know if I appreciate that, because all I can think of is making sure my sweater doesn’t ride up and show off my less-than-toned derriere. I fidget every few steps, tugging on the hem of the olive green material and sighing every time that I feel it and find that it’s still seated well below my… seat.
“So, Dad seemed a little off when I came back. Was everything okay?” Kyle sounds cool and breezy, without a care in the world.
“Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” I sound nervous. I am not great at keeping it cool and breezy, like the man walking near me who I’m starting to suspect is just this side of perfect.
“Good. I joke about Dad liking them young, but,” he pauses and I hear that his footsteps have ceased. Turning around, I look at him and wait for him to finish his sentence. He runs a hand through his hair. Now he’s not so Mr. Cool and Breezy. “I’ve had to pull him out of a scrap or two. It’s like he forgets he’s old as hell now. A couple months ago I swung by for a visit and he was giving alcohol to a girl that looked like she’d barely graduated high school. He hadn’t even carded her. It turned out she was only sixteen. She flirted her way into two cocktails.”
“He’d have gone to jail, Kyle.”
“Yeah, I know. I intervened. Sobered her up with a few cups of coffee and a threat to call her parents.” His face is very serious, but then he grins and it’s like sunshine peeking from behind ominous clouds. “Anyways, I just wanted to make sure he didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“Jim’s never done anything like that to me. I’ve never been worried around him.” That was a lie though. Today, I’d been worried. Now, leaving the hospital, I was worried. He was going to expose me.
And I was going to be dead.
“Kyle, can I ask you something?” We’d started walking again. He’d moved forward a bit to move by my side rather than behind. That made me feel a little less awkward. I really needed to accelerate this whole ‘getting in shape’ thing.
“Shoot.” He pushes his hands into his pocket and the movement is so casual and graceful that it’s like he’s done it for a photo op. Intentional casualness that is so controlled that it comes off as natural. For the first time since meeting Kyle, I wonder if there isn’t something else going on with him, something kept below the surface that is wild, something that the studied façade of perfection protects.
“If your Dad found something out about someone, something bad, but he’d known them forever and cared about them, what would he do? Do you think he’d turn them in?” In my rational mind, I know asking the questions was like opening a can of worms… next to a fisherman… with a hook ready to bait. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was grappling for any sense of hope that I might survive Jim finding out that I was a necromancer. And for some reason, I felt safe asking Kyle. Maybe it was the realization that he was more than what he seemed.
First impressions are important. Second impressions make futures.
I don’t risk looking at Kyle, but I can feel his gaze upon me. It burns against my cheeks, wildfire in the middle of a hospital hallway that is made already hot by the bright, fluorescent lights above our heads.
“I’ve never known Dad to turn on a friend. That’s one quality I can admire about him. He may not be true to his wives. He may be a little sleazy when it comes to his sexual appetite, but he’s a fierce friend.”
I have more questions, but I’ve said enough. Kyle’s words give me what I need- a tiny ember of hope, hope that I might not die because of what I am.
“Why do you ask, Victoria?” he turns to look at me, his expression that of concern.
Most people don’t call me Victoria. It’s such a formal-sounding name. When folks say it, I feel like I don’t belong. Tori is more approachable. It fits me. Victoria sounds like an aristocrat or a movie star. It does not sound like a too short, too dumpy single woman running a funeral parlor.
“I needed to know. And Tori’s fine. Most people call me Tori.” I shrug, repeating what I’ve said earlier. And I can’t give him the real answer. I’m no good at lying. I mean, I am good at lying when it comes to hiding what I am, but I can’t look at a person full in the face and tell them something untrue. I go bright red in the face and sweat so much I soak through my shirts. Dad had never worried over me getting away with something—sneaking off to a party or ‘borrowing’ the car. Even if I had successfully sneaked out and sneaked back in, I would have felt so guilty that I would have told him the next day. And then he’d pretend to ground me for life.<
br />
Jokes on him. It wasn’t pretend. I’m a necromancer. I’m already grounded for life.
“I thought being vague was reserved for social media nowadays.” Kyle’s tone is a kidding one. His smile is a half expression now, only raising the left side of his face.
“You mean like vague-booking?”
“Or insta-ambiguous,” his words hold unveiled amusement.
“You forgot twitter-woolly,” I banter back. For a moment, the lighthearted exchange makes me forget that I’m in danger.
We laugh, our chuckles echoing up and down the halls. We’re not near patient rooms, but a nurse shushes us anyways.
“Twitter-woolly. I like that one.” Kyle moves slightly in front of me, activating the sliding door that exits out to the parking lot.
“Insta-ambiguous wasn’t too shabby either.” I laugh—the too hard kind of utterance that causes me to snort unexpectedly. It also causes me to freeze in my tracks, go bright red in the face (yes, the same shade of red my face goes when I’m trying to lie), and stutter out an apology. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Kyle has his back to me still. We’re just outside the door and stood under the overhang that keeps the rain that’s still pouring down from soaking me. It’s very late in the day; the sun, fully hidden by the clouds and looking like a flashlight dimmed by a scarf, is an afterthought in the sky waiting for the moon to arrive.
“For, um, snorting?” I make it a question. I’m a walking basket-case of not-so-self-assuredness.
“It’s cute.” He turns then, the twinkle I first saw in his eyes when he’d appeared around the hospital curtain back in full force. Like there are stars there, just behind the glossy surface, blinking back at me. Rays of light beyond my reach.
“It is not cute,” I stammer.
“Maybe to you.” Those stars keep twinkling at me. Mesmerizing. Shit, it’s like Kyle has some power over me. Like I could fall into his gaze and never resurface. I could drown within him. “To me, it’s cute.” He looks down at my hands that are clenched at my sides. I hadn’t even realized I’d balled them into fists. “Where’s your umbrella?”