The Umbral Wake

by Martin Kee

  Dona turned back to Victoria. “Well,” she said. “I suppose it hasn’t been very fair to you… you’ve been very patient with me.”

  “No, it hasn’t. I try so hard to be your friend sometimes, Dona,” she said. “And you keep pushing me away. You… you’re the only real friend I have. So I won’t accept no for an answer. You and I are going to set this straight for the last time, okay? Even if it means we have to camp out there for the next week.”

  Dona sighed. She looked up at the rafters. “I suppose the letter just hit me harder than I expected.”

  Victoria stepped up to her and gave her a hug, speaking over her shoulder. “I know, dear. Some people are just born rotten.”

  Chapter 23

  Rhinewall

  “WELL, WE WON’T be getting what we need from the curio shop anymore,” Gil said as Skyla emerged from the closet.

  “What do you mean?” asked Skyla.

  The one-eyed girl was writing furiously on a piece of paper, hardly even looking up as Skyla crossed the room. “The boy gangs have expanded their territory, I guess. They’re working for the shop owner.”

  “The shop owner?”

  “Felton,” Gil shook her head in irritation. “I can’t really say. I still don’t know exactly what I saw.”

  “Well try telling me,” said Skyla. She glanced over her shoulder at the void inside the closet. Faces peered out, pleading for help. “I am trying to solve a few problems of my own.”

  Gil looked up at her and frowned. “Why would someone rob their own store?” she asked Skyla.

  “To get insurance money?”

  Gil shook her head. “No it can’t be that simple. He said something to the boys as he bought back his stuff. Something about a world full of hammers, or a storm of hammers, or something.”

  Skyla shrugged. “Beats me. What were you doing there anyway?”

  Gil pointed at the smashed camera in the box.

  “Oh,” Skyla said, crossing the room and opening the lenses a moment. She sat in a chair and stared at Gil, reading her shadow as she wrote. In it, she witnessed a silent exchange, the coin falling into an open hand.

  “You were using the coin?”

  Gil looked up at her, a moment of surprise flashing across her face. “So what?”

  “I told you not to.”

  “Well, it doesn’t work anymore… whatever it did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gave it to the clerk and he told me he knew it was a trick. It won’t work on him anymore.”

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Skyla said, getting up and walking over to the coat where she kept it. She reached into the pocket and frowned. “Do you still have it?”

  Gil was silent, staring at her list. “I don’t have it.”

  “What?”

  She turned to look at Skyla. “I said I don’t have it, okay?”

  Skyla’s eyes went wide, her breathing short. She could feel her blood rise into her face. “What do you mean you don’t have it?”

  “It was stolen… by the gang boys?”

  Skyla’s jaw clenched, grinding her teeth. “What?”

  “I used it… he didn’t buy it. Then we got robbed and the boys took it.”

  Skyla pulled the lenses of her goggles up again. “Where did they go?”

  “I wasn’t about to follow them to their hideout,” said Gil. She looked up at Skyla and winced. “Jesus, have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

  “I don’t need to,” Skyla said dismissively. “How long ago did this happen?”

  Gil shrugged, but her eyes held steady on Skyla. “I don’t know.”

  “Well we should go after them.” She pulled the goggles down again and looked into the closet through the layers of city. She could see it, but just barely, a glimmering star moving through space.

  “Skyla,” Gil said, standing. “You really should look in a mirror at yourself.” Gil put a hand to her chest and Skyla could see it was shaking. “Or just… maybe take a break from those goggles for a while.”

  “I can’t,” said Skyla. “I need them if I am going to—”

  “You need to take them off!” Gil shouted.

  Skyla froze a moment, looking at her friend, staring at the expression on her face. She reached up, took the goggles in one hand and pulled them from her head. The air felt cool on her scalp as the helmet came free.

  “Happy now?” she said.

  “No,” said Gil. “Skyla, I don’t know what those are doing to you…”

  It was then that Skyla looked down at the leather skullcap in her hands. A clump of hair clung to the wool padding. And not a little hair. This was a handful at least. A shaking hand went to her head and she felt skin.

  Before Gil could protest, Skyla slapped the helmet back on her head.

  “Skyla…”

  “SKY-la,” croaked the raven from the rafters.

  But Skyla was already walking for the closet. Gill lunged, taking her by the arm. “Skyla!”

  “I have to get it,” Skyla said. “It was my aunt’s.”

  “And you care about it more than your own health?” Gil tugged harder on Skyla’s arm, only adding to her anger. “Do you care about it more than me?”

  “Dammit, Gil,” she said, pulling away from the girl’s grip.

  Things happened in an instant, like a page turned too fast. The hand slipped and Skyla spun. Her own hand came up and struck Gil along the cheek. Then time seemed to freeze as the two girls stood facing each other. A trembling hand went to Gil’s face.

  “Gil, I’m sorry—” Skyla began. But Gil turned away from her, walked silently to the workbench. Her eyes stared unblinkingly at the floor. “I didn’t mean to…” But the girl wasn’t listening to her. Gil sat in her stool again. “Gil, I’m sorry.”

  To her surprise, Gil threw her head back and laughed. Cold laughter. She looked back at Skyla with wet eyes.

  “Do you have any idea how selfish you can be?” Gil asked her, the tears struggling to break free.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Every day I visit a new hospital, or sanitarium, or asylum, trying to find my father. Do you even remember how many times I’ve asked you to look for him?” She rubbed her cheek. “I ask you for one thing. One thing! And you just brush it off like my concerns don’t mean anything.”

  “Gil, it doesn’t work like that. I can’t just ask around—”

  “Oh, shut up!” Gil kicked the trash bin, spilling the shattered camera across the floor. “Shut up with your stupid stories.” She pointed an accusing finger at Skyla. “If you were for real, if what you said was true, you would be able to tell me where he is.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Skyla. “You would keep looking for him if I told you the truth.”

  Gil jerked her head as if slapped a second time. With the lenses up again Skyla’s pupils were huge. Her eyes, now surrounded by strange withered skin, focused on something just over Gil’s shoulder, something horrifying. Gil wanted to turn, wanted to look at it, but somehow knew it would be gone as soon as she did.

  Skyla continued, lost in her trance. “You were much younger then. Your father came back, but you knew that it wasn’t him, not anymore. You cried because you felt alone for the first time. Mr. Henry tried to help, but he hit you when you talked. One time he hit you so hard your eye filled with blood.”

  “How do you know?” she asked, blinking at the creature staring back from where a moment ago her friend had been.

  “I watch it in your sleep,” said Skyla. “I watched the same scene play out every night against the wall.”

  Gil looked over her own shoulder, but saw nothing but wood and cement. She looked back at Skyla and tried not to think about those eyes. They looked old, too old… they were the eyes of an ancient mortician with formaldehyde breath and yellow nails, not the eyes of a young girl.

  “I hated him,” Gil uttered. She could feel a prickling sensation in the back of her skull.
/>   “I would have hated him too,” said Skyla. “But he took care of you, kept you fed, taught you how to scam people, how to game the system, how to steal. He taught you how to survive, but he also taught you about men, the worst in men.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I see the worst in people every day,” Skyla said, her eyes two wet, black pools. “I can’t help it though. The truth slaps me in the face with every person I look at. I see it in you, strangers, people who seem nice on the outside. Well, they aren’t nice, Gil. People are rotten inside, and I get to see it. I have the best seats in the house.” She tapped the goggle lenses. “I have to look through these or I’d go crazy. They’re the only thing that makes the shadows make any sense to me anymore.”

  “None of this makes sense,” Gil said.

  But Skyla continued as if she hadn’t heard. “And as for your father, you knew the moment he returned from the priests, the moment he looked at you and didn’t even recognize you. It wasn’t him anymore. It was worse than being rotten inside. He was nothing, a shell.”

  “Shut up,” Gil tried to say, but couldn’t speak.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “He couldn’t even feed himself.” Gil’s voice was small.

  “Or bathe himself, or use the bathroom properly. You hated it, taking care of him. He was like an infant except that he didn’t love you. He didn’t even know you. But you wanted to hope. You wanted to know that deep down he would surface again. It’s why you still go to the hospitals, Gil. It’s why you keep trying to build that camera. You don’t do it to save him, you do it to try and save yourself.”

  Skyla blinked and her eyes were their normal hazel again, the pupils an average size. But the skin… the skin around them still looked old and tired. She stood frozen, the bearer of secrets nobody wanted to hear. Both girls gazed at one another for a moment as Gil wiped her face. She reached down and scooped her eye patch from the workbench, placing it back on her head, covering that milky eye.

  “So that’s what you did?” she asked Skyla, facing her. “That’s why this Dona girl hated you so much? You blab to people what you see? Tell them all about their past like some sort of peeping Tom?”

  Skyla flushed then nodded. “I can’t help it once I see it. I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time.” She shrugged. “That’s my ‘skill,’ the one thing I do so well… about the only thing I do well.” She dropped the lenses down over her eyes with a click.

  “No wonder they beat you up.”

  They stared at each other, but it was Gil who cracked a smile first. They laughed together for a while. It was almost like crying, thought Skyla. Sad laughing. Her gaze fell again on the camera.

  “I am sorry I broke the camera,” she said.

  “You didn’t know,” Gil said, walking back to her coat. She pulled from the pocket a rubber mask. She showed it to Skyla.

  “What’s that?”

  “This is how I am going to fix it.”

  “With a mask?”

  “No,” Gil said. “You remember that side entrance to the labs? The place where they used to bring deliveries?”

  “The graveyard.” Skyla nodded. “I’m more surprised you do.”

  “Orrin showed it to me. It’s all boarded up, but the cataclysm only destroyed part of the lab. You said so yourself.”

  “Right,” said Skyla. “But that’s dangerous. There’s nothing beyond the garage, and what’s in there is deadly.”

  “That’s why I have the mask. I know all about the particulars in the air.”

  “That isn’t what I’m worried about,” Skyla said. “There’s a drop now where the inside of the lab collapsed. I’ve see it when I travel.”

  “I’ll bring some rope.” That wry smile had returned to Gil’s face.

  “Let me go,” said Skyla.

  “Why?”

  Skyla bit her lower lip. “I know where all the storerooms are. I can get the materials if you just tell me what you need… I owe you.”

  Above them, hidden in the shadows, Connor squawked about something, but neither girl paid him any attention.

  Chapter 24

  Bollingbrook

  TOM MUNSON ENTERED the office bundled in a blanket of sleepy euphoria. His footsteps, tapping along the marble floor, seemed distant and removed. They couldn’t have been his feet; Tom was walking on clouds this morning.

  He glanced up at the clock, noting the time. Fifteen minutes late. He smiled inwardly, thinking of how those fifteen minutes were completely worth it. They had stayed together right to the moment before Julian’s parents arrived from the train station. Tom even saw them turn the corner as he headed off towards work.

  And it would be work. His smile faded only a moment as he passed a flock of reporters, their notepads in hand. He cringed, imagining all the questions he would be dealing with this morning: “Mr. Munson, will there be a second crackdown on the Lassimir colony now that they have petitioned for legitimacy?” “Mr. Munson, will Mayor Perlandine address the growing concern that our neighbors in Rhinewall might challenge The Church once the archbishop makes his report to the Vatican?”

  “Mr. Munson…”

  “Mr. Munson…”

  It was true what they said. If you heard your name enough times, said it to yourself over and over, it stopped sounding like a name, or even a word at all, just some random bird call of a sound. There were days where he simply collapsed in his chair feeling like his brain was full of sand after these press conferences.

  They weren’t facing him, fortunately. He snuck past through a side door.

  Several black-clad guards stood at the base of the stairs—another Vatican envoy, upstairs talking to the mayor. Tom swore under his breath. He’d probably catch Hell from Perlandine for not being there on time for it. Worth it or not, he was at work now. Time to act like it.

  Through the frosted glass of the mayor’s double-doors he could make out the fuzzy shadow of a figure, too short to be the archbishop. His eyes studied the unfocused outline as he walked past the doors and into his own office.

  Amanda the receptionist, looked up at him and gave him a thin smile.

  “Morning, Mandy,” he said.

  “The mayor said for you to see him when you got in. Right away.”

  Shit. Smiling, Tom nodded. “Sure thing. Let me just hang up my coat.”

  “He said right away.” She continued to stare at him and Tom saw something in her eyes that made his stomach sink for a moment. Was that distrust?

  There’s a vibe one gets in an office environment. Ribbing and teasing are the reassurance that you are accepted. It’s when they stop teasing you that you should be worried. Tom saw no humor in Mandy’s face. There was no “You look more tired than usual.” or “Someone was up late.”

  The look in Amanda’s eyes was cold, unwelcoming.

  He cleared his throat, said, “Right,” and then slowly stepped back out into the hallway. It was definitely his footfalls now on the marble, sharp and punctuated, each step the sound of a firing squad rifle. He reached the door just as it opened and the envoy stepped out, glancing up at him with those crystal blue eyes. Tom’s heart sank.

  “Victoria.”

  “Hello, Mr. Munson,” Victoria said, walking past him. She wore a sharp red and gray jacket and skirt, her gold archdiocese insignia emblazoned over one breast. She said nothing else, just simply walked down the stairs to her waiting guards.

  Through the open doors he could see the mayor’s spherical shape. The man stood before his window, facing away from Tom. He had seen this pose a hundred times before, the look of concern, the preamble to hard decisions. Tom took a tentative step into the office.

  “Close the door, Thomas,” Perlandine said. “And latch it.”

  Watching his hand twist the lock felt unreal, someone else’s fingers twisting the deadbolt. Someone else’s hand pulling the blinds down.

  “Have a seat, Tom,” Perlandine said, his voice a bit softer but no less stern.<
br />
  Tom sat in the wide leather chair across from the mayoral desk. Flanking him on either side rested walls filled with the knickknacks collected by the mayor during his career: gold plated swords from the Tzarlands, ornamental tiger skulls from the Asiatic nations, crystals, jewelry… and guns. So many guns, many of them antiques, hung along the walls, in cabinets, against corners of the wall. The mayor reminded him of birds or rats that collect things simply for the sake of collecting them. He knew for a fact that if there had been no housekeeping to clear up the clutter, the mayor wouldn’t be visible behind the mountain of trophies.

  The mayor turned and looked at him, his distended stomach eclipsing the window. He chewed on a cigar that hung from his mouth. It was unlit—another bad sign. Tom began to wish that he had just stayed in bed with Julian, given his parents the finger. Even their reaction would have been preferable to this.

  “Tom,” the mayor began, pausing to choose his words carefully. “I’m going to do us both a favor here. I’m going to give you a chance to simply tell me if it’s true or not.”

  “If what’s true, Sir?”

  “Don’t make this harder than it already is, Thomas.”

  “Sir, I don’t—”

  A hand the shape and color of a boiled ham slammed down onto the mayor’s desk. The face behind his walrus mustache was beet colored, the eyes bloodshot.

  “How could you keep this from me?” he snarled at Tom, his hands flat on the desk now, shaking with blue and red veins popping out.

  “Is this about the witch girl?” Tom asked.

  Perlandine’s eyes went wide. Tom’s comment had derailed him for just a moment, breaking some rehearsed tirade. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe this wasn’t at all about Jules at all, but about a report on Dona’s findings…

  “What? What witch girl?” Perlandine paused, then shook his head. “No, not that. Tom, I am talking about your violation of the law.”

  Tom cleared his throat. “What law might that be, Sir?”

  The mayor’s eyes narrowed, his face darkening. “Don’t you dare make me say the words, Thomas. Don’t you dare make me.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to, Sir,” Tom said.