by Martin Kee
She took another sip and her smile became even crazier. “Oh, ho! But these goggles!” She jabbed a finger at them. “Once I put them on, I don’t just see the rotten stuff anymore. I see past it all. I see the doorways instead—so many doorways, and I couldn’t walk through all of them even if I lived a thousand years. And it helps, you know? It makes everything clear… so I started traveling more… and I kept forgetting to get stuff for Gil… and then Gil ran off and tried to do things on her own… she ran off on her own… without me… and then she…”
She was crying before she could finish. He waited, took a sip of tea.
“She was so hurt, Father,” Skyla said, her strange eyes streaming tears, that rolled in crooked paths. “So broken. If I had just been there, but now she’s…”
“Dead?”
“I don’t know,” Skyla cried. “I don’t know anything anymore.” She held out the broken goggles. “When I go in now, it’s confusing and weird. I have to go deep or I see double, I see both worlds and it hurts.”
He stared at the broken aviator cap as she plucked out a clot of hair. He could see on her head where she had lost patches here and there, the scalp exposed.
“What if you don’t use them?” he asked.
She snorted. “Yeah right.”
“No,” he said. “I mean it. Haven’t you ever tried?”
“I did once,” she said. “With Laura. I did it when she wasn’t looking.”
“Moved… through things?”
“I couldn’t take my body with me.” She smiled. “It’s hard to explain.”
John sipped his tea, waiting for her to continue, ignoring the other voices in his head. Kill her. Kill her now before she does any more damage. Kill her before she tackles you into that dark place with claws and thorns.
He winced, waiting for them to fall silent. They always did eventually.
Skyla sipped her tea, made a face. “What’s in this?”
John shrugged. “It’s from a canister James brought me. Do I look like someone who gathers herbs in the forest?”
“It’s awful.” She smiled a bit.
“What happened then?” he asked. “After that?”
“Then I ran,” she said. “Because Mister Montegut saw me…”
“Melissa’s father.”
She nodded.
“In Bollingbrook?” he asked.
“Rhinewall.” John blinked. “Of course…”
Her skin seemed nearly sunburned and he wondered if that had something to do with all the traveling. And those eyes… he never imagined how unsettling it could be to see a young girl with an old woman’s eyes.
“So then I ran,” she said. “And then I was in Bollingbrook, and then Vicky came out of nowhere.”
“Vicky… the Bennett girl?”
Skyla nodded, sniffing. “Nothing’s changed. My mother was right. It’s all a big pinwheel. I can walk through walls and see people’s sins, and I’m still the daughter of a pariah, chased by schoolyard bullies and madmen. Nowhere is safe.”
They sat in silence for a while, sipping at the tea, lost in their own thoughts. The woodstove glowed a dull orange and John threw another log into it. He took another sip of tea and placed it on the end table beside his chair. Skyla stared at the hot logs crackling through the tiny window.
“I used to think there was such a thing as safety,” he said. “When I was… normal, I used to think that the world was a dangerous place, but at least you got some safety in the end, some comfort… salvation… what have you. Death used to be that safe place, you see? The flesh is mortal. It bleeds, grows old, dies, but at least you knew that your spirit was safe… with God… or Jesus, or Allah, or … whomever…”
John could feel his mind slipping and slapped himself hard on the cheek. Ignoring the shocked look on Skyla’s face, he continued.
“I think of all those people I baptized, all the parishioners who trusted me to save them, trusted me to protect them in that magic force field of faith. I ask myself how many have died, how many thought they were safe, knew in their hearts that they were off to meet Jesus as they faded into that in-between place.” He chuckled without humor. “Bit of a shock I imagine.” He took a sip of tea.
“It isn’t all like that though,” she said. “It can be beautiful. It can be great. I’ve seen it sometimes as I’ve passed through. Some people have gardens and castles and mountain fortresses. It isn’t all claws and hooks…” She looked out the window. “Except recently.”
“Something’s wrong,” he said, thinking of Elise, of the others. He could feel their eyes, watching the conversation, waiting for a chance to drive him mad again.
She nodded. “When I go there now, it seems more dangerous. There’s something big moving through. It’s awful and it’s… consuming everything. It chased me.”
“You?”
Nodding, Skyla took another sip of bitter tea. “It has eyes… blue eyes.”
A long silence stretched out between them, neither person speaking the obvious. But the truth was too big to ignore.
“Do you remember what happened to the Reverend?” John asked. “After you rescued me?”
“I took him, too,” she said.
He wasn’t sure he would have done the same for the Reverend. John took a breath and asked, “Where did you take him?”
“I… I took him through, but he was heavy,” she said with wide eyes. “Really heavy. I started to slip, fall through places I shouldn’t. And that’s when Rhia intervened.”
“Your aunt?”
The girl nodded again, her eyes turning away as she remembered. “She found me, or maybe she was looking for me. I don’t know. But she told me to let him down. So I did.”
“Just like that?” He focused on her, never sure if she was telling him the truth or if the girl was simply as insane as her mother.
“Just like that.” She gave him a small smile. “All she told me was that she sent him away.”
“Away?”
Skyla shrugged. “I don’t know where. I thought she killed him.”
John looked away a moment before answering. A small, barely audible whine escaped his throat.
“My mind has been to some dark places, Skyla. I’ve… there have been times I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue.” He jutted his chin at the gun rack. “I think about it a lot… ending it.”
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’m still here aren’t I?” he smiled, but it was a brittle smile. “I’m still sticking around. Now that I’ve seen what’s awaiting me, I’d rather put off the inevitable.”
They were both thinking it, but it was Skyla who raised the question.
“Do you think he’s alive? The Reverend?”
John shrugged. “How should I know? I don’t trust my own mind anymore. I’m not even sure you’re real right now. Why don’t you ask the dead?”
The words felt strange in his mouth, the very idea conflicting with his own brain. This girl sitting in front of him could see them, talk to them, visit them. She could walk up to the gates of Heaven or Hell and knock.
Except you’ve seen what those places really are, John. No pearly gates and no hellfire. It’s just a wilderness of grasping hungry hands. You’ve seen the photographs in the underground lab.
“I’ve spoken to Melissa,” she said.
“What did she say about it?”
Skyla shrugged. “She hasn’t seen him.”
“Then he’s alive.”
“No…” she said. “No, I don’t think he is.”
“Well, then ask around.”
He could see the frustration on her face, trying to explain it to him. “It doesn’t work like that,” she said. “It isn’t a séance. You don’t just place a request to see a person, take a number, and they appear. People go about their lives. They have homes, hobbies, jobs. And honestly, most of them have better things to do than wait around for the living to contact them.”
“Jobs?”
She nod
ded. “My aunt. She serves a soup kitchen.”
John laughed, but his face grew serious again. “Really?”
“She runs a kitchen she calls Helheim. She takes in people and feeds them.” She paused. “But I can’t even get to her now, not alone.”
“I never would have thought dead people ate.”
“Lots of things there eat,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “That’s why I’m worried.”
“About your aunt?’
“About all of them. What if the preacher is doing this?” There was fear in her eyes. “What if it’s because of me?” Her lip trembled and she took a deep breath. After a moment she sipped her tea again, making a bitter face.
“Can’t you warn them?” he asked. “Warn your aunt?”
“I’d have to find them first. That means getting past whatever it is.”
“But all you need is something familiar,” he said.
“The in-between is always moving, Father,” she said, her voice exasperated. “It’s always shifting and nothing is ever the same there, not even time.”
Skyla looked down as if remembering something unexpectedly. She pulled a chain around her neck, holding the massive ring that emerged from her shirt. She stared at it. John had seen a ring similar to it in Rhinewall, sold to him and James by Gil. Everything’s connected, he thought. All of us, everyone.
“But I guess I could try,” she said. “I’ve never even considered Marley…”
John got up to refill the tea, taking her mug as well. He opened a drawer. Inside, a butcher knife gleamed back at him. Kill her, hissed that voice again. Kill her and save the world. Kill her while you still have some of you left. Kill her before she takes that too.
He slammed the drawer shut and Skyla jumped.
“So, how is Melissa?” he asked, hoping the conversation would keep the voices at bay. “Dead… but I mean, how is she?”
“She’s concerned,” Skyla said. “People are killing themselves and she doesn’t know why. Now that I hear the shadows talking to you, I guess I’d be concerned too.”
He felt the skin prickle on the back of his neck. “I don’t know what you mean.”
It wasn’t surprise or frustration on her face, but sadness. She bobbed her head a while, agreeing with some silent argument.
“Okay,” she said, standing up, her voice resigned. “Well… if you change your mind, if you happen to decide to leave, I have a favor to ask.”
“Where would I even go?” he said.
“Bollingbrook.”
“Why?”
“You knew the archbishop,” she said. “You two were very close.”
“And what…” he said. “Just walk through the Wilds?”
She nodded. “It’s safer than here. Travel fast during the day. Take lights with you at night. And keep moving. The longer you stay still… the longer you stay here, the worse it will get.”
“You say that like I’m sprouting roots,” he said.
“That’s what happens,” she said. “You stay in one place too long and it just becomes harder and harder to move on. Eventually you’ll just… go crazy or stay in that world forever.”
“You mean die,” he said.
“I mean that’s the same thing that happened to my mother would happen to you. You’ll just go there and never come back, your body will dissolve and your… shadow will continue existing there as if nothing happened at all.”
“Except that it isn’t Heaven,” he said. “Otherwise it doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”
“We are all eternal beings, made of light and energy, blah, blah, blah,” she said and then laughed. “But that’s only assuming you can get past the thick layer of grime that life leaves on you when you’re alive.”
“I don’t remember you always being this jaded,” he said.
“Years of only seeing the worst of people will do that.”
“Did you talk like this at school?” he asked.
“Never had the chance. I was too busy trying not to get beaten up.”
“The archbishop and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, you know,” John said. “In fact, I’m pretty certain he would have me arrested.”
“Would that be worse than the alternative?” she said, gesturing at the rifle. “All I’m asking is that, if you do decide to go there, see if he knows where the Reverend is. I can’t think of anyone else who would know.”
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m going to see if I can reach my aunt. Maybe she’ll remember where she left him. Also I need to warn her.”
“You said it was more dangerous now,” John sipped his tea, the insanity of this conversation fading with time. “Something there, hunting you.”
“There is, but I might be able to get there if I go deep.”
John shifted in his seat. “What then? What if you find the Reverend isn’t dead?”
It took her longer than usual to answer, and when she did, the answer made John’s heart skip a beat. She looked up at him, her eyes serious. “Then I’m going to kill him.”
John stared at her for a long time, then nodded. “I’ll need to change my clothes.”
“So, you’ll do it?”
He shrugged. He plucked at his shirt and grinned. “I don’t know yet. But I owe you my soul, tattered as it is…”
“Remember what I told you,” she said. “It isn’t safe at night.”
“What’s ‘safe’ anymore?” he said with a smile. “Safety is an illusion, just like everything else in this world. It’s all just empty space wearing a mask of substance. Even Heaven is a wilderness.” He paused, his smile fading. “What if he tells me where the Reverend is? How do I tell you?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll find you. The important thing is that you get out of here, away from the voices trying to put that gun in your mouth.”
John tilted his head to the side. “And if I die anyway?”
Skyla pulled the goggles down over her face. They clicked and buzzed. “Then you make your peace with your shadows and run like hell.”
Chapter 40
Rhinewall
SCRIBBLE KNEW IT was all because of him.
Hunger had finally forced him out of hiding, driving him mindlessly into the streets in search of food. His stomach had been in knots after days of heaving into gutters, the guilt boiling over like a teakettle, spilling out into the cobble. Was it possible to die from guilt? Scribble thought it might be.
During the days following the explosion, the city seemed to withdraw into itself, the changes subtle at first. People mourned as they had after the Cataclysm, but there was something else, something harder there, something defiant. Strangers exchanged knowing glances, their eyes stony and determined. More than a few times, Scribble saw them pointing at him, or at another boy further away, always with that same knowing glance. Then he heard the words: terrorists, insurrectionists, rebels, insurgents. He had heard the gangs called many things, but never had he heard those words spoken together.
Men began to appear. They wore long black coats, a constable’s badge on their chests, emerging out of the fog and as they left, children vanished with them. On more than one occasion, Scribble had managed to slip between the bars of an abandoned house gate before being caught. He was fast and small for his age, but other children weren’t as lucky.
Then came the soldierboys.
Tall and lean, they appeared with the constable’s men, their shoulders and arms covered in spikes and projectile weapons. They hung on the sides of paddy wagons, so heavy the trucks leaned to the side under their weight. They too vanished in the fog, and inside the truck cages were children.
On a wall, Scribble passed a flier, the picture of boys, like any group he’d known, dirty and scowling. They held bats and chains, their expressions ugly and threatening. Though he could not read, the words below said:
REPORT GANGS. HELP SAVE THE CITY BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. CONSCRIPTION IS THE ANSWER. COLLECT YOUR FEES AT THE CONSCRIPTION DOCKS.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.
Scribble didn’t know words, he knew images, shapes, patterns. He recognized two of the symbols there: HELP and PLEASE. He had heard them spoken, painted them onto a sign once, desperate for food, new to the city. They meant money in a tin can.
Money for boys. He felt his stomach sink as he slipped deeper into the darkened crevices of alleys and alcoves.
A group of boys playing dice waved to him as he walked by. They motioned him over, but Scribble just continued, acting as though he lived around there—just a student on his way home from school. Soon after, adults sauntered into the alleyway, clubs and chains hanging from their clothes. One carried a net behind his back. They surrounded the gang, blocking off all exits, speaking in low tones.
Bodies exploded into motion. The boys scrambled along the ground as grown men grabbed at them, snagging shreds of clothing and hair. Gang boys learned to be quick, but the close quarters and large hands easily outmatched them. The grownups plucked the young boys from the alley, pinning arms behind backs and placing choke-holds around their throats. Some of the men laughed.
One boy, with red hair and a face full of freckles looked as though he might escape scrambling between a man’s legs. Their eyes met, but before the boy could point, hands grabbed his ankles, dragging him along the ground. A bag went over his head.
Scribble followed, keeping to the shadows as voices of adults grew closer. A large truck waited at the mouth of the alley, its bed converted into a giant cage. Boys and girls stared out from the bars as the new captives were thrown in.
Another soldierboy stood near the vehicle, its exaggerated limbs with too many joints. It hunched over the cage, clinging to the side of the vehicle. Doors slammed. Engines sputtered to life. The vehicle sped off, transporting the children to some place Scribble didn’t even want to imagine.
There was little reason for him to return to the hideout. He had no love for Hetch or any of the gang members. But there was food, and there was Gary, perhaps his only friend now.