The Life and Death Parade

by Eliza Wass

  Lady Bramley released him, and Macklin carefully directed himself up the stairs. The others weren’t far behind. I moved to follow.

  “Kitty, I need to speak to you,” Lord Bramley said.

  “I just have to—” Ask Roan to resurrect your son.

  “This will only take a minute.” Lord Bramley’s face was grim. He waited as they disappeared, Lady Bramley with them, up the stairs.

  The castle closed around me then, the world whittling itself around the blackness that burned at the heart of the stone. You thought things had changed, but no, you’re back and things are just as they were before. While any good thing feels fresh and new, it is a unique trait of bad things that they can always pick up exactly where they left off.

  “The discussion we had last night,” he said. “I could have handled it better.” He pulled his collar. “Naturally, it’s been a rather difficult year for everyone. But I’m sure that we can speak to someone and you can re-sit your exams. Olivia and I will take care of it this time. It’s not your fault. We should have been paying attention.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I mean, I don’t think it really matters to me, university. I don’t think it’s what I want to do.”

  Lord Bramley over a year ago would have argued this out. Lord Bramley, even three months ago, would have tried to convince me otherwise. But the new Lord Bramley cocked his head, like this was charmingly whimsical. “Really? What do you think you’ll do, then?”

  “I want to live on the canal,” I said without thinking.

  Even the new Lord Bramley couldn’t swallow that. “Oh. Well. That’s…interesting.”

  “Well, you know, Mum used to travel and I think…I want to see things, you know? I want to know things.” Now that I’d confessed it, I realized what a brilliant plan it was. Because I could bring Nikki with me. We would have to convince the Bramleys, but once he’d spent some time with them, once they’d settled to the idea that he was back…

  If we kept him in the castle, someone might see him, and people would start to talk. But out on the canal—where they were apparently resurrecting people all the time—we could slip in and out of people’s sights like dreams, dressed like real pirates.

  I was actually beaming, just thinking about it. Lord Bramley smiled back. “You know who would love something like that?” He raised his eyebrows, still too damaged to say his name.

  Nikki would love it. And I felt sure, suddenly, that everything had happened for a reason. Everything—all of it—had happened so I could have a second chance, so I could love him enough to keep him, so I could have Nikki back.

  I raced down the hall toward Roan’s room, brain sparking with brilliant ideas. We could borrow Roan’s boat—it was already named for us—and Nikki and I could travel up and down the canals, up and down the countryside. I saw us there, as if in heaven, as if in a dream, with the sun drowning itself in its own reflection, with the sky made hazy by hope, with the canal extending on and on as if rising, forever rising, toward some new, impossible horizon.

  Roan wasn’t in his room. I waited for him, paced the floor, finding fate in my footsteps. Roan was meant to come to the castle. Fate had brought me to his boat. That was why the boat was called Love. That was why the songs were the same. That was why everything was connected—everything—to bring me here. So Roan could bring Nikki back.

  When he didn’t return, I searched the castle. I started with the aviary, birds crossing over my head. I called his name. No answer. I tried Holiday’s room. The library. The kitchen and the automaton room. But every room was empty, after-hours dark.

  I was passing Macklin’s hallway when I heard laughter. Yellow light seeped beneath the door. I heard the soothing cadence of Roan’s voice, the jingle of his jewelry. I opened the door. They were on the bed, limbs tangled in a cozy web. Macklin scooted back. Roan didn’t move an inch.

  “Kitty Cat.” His eyes flashed.

  “We were just having a chat.” Macklin slouched, blooming with self-satisfaction.

  “Well, I need to have a chat with you.” I pointed at Roan.

  “Can’t we talk later?” Roan’s eyes were double bright. The air was super-charged. It was no wonder Macklin was so worried about controlling his feelings. Just one little nudge and they were everywhere. “It’s late.”

  “It’s important,” I said.

  “So is this.”

  “We could always do it here.” I tilted my head at Macklin, who had found himself in the mirror and didn’t notice.

  Roan sighed and dragged himself off the bed. “I’ll be back.”

  “Where are you going?” Macklin said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Kitty bought an academic acuity candle.” He brushed Macklin’s hair back and kissed the top of his forehead. “She wants me to help her reverse her GCSE results.” I was so used to Roan knowing everything that it didn’t surprise me that he knew I’d failed my exams.

  I led him down the hall and out a side door. He didn’t ask where we were going. He followed me out onto the lawn, down the familiar path to the cemetery.

  The Bramleys had their own cemetery. Most of the graves were ancient—even Nikki’s grandparents were all still alive, one set living on the Bramleys’ island north of Scotland, and the others in Key West, Florida, drinking cocktails.

  Nikki’s monument exuded a disturbing freshness. The ground appeared unsettled, as if there were something churning beneath the surface. It had seemed nice at the time to pick a large, garish monument Nikki would have liked, but in the dark it loomed so large that I had to sit on the grass away from it, keep my eyes on the earth. Lady Bramley brought fresh roses every Sunday, but it was the end of the week and they had faded.

  I picked at the weeds around the perimeter. I caressed them, imagined they were growing from Nikki’s body—I took it as a good sign that something still lived there—and then I felt sick and corrupted and ruined.

  Roan sat down across from me, leaning against a grave so a cross grew from his head. He shut his eyes like he planned to sleep through this.

  “Did you have fun at the party?” I said.

  “God, it was terrible. Those things get more and more commercial every year.”

  “Tell me about it. It’s all money, money, money. How much did you take home in the end?” He kept his eyes shut. His breath was even, like he might actually be asleep. “I saw you. At the fire.”

  He frowned. “I told you, that was strictly charlatan. For the tourists. Safi’s mates take a nap in the coffins. We get those hearts at a butcher. Someone as smart as you would never fall for it.”

  I dug my fingers into the dirt. “Just because it wasn’t real then, doesn’t mean it’s never real.”

  His eyes snapped open. “Kitty, don’t tell me the Life and Death Parade has you converted?”

  “I want you to bring Nikki back.”

  “Whoa.” He clutched his heart and laughed in surprise. “That party did a number on you. What happened? I didn’t think they sold miracles.”

  “Will you do it?” I crouched forward.

  He had a slick smile over his lips, the haughty look I remembered from when he pulled me out of the canal, like life was a game rigged for his amusement. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean? Why not?”

  “You were right.” He pulled a locket from the threads of his necklaces and clicked it open, brushed his thumb over the picture inside. “What you said before the party.”

  “What stupid thing did I say?” I didn’t really hold my past self in highest esteem.

  “About Macklin.” His face grew wistful. “About different.” He fixed me with his electric eyes. “I think we both need that, don’t you?” He started to stand.

  I clamped his wrist and pulled him back down. “You’re meant to do this,” I said through gritted teeth. “That’s why you’re here.”

  He snaked his hand away, then shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Kitty, don’t be silly. Yo
u don’t believe in fate.” The gate squeaked as he left me there, alone on Nikki’s grave.

  It was like an evil spell, watching people move on. I sat on Nikki’s chair in the library for hours, studying Mum’s book as they passed by the open doors. Macklin and Roan were together all the time. Roan’s arm was always around him, or else his fingers were in his hair or stroking his temples. He watched every word leave his mouth like Macklin was a doll he’d trained to speak. Holiday spent time with them, but she also spent time with friends—actual, living people she invited into the castle. Some she’d met at the party and some were old friends from school, and they ran around in child packs, feeding the birds or winding the automatons or playing the games we used to play, like the games never ended, we just did. Even Lord and Lady Bramley sometimes spoke without arguing, which was really unnerving. Joy texted me about meeting up, but I made excuses. I wasn’t going to be like everyone else. I wasn’t going to cave. I wasn’t going to change.

  The anniversary of Nikki’s death was days away. Mum had taught me the importance of powerful dates. Nikki’s anniversary was prime resurrection time. The space Nikki had left behind was filling up, and if I didn’t hurry, it would close completely. I scoured Mum’s book, studying all the saints, searching for one that might be powerful enough to help me.

  I was distracted one night over supper, contemplating my resurrection plans when Lady Bramley announced, “We’re having a mass read in Westminster for the anniversary, so we’ll all be going to London.” Fate, my mind pulsed.

  “Can I bring a friend?” Holiday said.

  “You can bring one friend,” Lady Bramley said.

  Holiday beamed. Macklin scraped his chair back. “I’m not going,” he said. Roan sat beside him in Nikki’s chair, which crept closer and closer to Macklin’s every meal.

  “No one has to go,” Lord Bramley said.

  “Does that mean I can bring two friends?” Holiday bounced on her seat.

  “We’ll see,” Lady Bramley said. “Macklin might change his mind.”

  Macklin crossed his fork and knife over his plate. “I’m definitely not going. I’m not Catholic. Also, I’m gay.” He stood up. “Can I clear anyone’s plate?”

  Later on that same night, it warmed me to see Macklin and his dad watching a program about Jaguars, like both nothing and everything had changed. And it made me wonder, sitting across from them, on the other side of the room but feeling farther, if I wasn’t, in refusing to change—not even to “move on,” but even to keep moving—doing something wrong.

  Mum had once said, Everything happens for a reason, but the danger is in thinking you know what that reason is. Wasn’t that exactly what I was thinking? But thinking of all the ways I’d let Mum down was a minefield, and I tended to avoid it.

  I went to bed early that night. Whether I was a villain or not, I had an evil plan.

  SIXTEEN

  The overhead lights were out in Roan’s room. A lone candle flickered on his dresser, dancing over his prone body. He was sprawled over his bed with his covers all akimbo, like he had wrestled himself to sleep. His back rose and fell in steady breaths.

  The doctor’s bag was on the floor beside him, a dark stain at the center of the room. I moved toward it. Quick. Quiet. That was the plan.

  I heard a sound, like limbs hissing through the covers. I stopped. His body was still frozen in a pinwheel; his breath still thick and steady. But something had moved.

  My heart rate spiked. I heard it again—the sound of something thick turning over.

  The snake. Of course. I spotted the aquarium on the dresser. The snake is watching you, I thought, but that was mad.

  I stepped toward the bag. All I needed to do was grab the spell book, bring it into the hallway, find the spell, and take a few pictures on my phone and then bring it back. Easy.

  I took another step. The slithering sound grew louder, but I concentrated on Roan. The snake wasn’t going to stop me. The snake was in a cage. Roan wasn’t.

  I was close enough to see the swirling black of his tattoo, clustered at his side. It seemed to stretch, running up his back like it was alive.

  I leapt back, hitting the dresser. The candle shuddered, throwing light across the black snake, running up his back. It wasn’t in its cage; it was in the bed with him. He was sleeping with the snake. It lengthened, its sharp black head slipping under his shoulder, curling as it looped around his neck.

  I bounded forward, grabbed its cold coil, and swept it off the bed. Roan was up in a flash, clutching a knife like some mad prisoner. I flicked the lights on. We stared at each other, breathing hard.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said, retracting the knife and collapsing back in bed.

  “The snake.” I scanned the rooms for signs of it. “It was out of its cage. It was going to kill you.”

  He set the knife down on the dresser and searched the room for the snake. I decided the best thing I could do was keep still. “Why do you keep that thing, anyway? Is it really poisonous?”

  He held up a vial he wore around his neck. “Antivenom.” Then he dove down and hung upside down off the end of the bed. “Aha.” He stretched under the bed and dragged the snake out, artfully looped around his wrists. He hissed at it and it hissed back, darting its head and snapping its jaw.

  “Jesus.” I curled my lip.

  Roan got up and crossed the room with it, settling it back into the aquarium. He turned to face me. “Lucky you were here.” He raised his eyebrows.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  He flicked his hair back and hopped onto the bed. “I love that you think you can just do this, like it’s a card trick or something.” He clucked his tongue. “You have no idea the preparation it takes, the intention, how exact every action has to be. Do you know how many people can perform a resurrection? I mean, apart from the guy everyone knows about?” He slid back on the bed so he was propped up against the wall. “I would probably let you try, solely for entertainment purposes, if I didn’t care about how it would affect the Bramleys.”

  “I’m doing this for them.”

  He made a derisive snort. “Give me a break, you’re not even doing this for Nikki.” My chest stung, like he was tightening stitches in my heart. “Because you’ve asked him, right? I taught you how to do that.”

  “Are you saying he would rather be dead? Seventeen years old and he would rather be dead?”

  “No, what I’m saying—and I think I’m being very clear—is that you don’t care either way.” He gripped the iron bed frame. “I’m going to tell you a story, and I’ll let you decide whether or not it’s true. Once upon a time there was a boy who fell in love with another boy. This boy was like a god to him; he taught him rituals and magic. They did everything together. They used this magic as part of a performance, in an imaginary carnival called the Life and Death Parade. Their greatest performance was the Ceremony of the Black Ribbon. One boy would pretend to be dead and the other would pretend to bring him back to life. And it was wonderful and magical, like all magic is until it’s real.

  “One day, one of the boys died. Only this time, it wasn’t pretend. And the other boy brought him back, only he wasn’t pretending either. And everything was wonderful and magical, for as long as magic lasts. But then the resurrected boy came to believe he was meant to be dead. He saw signs everywhere. They drove him insane. And he killed himself, again and again. And the other boy brought him back, again and again. Until the resurrected boy set himself and everything he owned on fire. You can’t resurrect ashes.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  His smile unmoored me. “How is it any different from what you’re asking me to do?”

  “It’s completely different.”

  “Huh.” He contemplated the ceiling. “I don’t really see it.”

  “But…but this is why you’re here. I’m sure of it.” I bit my lip.

  He cocked his head. He seemed real to me in a way he never had before. Not a feline or
a reptile or David Bowie—just a very sad boy. “Did you ever think I came here because I wanted to help you? I saw myself in you. I know what it’s like, to want to take the world and put everything back where it belongs.” He arranged his necklaces in a triangle down his chest. “Did you ever think you brought me here because you wanted to be helped?”

  The next afternoon I sat alone on my chair in the library, with Nikki’s empty place beside me. Around me, everyone was preparing to go to London. The Bramleys were leaving that night. They would drive to London late and spend the day there, then attend the service the following morning, on the anniversary of Nikki’s death. Macklin and Roan were staying behind. As usual, I didn’t know where I fit.

  Holiday came in. She was wheeling her suitcase and dragging Nikki’s coat. She set the coat on the footstool in front of me.

  “I want you to have this,” she said, stroking it like it was a living thing. “You wear your horrible army one every day.”

  “Cheers.” She climbed onto my lap. She was nearly too big for it. She dragged the coat up with her and kept stroking it, over and over. I brushed her hair the same way.

  “Are you coming to London?” She rested her head on my chest. “You can’t sit next to me because I’ve got two friends, but you can sit next to Meghan.”

  I laughed. “No, I don’t think so. I guess I’m not a Catholic either.”

  “Me neither. I told Macklin. I told him I get to be flower girl if him and Roan get married.” Her brow furrowed. “Do you think Nikki would like Roan?”

  “I don’t know.” A lump rose in my throat. “I don’t know what Nikki would like anymore.” I remembered the séance, which seemed ages ago now. I love you so much more. I swiped a tear away.

  Holiday looked up at me. “Roan told me it’s okay to cry. Some people think the point of life is to be happy all the time, but Roan said it’s not. He said, You’re welcome to have a miserable time.” She wiped my tears away. I smiled at her, and when I did she placed a hand on either side of my face to capture it. “I love you, Kitty,” she said. She had eyes like Nikki’s.