Shutter

by Courtney Alameda

  The priest led us to Marlowe’s door, knocked once, and stepped aside. Marlowe took one look at me and pushed up from his desk, black robes billowing. “Come in before anyone sees you,” he said, beckoning to us, taking me by the arm and sitting me down in a chair across from his desk. “Your father’s hunters are about tonight. Lock the door, Ryder, thank you.”

  With the door closed, Marlowe’s office became a sanctuary, still and silent. Father Marlowe and my mother had met while she studied abroad at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum University with one of the world’s top tetrachromats, site of the Vatican’s own unofficial “exorcism school.” Marlowe married my parents, baptized us kids, and called upon my mother whenever an exorcism got too violent for his people to handle. In most cases, words and devotion were sufficient weapons to bind the spiritual dead in the afterlife. But when prayers couldn’t stop an entity, mirrors and lenses would.

  The boys looked like they stood on a bed of nails. Marlowe shook hands with each of them, warm as usual; Jude held on a few seconds longer than propriety dictated, his irises flashing with the blue ghostlight. When Marlowe turned away, I caught Jude’s eye and lifted a brow.

  Jude shook his head. He didn’t set us up. The other boys relaxed; Ryder unclenched his fists and Oliver’s shoulders lost some of their rigidity.

  Marlowe sat on his desk in front of me, motioning to my cheek. “That’s a terrible bruise. How were you injured?”

  “It’s just a hunting accident,” I said, touching my cheek. “Tonight was—”

  “Her old man hit her,” Ryder said.

  “Ryder,” I hissed.

  “Hey, none of this ‘I was hunting’ crap, okay?” Jude said, making air quotes around the words with his fingers. He sank into the chair next to mine, crossing his legs at the ankle. “Don’t become a codependent freakshow on us.”

  Oliver massaged the bridge of his nose. “Real soft touch there, Jude.”

  “Shove it, Stoker,” Jude said.

  “It’s not what you say but how you say it,” Oliver said under his breath.

  Jude opened his mouth to snap back, but Ryder kicked his chair. “Just don’t protect him, Micheline. That’s all we’re asking, hey?”

  I stared them down until Father Marlowe tutted, “That’s enough.” He turned my head to inspect my cheek. Maybe I didn’t want anyone else to know Dad hit me, so what? I needed drama-free time to sort out my insides.

  “Leonard’s temper is legendary, but I never imagined he’d harm you physically,” Father Marlowe said, releasing my chin. “Is this why you ran away from home?”

  “Is that the story Dad’s passing around?” I half laughed, half snorted. “That I’m some runaway with a chip on my shoulder?”

  “Well, his trackers certainly weren’t forthright about any abuse,” Marlowe said, rising. “If you didn’t leave because your father struck you, why did you run?”

  I rose from my chair. “You won’t believe me unless you see the chains.”

  “Chains?” Marlowe asked.

  “You’ll need your chromoglasses, Father.” I gestured to the barrel lenses that lay half hidden beneath some papers on his desk. If I’d felt uneasy exposing my abdomen in front of the boys, the awkwardness multiplied in front of a priest. But my self-consciousness melted away quick, especially as Marlowe crossed himself and murmured a prayer under his breath.

  Soulchains now belted my waist twice, flickering and bucking as Marlowe repeated the lines I knew so well. But when he got to the part about forgiveness—forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors—my chains rocked up and whipped my insides. The boys’ gasps told me I hadn’t been the only one affected by the prayer.

  Marlowe paused. “Your flesh actually rippled in response to the lines on forgiveness, Micheline. May I repeat them?”

  “I’m okay with that.” I glanced back at the boys, who nodded.

  Marlowe drew a breath, and made the sign of the cross over me as he said, “Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven—”

  “Stop,” I gasped, pressing a hand into my stomach. The soulchains scoured my insides, grating them like I’d swallowed a handful of steel wool. I sank back into the chair—even Ryder looked a shade too pale, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip, the back of his head resting against the office door.

  After a moment, Marlowe pulled out a voice recorder and set it down on the desk. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  He was dead serious when he said, “Then I send the audio file to Rome.”

  * * *

  MARLOWE’S INTERVIEW TOOK ALMOST an hour. Once we’d told him everything, starting from our bout with the ghost at St. Mary’s all the way up through tonight’s fiasco (omitting my conversation with Luca, of course), he stopped the recording.

  “My God,” Marlowe said, rubbing his temples with long, thin fingers, his cassock sliding back to expose Lichtenberg-figure burn scars, which were common among exorcists and tetrachromats. Lightning strike victims got the scars, too—they almost looked like feathery brands. “I must apologize to the four of you—”

  “Don’t,” I began, but he quieted me by lifting his hand.

  “As inexcusable as Leonard’s actions were, I have condemned you to this fate. My offense against you is greater than his. I am sorry.” Marlowe’s words had a physical presence in the room, real and true and heartfelt, the kind of apology I’d never hear from my father. “We will find a way to free you from this curse, I promise.”

  I wish I could say his vow brought me a measure of comfort; but in my heart, I knew this thing was so far beyond the church’s power to exorcise, so far beyond even Helsing’s expertise, I couldn’t place my faith in either organization.

  “We can’t stay much longer, it’s almost dawn,” Ryder said. It was only a matter of time before our paths crossed with a tracker’s, and I doubted the crews would linger at the PacBell Building once they realized we weren’t there.

  “Very well”—Marlowe rose and opened a desk drawer—“but you should not leave without some form of protection.” He took out three small black-lacquer presentation boxes, and handed them to the boys. “These have already been blessed. I always keep a few on hand for new exorcists, or anyone who needs additional protection.”

  Ryder popped his box’s lid, revealing a small rosary, a type popular with exorcists as the wood and glass beads wouldn’t conduct electricity. “Thanks,” Ryder said, snapping the box closed and slipping it into his pocket. Jude and Oliver did likewise, and I made a mental note to make sure the boys put them on—especially Oliver, who put God on a par with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in terms of his beliefs.

  Marlowe unclasped a gold cross from around his neck. “Micheline, do you remember the mass exorcism your mother and I did in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico?”

  How could I forget that case? My mother came home from New Mexico looking like there was less of her somehow, her skin worn to a paper-thin translucence. “I know it had something to do with the victims of a serial killer. I was just a kid, so Mom never told me what happened.”

  “This cross saved her life,” Marlowe said, draping the gold chain in my hand. “But she couldn’t bring herself to wear it afterward—too many bad memories—so she trusted it to me.”

  “I can’t accept this,” I said, but he closed his hands around mine, sealing the cross inside my palm.

  “You must. Four exorcists walked into St. Mary’s, but only I walked out. The demon, it pays little heed to symbols of faith—but it stayed its hand when it saw this cross at my throat.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve always liked to think … I don’t know, perhaps a piece of your mother’s goodness remained with the cross after she passed, but…” Marlowe faltered and shook his head. “Wear it always, and may it protect you as it has me, and as it protected Alexa.” He made the sign of the cross over me as I clasped the necklace at the knot of my spine.

  “N
ow, you’ll need to leave out the rectory’s back door to avoid being seen,” he said, motioning to us. We followed Marlowe through darkened back corridors, an organ’s timbre trembling in the walls. When he released us into the night, he said a prayer over each of us—Oliver doing his best not to roll his eyes; Jude fidgety, cracking his knuckles and shifting his weight, acting as if he could hear thunder in the distance. Only Ryder waited with his eyes closed, head bowed, but I knew he did it out of respect for my faith, for Marlowe’s faith.

  Marlowe gripped Ryder’s hand. “I’m relying on you to look after her, son.”

  Ryder nodded, glanced back at me, and turned out the door.

  I stepped up and into Marlowe’s embrace. “Thank you, Father.”

  “I’m bound by law to report child abuse,” he said softly, so the boys wouldn’t hear. I stiffened. “The authorities, they won’t—”

  “I’m no child, not anymore,” I said, pulling out of his embrace. “Report it if you must, but I’ll deny it to the police if they come asking.”

  “Leonard doesn’t deserve you,” Marlowe said, shaking his head, but the words sounded tired, worn-out, as if he’d already said them a hundred times before to someone else. “Someone at the Vatican will have more information for us—I’ll be in touch soon.”

  I met the boys in the back alley, their gazes touching on the cross at my throat. They all seemed subdued, with a certain kind of black-eyed exhaustion born from hours of hypervigilance. Dawn nipped at the shadows in the sky, and parishioners started wandering from the cathedral, cars rumbling away.

  “We’ll meet you back at the house,” Oliver said, fighting a yawn and losing. We parted ways, sticking to the shadows and ducking by the strangers on the street. Ryder and I headed up Shrader, watching our backs despite our burnout, conscious of the growing light and open space around us.

  When a Helsing Humvee turned the corner ahead of us, Ryder tugged me into an alley, pressed me into the wall, and leaned his forehead against mine. His body language said play along, and I thought maybe we looked like regular teens, despite our hunting blacks.

  The Humvee passed us as I threaded my arms around his neck.

  “Give it a few seconds.” He ran his hands down the sides of my waist, his intentions of hiding melting away in a touch.

  He kissed the tip of my nose,

  The corner of my mouth,

  As if this deliberateness scared him as much as it did me. The pulse of his jugular beat against the insides of my arms, banging like a kettledrum through my body. We shouldn’t be so reckless—a badly timed kiss could buy him a one-way ticket home—so why did my lips ache and my body burn for him?

  Ryder ran an open palm up my arm. I trembled, communicating more with an unconscious reaction than I wanted. He stilled, considered me for another beat, and pulled me closer. Pulled me under, more like, my reservations drowning in the tilt of his chest beneath my palm.

  Before our lips touched again,

  Before we pulled that trigger for real,

  I asked, “Why this one?”

  Ryder stilled, his lips close enough to brush mine as he said, “What?”

  “Of all the rules you live by, why break this one?”

  The liquid moment froze, then shattered. He pushed off the wall, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started down the street. I watched him for a few seconds, emotions at war. Part of me wanted to run after him, punch him in the shoulder, and tell him to forget everything. The other part wanted to shove him against a wall and kiss him until we inhaled each other.

  Why start this now? Did he feel pressured by the chains looping around our bodies and the finite number of seconds left in our lives? Could I have one human interaction this week that didn’t threaten to claw out my heart and throw it to the vultures? Not even Dad confused me so much—love and hate existed on the same continuum when it came to my father. But how could Ryder and I balance our friendship and whatever this new heartache was?

  The sputtering light from a streetlamp hit Ryder and scattered off his shoulders, then winked out. He’d be seen if he wasn’t careful. In the end, I ran after him and tugged him back into the shadows, leading him along.

  When we reached his motorcycle, I squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. Neither of us said anything as we climbed on and turned home. He’d never stick an adjective on his emotions for me, but every so often he’d cut himself open to show me how his heart beat and broke.

  We didn’t talk on the way. I wished I could tell him how much those kisses frightened me, but we Helsings weren’t supposed to be afraid of anything—not the undead lurking in the dark, not death; not love, not loss. But I was afraid of so many of those things, the things I couldn’t control, the things I couldn’t stop.

  Love was the worst hard thing, the most frightening, the one that could strip my best friend out of my life. I’d already lost too many people to go through it again.

  If I knew Dad would never know …

  What if we only have a handful of days left?

  Would that change everything?

  I laid my head on his back as we rode, counting his heartbeats. The silence between us ached, especially at one stoplight, where he took a hand off the handlebars and laid it on my thigh. I didn’t pull away.

  We arrived home before Oliver and Jude, just as the sky began to gray. I slid off the bike and rifled through my camera bag for my house keys, the trees shaking off the dregs of night, pale fog lapping at their knees. I made it halfway up the porch steps before I heard a soft voice singing:

  “Ryder and Micheline sittin’ in a tree.”

  The voice sounded so familiar, high, and innocent, almost like Fletcher’s.

  I paused and glanced over my shoulder, but nothing moved in the yard’s vicinity. Had the world been so crazy silent before I stopped to listen?

  “What is it?” Ryder asked.

  I held up one hand, asking for silence, and placed the other on my camera.

  Then, just over the crash of the waves and the wind: “K-i-s-s-i-n-g.” I pointed in the direction of the voice. Ryder’s eyes widened.

  A boy-shaped bit of white flashed on the edge of my sight. I leapt off the porch and sprinted across the wide, craggy lawns. By the time I reached the trees, the light had disappeared into the fog. I looked right, left, wishing for a glimpse of him, a footprint, anything.

  “Fletcher?” I whispered at the trees. They answered with wind-whistle voices and shivering leaves. “Fletcher!”

  No answer.

  Ryder stopped beside me. “Did you see him?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, still scanning the trees. “You?”

  He shook his head. “No, but the singing’s creepy as—”

  A giggle interrupted him, so close and life-like we both stepped back.

  “Fletcher?” I asked. “Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  Ryder put an arm around my waist. “C’mon, let’s head inside.” As he led me away, I looked back, watching the darkness.

  Fletcher didn’t appear.

  SATURDAY, 5:53 A.M.

  “WHAT’S THE CHANCE THE littlie got stuck around here?” Ryder asked, leaning against the countertop in the kitchen.

  My hands trembled as I sliced cheese with a knife, the question bouncing around in my chest. I’d dealt with Fletcher’s death as best I could, but to have seen a spirit—to hear him singing—ripped the “dealt with” stitches right out of my wounds. What if Fletcher hadn’t passed on, what if he’d gotten stuck in the Obscura and hadn’t made it to … to whatever place lay beyond? Father Marlowe had promised me my brothers were too innocent to linger in the schism between life and death.

  I sniffled. Marlowe had promised they would move on.

  “Let me do this.” Ryder tried to take the knife from me, placing a hand on my own. I stared down at the wedge of cheese I’d mangled, several slices cut too thick to stack on sandwiches, knife marks hacked into their sides.

  “No worries, we’ll u
se it for grilled cheese and Vegemite,” he said.

  “You know I hate Vegemite.”

  “Yeah, that’s the only pinkie promise you ever broke,” he said. When I wouldn’t give up the knife, he stepped behind me, gripped my hands, and steadied me as I sliced. A tear slid off my lashes and hit the cutting board. A second one hit his hand. I blinked hard and made it the last.

  He went through the motions beside me—spreading Vegemite on bread, layering cheese, and grilling sandwiches in the frying pan—letting me work off the grief. We didn’t talk about what happened at the PacBell Building, the kissing, how exhausted we were, or how we used to make grilled cheese sandwiches for Fletcher. Words seemed too cheap to occupy the small space between us. Instead, he lingered closer, longer. I touched his arm and pointed when I needed something—a spatula, a plate, another raw sandwich.

  When I leaned on him, he leaned back.

  I made sandwiches till all the cheese was sliced up and the butter half gone, till the whole kitchen smelled of toasted bread and Vegemite. Being back in this house, it almost felt like winding up for a normal Friday night; I could imagine cutting crusts off sandwiches for my little brothers, getting ready to meet Jude and Oliver for a concert at the Fillmore, where I’d sit on Ryder’s shoulders and be taller than the whole mosh pit; or even sneaking into a bad slasher flick, where we’d throw popcorn at the screen and Jude would scream in all the wrong places.

  Fantasy ached worse than my hollow reality—it amplified the distance between the now and what once was. Focus didn’t usually come so hard to a girl like me, but the house made it hard not to think of the past. Exhaustion and pain rolled out the welcome mat for nostalgia, too—and right now, everything ached, inside and out.

  So I just rubbed my eyes and shut those thoughts off like a tap. I had other, more pressing issues to face, like figuring out how shooting the ghost against a reflective surface amped up my shot, or dealing with the fact that Luca gave me good information.