Vessel, Book I: The Advent

by Tominda Adkins

Pill bottles are not made for one-handed people.

  Here's where I skip over the whole "trauma of losing a limb" bit. Granted, I don't want you to think that I was the perfect picture of acceptance after the initial shock.. I wasn't. I could write volumes on the feeling―any amputee can. It's devastating, maddening, frustrating, and it's something you never truly get used to. It's a total shit sandwich. It really is.

  So yes, I was still furious, and yes, I was sick to death about the whole thing. But there was a lot of other traumatic debris taking up space in my head. Knowing someone who'd turned into a tidal wave and then back into a person again, for instance. The nameless, mindless force that was still bent on slaughtering all of humanity. The voice of death incarnate. Unanswered phone messages from my mother.

  So many obstacles, starting with the orange pill bottle I was squeezing between my knees and clawing at.

  "Oh, I can't watch any more of this. I'm going to be sick."

  Jesse wasn't watching me. His glassy, pining eyes had been glued to the TV for hours and hours, taking in every possible shred of coverage from every possible news station. Occasionally, the discovery of an unsanctioned nuclear facility shared second place with the set of conjoined twins born in Germany.

  And the primary headlines on every network, as you may have guessed, centered around Jesse Cannon's withdrawal from the public sphere, a story now tied inseparably with the death of escaped felon and crazed fan, Su Kim Khan.

  Apparently, you really can make this shit up. If you work for the Luna Latum.

  Almost as if he believed the fabrication itself, Jesse had been planted in front of the screen for five days, agonizing over footage of the bus wreckage, of angry fans, supportive fans, hysterical fans. Girls weeping, and sound clips from baffled and empathetic celebrities. The tearful announcement by Jesse himself, filmed in the corner of this very room the night before. Candle-light vigils. Mobs outside of concert halls. Karaoke tributes. Odette.

  "I just can't believe this," he groaned. "Do you think I did the right thing?"

  "It's a pretty dumb story, since you're asking," I said, pausing to curse under my breath when I tore a hangnail on the stupid bottle cap, which still refused to budge. "Seriously, Jesse. Who goes on a spiritual sabbatical to Canada?"

  "I do."

  "Can-a-da," I reiterated. "Why not Tibet?"

  "Puh-lease," Jesse snorted. "Everyone goes to Tibet. Richard Gere goes to Tibet. Canada is original. I'm original."

  "Don't have to remind me."

  Jesse looked away from the Kleenex carnage on the screen, tipping his head over the back of the couch that he'd practically been living on. My ongoing battle with the pill bottle was finally noticed, and the brooding ceased at once. He was in front of me in the next instant, snatching at it.

  "Let me get that."

  I rolled my eyes, coveting the pills against my stomach. "I can handle it."

  Five whole days in this windowless room, and Jesse's guilt tirade―when he wasn't watching his career fall apart on the evening news, that is―had been nonstop. I'd begun to curse the many times I'd fantasized about him waiting on me hand and foot, because the real thing was an absolute nightmare. I honestly wished the concussion would've lasted longer.

  "Don't be stubborn. Here, hand it over," he urged, reaching out to pry the pill bottle away.

  "Jesse, enough already," I snapped and put on my best exasperated face. After five years, I had crafted it to perfection. Better than a forcefield, that face. Jesse backed off and frowned at me, lower lip puffed out.

  I sighed. "Why don't you just give me a little time to myself, okay?"

  "But―"

  "Jesse," I said, as gently, as sincerely, as possible. "I know you just want to help. But if you really, really want to make me feel better, you'd go make me a gigantic pot of coffee. Right now."

  More frown. More lip.

  "And you'd take, like, an hour to do it."

  Jesse huffed air from his nose. He tapped his foot.

  "Okay," he finally said. He leaned in and covered at least sixty percent of my face with kisses. "I love you."

  "I know you do," I said, pushing him away. "Go."

  He backed away toward the door. "Make sure you keep your temperature elevated. And hold your shoulder down."

  Five days of that. Seriously. It really is a miracle that I'm alive.

  "Black. No cream, no sugar!" I shouted at the closing door.

  And then I was alone, gloriously alone. I would be for awhile, I knew, because short of pouring a drink from the blender or licking batter off the electric beater, Jesse had never touched a kitchen appliance in his life. I slid out of bed and immediately flopped onto the couch, plucking up the remote to turn the TV off. No more news, and no more charred tour bus. For a long, gratifying moment, I drank in the sweet linoleum silence. Then I took up the pill bottle again. It was almost two o'clock, and if I didn't swallow a few of these babies soon, I'd be hurting by two-thirty.

  Goddamn child-proof lids. I was really putting my elbow into it, really concentrating, but my mind began to wander anyway. It began to go places I didn't want it to go.

  Dark, mildewy places that smelled like blood.

  I turned the news back on and flipped desperately through a dozen channels. Cooking shows, cartoons, animals ripping each other apart, commercials for Black Friday specials. Just focus. Pills. Think ahead. Think about where you're going to go.

  Just a few more days, just to be on the safe side, the doctor kept telling me, every time he came in to check under the dressings. And you'll be good to go.

  Just a few more days in this private Baltimore clinic, and then what? Jesse would get toted off to that island paradise or whatever, and I would go―well, somewhere. Anywhere I damn well wanted. I had options, right? There was my apartment in Los Angeles, a place I'd slept in maybe ten times since signing the lease. And there were my parents, of course. Although the thought of staying with them during this particular era of my life was less than appealing. I could always call on old friends. Yeah. Sure. Wherever they were now.

  Total darkness. The sound of tearing skin.

  I could move to Switzerland, enroll in hypnotherapy, sustain more blows to the head, whatever it took. I'd put this all behind me and deal with the arm thing. I'd get on with my life. No more cocktail parties. No more Hollows. The end.

  Someone knocked on the door. The bottle sprang out of my grip and clattered across the linoleum.

  "Damnit, Jesse!" One button. Most coffee machines have one button. Just one.

  I glared over the back of the couch at the opening door, then fought the instinct to look away.

  I don't know who was more mortified―me or Ghi. He had one foot in the room, and he appeared ready to turn around on its heel and flee.

  "Oh," he said. "Hello."

  "Hi."

  "I ... they asked if I could get ... the agent lady called again and ...."

  "Jesse's out," I said.

  "Oh." Ghi didn't move. Apparently, his body had petrified to the doorframe. I took the opportunity to look it over, since it had practically been a heap of shattered bones the last time I remembered seeing it.

  Last time I'd seen him. Corin, Jackson, and Abe had all stopped by the room more than once, and I had gotten a singular glimpse of Khan sprinting past the open door―fleeing from an eye exam, during which he'd allegedly burnt someone's hand. Ghi had not shown his face in this room, not until now.

  Which was understandable. He was sort of responsible for frying my arm off, after all.

  The first thing I noticed while he stood frozen there was that he looked much ... smaller. Fewer layers, I realized. No sweaters. Ghi was wearing an ordinary T-shirt now, and the effect seemed to take off twenty pounds. The shirt also failed to hide what all those sweaters had easily concealed.

  I gawked. Ghi's bare arms were patterned like the topographical map of an island chain.

  "Right. Okay. Thanks," he stammered. Having mustered the abili
ties to speak and move again, he turned and quickly left.

  I didn't have time to take my eyes off the closing door, much less digest what I had just seen. Without a second's passing, Ghi burst back into the room, marched directly around the couch, and halted in front of me, mashing a palm to his forehead in the universal gesture of unease and shame.

  "Jordan, I'm―"

  Oh, for crying out loud.

  "Stop." I cut him off before he could say it. I swear to god if one more person said the word 'sorry' to me then I was going to have to kill someone. And I really didn't want it to have to be Ghi. I liked Ghi.

  "Please don't say it," I said, my tone more earnest than stern. I wanted him to know that I meant it. "Not to me. Not ever. Do you understand?"

  He paused. I think he nodded.

  "Sit down."

  He sat. On the far end of the couch, far away from me. We both stared at the TV for an uneasy moment. Remembering the dropped pills, I bent forward and plucked them off the floor.

  "So what did you need to tell Jesse?" I asked, renewing my attempt to get at the sweet pain-killing goodness inside.

  "Nothing urgent," said Ghi. His eyes wandered down to my fumbling hand. Formerly buttery gold in color, those eyes were now a startling 24-karat. "Would you like me to ...."

  "No thanks."

  Ghi nodded and returned his attention to the TV―for my sake, I suppose. That gave me a chance to steal a good look at his arm, just to make sure my retinas hadn't been fooling me before.

  They hadn't. Ghi's skin had a muted afterglow to it, not unlike mother-of-pearl; barely perceptible, still very passable as human. But in stark contrast to this quality was a web of pinkish, slightly puckered marks, spreading out in swirling patterns down half his forearm. Scar tissue.

  I didn't get it. If all of Jesse's death marks had disappeared, why hadn't Ghi's?

  "What happened to you?" I asked frankly. The new amputee in me felt entitled.

  Ghi looked at me like a deer caught in headlights, not comprehending the question. I elaborated.

  "Your skin. Why the hell does it look like that now?"

  Ghi cleared his throat. "Oh," he said, running a nonchalant finger over a blighted elbow. "They're, um, burn scars, actually. From the other time I should've died." He mimed a gun with his hand, pointing it to his head with a little smile. "Burning building, remember?"

  The new amputee in me suddenly felt like a total ass.

  Ghi benevolently ignored my discomfort, shrugging. "I don't get it either, why I've still got them. Same with Khan and his tattoos. I mean, you saw Corin's arm, you saw Jesse and me. It's like none of that ever happened. But these ...." He held an arm out, examining the scars for himself. "They've just been a part of me for too long, I guess. So when I came back, so did they. And that's alright with me."

  My fingers fiddled absently with the bottle cap and I sank further into the couch, giving all of that some thought. A bunch of light photons gaining mass, forming into a body, scars and all. I wondered what that had looked like. Probably pretty gross.

  "What did it feel like?" I asked, this time in a civil tone. "While you were, you know, not quite yourself?"

  I hadn't asked Jesse that question, for two reasons. First, I hadn't really cared to know. I didn't like thinking about him becoming something so violent. Secondly, I doubted he could describe it without giving me a migraine. You should hear him describe a pedicure.

  Ghi concentrated on my question, shifting on the cushions so that he was turned toward me, although he wasn't necessarily looking at me. He wasn't looking at anything, really.

  "It felt incredible," he said finally. "It felt like … moving through a tunnel your whole life, and then suddenly being in open space. No walls. I didn't want to come back. None of us did."

  Well that was an eye-opener. Far from the pain and terror I'd been imagining. I outstretched my arm and held the pill bottle over his hand.

  "So why did you?"

  Ghi took the bottle without comment and began twisting at the lid. Instead of answering, he smiled a difficult, bashful sort of smile.

  "This is going to sound weird."

  "Oh, really?" I smirked, popping the solemn bubble surrounding our conversation. "Because I haven't heard anything weird lately."

  Ghi laughed. Then he scowled at the stubborn, unyielding plastic he was wringing between both hands. Told you it was a bitch to open.

  "Well, she made me come back," he explained. "I've been hearing her for a while now, since the dreams started. But when I was light, when I was in that other place, I could hear her as clearly as my own conscience. And she told me to stop, because I wasn't ready. So ...." Ghi shrugged, and the bottle lid popped off. "I stopped. We all stopped. How many?"

  "Two."

  He tapped two gigantic blue pills into my open palm. "The thing is, I stopped, but she didn't. Still hasn't. I can hear her right now."

  I blinked. That was, well―weird. Can't say he didn't warn me.

  "What does she say?" I asked, before popping the pills into my mouth. One hand, one thing at a time. I grabbed a glass of water from the coffee table and drained them down.

  "Nothing, really. I just know that she's here."

  The thought filled me with a prickling self-consciousness. I considered the light filtering down from the fluorescent bulbs overhead, scrambling across the television screen in fragments of moving color. The air I was breathing. The water I'd just swallowed. All of it alive, seeing, thinking―and apparently speaking.

  I wondered if light and water and everything else had behaved differently before the sisters performed their sacrifices. I wondered what they themselves had been like, what they'd looked like.

  "What was her name?" I asked.

  Ghi looked at me. He beamed.

  "She can't remember."