“Why does she want it?” I said.
“To end the curse,” said one of the oldest deaders. I nodded. I could understand that desire, and yet I wasn’t sure why the Areti were so concerned about it.
“It’s their family’s curse, or so they see it. It’s the matter of honor for them,” said the child. “They don’t care what will happen to us. They only know that they don’t want to become us.”
There was no good way to ask this question, but I asked anyway. “Do you… do you like being like this?”
They whistled and chortled, their laughter akin to scratching of nails.
“You’ll see when you’re in my shoes,” Jas said. “It’s more life, even though you might not see it as such. See, I don’t relish being what I am, but I still prefer it to lying still in the ground, being eaten by worms.”
“Do you know where that cherrystone is?”
The crowd grew silent, and I felt their eyes on me, judging, weighing. “‘Course we do,” Jas said. “That’s the first thing you learn as a deader—it’s important, see. And we tell it to each other every day, so that we don’t forget—about the Areti, about their snooping goons…”
The appearance of two more deaders interrupted him. One was tall and dark, one-handed. The other, a teenager, seemed young enough to be his son, but his light hair belied this conclusion. His nostrils were torn open, and a slow trickle of pus trekked across his pale lips and down his chin.
“You came to kill us,” the youngster said.
Once again, I grew aware of the precariousness of my situation, and protested my innocence with as much sincerity as I could muster.
“The Areti sent you,” his companion said. “Just like they sent us.”
I shrugged. “So? I find things; I never killed anyone.” Jas’ heavy hand lay on my shoulder. I could feel through my jacket how cold and clammy it was. “He wouldn’t do something like that,” he said to the gathering. “He knows better.” I nodded. “I do. Only others don’t. You think people across the river would listen to me? Or to you, for that matter. Far as everyone’s concerned, if the stone is gone, so much the better.
The Areti won’t leave you alone. Not with the present Mistress.” Everyone nodded in agreement.
“She won’t stop,” the bruised girl said. “Not until she’s one of us.” She gave me a meaningful look. “Will you help us?” “Whoa,” I said. “You’re not asking me to kill her, are you?” They murmured that it wouldn’t be a bad idea, and after all, it wouldn’t be all bad for her. The deaders’ town was a nice place. “I’m not a murderer,” I said. “But I think I can help you. The stone needs to stay in town, right? Doesn’t matter where?” “No,” Jas said. “But she won’t stop looking.”
“I think I know a good place for it,” I said. “Just give me the stone, and don’t worry about a thing. She’ll never find it.” Their silence was unnatural—not even a sound of breathing broke it. Dozens of dead eyes looked at me, expressionless, weighing my proposal in their oozing, ruined skulls. I asked a lot of them—to put their very existence into the hands of an aliver, a being as alien to them as they were to me.
If I were in his shoes, I doubt I would’ve done what Jas had done: he pointed at the girl with the purple bruise. “Give it to him,” he said.
The girl stepped back, away from me, and I reached out, afraid that she would stumble and fall again. She remained on her feet—I supposed she was getting a hang of her new limitations.
“Why do you think he’ll help us?” she asked Jas, but her hand was already reaching for her chest.
“He’s my brother,” Jas said.
Her fingers pushed away a flimsy shawl that cradled her slender shoulders, and I gasped at the sight of a deep wound, left by a dagger. That was what killed her—an angry father, a jealous husband, a sullen stranger. She reached deep into the wound, pulling out a small round object, covered with congealed gore.
I tried not to flinch as the bloodied cherrystone lay in my palm. “Be careful with it,” the one-handed man told me. “It’s a powerful thing.”
“What can it do?” I said, rolling it on my palm gingerly. It left a trail, but didn’t seem very powerful.
“Whatever it has to do,” Jas said.
The sight of the moonlit Areti manor greeted me from afar. It was deep night, and not a window shone in the darkness. The bulk of the building sat immobile but sinister, as a stone gargoyle ready to come to life and rip out the heart of the next victim. I heaved a sigh and slowed my steps; no doubt, the manor would be guarded, and I was disinclined to reveal my presence just yet. Fortunately, in my line of business I had learned a thing or two about surreptitious visits.
I avoided the front door, where the two goons of my recent acquaintance sat on the steps, trading monosyllabic talk. My soft-soled shoes made no sound on the grass as I edged around the corner and along the wall, looking for a different point of entry. There was a backdoor, as I had expected, latched shut from the inside. Worse, the door was cased in iron, and a slightest manipulation would surely reverberate through the building.
In the pale moonlight, I let my fingers run along the edges of the door, looking for a gap. The door was quite well fitted, and I procured a short knife with thin blade from my pocket, and forced it between the door and the wall that surrounded it, trying to feel the latch inside. The scraping of metal against metal tore the still air. I jerked my hand away, and fell into a crouch by the wall. I waited for a long while, but nobody appeared.
I explored the perimeter of the manor again, in hopes of finding a ground level window or another door. None were forthcoming, and I returned to the back entrance guarded by iron. I wondered if the cherrystone could be of use, and took it out of my pocket. It glowed softly, and I touched it to the door. Nothing happened.
“Come on,” I whispered to it. “Do you want to be found and destroyed?”
The stone did not answer.
I felt foolish, carrying on a conversation with an inanimate object, but persisted. I sat down, my back against the cold wall, cradling the stone’s tiny light in my open palms. “See,” I told it, “it’s like this. I could just give you up, take my money, and go home. But it’s bigger than me or her or even you…”
My voice caught in my throat as my own words reached me. There was no doubt that the Areti would kill me—break my fingers, cut off my hand, perhaps rip my nostrils open, just like they did to the dead boy. But I also realized that it would be better to die now and have a place to go than eke out another few years and succumb to the black nothingness to which people from other places went. We lived with the deaders for so long that we saw them as a nuisance; we didn’t realize how lucky we were to have them—to become them. And this stone made it all possible. I closed my hand around it, protecting it, protecting all of us.
The stone grew warmer in my hand, and soon it burned it. It shone brighter too, and narrow white beams of light squeezed between my fingers—my fist looked like a star. When I touched it to the door, the metal sang, barely audible, and the door swung open. I entered the dark dusty hallway, my way illuminated by the cherrystone.
I followed it to the dark recesses of the sleeping manor, to the kitchen. There, a massive brick stove towered against the far wall. The light beams cut through the stone as if it was butter, forming a long, narrow tunnel behind the stove, just spacious enough to let my hand through.
I released the cherrystone, and let it roll into its new hiding place. As it cooled and darkened, what was left of its power sealed the passage, returning it to the normal appearance of the brickwork of the stove and stone of the walls.
As quietly as I entered, I left. I crossed the river as the sun was rising above the rooftops. I listened to the crowing of roosters and to the first banging of shutters, inhaled the sweet aroma of baking bread, basked in the first sunrays alighting on my shoulders. I was heading back to my favorite restaurant, where I intended to drink until the Areti thugs found me.
I thought
about what would be my last trip to the deaders’ town—how I would shamble along, until I arrived to Jas’ house. I would have to tell him right away that I was his brother, before I forget and lose the tentative connection between us, and ask him to remind me. Then I would settle next to the ice chest, and we would talk, in loopy, halting sentences. And we would remind each other every day, so that we don’t forget, keeping the memory of our shared blood alive.
SEAS OF THE WORLD
Jillian sits on the windowsill, and looks outside, where the first snowflakes flutter in the pale glow of streetlights. It is cold; her breath leaves white patina of fog on the black plastic of the phone receiver. She imagines the phone ringing in Rick’s dark apartment. The answering machine does not come on—he never had one—and she counts the rings. Seven. Eight. Anything to keep her mind from wandering. She can spend all night listening to the receiver. Fourteen. She imagines Rick’s bare feet padding across the cold ceramic tiles of the kitchen floor, his hand tugging up the pajama bottoms riding low on his waist. Last she saw him, he looked like he’d lost weight.
“Hello?” His voice breaks through the twenty-first ring, hoarse. “Jill?”
“Yeah. Did I wake you?” It is a stupid question—it is 4 am, of course he was sleeping soundly in this dead hour. She feels a small pang of guilt at denying him oblivion.
“Yes.” He never lies, not even in the small reflexive way when he’s woken up. “Are you all right?”
“I guess,” she says. And then she is crying, weeping into the receiver, a part of her mind worrying if it is possible to cause a short by crying into an electrical appliance.
“I’ll come over.”
“No need to… I’m all right.”
“I’d like to come over. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.”
The phone is silent again, and she sits on the windowsill, trying to keep her mind away from the horribly missing piece of her existence. She thinks of the ways Rick annoys her.
She thinks of their meeting in court. The divorce proceedings were over with, and there was just the question of custody. Jillian bit her lip all the way to the courthouse, and spilled her coffee down the front of her white shirt as soon as she got there. She despised herself for this, especially once she saw Rick in his immaculate suit. Not an expensive one, but the man made any clothes look good. He owned them, while she couldn’t reach a truce with hers. Her clothes betrayed her by getting dirty or twisted, just like her hair tended to get in her face, and the makeup smeared itself at inopportune moments. How she hated Rick then, how she feared him! Any judge in his right mind would take one look at them and decide that she was a pitiful mess, while Rick was together, a fit parent. Able of providing good care to a child. Reliable.
She mopped up the coffee stain the best she could, and stood before the judge brimming with desperation. She stammered out her reasons why Derryl should stay with her—she loved him so much!—and fell quiet, turning an uneasy gaze to Rick. He didn’t look back, the pale clarity of his eyes for the judge only. He didn’t argue that Jillian should have custody, he just wanted visitations and vacation time. She hated him for being more generous than she.
The dead receiver in her hand comes to life. “If you require assistance from the operator…” She puts it back on the cradle, startled, upset that the delicate silence of the night and the snow was spoiled by this mechanical voice. She cringes and thinks of Rick, willfully, like it is some sort of an exercise. Thinking of Rick keeps her together until the doorbell rings.
She hugs him as he comes in, and cringes at how prominent his ribs are, how gaunt his face looks. He didn’t get a chance to shave, but even the scruff looks proper on him. Like he meant it.
“I missed you,” he says. Looks at her face, searching for clues.
Always searching for an indication of how she feels. “I missed you too,” she says, and forces a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask for sex.”
He breathes relief and adds, “I didn’t say you are.” “But you thought it.”
He doesn’t deny.
“Want anything? Coffee, tea?”
“Coffee,” he says. “Please.” He sits at the kitchen table, his large pale hands lying passively palms-down on either side of his empty cup. She hugs her shoulders and waits for the coffee to percolate.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she says.
“It’s all right.” He looks at his hands. “I’m the one who is sorry.
It was my fault that—”
“No,” she interrupts. “I don’t want to talk about that.” It’s enough to know that he’s feeling what she’s feeling.
He takes the cue. “How’s work?”
“I haven’t been in a while.” She looks at the snowflakes dancing outside the window. It will get light soon.
“Don’t go tomorrow... I mean, today. Stay here. Call in sick.”
“Okay,” he says, always obedient.
When they first met, his obedience shocked her. She found him on the beach ten summers back. It was late, and the beach was deserted; she enjoyed her solitary walks, almost dissolving in the darkness and the relentless pounding of the surf. She screamed when she stepped on something that seemed alive; it turned out to be the hand of a man lying in the sand.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She squinted as he sat up. In the pale moonlight, he seemed lost.
“It’s okay,” she said. It was difficult to tell what he looked like in that light. “I must be going.”
He followed her; she should’ve been scared, but she wasn’t. He followed her not like a prowler but like a lost puppy. He spoke quietly, and she strained, trying to hear his words above the surf. “Caspian,” he said.
“Is it your name?” she asked. “Caspian?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes wide and dark.
They reached the boardwalk and strolled along the fronts of rickety wooden shops.
“What’s your first name?” she said, just to say something.
His gaze cast about wildly. “Rick,” he finally said. She followed the direction of his gaze to the sign of the Rick’s Bait and Surfing Supplies. She pretended not to notice.
He sips his coffee, his face turning pink in the hot steam. He whispers under his breath, and she strains to hear. He takes a deep breath. “Aral,” he whispers. “Azov, Black, Red, Arabian, Laccidive, Andaman, Yellow, Dead.”
“Dead,” she repeats, and starts crying again.
“It’s my fault,” he says. “I shouldn’t have told him.” She cries too hard to answer, to react, and he resumes his litany. A nervous habit he has, naming all the seas in the world. “Philippine, Sulu, Koro, Java, Halmahera, Mindanao, Savu, Sunda, Arafura, Celebs, Molucca, Bismark, Coral, Solomon, Tasman, Bohol, Visayan, Camotes, Bali, Sibuyan, Flores, Timor, Banda, Ceram.”
It calms her a bit, like it calms him. “It’s not your fault,” she says. “It’s nobody’s fault.”
“I shouldn’t have told him.”
“Told him what?”
He swallows hard. “About me. About him. The way we are.” She stares at him. She thinks he might be finally cracking, feeling the loss more than he shows. She feels selfish for forcing him to always be reliable, to make her feel better. “You want to tell me?” she says.
“Caribbean, North, Irish, Hebrides, Celtic, Baltic, Bothian, Scotia, Labrador, Sargasso, Balearic, Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Adriatic, Aegean, Marmara, Thracian—” His eyes are distant, glazed over. Dark. “These are my seas. His seas.”
It is always like this. Ice and water, jagged black cracks like stationary lightnings running across the floes. The taste of fish, tightly clenched nostrils, lungs expanded like bellows. The shadows of other seals, floating in a graceful arc, their flippers trailing behind them like twin tales of a comet.
Rick does not know if it’s a dream or a memory; neither does he care. He tells Derryl of the slow falls and rapid ascends, of the gre
en depth of water. Of the migration routes, of the ecstasy he felt as the water turned from icy to balmy, with every mile south. Of the coral reefs where water ran clear as tears, of the fishes as bright as they were poisonous, of the quick darting of dolphins overhead, of their staccato laughter superimposed over the short, sharp barks of the seals.
Derryl listens, wide-eyed, as the two of them walk on the beach. “How did you become a person?” he asks when Rick stops talking.
Rick shrugs. “I just stopped being a seal.” He talks about the Sargasso Sea and its streaming grasses, undulating underwater like mermaid’s hair, and of the fat eels that come to this sea from all over the world. He talks about following the stream of eels from the Black Sea all the way to Sargasso, of the Aegean and Marmara, Ionian and Adriatic, of Greeks and Scythians, the deeds of men forever branded into the ancestral memory of the seals.
Derryl looks at him with warm brown eyes. “I want to be a seal too,” he says.
Rick is listening to the surf. “Then you’d have to stop being a person,” he says, distractedly.
It is light outside when Jillian looks out of the window again. The world is dressed in a shroud, a shroud her son never had. A shroud for a boy who did not want to be a person.
“It was an accident,” she says.
He shakes his head, vehement now that he found the courage to tell her.
She sighs. “It doesn’t matter, Rick. It doesn’t matter why or how.” She makes more coffee and they drink it, silently, as the snow is falling outside.
Jillian thinks of the Arctic seas and the ice—so thick—that opens suddenly wide to reveal black water underneath. She thinks of the smooth seals turning cartwheels in the black depths, oblivious to cold and wind whipping the land half to death.
“Laptev,” Rick whispers, “White, Barents, Beaufort, Chuckchi, Lincoln, Kara.”
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