My mind won’t work. All I can do is stare at Elspeth. “What are you suggesting?” I ask Leesel.
“We need to give her to the tunnelers.” Leesel bites her lip. “They’ll help her.”
I stare at the knot, ugly and red, rising on Elspeth’s head, close to where a section of her hair has fallen out. Her breathing is interrupted by short sighs.
I’m afraid. I look to Poe, but he only shakes his head, his eyes wide.
Leesel’s been in Memento Mori the longest. I trust her judgment, but the whole plan makes me sick. My instinct is to get Elspeth help from the living. “Surely there are doctors in the City?” I ask.
“Not that we can trust,” Leesel insists.
Poe holds out his beads. “I believe someone would help us,” he says, weakly.
Ava snorts with disgust.
I stand, rigid, mesmerized by tall weeds blowing against headstones in the cemetery of the City. I am tired. Lost. I am like one of the blocks of stone surrounding me, cold and heartless.
Poe drops his prayer beads. “I know how to find tunnelers,” he says.
Ava looks skeptical. “Really, Poe. How?”
He cringes at her tone and falls silent.
Leesel speaks up. “They won’t come out until it’s night,” she says. Nodding, she’s made up her mind. “We’ll knock after dark.”
53
knocking on tombstones
The last drop of white sun sinks into the dark of Memento Mori. Ava huddles beside me. She’s calmed down, come out of her hysteria. Taking my hand, she speaks softly but with conviction. “Sometimes,” she says, squeezing my fingers, “you have to do bad things to protect the ones you care about.”
I stare out over the City. It appears as a collection of pointed steeples jumbled together in the valley below us. “I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t blame this on me, Jesse. It was you and Poe that took Leesel out into the woods so that she ended up here in this world.” Her voice turns steel cold. “You and Poe. Not me.”
Her words sting, because this is more my fault than she knows. This all has something to do with me and how I’m an exorcist. It has to do with crystal balls and their attraction to me. Something more is going on here. Something wants to happen.
But at what cost?
I’m weary. Exhausted. I don’t want to do this anymore. It hurts too bad.
Hidden flagellants suddenly howl, their screams echoing, multiplying. My eyes rove the moon-washed mountains around us. We’ve been in Memento Mori for weeks, and yet the moon remains full.
“Werewolves are everywhere,” Poe whispers.
Elspeth lies still, unmoved from where she fell after Ava struck her with the stone. I’m afraid I’m going to lose her. I’m afraid Memento Mori will kill my friends. I’ve protected no one, the way I didn’t protect Emmy.
“It’s time to knock,” Leesel says, coming up behind me and Ava. The stick of her shovel rises two feet over her head. We found several of them, along with lanterns, in a shed built into the mountain. “I feel fine now. I can help.”
Ava feels Leesel’s forehead. “The fever’s gone,” she says.
Poe looks Ava square in the face. “We have Elspeth to thank. She healed Leesel with the medicine.”
Ava brusquely arranges the robe cowl around her face with shaky fingers. Pushing off my shoulder as she stands, she grabs her shovel and marches across the cemetery. Her face is in shadow when she turns back to us. “Hurry,” she hisses. “Before Elspeth dies.”
Surreal. I feel like I’m an actor in a scene from a black and white film. Fog billows along the ground. Untended landscaping scrapes at tombstones, while dead leaves blow through the gate and across the graves. The cemetery of the City is like an old movie set, only unfortunately it’s not.
It’s real, and we have to dig to summon skeletons.
“This is awful,” Poe says. His eyes are puffed and baggy from exhaustion.
Leesel lugs her shovel, clanging it over the rocks fallen from higher up the mountain. “I like this one,” she says, indicating a grave with broken earth over the deceased. “This spot is active.”
Wind blows her kinky hair across her face. She tucks as much as she can behind her ears and lifts her shovel with a determined expression. Swinging, she repeatedly clangs the point of the shovel against her chosen grave’s tombstone.
“Leesel, wait.” Ava picks up the feet of our captive. “Before any tunnelers show up, I think we should hide Elspeth in the shed.”
“Why, Mommy?”
“I don’t want tunnelers to steal Elspeth and just leave us standing here. The whole point of this is to offer Elspeth as a trade for passage back home. We’ll tell them that we have Saint Frankenstein in a safe location. After they show us how to get home, or take us to who can get us home, then we’ll tell them where she is.”
Poe’s jaw falls slack. He looks to me, then back at Ava. “But, Ava Lily. What if she dies alone in the shed? Before they come for her?”
Ava ignores him. “Jesse. Come on. Help me get her to the shed.”
“Mommy, no!” Leesel drops her shovel, runs toward Ava, but I catch and stop her.
“Calm down, sweetheart,” I tell her as she elbows and kicks me. It’s a struggle to keep hold of her. “She’ll be safer there. Until we can talk to the tunnelers, and know if they’re willing to help her.”
But I will not leave Elspeth in the shed.
Poe rushes forward to pick up Elspeth’s upper body. He and Ava carry her to the shed while I restrain Leesel. Poe backs into the shed door, and dirt cascades down from the corrugated metal roof. They take Elspeth inside.
A moment later they’re back. “I made her a pillow of sackcloth,” Poe tells me.
“Leesel, listen to me,” Ava says. “I’ll tell the tunnelers where Elspeth is as soon as I feel like I can trust them. Okay?”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“It’ll be okay,” Poe says weakly, casting a glance back at the shed.
God help us.
Setting up our lanterns in a wide circle, we leave plenty of room for the digging. “Okay,” Ava says. “Everybody pick a spot and dig. Leesel, you stay right here with me. I don’t want you out of my sight, understand?”
We begin desecrating the graves. Not all the way, but we chip up the earth, banging our shovels up and down, sort of “knocking” on the ground. Crystal balls are planted all over the place. Which is strange. Why aren’t they being worn by resurrected skeletons? The tombstones are old.
Poe finds one area where a burlap bag has been buried, filled with dozens of crystals. “What’s this all about?” he asks.
Remembering the tunneler who plucked the virgin crystal from the tree while I was with Chastity, I think I might know. “Missionary tunnelers have been pilfering crystals to take with them to other worlds, remember? To evangelize. This must be where they’re hoarding some of the crystals.”
“Good,” Ava says. “That means these are the tunnelers who can help us get home.”
We work in silence. It seems burying coffins only a foot down is common practice in this cemetery. We knock on one casket lid after another, but no one answers. The night drags on.
I check on Elspeth every fifteen minutes. Her condition remains stable, but I’m sick with anxiety over her. Ava glares at me each time I go to the shed.
Is it true? Do I care more about Elspeth than getting Leesel and Ava and Poe home?
I’m drawn to Elspeth, the way I’m drawn to graveyards. The way I’m drawn to knowledge.
Storm clouds overpower the moon, and we crank our lanterns so that they blaze at full strength. Lightning fractures the black bowl of sky, leaving an afterglow of blue jagged threads that seem to pulse in sync with rolls of thunder.
Rain.
Shovels.
Mud.
The left side of my back aches. I close my eyes, lean on my shovel, set my chin on the top of the stick. Weird.
&
nbsp; My fingers are tingling. Opening my eyes, my gaze falls on a crystal floating. In front of me, about ten inches off the ground.
I’m curious. Wanting to know what I might see inside the crystal, I squat, pretending I’m tired, which I am. With the crystal ball at eye level, I see a glow of light in its center, in its depths. There’s also a shadow, but I can’t make out anything more than that. Poe calls my name, and I abruptly stand.
The grave shifts beneath my feet.
Spraying mud in my face, two more crystal balls emerge from the earth and hover at my waist.
I peek over my shoulder to see if Poe has noticed what’s happening. I cringe. He’s seen for sure, because he’s gripping his prayer beads. His face is in shadow, but I know something’s wrong by how rigidly he’s holding his body.
All over the cemetery of the City, crystal balls are floating. Floating, and drifting my way.
54
polluted savior
Ava digs away, oblivious to the floating crystals surrounding me. Leesel, however, stands in the doorway of the shed where she’s checking on Elspeth. Does she see?
Slowly, Poe approaches, holding a lantern before him. “Jesse?” he asks. He pushes the lantern close to my face. At this moment a clump of mud shoots upward to pelt me in the face. In its wake, a crystal ball rises, luminous in the dark of the night.
Poe startles, drops the lantern. He quickly retrieves it as he backs away from me. My brain is scrambling, trying to think of something to say. Some reason. Some excuse for why this happens to me.
Rain falls. Ava swears. “This isn’t working,” she complains. She plops on the ground and drops her forehead to her knees. She hasn’t noticed anything weird yet.
Poe and I stare at one another. I can imagine what he’s thinking of me.
The grave trembles, and mud sprays.
Poe keeps his voice low when he finally speaks. “Jesse, it’s a terrible sin to raise the spirits of the dead.”
What?
“You’ve got to stop this! Remember your faith. Ask for forgiveness. Please, Jesse. You’re my best friend. What will happen to you when you die? What will be your judgment? I’m scared for you.”
“I’m not doing anything bad.”
“Yes you are. What is inside you, that you would turn against God like this?” His breath sucks in. “This has been going on since before we came to Memento Mori, hasn’t it? The way you kept going to graveyards…oh, no…all of this is your fault…isn’t it?”
“No. Yes. I wanted to know. I wanted knowledge, Poe. Can’t you understand? Please.”
Ava gets up. Approaches us. She slows, and I know she’s overheard what Poe has said to me. “What are you evangelizing about now, Poe?” she asks, clearly impatient with him. “Leave Jesse alone.”
He points at me. “Jesse has been dealing with dark things! He invites ghosts to possess him. That’s the reason the priests exiled us to Memento Mori! Jesse brought us here.”
His shaking finger is a physical blow to me.
“This can’t be my fault,” I shout, lying.
In response, the burlap bag filled with crystal balls drags my way. Poe’s finger swings to point at it. He screams.
Shame engulfs me. Suddenly, Bethany’s words about Frankenstein come into my mind. She called him a polluted savior. I start to laugh. That’s it. It’s perfect. I’ve struggled between believing I’m special, but knowing I’m bad. A polluted savior incorporates both. That’s what I’ve been, trying to bring Emmy salvation. A polluted savior.
That’s why I can never save Emmy. I’m bad inside. Sinful. Polluted.
And why should I be able to save her? It’s my fault she’s dead. I didn’t protect her. I was late to school, late to walk her home. And why? Because I was bent on defying my priests. Because I craved forbidden fruit, craved knowledge. And my heart told me that knowledge was to be found in the mystery of ghosts. I believed God made me an exorcist for a reason—to communicate with ghosts.
I was late to Emmy’s school because I was sitting in prayer in a graveyard, where I’ve always felt closest to God.
I chose God over Emmy.
A God I’m no longer sure even exists. And now my sister is dead.
A surge of guilt rises within me, and a rain of mud gushes up from the graveyard, a geyser of filth.
Ava and Poe both shriek, both shield their heads with their arms as the mud showers back down. I do nothing. I let the dirt cover me without resistance. But then…I bend, gather mud in my fist.
I pitch it at Poe, striking him in the face.
Before he can react, I rush at him, knock him to the ground. He shelters his face, lapses into Latin, and inside me…rage. “I hate your God!” I scream. He pulls an arm away from his face and my fist lands. “Why didn’t God save Emmy? Why doesn’t He let me save her? We’ve come all this way, and it’s for nothing, because I can’t do it. I can’t save her.” I strike him. Once. And again. Harder.
I’m beating Poe.
Stunned, I stop. Poe rolls away, whimpering, holding his face.
Ava’s reaching out to me, her hand shaking, like she’s afraid I might hit her too. “Jesse, Jesse,” she keeps saying. Nothing more, just my name. I hear Leesel too. Crying. She’s here. Seeing all of this.
I allow Ava to hold me. She wraps her arms around me, tight. Buries her face in my neck.
What just happened? Did I really just beat up Poe?
Across from me, in the pouring rain, Poe crouches, rocks on his heels, stares at Ava holding me. Glowing crystals bob around him, so luminous that they’ve lit up the graveyard like a stage. Leesel tiptoes around the crystals, watching Poe, but she doesn’t say anything to him. At last she turns to me. Her face is contorted.
Who am I?
Ava leaves me, goes to Leesel.
I sit alone. Rainwater fills the ditches we’ve dug. Slowly, I lower myself into the mud. I hear them talking. With the splashing of raindrops, I can’t make out what they’re saying, and I don’t want to.
Elspeth has done bad things too. Elspeth would understand…
Water bubbles around me.
I realize Ava’s leaning over me. “Look,” she orders. “I think the tunnelers are coming up.” The storm blows full force, lashing rain at my face so hard that it hurts, but I pull myself up on my elbows and look where Ava is pointing.
A coffin thrusts upward. It doesn’t quite clear the earth before falling back down, like a breaching whale. It cracks in half, and a cloud puffs around, like settling dust. Corpse dust. Otherwise it’s empty. It rolls, and a tunneler, black with fertile dirt, appears from beneath it. It digs at its eye sockets and tilts its face up to the night sky. Pouring rain showers its skull clean.
Earth caves in at random spots all across the graveyard, even where we haven’t been digging. Tunnelers surface, clawing and scrambling in mud until there are a dozen of them crouched along the ground. They wash mud from the crystals hanging around their necks.
I find myself standing. My fists are clenched.
They’re not taking Elspeth.
Surreptitiously, they watch us, some stripping decaying burial clothes from their bodies.
Poe trembles, but he won’t look at me.
“We’re looking for Danny,” Ava announces. Her voice is loud, screechy. “He told us to call him when we learned the whereabouts of Saint Frankenstein. We have.”
This gets their attention. They lope to form a circle around us before I even think of running. Hell, they’re fast. Their movements aren’t human. One backs up from the rest and jumps feet-first into a hole, disappearing into the earth.
The tunnelers clack loudly, chaotically. Then, on some signal unseen by me, they nod in sync.
“Okay, then,” Ava says.
I’m not letting them take Elspeth. I only want their help. One of them must have medical knowledge. One of them has to.
Guarding us, tunnelers shrink at each streak of lightning. They soon grow restless. Some of them creep around
. One of the slinking tunnelers draws near to me. Suddenly his hand shoots out with the uncanny quickness, squeezing the flesh on my arm and then poking me in the back before I jerk out of reach.
Eventually a skeleton struggles out of a gravesite. The crowd parts with a lot of clacking. The new tunneler sloshes up to us. I notice that it has some missing teeth, just like Danny. He takes both of my hands in his own.
His knuckles are enlarged. Swollen.
“Danny?”
One loud clack.
“We know the whereabouts of Saint Frankenstein,” Ava says, yelling as if he’s deaf, “and we’ll tell you where to find her if you help us get back to our own world. Take us to a missionary.”
Danny simply stands, simply holds my hands.
“Like you promised,” Ava adds.
Though Danny is calm, the rest of the tunnelers clack. Quietly at first, but they get louder and louder. A few shake their fists.
Danny gently releases my hands. He takes three angry tunnelers aside and makes sign language at them. I get the idea he’s asking them to calm down. They shake him off. Jabbing their fingers in our direction, they clack loudly at the rest of the tunnelers who stand uncertainly.
“What’s going on?” Leesel asks.
“I don’t know,” Ava says in a tight voice. She glances at the shed.
They tighten their circle around us. Poe keeps his eyes away from mine.
One of them breaks from the others and darts to Leesel, snatching her up. With surreal speed two others skitter along the ground, tackle Ava and Poe. I’m the strongest; the cowards aren’t going for me.
“Jesse, get Leesel,” Ava screams at me. I’m already there. But the tunneler with Leesel easily stays out of my reach as I lunge and slip, lunge and slip. Most of the tunnelers seem to be in a panic—they lope away, trampling Danny underfoot. In the confusion I lose sight of Ava and Poe, but I can see Leesel, lifted over her abductor’s head, moving away from me.
The Ghosting of Gods Page 25