The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  Willy shrieks from his perch on the roof. “My friend! My friend!”

  Saint Thomas whirls, sees the tunneler with his black box. “Traitor!” the saint shouts. “He looses threads! He, not the Holy Ghost!”

  Tucking his box inside his robe, Willy scampers away, vanishing beyond the roofline. Seeing this, the crowd of tunnelers immediately let go the denizens and run in his direction. Why? They don’t want to miss the exodus?

  Time is running out.

  Stunned at their sudden release, denizens fumble inside their robes, extract keys, run for their homes. Some remain crouched on the ground, crying beneath their capes, hiding. No one is left to shout for my death.

  Elspeth has saved me.

  I rush to the side of the platform and look down. Poe isn’t there. I look across the square. Ava, Leesel, and Danny have gone as well. Whirling around, I see Elspeth attempting to get up.

  She’s returned to her body. Veering like a drunk, she stumbles as she walks.

  She comes to me.

  Her toes touch mine, and she lifts her eyes to mine. “You must not yet die,” she whispers. She reaches a hand to my face, caresses my cheek. “Will you tell me how to break the chains? You must have seen the Holy Ghost. You must know the secret.”

  I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Knowing how I let her be sacrificed, I can’t look her in the eyes any longer. I try to turn my head, but her hand shoots up to grasp my chin. Squeezing, she turns my eyes back to hers.

  “You know,” she insists, and I taste her breath. “The time has come. You must know. You must have seen the Ghost face to face, as prophesied by the seer.”

  “We are face to face,” I say, surprising myself.

  Her eyes cloud. “What riddle is this?”

  “Maybe the prophecy said that I would see the Holy Ghost Incarnate face to face. Not much difference between incarnate or not. I’ve noticed the terms are used interchangeably. Is the Holy Ghost Incarnate you, Elspeth? At last, tell me the truth, all of it. Why must Thomas be saved? Why is the Ghost jealous?”

  Her face hardens. When she answers, her voice is earnest.

  “Do you not understand what the Holy Ghost is capable of? Thomas loved me when he found me wandering…he possessed me, and my Ghost was jealous. When I witnessed Thomas cowering in fear of me, I committed suicide. But I resurrected. Without the hated Ghost. It hides. But I will make certain It never harms Thomas again. Thomas, who taught me possession.” She closes her eyes. Breathes. “Tell me you learned the secrets of the Ghost. Tell me you then disposed of It, Exorcist.”

  “I haven’t seen the Ghost, Elspeth. In fact, I never see the ghost you have now, even when it comes out of your body. You hide it. So maybe I can’t see the Ghost, either.”

  She mutters. “No…Chastity prophesied you would see the Holy Ghost face to face, that you would break the chains of many, that you would die…I looked in the crystal and saw for myself the chains of Thomas broken, your dead body on this very platform…”

  “Crystals often show scenes out of order…” But what does that mean? The crystal still showed my death. Or did it? Could I have only been lying injured, and not dead? “In my world, you see God after you die. Maybe that’s when I see your former ghost. Elspeth, do you really believe you’re the Holy Ghost?”

  “Chastity told me it was the Presence which threatened Thomas! Chastity does not lie.”

  Elspeth’s anguish is palpable. Her enormous eyes wild. I need to get away, or maybe she’s the one to kill me when I don’t give her all that she’s hoped for. I suspect she has the power to do things I know nothing about. The coven feared her. Chastity flatly stated that Elspeth was too powerful for them. That she would put them to sleep. Did that mean she killed them all? One against a hundred?

  I’m beginning to think Elspeth may not be delusional. Maybe she really is the Holy Ghost Incarnate. But can she be, if the Holy Ghost no longer resides within her, but instead roams the world? Her identity confuses me.

  “Elspeth,” I say, my voice gentle, but she looks at me like a caged animal. She’s not powerful at all. Not now. She’s afraid. “Elspeth, what do you really want with me? You didn’t even know I was an exorcist when you plotted to bring me to the coven village.”

  She lifts her chin. “But I knew you were a medium.”

  This startles me. “So what? I can hear ghosts…that’s all. You don’t need me. Chastity is a medium. There are surely others. Mediums aren’t even needed in Memento Mori! Ghosts don’t leave this world upon death.”

  “Exactly! I want to leave. I want what you would call heaven, though your beliefs are primitive.” She looks at me accusingly. “You were to meet the Ghost, learn the secret of breaking chains, so I could come loose from my past and die into freedom. But you were also to do what Chastity would not—you were to die as a sacrifice, your ghost leading the way out of this world for me to follow. You’re to lead the way for us. Our fates are bound together. A new beginning…a crossing over. Chastity revealed much.” She drops her voice, and I can barely hear her. “I mixed, I gave the seer drink, and when her tongue was loosened, I shoved the crystal into her hands. I listened as she prophesied, looking with her weird eyes, seeing things I myself could not see. I held her face to the crystal, I commanded her to see for me!”

  She recognizes the disgust on my face, she must, for she shrinks away. “You will not deny our fate,” she shouts at me with desperation. “Your ability to cross over is the key!”

  Saint Thomas stands alone, speaking with a follower from his past who no longer exists. “You’re getting threads everywhere, Brayword,” he chastises.

  Lightning strikes repeatedly. Closely. My angel is illuminated in the flashes. Stalling, I yell at Elspeth over the growling storm that grows stronger by the second. “I thought you loved Thomas. What of him, does he go with us?”

  “I’ve told him to follow in the wake of your ghost. Of mine.” She pulls a knife from her cloak.

  “I’ve never seen the Ghost, Elspeth,” I say.

  She gazes at me, uncomprehending.

  The wind whips the black ropes of her hair. Her lips move in silence, as if she’s praying. She shakes her head. The knife falls from her hand.

  I kick it away.

  She looks around the City square in confusion. The life goes out of her eyes, as if her faith has been crushed. “I think Chastity tricked me,” she says.

  Is this it? Is it over? Wind blows my robe. I sense the vortex coming for me.

  I feel as disappointed as Elspeth.

  Crystal balls roll in the driving winds around the City square. Here and there, a tunneler reappears. They’re returning. Pointing at the sky. Suddenly, a flood of tunnelers enters the City square, flowing from every alley, clacking loudly, jumping up and down in celebration. They stumble over one another as they tip back their skulls to watch what is happening to the sky.

  “I’m sorry, Elspeth,” I say, but she turns from me.

  Looking in to the crowd, I call for my friends. It’s chaos. In the mad rush, a small figure slips among the skeletons, skipping in an awkward way.

  Emmy?

  I shout her name, but she’s not there. I hold my hand over my heart, pressing down against the physical pain there. Wind lashes against me, and I only wish it would take me away. I look up.

  A monstrous vortex is forming.

  62

  it happens in his presence

  Behind me, the courthouse groans. The wood in its walls shrivels, as if some dark force is whittling it away. It’s haunting over. Cobblestones blacken, as if they’ve been thrown into a furnace. The temperature plummets.

  This has nothing to do with the Holy Ghost and everything to do with Willy. He arrives on the scene and sets tunnelers to work gathering the burlap bags filled with virgin crystal. Some of the bags have fallen over, and crystals roll. “Collect our treasure, my brethren!” Willy demands.

  The exodus. It’s time.

  Where is Poe? And
Ava, Leesel? Did skeletons drag them away?

  Elspeth stands frozen, her arms hanging at her sides, silently weeping. “I doubt your sanity, my love,” Saint Thomas calls to her. She flinches at his words.

  Flagellants howl. I’d forgotten about them, they were so silent. No more. Their cries compete with the noise of the clacking tunnelers, creating a cacophony that confuses me.

  Light flashes at the center of the vortex.

  Flagellants and tunnelers alike fall silent.

  “A disturbance…the Holy Ghost returns…A disturbance…” a single emaciated old flagellant cackles.

  Willy shouts, and tunnelers everywhere chase down crystals to stuff in their ribcages. Several skeletons even widen their jaws to stuff crystals in their mouths. Like apples. A vision of Chastity in the Eden, where crystals grow on trees like fruit, comes to my mind.

  Where is she? Is it true that she tricked Elspeth? That I don’t die at all?

  The sea of tunnelers divides. Danny walks the channel between them, calmly, toward the platform. He’s alone. Ava and Leesel aren’t with him.

  Raising his hand, he catches the attention of Elspeth. She gasps. Falls to her knees. “Thomas, Thomas,” she says. “Look. This tunneler wears no chain. No crystal.”

  Saint Thomas scrunches his nose. “It was judged unworthy and received no crystal. It has no past. No identity. Shameful!” He parades up and down the platform, rattling his chain and moaning loudly. “It must be caged. Not fair. It wears no chain.”

  “No, Thomas,” Elspeth says. “I know this one. He worked as a spy for me. He wore a chain, and now it is gone.” She turns to me. Grabs my cowl at the neck. “You freed this tunneler. Why lie to me? You’ve met the Ghost, and learned Its secret of breaking chains. Why refuse to break the chains of Thomas?”

  I try to pull away. “Danny’s crystal emptied, and the chain broke, but I don’t know how,” I explain, trying to make her understand so she’ll let me go. “I never know how it is done, or why…it’s always been this way…the exorcism happens in my presence, but I’m not really doing anything…”

  Her fingernails break my skin as she clasps my chin in her hand. “But now you must. You must act, Jesse. Are you waiting on your god? If so, you are a fool. Break the chains yourself. Act!”

  Her fervent plea moves me. She’s right. I’ve waited throughout this Memento Mori journey for God to show up, to direct me how to save Emmy and forever be connected to her. I believe in my God. But God has abandoned me.

  Uncertainty. Doubt.

  I know why God has abandoned me. Knowing what I am, how I can do whatever special thing it is Elspeth wants me to do?

  Panic strikes. In my confusion, I confess. “I can’t act. I don’t know what to do!”

  At last she doubts me. I see it on her face. Doubt and disgust, the same expression Ava had on her face when she told me I was doing nothing to save Leesel from Memento Mori.

  “You disappoint me,” she tells me, her voice cold, and I’m cut.

  Words lash out of me. “You’re a child, Elspeth. Believing yourself to be so special, so very special, that your original ghost is the Holy Ghost! It’s called delusions of grandeur. You’re insane.”

  She raises her hand to slap me. Clenching her fingers into a fist, she lowers her arm. Her breath is hot on my ear as she leans close. “Act, Exorcist,” she demands. “For you are special, even if I am not.”

  Saint Thomas screams. Throwing his arms over his face, as if to protect himself from me, he nevertheless runs straight at me. “Exorcist! You will never take my story. I would rather keep my chains!” I move to the side, but of course he sees me despite his matted eyes and changes direction to come after me.

  Poe appears on the platform. A welt has risen on his forehead, his eyes are bright, and he looks determined. As Saint Thomas passes by him, Poe stomps on one of the chains trailing after the ghost. The chain is so dense, so heavy, that it may as well be real—Saint Thomas jerks, falls on his behind.

  Bottle of holy water in his hand, Poe uncorks it and shakes the contents over Saint Thomas. The saint gasps, holds his hand to his heart. “Do you know my greatest doubt?” he howls.

  I face him. “Tell me, Thomas.”

  “I doubt my existence.” He weeps with abandon. Elspeth weeps with him.

  His statement disturbs me. “You’re real,” I argue. “Ghosts are real.” Emmy is real. She’s still real.

  Tunnelers clap their hands at the entertainment taking place on the platform. The applause sounds like wooden wind chimes. Willy climbs atop the platform. He signals for them to get back to work collecting crystals. “The time is near!” he proclaims. “The vortex opens for our exodus. We must be ready. We must collect every crystal for the haunting of our new world. The Promised Land awaits!”

  Saint Thomas wipes up drops of holy water with his robe sleeve as he sits on his butt. He howls louder than the flagellants. Elspeth, her hair blowing so as to hide her face, wraps her arms around him, comforting him.

  I scream her name, but she ignores me.

  Poe steps back, uncertain what to do next.

  Someone grabs my arm. The boney fingers squeeze. It’s Danny.

  “Where are Ava and Leesel?” I shout at him. “It’s time for the exodus. They have to be here, they have to go!”

  He tilts his head back, gazes up at the vortex, violent in its twisting, and then points at the crowd of tunnelers.

  “Yes, Danny, I know the tunnelers are going too.”

  He shakes his head.

  What is he trying to tell me? I don’t have time for this. Looking in the direction of his pointing finger, I see that the tunnelers are all turned in our direction.

  They’re staring at the crystal balls chained to their necks. The crystals are floating rather than hanging.

  The crystals are pulling them forward. Toward the platform. Toward me.

  63

  surrender jesse

  Elspeth cocks her head to the side and watches the floating crystals. Slowly, her eyes shift to find me. “You act?”

  I’m doing nothing. But I nod my head.

  Willy struggles to lower his crystal. He can’t. The chain pulls taut. His skull swivels to me. “What are you doing?” he screeches at me. His vocal cords quiver. He attempts to hide his crystal ball from me, tries to hide it within his billowing robe. “Leave me alone. I am doing the work of the Holy Ghost. You will not empty my crystal! I will never surrender!”

  He picks a virgin crystal off the ground and pulls back as if to pitch it at me.

  Across the City square, tunnelers mimic Willy’s action. They clasp virgin identity tags in their hands and pull back their arms, as if to…stone me…with the crystals.

  “Oh, Emmy…” The ground sways beneath me.

  Now I know why God brought me to Memento Mori. To suffer justice. God is abandoning me, as I abandoned Emmy by not watching over her and keeping her safe.

  I’m on my own. Ava and Elspeth are right. I have to act. Right now. Before all is lost.

  The vortex bulges, reaching downward. Flagellants yodel in fear and flee to the dark shadows of their cages.

  Surrender.

  Danny. He’s speaking in my mind again.

  Surrender, Jesse. Do nothing.

  Voices.

  Gradually, the awful clamor of clacking lessens. Even the wind grows quiet, though newspaper and embers swirl ever faster around the town square. Looking out over the crowd, I see the jaws of tunnelers working, but instead of clacking, I hear voices. Narrating. Telling me stories.

  Their stories.

  No. I can’t listen. I need to save my friends—but something wants to happen. It’s compelling, and it’s feels good. Should I push it away? Elspeth demanded that I act. She would act. But I feel this power flowing through me, and I want to trust it. It draws me, like faith and God and graveyards…

  I surrender.

  The stories rush in.

  I accept their sins without judgment. I un
derstand that bad things happen in stories.

  They don’t want their bad stories any more than I want mine.

  Somehow, I can hear and follow the story of each narrator, despite simultaneously being aware they’re all talking at once. I don’t just listen to their stories. I let the bad stuff dissolve with the telling of it. Their stories are just stories. They confess, and I forgive them.

  The loudest story belongs to Saint Thomas. He’s pushed aside Elspeth and is shouting about his childhood, acting it out.

  Flapping catches my attention. My angel twists, flying awkwardly in the force of the winds. Smoke clears for a moment, and I see Willy’s threads, silvery in the glow of the vortex’s light, swirling around my angel. They stick to him, constrict his wings. As if caught in a net, he spirals to the ground.

  Tunnelers back away even as they continue with their storytelling, leaving a wide perimeter for my angel. He flutters, bones scraping along the cobblestones, maimed.

  I observe all of this, but I’m not afraid.

  Danny places his hand on my shoulder. One by one, the voices fade.

  The ticking of identity tags across the square fades.

  Wind rolls crystals along the cobblestones. The tunnelers have dropped the crystals rather than stoning me with them, but that’s not all. Broken chains clatter as they’re dragged along. Like Danny, the tunnelers have lost their identity tags.

  Most of them. A few hold their crystals against their ribcages, refusing to give up their ghosts. Willy is one of them. He’s crouched on the platform, rocking back and forth and glaring at me with hatred.

  Tunnelers without crystals are leaving the city square. Slowly, calmly. They don’t look back even as Willy implores them to return. They don’t even look at the sky. Danny goes with them, leading them.

  “The exodus! The exodus!” Willy shouts as the enormous vortex reaches down for us.

  Poe stands, arms outstretched, gawking up at the tunnel with its center of light.

  Elspeth screams.

  Saint Thomas is vanished. Elspeth frantically pats the wooden platform, as if he melted into the wood. Her shaking hands gather up his secret pouch of flagellant tools that lie discarded where the ghost once sat.