by Hazel Black
There was some hope for the living. The older musician stood, yanking up his trousers at the back, before giving a nod of approval to my chosen. Laura, who had been in a daze of sorts, took a deep breath as I withdrew my spirit hands from hers. She bowed slightly, embarrassed by the sudden attention she was receiving from people she dreamed of being like. She was the centre of attention until she left the store. She was the centre of attention for the first time in her life, and it certainly awakened a hidden confidence in her. She strutted with her head held high that afternoon, and had a buoyancy about her that caught boy’s eyes as she passed them. It had been a day of discovery for us both. A little triumph in the attrition of life - and afterlife.
I was brought back to the reality with a thump as soon as we reached the top floor of the block. Grace was sprawled across the couch with a tall glass of gin in one hand and the TV remote in the other. She flicked from one station to the next so fast that she couldn’t register what was on each one. Faces rapidly appeared and disappeared, like watching the windows of a train as it whizzes by. I had sensed her mood before we even entered the apartment. It was grim. It was nasty.
‘More books?’ This wasn’t a question. It was an observation that she wanted to share with her daughter. ‘Better go to your room before it gets dark, Laura.’
‘Why?’ Laura asked wearily. ‘Why do you have to be cruel to me? I’ve given you space. You’ve had the apartment to yourself the whole day. Now I’m only in the door and you’re nagging me.’
‘Learn to take a joke.’
‘The only joke here is you.’
‘What?’ Grace lifted her head off the arm of couch and her red rimmed eyes became fixated on her daughter. ‘I’m a joke to you, am I?’
‘I don’t want a fight, Grace,’ Laura replied, shaking her head despondently. ‘Just leave me alone.’
‘I wish I could.’ Grace rested her head back on the arm of the couch and returned her attention to the TV.
‘Bitch,’ Lara whispered under her breath as she locked herself in her room. ‘I hate that bitch. Why am I trapped in this place with her? When will I be free of this hell?’
I spoke directly to her, telling her it would be all right, even though I had no idea of what the future held in store. The future was as intangible as it always was. A random series of events dictates the path that every mortal walks. Spirits suffer the same unpredictability. My influence waned that evening, and Laura went into a depression and sobbed silently into her pillow. Why was my power to connect with her fading? Maybe it was simply that I didn’t believe what I was telling her. I really didn’t know if everything was going to be all right. I didn’t know if her future would be wholesome. Just because she had been chosen by some higher power didn’t mean she was in for a good life. I too had been chosen and had died three months after my nineteenth birthday. I had never achieved anything meaningful in mortality. How did I know if Laura’s fate was to be any better than my own?
A couple of hours passed before the fireworks restarted. Laura had pulled herself together and went to the kitchen for a snack, and had to pass Grace along the way. By this stage her mother was drunk on gin - a drink that accentuates the dark side of personality. Grace was certainly dark that evening. There was little other than hate in her heart.
‘I’m amazed,’ she said without taking her eyes off the TV. ‘You’ve actually got the guts to leave your room. Who knows, maybe you’ll have the nerve to venture outside when you’ve grown up.’
‘You want me to go out there?’ Laura asked incredulously, pointing her finger aimlessly. ‘Do you not know about the murder last week? It only happened a few hundred yards from here. Josh Mathews was decapitated.’
‘I do read the papers.’
‘You don’t seem very concerned by what you read.’
‘I thought you didn’t like Josh.’
‘What difference does that make? It doesn’t change the fact that a lunatic is on the loose. And you want me to go out at night, on my own, and hang around waiting for something to happen. Are you really that desperate to be rid of me?’
‘Maybe I am.’
‘Well, I’m desperate for our relationship to be well and truly over, but I’d never wish murder on you. Unfortunately you’re still my mother, always will be, and that counts for something - not much by the way - but it holds some value for me.’
‘I don’t want you dead, Laura, so stop being such a little drama queen. I just want you to have a life outside this apartment. I know I failed as a mother. I know I’m a shit to live with. I just don’t think us being together is any good for you.’
‘Save your lies for the debt collectors. I know what you’re really thinking, Grace. You’re thinking that us being trapped together is no good for you. You could drink to your heart’s content if I was out of the way. You’d be free of any responsibility. You’d even be able to bring men here again.’
‘I haven’t had a man here in over a year.’ Grace was sitting upright now. She drained her glass and winced as the gin tumbled through her throat. ‘I don’t want you going on and on about my friends again.’
‘Friends,’ Laura snorted. ‘That certainly is a strange way to look at it.’
‘Adults have different types of friendships to the kind that children have.’ Grace breezed past Laura and pulled open the refrigerator. She lifted out a litre bottle of tonic water and poured some into her glass. Gin filled the rest of the empty space. ‘You’ll understand when you grow up - if you ever grow up.’
‘I know what friendship is. I know what love is supposed to be. What you had with those men is neither friendship nor love.’
‘You know nothing about it.’
‘I know that the last deadbeat that was hanging around used to crash here from Friday to Monday, drinking himself stupid, stinking the place up with cigars, leaving the mist of cocaine on the sink in the bathroom. Christ, to think I had to listen to the pair of you at it each night. Disgusting.’
‘No need to be jealous.’
‘Jealous of what? Of having some sweaty fat drunkard crawl on top of me each night? I’ll be never get that desperate.’
‘You’ll never get that lucky.’
‘I’m not going to dignify that comment with a response.’
‘Run along, Laura.’
‘Piss off, Grace,’ Laura barked, taking her coffee from the counter and passing her mother to the sitting room. ‘Just piss off out my face.’
‘Get in that room before I kick your ass, young lady.’
‘A couple more years,’ Laura hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Then I’ll be out of here.’
‘You wouldn’t last a day in the real world.’
‘I’ll be all right. All I’ll need is a part time job and I’ll be able to look after myself. I won’t be spending all money on booze like you do.’
‘You want a part time job? There’s a corner outside the estate, near the freeway, where you can earn some cash each night.’
‘Funny.’
‘Get out of my sight!’
I’d kept my distance, watching the argument from the far side of the sitting room. Grace was out of control and was damaging her daughter’s confidence and sanity. That was why I intervened. I focused on solidifying my form, enough to create a thickness in the air that nudged the glass from her hand. Gin dashed the tiles as the glass crumbled over Grace’s foot. Two shards penetrated her flesh. The gin diluted red. Laura ignored it and locked herself in her room again.
‘Serves you right,’ I shouted at Grace, wanting her to hear my voice. ‘Keep your twisted words to yourself in future!’
My fury was such that I would have struck Grace if I’d had the power to. Perhaps I would have done more than just that. I soared out of the room and
came to the highest chimney stack of the building, far above Millbrook, with a clear, uninterrupted view of the city. Mirror world was evaporating to reveal the glossy perfection of night world. Lights were alive in the darkness. Life was visible once more and cooled the anger that sizzled inside me. Explosions and implosions flashed within the great mingling of auras and I wished to move on from this meaningless existence. I was hating the life of a guide once more.
The red light was rising from the gleam of the city. The shepherd was on patrol and I felt fear again. He represented a great threat to me. He could sentence me to endure this torture for all eternity - without even having the distraction of a chosen. This was beginning to feel torturous - frustration on one side, fear on the other, and nothing but the slow passing of time in between.
Where was Tim…? I needed and wanted him, despite him being a constant reminder of how cruel our existence actually was. His reality was my worst nightmare.
Where was he…?
I kept my eyes on the shepherd as it dropped into the city, then powering up into the sky moments later. I had to be sure it was not attracted to me. I had twice intervened in the goings-on of the living that day. The first time was majestic, as I helped Laura play the guitar. The second time was through pure anger, and it resulted in a mortal being hurt physically. Both had been wrong. Both times I had broken the rules that Emily had set down. The shepherd didn’t concern itself with Millbrook that night though, and later I slid down the chimney and followed its dusty black innards to the apartment. Grace was unconscious on the couch, a rudimentary bandage on her foot, a half empty glass balanced in the crook of her arm. Laura was sitting on her bed listening to music. I didn’t invade her thoughts. I no longer had interest in what was in her mind.
I slid into the corner of the room and curled up like a cat, wanting slumber. I could never sleep, though. There were no breaks in my life. Not even the empty instant of a blink.
My thoughts inevitably turned to Tim. Eight cycles of the world had come and gone. Where was he? Why had he abandoned me? I thought of our first kiss. I thought of how handsome he was. I imagined his female mask. I imagined his male mask. I thought of both in one and my spirit was on fire. The same trickle of pleasure that lined my body when I was mortal was now ablaze within my aura. I was a bright magenta fire in the room. The aura sparked purple around me like exploding lavender as my ecstasy spiked.
I was lost in myself for a time - I don’t know how long for. It was clear what snapped me out of it, though. Laura was repeating Tim’s name from her bed. Somehow my thoughts where in her mind and she was speaking the words that I was whispering silently. This was getting too weird and too dangerous. An incident like this could draw the shepherd from his patrol.
I levitated off the floor and slipped through the wall to the dank vacated apartment next door. I collapsed to my knees, wanting to scream, but knowing it did no good. I wanted to die … until I heard the voice...
‘Was someone calling my name?’
I looked up to see two red lights sparkling from a shadowy corner of the room. A sense of darkness and playfulness and danger was thick in the air.
‘Tim?’ I whispered. ‘Is it you?’
The red lights burned bright as he swaggered into the sparse light. He was taller than before, his form immensely powerful, black clothing writhing over his pale form like an oil slick. His face was more alluring than it had been at any point in the past. He truly had renewed himself. How could he grow so strong? Black spirits weren’t supposed to be capable of renewing and improving their lives. I wasn’t complaining, mind. I chased all doubts concerning him from my mind.
‘Tim.’ I smiled at him as he reached down to me, lifting me from my knees effortlessly. ‘It’s you.’
‘You were expecting someone else?’ he asked with a grin on his perfect face. His voice was commanding - much stronger than it had been before he left. ‘Looks like you’re in need of a friend.’
‘I need more than a friend.’
‘I am more than a friend.’
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN -
Love in the Afterlife
I cast my arms around him and revelled in the collision of our opposing energies. It was a relief just being close to someone again. It was more than just a relief to be embracing someone so beautiful and exciting. The frustration of my life was instantly banished. I felt no anxiety, weakness or helplessness. I was no longer alone.
‘Where did you go?’ I asked, my cheek pressed against his shoulder. ‘Or is it one of your secrets?’
‘I have secrets?’ he replied with a chuckle. ‘What secrets are you talking about?’
‘You’ve been gone for over a week, Tim.’
‘I’ve been travelling.’ He slipped free of my grasp and paced to the window to examine the playful lights of night world. It seemed like he was watching for something … or someone. ‘I’ve been walking and walking and walking.’
‘What good can walking do? Surely you’ve been doing more than just that in the last eight days and nights?’
‘Little else,’ he said distantly. ‘I walked so far that I was free of the shepherd’s territory. He is what drains the life from black spirits like me. Being away from him allows me to regain my proper form and power. That’s why I walked. That’s why I look as I do now. It won’t last… now that I have returned.’
‘There are places the shepherd can’t go?’
‘Yes and no. The shepherd can travel far and wide, to any place on earth. But he chooses not to. There are so many souls chained to the city that he dare not turn his back on them. The quieter areas of the world are of little interest to his kind. I have been to lands that are calm and peaceful - free of his domination.’
‘I guess that presents us with a problem, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, as if he’d read my mind. ‘I am strong when I am away from here. The person I love is bound to this place. What am I to do?’
‘Maybe some day, when my bond with Laura is stronger, I will be able to persuade her to leave the city and go somewhere quiet. Then we can both be strong. We could be together properly and not under the watchful eye of the shepherd.’
‘It would be a risk for you. Favouring your own welfare above your chosen’s could get you banished.’
‘I can take a risk for you, as you have done for me.’
‘I don’t think I want you to risk everything for me. You mean too much to me, Lucy. If only we were free of him,’ he hissed. ‘If only we could rid this city of him.’
‘I don’t think that’s even possible, Tim. And you shouldn’t think about it too much. I know he has wronged you more than once, but I have been close to him and felt his power. Don’t confront him, please.’
Tim turned from the window and smiled at me. He swept through the gloom of the empty apartment and threw his arms around me. He gazed into my eyes and pressed his forehead against my own.
‘I’m just annoyed to come back to this awful place after some of the wondrous sights I’ve witness this last week,’ he said.
‘Tell me about them.’
‘I could do better than that. I could bring you with me next time and show you the magical places I’ve discovered.’
‘It might not be wise for me to leave Laura. There’s been more murders, Tim. They were beheaded just like Josh. Each murder happened in the city, but we both know that the ripper has walked the streets of Millbrook and could return at any time. I have this horrible feeling inside me that Laura will cross the ripper’s path sooner or later.’
‘Nonsense,’ Tim scoffed. ‘The future is not set. It cannot be set. Look!’ He led me by the hand to the window. ‘Look at this view. The world is incalculably complex. Random events spawn other random events, having influence on the actions of anima
ls and humans, their lives constantly being altered. The living world is in a state of flux. There is no future to speak of. There is only the moment and phantoms of moments that are no more. This killer who hunts the living knows nothing of the future. His course is not predetermined. Neither is Laura’s.’
‘Emily believed there was a grand design.’
‘Have you gotten any sense of this design she hinted at? Have you witnessed any plan or pattern?’
‘No.’
‘Exactly. I think it was wishful thinking on Emily’s part.’
‘I hear what you’re saying, Tim. That doesn’t stop me feeling this dread.’
‘Paranoia is for the mortals, not for us.’
‘Maybe so.’ Why did I believe the killer would collide with my chosen when it made no sense? The odds of them ever meeting were slim at best. ‘I’m being silly, aren’t I?’
‘No,’ Tim said. ‘There’s nothing silly in being concerned for the person you’re sworn to protect. I wish I’d been as dedicated as you are - back when I was a guide. I think some of the brutish unpredictability that goes with being a man came into the spirit world with me, encouraging me to make unwise decisions, distracting me from what was most important. I think women are better guides. Men need women to calm their minds and hearts, and to keep them grounded and sensible.’
‘Grounded and sensible!’ I laughed and clapped my hands together. ‘No woman could ever keep you grounded, Tim. I’m sure many would try, but none would ever succeed.’
‘Maybe you can ground me.’
‘I seriously doubt that.’
‘I came back, didn’t I? And I listen to your advice, don’t I?’
‘You came back, all right. You came back to convince me to leave for mysterious lands with you. You want a companion, Tim. You’re looking for someone who can keep you thinking straight, not someone who is steering the wheel for you.’