Guardian

by Natasha Deen

  “Me, too. Sometimes, it feels like he’s still around.” Craig pulled away.

  “Yeah,” I said and kept a straight face as I continued, “me, too.”

  “Maggie. Please. What did I do?”

  I stepped back from Craig. “Can you excuse me for a second? I want to check on the cat and dog.”

  “You have pets?” He moved to follow me. “Can I see them?”

  I looked over my shoulder and grinned. “They’re in my bedroom. That would cost you at least three chicken dinners.”

  He smiled and stopped.

  I walked down the hallway, subtly brushed close enough to Serge to trail my fingers on a spot of his jeans where no blood had stained the fabric. “Come,” I whispered.

  He turned and followed, his steps squelching on the floor and leaving dark, red marks in their trail.

  I went up the stairs, and when I was certain Craig could neither see nor hear, I faced Serge.

  Then wished I hadn’t.

  Soggy chunks of skin hung off his bone like flesh curtains, exposing the yellow fat and bright red muscles of his face. His eyelids had seared shut, his mouth drooped to the side. Serge’s clothing had fused to his body, and the parts of exposed flesh that weren’t covered in bright blisters, glistened with clear fluid.

  The sight didn’t faze me. It was the smell. Charred skin, decaying rot, crisped cotton, and bacon. It was the bacon that made me want to vomit. The salty scent swarmed around me.

  “Maggie?”

  I took a shallow breath. “Pretty big freak out.”

  He whimpered.

  I sighed. “Look. I’m sorry if the questions I ask make you—”

  “Did I hurt anyone?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Did I hurt anyone?” Hysteria made the words pitch upwards. “Tell me I didn’t—” He shoved his head into his hands. Bits of flesh slid to the floor. “Tell me I didn’t—”

  “No,” I said softly. “Everyone’s fine.”

  He didn’t say anything, just kept his head buried in the raw meat of his palms.

  I stepped forward, quietly called his name.

  He remained silent except for the soft snuffling.

  I shuffled in place, unsure of what to do. In my life, I’d dealt with many incarnations of him: Angry Serge, Belligerent Serge, Asshole Serge. I didn’t have a clue what to with a Broken-Hearted Serge.

  “I’ve never hurt anyone—”

  That rocked me back. “Never—you made my life hell. Called me names—almost beat me up—”

  “Almost,” he mumbled. “I never hit you.”

  And that stopped me cold. “Does it hurt?” I nodded toward his body.

  He shook his head. Then he looked up. “How come? How come it doesn’t hurt? I’ve been able to feel everything—the heat from your car, the sheets on the bed. Why can’t I feel this?”

  I didn’t answer. Usually, when the dead go off their nut, they return to this existence in the form they want. That Serge came back burned, his insides left exposed to air and elements, said a lot.

  He wasn’t ready to hear it.

  I wasn’t ready to say it.

  “Am I fading? Going to…going away?”

  “No,” I said softly. “Not yet.”

  He pondered this. Then: “Do you think it hurts?”

  I strained to hear the words. “What?”

  “The other side.”

  Compassion was like a bellows in my chest, expanding my lungs, inflating my heart, and creating a space inside me that I’d never thought would exist: a soft spot for Serge. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I’m sorry…about blowing up the house.”

  “I know,” I said quietly.

  “I’m sorry—” He took a breath.

  What I could see of his face seemed to contort in pain.

  “—I’m sorry about everything.”

  Sharp needles of tears pricked my eyes. “It’s fine.” The words rushed out, fast and tumbling. They poured like antibiotics pushed into the body, and thrummed through my veins, speeding the healing of a wound I hadn’t realized existed. “Do you want to come downstairs? Hang out?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll just go back to the bedroom. Maybe lie down.”

  I made a mental note to wash my sheets. Just because the living couldn’t see the marks of the dead didn’t mean I wanted to sleep in them. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded, keeping his gaze downward.

  “I’d rather you stay with me.” Wow. Talk about sentences I never thought I’d utter.

  “No,” he said, thick and muffled. He lifted his head and a chunk of flesh slid off his cheek and sploshed on the floor. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry. No one can see it. I’ll clean it later.” And yet another sentence I never thought I’d say to Serge: no problem, buddy. I’ll wipe up your desiccated flesh. You sit. Relax.

  “Maggie?” Craig’s voice rose up the stairs.

  I jerked my thumb in his direction. “I should go—if he comes upstairs and sees me talking to the wall—”

  Serge nodded. “Go.” He turned away. His steps squelched on the wood. Bits of black soot and specks of ashes floated in his wake.

  I turned and went down the steps to Craig.

  He knelt by the stove, stroking Ebony. Looking up, he smiled. “She must have gotten by you when you went upstairs.”

  “Must’ve. You wanna a pop or anything?”

  “Sure.”

  I grabbed two cans of Coke from the fridge and we headed down into the living room. My ears strained for the sounds of Miami Vice coming down from the second floor, but if Serge was in bed, he wasn’t watching TV.

  Craig moved to the edge of the couch, gracefully fell into it and stretched his legs on the cushions. He patted the spot beside him. “Come here.”

  The way he said it made me shiver, like he was going to protect and possess me all at once. My feet took me to him.

  He pulled me between his legs and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  I leaned into him. The heat of his chest seeped into my back, loosened the muscles at the same time it made my stomach tighten.

  Craig kissed my temple. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay.”

  “Sure? Pretty intense few days.”

  Serge flashed into my mind, and in the silence between heartbeats, he appeared.

  He blinked, his head moving slowly and taking in the room as though he’d never seen it. Serge spread his arms. “Maggie. I don’t want to be here.”

  I could have answered him telepathically. But I wouldn’t. That kind of connection required a high level of intimacy. I wasn’t sure yet what Serge was to me, but I knew who he had been. Though the waters of forgiveness quietly rolled and dutifully eroded the walls of hate and hurt that had been built between us, I wasn’t ready to drop my defenses and let him in.

  He frowned. “Why can’t I leave? Why do I feel bound to this room?” He lifted his gaze and lidless eyes stared into mine. “Why do I feel bound to you?”

  Craig threaded his fingers through my hair. “How are you feeling? Truthfully?”

  “Out of my element.”

  His voice dropped. “What about Serge? You found his body and you seem…I dunno, determined to find out his past. What’s going on?”

  The sound of his voice soothed me. It rumbled and resonated through my chest.

  “I don’t know.”

  He chuckled, soft and low. “Yeah.” The word rippled in the air. “You do.”

  Serge watched me, his body tight.

  I sighed and hoped he was too weak to inflict further damage. Dad would freak if a lingering ghost blew up the house. And he’d doubly freak if it was Serge. “I feel conflicted.”

  The tension ebbed from Serge,
slowly peeled back like a lazy ocean wave.

  He remained alert, wary, but his posture no longer reminded me of a tsunami looking for a hapless island village.

  “Conflicted.” Craig shifted. His hips pulsed into mine as he moved us further down the couch.

  “He was terrible to me…” The memory, the weight of all the years was mortar, heavy and wet. It spackled the crumbling wall, cementing my bitterness and blocked out the river of mercy that tumbled by. “I never did anything—”

  Serge bowed his head, shook it side to side. Red tears fell from his cheek and splattered the floor.

  “He’d slam me into the locker, push me off my chair.” My voice cracked. “And all I could think of is I don’t deserve this—”

  “You deserved it.”

  Serge’s voice crawled on a snake’s belly and hissed in my ears.

  He folded his arms across his chest. His foot pounded the floor. “You deserved it. You and”—his face contorted, meaty, chunks of muscle and fat twisted in hate—“your dad. You all deserved it. From the moment, I saw you and him”—his voice broke, shattered like smashed glass—“saw you at the school, laughing together. I hated you.” He looked up.

  His gaze shoved me back.

  “I still hate you.” Confusion replaced contempt, and, weeping again, he returned his gaze to the floor. He stumbled sideways and collapsed into the chair.

  “You didn’t deserve it,” said Craig.

  “I know.” I kept my gaze on Serge. My insides quaked. In my home, in the safest place I knew, he’d managed to metaphorically slam me into the wall. I hated him. And I pitied him. And I despised him for making me pity him. “I didn’t deserve it.”

  “What about me?” asked Serge.

  I didn’t just restrain my temper. I locked it in iron shackles. Keeping my gaze on Craig, I thought of love and light and not of all the ways I wanted Serge to burn in hell.

  “People have choices in life,” said Craig. “He made his.”

  “Easy for him to say.” Another slab of flesh fell to the floor. “What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to Captain Polo?”

  Craig shifted, moving further down the couch and taking me with him. “But then I wonder if he really had a choice.”

  “You’re excusing his behaviour,” I said. “You’re saying it’s okay that he was a bastard to me because his dad beat him.”

  Behind me, Serge took a sharp breath that hissed in the air.

  “I think he was trying to survive and that’s what came out. People do weird things to make sense of their world.”

  “You’re excusing him.”

  “No, I’m trying to understand.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He smiled. His fingers touched my mouth, traced the outline.

  The hard, tight line of my lips softened.

  “Understanding is power. Power is freedom.”

  “That’s bull.” Serge rolled his eyes. “He’s playing deep and sensitive to get in your pants.”

  “His dad despised him,” said Craig.

  “That’s what he said.”

  Serge froze.

  So did I. The words had fallen from my mouth before reason and logic could erect a dam, and now I was going to drown under my stupidity. While he was alive, Serge had never talked to me. Bullied. Intimidated. Cajoled, maybe, but talk? Never. My brain churned, trying to create a possible scenario under which I could have gleaned this information.

  If Craig noticed the screw-up, he chose to ignore it because he nodded and said, “Can you imagine?”

  “I’m sure his dad loved him—deep down.”

  Serge grunted.

  “Why do you think that?” asked Craig. “You’ve seen the way his parents have behaved since his death.”

  “People mourn differently.”

  “And all the things we’ve seen—his dad refusing to allow the school to do a memorial, the fight your dad is having with them to actually give him a funeral are—?”

  “Misdirected grief. They can’t undo what they did, can’t go back or admit they’re—” I raised my head and looked at Craig. “You don’t agree?”

  His mouth pulled sideways. “Sometimes, people’s actions line up with their hearts.”

  “His dad really hated him.” I glanced over to see Serge nodding.

  “I don’t think his dad hated him,” said Craig. “I think his dad despised him.”

  The wounds on Serge’s body gushed blood. Bright and red, it spilled from the white chair to the floor in a thick, crimson waterfall.

  “Have you ever thought why it was you Serge picked?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied.

  Serge didn’t contradict me. He remained silent, the only sound the quiet rush of red. It pooled around the couch, a scarlet riptide he would drown in.

  “He still had a choice,” I said. “And he chose to torment me.”

  “You’re talking like he was in an everyday situation, but he wasn’t. People cut off their limbs to save themselves. Resort to cannibalism. Kill other people.”

  “You’re talking about catastrophic, physical situations.”

  “And a parent beating out the crap out of you on a daily basis isn’t a catastrophic, physical situation?”

  Blood covered the floor, thick and luminescent.

  “Beating you and justifying it with religion and God.” Craig sat up. “You’ve heard Popov. Serge lived in hell.”

  The remaining foundation of un-forgiveness splintered. “It still doesn’t…”

  “When you’re an adult and someone violates you in the name of God, you know they’re full of crap. But when you’re a kid, what do you really know?”

  Craig’s unrelenting gaze held me tight.

  “And your mother won’t protect you. The church won’t step in. Teachers get mad. Kids don’t understand.” Craig took a breath and the hard light in his eyes dimmed. “I’m not justifying it, not excusing him. But I am saying if you’re going to get over this, you have to take more than yourself into account. If you hang on to what he did, then you’ll never be free of him he’ll haunt your life, forever.”

  The words, simply said, made without judgment or condemnation did more than splinter my justification to hang on to bitterness. They blew a hole in the wall.

  “Do you think there was a moment when he was ever truly happy?”

  Blood flowed past my feet, turned the ground red.

  Serge said nothing.

  “Maggie?” Craig jostled me.

  “I—” I couldn’t speak the truth, not with Serge sitting within hearing distance, not while the copper smell of his life rushed past me. “I’m thinking.” I peeked at Serge. “When was the last time he remembered true happiness?” I turned and willed him to lift his gaze.

  He did.

  “The last time? When was the last time—joy without spikes or taunts?”

  Serge blinked.

  An invisible bridge formed between us, humming like a million wheels on asphalt and vibrating as though electricity ran along its perimeter.

  He blinked twice.

  Blood receded, slow motion, flowed backwards and retreated into his body. Fallen flesh shimmered then evaporated. Skin knit itself, slotted into the missing chunks of his body like puzzle pieces, which then sealed themselves, leaving no indication of wounds. The charred remnants of his clothes, now woven, covered his body in bright, freshly knit threads.

  “When was he happy?”

  Craig’s voice sounded low, calming, hypnotic.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  Serge shimmed, glowed. He began to grow younger, younger, and younger still. Seventeen, fifteen, twelve.

  “It’s been years, I bet,” I said, “since he knew happiness.”

  And still Serge grew youn
ger. Until his clothes were more like blankets. Until his cheeks grew chubby with childhood fat. Until he was too young to use words.

  I blinked, rapid and fast, to keep myself from crying.

  When he reached the stage of a newborn infant, his face wizened by wrinkles, his fingers not even as big as my pinkie nail, he stopped and looked at me.

  The tears fell, large in his small face, silent from the eyes that said everything.

  His cells broke apart and he was gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Three mornings later I came downstairs and found Dad in the kitchen. He was making my lunch—and giving me Brussels sprouts. I sighed. That meant the cold silence between us was about to ignite into a fight. I dragged a stool over to the coffeemaker, sat down, and filled a cup. Gesturing to the sprouts, I said, “You still can’t be that mad at me about Craig and Serge.”

  He eyed me from over the top of his metal frames and heaped another handful of sprouts into the container. “I’ve never treated you like a child, Maggie. Your gift precluded that.” He sliced into the ham. “And your brains. You’ve never been a stupid kid.”

  An instinctive flash of wounded pride lit up my insides. I took a long drink of coffee and ignored the urge to justify my position and give fuel to the still-burning fight between us.

  “But this is stupid.”

  The cup hit the counter with a bang. Hot coffee sloshed over its rim, scalded my skin, and stained the roughened fibres of my cotton bathrobe. “It’s not stupid.” I spoke slow and enunciated every word.

  His gaze moved from the ham sandwich he was making to the spilled beverage. “The iron hold you have on your emotions proves that?”

  My breath escaped in a hot hiss. I pushed the stool back and went to the sink. Grabbing the sponge, I leaned over and wiped the mess. “You’re purposely baiting me and you know it.”

  Dad didn’t say anything.

  I rounded on him. Cinching the belt about my waist, I said, “At least admit to trying to push my buttons.”

  He sighed and reached for the lettuce. “I admit it. I’m ashamed but I admit it. I just”—he slapped the vegetable onto the ham— “we don’t fight and I don’t like it.”