Baker's Dozen

by Cutter, Leah

  Baker’s Dozen

  Leah Cutter

  Copyright & Credits

  Copyright © 2011 Leah Cutter

  All rights reserved.

  Published 2013 by Knotted Road Press,

  by arrangement with Book View Café

  www.KnottedRoadPress.com

  www.BookViewCafe.com

  Cover design by Knotted Road Press

  ISBN: 978 1 61138 301 0

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Introduction

  I don’t know where the crazy idea came from to write thirteen short stories in thirteen weeks. I think it came about, in part, because I counted how many weeks there were between when I was looking for my next writing project and the end of the year. I wanted to do some sort of writing and I was burned out on novels. Writing a short story a week meant I could leap from one new!shiny! idea to the next.

  I’ve loved doing this project. It’s been challenging as well as a great learning experience. As a writer I hope I’m always growing and learning. That’s what a large part of this project has been for me. This was also an opportunity for me to experiment with writing styles, voices, settings, and concepts.

  — Leah Cutter

  December 2011

  Hell By Any Other Name

  I woke up from my nightmare sitting straight up in bed. If I could sweat, I’d be drenched. If I had a heart, it would have been beating hard in my chest. If I could breathe, I would have been gasping.

  I’d been dreaming of Hell, of course. Most ghosts, if they admit to sleeping, dream of Hell. It was why we were ghosts. That door to the Beyond wasn’t full of pearly gates and choirs of angels. No, it was fire, heat, and chaos.

  There were a few ghosts who stayed on Earth even though they were promised Heaven. They were all nuts.

  I pressed my hands against my eyes, as if I could shut the images out and wipe them away. No luck. I groaned. Quietly. I didn’t want any more complaints from Mrs. H— downstairs about unearthly noises. I was lucky enough to be able to rent a place outside Ghosttown, to live among the living. Even if it was little more than a glorified closet, with only a skinny, single bed and two stacks of crates holding a door across them that served as my desk. Dark water stains marred the formerly white walls, while mysterious lines crossed the ceiling, shadows of discontent.

  The only bright spot was Betsy, my camera, sitting in her corner of the desk. Most of what a ghost sees is muted, grayed, behind the veil still. Betsy always appeared red and glowing, as if a warm heart beat behind her dark lens.

  That was all my room contained—one of the advantages of being a ghost. No need to cook or use a bathroom. You couldn’t really change your appearance, and since you didn’t actually have a body, well, nothing in, nothing out. We still needed rest, though. The brain needed time off to process.

  I looked at the clock. Two in the afternoon. I caught myself before I groaned again. Flames of Hell still licked behind my eyes if I closed them. There would be no more sleep for me that day, though I didn’t usually rise until sunset.

  I slid aside the heavy drape covering the window, exposing an inch of daylight. I was in luck. Another rainy Seattle day greeted me. I decided to go to Volunteer Park. Might even go to Lakewood Cemetery. Not because I wanted to greet the newly dead; there was a committee for that. Or even to look at the portals, to see if they’d changed. I didn’t believe those myths, that I might somehow do enough good that I’d earn Heaven.

  No, it was merely a matter of wanting some company of my own kind. I hated to admit it, but sometimes I got lonely. I rose and walked out into the gray haze of the day, the rain sliding through me as if I wasn’t really there.

  I always thought of it as a cleansing, inside and out, though I knew I’d never really feel clean.

  * * *

  December 21, 2012, hadn’t been the end of the world, only the Great Unraveling. The veils between the Seen and Unseen worlds shredded.

  The living suddenly discovered they weren’t alone.

  Luckily for our side, we had a lot of lawyers. The Interspecies Act passed relatively quickly for Congress, guaranteeing the rights of the dead and others.

  Of course, law and practice were often worlds apart. Seattle had one of the stronger lobbies, though. I praised their work again as I got on the bus, the new card system beeping when I passed my hand over it, automatically deducting my fare. I’d hated walking everywhere before.

  The bus was mostly empty. A homeless man slumped on a seat next to the back door, arms wrapped firmly around his pack; two students sat next to each other madly texting, probably to each other; and a professionally dressed man with round glasses and a briefcase on his lap sat stiffly in his seat. He stared straight ahead, his face frozen.

  As if he’d seen a ghost.

  I almost sat next to him, but I’m not generally that vengeful. It’s part of what ghosts do, though: scare the living, whether we mean to or not. The ghosts who get off on it were also the ones who, as kids, pulled the wings off flies, and as adults fired people for a living, know what I mean?

  Instead, I swayed as the bus turned another corner, sitting in the back, looking out the window and watching the gray day slide by. I could have gone out in the sunshine. Sometimes I enjoyed seeing the world brightly lit, even though it didn’t seem as vivid as when I’d been alive. I missed the feeling of warmth, though. And intense sunlight made ghosts less substantial. People no longer saw me. Instead of trying to avoid me, they stepped through me. There was no feeling more wrenching than your former intestines momentarily misplaced.

  The man with the briefcase got off at the same stop I did. I didn’t think anything of it, since he walked straight ahead when I turned left into the park. I walked up the winding hill, sticking to the sidewalk, not wanting to take a chance on slipping on the wet grass. Red, orange, and yellow leaves lay scattered across the green lawn. I remembered, when I was still alive, how colorful the fall leaves were, how a gray day made them seem more vivid. Dying cast a fog on everything. Nothing was as clear as it used to be. The edges weren’t as crisp; the colors, more muted.

  I looked through the black donut sculpture at downtown and the Space Needle, and then walked around the reservoir—I’d been alive when it had still been full of water, one of the last open reservoirs in all of Washington. Now it was just a thin pond full of fat koi, algae and bird droppings. Finally, I decided to head north to the cemetery. Walking along the avenue of beechnut trees, I saw the man from the bus again. This time he stared straight at me. The hand holding his briefcase was clenched tightly, almost white. With a determined stride, he drew closer. “Andrew Collin?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “I need your help.”

  My mouth must have been gaping because I closed it with a snap. “I only work during business hours,” I told him sharply.

  “But—”

  “If you know my name then you already know the address of my office.”

  I turned on my heel and deliberately walked through the nearest tree.

  Of course, I appeared on the far side of it. While it was unpleasant for me, I’ve been told it was distinctly unsettling for the living.

  I walked without pause to the cemetery. Only paid professionals among the living ever went there anymore. New memorial parks had sprung up, where the living could go to honor their dead. As a result, cemeteries were one of the safest places on earth. I’d heard stories of more than one attempted robbery or rape ending when the victim fle
d to a graveyard.

  Ghosts could be very vengeful.

  Most people avoided them, though, because of the portals, the doors to Heaven or Hell that surround the places of the dead.

  The living saw them differently, as shadows, or else they felt them when they walked too close, a chill that went through bones and into the soul. The doors weren’t meant for them. Some got glimpses, though, of their afterlife, whether it was angels or seventy-eight virgins or a blessed nothing. The living couldn’t pass through. Whatever they saw was disturbing enough they rarely ventured near.

  One of the good things about the portals showing up was that all the mass graves were suddenly findable, even in the middle of the jungle. Murderers now had to be very careful where they stashed a body. Portals stuck around even after a soul went through.

  Like all ghosts, I found myself drawn to them frequently. We were meant to go through. But some could ignore the siren’s call better than others.

  Flames licked out of the nearest portal, drawing my attention. A black, churning cloud boiled beyond the burning edges. The only time I felt heat was near that fire. There wasn’t a smell of sulfur, or cries of the damned. Just fire I knew would burn my ectoplasmic flesh, and a chasm that would chew up my soul until there was nothing left.

  In an abstract manner I admired the contrast between the comforting trees of the park, the dramatic gray of the clouds, and the shooting flames dancing in the portal. I took another step forward, then another, fascinated against my will.

  Maybe if I stared long enough, a pattern would form. Maybe I could find a path through the darkness into the light.

  Maybe if I wished hard enough, I, too, could grow wings and fly.

  I stopped myself in time, before I stepped through, as I always did.

  That Hell was not for me.

  * * *

  I wasn’t surprised when the guy with the briefcase sat waiting for me in my tiny office in Ghosttown. The door was unlocked, and the living couldn’t or wouldn’t touch most of the artifacts in the room.

  Still, I looked around carefully to make sure nothing had been disturbed. Fixed papers and notebooks sat stacked in neat piles on the rickety desk. The beat-up file cabinet in the corner, which I kept not only locked but charmed, stood untouched.

  The natural artifacts I’d found—rocks, keys, broken rings, dried flowers, and other knickknacks—covered the shelves of the cinder-block-and-board bookcase that ran along the one wall, exactly in the same pattern as I’d left them. Each of them held a spark of something: life, Heaven, energy, I didn’t know. All ghosts collected these things. Fixers, those among the living with one foot in the world of the dead, claimed to use them sometimes to create artifacts, those things that have been dragged far enough out of the Seen world that ghosts could use them, like Betsy, my camera. Other Fixers said it was a lot of hooey.

  Me, I just felt better with them surrounding me.

  The guy sat stiffly in the guest chair next to the desk. I had to walk past him to get to my own large captain’s chair. I made sure to walk by closely, so he could feel the chill that all ghosts emanate.

  “What can I help you with, Mr…?”

  “Potter,” he provided. “Harry Potter.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “My parents were—whimsical.”

  Though Mr. Potter wore round glasses similar to his namesake, that was where the likeness ended. He looked more like a Danish architect, with perfect blond hair, starched shirt, classic thin blue tie, and charcoal suit.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Potter?” I picked up the cracked glass fountain pen I kept on the desk and twirled it in my fingers. I’d been a smoker as a young man, and though the ability had disappeared when I’d died, the cravings hadn’t.

  “Have you heard of Disruption stones?”

  “Of course.” Every ghost had. Supposedly, they were strong enough to disrupt your fate: if you threw one into a portal, it would change from an image of Hell to Heaven.

  “Mine was stolen. I want you to get it back,” Mr. Potter said primly.

  I couldn’t help it. I had to laugh. “First off, why would I believe you? They’re just myths. Next, even if I did believe you, why would you come to a ghost to retrieve it? Why wouldn’t I just take it for myself?”

  “Most of the myths about them aren’t true,” Mr. Potter explained. His voice took on a lecturing tone. “They’re manufactured, not found or mined. They must be Fixed to an individual, like an artifact. They’re horribly expensive, both in time and materials. Like an artifact, only a ghost can touch one. However, only the ghost of the person it’s been made for can use it.”

  “So, someone stole something useless from you,” I stated, still not believing him.

  For the first time, Mr. Potter showed a streak of anger. “More myths,” he said darkly. “Some people erroneously believe they can re-Fix a stone. That a strong enough Fixer can realign it. They’re wrong, of course. The thief will destroy it by attempting to change the Fixing.”

  “Mr. Potter, I investigate missing people, or cheating husbands or wives. I collect evidence for the court. I don’t specialize in artifacts. There are others who do. Let me recommend—”

  “I don’t want them. I want you. I investigated you. Thoroughly.”

  “Really,” I said in my driest voice. I had practiced the tone, working to keep out the ghostly overtones.

  Mr. Potter paled only slightly, so I thought I’d mostly succeeded.

  “You were a cop—”

  “Detective,” I growled.

  Mr. Potter swallowed, then continued. “Detective. With an impressive close rate.”

  “Not all of those cases were closed cleanly.” The Interspecies Act had ensured that the dead weren’t necessarily prosecuted for crimes committed while living.

  Lots of lawyers on our side.

  “You also go that extra mile now,” Mr. Potter added. “A very satisfied client list.”

  “A confidential list of clients,” I said, glancing again at my locked file cabinet. Two weeks prior I had noticed something off when I’d come in, as if the locking spell had started to slide. I’d assumed at the time that the spell for shocking anything that physically touched the metal had worn off and I just needed the building Witch to reapply it.

  I couldn’t be paranoid enough, it seemed.

  “People talk,” Mr. Potter said with a fake smile. “Particularly with the right monetary incentive.”

  I bristled. “And you think that will work with me?”

  “Triple your normal fee? Yes, I do.”

  “I won’t be bought.” Criminals had discovered that early, and I’d carried the habit into the afterlife.

  “I’m not asking you to do anything wrong or illegal. Merely to retrieve an artifact that’s mine and has been stolen from me.”

  “Why should I take your word that it’s yours?”

  “Here’s the name of the ghost who stole it,” Mr. Potter said. “And the man who paid her.” He slid a piece of paper across the desk.

  I recognized only the first name. Toni Hermino. Beautiful Italian immigrant. She’d been a thief when she’d been alive, specializing in exotic gems and jewelry. Now that she’d passed over, she focused on artifacts and art.

  “Go talk with her. Verify my story. Check me out as well. As an extra incentive, when you return the stone, I’ll share the list of ingredients needed to make a Disruption stone for yourself.”

  I scoffed. “Just the cash is fine.” I didn’t believe in this mythical stone. Mr. Potter did. He was also obviously a sober businessman, despite his whimsical name, and not given to flights of fancy. Either someone had snowed him good, or there was actually something to this myth.

  “I’ll pay Toni a visit,” I said grudgingly. “But that’s all I’m agreeing to do for now.”

  “Wonderful,” Mr. Potter said, his smile full of teeth.

  Fortunately for me, he wasn’t the only one with a bite.

  *
* *

  The Haunting Hour art gallery didn’t open until midnight, of course. I spent the time at one of the Fixed terminals in the library, cruising the electronic highway that ran easily through the Seen and Unseen worlds, investigating Mr. Potter and his nemesis. The three other terminals were empty, their screens glowing with that odd half-light of the almost there. Though the living still manned the desks, mostly ghosts wandered between the stacks, seeking treasures they’d missed in their youth, answers for their unending existence.

  Mr. Potter, I learned, worked as a long-term investment banker for the dead. Believe me, there was no one more committed to long term than a ghost with no fear of dying. He’d done well for himself—nice Craftsman on top of Queen Anne Hill, second cottage out on the San Juan Islands. Divorced, no kids, mother in a very expensive, private nursing home. No charges, no official investigations, not even a letter of complaint.

  Squeaky clean.

  Something about him still set my ectoplasm crawling.

  I arrived at the gallery soon after it opened. The long windows cast brilliant light out onto the dark street. More people than I’d expected clomped across its hardwood floors: some sort of open house. The living walked in groups of two or three, clutching wine glasses and making hushed commentary.

  I wouldn’t call the images on the walls “art.” The drive to create such things, that passion, belonged solely with the living. This was a façade. To me, every piece looked the same, like chalkboards badly cleaned, with squiggling green, glowing lines drifting across them. As a line crossed a boundary of a piece, it turned into smoke and dissipated.

  There were very few ghosts who were once artists: no matter their destination, anything was better than a pale existence.

  Toni chatted with two guests, accepting their studied praise for the show and the artist. I waited patiently as Toni drew pledges of donations from them for a dubious charity.

  I didn’t say anything or try to warn them away. I wasn’t a detective anymore, and as a ghost, it was hard to make a living.

  “So, paisano, what can I do for you this wicked evening?” Toni smiled like she meant it. She’d probably been stunning when she’d been alive. Now, she was as pale as all of us, her beautiful dress just a shade different than her skin, still clinging to nice curves and shapely calves accentuated with high heels.