by Cutter, Leah
The third groan ended with a pained whimper.
Obviously, I had more humanity left in me than Mr. Potter, because I flowed into the room.
A skinny, bearded derelict lay on a long table pushed against the far wall. From the condition of his clothes, I was glad my sense of smell was diminished. He’d been stabbed in the gut. Blood pooled over the hands he had clenched to his abdomen. From my years on the force I knew it was already too late. He was bleeding out.
The door behind me slammed shut. Of course, the room was Sealed. Not a single crack that I could escape through.
“Hey, buddy,” I said to the homeless man. His eyes were glazed over and he couldn’t see me. Couldn’t hear me. I reached out my hand, but I knew if I tried to touch him with it, it would just sink through him.
“What now, Potter?” I asked, looking around. A single window sat high above me, with an ancient chute underneath it. This used to be the coal room, I realized. More recently, it had held the firewood for the house. Split logs lay in neat piles across the other wall. A handy ax leaned against them.
I couldn’t touch or manipulate anything in the room.
“Now, you leave.” Mr. Potter’s voice came in clear over hidden speakers.
“Afraid you’re going to have to open the door,” I told him. The floor was cement, but had been reinforced with lead and was impossible to sink into.
“I don’t have to. He will.”
The homeless man coughed once, a death rattle. Hollywood has tried to emulate that sound for decades, but they’d never come close to the real thing. It was enough to give a ghost chills.
“Your kind is wrong,” Mr. Potter continued. “You should all be forced to go Beyond, where you belong.”
I hadn’t taken Potter for a bigot. He worked for the dead.
No—he worked for their money.
“You don’t really care about us, ghosts or the dead,” I told him. “You just want to keep everything you’ve stolen from them. That’s why your house is so protected, as well as Mr. A—’s. Your pious act is justification for your petty crimes.”
Mr. Potter chuckled. “Very astute. However, my crimes are far from petty. You’ve seen my accounts?”
I had, as well as the contracts that signed everything over to his firm once the dead did pass Beyond. Shaking my head, I replied, “Petty.” Ghosts never trusted the living completely. “None of them have given you full access to their resources.”
“But the promise of a Disruption stone makes them much more amenable,” Mr. Potter said smugly.
I scoffed. “Still a myth.”
“No, I have—ah.”
The homeless guy on the table had finally died.
I’d never seen a spirit rise before. This, I learned, Hollywood had gotten right. A younger, better-dressed version of the man sat up, pale and, well, ghostly, while his body stayed on the table.
A portal to Heaven sprang up instantly. All bright blue sky and endless green fields—some kind of pastoral afterlife.
Would have bored me to tears. Still. Lucky bastard.
Without even a glance in my direction, he swung his legs down and walked straight through.
As soon as he’d passed, the portal turned black. Flames lined the arch and clouds gathered. I finally realized I was doomed. Mr. Potter had laid a clever trap. My only way out of this room was through that. Eventually I’d crack. Potter knew it. I couldn’t resist forever, not in a locked room, not with that constant siren’s call.
“Let me out, Potter,” I told him one last time, unable to tear my eyes from the flames now licking outside the doorway.
“Go where you belong,” Potter said.
“See you in Hell,” I said.
Then I moaned.
I closed my eyes and put everything into it, giving voice to my unearthly displeasure.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Potter said.
He didn’t sound panicked. Not yet.
I moaned, repeatedly, louder and louder, sending waves of sound through the foundation of the house, through the walls, shaking the core of all who heard.
“Stop!” Potter screamed.
I didn’t.
Mr. Potter had forgotten that ghosts are creatures of the dead.
Though we prided ourselves on adjusting to modern life, at our core, we still did one thing best: haunting the living—terrifying them.
Sometimes to death.
* * *
A ringing knock on the door finally made me scale back my yowling. I didn’t know how long I’d been there, singing the songs of the dead. The flames of the portal danced in time with me, cackling hellfire; pleased, I think, with the terror I’d rained down.
An officer whom I’d met once when I’d been alive stuck his head in the door. “Hey, Andy.”
“Ed.”
He took out his earplugs, then led the way out of the room and upstairs. He spoke as he walked. “Potter ran into the street and directly into an oncoming car. He’s at the hospital now. Unconscious. They don’t know if he’ll regain consciousness.” Ed didn’t look at me.
I hoped the bastard died while dreaming of my haunting.
“The whole thing is taped here,” Ed told me, leading me into Mr. Potter’s study and showing me the four large plasma screens on the desk. “We know it was self-defense. You’ll still have to come down to the station and give a statement.”
“Fine by me.” Potter’s study didn’t hold as many artifacts as I thought it might. The only one I wanted to see was Betsy, and there she was, waiting for me.
Ed didn’t say anything as I scooped her up.
He couldn’t see the small, heavy rock sitting next to her, or how I picked it up as well.
* * *
By the time I finished at the station, late afternoon had come again with familiar clouds and rain. I had the officer drop me off at Volunteer Park and made my way directly back to Lakewood Cemetery. I walked through the wet grass, remembering its former brilliant green. More trees stood bare now—must have been a storm the previous night. I nodded to a few of my fellow ghosts, whispering to each other near a grave, then made my way alone to a bench where I could watch the flickering portals.
The stone weighed heavily in my pocket. Cold, too, like a frozen piece of night.
Or maybe not night, but nightmare.
Pious didn’t buy you Heaven. Being a bastard didn’t necessarily mean Hell, either. You had to believe in good, as well as do it, was the theory of the day.
Me, I’d been a pessimistic bastard all my life, as well as far into my death.
I don’t know why I tried to change my luck. When I walked to the nearest portal it flickered, growing dark. I watched the unending flames, the hungry clouds, then finally tossed the stone inside.
Unlike a real stone, it didn’t land on the other side, but stayed somewhere Beyond.
Nothing changed until I turned to go.
Suddenly, sunlight shone through the gateway. My beloved city of Seattle lay stretched out on the other side. My heart ached to be there, to go home. Even without stepping through, I knew it would be perfect. I would know everyone I met, and if I didn’t, they’d still be friends. There would be good food and wine, endless talk and laughter pocketed with quiet time in the hills and on the water. There would be books and time to read them, music and dance whenever I wanted.
I still walked away.
It wasn’t mine. I hadn’t earned it. I couldn’t be bought. Not then, not now.
I turned back to the gray Seattle day, knowing I’d never win that clean, beautiful city…but that I still had to try.
Author’s Note
The night before the challenge started I had gone out with someone and we had talked a lot about ghosts. I knew I’d wanted to start with a ghost story. When I went to bed, that was all I knew. When I woke up, most of this story was there. The bit about the shredding of the veils came first, then Andy and being a PI. It flowed together quickly, a good start to the challenge.
Magpie
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The crisp fall air rushed Sarah along as she walked home from the bus stop. Yellow and red leaves lay scrunched up along the edges of the sidewalk, like tiny fences of color separating the gray concrete from the lush, green grass. Sarah’s old Craftsman house stood at the top of the hill, waiting for her, a warm blue against the cloudy sky.
Sarah always wondered if her house slumbered while she was away. She knew it was silly, yet it always seemed to breathe out when she opened the front door after coming back from being at the office all day. The wood floors creaked louder as the house settled in for the night if she’d been gone for a while on a business trip. When she spent time cooking, the air vent for the stove would hum in approval, even when no wind blew.
A few of Sarah’s friends didn’t care for how her house sounded, or how it stood, head and shoulders above the others on the hill. They weren’t comfortable with no nearby neighbors. They labeled her house as “spooky,” particularly at night. Sarah knew better: It was just an old house, set in its ways. The separateness of it suited her.
Today Sarah carried two heavy pails of refractory mortar. The list of projects that needed doing in an old house was endless, and this weekend it was finally time to fix the firebox of her fireplace. She hummed in anticipation of sitting in her living room, curled up on her red velvet couch with her cat Mr. J, a cup of tea, a good book, and a roaring fire.
The first step, according to the Irish chimney sweep Sarah had hired to clean out the chimney and make it safe, was to remove as much of the old mortar from the firebox as she could. It was easy at the start: the old mortar crumbled like dry sand as she dug at it. As she moved from the back to the sides, the old mortar clung more tenaciously to the brick. Sarah switched from using just her hands to a thin, metal scraper, working under the mortar and flicking off chunks.
The job got progressively harder. Sarah had to put all her weight behind the scraper to dig into the mortar. She got a hammer and started tapping the end of the scrapper, feeling like some old-time sculptor. Smaller and smaller chunks fell as she got closer to the front edge of the firebox.
After Sarah hit her hand with the hammer for the third time, she finally just swung it against the wall of the firebox. To her surprise, the mortar crumbled and fell easily. A dust cloud rose when it hit the floor. Coughing, Sarah blindly swung the hammer again.
Instead of the dull thud of striking mortar, a higher, sharper clang rang out, following by a tinkling sound, almost like broken glass. Sarah waved away the dust so she could see the damage she’d done.
The brick Sarah had struck had cracked like a broken mirror. Shards of brick lay scattered on the floor. Gingerly Sarah started cleaning out the remaining pieces, already thinking furiously about how to fix this. Did a fireplace require different brick, or could she use the leftover brick she had in the backyard? Would the refractory mortar hold it? Or did she have to call a mason?
Finally Sarah stopped and looked at the hole she’d made.
Just the front of the brick had cracked; behind that was an empty space.
The brick had been hollow.
Sarah fetched a flashlight and gloves. The floorboards creaked as she walked, and the house moaned. It shivered, as if a storm wind buffeted it, but the trees outside stood silent and unmoving. She wondered if her house was throwing a fit because she’d hurt it, hitting it with the hammer.
Something lay nestled far to the back of the hollow brick. Sarah carefully teased it out with her fingertips, as her whole hand wouldn’t fit into the space.
A tiny, porcelain blackbird turned out to be the hidden treasure. It stood with its head tilted to one side, as if questioning the world. It looked hand-painted. Whisker-thin brown lines delineated the feathers of its wings and the ridges of its gold, splayed feet. Its tail stuck out behind it at a jaunty angle.
Who would hide such a thing? Inside of a brick, in a fireplace? Sarah turned it over carefully. No stamp or maker’s mark marred its perfectly smooth belly. She ran her finger along its cool skin, but couldn’t feel anything either. She’d have to take a picture of it and send it to her brother—he collected antiques, maybe he’d know something of the bird’s origin.
Sarah thought about putting the bird up on the mantel, but she didn’t trust Mr. J to not knock it down. Plus, she wanted to move it away from the fireplace, where it had been trapped for who knew how many decades. She ended up putting it on a shelf above the kitchen table, where it could look out the window at the garden. Then, singing the old Beatles song about blackbirds, she went back to work, removing the old mortar, cheerfully swinging her hammer and causing constructive mayhem.
That night, birdsong accompanied all Sarah’s dreams.
* * *
Two mornings later Sarah searched high and low for the watch she’d been wearing the night before. She could have sworn she’d taken it off and put it on her dresser next to her other watches. She picked them up one at a time, ticking off the memories: bracelet-type watch that was surprisingly comfortable—a birthday present from her brother; ten-year anniversary watch from her job, with a real leather band, that kept the best time; the delicate diamond watch her mother had worn every Sunday to church. But her most recently acquired watch, from Jon, her boyfriend, wasn’t there.
Sarah pawed through drawers both in her bedroom and in the bathroom, checking to see if she’d taken it off and maybe it had fallen, but to no avail. She went back downstairs to the kitchen; maybe she’d taken it off while washing dishes the night before and just didn’t remember.
The kitchen looked the same as it had when Sarah had gone to bed, the clean dishes stacked next to the sink, the table empty of placemats because she still had to wash them. Mr. J sat expectantly next to his bowl, waiting not-so-patiently to be fed. Sarah ignored him while she examined the counters and pulled out the drawers, still looking for her watch. Jon was coming back that night from a conference and she really wanted to wear it for their dinner.
A questioning meow from Mr. J finally brought Sarah out of her frenzied search. “Yes, yes, I’ll feed you.” She moved to the refrigerator, then stopped, hand poised over the handle.
There, on the shelf above the kitchen table, next to the little blackbird, sat her watch.
“How did this—I don’t remember putting this up here.” Sarah retrieved her watch and snapped it easily around her wrist. When she looked up, she could swear the blackbird stared at her with something other than curiosity.
“Sorry, this is mine,” Sarah told it. Then she giggled, feeling self-conscious. “You can’t have it,” she added in mock seriousness.
Sarah thought about how her watch could have gotten onto the kitchen shelf, while she fed Mr. J and then made her own breakfast. She couldn’t quite decide how she’d managed to put it there.
No matter. Sarah had her watch now. And she was going to miss the bus if she didn’t hurry.
* * *
Sarah generally wore her rings all the time: her silver thumb ring with garnets because it was difficult to remove, and the green-and-gold ring she wore on her forefinger because it had been made for her and fit perfectly. However, since the autumn leaves had finally finished falling, she’d decided to bleach the stains out of her wooden deck. The thumb ring didn’t work well with her gloves, so she took both rings off.
Then promptly lost them.
After tearing through the house again, Sarah checked the shelf in the kitchen sooner this time. There her rings sat, nestled together.
“I didn’t put these up here,” Sarah murmured as she lifted them down. She stared at the tiny porcelain creature. It didn’t look abashed at all. “You’re not a blackbird at all, are you? You’re a magpie. Always stealing shiny things.”
Though Sarah felt silly, she still had to prove it to herself. That night she very deliberately placed her rings on her dresser. She then wrote herself a Post-it Note telling herself what she’d done.
She found her rings on the blackbird’s shelf the next day.
&n
bsp; Sarah didn’t know why she didn’t throw a fit at that point. It seemed a game to her. The little porcelain bird was probably bored with only the window to look out of. She didn’t expect any harm to come of it.
Besides, if Sarah had a magical bird, she didn’t feel so odd thinking that her house might be just a little magical as well.
The next night Sarah dug through her jewelry box until she found the tiny engagement ring of her grandmother’s. It was made of white gold, unadorned, with her grandparents’ initials and the date, 1/14/1922, on the inside. “I can’t wear it,” she explained to the bird. “I take after my dad and my hands are far too big. But you can have it.” She placed the ring on the shelf, right in front of the blackbird.
Of course, Sarah’s watch was still missing from her dresser the next morning.
* * *
Sarah agreed to a “quiet night in” the next weekend with Jon. She’d cook dinner, they’d watch TV or play cards, and then he’d spend the night. She suspected that the weekend was the first of many, to see how they got along over many hours or days together, to see if they did want to move in together at some point.
The problem was that Sarah loved her house, and it was hers. She’d paid for it with the inheritance she’d received from the death of her parents. She never wanted to leave it, and she wasn’t certain she wanted to share it. However, for the night, Sarah was willing to try. It wouldn’t be the first time she and Jon had had sex, but they’d always slept apart.
Sarah really didn’t think about the blackbird until after they’d finished dinner, when Jon noticed it sitting on the shelf above the table in the kitchen. “What’s this?” he asked, picking it up and holding it out to her. “I didn’t know you collected birds.”
“I don’t.” Sarah explained where she’d found the small statue. She didn’t explain about the strange game they played with her jewelry.
“It’s lovely,” Jon said, smiling at Sarah. “Suits you, too.”
Sarah had to give him a kiss in response to that. As she turned away, Mr. J was suddenly there. Sarah tried to step to the side but her feet got tangled, and she grabbed Jon’s arm to stop her fall.