It had been three months since Jeff’s death, but Jeff was never far from his mind. About a month ago, Steve had experienced the weirdest dream. In it, Haunt was riding a gigantic ostrich through a strange forest with his wife, and he was there, too, riding in front of them. When he had awoken, he had the bizarre urge to check the local hospital to see if Marigold might possibly be there since he hadn’t been able to find her in the weeks following Jeff’s death. To his shock, there she was, and that’s where he met her grieving brother, Adam Tulino.
Adam was a military man back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. The two formed an instant bond as they had a common cause—to take care of Marigold’s baby (It’s what Jeff would have wanted). They set up the “Marigold and Jeff Haunt baby fund,” and went from there.
Adam and his wife hadn’t hesitated in stepping up and deciding to take the child in as their own. And through a series of connections Steve had through his band, he even got them a slot on the evening news. Sure, it was only News channel 12, but donations definitely spiked after that. They had a total of $12,000 so far for the baby, and it was only growing. It put Steve’s mind at ease about Jeff’s untimely death. The matter of the baby was all sorted out.
But he still wasn’t content.
It all traced back to the asshole currently storming the stage like a hurricane. If not for him and Ms. Davis pushing Jeff overboard that day, he might still be here today. So Steve’s quest for closure wasn’t over, but he was ready to end that today, even if it cost him his job. He had an interview with Clifton High School tomorrow anyway. He was tired of this place. Clifton was a better school system and it was closer to his girlfriend. It killed two birds with one stone.
“I want to see those three teachers after the meeting,” Jaffe finally said before he looked at his watch. “In the mean time, Mr. Covington had a few words to say about the Mr. Haunt fund.”
He walked off the stage and Steve exhaled heavily. Was he really going through with this? The job with Clifton wasn’t certain, even though he’d heard from a friend that the job was as good as his. But what if the Principal at that school declined him? Did he really want to burn this bridge? Closure was one thing, but still.
People turned around in their seats and looked at him. He had no choice. If anything, he was going to miss these people. They had been so helpful in raising funds and he knew they would continue doing so once the kid was born. Jeff didn’t know it and before all of the fundraising, Steve hadn’t known this either, but a lot of people liked Jeff. It was Mr. Vincent, the science teacher, who came to him in the first place about starting a fund for the family. And ever since then, people had been turning money in by the wallet-full. It was a beautiful thing and something that really made him remember just why he loved Jeff so much in the first place. He was a great guy. Suicide, notwithstanding.
Steve went up to the stage determined. Yes, he was going through with it, and not just for Jeff but for all of them. Somebody had to take a stand. Why not him?
When he reached the middle of the stage, his eyes zeroed in on the principal and his vice-principal, Ms. Davis, who was just as major a component to Jeff’s misery as Mr. Jaffe, if not more so. She hadn’t gotten any better. Everybody still feared her.
Ms. Davis’ sharp eyes connected with his as he looked at her. He wasn’t afraid of her.
“Because of all of your generous donations,” Steve began, his eyes roaming over all the teachers, “we’ve raised over $12,000 so far, so give yourselves a hand.”
They clapped and they deserved it. The staff was really great.
Steve paused and looked at Principal Jaffe again.
“I don’t know if everyone got the email because only a few of you responded, but I’ve set up a PayPal account with Jeff’s wife’s brother, Adam. So if you want to make more donations or know somebody else who would like to contribute, please send all money to that account from now on. I put the link in the email.”
“How is Mr. Haunt’s wife doing?” Mr. Vincent asked, raising his hand like one of the students, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“She’s much better. Her blood pressure’s back to normal and the baby should be ready any day now, so again, all money donated has been helpful. Oh, and thanks for the card. Marigold’s brother appreciated it. He wanted me to tell you that.”
Mr. Jaffe stood up to tell him thank you but Steve put up his index finger.
“One more thing,” Steve said, and Mr. Jaffe sat down. “And it’s to you.”
Mr. Jaffe looked confused but Ms. Davis didn’t. Her cunning mind probably already deduced what he had decided to do. That’s what made her such a dangerous enemy, the fact that she was so smart.
“I just wanted to tell you that the day Jeff died, I talked to him, and he was devastated that you fired him the way you did.”
Mr. Jaffe’s fat face flashed with rage.
“What are you inferring?”
“It’s implying, not inferring, and all I’m saying is, you really need to reconsider how you treat us teachers. You act like we’re not adults and you don’t know how much it can hurt us. I wanted you to know that…that Jeff killed himself because of you.”
A gasp filled the crowd. It was not the reaction that Steve anticipated.
“That’s defamation of character,” Mr. Jaffe said, standing up and pointing at Steve.
“You’re right, it is,” Steve admitted. “But it’s warranted. Jeff might actually still be here today if you hadn’t fired him. And you.”
Steve pointed at Ms. Davis. He didn’t care anymore. He had already gone this far. He might as well go all the way. But she didn’t flinch.
“You most of all,” Steve said. “Jeff told me how you read off all his mistakes during his time here. That wasn’t necessary and you know it wasn’t. It was the wrong way to approach it.”
She didn’t say anything so he continued.
“Look, I’m not saying he didn’t deserve to be fired, as some things can’t be helped in a classroom, but if you had to do it, you didn’t have to go that route. But that’s just in your character, isn’t it? You always have to be in charge of a situation, you always have to make people feel—”
“Stop right now or you’re fired,” Mr. Jaffe said.
“I’m already out of this piece of shit place anyway,” Steve said, more out of anger than out of purpose. He didn’t mean to swear. “Thanks again to everybody who donated. Please continue to do so. Bye.”
He stormed off the stage. As he went down the steps, he caught a glimpse of Ms. Davis before he rushed out the side door that led to the teacher’s lounge. He shivered when the door slammed behind him.
Whether he was fired or not, he didn’t know, nor did he care. He had his interview to think of tomorrow. But it was then that he realized that the other school in Clifton would undoubtedly contact Mr. Jaffe and Ms. Davis to see how he was as an employee. And that’s when he felt low. He just shot himself right in the foot.
Steve exhaled. Well, it was what it was. He guessed he would have to enter another field now. Maybe join a band full time. He was 25 and his life was passing him by. Why not follow his dreams while he was still young? He bought a Mountain Dew at the vending machine in the teacher’s lounge, and then, sat down at a table by himself. He had a lot to think about. Namely, what else he could do with his life?
Chapter Forty-Four
Even though Marigold followed Instinct when she held his hand and jumped into the portal, she was the first to fly up through it into Purpose’s throne room.
When she landed on the cold rock floor, she staggered backward and nearly fell over. The gray world spun before her eyes and there was a blue splotch at the end of the small room. It was Imagination.
In her blurriness, he looked like a decrepit version of Mr. Chomicki, barely able to stand. He held her baby with trembling, toothpick thin arms and wasn’t but ten feet away. Behind him was an open, emerald door, and within it, a purple vortex intermingled with his bl
ue tone.
“Imagin-uhh,” Instinct began, pulling out his blade. He then doubled over and dropped his machete. It clanked on the floor. He clutched his stomach and wheezed.
“Collect your bearings,” Imagination said in a frail voice. “That was a big jump the two of you made. But you’re here now. You’ve made it.”
Marigold rubbed her eyes and saw tiny red splotches in the darkness.
“Imagination,” Instinct began again before he picked up his blade and sheathed it. He looked toward the open, wooden door and his eyes widened.
“Is there really—”
“No God?” Imagination said. “Not behind the wooden door, there isn’t.”
Marigold’s stomach dropped when Imagination said “No God.” But it shouldn’t have surprised her after seeing the emptiness of the darkness and knowing her husband was there.
Instinct turned sharp green.
“If we were wrong about Him since the beginning, then how can we say we were ever right about the kid?”
Marigold winced when Instinct said “the kid.” The kid was all she had now. Again, she thought about Jeff.
“Who says we were wrong about God?” Imagination said.
“But the door.”
Imagination smiled a ragged, ancient smile and Instinct rushed over to look through the door. Marigold couldn’t take her eyes off her son.
“Yeah, there’s nobody here,” Instinct said.
“But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a God,” Imagination said.
Marigold didn’t understand, nor did she care. Her Aiden was all that mattered now. It was all that was left of Jeff. She remembered what he said back to her in the forest, about just how much he wanted the child. Oh, Jeff!
“Don’t you see?” Imagination said, cradling the child in his right arm and grabbing Instinct’s shoulder with the other hand. “God has already led the way. Eons ago, it seems. It must have been before Purpose even took the throne. That’s why God’s not behind the wooden door anymore. He’s out there!” he shouted, pointing to the open, purple void that was once blocked by Purpose’s throne. “He’s already in the universal mind and always has been. We were just too cowardly to look. But we must follow Him now with the child. We must go.”
Instinct squinted but then, shook his head. He looked at the open wooden door again.
“I don’t know,” he said with glassy eyes. “I just don’t feel it anymore.”
Imagination crinkled up his face like he smelled something rotten.
“Why do you always have to feel something for it to be true?” Imagination spat. “You’ve lost yourself in your transformation. You’re too human now to understand.”
“Everything I’ve lost is because of you,” Instinct snarled, pointing his finger at him.
“So, what, you’re blaming me now for everything that’s happened?”
“Of course I blame you. You lied to me. You said we were making a difference.”
“And we are,” Imagination shouted with his meager voice. “We’re about to make the greatest difference of all. Can’t you feel it?”
“I can’t feel anything anymore,” he said through gritted teeth.
“But I can,” Marigold said, taking a step forward.
In Imagination’s hands was the same baby she held before in the skyscraper. But something was different about him now. Before, she just needed to have and hold him. But now, there was no question about it: Aiden Haunt had to be born.
“May I take him?” Marigold asked.
“He’s yours,” Imagination said, handing him over. “He always has been.”
Marigold took Aiden and the blue aura felt less like a cushion now and more like a thin blanket as it wrapped around her child. He slept with his mouth open. Holding him, she felt her husband—the drool left on his side of the pillow, the love within his eyes. Even in the dim glow of the afterlife that was the Internal Landscape, she still felt the proud father that Jeff would have become. Aiden was all she had left of her husband and would be her all. He would have to be.
“Wake him up,” Marigold said to Imagination. “I’m ready.”
“No,” Instinct said, cutting his hands through the air. “No, no, no, no, no. This isn’t right.”
“But it is,” Imagination said, gaily. “It’s just as we planned.”
He went to touch Aiden’s head, but his hand never reached it.
A flaming green machete severed his neck from behind. And just like Logic, he turned into dust.
Chapter Forty-Five
Marigold didn’t have time to scream. Imagination’s head flew off and slammed into the metal door on the right. The body crumbled, and Imagination was gone.
“It’s done,” Instinct said, closing his eyes to Marigold’s wide mouth and sheathing his blade. “It had to be done.”
“But what about Aiden? How is he going to wake up now?”
Instinct shrugged.
“Your son is no more special than any other child who ever existed. I know that now.”
“But,” she said, watching Aiden turn over in the aura within her arms. “He was at the top of the Tree in the forest. I saw it in my dreams.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Instinct said, sitting down in the throne and holding his head. He rubbed his eyes. “Imagination dreamed once, too, and it was all a lie. Everything was.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“I don’t care what you believe,” he said, leaning his head back against the throne and putting his feet in Imagination’s ashes. “What does it matter what you believe?”
Marigold’s tears landed on the aura. They seeped through and landed on Aiden’s nose. He sneezed.
Seeing her Aiden breathing, so close to being awake, she knew what she had to do. She stepped toward the open emerald door and Instinct sprung up from his seat. He already had his blade out and pointed it at her chest. She didn’t flinch.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Going through the door,” she said calmly. “If that’s what it’s going to take to give my baby life, then that’s what I’m going to do. Stand aside.”
His mouth shriveled up like a tortoise’s. He stepped aside and sheathed his blade again.
“What do you plan to do once you’re in there?” he asked, sitting back down.
“I don’t know, but he’s all I’ve got. He deserves to be born.”
Instinct lowered his head. His eyes were steady and calm. He looked at peace, and in turn, so did her brother, who he resembled, but older.
“Imagination couldn’t go through the door. That I knew. He would have done great harm with his mania. But I don’t see why you can’t go through. I don’t believe in fate anymore.”
Marigold nodded. She didn’t believe in fate, either. She only believed in Aiden.
“I don’t know what’s beyond this world,” he said, “and I don’t know how to get your son out of that aura Imagination put around him.”
“The best I can do is try,” she said. “Hope is all I have.”
“I guess so,” he said, and he left it at that.
With no more words between them, she walked toward the open door. But before she could, Instinct grabbed her arm.
“If you do see God in there, tell Him I’m sorry. For everything. If there’s a God.”
Marigold nodded. If there’s a God, indeed.
She stepped into the doorway and cold air struck her instantly.
She took the first step into the void.
Even if only in spirit, Jeff was by her side.
Chapter Forty-Six
The purple vortex was loud and furious. And then, it wasn’t. It became calm and blue, like watching the ocean from afar.
Above, there was a transparent, purple arch that stretched infinitely. Anywhere she moved, she found herself beneath the arch. Beyond the transparency of the ceiling were giant ears facing downward. Each of them was about the size of two men lying down, head to foot. When she looked down, th
ere were more ears that rested beneath the thin floor. When she had first entered the Landscape, she passed through a tunnel of tongues. And now, leaving it, she was passing through a hallway of ears. The thought of the two rooms meeting made her shiver. The multiple tongues would be like cilia if they ever touched these massive ears. She looked at Aiden to get it off her mind.
She was afraid to make a sound. She passed beneath a black person’s ear, and then a white person’s. Below, there was an ear with a diamond in the lobe, and then, another with a cut. Her steps didn’t make a sound as she walked across the floor. She wondered if anyone could hear her. She treaded lightly, hoping nobody could.
She walked and walked beneath and above the ears. She walked on so long that after awhile, she couldn’t care less if anybody heard her. Eventually, she began to stomp in frustration, and she screamed as loud as she could. Nothing happened. That’s when she realized she was all alone. Jeff wasn’t by her side and never would be. The ears might as well have been made out of plaster.
Even Aiden, who had been feather light when she went through the door eons ago, became heavy in her arms. The knowledge that she would be carrying him alone for all eternity was a burden she couldn’t bear any longer. She dragged her feet for hours until she could go no more and gave up.
She lowered her head and sat down.
This hallway goes on forever!
“But it doesn’t,” someone said near her chest, and her whole body felt warm.
Aiden, for the first time since she saw him, smiled. His eyes were wide open and green, like his father’s.
“Aiden?”
“In a sense,” he said, parting his tiny lips to speak.
“You can talk?”
“I could always talk,” he said, his voice that of a prodigious child. “You just couldn’t hear.”
“But how come you never said anything before?” she asked.
“Because you didn’t need me to say anything before,” he said. “Now, you do.”
“What do you mean?”
The Darkness of the Womb Page 16