The Death Seer (Skeleton Key)

by Tanis Kaige

  “I’m not getting in there with you.”

  “It’ll be cooled off by the time I finish, you’d do best to share.”

  Now that he was in the water, I turned to face him. He’d taken his sunglasses off. I spotted them on a small table next to the tub. His metaphysical eyes held no hint of lechery. He seemed simply to be inviting me into the tub as though it was the most innocent thing in the world.

  It was certainly large enough, and I was chilled to the bone. He had his arms elongated over the back edge, making the muscles in his shoulders bunch up. It looked so comfortable. Maybe if I sat on the opposite end, facing him. Then only our legs would touch.

  My bones ached for that hot water. I dropped my head back and sighed. “Close your eyes while I undress.”

  “Okay,” Kord said, frowning in confusion.

  I undressed and dipped my toe in, immediately drawing it back.

  “Just go slow. It’s so worth it,” Kord said. He had one eye open and a grin on his face.

  “Close your damn eyes.”

  He obeyed, but the smile remained.

  I stepped in slowly, first one foot, then the next. Gradually I lowered myself down into the water and felt the chill and ache in my bones start to ease away. “Mmm, you’re right,” I said. “Feels good.”

  My leg slid up against his. My eyes were closed. I was afraid to find out if he was watching me or not.

  “Was it all really pretend?” he asked, his voice soft.

  I opened my eyes to find him frowning at me, dark eyebrows furrowed like a child waiting to find out if Santa Claus was actually an elaborate lie. “Of course. We were children.”

  He licked his lips as though about to speak, but apparently thought better of it.

  “Kord?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why are you here?”

  He stared into me for a moment, his eyes making me feel naked. Soul-naked. “I followed my mother.”

  I waited, but he said no more. “Did you never want to go back?”

  “There was no door back. This is usually a one way trip.”

  My stomach burned. “What about me?”

  “Well, you have this key. So maybe, just maybe, for you, there is a door.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “I’ve been here for…for…how long? How long have I been here?”

  “ten years.”

  His eyes widened. “ten?”

  “Yes.”

  He lay his head back against the rim of the tub. “I’ve been here ten years, and yet I know very little of this place. Gus might be able to help. Certainly my mother can, if I can get her to talk.”

  “Do you and she not communicate often?”

  His silence lasted several seconds. “She’s in a dark place,” he said. And that was all he said.

  His naked leg stretched alongside mine and yet he made no move to touch me. He was a gentleman for me, though he gave himself away to pretty much anyone else who asked. I felt sorry for him. I reached down beneath the water and skimmed my hand up and down his shin.

  He lifted his head and stared into my eyes. “You are very pretty, Brenna.”

  “Thank you. I believe you’ve told me that once already today.”

  “I thought it merited a second mention.”

  I smiled and sank a little lower into the tub. My knees were bent, just breaching the surface of the water.

  “I haven’t had sex with anyone today,” he said.

  The shock of his confession strangled my voice for a moment. And then I laughed. “It sure seems like you have.”

  His lips turned upward in a faint smile. “That’s not what they want from me. Well, some do. Margaret…she was my first, I suppose that’s why I keep going back to her. But for the most part, what people want is something completely non-sexual. Something only I can give them.”

  I found myself leaning forward. “What?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure. But I think it’s…relief. A break from death. They all describe it a little differently. Some say they get to feel alive for a while. Some say it’s like being truly awake in a way they can’t achieve on their own. All of them act like drug addicts, begging me for a fix, offering me all sorts of favors.”

  “What is it that you do?”

  “I just lie next to them, hold their hand, and take on their burdens for a while. They go into a trance or sleep, and they dream. Maybe they live. Maybe they walk, briefly, among the living. I don’t know. I just know how it makes me feel. All of their pain and fear is mine for a brief time. It isn’t pleasant, but once I feel it, I’m happy to give them a break from it. I hate thinking of anyone going on forever bearing those kinds of burdens.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to this. It didn’t make sense, and yet I believed him. “Could you demonstrate? On me?”

  “I’m not sure it would work on a live person. We could try, though.” He edged over closer to the side of the tub.

  I certainly hadn’t intended to try it now. But the invitation was clear. I moved, careful not to splash water over the sides of the tub. I twisted around until we lay, hip to hip, next to each other. He let his arm drift over my shoulders. The water in the tub was still hot, but now, so was I. Warmed through, all the aches eased away, I found myself harboring a different kind of discomfort.

  Kord reached through the water and took my hand, holding it between us. “Now, just relax against me.”

  Everything was the same temperature. His skin, my skin, the water. His heart beat steadily beneath my ear. His chest rose and fell with his breaths. The awareness of every part of my skin that touched his filled me with a new kind of heat that tightened within me. But other than that, nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” he whispered.

  “Does it usually happen fairly fast?”

  “Almost instantly.”

  “I suppose I’m immune.”

  I went to pull away, but he held my hand firmly and tightened his grip on my shoulders. We just lay there wrapped in water. I relaxed against him and let him hold me. His grip on my shoulder relaxed. He trailed his fingertips over the curve of my shoulder, down my arm, back up and over my shoulder again, aimlessly and intimately, up and down.

  This place exuded lethargy. A sense of nihilistic boredom. All around us was this final world, this final place that held no future at all, nothing but a present. I felt it as he touched me. What did it matter who slept with whom when there were no consequences?

  He let go of my hand and touched my neck, gripping it lightly. His body angled slightly toward me. I felt his breath on my forehead before his lips touched me.

  The door burst open and Gus marched in, apparently unfazed by the sight of us in the bathtub. “Got it,” he said, holding up two, sopping wet satchels. “Marie stripped her wig and clothes and dove right in. Others tried, but she just would not give up. Her room’s right down the hall whenever you’re ready to tend to her.”

  Kord stood and stepped out of the tub, grabbing a towel from off the table next to the tub and wrapping it around his waist. I hugged my knees, hoping Gus didn’t stay so long that I was forced to exit the tub in his presence.

  “Let me make sure everything’s here,” Kord said. He took the satchels to the fireplace and began digging through mine. He stopped and turned to me, holding up the key before slipping it back into the bag. “All set,” he said to Gus. “Tell Marie I’ll pay her a visit shortly.”

  Gus left and I hurried out of the tub. Kord opened up a wardrobe and pulled out two robes. Once wrapped up, I started to feel more myself. What had ever possessed me to get naked with him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what happened there, but I didn’t mean to…come on to you.”

  He turned to me, his sunglasses back on, a big, blue robe cinched with a tie around his waist. “What are you apologizing for?”

  “For…for things almost getting out of hand just now.”

  His jaw tic
ked. “Are you wanting me to apologize to you, now?”

  “If you feel it necessary.”

  “I don’t, particularly. What did we do wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said hurriedly. “It’s nothing, it’s just, this place…it’s making me lose track of myself. Forget what I’m supposed to be doing. Or maybe it’s not the place, maybe it’s you.”

  “It’s the place. You’re supposed to forget, here. But I won’t let you forget your purpose. I think this is about more than getting you back home.”

  I nodded and swallowed down a lump of fear. “It’s only been a day. I feel like it’s been a year.”

  “Everything will be okay, Brenna.” He came toward me. My breath hitched as he grabbed my upper arms and brought me close, kissing me on the forehead. His lips lingered, but not long enough for me to be sure what kind of kiss he was giving me.

  And then he left.

  The morning didn’t really dawn. There was no sharp, invigorating brightness. But with the windows open, the red glow of the dead sky did brighten the room enough to bring me out of my sleep. An arm was draped around my waist. Kord’s, I knew, but I turned to make sure anyway.

  Without his sunglasses, in sleep, he looked much like the boy I remembered. I’d fallen asleep before he’d come back from Marie’s room. Even though he told me he hadn’t had sex with anyone, I couldn’t help wondering about this Marie and whether she’d enticed him to do more than what he’d gone there to do.

  His eyes fluttered open. For a moment, the irises were plain blue, and he smiled. But as his pupils contracted, the light in his eyes awakened. “We should get on the road,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  We rose, dressed in our now-dry clothes, had breakfast in the great hall with a few dead monarchs, and then started our walk.

  “Shame we lost the car,” I said. “I’m sure that man will be disappointed not to have it back.”

  “Want to know something?”

  “Sure.”

  “He’ll have it back this morning. It won’t really have occurred to him to even consider it missing. He’ll just get up, work out in the gym on the first floor of his apartment building, shower, put on his suit, and go to the curb where his car was parked, and it will be there. Just like every morning.”

  “How can that be? Are you saying the car isn’t real?”

  “There you go with that word ‘real’ again.”

  I sighed. We were trudging down a dirt path through a thick forest, our footsteps soft on the dirt and pine needles. “Material, then. Are you saying the car isn’t material?”

  “It’s material enough. But it’s manifested from the man’s memories of his own life. The deeply rooted routines. The monotonies. The certainties. Everything that he was and all the tools and resources he used to get where he was going and do what he wanted to do all become a part of this world.”

  “So, how come we can’t just imagine a car and have one show up.”

  “Several reasons, probably. First of all, no one, with the possible exception of these kings, thinks to go to the trouble of actively manifesting something. The important things they needed in life are so engrained in them that they just show up. Second, I can’t do it because my only experience in your world was a tiny bedroom, and even that wasn’t a very visual experience what with mother denying me my sight. Third, you’re not dead. So you’re not a part of this world. It probably wouldn’t work for you. But if you’d like to try, I don’t see how it could hurt.”

  I stopped walking and closed my eyes, imagining my beat up little sedan. I imagined it with all my heart, and when I opened my eyes, for a split second, I thought it was there. But it wasn’t, and I blew out a frustrated breath before jogging to catch up with Kord. “How far do we have to walk.”

  “A ways.”

  So we walked a ways, which in my mind, took a large portion of forever. The forest turned to plains and hills and back to forest again. This time the trees were tall and thick and black. The forest around King’s Hall had been silent. This forest was filled with sounds. Owls, crickets, little skittering sounds from ground animals, a sharp scream-like bark that Kord told me was a fox.

  We walked the path until it ended. Just ended, dead in the middle of the woods. There was a wall of trees in front of us. Kord took my hand and led me into them. The way got rougher. We had to step over fallen logs, duck under low branches, and frequently stub our toes on tree roots. Or at least I did. Kord seemed more sure-footed.

  I smelled the smoke, first, and moments later we stepped into a clearing. A small cottage squatted in the middle of the clearing, smoke billowing from its chimney. I clung to Kord’s hand as we walked toward it. Even as he lifted his hand to knock, the front door flew open.

  A beautiful woman of indeterminate age and dressed in what would likely have been finery in the Middle Ages, stood before us. Her startled expression made way for a smile. She threw her arms around Kord and kissed his cheek. “Darling, you were right!” she yelled back into the house. “Here he is. Come in, dear boy, we’ve been waiting.”

  Kord lifted his eyebrows at me, shrugged, and pulled me inside. The cottage was modest. There were three wooden rocking chairs around a fireplace, each with a basket of needlework next to it. There was a heavy, black cauldron on the fire with something not quite pleasant bubbling inside. In the kitchen, hung from the rafters were dozens of bunches of dried herbs, and the shelves were lined with apothecary jars. Two other women emerged from the shadows, each lovely and well dressed.

  “Welcome,” they said in unison. Then the dark-haired one said to Kord, “Who’s your friend?” Although, given her tone, she might have been asking, “who’s your pet,” or “who’s your grotesque and objectionable companion?”

  “This is Brenna.”

  “Ha! I told you,” said the redhead of the crew.

  The blond, who had let us in, said, “Stop your gloating, hag.”

  “I told you it would be a living girl who opened the door. And now here she is. You never listen!”

  “What does it matter? She’s here now, isn’t she?” The blonde huffed and turned to Kord, smiling and rolling her eyes. “Make yourselves comfortable. You’ll be staying the night, I assume?”

  “Yes, thank you,” Kord replied, so politely.

  He led me to the rug in front of the fireplace and we sat. “So you’ve expected us?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the brown-haired woman, taking a seat in her rocker. The other two moved to the kitchen and conferred about something, or continued their bickering, I couldn’t tell which. “We’ve known for some time that you, Kord, were the key to rebalancing the worlds. We just weren’t sure how.”

  Kord’s hand left mine and he sat a little straighter. “What do you mean, ‘rebalancing the worlds?’”

  “Why, putting things right, of course.”

  Kord glanced at me. “Are you talking about the death comas?”

  The woman nodded as she rocked in her chair. “Yes. The reapers must get back to work so that the dead can come here where they belong. This world has stagnated terribly. It’s become nearly suffocating.”

  “It’s the underworld,” I said. “Are you saying it’s not supposed to be like this?”

  She gave me a rather disgusted look. “Yes, mortal, I’m saying it’s not supposed to be like this. The underworld is surely different from the living world, but the flow of souls into our land brings dynamic change on a regular basis. Creates evolution. It keeps things…lively. Not quite so dead.”

  “What’s it to do with me?” Kord asked. “Am I Brenna’s guide?”

  The woman turned to him, her twisted grimace transforming into a smile. “Yes. And she’s yours. You’re the only one who can put things to right. You’re going to see your mother?”

  His jaw tightened as he nodded.

  She leaned forward and squeezed his shoulder, exposing a generous amount of cleavage while she was at it. “Be strong. It’s a dark place.”

  The bl
ond woman came in, then, and brought two bowls of the most disgusting looking stew I’d ever seen in my life. I said thank you anyway. It didn’t taste as bad as it looked, thank goodness, but I had to avert my eyes to keep from questioning what was in it.

  “Why aren’t the reapers doing their jobs?” Kord asked.

  “Because Father Death quit doing his.”

  “Then why can’t you just find Father Death and ask him to get back to work? Why must I bother with my mother at all?”

  The woman smiled sadly. “She’s the only one he’ll come for, of course.”

  The two women in the kitchen cackled hysterically.

  Kord’s head shifted briefly as he glanced at them and then back at the brunette. “What do you mean she’s the only one he’ll come for?”

  The women laughed even harder, and now even the brunette was giggling.

  “This isn’t a joke!” Kord yelled.

  The women silenced immediately. The blond came in from the kitchen and knelt right in front of Kord, not really turning her back to me, but somehow prompting me to move over and out of the way. She leaned toward him, her hands on his thighs. “Didn’t she tell you? Father Death loved her. Very much.”

  “Of course she didn’t tell me! Why would she tell me something like that? How is it even possible. I was just going to see my mother to ask if she could open up a door for Brenna to get home…what’s this got to do with Father Death?”

  “Oh, everything, I should think,” said the brunette.

  “Why? Why should you think?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure. Our forecasting don’t work so well in this land. There’s neither past nor future, here, so all we got is now. But your mother did cross over. And it was about that time Father Death vanished. Mayhap they run off.”

  “But they didn’t. She’s in Suicide Swamp where she’s always been.”

  The brunette leaned back in her chair and rocked. “Best go ask her, then. She’ll know better than any of us.”

  The other two women nodded.

  “I’ll tell you this, though, my boy,” the brunette said, as she took up her needlework. “She won’t be able to open no portal for your lady friend, here.”