by J. L. Sutton
“Every human does, up until the moment they die. That little bit of magic to make everything possible.”
“That’s difficult to believe,” I said honestly, looking down at the tiny glowing vial in my hands. “What do you do with it?”
“I do not require food or rest to function, but there is something I need to sustain me.” Dawn closed her eyes, disgust marring her lovely voice as she spoke the words through her teeth. “When we get the call to lay someone to rest, a contract of sorts is formed. I promise to do my duty, and the human in question must also hold up their end of the bargain. You are holding the payment in your hand.”
My stomach clenched as a cold chill ran through me. I didn’t need her to explain further, the answer was right before my eyes. My voice was flat, emotionless. “You feed off the dead.”
“Siphon the dead would be more accurate, but yes. I told you we paid a high price for what we are.” She wasn’t defending herself, merely stating the fact. “Without it I would not be able to control myself, or use the gifts I have. It would not kill me if I refused—at one time or another we have all tried to. The pain it causes is beyond compare. Imagine having every inch of your skin flayed off and salted, the marrow of your bones boiled inside you as your head tries to cleave itself into pieces.” Dawn sighed, rubbing her temples. “Could there be a better mechanism for nature to force us into doing what we were meant to?”
My mind very much wanted to feel the disgust her face mirrored, but that was exactly why I didn’t. Looking at it her it was clear she hated this part of herself. Of course she didn’t have a choice, it seemed like she never did. Dawn wouldn’t wish what she was upon anyone. It’s not like she killed people to survive after all, she was just receiving payment for doing her duty—the reapers toll. As I collected my thoughts I wondered idly if that was where the phrase came from.
Dawn still looked very uncomfortable, and I didn’t blame her. As difficult as it was for me to stomach her latest revelation, it must’ve been so much worse for her to admit it to me. Trust didn’t come easy to either of us—me because of my past, her by her very nature. Yet somehow we managed. Compared to her I was barely an infant, and I never claimed to understand the mysteries of life and death. One thing I learned with what little time I spent on this earth was that this world had its monsters, and Dawn wasn’t one of them. I knew she was being unnecessarily harsh on herself, and it didn’t seem right to let her wallow in something she couldn’t control.
“How about we try another?” I asked when I couldn’t bear the mounting tension. One way or another, we needed to move past this. “You could look into one of mine if you’d like.”
“I would, but unfortunately I have another commitment today. Rain check?” she asked, managing a weak smile with some effort as she stood.
“Sure.” I nodded. “Got some work I’ve been neglecting that I should probably catch up on anyway.”
Dawn walked slowly to the door, cracking it open before she turned her head.
“I’ll be back soon.” she said hesitantly. It sounded almost like a question.
“I’ll be waiting.”
15. Sleepwalker
Over the next week Dawn’s visits to my apartment became a nightly event. Each evening I would arrive after work to find her waiting for me on the couch, curled up against the pillows with her eyes closed, almost as if she were sleeping.
It seemed odd to me that she wouldn’t be doing something while she waited. When I asked her about it, she explained that although seraphim couldn’t sleep, they could slow their bodily functions to a crawl, almost like an off switch. They were still quite aware of their surroundings while in this state, but it was less draining, a simple way to tune out the rest of the sensory bombardment around them for a while. Some seraphim even chose to remain in this state whenever they weren’t needed, preferring the solitude to the outside world. Personally, I thought it was a rather indolent way to spend eternity.
The night’s activities always followed a similar pattern, and I welcomed the unexpected change to my routine. She’d ask me about my day as I made dinner, browsing through the local paper while I ate. Then we spent the rest of the evening trading memories back and forth until I couldn’t keep my eyes open a minute longer.
Dawn’s recall was crystal clear, and just barely scratching the surface of what she saw in her long existence was staggering. Through her eyes I witnessed a world long forgotten. Everything from the bustling street corners of Chicago in the fifties, to the undisturbed, velvety waters of the Everglades in the winter time. In particular I enjoyed her time spent on the islands of the Caribbean. I loved watching her face light up as she delved into the intricacies of various cultures she experienced.
Allowing her to see my own memories was more of a challenge than I anticipated, especially after she made it seem so effortless. Once Dawn managed to secure a connection between us, it took immense concentration on my part to learn how to access the memories for her to view. More often than not they were nothing more than garbled fragments, or a different scene altogether. I quickly learned that even the slightest loss of focus on my part affected what we were both viewing, often with embarrassing consequences.
I mostly showed her memories of myself growing up with my sister in the city, from family vacations to playing scrabble by candlelight. She always seemed so interested in the little details of my everyday life, eager to see whatever I showed her, never asking for any particular moments in time. I think she liked the idea of spending time with me in the everyday world, experiencing things the way the rest of us did. I also quickly noticed her fascination with my work, and curious to figure out why, I happily let her view what I could remember from my more interesting cases.
Friday disappeared before my eyes at a frightening pace. It felt like only a few hours ago that I left for work when I was on my way back home again in the late afternoon. Dawn was waiting for me on the couch like always, her eyes snapping open as I closed the door behind me. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Sorry I’m late, I lost track of the time.”
“I know the feeling.” Dawn nodded. Why was she always smiling when she saw me? I wish she wouldn’t, that smile made me feel things I really shouldn’t be feeling. “Anything interesting happen at work?”
If only. “Nothing worth remembering. So what are we viewing tonight? It was my turn if I remember correctly.”
“Indeed it was,” she said, shifting over to make room for me.
As I took her hand I ran through all the things I had shown her before, deciding it was time for something different. It occurred to me that while they were completely engrossing, these memories provided the perfect distraction from my usually relentless questioning. Maybe it was just my imagination, but after the morning I learned about Dawn’s nutritional needs, for lack of a better term, she was very careful to avoid any memories relating to the seraphim. When I was ready I nodded, and as I closed my eyes I felt the connection take hold. I bent my mind towards the memory, forcing together the jumble of fragments into something coherent.
The next moment I was back in my high school cafeteria, sitting across from a younger Jennifer who had just begun ranting about some assignment for Biology. This wasn’t even remotely the memory I intended to show her. The edges of my vision were pushing against my mind, threatening to slip and I had to struggle to hold the memory together as pieces of it I didn’t know I remembered came flooding through. Some of what I was seeing came back to me, and I decided to let the memory play out.
Just a little longer, any moment now and Eric would fall asleep, hitting his head on the table so hard that he knocked himself out for almost two minutes. The Benjamin from the memory looked away from Jennifer, turning to face a smiling Claire who just sat down next to me. I was surprised by how well I recalled her appearance, down to her exact haircut and the red top she wore. As I leaned forward to kiss her searing pain spread through my arm, and the memory collapsed at a disturbingly quick
pace.
I blinked, momentarily disorientated from being ripped out of my own head so suddenly. My hand was aching, stiff and covered with splotchy red marks. Dawn was still sitting beside me on the couch, her expression frozen in shock and her entire body rigid. Her hand balled into a fist, holding tightly onto something that wasn’t there.
“What happened?” I asked as I stood up, my eyes searching the room for some unseen threat. “Are you alright?”
If she heard me she made no move to respond, her empty stare remaining glued to a spot just behind my head. I brushed my fingers over hers, afraid to startle her in her near catatonic state. She was so cold that I pulled back my hand. ”Dawn?”
“I took her.” Dawn’s voice was a hollow whisper, utterly lifeless. Yet those three little words echoed through the silence like a wrecking ball.
I felt the wall my mind created to desperately try and protect me from the truth teetering, about to collapse. My blood ran cold as icy barbs of anguish lashed across my chest, cutting the ties to my will, along with my breath. I sank to my knees, numb to the dull pain of the impact. There was no strength left in me to lift my head, to look at her.
“I had no idea.” Her pained words sounded distant, barely audible over the tumult raging through my head. “I am so deeply sorr—”
“—Get out.”
“Benjamin, I—”
“—Get out!” I growled through clenched teeth as I stared up at her. Dawn’s face was so wracked with pain that I managed to regain a glimmer of composure before I spoke again. “Please, just leave. I need you to leave.”
Dawn stood beside me in an instant, her hand reaching out towards me, ancient sorrow etched across her angelic features. Even through blurry eyes it was clear she wanted nothing more than to console me in any way she could. For a moment I thought she would try, but with one last pained look she bowed her head, a column of empty air rushing past me as she breezed out the door.
I sat unmoving, paralyzed and powerless against the cold floor. Memories better left buried came unbidden into my mind, remorselessly biting and clawing at the old scars left after Claire’s death. I had days where something would trigger and turn the trickle into a flood, but nothing quite like this.
It felt like I was reliving it all over again, the anger and the grief—the guilt. My chest ached with phantom pain, so exquisitely agonizing its grip pierced my every thought, crippling my senses. There was nothing I wouldn’t give to feel anything other than this, but I wouldn’t let myself get away that easily. I brought this upon myself.
Three years I spent keeping the promise I made at Claire’s grave, and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. No, not nothing. Be it by the winds of chance or some cruel twist of fate—somehow I found the being who truly took her. How had I gone this long knowing what Dawn was without trying to find answers to Claire’s death? Was it because I always assumed it was another seraph, or was I just too damn afraid to know the answer? Between the relentless, crushing images rushing through my head, too quickly to keep track of, my mind fixated on one image of Dawn, sitting comfortably on my bed. Her midnight eyes looking up at me, so kind and full of concern—the same eyes that saw Claire draw her last ragged breath, perhaps even siphoned off her.
The next moment I was running across the apartment floor on unsteady feet, making it to the bathroom just in time before the bile rose up in my throat and I threw up.
The room spun around me as I gripped tightly to the basin, forcing down handfuls of water. The bitter taste left in my mouth wouldn’t relent. I knew there was a seraph there with Claire in the end, but why of all the seraphim did it have to be her? Venomous thoughts danced around my mind, but I knew this wasn’t her fault. I dearly wished I could blame someone, anyone for what happened to Claire, but Dawn was just doing her duty. Even as I told her to leave I knew I couldn’t blame her for anything, as easy as it would’ve been.
She was no doubt thinking I was disgusted, the very thing she always feared. She probably even blamed herself. The truth was I just didn’t have the strength to look into those eyes, not tonight. I would make sure she understood that I didn’t resent her, because there was nothing to forgive. But tonight I was inconsolable, a pitiful sight even to myself, and I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. There would be no running away from this. I wanted, needed, to feel everything.
What little control over my thoughts I was able to marshal was straining against my disgust, not aimed at Dawn, but myself. As I leaned against the wall, trying to pull myself from this wretched state I began to see things I missed before with newfound clarity. There was more to my morbid fascination with Dawn than I realized—a truth my mind had suppressed. I had grown attached to her, nothing solid, but there was something there I couldn’t deny. The living-dead girl who took my Claire. How far could I have fallen that I developed feelings for her? What the hell was I supposed to make of that, and why did my idiot head wait till now to figure this out? I was far too scrambled to be thinking about any of this now.
As the long minutes passed the chill from the tiles beneath me seeped into my bones, and too exhausted to keep awake any longer I began to drift, fervently hoping for a momentary reprieve. Then the nightmares began.
I woke sometime later, still lying on the floor with my head propped up awkwardly against the wall. I had no idea how long I slept, but from the soft light streaming in from the hallway I figured it must’ve been morning. I felt utterly depleted. The splitting headache threatening to bash my head to pieces coupled with the bitter taste in my mouth, and the lingering nausea, felt not unlike a hangover. My muscles ached from the cold makeshift bed, straining against me as I pulled myself off the floor. The haggard face complete with bloodshot eyes that greeted me in the mirror was a stranger. It looked like I aged ten years overnight. The echoes of last night’s shattering revelations were still with me, but I was through the worst and still standing. Now all that was left was to figure out what came next.
The dense cloud of fog permeating my mind began to dissipate as the warm water from the shower ran over me, momentarily quieting my inner tumult. Last night showed me my old scars weren’t as shallow as I previously thought, and I wasn’t ready to revisit them just yet. There were so many conflicting emotions running through my mind that I wasn’t sure where to begin. Questions I never wanted the answers to came to the surface, ones I know I’d have to face sooner than I liked.
I was being pulled in opposite directions. Half of me wanting to keep my promises, never resting until I was sure I did everything I could. The other half told me to burn all the evidence of these painful memories, forget and move on before the past buried me.
Then there was the situation I found myself in with Dawn, a situation I had even less idea how to handle. What she was had been a lot easier to deal with before it became so personal. Somehow now it felt much more real. Would I be able to carry on my friendship with her now that I knew about Claire? Did I still want to? I think I did, despite what happened I still felt she was the same person, and that was someone worth knowing. In a lot of ways she was probably a better person than I was.
It took me more than an hour before I was able to walk into my home office, my legs heavy as I passed through the doorway. Inside one of my drawers was a picture of Claire and me. Her smiling face peered back at me, immortally frozen on a red picnic blanket with autumn leaves falling around her. I found little comfort in that carefree smile, those deep brown eyes succeeding only in sending another stab of loss through my heart. As my fingers traced the white edges of the photo I found that in my state I hadn’t truly considered what all of this meant.
I had another question to ask, the only question that really mattered. One only Dawn could answer.
As the tumblers in my mind clicked into place I started to see the potential of my new plan. A glimmer of hope shone dimly through all the turmoil I felt, a chance to make good on a promise long overdue. It wasn’t something I wanted to do. No, I was very much
dreading my new course, but I knew I had to follow through with it.
The hollow ache in my chest hadn’t abated, though I found some solace in my new resolve. Things between me and Dawn would no doubt be strained to the limit, and as sure as I was of my newfound task I wasn’t quite ready to see her yet. The quiet minutes alone turned into hours as I sorted through my emotions. I wanted to be sure I was ready for whatever was to come.
The sun just sank behind the Brampton tower when I stepped through the kitchen and walked to the windowsill. In the corner was Dawn’s pouch, the same one she gave to me on the night she first waited outside my apartment. It felt like it weighed a hundred pounds as I closed my fingers around it, gently tugging at the frayed drawstrings in trepidation. I wasn’t ready for this, I don’t think I ever would be, but knowing there was no reason to delay any longer I slipped the piece of paper with my message inside and hung it outside the window. Taking a step back I spared one last look at the pouch gently swaying in the wind before I grabbed my keys and walked out the front door.
The city lights blurred together in long streaks as I raced past them, still too caught up in my own thoughts to notice the dazzling display of colors. It seemed like no time at all when I pulled onto the dirt road that led to my second home. I found my footing easily in the dark, after years of coming to the end-of-the-line navigating the wet rocks was almost second nature. As I waited I found myself peering into the dark waters, their usually violent crashes against the rocks little more than a soft gurgle. Closing my eyes I focused only on listening to that constant sound, freeing myself from my mounting doubts, if only for a moment.
I didn’t have to wait very long. Before two hundred waves passed I felt Dawn slowly creeping up on me. She must’ve been close to have found me so quickly, knowing her she was probably there all night, staying just out of my sight. No, I wasn’t ready for this.