by Nisi Shawl
The streetlights flicker, casting shadows across her heart-shaped face. She sighs and runs a hand across my hair, tucks a strand behind my ear. I shudder down to the marrow of my bones. Even now, after all she has made me do for her, I want her.
“Let’s go home now,” I beg.
“And where is that, Tansi?”
“Wherever. Just… somewhere. We don’t have to do this anymore, right?”
She leaves her hand but turns her head away from me, eyes toward the dark night, the myriad trails that vivisect the forest beyond the parking lot. The call of the wind through the thick trees that line the parkway.
“Home,” she says, her voice breaking with sorrow. “I want my home back, too.”
OUR LAST NIGHT together, while we’re still in my little Brooklyn walkup and whatever comes next is still a sunrise and sunset away, she pulls something from her bag. A notebook, its velvet cover the deep green of secrets.
“I’ve been keeping a list,” she says. “Of my family that were murdered.”
She thrusts it towards me. The pages are full of tiny practiced handwriting. Name after name. Wessagusset. Pamunky. Massapequa. Pound Ridge. Susquehannock. Great Swamp. Occoneechee. I flip the page, and then another. Another. Skull Valley. Sand Creek. Wounded Knee.
The roar in my head is grief, wide and vast enough to drown whole new worlds. I know it is not mine, but hers. The book tumbles from my shaking hand. “I’m so sorry…”
“I felt them all when they died,” she whispers, a hand to her heart, her eyes lined with tears. “Every one.”
Her dark eyes find mine and she whispers the truth.
“Revenge.”
I LUG THE full cooler across the National Mall, past the band playing the Star-Spangled, the screaming children with their Rainbow Rocket pops, the picnics and laughter and shouting masses waiting for sunset and the promised fireworks.
“What if this doesn’t work?” I ask, nerves making my voice rattle. “What if doesn’t bring your home back? What if it doesn’t quiet the dead?”
I watch her ponder my question and for a moment, the night holds its breath. On its exhale she laughs, as free and enchanting as a rushing mountain stream.
“But, Tansi, what if it does?”
I PLACE THE last heart on the grass. Turn to where she lies sprawled in the middle of the circle. Some curious tourists are already starting to come closer, to see what ancient conjuration I am working with blood and muscle and grief on this most American of holidays. It is only a matter of time now.
I stretch out beside her. Gather her close to me, breathe in her scent for the last time.
“Are you sad?” she asks.
“No,” I whisper, and it’s true, but not. “Only that I will miss you,” I say, picking words so inadequate they rise to the level of a lie. “Do I have to go?”
She draws a finger across my mouth and I taste the salt of my own tears.
I close my eyes and the children are gone, their melting popsicles only memories discarded on the lawn. The fireworks, reduced to suggestions of smoky trails in a blackening sky. The curious tourists, the monuments, the city. All vanished.
Time, rolled back to silence.
“Are they all gone?” I ask.
“Keep your eyes closed and they are gone.”
“And your family?”
“They cannot come back, but their children are still here.”
“Then we’re home?”
When she doesn’t answer, I open my eyes.
I am alone on the lawn. The crowd rushes back in, the noise, the children, the tourists, the smoke, the screams of horror, the sound of sirens.
LOVE A DEER woman. Deer women are wild and without reason. A deer woman will make you do terrible things for a chance to raise up nations, to lie down with a dream. You will weep before it is over, the tears of the blessed, the cries of one who has found lost relatives. And if they ever let you out of your cell, tell them that you will do it again.
Kelsey and the Burdened Breath
Darcie Little Badger
HAND STRETCHED TOWARD the bedroom ceiling, Kelsey climbed on her wooden footstool. “Here, Pal,” she called. A shimmer—a tiny Fata Morgana, light bent through not-quite emptiness—flowed across the ceiling, down her arm, and around her shoulders. Pal’s weight lessened hers; an alien gravity drew all last breaths from Earth.
“Good boy,” she said. “It’s work time.”
She hopped down from the stool and used her bare foot to push it against her bed, a twin-sized, twenty-year-old mattress on the wooden floor. If repairs to the farm and the three-story white elephant of a house hadn’t bled her of every cent she earned, Kelsey might have bought a proper bed, something with memory foam instead of metal springs. She didn’t need a frame. Never had. But with every passing year, it became more difficult to sleep on a creaky, lumpy, tilted beast with steel bones and two hundred generations of dust mites woven through its skin.
Kelsey shut off her bedroom light and stepped into the hallway. As her pupils expanded, she navigated by floorboard creaks. Twenty footsteps to the staircase. Thirteen steps to the ground floor. Her father had constructed the house by hand; there were no coincidences. He built the number thirteen into the foundation thirteen different ways as a monument to his patience with the superstitions of the seventh-generation settlers who once employed him.
It had been a modest farm. Just a vegetable garden, one acre of corn, and thirteen bleating sheep. Enough for two new farmers, both retired from early-life careers, to manage. Now, all that remained was the last breath of the sheepdog Pal.
And, of course, the farmers’ daughter.
After breakfast, a bowl of joyless shredded wheat and almond milk, Kelsey left the house; her car was parked across a grassy acre once used for grazing. “Nearly a full moon,” she said, as if Pal could appreciate the view. When Pal was alive, he used to bound across the countryside, free, and then sprawl belly-up on the ground, panting. He couldn’t do that anymore. He couldn’t even see the sky.
Outside, Kelsey always carried Pal in a backpack to protect him from falling into the void. She secured the backpack in the trunk of her car before slipping into the driver’s seat. It was a twenty minute drive to work with no traffic, one benefit of a very early morning. Because the hospital never closed, the best time for herding was that sweet spot between late night and early morning: 4:00 a.m. Despite the red-eye hour, a thirty-person crowd waited outside Maria Medical Center, filling the long rectangle of grass between the parking lot and street. Some sat on picnic blankets or collapsible lawn chairs. Others stood. All watched the marble, chimney-like chute jutting from the hospital dome. As Kelsey parked in front of the vigil keepers, she recognized several regulars who enjoyed witnessing last breaths rising, like smoke from a pyre, into the vestiges of starlight.
The new faces might be mourners, waiting to say goodbye. Last breaths rarely lingered near their cooling bodies; if they weren’t captured immediately, they drifted away, indistinguishable from other shimmers trapped in the labyrinth of medical departments.
That’s why hospitals were Kelsey’s biggest clients. Hospitals and slaughterhouses.
She entered the clinic through a discrete side door. The security guy, Philip, smiled at Kelsey in recognition; he didn’t even take a cursory glance at her badge. “I saw a couple on the second floor,” he said. “One followed me around like a duckling chasing after its mama.”
“Huh! Maybe they recognized you.”
“How?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Can they see? Maybe you don’t need the dog. If I was a shimmer, I’d follow a beautiful woman.”
“You will be a shimmer,” Kelsey said. “Sooner or later.”
“Christ.” The flirty smirk dropped off his face, and she couldn’t be more pleased. Philip’s hints were tiresome, and he never gave her the chance—the courtesy, really—to reject him outright. It wasn’t that Kelsey enjoyed telling people, “I’m not into you,”
but she had thirty years of practice under her belt and much preferred one direct, cathartic “no” to the awkwardness that had been happening twice a week at 4:00 a.m. for the past six months. It had been a mistake to confide that she wasn’t married during a bout of friendly rapport with Philip. That’s when his behavior switched from friendly to interested, and with every interaction Kelsey felt a little lonelier.
“It’s the human condition,” she said. “With that last exhale, you soar.” Of course, that was only partially true. Fish released shimmers, too, and they sucked fluid life through their gills. Without giving Philip another thought, Kelsey unzipped her backpack, and Pal floated upward like a bubble in a lava lamp. Once his shimmery body hit the paneling, he zipped across the hallway ceiling and took the first left, so familiar with the hospital layout he anticipated Kelsey’s directions.
Floor by floor, through sterile corridors and above sleeping patients, Pal ushered last breaths like he’d once herded sheep. He encouraged them into a huddle and up the stairs, where they gathered in the sixth-floor departure chamber, a hexagonal room with a white dome ceiling. Kelsey pressed a red button embedded in the wall, and the grate separating the marble chute from the dome slipped aside with a whir, converting the room into an inverted funnel.
“You’re free,” she said, peering at the nine last breaths that clung to the ceiling perimeter. “Just let go.” Kelsey used a yard stick to guide Pal into his backpack. “Good boy,” she said. Her bag shivered as he wagged a remembered tail. His work was done. After all, they weren’t actually the breaths of sheep. Each one of those shimmers had carried a human through life, whatever that entailed, from the first gasp and scream to this. Kelsey needed the fall upward to be their choice.
One by one, the shimmers slid up the dome and through the chute until just one breath remained. The straggler clung to the concave ceiling so tightly their body was flat and wide like a quaking, gelatinous puddle. The poor thing seemed afraid to fall. In Kelsey’s experience, many shimmers were reluctant, and she often wondered where that reluctance came from and why other shimmers—like her parents—left without hesitation. Some might fear the cosmic unknown or have unfinished business, she supposed. Others might be unwilling to let go.
“Hi there,” Kelsey said. She checked her phone clock. “Six thirty. A beautiful time to fly. The sun has risen, and it’s warm.”
The shimmer sluggishly inched down the wall, fighting the pull of the sky.
“You can’t stay here.” She lowered her voice and continued, “I’m not supposed to …”
Her phone rang, and for a panicked instant, Kelsey felt a rush of guilt, always her first reaction when the outside burst into private moments. She stared at the bright screen in wide-eyed confusion until the caller—unknown number—went to voicemail. It was barely past dawn. Who called so early? Even scammers had a better sense of timing.
“Sorry,” she continued. “I’m not supposed to go until the room is empty.” In the United States, it was illegal for shimmers to be contained by anyone but family or specific conservators, and the practice, even done legally, was generally considered tasteless. Sensibilities had changed since the Victorian era; back then, last breaths were often sealed in urns. There must be thousands of imprisoned shimmers still languishing in museums, catacombs, and tombs.
Kelsey sat against the closed door, her legs crossed at the ankles under her long, traditional camp skirt, homemade from yellow fabric with a pink flower print. “How about a story?”
It took forty minutes, but in the middle of an anecdote about her grandmother’s tortilla-eating longhorns, the shimmer finally slid up the dome and through the chute. Maybe they missed their own grandmother.
As she left the departure room, Kelsey checked the voicemail. A deep voice rasped:
Good morning, Miss Bride. Jennie Smith—you clear her poultry farm—gave me your number. Sorry for the hour. I need help. Desperately. Can you banish burdened breaths? The one in my neighborhood has killed
A pause.
so many people.
He recited his name, Clint Abbott, and phone number.
Please call back. I’m acting on behalf of the Sunny Honeycomb Salt Pond Homeowner’s Association.
Philip must have noticed something haunted in Kelsey’s face, because he asked, “Everything all right?”
“It’s a prospective client.” She lowered the phone from her twice-pierced right ear. Kelsey wore a silver squash blossom through the lobe, but her cartilage piercing was half-closed from disuse.
“Is the city trying to poach you again?”
“Nah.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what this is.”
Kelsey replayed the message as she crossed the parking lot, still shocked by the request. The repetition did not numb her dismay. Sure, her business card read: Kelsey Bride, Shimmer Finder and Guide. But that didn’t make her a detective. She’d only searched for the burdened, murderous dead once, and that was a decade ago. They weren’t exactly common. The act that made a last breath burdened was so terrible the word “murder” didn’t do it justice.
She cradled Pal’s backpack. “I’m sorry.”
Kelsey returned Clint’s call.
THE VICTIMS, ACCORDING to Clint:
Peter. Twenty-eight years old. Murdered six months ago during a recreational dive in the Honeycomb Sea Caves with several other scuba enthusiasts. His last words: “I’m stuck. All tangled up.” Body never recovered.
Spencer. Forty-one years old. Murdered four months ago. A seasoned diver exploring the Honeycomb Sea Caves for the ninth time. Footage and audio were recorded by his GoPro camera. On Spencer’s guide rope-assisted exit from the caves, he stopped moving forward. Audio includes: “Somebody got me.” No abnormalities, including other divers or obstructions, were captured by the GoPro. However, visibility during Spencer’s death was low, since he disturbed silt.
Kylie. Nineteen years old. Murdered two months ago. She had been swimming in the brackish pond over the sea caves. Nobody witnessed her drowning. Kylie’s body was discovered by two divers inside the cave system.
The caves and pond were closed after Kylie’s death.
Patricia. Sixty-one years old. Murdered this week. Crushed in her bed between 3:00 a.m and 9:00 a.m. Patricia was Clint Abbott’s neighbor. Their community surrounded the brackish pond, which connected to the Atlantic Ocean through a narrow, marsh-straddled channel. On the night Patricia died, two outdoor cameras recorded evidence of burdened breath activity. Police investigation ongoing.
“Burdened breaths are rare,” Kelsey said. She and Clint shared a booth in Sprinkle’s Donut Diner, reviewing his notes. She ate a cinnamon bear claw and drank coffee with cream; he ate nothing but was finishing his third cup of oil-black coffee. They made an unusual pair: Clint, six-foot-three, stout and reddened by the Atlantic sun and Kelsey, four-foot-eleven, her round face a rich tan surrounded by a home-cut bob; her hair a mix of white and black strands which from afar resembled metallic silver. “They’ve never been observed in a controlled setting.”
“What does that mean?” Clint asked. “Controlled?”
“A laboratory. All mice float.” Kelsey glanced at Pal’s bag. “Personally,” she said, “I doubt that nonhuman breaths can become burdened. Well. Perhaps chimpanzees. They hunt monkeys for sport. Kinda messed up.”
“Is it true that…” His jaw tightened, as if something innate resisted the question.
“Yes.” Kelsey took a bite of her bear claw and immediately regretted it. “Dead that eat the dead get pushed against the Earth. In a curious way, it’s like losing weight. The pull of that alien gravity weakens, and then it shoves the cannibal shimmers away. Crushes them against the land. That’s why all the burdened breaths in historical records co-occur with disasters like coal mine accidents, earthquakes, and train derailments. Mass deaths trapping normal, buoyant last breaths in an enclosed space, providing the cannibal with ample time and opportunity. So my next question, Clint: has there been a rec
ent catastrophe in town?”
“No,” he said. “Not until Patricia and… and the rest, anyway. Can you help?”
“Maybe,” she said. “You’re staying with friends, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “In Cape Cod. It’s a commute, but it’s less expensive than a hotel.”
“Distance is good. Don’t return home yet. In fact, avoid the pond. The murderer will kill again to maintain its reverse weight and stay tethered on Earth.”
Who knew what waited up there for cannibals: a reckoning? Nothingness? Paradise? A larger, hungrier mouth?
“Have you handled one before?” he asked.
She nodded. “Once. About ten years ago. I travelled a lot back then. Life was fifty percent gardening and sheep-shearing at the farm, and fifty percent wandering. It was fun. Kind of perfect, actually. I had this ’99 gold Monte Carlo, and when the urge struck, I bundled Pal into a fine silk bag and drove all the way to California. We made pit stops in every big city; when populations are high and buildings are like beehives, there’s never a lack of work for people like me.”
“You said you had a farm?”
“My parents did,” she said. “Just a little one. They sold yarn and veggies at the farmer’s market.”
“A labor of love?”
“Yes,” Kelsey said. “Exactly that.” Heartache was always inside her, like the bile in her stomach, and now it swelled. All that remained of their love and labor were weeds around an empty house.
“And the encounter?” Clint asked. He seemed eager to change the subject.
“The job was at an abandoned high school in Houston,” she said. “The kind for thousands of students. Imagine this massive brick building, seriously damaged by Hurricane Andrea, with broken windows and chained doors. It was fenced up for months before they started renovations. Apparently, the crew had only been working a couple hours when they found a pair of bodies in one of the classrooms. Two adults. The city contracted me to sweep the building and make sure their last breaths had escaped. The police had already checked and didn’t find anything. But the glass kept breaking, and the renovation crew kept getting goosebumps. So they figured the police missed one or both breaths; in a building that size, it’s understandable. I agreed. Figured it would be a quick and interesting job. Pal has keen ears, for lack of a better word. And the building was scary looking, but I had backup in the form of two police escorts. They gave me a face mask and a hard hat, too.