by Mary Eicher
Artemis listened to Lucy’s abbreviated life story and found herself taking a liking to the talkative young woman. She was even prettier than Artemis recalled from their first meeting, with bright eyes and full lips and that perpetual cheerfulness. She seemed honest and kind in the way she spoke about people, including the man who had fathered her little girl and then faded into the background. Artemis could see strength in her and found listening to her a pleasant change from being alone.
Lucy found Artemis beguiling. She was cool and reserved and seemingly unaware of her remarkable attributes. She didn’t talk a lot, but she listened intently and she seemed to be conscious of everything around her as if constantly on guard. Artemis and her brother had been extremely close. His loss had been unbearable and Lucy could see that Artemis felt completely alone.
At 5:30 p.m., Lucy said she needed to head home. Artemis thanked her for the coffee and the conversation and stayed to purchase something for her dinner. She found the reporter’s company soothing, and while Lucy hadn’t said so directly, Artemis could sense that Lucy wanted to help her out of her depression. And for at least a few hours, she had.
Chapter Three
The article made it into print for the weekend edition. It was buried in the human interest section amid promotions for a local liquor store and event coupons. Jake had insisted it wasn’t a front page caliber story, more of a common oddities article that he almost didn’t approve for inclusion at all.
But he had badly prejudged public interest. The story made it to all three local news channels within a few days, if lightheartedly commented upon. The bigger surprise was the amount of feedback the article generated. Dozens of inquiries for more information and nearly a hundred letters with corroborating stories were received by the small, regional publication. Evidently bells were ringing all across Southern California.
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” Jake quipped as he placed another stack of mail on her desk. “Evidently it tolls for you.”
“I’m not supposed to answer all those, am I?” Lucy asked with a hint of horror on her petite features. She was already inundated with emails.
“Worse news, Luce.” He chuckled. “You’re going to select the most tear-inducing ones and do some research. I want a follow-up article for next weekend. Our readers seem to like this kind of fantasy fluff.”
Lucy undid the string containing the bundle of letters. “Do I get some help?”
“Of course not. It’s hell to be popular. But it’s your hell, Luce.” He stuck his unlit pipe into his mouth and grinned. “You started this. Now you get to finish it.”
She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. “What if it’s true?” she muttered under her breath.
“Then we have a brave new world.” He turned on his heels and secluded himself in his office. Lucy could see he was chuckling.
There were letters from a dozen municipalities, but the majority came from nearby Los Angeles County. That would make things easier, she thought. A few of the letters claimed she should be damned for her diabolical heresy. Those hit the round file immediately. Some letters were so filled with grief and sadness she had to set them aside before reading them in full. Most were directly to the point: a relative or friend had heard the bells and died three days later. She was astonished at how many of them there were.
She checked the death rates for LA County—more than thirty thousand deaths a year. By comparison, her several hundred letters seemed trivial. But the Messenger had a tiny readership, so it was possible word wasn’t reaching enough people. Her gut told her to continue looking.
At 5:30, she put the sorted mail into file folders and headed home. Her little girl was coming down with a cold, and she had let the child stay home with her grandmother. She hoped it was a mild cold. Angie was in kindergarten and managed to pick up every germ that walked by. Lucy could handle a runny nose. Anything more serious would send her into an irrational maternal panic. She stopped at Kmart and picked up some juice bars. They were Angie’s favorite, and if the child was sick, a treat would cheer her up.
Her cell phone chirped as she pulled into her driveway. There was a text from Artemis.
*
Doctor Fielding picked up the article and read it for a second time. He had worked the accident in Lake Isabella and was familiar with the story about people hearing strange sounds in their heads a few days before the crash. It was not unusual for wild rumors to circulate following a tragedy. Survivors looked for answers and invented them when the facts were inadequate to ease their pain. A community had been destroyed. It was unfortunate, but he had come to accept those things happen.
“What do you think of this?” He handed the paper to his student assistant.
“I read it. I’m the one who put it on your desk,” she answered. She looked nervous and took a shallow breath. Her boss was unpredictable and demanding in a terrifying way. “I don’t know what to think. Do you?”
“It’s a silly story.”
“Only it’s not.” The young woman found the courage to disagree. “I checked the facts. None of the survivors had the bell ringing experience. But many, I couldn’t verify all, but many of those who died on the ground had experienced hearing bells ringing three days earlier. It was quite an item of conversation before the crash.”
Doctor Fielding smirked at his gullible assistant. She was new. It seemed all his assistants were new since he went through them expeditiously enough. He had a temper and didn’t like to be challenged.
“And if they had all gotten a cold before the crash, would we have to conclude that the rhinovirus foretold their deaths?”
The woman lowered her eyes. “Well, no, of course not. But you have to admit it is weird, Doctor.”
“Fortunately, we don’t deal in weird.”
He turned back to the neat pile of papers on his desk. His final report on the Lake Isabella accident was nearly complete, and he was eager to submit it.
“Did any of the passengers on the plane hear bells before the crash?”
His assistant chewed on a fingernail, uncertain whether she should answer. But she did. “Yes. That’s just it. Several of the passengers heard the bells.” Then she went a step too far. “Even the pilot did according to his wife.”
Doctor Fielding removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was a man of science. He didn’t like facts that strayed from his meticulously constructed view of reality. At that moment he did not like his assistant either. He turned to the last page of his report and reluctantly added a footnote. He would mention the strange coincidences, but he would not validate them. It was the safe, professional thing to do.
*
“I read your article,” Artemis said when Lucy called.
“I’m sorry if it disappointed you. I tried not to dwell on the plane crash or make it a conspiracy like you feared.”
“No, I liked it. You did a good job.” Artemis surprised Lucy who felt a rush of relief. “I was wondering about any response you got?”
“Listen, that requires a long answer, and I have a five-year-old to deal with just now,” Lucy said. “Are you available tomorrow? I’d like to have a real conversation about all this. There’s more, much more.”
“Yes, sure. I’m not doing much lately; mainly just feeling sorry for myself. Come over when you like, and we’ll talk.”
“I’ll be there by ten. Thank you, Temmie.”
Artemis clicked off the phone. The grandfather clock chimed the hour, and she froze. Seven chimes later she let out a breath and relaxed her shoulders. The boxes full of Ichabod’s things stood where she had put them in the spare room. She thought about finally going through them and then walked on past and went into the kitchen. She was going to have a guest tomorrow. The least she could do was straighten up the house. No doubt Lucy had found her rude at first and ultimately depressed at best. There was no need to have her think she was a slob as well.
She made it to the bedroom by midnight. Coast to Coast was on t
he radio and George Noory was talking about Lucy’s article with some caller. It was becoming a thing, she realized as she undressed. People were starting to wonder what might be happening in Southern California. She decided to leave the radio on.
Noory’s guest was a popular medium with whom Artemis was familiar. She had had a private session with him when she went through that New Age phase after college. He was the first one who told her she’d been “touched.” Neither he nor any subsequent psychics had been able to define what that meant or who had done the touching. But she had accepted the diagnosis as an accurate, if imprecise, description of the sense she had of being different. Artemis had never felt she belonged in a world that primarily sought to constrain her with arbitrary rules and petty prejudices.
Ichabod used to tease her about her feelings, dubbing them her spider sense when they were children. Only they weren’t feelings. They were impressions something was amiss, or there were forces at work beyond what others could perceive. There were wolves beneath pleasant façades and sheep unaware of danger. She could have been a wolf, she knew; but even that hardly seemed worth the effort. Once she’d realized talking about such things with anyone but Ichabod earned her looks of distrust or even downright disapproval, she had kept her impressions to herself and turned away from the carnage.
That was part of what drove her crazy about the disaster in Lake Isabella. Cab, perfectly oblivious Cab, had heard the bells. She had not. She hadn’t even sensed the danger as she normally could do. She had lost not only her beloved brother but a sense of self. She was a stranger alone in a world she’d never really understood.
*
Lucy arrived at ten dressed in a pair of hip-hugger jeans and a crisp white shirt. Her light-brown hair fell straight to just above her shoulders. She was very attractive, Artemis noted again. She had a firm, shapely body, and even though barely five feet four, Lucy cut an impressive figure.
“You don’t look like a reporter,” Artemis observed as she motioned Lucy into the dining room where they could sit at a table and talk.
“How does a reporter look?” Lucy asked.
“A bit more disheveled. You look nicely put together.” Artemis explained.
“You look pretty good yourself, Temmie.” Lucy flashed a grin. “I see we both got the memo about jeans.”
That earned a slim smile from Artemis as she settled them in a large, airy room. A beautifully carved cabinet matched the long ash dining table and the ten chairs covered in pale-pink silk. Sunlight streamed in from the wall of windows and large glass doors opened to late May blooms populating a magnificent garden.
“Nice place,” Lucy commented as she glanced around. “You have exquisite taste, Temmie. You must take me on a tour sometime. I’d love to see the rest of this mansion of yours.”
“It’s hardly a mansion, Lucy,” Artemis scoffed, although the huge house didn’t seem a home to her either. It had become a mausoleum full of memories and the ghosts of those she’d lost. It was an echo chamber of whispers that reverberated down the halls and tugged at her heart in the night.
Lucy pulled a thick folder from her leather satchel. “These are a few of the feedback letters I’ve received about the article.”
“A few?” Artemis asked, noting the overflowing folder.
Lucy leaned forward and tapped the folder with her finger. “There are hundreds of them. I just brought the ones I wanted to follow up on.” She put her hand on Temmie’s arm. “I hope to talk you into helping me with this.”
Artemis stared down at the hand on her arm, experiencing a sense of warmth from the contact. “How could I help?”
“We need to talk to these people, Temmie. We need to see if what they’re saying is true or if they are just pulling my chain. You know, for fifteen minutes of fame and all.”
“I’ll hold your coat while you interrogate them, if you want. But I’m not too good with people.”
She put her hand where Lucy’s had touched her and felt the warmth that remained.
“Sorry, I’m a toucher and a hugger. I should have warned you.” Lucy winced sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Artemis shook her head. “You didn’t. I just haven’t been around anyone for a while. I haven’t felt a human touch in—I don’t know really.” She formed a sad smile. “It felt nice.”
Lucy picked the top letter on the stack and handed it to Artemis.
“This one breaks my heart. It’s from a father whose son commented on hearing bells a few days before he died. He’d been fighting cancer at the Children’s Hospital.” She paused. “He was twelve.”
“Let me browse through them.” Artemis rose from one knee on her chair and reached for the file. “Are there any that don’t involve family members? I don’t think I can handle that right now.”
“I’m pretty sure a few will break your heart. I’ve glanced at all of them, and the stories are beginning to run together. The saddest ones tend to stick in my mind though. And I hate the ones involving kids.”
Artemis paged through the stack in silence. The letters were sad and yet expressed gratitude for Lucy’s article. It was as if her story had given the writers permission to speak about something once too unbelievable to mention. She read them and recognized the pain. It was the same as the ache in her heart.
Lucy watched her read in silence. She studied the soft planes of Artemis’s face and the soft curls of her long black hair. Artemis was an astonishingly beautiful woman. But she was guarded in a way that seemed to hold her apart from a world too painful to live in. Maybe agreeing to help Lucy with this particular assignment would help Artemis as well, she thought. She sent a text to her editor and waited for Artemis to finish with the file.
“Are you hungry?” Lucy asked when Artemis set down the last letter. “I’ll treat you to a late lunch. We can decide which of these to follow up on while we eat.”
She rose from the chair and stowed the folder in her briefcase.
Artemis raised an eyebrow, taken off-guard by the invitation. “Uh. Well, okay.”
“You haven’t eaten in a while, have you?” Lucy said without really asking. “Come on. Let’s get some food in you. We have a lot of work to do. I can’t have you keeling over from hunger.”
Artemis slipped her wallet and keys into her pockets. “I don’t own a purse,” she said as they exited the house.
“That’s okay,” Lucy responded. “I see a motorcycle in your driveway. That’s much more impressive than a purse.”
*
The initial article didn’t escape the attention of busybody bureaucrats who believed monitoring public discord was their divine calling. Jake had fielded two calls from the LA County Health Department that morning and had a slew of information calls from the Times. Lucy’s silly little human interest story was going to go big time. He packed tobacco in his pipe and stuck it in his teeth without lighting it. Smoking was forbidden, but he had become adept at sucking on the damn thing.
Lucy had texted him about the woman witness she had interviewed last week. She wanted to hire her to help with the story. He rubbed his palms together as he considered the expense. If the Times proved willing to reimburse him for additional information, he would be able to take on a temp, especially one who looked as fine as Artemis Andronikos. Lucy might even bring her into the office from time to time. He texted Lucy.
Okay.
The bells from San Angelo Church rang out the noon hour, and Jake felt a queasy sensation in his gut. What had Lucy asked the other day? “What if it’s true?” He walked over to the window. Several stories below, the city was a busy place full of people going about their lives, following the rules, assuming they were immortal. How different would it be if they knew they were about to die?
He chomped down on the pipe. “Nonsense!” he said between his teeth. “Utter nonsense!” He picked up a pink phone slip and decided to negotiate with the Times. Even nonsense could be profitable. That was why he was in the news business.<
br />
*
The Messenger didn’t publish a follow-up article the next weekend. Instead, the lengthy article that Lucy crafted with Artemis’s help appeared heavily edited in the L.A. Times with a byline of both their names. They had validated more than fifty of the stories people had sent to them. The witnesses were credible. The conclusion was not. And that was how the Times played it.
“'Some people report having had a psychic experience before death,’” Lucy read aloud, disgusted by what had happened to their story. “They make it sound like we wear tinfoil hats. They are laughing at us.”
She crumpled the paper and tossed it across the room. She blamed Jake for letting this happen. His money-grubbing ways had led him to sell her story to the infidels who played it for laughs, and her boss was too stupid to see that. Hot angry tears welled in her eyes.
“It doesn’t matter,” Artemis said in a calming voice. “It’s real, and the people who experienced it know it.”
“It does matter.” Lucy pouted as she paced. “The media serves a purpose. It informs the people so they can live better lives, make better decisions.”
Artemis sat in her window chair and watched Lucy flail around the immense living room. “The media isn’t about truth, Lucy. It’s all propaganda, not news. The media tells us what to think, not what to think about.”
Lucy folded her arms and glared at her friend. “Well, thank you very much. I work for ‘the media,’ remember?”
“Then I am in the presence of the last honest reporter. Let me shake your hand.”