All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  “It’s like she made it for me,” Tucker muttered. He toed off his shoes and placed them neatly at the foot of the bed, then pulled off his shirt and his jeans and folded them loosely to put on top of the dresser.

  “What are you doing?” Angel sounded scandalized. “You’re not going to… to….” He made vague motions that got really specific just as he—ghostly apparition that he was—blushed.

  Tucker squinted at him. He was looking less and less like Damie by the minute, and something about his slightly pointier features was getting more and more appealing.

  “No, there is not going to be any sex for one here today,” he said, yawning. “I’m tired, Angel. It’s been a longassed day and it’s barely noon. I’m going to bed for an hour or three, and we can resume this stimulating discussion about how much of a life I won’t have just as soon as I wake up.”

  “You’re tired?” Those wide eyes were going to kill him. They were becoming almost waifish, and when Tucker had had a type—male or female—that had been one of his types.

  “Yes, my ghostly companion, because that is what happens when you have sex for hours instead of sleeping. Now, you can sit on the dresser or the end of the bed or go do your bills or watch yourself some TV—I’m uninterested in what you do without me as long as I get some shut-eye. So are we good?”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Angel said, looking down like it wasn’t. “I’d assumed you’d want to start seeing the ghosts immediately, but anybody would be tired after the grand tide almost washed them away.”

  “Grand tide?” Tucker asked, crawling into the blessedly clean sheets. The blanket was barely enough, and Tucker made a mental note to bring his own stuff—including blankets and camping gear—up to Foresthill.

  “It’s the wash of souls that was pent up in the house. There’s an ebb and flow, you see—it’s why you can usually walk in the house and not be assaulted. The cleaning person was last here a couple of weeks ago, and they came in and out from the side entrance, so the ghosts got really backed up. Usually it’s different. They go out, and they go in, and when it’s their time to have their stories told, that’s when fate intervenes with an object for you to read.”

  Tucker narrowed his eyes, feeling punchy and coquettish. “Are you fate? Come on… you can tell me. I won’t tell.”

  Angel snorted. “You are tired. Go to sleep. Call when you need me. And Tucker!”

  “Wha—” Tucker sat up, awake suddenly. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Sorry.” Angel looked almost comically chagrined. “Look. Don’t touch anything without me. This room is safe. Anything beyond this threshold could be dangerous.”

  Angel regarded him with those sober green eyes—pretty green eyes—and Tucker groaned. God, no being attracted to the ghosts. “Just be here when I wake up, okay?” Because attractive or not, the ghost he knew was actually more comforting than nothing at all.

  “Sure,” Angel said, and then he floated up to the top of the dresser, folded his legs, and rested his chin on his hands.

  Tucker rolled up tight in the one blanket and closed his eyes. He was cold, the pillow was flat, and the mattress was as hard as a rock.

  “The nurse slept here?” he asked, his eyes closed against the spartan room.

  “Yes. She said it was restful.”

  “She lied. I hope Aunt Ruth left her a buttload of money.”

  Angel grunted. “She did, in fact. How did you know?”

  Tucker could hear her thoughts, seeping through the flatiron of the pillow like acid through a table. She’d tried—but even the kindest people could be driven out of patience by someone who demanded the unreasonable. Damned old lady, does she think I trim her toenails for the hell of it? I’d better get some fucking money.

  “She was not happy here,” Tucker muttered, even though Abi had tried hard to be kind. The contradiction between Abi’s happiness about getting married and her resentment of her employer was part and parcel of most contradictory humans—he was not surprised. “You know what would be nice? A puppy. Puppies are always kind. They want to lick your face. If I had any control of my own life, I’d want a puppy.”

  “Do you think a dog would stay here?” Angel asked, surprised. “Dogs are very susceptible to psychic influences. I’d be afraid the grand tide would drive a dog insane.”

  “God, you suck.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It was my one good thought, asshole. I’m trying to make the best of a bad situation, and you give me ‘Oh, I’m sorry, your one ray of hope would be driven insane.’ It would have been awesome if you’d just bought into my little delusion for the span of a nap, you know?” Because little delusions had gotten him through since his parents had died and he’d realized that no part of his life would ever be his own again.

  “I’m sorry,” Angel whispered. “You’re right. I’m not very… empathetic. It’s why places like this need people like you and your aunt.”

  “Awesome. Well, I need a puppy.” Tucker had never wanted a dog before in his life, but suddenly, in this new place with the cold of the iron and the chill of the unhappy souls surrounding him, he wanted something. Something warm. Something that gave simply and expected only affection in return.

  Tucker fell asleep dreaming of loyal, trusting eyes staring at him as he slept.

  The eyes were green.

  TUCKER AWOKE in the late afternoon.

  The room had a window that faced north, into the riotous entropic garden, and the sun was enough to Tucker’s right that the west wing of the house cast a long shadow over the greenery. For a moment, as he lay staring into the world beyond the soul-trapping antique he slept in, he could see them. Women in Edwardian dresses walking, arms linked, along the garden path. A man wearing the uniform of a WWII aviator, gazing off into the sunset with melancholy in his eyes. Children sporting various periods of dress, darting around in what appeared to be a free-for-all game of hide-and-seek.

  Those were the happy ones. Tucker concentrated on them, ignoring the sinister man in gambler’s garb with a knife in his fist. The beaten young woman, covered in blood, dragging the scalp of her attacker behind her. The two young men, running hand in hand from a mob that would catch them if Tucker didn’t look away.

  There was too much tragedy in the world. And Tucker could only do so much. He closed his eyes against the worst of it and tried to find his center.

  He found it in the thought of a puppy and wanted to cry.

  Angel was right. A puppy wouldn’t be able to take all of this; dogs were already too attuned to ghosts as it was. Maybe a cat? Not that cats didn’t see psychic forces—cats just didn’t give a shit. If something freaked a cat out, they hissed and let it alone. A cat wouldn’t offer unconditional love like a puppy could—but if a cat did love you, it could return affection.

  Okay, then. The purring of a cat would have to be enough. Tucker was finally living in a place that didn’t expect half his rent in a cleaning deposit, and where he could let the cat go outside without the fear that it might become a victim of traffic. Ten acres spread outside his window, and there may be ghosts, but there were also birds, mice, and voles. A cat could weather the psychic storms of this place—and maybe give Tucker some stability as well.

  But a cat would want to roam the house. Tucker couldn’t blame it. He felt trapped in this room by its very existence. The one “clean” room here, and it was vaguely corrupted with the memories of an irritated nurse. Tucker wondered if he could bring his next “mission” here, and perhaps they could refresh the room with a sexual epiphany, giving the place the sort of joy it didn’t have now.

  But it would still be just one room. Tucker closed his eyes and pushed out with his imagination, remembering the oppressive Victorian décor he’d seen on all sides as he’d walked from the kitchen and down the corridor. Fifteen rooms, Angel had said, not including Aunt Ruth’s and this one here. Well, sort of. He’d said, “There should be fifteen bedrooms,” which didn’t bode well since he
’d existed at Daisy Place for at least seventy-five years and should know exactly. And he hadn’t been counting the bathrooms either.

  This had probably started off as a large family residence before it became a hotel, possibly a B and B–style place, which is what it had been before it had become a burden on the back of a frail old woman.

  Tucker wasn’t ready to populate the place with a family again, but he could make it into a B and B. One room at a time.

  He opened his eyes, and the macabre pageantry of souls on the lawn didn’t bother him quite so much.

  “Angel?” he said, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “Angel, are you awake?”

  “I don’t often sleep, but I do rest,” Angel said from his pose on top of the dresser. “What do you need?”

  “For starters, I need a cat.”

  “But—”

  “And for finishers, I need some books on home decorating, some home improvement tools, and a fuckton of paint.”

  “Tonight? I thought we’d start with an object or two. I have a pretty paperweight picked out—”

  God, this guy had an agenda. “Sure. Whatever. We’ll do the paperweight. You show me the room, we’ll start with the paperweight—but make it a good room, Angel, ’cause I’m spending the next month touching shit and clearing the place out. If I can’t change being stuck here, I’m going to change where I’m stuck. You understand?”

  Angel hopped from the dresser like he was a real boy and nodded. Standing, he was short—five eight or nine to Tucker’s six two. He regarded Tucker soberly, as though giving real weight to his words, and Tucker tried not to let his chest get too achy at the sight of those vulnerable freckles. Aw dammit, Damien! You would have hated this place. We could have wreaked beautiful havoc here and made it lovely.

  All he got back from Angel was a brooding silence.

  “What?”

  “What do you think will happen to this place, once all of the psychic energy is gone? It’s an energy trap, Tucker. Do you really mean to let people stay here again?”

  Tucker shrugged, standing up and wandering to the window. The ghosts were starting to wander in, fading as they got closer to the house. He wondered if…. “Why not? I mean, we could even bill the place as haunted. It’ll be great!”

  “But… but….” Angel actually sputtered, flailing his hands in untold directions as he tried to find words. “It will self-perpetuate. Don’t you understand?”

  “What were you going to do with it?” Tucker demanded. “Raze it to the ground? What good will that serve?”

  “What good?” Angel asked blankly.

  “Yes! It was obviously built as a place to trap souls—”

  “Not trap,” Angel said primly.

  “Of course trap,” Tucker argued. “If it wasn’t a trap, why won’t they leave on their own?”

  Angel blinked. “You know, in almost seventy-five years, I don’t remember your aunt ever asking that.”

  “Well, we’ll put a pin in it,” Tucker said. “You’re the one who told me it was surrounded by fairy-repelling metal. I’m pretty sure that’s not great for the souls who get stuck here.”

  Angel was mouthing the words “put a pin in it,” and Tucker took a deep breath.

  “It means ‘save it for later,’” he said patiently. “Can you tell me why we shouldn’t let people stay here now?”

  Angel shrugged. “A hunch? Empirical evidence? Just… history? It attracts the living too—people coming to this house or this hostel were troubled, in transition in their lives. So if they visited here and never found peace—”

  “They didn’t know to stop wandering,” Tucker acknowledged. “I get it. But that doesn’t mean it has to die! I mean, it was obviously built for a purpose. I looked out there at the garden—not all those people were bad. Maybe it does have a purpose, but not a sinister one. Maybe we should keep the old place from crumbling around our ears and find out, you think?”

  “No,” Angel muttered. “I do not think.”

  “Lucky you, I am here to do the thinking for you,” Tucker said grandly. He looked outside and watched the shadows stretch longer. Well hell—it was July. If they were stretching that long, odds were good it was near nine o’clock anyway. “But the home improvement will wait until tomorrow. So will the cat. In the meantime, let’s get a snack and get busy.”

  He slid into his loafers, yawned, scratched his head, and grinned. Angel stared back at him, still probably trying to find a reason the plan to renovate the place wouldn’t work.

  Screw him. Tucker had long ago learned to accept that his life was not under his control. God knew when he was going to be forced to wander down the street and into some stranger’s bed. But he’d learned that the things he could control—what to eat, how he decorated his apartment, how he chose to keep his body in shape—these were the things that made his existence as sweet as it could be.

  He had found the equivalent of roast beef au jus, Henri Matisse paintings, and tai chi in this situation, and he wasn’t going to let a snarky, opinionated ghost talk him out of it!

  BUT OH Lord, did Angel try.

  “I don’t understand!” he complained as Tucker began pan-toasting the bread for a roast beef sandwich. “You hated this place on sight. Why would you want to fix it up?”

  “I don’t understand!” Tucker whined. “You’re supposed to be helping me do shit here, and all you can do is complain that I’m doing it wrong. Jesus, I’ve been here less than eight hours. Give the rookie a chance.” With a practiced flip, he turned the bread and let it brown in the remaining butter.

  “It’s just that we don’t know what will happen if you start replacing objects and taking down walls.” Angel wrung his hands—actually wrung his hands—like an aggrieved ’50s movie heroine.

  “What will happen?” Tucker rolled his eyes. “What will happen is that I’ll be less inclined to hang myself from the ceiling fan and create a new cursed object!”

  “You’d do that?” Angel asked. And now that the echoes of their bickering had died down, Tucker heard shock and concern.

  He sighed and threw the roast beef on the bread and then added the onions he’d browned earlier. Unbidden, he remembered those days after Damien… after the funeral. He’d crawled into bed for days, barely surfacing to go to the bathroom. The only thing that had pulled him out of bed was the same thing that always pulled him—the painful punch to the gut that said it was time to go change somebody’s life. He’d managed a shower, and clean clothes that had hung on him like rags, and he’d even made it into the restaurant. He had no clear memory of the young man or the sex in a cheap hotel that had followed. What he did remember was the guy on the phone the next morning, whispering to his best friend, “Lor, you’ve got to come and get me. I think I slept with a homeless man last night. You’re right. I’ll go to rehab. This is it—I’ve totally hit rock bottom, and I need to change my life.”

  Tucker had feigned sleep and waited until the guy left, and then he’d cried. He’d wept for hours, until the maid had kicked him out and he’d dragged his sorry ass home.

  He’d spent the rest of the day cleaning and vacuuming—and shaving—and when he’d gone to bed that night, he’d made a resolution.

  This was a calling, and it had been since that first blowjob in McDonald’s. His job was to help people through the most painful decisions of their lives. And whether he liked it or not, his natural sex positivity and pansexuality was the catalyst. So it was like the priesthood, except sort of the opposite. He could either drink and mope his way through it, or he could enjoy the things he had.

  “Once,” he said now in response to Angel’s question. “Once it was that bad. As to whether or not it gets that bad again, I’ll leave that to you to sort out.”

  Angel was quiet for a while, and Tucker sort of forgot he was there. He sat down with his sandwich and a glass of milk, grateful for the coolness of the milk and the way the grilled onions burst butter on his tongue. He was savoring another
bite of his sandwich when Angel spoke, startling him.

  “Will you miss your home?”

  “That depends,” Tucker said after he swallowed.

  “On what?”

  “If I’m allowed to make this freakshow into a new one.”

  “Your aunt didn’t want anything changed,” Angel said humbly.

  Tucker sighed. “She was probably like me,” he said after chewing for a moment.

  “How?”

  “This thing you want me to do—give up the things I want to channel ghosts or help people make epiphanies or, hell, generally transition whether it’s in life or death—this thing is not easy. Or fun. In fact, it’s sort of ruined my life. So when I sit down to eat, I want my goddamned sandwich just the way I want it. ’Cause it’s the thing that gets me through the day.”

  “She wanted the house the way she remembered because it comforted her.” Angel’s voice was full of dawning realization, and Tucker couldn’t blame him for his obtuseness if he was willing to consider someone else’s thoughts.

  “Yup.”

  “You want to change it because you want something that’s yours.” And now Angel’s voice was full of understanding—another epiphany—and Tucker’s resentment faded a little.

  “Bingo!”

  Angel gazed off past Tucker’s left ear, and for a moment, the shape of the person Tucker had seen all day faded a little, like a picture in the sun. It returned, and Angel’s hair was darker, his face a little longer. Not a dead ringer for Damien now, but more like his older brother.

  Tucker blinked at him, and he blinked back, apparently not even registering that he’d changed.

  “Who in the fuck are you?” Tucker asked, his voice surprisingly level.

  “I’m Angel.” He offered a complacent smile, and Tucker rolled his eyes. That was probably all the answer he’d get for now.

  He took a breath and finished his sandwich.

  AFTERWARD HE washed up and stepped out onto the porch, looking to see if the ghosts had returned. Someone—Angel?—had left the side door to the kitchen open. They would have to come back into the house right through where Tucker was standing.