Silence (29 page)

“We couldn’t, before,” Catherine condescended to tel him.

“We couldn’t until Emma. But now we can talk to each other.

Georges can talk to Emma’s dad,” she added. “I like him.”

Georges faced Emma. “You need to cal the others,” he told Georges faced Emma. “You need to cal the others,” he told her. “Margaret is realy smart. She can help you. She’s been in the City of the Dead for a long time.”

“Does she want to come?” Emma asked him. She tried to keep hope out of her voice.

Georges nodded. “She says it’s dangerous, though.”

“Why?”

“Necromancers.”

Chase swore. A lot.

“Chase, do you want to go?”

“Fuck.” He reached into his pocket and swore more loudly.

“The fucking phone! If we survive this, I’m going to kil Eric.”

Emma grimaced. “I’ve got mine,” she told him. She glanced significantly at both of her occupied hands. “It’s in the left pocket. Dig it out.”

He did as she asked, although it was slightly awkward, and when he’d flipped it open, he punched the buttons hard enough it was a smal miracle they didn’t come out the phone’s back. “If Eric doesn’t answer this—Eric?” He moved a little away from Emma, and covered his mouth. “Emma, get this show on the road—we don’t have time. Yeah, it’s me. Who else?

“We might have a problem. No, shit for brains, a serious problem. One of the ghosts says we’ve got Necromancers. No kidding. No, they’re not talking about Emma. No, how the hel should I know? They’re not talking to me. You want me to leave?” He glanced at Emma.

Emma caled Margaret, Suzanne, and Emily. They came Emma caled Margaret, Suzanne, and Emily. They came quickly, and far more easily than either Georges or Catherine had done. But they came because Emma summoned them.

“Maybe. How the hel should I know? Look—you need to get the others the hel away from the house. Yes, I’l stay. I think it’s a waste, but I’l stay.” He looked up at Emma. “Emma— when your ghost said Necromancers, plural, was that just a figure of speech?”

“I don’t know. Give them a sec, we can ask.”

“A second is about al the time we have. We didn’t manage to kil Longland.”

“Margaret?” Emma’s voice was soft and shaky. She couldn’t reach out to touch the older woman because she didn’t want to let go of Andrew, even if touching him didn’t seem to be doing any good. Margaret, who was not six, made no attempt to touch her.

Margaret was the oldest of the four who’d been trapped along one wal in Amy’s ad hoc dancing room. Her hair was an austere blend of gray and brown, and her eyes were the same noncolor, the slight odd glow, that the eyes of al of the dead seemed to be; she wore clothing that would have suited businesswomen thirty years ago. Or more.

She looked at Chase. “It was not,” she said, in a deep and precise voice, “a simple figure of speech. But you may tel your hunter that one of those Necromancers is Merrick Longland.”

Chase looked back. Margaret was visible to him, even though Emma couldn’t touch her. “How do you know?”

One gray brow rose. Emma had seen teachers with less One gray brow rose. Emma had seen teachers with less effective stares.

So, apparently, had Chase. “How long do we have?”

“Minutes,” Margaret answered. “Possibly ten.”

“How many?”

“I can be certain only of Longland. And Emma.”

“Then you’re not certain there are more.”

“There are more. At least one other, possibly two. I can’t tel you who they are, but I can tel you they’re with Longland.”

“Fine. Eric, you stil there? No, it wasn’t a figure of speech.

Yes, we’re screwed. You stil don’t want backup?” The silence lasted a minute too long, and Chase flipped the phone shut.

“Emma—go. Whatever you need to do, do it now.”

“Chase—”

“Because if the fire doesn’t kil us, the Necromancers wil.

Eric’s our best,” he added. “But even Eric can’t stand against more than one Longland. Not alone.”

“Then go. Help him. You can’t do anything here anyway.”

Chase hesitated. “He’l kil me.”

“Probably. And I’d like him to be alive to do it.” She turned only her face—her body was aligned with her hands—and added, “Maria’s children are out there. Alison and Michael.

Skip and Amy. You were right,” she added, her voice dropping.

“Go.”

Chase shoved the phone back into her pocket and then sprinted for the door. Smoke bilowed in when it opened, and the air seemed to be sucked out, into the hal. He slammed the door shut behind him, for al the good it would do.

“I’m of two minds about that boy,” Margaret told Emma. She then glanced at Andrew, whose screaming had quieted. It hadn’t stopped; he’d just lost volume as the minutes passed. “But I think you’l win him over, in the end.”

Emma clenched her teeth. She’d met women like Margaret before, however, and she forced herself to speak politely and clearly when she trusted herself to speak at al. “Margaret, if we don’t manage to reach Andrew, we’re—Maria and I—not going to leave this place. Not alive.”

Margaret nodded, and her expression softened; it added years to her face, but those years weren’t unkind; she had the bone structure that made a lie of youthful beauty. “Can you bind him, Emma?”

“Can I what?”

“Bind him. Bind him the way we’re bound to you.”

“How do I do that?”

“How did you bind us?”

“You were already tied to a wal. I just—I broke the chains around you and they kind of stuck to me.”

Margaret closed her eyes and shook her head, and Suzanne gently touched the older woman’s shoulder. “Wel?” Margaret said, opening her eyes and looking to Suzanne. Suzanne glanced at Andrew, who was standing and shuddering on the bed. “I don’t think so,” she said, after a pause. “He’s too young, Margaret, and too new.”

“He is very, very powerful, though.”

“He is very, very powerful, though.”

“He is.”

“Emma, can you touch that power at al?”

“I can touch him. I—no.” She gave up on excuses. “No. I can’t.”

“Wel, then.” Margaret turned to Maria Copis. “I’m sorry for my lack of manners, but the situation is somewhat dire,” she said, speaking slowly enough that the words seemed to run counter to their content. “I’m Margaret Henney. You are Andrew’s mother?”

Maria managed to pul her glance away from her son. Her face was streaked with trails, and those trails were now dark gray. “I am. I—”

Margaret lifted a hand. “I know, dear. My son drowned in a crowded lake at the height of one summer. I understand guilt.

And loss. I also understand that you wouldn’t be here at al if it weren’t for Emma.

“But neither would we. I am about to suggest that we try something that may not work. And it may leave some permanent scars.”

Maria Copis laughed. “You think I care about scars?”

Emma, listening, shook her head. “She’s not talking about that kind of scar,” she told Maria. “I think she means it might change you somehow.”

“Wil it get my son out of here?” Maria said, stil looking at Margaret.

“It might. It’s the only thing I can think of that has any chance, unless you’re wiling to wait another ten years.”

unless you’re wiling to wait another ten years.”

Maria’s eyes widened. Answer enough. “Emma, what is she suggesting?”

“I’m not sure.” Emma hesitated, thinking. It was hard, because Andrew had found a second—or third, or tenth—wind.

“Is it something you can do, Margaret?”

“No, Emma. Not I.”

“Me, then.”

The older woman nodded. “What do you see, when you look at us?”

“The dead.” Emma shook her head. “No. Truthfuly, you wouldn’t look dead to me at al if it weren’t for your eyes.” And the fact that they could appear out of thin air.

“What do you see when you look at Maria?”

“I see Maria.” Emma started to describe her, and stopped as Margaret’s words finaly came into focus, over the endless wails of a bereaved four-year-old boy. She swalowed, coughed.

“Margaret—”

“Look at her, Emma. Look carefully.”

Emma shook her head, almost wild. “She’s alive, Margaret.”

She glanced at the door, as if seeking some kind of guidance from Chase, who was no longer in the room. “I can’t—” pause.

“Do Necromancers—can they—”

“What you are, and what they are, are not yet the same. You can become them,” Margaret added, in her crisp, clear voice.

“Or you can become something different. But, yes, Emma. If they were wiling to pay the price, they could touch the living.”

“What price?” Maria asked Margaret. She was pale, the way “What price?” Maria asked Margaret. She was pale, the way old statues are pale.

Margaret looked at Maria, and her expression gentled again.

“You cannot pay it for her, although you may suffer in the process. You are wiling to suffer; I don’t doubt it, and in the end, neither does our Emma. But Emma is afraid of losing what she is.”

“Wil I?” Emma asked starkly.

Margaret didn’t answer. But Georges came to stand by Emma’s side, and he wrapped his arms around her, briefly.

Catherine did the same, looking first to see whether or not Georges’ gesture was met with disapproval.

“Margaret, wil it kil her?”

Margaret said nothing for a long moment. When she did speak, she said, “Trust yourself.” Which was so far from comfort, she might as wel not have bothered. “Catherine, dear?”

Catherine detached herself from Emma. “Yes?”

“Please. The young boy?”

Catherine nodded. “He’s very loud,” she said. But she walked over to Andrew Copis, and she put both her arms around him, as if she were his older sister. He started, looked at her, and then screamed MOM at the top of his little lungs.

The world slowed, then. The smoke seemed to freeze in place.

Margaret looked at Emma again, as if this had been some sort of proof, at the end of a long theorem. In a way, it was. Because Emma now thought she understood exactly what Margaret Emma now thought she understood exactly what Margaret hoped she could achieve. She took a deep breath, nodded, and then let Andrew Copis go.

Maria darted forward and stopped. She took deep, deep breaths while she stood rigid.

Emma looked at Maria Copis. She saw a woman who was not quite thirty, in a sooty shirt, baggy jeans. Her hair was dark, her eyes were dark, and her face was that kind of gaunt that makes you feel like a voyeur just seeing it. Emma shook herself, took a much shalower series of breaths than Maria had, and looked again.

Her eyes were dark, yes. Her cheeks were stained. This wasn’t helping. She was alive, her son was dead; they were divided by that state. Just as Emma and her father had been divided, as Emma and Nathan had been divided. Death was silence, loss, guilt. And anger.

But life led that way, anyway. From birth, it was a slow, long march to the grave. Who had said that? She couldn’t now remember. But it was true. They were born dying. If they were very lucky, the dying was caled aging. They reached toward it as if they were satelites in unstable orbits.

And when they got there, they were just dead. Like the unfamiliar student in the cafeteria. One moment in time separated the living from the ghosts. Emma looked for that moment now.

She tried to age Maria in her mind’s eye, the way she avoided aging her mother. It didn’t help, and she discarded the attempt, wishing—briefly—that she’d brought Michael with her. Michael, wishing—briefly—that she’d brought Michael with her. Michael, with his rudimentary social understanding and his ability to see beyond almost al of it, would have had a better chance of arriving at something useful than she did.

Michael would have asked her the important questions. What is death? What are the dead? Why are they here? Do people have souls, Emma? Can you prove it?

Wel? Did they have souls?

She glanced at Margaret, at Suzanne, and at the two children.

Did it matter? They looked as they must have looked in life.

Not in death; the death itself didn’t seem to define them. But the life they’d lived? That did. In the clothing, the names, the style of their hair, the way they spoke to her. They remembered what they had been; it was, in essence, what they stil were.

If Maria Copis died now—today, here—this is what she would look like, to Emma. Because this is what she would look like to herself. It was there. It was in her. People couldn’t predict death most of the time. Maybe ever.

“Maria,” Emma said. “Give me your hand. Just one.”

Maria held out a hand. She hesitated for just a moment, then firmly gripped Emma’s in her own.

Emma looked at her. Not at her face, her hair, or her clothing; not at her expression. “Georges,” she said, not taking her eyes off Maria, “come here and take my other hand.”

Georges shuffled along the planks, and then she felt his hand in hers. It wasn’t cold, but she knew why. Her father’s gift. She used it now, without pause for regret or guilt.

When she touched the dead, the living could see them. Eric When she touched the dead, the living could see them. Eric had said this was because she was using some of their power— some very smal part—to make them visible. To give them a voice. But now, just now, she tried to see how she was taking that power. What she was actualy touching when she reached for what looked like a hand.

She closed her eyes, because actualy looking wasn’t helping her to see at al.

She heard Maria say, “Helo, Georges.”

She heard Georges reply. Where, in his words, was Emma’s power? Where, in that quiet, child’s voice, was some evidence of her work? There. In the palm of her hand. A smal tendril, a string, a chain. Something that bound him to her, but something that also bound her to him. It went both ways.