The Ghosting of Gods (4 page)

8
beware

We shouldn’t be here.

Acrid smoke carries on the wind across the river and up the cliffs. Flecks of ash settle on my shoulders. My mouth is dry. I can’t speak.

Poe whistles. “Medieval,” he says, incredulous. “True rapture.”

The town is old, antiquated, sunken into the earth. Maybe two kilometers across, it’s encircled by a fence of razor-thin bars that soar taller than any of the buildings. The metal railing curves inward at the top. A barrier. In the distance, a large herd of what looks like sheep presses together and rushes over a hill, away. The wilderness is barren with a jerky horizon.

We passed to another world, taking our bodies with us. The laws of the universe are collapsing.

Black smudges creep along dirt roads. People. A bell tolls, deep and reverberating, and they scurry out of sight. Like rats.

“Vespers?” Poe wonders.

What I wonder is what sort of people live in a town like this. What makes them build such a barrier? Suddenly, standing in the open at the top of the cliff, I feel vulnerable. Another thought occurs to me. Weird how that fence curves inward at the top. I find my voice. “Do you think they’re prisoners?” I ask Poe.

He doesn’t seem to hear me. “I’ve got chills man,” he says. His head is ducked low, like he doesn’t want to be seen, but he’s grinning. He begins pointing out the architecture to me. “More Romanesque than the later Gothic, but definitely medieval,” he says. “See the wooden roofs? Bad for catching fire. And the arches are rounded, not pointed. There’s a church! They must fear God, that’s good…”

What place is this? It’s the world of ghosts I want, not this. We shouldn’t be here.

We shouldn’t be here.

Why has God abandoned me?

But Poe is here too. God wouldn’t abandon Poe. My friend is the best person I know. So, taking a deep breath, I look for a divine sign as I stare at the town. A sign that all of this has meaning, that God is trying to give me the knowledge I seek.

Guilt twinges in my gut, and I bend against the pain. It’s Emmy I need to be thinking about first. And Ava and Leesel. Knowledge can come later.

Poe goes on about the winged forms clutching the arches of the church. Most of the town isn’t as impressive. Plats of squat houses constructed of stone walls and ridiculously thick chimneys cram the pinched roads. Bell towers frame both sides of a colossal gate. Even from this distance, a lock is visible.

Maybe the people don’t want to go beyond the barrier. Or they’re not allowed to.

Poe shakes his head in delighted wonderment, not exactly a match to my own mounting anxiety.

A moon, yellow and enormous, is rising over the cliffs. The little sun is now half buried on the horizon, its white center rimmed with black and purple, as if by setting on this landscape it’s being poisoned.

I turn to Poe. His face has fallen. “Leesel’s rain boot,” he says. He points at the shore directly below us, and there it is. Neon pink. Just one, cast on the rocks, in a shallow pool of water. “Did she…fall?”

My heart loses its beat. “No. No. She couldn’t have. She’d be dead where she fell, it’s too far down…” I’m convincing myself as much as Poe. He yells Leesel’s name. I yell. She’ll answer me, not Poe.

No response. I pace along the edge of the cliff. “We’ve got to get down there.” Peering over the edge of the drop-off, looking
for a way down, sickens me further. Heights give me vertigo. Poe knows this and volunteers to crawl out on a protruding rock.

“There’s a path,” he shouts back at me. “With a rope. It zigzags down the hill to the river bank. You can do it.”

The sun reduces to a bloodspot and is gone, so that a black curtain falls over Poe, but only for a moment. His face reappears, yellow in the glow of the full moon. His eyes are clenched shut.

Howls reverberate in the river canyon.

I coax him back.

Thorns grow in patches of grass along our descent. More calls of Leesel’s name bring only silence. Ava’s, too. Fear for them overrides my phobia of heights. Mostly. Our descent is steep. The rope at least provides a firm handhold, though it ends several feet above the shore of the river. I grit my teeth and let myself drop. Poe’s there to catch me.

Leesel is nowhere on the stone-covered shore. I pick up her boot. It’s greasy with some kind of stringy moss growing on the underneath side. What could have happened that she would leave behind her boot?

Poe gazes across the river to the town.

Running up and down the shore at the base of the cliff, I search shadows. “She’s not here,” I tell Poe.

“We need to get help,” he responds, still staring at the town.

“From the people who’ve been caged up? I don’t think so.”

“But Leesel’s gone. How can we find her? We don’t know anything. Maybe she’s over there.”

Enormous rocks scattered in the river are too far apart to leap from one to the next. “How would we get across? The current is fast, and it looks really deep.” I dip a hand in the river. “It’s freezing.”

Poe says nothing, jumps up and down, blows in his cupped hands. My own hands are raw from gripping the rope on the way down. They ache.

Another howl, long and high-pitched, close by. I look above
us, at the top of the cliff, expecting to see a starving coyote staring down at us. It was a scream of…pain. Eerie. It was almost human.

Poe is gone.

I find him pressed inside a crevice of the cliff. He’s stuck; I have to pull hard to get him back out. He gets skinned up on the bridge of his nose. There’s a little blood, and I hope the coyote can’t detect it.

Poe licks his lips. “Remember that tombstone inscription about weregods? And, it’s a full moon. You know what that means. I’m telling you, we need to get over to the town. Behind that gate. Where it’s safe.” He scrambles around, picking up pieces of drift wood and making a pile.

A lone cloud glides over the moon, darkening the night. All is quiet. “Coyotes sound just like someone screaming,” I suggest to quiet my own fear as much as Poe’s. “I read about it in a book.”

He ignores me, goes back over to the rope, yanks on it.

“I know what you’re doing, Poe. It won’t work. You can’t make a raft out of that. We’d sink and drown.”

He starts to argue and I turn my back.

Lights. Over in the town.

A congregation with lanterns clusters inside the gate. I get the idea they’ve spotted us.

Poe is leaping into the air, waving his arms. I yank him to the shadows, ready to stuff him back in the crevice. “Are you insane?” I hiss at him. My hand is on his mouth before he can answer.

There’s a great wrenching sound.

In a rush, people spill out from behind the gate with their lanterns, rushing toward the river’s shore. It’s chaos. Racing in every direction, they knock into one another so that some of the lanterns fall to the ground and extinguish. All of this is in complete silence. Until one of them screams. It’s wretched, tearing. Lights wobble in frantic retreat to the gate.

Quiet again. I breathe. Blood rushes in my ears.

One by one, several small groups of lights vanish, I suppose returned inside the walls of their homes. About a dozen townspeople remain. Several minutes pass while I keep Poe quiet. Four lanterns creep, slowly, outside the gate. I hear the word
vessel
loud and clear.

“They speak English!” Poe cries out.

One of them wails and runs, tripping, back to the gate. Another lantern follows him back. Two remain. There’s a splash.

Not good.

I drag Poe after me, making for the rope even as I search the river, expecting to see the lunatics swimming across. The moon frees itself from a cloud, and what I see is worse. “Hurry,” I command Poe.

They’re on a raft. The bigger of the two hangs a lantern on a hooked pole at the front of the vessel. The other lantern they leave behind, a beacon on the shore.

“I can’t reach it,” Poe complains as he jumps for the rope. Hell. If he can’t reach it, there’s no hope for me.

They dip paddles into the water.

I kneel. “Get on my shoulders.” Poe hesitates. Looks over at the rafters.
“Now
, Poe.”

He’s skinny, and I get back to my feet easily.

“I still can’t reach it.” He goes to stand on my shoulders, and I lose my balance, pitch backwards. I break the fall with my right shoulder. Poe is moaning, but sitting, holding the side of his head.

A current has picked up the raft, and the townspeople are fighting it, trying not to be carried downriver.

“They’re aiming for that big rock,” Poe says. He cradles his head and gets to his feet. “I don’t think they’re going to make it. The river has them. How can we help them?”

He looks around like there’s something we
can
do. Like we should.

“Help me,” he says finally. “What do you think, Jesse? You think Leesel just disappeared, or do you think those people came over on a raft, just like they’re doing now, and got her? We’ve got to talk to them!”

The raft disappears behind the big rock. Immediately there’s a huge splash. The raft must have overturned.

No. The raft reappears, closer now, clearly visible in the moonlight. Only one of the passengers is paddling now. Furiously. The other one appears to be wringing out his clothing. After several twists, this second one sits. He pulls a small object from his robe, shakes it vigorously, and bends over it.

“He has a Bible,” Poe says, relief in his voice.

The solo paddler is losing control. Currents drag the raft toward a clump of massive boulders. No sooner has the raft gone from view than there’s a splash. And another. Sounds like they’re cannonballing into the river. When the raft reappears, both of them are wringing out their clothes, the paddles unattended.

The raft goes into a spin. It’s found a whirlpool.

Raised voices. Arguing. It’s a man who’s been paddling to save them—the other is a woman, it turns out. He wins the argument and both of them return to paddling. Amazingly, they break free of the spin and begin making real progress toward the shore.

“They’re going to make it,” Poe shouts.

The raft pulls closer. There’s a rock in my hand. Poe sees it and shakes his head.

I conceal it behind my back.

They arrive and silently heave the raft ashore. With their backs to us, they get busy wringing the edges of their long robes. Their garments remind me of Digging Man. I step back, discreetly. Maybe they like to dig.

Poe coughs. One of them retrieves the lantern dangling from the hook. Bowing their heads together, they whisper. At last they turn to us.

“Hello,” Poe croaks.

The man slides back his robe cowl. He has small dark eyes that are too close together, and a goatee.

“Beware,” he says, and grins.

The woman pulls back her cowl too. Pale blonde hair spirals down to her waist. She’s stunning, even though she’s drenched. “Beware,” she says, just as politely as the man who’s with her. Crossing her wrists, she wraps both hands around her neck, as if to strangle herself. Her fingers squeeze.

The man also strangles himself.

9
retention of flesh

Red imprints remain on their necks when they drop their hands.

It’s Poe who pulls himself together first. “Beware,” he says, repeating the greeting, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Briefly, he clutches his neck. “My name is Poe Bloomfield, and this is my friend, Jesse Morrison. That river crossing was a miracle. What happened out there? Did something evil pull you in? Did you read scripture to ward it off?”

The woman shudders. “Let us not speak of it.” She returns to wringing every last drop of water from her robe. A book falls to the ground. She retrieves it.
The Story of Me
is written on the cover, the beautiful script cutting deep into the warped leather that binds the pages. She kisses it. “My personal history book!” she exclaims.

“A diary?” Poe asks. “I keep one too. I don’t have it with me.”

She shines lantern light on the book. “Only a trifle wet! What great fortune. I read it every night. All of it. You wouldn’t believe what’s written inside.” She gives Poe a coy look.

“Pardon me,” the man interrupts. “I am George, master clockmaker, and this is my fiancé, the lovely Bethany.” He holds her hands as she curtsies.

“You may introduce me as your fiancé once you have set a date of matrimony, darling,” Bethany coos. She pinches her cheeks till they’re blotched red. “Welcome. We are pleased to see you without your skeletons.”

“Very pleased indeed,” George agrees. “And honored. May I assure you how worthy we are to receive messengers of the Holy—”

“George, darling. What’s wrong with that one? He’s so peculiar.”

“I noticed. No moan or curdle to his voice.” He regards Poe with curiosity. “Unsettling.”

“I meant the color of his companion,” she says, swinging the lantern at my face. “His blush is as rosy as my own.” She glares at me. “What dreadful manners you have. Turn to your companion and mimic his pallor at once!”

Poe, looking as confused as I am, nevertheless gestures at me to comply.

“Bethany! Oh, my.” George appears mortified. “I do apologize for her. She is unaccustomed to receiving heavenly host.” He reaches out to me.

Heavenly host? Have we passed into a spiritual dimension after all? But with bodies? Taking a step back, I lose my balance on a loose rock. I fall hard. Taste blood. I wipe it from my lip.

“He’s alive,” Bethany squeaks.

George whips out a handkerchief and dabs at his forehead. “Dear me. This is most unexpected. How can this be? Haunted chapels spew forth ghosts, not living flesh. Is another Beginning at hand? Dear me.”

Bethany maneuvers in front of George to peer down at me, the lantern at her cheek. She examines Poe, too. “Both of you retain your flesh. And yet we saw with our own eyes the appearance of the haunted chapel, twirling in the sky.”

“We must alert Saint Thomas! The Presence—”

“Hush, George. I wish to question them. While they remain alive.”

Poe raises his hand. “Excuse me. Where are we?”

Bethany scrunches up her face. “Did you steal that chapel? May I see it? I hope it’s not ruined. From whence did you come? How is it possible you know not where you are?”

“I don’t know.” Poe appears panicked. “Maybe we’re here by accident.”

“How unfortunate,” George clucks. “We keep a treacherous world here. Death awaits you.” He shakes his head sadly. “Shall
you take a word of wisdom? Refrain from questioning the methods of undertakers. Offing the head is best.”

They’re insane.

Apprehension ripens in my gut as the vision of Leesel’s rain boot flashes in my mind.

Do these people know what happened to Leesel? To Ava? “We’ve lost two others who were with us in the chapel,” I say evenly. It takes effort. “They were blown out the window before we landed. Ava, she’s petite, with…a disfigured face. And her daughter, Leesel. Seven years old, long kinky hair, wearing a pink raincoat and boots. Have you seen them?”
Or done something with them?

They look amazed. “Two more of you?” George asks.

“Extraordinary,” Bethany says. “Should we expect them to be fleshed?”

After a moment, I nod.

They talk between themselves in a whisper. Bethany asks George if he expects any of us to live more than two days. He snorts. “Certainly not, be sensible. Their spectacular deaths will be spoken of for years to come.”

“Spectres?”

He smoothes his goatee. “It’s hard to say, the threats are legion, both living and dead.”

Poe’s knee jitters, and I interrupt. “Ava and Leesel. Where are they?”

“We’ve heard nothing,” Bethany says. “But you must know witches love little girls.”

This shuts me up.

“Bethany,” George snaps, “you know calling them witches is socially insensitive. They prefer the term
coven scientists.”

Bethany rolls her eyes. “I call it as I see it, Beloved.”

“Nevertheless, you are frightening these boys. They obviously know nothing. We must help them. Is it not fortuitous these boys now have the opportunity to benefit from my
wisdom? Lucky, lucky boys indeed. My knowledge is vast…”

“Excuse me,” Poe interrupts. “Where are we? I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know what my judgment is.”

George leans forward. He breath smells like soured milk. “Why, you stand in Memento Mori, of course.”

“Memento Mori?” Poe repeats uncertainly. “That’s Latin, for Death Reminder.”

Bethany giggles. “Yes. A world of death. Naturally.”

“This is serious,” I growl. “We need Ava and Leesel back. Let’s get moving, Poe. We’re wasting our time. We have to find them.”

George wags a finger at me. “My Bethany is right. The coven takes no fear in roving about Memento Mori. They enjoy the scenic view of the cliffs. If your Leesel was left unguarded along these shores, they most certainly abducted her. There is no doubt. They have her.”

“Poe
. Let’s go.”

He doesn’t budge. “Leesel might be here, Jesse. Ava would want us to save her. They can help us. We need guides. God sends messengers, to help us…they may be angels.” Running shaky fingers through his white spikes of porcupine hair, he stands his ground. This surprises me. Poe usually follows my lead. I’m not sure how to handle it.

“I’m going,” I warn.

“The woods are perilous,” Bethany says. She makes a show of looking up the cliff and recoiling in fear. Clapping at her own performance, she takes a bow. George shouts for an encore.

“I’ll take my chances,” I say.

“Jesse, don’t leave me!”

Behind me, Mr. Halloween and his fiancé, messengers from God, try to calm Poe. “Your friend will come to his senses once danger presents,” Bethany states. She sneezes. “George, I’m dreadfully cold. Did you notice?”

I pretend to be looking for a place to climb up the cliff. That way I can watch the three of them out of the corner of my eye. I
feel around the rock wall where I stand, as if I’m looking for handholds so that I can climb. Peeking out from behind my arm, I see that Poe watches me, but he’s settling down beside the fire that George already has going. God’s angel must carry lighter fluid in his robe.

Poe waves at me to come back.

“Of course, the raft will not carry more than two,” George practically shouts. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. The fire shall keep us warm until help arrives.”

Closing my eyes, I’m back in Poe’s haunted chapel, at the baptismal with the strange fire. I know what a burning bush signifies.

Messengers from God
. Could Poe be right?