The Ghosting of Gods (8 page)

16
hg

The flagellant is back, his cranium scraping the ceiling and bleeding rivulets of mud. His fist beats against his left femur as he walks. Enclosed in the fist is a length of barbed whip. The chisel is tied to it, and he swings it violently first over one clavicle and then the other so that it hits his spine and pelvis and femurs, its sharp end chipping away bone in rhythm with his steps.

Poe covers his eyes.

I can’t look away. I can’t breathe. Cold sears my lungs.

Tunnelers group together, shivering, as if they too, feel the harsh cold. Their crystal balls tick rapidly at their chests, like hearts racing in fear.

Moisture in the mud floor crackles as it turns to ice crystals. The mud walls, orange from the glow of the lantern, begin to turn white. Breath fogs around me, Poe, and Ava. None escapes the mouths of tunnelers.

The flagellant stills his whip. He turns in a circle in the center of the cave, drops to his knees, skull down, hands lifted high in supplication.

Ice crystals form in the air before him, coalescing, taking form.

A horse.

Grains of ice harden, and the shape of a man…except for no head…materializes atop the horse. He wears armor like a medieval knight and carries an enormous shield with interlaced circles and two letters scorched into the metal: HG. I can smell him, smell the dirt and blood of him. His sword, glinting and seemingly solid, rings when it jostles against the metallic saddle, sounding like falling icicles.

“Iron ghost,” Poe informs me, half a smile on his mouth. A blue pulse throbs in his neck.

The head appears. It does not attach to the body, but hovers inches over the jagged neck. I recoil. There’s something matted in its eyes.

The iron ghost motions for the flagellant to get up. The rest of the tunnelers chitter, shrink low to the ground. Directing his horse by the reins, the iron ghost moves close to us.

…youuu keeeep prisssonerrrs…liiiving flesh-sh-sh…sainnntss?

His voice is deep, with syllables long and drawn out. Many of his words are too faint to hear. Moaning, he loses most of his substance, dispersing like mist, but then he reappears in a brilliant freeze.

The flagellant gestures at us and clacks. Holding its neck bone, it strokes the strings of flesh there. “Saints, not sa-viors.” Plucking the bit of flesh, it twists its skull from side to side. Garbled vowels shrill from its gaping jaw.

The horse, less substantial than the man who rides it, snorts, stomps, tosses its ghostly mane.

…disssciplle of fffrannkennnstein…dissstorrtion…sssainntss…reeeleassse…

Most of what he’s saying is lost behind the dissonant ticking of the tunnelers’ crystal balls, but the iron ghost seems to be arguing for our release. Ava moves as if to get up. Noticing, the flagellant signals to the tunnelers. Collectively they rise, surround us.

The iron ghost points a gloved finger toward the flagellant. Apparently he sees, despite the tangle of threads in his eyes.

…revealll idennntity…pollluuuted sskeletaaalll ssssaavviorrr…

His armor gleams. He bleeds.

Silence.

The flagellant shakes his skull from side to side. Slowly. Deliberately.

Our tunneler guards abandon us and dive for the walls. Stroking their arms like swimmers, their hands scoop frosted mud so fast it’s a blur. In moments they vanish, leaving a sole
skeleton struggling when one of the new tunnels collapses in on it. It backstrokes back into the cave with us.

Packed mud stuffs its ribcage. The weight of it drops it to its knees. Frantically it paws at the mud, stretching up its neck like it’s suffocating.

The flagellant stalks over to the skeleton, grasps it about the neck, lifts it off the ground, rattles it in rage.

“No, don’t!” Poe yells.

Contemptuously, the flagellant flings the helpless tunneler in our direction. It lands facedown, rocking on its ribcage.

“Help me,” Poe says, flipping the tunneler over. Poe scoops handfuls of mud from its ribs, but the skeleton is thrashing, and Poe takes hard blows. I restrain the tunneler until finally it calms.

The tunneler takes Poe’s hands, kisses them. It clicks his teeth, though half of them are missing. The flagellant raises his whip.

Bony fingers grab my coat, hurling me toward the tunnel entrance. Despite its meekness, the tunneler that Poe saved is freakishly strong. And fast. Snatching the lantern, it shoves Ava and Poe over to where I’m pulling myself to my feet. We hurtle down the tunnel. Looking back, I see the iron ghost strike his sword at the flagellants’ disfigured ribcage…

…nno lliess…shshsheep…exxoduus fuutile…no Pressencce…fallssee promisssed llllaaannndd
…

Casket fragments litter our path as we chase our skeletal savior. Panting, falling behind, I trample splintered wood and swatches of silk. I run until I can’t breathe.

“Do you feel that?” Poe asks, catching his breath as he leans on me.

A strong draft blows over us. More than a draft. It’s wind, smelling fresh in contrast to the earthy pungency of the tunnels. The tunneler stops. Holds up a finger. Turning to us, it points ahead and then holds up two palms, inches apart.

“We don’t have far to go,” Poe translates.

Its crystal is wrapped in rags. I think this is the tunneler that
tried to comfort the one who axed the girl. Yeah. Its joints are deformed they’re so big.

It holds a hand over its tiny crystal ball, just like it was a heart. With the ticking muffled I hear Morse code. Behind us, somewhere in the tunnels. Or in the walls. Shooing us on, our tunneler bolts back the way we came.

“Wait,” Poe calls to him. “We didn’t thank you…”

Ava grabs my hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Around the next bend a blast of chill air meets us. “There,” I say. Above us is a perfect circle, just big enough for us to fit through. Sky shows beyond. Ava climbs on Poe’s shoulders and pulls herself out of the tunnel. I go next even though I’m afraid I’ll break Poe’s skinny back.

“Hurry, Jesse,” Ava says, reaching down to help me.

Poe is tall enough that he leaps up, grabbing my hands. We’ve made it.

George and Bethany lie in wait for us.

17
burned scarecrow

Poe offers a strangled neck greeting, grinning like a maniac. “Beware George, Bethany. I knew you’d come back for us!”

“We must hurry,” Bethany says. “Time is short. Night approaches.” She wraps an arm around Ava’s shoulders, but quickly pulls back as she gapes in horror at Ava. “George! The tunnelers mutilated this girl!”

Ava’s hand flutters to her chin.

I quickly explain Ava’s disfigurement.

“Is it catching?” Bethany asks.

God, how I wish I could stop people from saying stupid things like that. “No. The infection is long gone.” I pull Ava’s hand from her chin, smile softly at her, let her see that there’s nothing wrong with how she looks. The tension in her body melts at my touch.

Poe’s watching, and so I let go Ava’s hand.

Bethany nods, her own chin quivering. “Tragedy, tragedy.” She averts her eyes as she once again wraps an arm around Ava. “We heard about your little girl and discussed her abduction by the coven. Tragedy, tragedy. Do you like my boots?”

A burned scarecrow smolders just outside the town gate. Constructed of bound sticks, it’s posed with arms held up to the heavens. Two daggers at each side of the twiggy neck bolt on the scarecrow’s head, which appears to be a wad of scorched rope. A burned stripe gives the illusion of a slanted, gaping, screaming mouth.

“What the hell is that?” Ava demands.

Bethany spits at the twisted creation. “An effigy of Frankenstein!”

George throws up his hands, exclaiming, “I can’t take you anywhere!”

“Frankenstein?” Poe repeats, frowning. “That’s a great book—but how do you have it here? It’s from our world.”

George puffs his chest. “Memento Mori is a most literate world. In fact, we require more books than we can produce. Literature is therefore channeled into Memento Mori.”

Poe nods in a respectful way, though he grasps his crucifix, knowing what Priest would have to say about channeling. “Um, well, what I would say is that it’s weird to me that anyone would want to burn an effigy of Dr. Frankenstein. He was such a tragic character. Really, he was a good man, because he repented of what he had done.”

George coughs and bugs his eyes at Poe, shaking his head vehemently.

Bethany balls her fists at her sides. “How
dare
you. You
dare
to belittle the visual
horrors
we have suffered at the hands of the one so
aptly
dubbed Frankenstein. Perhaps you prefer to address him as
Saint
Frankenstein, as flagellants do?” She kicks the scarecrow between the legs. “He is the reason tunnelers spill from the earth, seeking their
polluted
savior!”

George keeps at a distance from Bethany as he attempts to calm her. I think he’s attempting to protect his crotch. “Now, Bethany dear, rumor has it Saint Frankenstein is either dead, or if alive, repentant of his former work. At the least he’s in hiding.”

Poe offers an apology. Bethany refuses it.

I point to a rectangular plate by the enormous rusted lock on the town gate. “What’s that written there?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

“The script is an old language,” George replies. “It means
The Sleeping Are Guarded
. It’s an old phrase from when this town suffered terrors from vampires—they who are most especially polluted with death. We’ve kept it for historical reasons.”

Poe perks up. “Do you mean real vampires walked right here where I’m walking?”

“That’s correct. Before the exile.”

“Rapture.” Poe struts about in a dramatic way, which I assume is how he imagines vampires walk. I cringe, waiting for another explosion from Bethany, but she’s busy pinching her cheeks and fluffing her blonde curls.

George throws his weight against the gate. The iron is cold in my hands as I grab hold and swing my weight along with George’s. At last we creak the gate open just enough for all of us to slip through.

“Is it ever locked?” I ask, marveling at the giant keyhole facing the inside.

“Almost never. After all, what good does it do? Now, I understand your interest in this historical structure, but we must reach shelter soon. Come along, please. We are vulnerable.”

18
the scripture is twisted

Legions of leaflets blow through the town. They press against windows, stick between cobblestones, impale themselves on briars. I snatch one from the wind as it flies past me. Squinting to read in the bit of light that is left to the day, I elbow Poe, invite him to take a look.

something polluted this way comes

Shakespeare altered to suit Memento Mori. The channelers take liberties.

George cuts down an alley that funnels the wind. My bare face stings. A turn, and we arrive in what seems to be a residential portion of town. Smoke drifts from every chimney, carrying soot that settles in our hair and on our shoulders. It’s created a thick sludge that cakes every surface, every crevice. Streaks of grime give the appearance of prison bars on windows.

Hugging my arms to my chest, I peer at heavy wooden doors. Miniature gargoyle heads bite down on oversized metal rings. I don’t think I’ll be knocking. Corn husks, stuffed into iron pots, line the cobblestone street.

“What’s that awful stench?” Ava says, coughing, breaking the silence of our trek.

Curtains shift at windows. Amber light shows through in slivers.

No one comes out.

“Not much farther,” George murmurs.

Night falls. I feel like I’ve been plunged into a cold pool. Suddenly. The breath is knocked out of me.

Figures, pale and ragged, materialize to my side. They vanish when I turn to look directly at them. I look away, and they reappear in the corner of my eye. A woman and a small boy.
Ghosts.

Poe stumbles into me. “Did you see that?” he asks excitedly. “Where’d they go?”

“Properly acknowledge them,” George barks. He presses his palms together as if in prayer and bows his head. Poe immediately follows his lead. Reluctantly, I imitate the gesture.

The ghosts shift directly into my line of sight.

Chains drag along after them, clanging against cobblestones. Their faces are mostly hidden, but as they draw near, they pull back their cowled hoods.

Their eyes are matted shut. It’s as if whatever process made ragged their robes has done the same with their eyes. Wads of…threads…stuff their eye sockets.
Jesus
. The wads are held in place because they’re sewn there. I can see the stitches in the dark moons beneath their eyes and weaving in and out of their eyebrows.

It’s like they’re suspended in water. Hair floats, slowly waving out of rhythm with the wind.Their mouths hold a perpetual O shape. Like fish.

Twitching with excitement, Poe takes it all in.

The ghost boy waves up at me, then cringes. His mother snatches him back. They vanish.

George and Bethany urge us on.

Ava stares hard at each dark window we pass, as if she’s trying to divine whether Leesel could be trapped inside.

Smaller cottages. Roofs sag, doorways are crooked. This is not the better part of town. We arrive at a sunken cottage that’s filthy black, buried behind an overgrown hedge of thorned vegetation. “Welcome to my humble dwelling,” George says. Raindrops pelt as we duck inside.

Bethany lights two oil lamps before ushering us into a small sitting room. It’s crushed black velvet. Everywhere. Pretentious, shabby, cliché. A loveseat is positioned between two ripped wingback chairs, which crowd around a stone fireplace.
Pancaked cushions are worn and stained, with threadbare tassels. A grate with some of the bars missing leans against the hearth that’s thick with ash. Barely fitting in the arrangement is a low table; George slams it against the hearth so we can all fit in the tiny space.

A painting over the mantle, done in blues and blacks, shows two men standing side by side, staring down at an empty grave. One of them is George. The artist has given a very realistic depiction of him. It’s odd. The expression on his face isn’t sad, it’s…grim. Angry, almost. The man with him, in contrast, appears grief-stricken.

Bethany invites Poe to sit down. He pulls up a wooden chair that’s sized for a small child. When he sits, his knees come level with his shoulders. He sneezes.

“May angels flee your presence,” Bethany says. She hands him a handkerchief and invites me to sit.

Instead I walk along the perimeter of the room, looking at all the clocks, remembering that George identified himself as a maker of clocks. His creations conceal the walls.

Examining one up close, I’m surprised that no crystal protects the face of the clock, but the craftsmanship is incredible. The backing of the clock appears to be a mosaic of broken glass, the shards arranged so that they come to a point at center. A tiny hourglass, containing silvery sand, anchors the filigreed hour and minute hands. Ornate carvings in the pendulum box surprise me, given the wood is rotted.

Strange. The minute hand runs backwards. My eyes rove the walls.
All
the clocks run backwards, ticking away.

George sets logs aflame in the fireplace. Bethany kisses his cheek. “I’ll prepare tea and sandwiches,” she says. She disappears through a leaning doorway.

“Why are the clocks running backward?” I ask George.

He snorts. “Would you rather I design my clocks to move time forward? Toward death? Better to go backward.
Sometimes—tell no
one!—sometimes
I hold the hands still. Invite the Presence. You admire my work? I antique the wood myself, right in my garden. Burial is the key. Please excuse me before I give away all my secrets! I must see that the guest bedchamber is in order.” He bows slightly at Ava as he passes her. She’s barely in the room, standing quietly, looking lost.

“We’re safe here,” Poe announces, pulling back a curtain and looking outside. A cold draft seeps into the room, as if he’d opened a window. He shivers. “God is watching over us.”

“Did you notice my book collection?” George calls. “I am quite a learned man.”

Short stacks of books litter the floor. Two books lie on the table that’s shoved into the hearth and in danger of catching fire. I pick up the thinnest book and read the cover.

“Verse, by El Lobo.“
I hand it over to Poe the Poet and pick up a hefty volume.
“A History of a New Beginning, by Saint Thomas.“
Hauling it onto my lap, I separate the parchment pages, read aloud.

In the Beginning there was Separation, and tears, and the people cried out for the Grief to end. And so a New Beginning was given, and Death was forever changed. No burial remained quiet, but the dead did stir and Rise Again to cleave to the living. Nay, no more did the Ghost forsake the decaying body. The bones did arise, Gaze, remember. And it was very good
.

“Twisted religion they’ve got here,” I say, returning the book to the table, purposefully not looking in Poe’s direction. I’m as disturbed as I know he must be. But for different reasons. Their warped scriptures are nonsense. I take no offense at them. Yet it’s exactly the nonsense that frightens me.

God may not have brought us here.

I
may have brought us here.

Our hosts return. Bethany serves steaming tea from a
tarnished silver pitcher into tarnished silver cups. George follows with a tray of breads, crackers, nuts, and cheeses. It’s not much, but I’m starved. Picking off a bit of mold first, I slap a slim wedge of yellow cheese between two slices of bread and eat.

Bethany squeezes between me and Ava on the loveseat.

There’s a loud crash from somewhere back in the cottage. George and Bethany look at one another and snicker.

“What’s the name of this town?” I ask. My voice is too loud in the small space and Ava cringes.

Bethany coughs, dribbling her tea. “Our town is not named. If it was, why, then anyone who wanted to find it could do so!” She looks at me like I’m an idiot.

Poe’s nodding from his toddler chair, like he knew this.

“Sorry.” Sipping too fast, I burn my lips. The tea is heavy with grounds. Bitter.

Another crash. Rattles of a chain, and the sound of a body slumping to the floor.

George compliments Bethany on her eyes by firelight, then suggests we all discuss the matter of Leesel. “Best to leave her with the coven,” he declares. “Take up residence in our town. Stay behind locked doors. We have many books to read to pass the time. Safely.”

In response, Ava stands. “I’m going after Leesel.” She has a wild look in her eyes. Her cheeks are hollow, the veins stick out on her neck. She teeters on her feet.

I sit her back down. “Eat, first, Ava,” I say, pressing a sandwich in her palm.

“Yes, please do,” Bethany urges. She demonstrates by taking a bite of her own sandwich, chewing with exaggeration. “Such skin and bones you are, Ava! You look dreadful.”

“No, I have to get to Leesel…”

“There, there,” Bethany coos. She begins unlacing her boots. “You eat, and I will draw you a map of how to find the coven. There you will find a spiritual prodigy.”

This gets my attention.

George chuckles, rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders at me. Bethany kicks off her boots and goes to fetch a piece of parchment and busily draws with a quill pen. All the while George gives a speech on how Bethany, being of strong character, likes to make herself useful. “Her true value, however, lies in the beauty of her eyes and the silk of her hair. Of course, I shall give her instruction on what is permissible to say in polite company. No hurry. Social gatherings are few in these precarious times.”

Bethany ignores him, finishes her map, tucks it into Ava’s coat pocket. She sits, looks surprised to see her pale feet, and begins lacing her boots back on.

“What can you tell us about the coven?” I ask. Ava’s not eating, so I take her hand, make her lift the sandwich to her lips. “What did Bethany mean, that there’s a spiritual prodigy?”

Bethany peeps up her hand, apparently wanting to answer the question. George winks at me and nods for Bethany to speak.

“Oh, they believe themselves to be special, keeping to themselves, except for when they come loose from their bodies.”

“Excuse me?”

She glances around, speaks in a loud whisper. “They visit us. Mostly at night. Their ghosts crawl into our bodies to drive us insane.” She makes a face. “First Frankenstein, then the witches. It’s one terror after another! Of course, the ghosts have always possessed. But that is only natural. If sometimes fatal.”

“I’m worried,” Poe says through a mouth stuffed with cheese. “Do you need an exorcist?”

George gasps, leaning back in his wingchair. Sweat breaks out over his face. He reaches for Bethany, who grasps his hand while staring at Poe with an ashen face. Her tongue is blackened from the tea. Slowly, her eyes move to the window, then to the doorway.

“George?” she says, her voice small.

He dabs his handkerchief on his forehead. “We’re closed in
tight. No one heard, my love.” His lips press together and he faces Poe. “In this dwelling,
you will not speak treason.”

Poe shrinks, his face flaming red.

“What are you talking about?” I demand. “Leave him alone. How did he speak treason?”

“By suggesting that we do violence to a ghost!”

“Yes. Ghosts that possess people and drive them insane. That’s what Bethany said.”

“Ghosts are revered in Memento Mori, young man. It is not our place to judge them for their nastiness. I am aghast, suspicious of your character, if you condone the employment of exorcists to cast away what is next to Holiness.”

Ava carefully does not look at me, carefully does not give me away. Poe, on the other hand, gawks at me.

George continues. “Young Poe breached courtesy, at the very least, by speaking with such a lack of respect. But I must demonstrate forbearance. You
are
ignorant. Do you not read the headlines in your world? Certainly our tragic news must have reached there?”

Wind from the storm blows down the chimney, fanning the fire as Bethany shuffles through a stack of newspapers in a crate by the hearth. She pulls one out and lays it on the table for us to see.

I read the headline and snap up the paper before Poe can see it. He’s even lower in his chair, knees so high as to block his view of the table. I think. Yes. He doesn’t react; he didn’t see the headline.

“The Holy Ghost Is Dead. Where is His Clock?”
Ava reads aloud. She scrunches her nose.“What does that mean?”

I sigh.