Psychopomp: A Novella Read online

Gabriel stood by the electric stove in the kitchen, rumpled and sleepy-eyed. “Coffee?” he asked through a yawn, rubbing a hand over his dark jaw.

  “No thanks.” I hesitated. The asylum made me uneasy, that cold building with windows like lifeless eyes. I was convinced someone or something watched me from behind the fragmented reflections of hazy sky. “What do you do up there?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, bright blue eyes suddenly sharp. “Nothing,” he snapped. I knew he was lying.

  “I think I’ve seen you before,” I said. “Out on the cliffs outside Marshwick. You were getting a body.”

  “Yes.” He sighed and turned back to spooning coffee crystals into the pot of boiling water. “I do that now and again. Who else will?”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “I take them to the fertilizer factories. I get credits for it.”

  My heart sank a little. That didn’t sound very noble, which was what I wanted Gabriel to be. “Oh.”

  “Does that disappoint you?” he asked dryly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Think of it this way. If I didn’t pick up the occasional body, they would just lie in the street and rot until the ambassadors called in a cleaning crew. By taking them to the factories, I’m helping to ensure the future of humanity. The future of the earth.”

  That was true enough. “But what if the dead people have families? They might never know what happened to their loved one.”

  He just shrugged. “Less of a burden on them.”

  We cleaned that day. Up and down the walls of the morgue, the floors, the fixtures, the equipment. I watched Gabriel as I moved about the room, suspicious of him even now. I didn’t really know who he was or why he did what he did. He crept to the asylum in the middle of the night. He was nervous, always checking over his shoulder for something that was never there. Asleep, he whispered like someone paranoid. When he talked to me, he didn’t smirk or sneer.

  And he never, ever touched me. It was nice not to have the space between two people filled with the contact of skin.

  Not to be touched—that was all I could have wanted from him.

  We barely spoke all day, just a word or two of instruction from him. We ate our midday meal in silence.

  Afterward, we stood behind the morgue and looked out over the graveyard. It was downhill from us, covered in the asylum’s shadow. The headstones were crooked and broken. It was so old I couldn’t imagine anything lay beneath those stones but dust.

  “I’m digging up some graves tonight,” Gabriel said abruptly, “when it isn’t so hot. I need your help.”

  I shifted my weight nervously. “What? You want me to help you… dig up bodies? Rob graves?”

  “I could do it myself. The dirt is loose and dry. But it would be easier with two people.”

  “But… why?”

  “The dirt. Someone’s asked me for it.”

  Frowning, I sneaked a glance up at the looming asylum. “What do they say about it?”

  “They don’t say much about anything. As long as I dose their patients and remove their deceased, they don’t care what I do.”

  “So it wasn’t their idea.”

  “No.”

  “And they don’t know about it, do they?”

  “No.” He glanced down at me, hands shoved into the pockets of his lab coat. His shoulders were hunched. “You really don’t have to help me. Take the rest of the day off. Go into town. Buy something. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I let his words hang in the air for a moment. In another life, in another time, I could have finished school. I could have been flooded with knowledge beyond nonsensical snatches of long-forgotten mythology gleaned from ruined books.

  Instead I was dull like a blade that had been used several times but never sharpened. I knew it, and anyone who’d ever met me probably knew it too. My softness made me weak. All I’d ever done was float through the gray nothing of my existence.

  Until now. Until Gabriel. On fitful nights, his frantic whispers lulled me to sleep. He’d become my comfort, though I barely knew him at all.

  Finally I said, “I’ll help.”

  He grinned, manic, eyes flashing. “I’d hoped you would.”

  interim: una ala

  Though she didn’t want to go to dinner with her uncle, Claire knew she had to. He was the one who paid for her to live at the institute. Without his generosity, she would have wasted away at home, at his house, sick and pale while he searched for a miracle to cure her ever-fading memory.

  Maybe her sister would come this time, she thought. They hadn’t seen each other in so long. It was partly because Claire hated her sister for how she’d treated the man with the name of an angel, and partly because her sister refused to visit the institute.

  Her uncle sent a car. He was an ambassador so he could do things like that. All the girls watched from the windows as Claire got in, wondering why she was lucky enough to be able to leave the institute sometimes. No one ever came to take them out into Cizel.

  Ms. Gilsig made sure Claire had taken her meds. She had, of course, though the pill count had seemed wrong. But she was probably misremembering the doses she’d already taken. Anyway, Ms. Gilsig had injected her with a mild stimulant so she could make it through the night. Everything would be fine.

  The headmistress, Ethan’s mother, watched her go from the top of the front steps. Claire kept her head forward as the car pulled toward the front gates so she wouldn’t have to see all the eyes on her. Her heart pounded as they opened. This wasn’t the first time she’d left the institute, but occasions like this were rare and special.

  She peered discreetly through the windows as the car rolled through Cizel, not wanting to seem too interested even though no one was watching her now. Windows were backlit with colored lights and lined with neon tubes. Screens flashed happy, decadent images when they weren’t showing newsfeed, electronic voices warbling from them. There were stands of fresh, succulent fruit to entice shoppers into stores.

  If she shifted her eyes, she could see her reflection laid over the backdrop of the city, a transparent version of herself painted with light.

  The car took her to a dark, quiet restaurant, where someone stood outside to open the door for her. Her uncle was always late, so she didn’t go inside right away. “Thank you,” she said to the doorman, and turned confidently down the sidewalk, as if she were waiting for someone. But the people who ate in restaurants like these would wait inside, she realized. She’d just remembered that. Abruptly, she turned back, not wanting to be conspicuous.

  And that was when she saw Ethan. He was everywhere, it seemed.

  People streamed around her as if she wasn’t there. But she was, she knew she was, because Ethan looked up and saw her. He’d been speaking with someone. This other person walked away, Ethan slapping him familiarly on the shoulder as he went. It was strange to see Ethan on the street like this when she’d only ever known him in the context of the institute. He seemed older and even more frightening.

  A smile played around his lips and Claire was afraid he was going to approach her. She dashed inside the restaurant and gave her uncle’s name. The host led her to a glass table that glowed softly.

  After she’d eaten all the complimentary seaweed bread and downed several glasses of water, her uncle arrived. He was alone. Everyone else in the restaurant turned to look at him, because people always looked at her uncle. She suspected it was because he was an ambassador.

  “Hello, Claire.”

  She stared at the live flame inside glass at the center of the table, too mesmerized to look away. Teeth clenched, she pretended none of the other people had seen her. “Hello, Uncle Killering.”

  He sat down on the other side of the table, his golden eyes studying her. “You look pale,” he said critically. “Are you taking your medication?”

  “Always.” She chose not to acknowledge the threat laced through his tone of voice.

  Nodding, he appeared b
oth satisfied and thoughtful. “It won’t be long, Claire. I’ve made remarkable advances with my research. The plasma I’ve begun collecting has helped immensely. If your parents were still alive, I know they’d be anticipating your full recovery as much as I am.”

  The server came and her uncle ordered for both of them. He always had, as if he knew what she liked to eat.

  “I could end up one of your failures,” she reminded him after the server had left the table. She’d seen a dark room with sleeping bodies. And she’d seen the pit behind his mansion once, on accident. She never wanted to see it again. Ms. Gilsig had given her sedatives for weeks to stop the nightmares.

  “You won’t,” he assured her. “You’re young, and I won’t administer treatment to you until I’m one hundred percent positive it will work.”

  “But you test others and sometimes it doesn’t work.”

  “Of course. How else would I learn? How else would I improve the serum?”

  Claire sighed, fidgeting. She didn’t like discussing what he did even though he said it was to help her. She knew his serums had benefitted the military unofficially. The soldiers overseas were stronger and had more endurance than those they fought against.

  But the serum didn’t work on them all. That was why he had to keep testing. That was why he paid scientists to spend all night in secret laboratories. She wasn’t supposed to know about that. She was supposed to have forgotten that he’d told her. But she did know terrible secrets, like a dream that surfaced only when she saw her uncle’s face.

  “Will you take me to one of your parties?” she asked brightly. She clenched her teeth and tightened her muscles to stop herself from shivering at unpleasant memories.

  Her uncle shook his head tightly. Each time she’d asked, his answer was always the same. “It’s too dangerous. And you’re not well, my dear.”

  His answer was expected but disappointing nonetheless. She would never get to wear a sparkly dress or see an aquarium or drink alcohol or meet anyone outside the institute. At least not until he’d perfected his research.

  Their meals came, and they ate in silence. Other than her health and his research, they never had much to talk about.

  “Happy birthday, my dear,” he said when their plates were clean.

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  The institute was cold and lifeless in the dark when the car returned her. Only Ms. Gilsig was still awake, ushering her inside and up the stairs. Claire thought she could feel someone watching her walk down the hall and open the door to her room.

  The angel.

  Ms. Gilsig was usually in bed by this hour, tired from having overseen the night meds. But the doors were never locked. That was probably a bad idea, Claire reflected, with Ethan having the run of the place.

  “Goodnight, Ms. Gilsig,” she said, yawning for show.

  “Goodnight.” The woman shuffled off to her own room at the head of the stairs without so much as looking twice at Claire.

  Claire opened her door, debating whether to change her clothes or go straight to the attic. But just then a shadow stepped in front of her, grabbing her arm and pulling her into the room. The door shut and the shadow leaned over her.

  “It’s me,” it said. A pair of eyes flicked over her, noticing how she trembled. “Sorry.”

  Ethan. Claire recognized his voice, though she couldn’t seem to unfreeze her limbs. She stared, holding her breath.

  “I need you to do something for me,” he whispered.

  The breath left her lungs, and Claire realized she was nodding in a dazed, mechanical motion.

  “I knew I could count on you,” he said, eyes crinkling as he smiled.

  Her heart stopped. She was sure of it. Deep within, Claire felt Ethan couldn’t have ever smiled like that for anyone but her. And that was part of his horrible magic. At that moment, she would have agreed to anything for him.

  Showing his gratitude, he leaned in and captured her lips with his. Claire kept her eyes open, savoring his touch. She had never dreamed of how much pleasure a boy’s hands could give her. The angel had never touched her and she hadn’t realized how much she wished someone would. Ethan pressed his hands against her clothes in anticipation of the skin beneath them. He raggedly whispered her name as his hips moved against hers.

  Dimly, she knew he had done this before, but he made it too difficult to care.

  Someone. He was someone.

  She wasn’t sure how long he stayed. Hours. Claire pictured the angel pacing overhead, playing songs in which she had become the worst of betrayers. He would be angry, his eyes like knives in her heart. His stony glares would have the force to bruise her skin. His hateful words would be sharp enough to make her bleed.

  I needed someone, Claire said desperately to herself, and to the angel. He was here.

  And the angel replied, But I will never leave.

  16. las tumbas

  The dusky light of a full moon filtered through haze cloaked our figures as we stole down the hill. The night-white asylum loomed above us, both watchful and unseeing. Gabriel had left his lab coat behind and carried two shovels. He strode ahead of me, relaxed and confident, purposeful but not eager. I trailed after him with quick steps to keep up, my feet skidding over the dry, sloping ground. My heart hammered in the back of my throat.

  The worn headstones sprawled all around us, toppled and broken. There weren’t so many. Gabriel approached one and stuck the blade of one shovel into the ground. He handed the other to me.

  I stuck it in next to his and we began to dig.

  It wasn’t easy, not by far. The muscles of my forearms began to burn almost instantly. We dug and we dug, our shovels striking the earth and flinging dirt behind us in tiring, repetitive motions. Walls of earth rose around us. I gasped at the ache in my shoulders each time I raised my shovel. My teeth hurt from gritting them so hard. My eyes stung with tears of exhaustion.

  Gabriel seemed disappointed by each hole we excavated. Only soft splinters of wood remained of the coffins, and nothing of the bodies that had been in them. Undeterred, Gabriel kept going. I threw tarps over the dirt mounds and wanted to cry out in frustration.

  This was never going to end, this labor, this violation, this disinterment. We would spend forever here beneath the moon-glowing haze, just digging and digging, aching, sweating, dying.

  Finally our shovels hit the rotting wood of a surprisingly solid coffin in what I thought would be the last grave we dug up. I uttered a strangled cry of relief and weird, mad joy. My fingers sprang open and the shovel clanged onto the coffin. I sagged back against the edge of the hole. Tough roots, no longer connected to any plant, poked out and snagged in my hair. Chunks of dirt tumbled over my shoulders. My legs ached.

  “Let’s open it,” Gabriel said.

  The lid sprang off in his hands, the latches long rusted away. He tossed it outside the hole and it cracked in half as it hit the ground. A soft smell of decay wafted out and vanished into the night air.

  “Dios mío,” I whispered, staring down at the gray, skeleton-like figure. It looked like it was screaming in its bed of dirt and moldy satin.

  “Just what I was looking for,” Gabriel muttered.

  I shook my head, afraid I was going to throw up. “Get me out of here.”

  He hoisted me up by the waist. I snatched at the ground, scrambling forward on my elbows as he pushed me up. I rolled away from the edge of the grave and came to my feet. Gabriel had done most of the work, but my hands still trembled with the effort of having repeatedly struck the shovel into the dry ground.

  I ran, weaving on unsteady legs, blinking violently against the wind and tears. I didn’t see why he couldn’t just leave the dead alone in their resting places. He seemed to feel no remorse for unearthing a body. I wondered how many times he’d done this and why.

  Back inside the apartment, I couldn’t sit down. Sobs heaved in my chest. I couldn’t stop thinking about Gabriel, down among the dust and graves.

  Unable to s
tand the close walls, I burst outside and stood on the hill. I could see him down there, vague in the dark, tireless. The body must not have weighed much because he’d lifted it from the grave on his own. He’d climbed out and had started digging by another headstone. Piles of dirt surrounded him.

  He spent the rest of the night out there, digging holes and lifting out whatever he found. I knew because I barely slept. Every couple of hours I stepped out into the quiet night to watch him. I would have watched all night, but my eyes grew heavy. After a while, I didn’t get back out of bed at all.

  Gabriel was already awake when I got up the next day, if he’d ever gone to sleep. “Coffee?” he asked. His black pants were worn at the knee and the buttons of his shirt were done up wrong. His lank hair was pushed haphazardly back from his face, leaving his blue eyes brighter and more startling than usual. There was no trace of dirt beneath his fingernails.

  “No thanks.” I lowered my eyes.

  He chewed on his lower lip, his eyebrows tensed. “We have a big day today,” he said softly, almost furtively.

  I didn’t ask why. It was morning, and it could have been any other morning. Last night could have been a dream.

  Though I knew I should have after what I’d helped him do, I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to be alone. I still hadn’t learned to rely on myself, not for anything. I had placed myself in someone else’s power, like I’d always done, and it was drawing me under like the tide.

  17. el embajador

  A man rose on the crest of the hill by the asylum. Gusts of wind whipped down toward me, so fierce I staggered backward. Dust fled from the hungry gales, stinging my eyes.

  I burst into the morgue, heart pounding. The overhead light blazed starkly down on the mortician. “Someone’s here,” I said.

  Gabriel had been distilling something in the sink. He turned and grabbed a cloth to wipe his hands. “It’ll be Ambassador Killering. He’s here for the dirt.”

  I thought of all the mounds of dirt I’d covered with tarp to protect them from the wind. “Why would he want it?”