by Ellen Datlow
“Natalie was furious. She circled the car three times, and I swear, her scream was as loud inside the car as it had been outside. My heart was pounding, my head swimming. How ironic would it be for me to die from a heart attack here and now? I forced myself to move. If Natalie gained entry to the car, I had no plan. I sidled into the driver’s seat, started the engine. My sister came to a halt directly in front of me and stood there, screaming. I’ll admit, I considered shifting into drive and stepping on the gas.”
“Why didn’t you?” Carl said.
“Because whatever she had become, she still looked like my little sister. I reversed away from her, and burned rubber out of there. Natalie didn’t pursue me, but her screams rang in my ears the entire way home.”
XII
“I assume this is when Hunter called you,” Carl said to Annie.
“Eventually,” Hunter said. “For the first twenty-four hours after I pulled into the driveway, I was certain Natalie was on her way. Any minute now, I was going to look out the window and see her springing up the front steps. I didn’t, but I didn’t sleep all that much, either. I started chemo a couple of days later. My oncologist had recommended aggressive treatment as my only hope. As I believe I may have said, it kicked my ass. I was terribly afraid Natalie would appear while I was sitting on one of the hospital’s comfy chairs, IV’d to the stuff that was nuking my body in hopes of frying the cancer first. I was tense, irritable. Jill was gone from the house a lot, which I can’t say I blame her for.
“Finally, I decided I had to start talking to people about Natalie. I don’t mean psychologists. I already had a decent idea of the interpretation they would offer me. My original experience was a fantasy constructed ad-hoc by my mind to fool itself into believing it wasn’t facing extinction. Its ambiguous nature owed itself to unresolved guilt over my sister’s death. My recent visions of her were the result of decades of poorly treated PTSD brought about by the accumulated stress of the places I’d covered. What had happened was a full-blown psychotic incident, precipitated by my recent diagnosis and its poor prognosis. That sound on target?”
“I’m not a shrink, but yeah, I guess so.”
“The people I was interested in were the ones who would take my story at face value. I started with the local Catholic priest. Faith of our fathers and all that. He was followed by Episcopalian, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Unitarian clergy, after which, I moved to conservative and reformed Judaism, then Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. I didn’t have much luck with any of them. Assuming they didn’t think I was playing some kind of weird joke on them, most of the men and women I spoke to opted for the psychological view. The Episcopalian and Unitarian were more flexible; each of them suggested I might have encountered a Hell that was adapted to me, specifically. The Tibetan Buddhist raised the possibility that what I took for my sister was a kind of wrathful god, a figure who appears to you once you’re dead to frighten you toward the right path. There was no doubt Natalie had scared me, but none of our meetings had driven me to enlightenment. And I couldn’t understand why my younger self would have merited a trip to Hell, and why my little sister would have been waiting for me there. No, none of it was especially helpful at explaining the story I told. I went online, hung out on all sorts of out-of-the-way message boards. This was how I found Annie.” Hunter nodded at her. “There was this woman on one of them. She was being—I guess you would call it harassed by what she thought was her brother, until she found out he was out of the country, on a month-long trip to New Zealand. This . . . figure was making all kinds of weird shit happen to her. Annie wrote a long response to the woman’s post which made me think she might be the person for me to talk to. I messaged her, sketched out the parameters of my situation, and asked if she had any insight into it. She replied straight away, said she’d do some research and let me know in a day or two. Which she did.
“And to cut to the chase, here we are.”
“Here we are,” Carl said. He stood from the kitchen island, carried his dish and glass to the sink. “If one of you could tell me exactly where here is, that would be helpful. Specifically, what is it you’re planning, and why do you want me to be part of it? I mean, I assume that’s the point of all this, to persuade me to assist in your—are you going to perform an exorcism? some kind of casting out of the evil spirit?”
“No,” Hunter said. “All I need is for you to walk with me for a little while.”
“This is one of those it’s-more-complicated-than-it-sounds deals, isn’t it?”
“No,” Hunter said. “Or yes. Somewhat. Annie, feel free to jump in.”
“Hunter’s telling you the truth,” Annie said. While Hunter had been telling his stories, she had quietly removed six Tarot cards from the deck, and placed them at what appeared to be the points of a hexagon. “He has to cross dangerous terrain. Having a friend with him, especially one he’s known for so long, will help.”
“Dangerous?”
“She means Natalie’s turf.”
“The box fort place?”
“Her kingdom, yeah. With the Hungry Dogs.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Hunter’s become entangled with his sister’s domain,” Annie said, “to an extent that will make it difficult for him not to be caught there. I’ve worked out a map to guide him through; however, once he sets foot in it, Natalie is going to do what she can to keep him with her.”
“You want me to fight your sister for you?” Carl said.
“I’ll deal with Natalie,” Hunter said. “It’s the dogs I’m worried about.”
“I’m protecting you from them? I’m still not sure what they are.”
“They’re souls,” Annie said. “Of children, as far as I can tell. Drawn into Natalie’s sphere and warped by her.”
“Jesus,” Carl said. “What are we talking about? I thought she was a ghost.”
“Imagine,” Annie said, “that when you die, you have to cross from the land of the living”—she placed her index finger on the card at the top of the hexagon and slid the digit to the card at the bottom—“to the land of the dead. Let’s not worry about that place. What concerns us”—she moved her finger to the center of the space—“is what lies between.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be a tunnel of light?”
“Or the river Styx, or a Valkyrie leaning to grab you from her winged horse, or—you understand. It’s reactive. You’re likely to encounter whatever you expect to. The majority of those who enter it succeed in reaching the other side. A few turn back, try to return to this life, which generally doesn’t go well.”
“Ghosts.”
Annie nodded. “Among other things. A few souls become lost in this middle ground. They see somewhere they want to remain, so they do. Call it Limbo, albeit, of a highly personalized kind. There, the dead change, go feral.”
“Hunter’s sister is a feral ghost?”
“Yes, and from everything he’s described, she’s a powerful one. She’s learned how to employ the landscape’s reflective quality to alter other souls.”
“But she’s a kid—was a kid.”
“You have children?”
“Two, daughters.”
“Then you have direct knowledge of a child’s creativity and will power. What do you suppose would happen if you placed a particularly bright and strong-willed child in a place where those qualities would have an immediate effect on her surroundings?”
“Okay,” Carl said, “you have a point. But what are the other kids doing there to begin with? I’m guessing there’s some kind of connection among family members, which would explain why Hunter was drawn to the place. Those kids, though, the ones Natalie’s transformed, what brought them to her? Shouldn’t they have been traveling their own paths?”
“Most do. As I said, it’s possible to lose your way, and once that happens, to wander into someplace like Natalie’s domain. There, you’re liable to her influence.”
“To what end? Why would she do all this, change other kids into monsters, chase after Hunter?”
“Boredom,” Annie said. She began to collect the Tarot cards in front of her. “Eternity is long. She wants Hunter because he escaped from her, because he escaped back to life. Think of a frustrated child. I would guess she’s been searching for a way to extend her pursuit of him ever since that afternoon. How she accomplished it, I’m not sure. Single-minded persistence, obviously, but combined with some quality of the places Hunter went which allowed her to push through into them. Possibly the connection to trauma, to pain, suffering. Those kinds of extreme states weaken the barrier between our world and Limbo.”
“If she’s this strong, why not grab him, drag him off to her kingdom?”
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “To do something like that requires tremendous power and knowledge. Natalie has the one, but may not have the other. Or she may know he’s dying, and have decided it’s easier to wait.”
“So you kick off,” Carl said to Hunter, “and Natalie’s waiting to turn you over to her dogs for a rawhide bone. I understand you have Annie’s map through Limbo, but I don’t see how you ever get to use it.”
“Because we’re cheating,” Hunter said. He doffed his baseball cap and set it on the kitchen island, grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. In the wintry light, his chest and arms were pale, the skin tight against the bone, painful to look at. His flesh was covered in designs executed in pale red ink, what might have been a child’s approximation of letters, except the longer Carl studied them, the more they grew to resemble not so much letters as animals, fantastic creatures whose outlines stirred the hairs on his arms. He said, “What . . . ?”
“Camouflage,” Hunter said. “It won’t hide me from Natalie, but it should make it harder for the dogs to track me.” He folded the T-shirt, placed it beside the baseball cap.
“Should,” Carl said.
“Hey, none of this is the kind of thing there are manuals for. We’re doing the best we can.”
“What about me? Where’s my camouflage?”
“You don’t need any.” Hunter unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, and lowered them. Underneath, he was naked, his emaciated skin a canvas for more of the strange characters.
“Dude,” Carl said.
“Our theory,” Annie said, “is that Natalie and the dogs will be focused on Hunter. The sigils will throw the dogs off Hunter, while your presence will confuse them further.”
“A living guy in Limbo is not something they’ve seen,” Hunter said. He folded his jeans, set them on top of the T-shirt.
“Are you saying they can’t hurt me?”
“No,” Annie said.
“You’re the living weapon, remember?”
“Seriously? I run a small dojo in small city in the Hudson Valley. Most of my students are under ten. Half my classes I spend in fun activities so the kids won’t get bored.”
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
“You want to know the last time I was in a fight? Not a sparring match, but an actual fight? I was thirteen, and the other kid cleaned my clock. And this was a human being, not some kind of monster.”
“All right,” Hunter said, “how about, you’re all I’ve got?”
“That’s hardly a ringing endorsement. What happened to your spetsnaz buddies?”
“Dead,” Hunter said, “except for the one who’s in Syria.”
“Son of a bitch,” Carl said. “How am I even supposed to accompany you?”
“At the moment,” Annie said, “the next world is very close. When you’re talking about this kind of geography, the places move in relation to you. Just over the border, Natalie and her dogs are waiting. She’s so concentrated on Hunter, she won’t notice if I slide our place and hers into conjunction.”
“You can do that?”
“Under normal circumstances, no. You need knowledge and power, remember? I have plenty of the former, but nowhere near enough of the latter. Natalie has power to spare, however, and I’ve worked out how to siphon off a sufficient amount to put my knowledge to use.”
“Annie’s gonna drop us behind enemy lines,” Hunter said, “so to speak. We’ll have a head start on our pursuers; plus, we’ll be that much closer to our destination.”
“Your destination,” Carl said. “I still have to return from this excursion. Which I’m going to do how?”
“Once Hunter has reached the other side of Natalie’s domain, I should know. I’ll release the spell holding the worlds together, and you should be carried back here.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of maybe to this plan.”
“Yeah,” Hunter said, “there is.”
Carl sighed. “It amazes me that I’m having this conversation.”
“You’ve always been pretty gullible.”
“Very nice,” Carl said. “Okay. When is all of this supposed to happen? Do you know how much longer you have?”
“Until about two hours ago,” Hunter said.
Snow filled the kitchen, swirling around the three of them.
XIII
“What do you mean?” Carl said. “You’re . . . ?” Unsaid, the word lay leaden on his tongue. Heavy, wet snowflakes pattered his face. The temperature was plunging.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hunter said. He crossed to Carl, grabbed his left shoulder with a hand that felt as solid as it ever had. Snow stuck to his bare skin; his breath misted the air. A mix of emotions, grief, incredulity, anger, surged in Carl’s chest, making him sway as if still drunk. His eyes moistened, dissolving the snow clinging to his lashes.
“We’re on the clock,” Annie said. She had fanned the Tarot deck on the marble in front of her and was using both hands to push certain cards out of it. Snowflakes eddied about her, condensing into clouds that rushed away from her.
Hunter relaxed his grip on Carl. “Madame Sosostris,” he said, “thank you. I couldn’t have done this alone.”
Without looking up from the cards, Annie said, “You’re right.”
“Come on,” Hunter said, moving toward the hallway to the living room.
“One moment,” Carl said. He wiped his eyes. A magnetic strip on the wall to the left of the sink held a series of rubber-handled knives hung points down in ascending order of size. He selected the second largest, just shy of the butcher knife at the end, and tugged it loose.
From the doorway, Hunter said, “Ready?”
“No,” Carl said, testing the knife’s weight, its balance.
“Excellent.”
In the hall, the snow thickened, the flakes becoming smaller and denser, almost ice pellets. They rattled against the windows, clattered on the wall, stung Carl’s face and hands. Raising his left hand to shield his eyes, his right ready with the knife, he said to Hunter’s back, “This already sucks.”
“Yeah, well, try doing it naked.”
“About that: Couldn’t you have found a way to do this clothed?”
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be so intimidated.”
“Intimidating is not the word I’d use for your scrawny ass.”
Carl glanced at the windows, but the storm outside had reduced the view to driving snow. At his feet, mist carpeted the floor, rising to his knees as he moved forward. “I feel like we should be having some kind of heartfelt conversation,” he said. Icy snow clung to his hair, his ears, the back of his neck.
“What is it you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Did it hurt? Dying?”
“I took some pills,” Hunter said. “I went to sleep. At the end, I panicked a little, thought, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing? What if all of this is bullshit, and I’m killing myself because of it?’ But it was already too late; the only thing I could do was trust the plan Annie and I had come up with.”
“How about now?”
“How do I feel? Weird. Half of me is elated. It’s like, it worked! Here I am! The other half of me is scared shitless. I’ve del
iberately made myself vulnerable to my sister and the Hungry Dogs. Those things, man . . .”
“I know.”
“What do you mean?” Hunter slowed, cast a glance over his shoulder.
“I saw them,” Carl said. “Last night. Or technically, I guess it was this morning. When I went out to the car for my bag. There were a couple of animals at the edge of the woods. I couldn’t see them very well. Even with the garage lights, it was pretty foggy. I thought they might be coyotes, except they didn’t move like any coyote I’ve ever seen.”
“Sounds like them.”
“I think I saw your sister, too. There was a kid dressed in a red T-shirt and shorts.”
“She probably wanted to check you out.”
“That’s reassuring.”
At the end of the hall, a framed eight-by-ten photograph hung. Hunter paused to study it, giving Carl time to join him. One of his better-known efforts, Hunter had taken it in the aftermath of Katrina’s inundation of New Orleans. It showed a man and woman waist deep in water, straining to hold on to a rowboat crowded by four frightened children, a pair of dogs, and an assortment of worldly goods, including a cooler, a microwave, and a television weighing down one corner of the boat. Water foamed around the hull, the man appeared to be on the verge of losing his grip, the woman’s face was contorted with effort, two children were crying, one of the dogs was attempting to scramble over the side. The photo was one of those iconic images of the disaster, part of the visual library news directors and documentary filmmakers went to for their pieces on the storm. Now, every last one of the figures in it had been replaced by Natalie, including the dogs. She looked on with concern at her struggling attempt to fight the current threatening to carry her away. Tongue lolling, she leaned against herself, who wrapped her arms around her tightly, eyes closed.
“Well,” Carl said.
“Yeah,” Hunter said.
As they emerged into the living room, the snow lost its ferocity. Carl lowered his hand. The space was full of trees, red pine mixing with birch, rooted in the hardwood floor. Couches and chairs scattered among them. The mist reached above his and Hunter’s heads. He said, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”
