“No, other friends.”
“And you? Are you having them?” she asked.
“A few, yes.”
“I think a little less drink, fewer late nights and a good meal now and then ought to cure that. A troubled mind leads to troubled dreams.”
“I’m not troubled.”
She raised an eyebrow, which would be an impertinence from any other servant, especially a black one addressing a white employer. But she had been in Seamus’s employ long enough that she could be forthright.
“Have you heard of a black woman here in the city?” he asked. “A woman who lives in a white neighborhood? She has a white house with blue trim.”
“What? Has something happened to her?”
“You know her?”
“I know of her, but I don’t know her personally. Her name is September Wilde.”
The name meant something. It was a part of something bigger, a piece of a set of information, but he couldn’t remember what.
Chapter 16
Astrid stepped through the Door into the small bookshop in Nebraska and immediately went to the employee break room at the back. The shop’s owner, Jeff, took the full coffeepot from the machine and filled three cups.
“It’s bad, Jeff,” said Astrid. “Something very wrong is happening.”
Gopan, who appeared as an eight-year-old Indian boy, but was really much older, took a doughnut from the box at the center of the table and munched it thoughtfully, listening.
“There are always a few geists missed,” said Jeff. “Our work is more an art than a science.”
“It’s more than that. It’s not just the number, it’s the age of the geists. You said the one at the hospital was more than ten years old. And it was coming through from the afterlife.”
“We don’t know that for sure. Besides, geists get stuck.”
He handed her a coffee cup and set one in front of Gopan.
“Why only three cups?” she asked. “Aren’t Graciela and Robin coming?”
Jeff drew a deep breath and pulled out a chair, but failed to sit down. He leaned on the back of the chair.
“They aren’t coming. They’ve been asked not to come.”
“Asked by whom?” asked Gopan.
“Our higher-up.”
As naturally occurring beings, the psychopomps did not have a strict hierarchy or follow orders. But as the eldest, Jeff was nominally in charge, followed by Gopan. But aside from the five of them, there was another living psychopomp, a person who was very old. Astrid had heard Jeff speak of him, but had never met him herself. He was inhuman, she was sure, but she knew no more.
“Why can’t they come?” asked Astrid.
Jeff lowered himself into the chair, but he looked like he wanted to jump out of it again.
“He asked them not to come again. Ever. They’ll be working directly with him.”
“Will they still be doing their jobs?” asked Gopan. “Are they still clearing out souls?”
“I’m not sure yet what they’re doing, only that November doesn’t want them to come any more.”
Gopan met Astrid’s eyes and they exchanged a wordless moment of understanding. Jeff had never spoken the name of the man with whom he occasionally consulted. While to Gopan, November was just an unusual name, to Astrid it meant more.
“Why Robin and Graciela?” Astrid asked.
“Because they’re loyal. And let’s face it, obedient,” said Jeff. She had never heard him so weary before.
He was referring to Graciela and Robin’s aspects, a black Belgian sheepdog and a black terrier respectively. Black dogs were traditional psychopomp aspects, just as her owl was. Gopan’s aspect of a child was more unusual, and Astrid still didn’t know Jeff’s aspect. It was considered rude to ask, as a person’s aspect revealed key parts of their personality and way of viewing the world.
Though Astrid considered them all friends, or had, back when they knew her, Graciela and Robin had a special bond. They were kindred spirits. It was no surprise that where one went, the other did as well.
“I’ve run across far more trapped spirits than usual as well,” said Gopan. “It’s not just Astrid’s newbie jitters.”
Gopan might not believe that she had been on the job for years, and might think she was more than a little crazy, but at least he seemed to agree with her on that point.
“Perhaps it’s because two-fifths of us seem to be off duty,” said Jeff. “It’s all in the numbers.”
“No, Jeff,” said Gopan gently. “There really is something wrong.”
Jeff took off his glasses and cleaned them, then slid them back on.
“I’ve heard a few things,” he said. “Like twitches on a web. More stories of hauntings and seeing the dead. I chalked it up to the Internet. People are more in communication with each other than ever before. Stories travel farther.”
“But what if they’re not stories?” said Gopan.
Jeff took a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know.”
“Doors open between worlds,” said Astrid. “And our Doors are no different, other than they’re one-way and go to death. But what if they are more permeable than we thought? What if a Door didn’t close all the way? Or what if death isn’t as well sealed as we always thought?”
“Please, Astrid,” said Jeff. “No more about that geist and this multiple worlds thing.”
“I know you think I’m crazy, but think about it. You know this November person, and if I’m right, he’s one of twelve people. The Twelve. Not human, right? So you already know that there are other types of beings. Why not other worlds? And what if things got stuck between the worlds?”
“Or stuck coming through from one to the other,” said Gopan.
“Exactly. That’s what I saw at the hospital.”
“The dead don’t come back,” said Jeff. “They can get stuck here after they die, but once they go through, they stay dead.”
“How do you know for sure?” asked Gopan. “None of us can be sure, not really.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can learn.” said Jeff. “If there’s trouble of some kind, we’ll find out.”
But Astrid wondered if it was already too late for that.
Chapter 17
Neil Grey made a sandwich for himself in Mr. March’s kitchen, took a swim in the heated outdoor pool, showered and went into town for a street fair featuring local artists. He spoke to no one and only paused to study two items: a particularly compelling drawing of a pumpkin on a table and a blue and green handblown glass bowl. He bought a bag of popcorn and stopped in the bookshop for something to read before heading home.
It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon after a morning spent stalking and killing a man. The man had been guilty, of course. They all were. March was never wrong about these things. Neil did not feel bad for questioning March’s word before, but now that he was willing to provide Neil with any evidence he required for a target, Neil found himself at peace.
For now, he was alone, but March would return home after dinner. Neil turned on the sound system, one he was certain had cost several thousand dollars, and sat back on the leather sofa, listening to Vivaldi, then Handel, then Couperin and Scarlatti. The Baroque composers were always his favorites, and March kept a respectable collection.
Later that evening, March appeared in the living room. It didn’t startle Neil, as he was used to his boss’s method of travel. But he was shocked by the way March looked. It was nothing anyone else might notice. One had to know March to see that the circles under his eyes were darker than usual and his face was gaunt. He looked exhausted and older.
“What happened?” Neil asked, rising from the sofa and following March into the kitchen.
“Things are getting worse,” said March. “A conflict is coming. A war.” March
ladled leftover tomato soup into a bowl and microwaved it.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t. I’ve shielded you as best I could. This place, here, in this time, is safe. It’s protected, in a sense. But soon, nowhere will be safe. Tell me, have you been sleeping well? Unusual dreams?”
It was an odd question, but not an overly personal one.
“I’m fine,” Neil said. He had never been troubled by bad dreams.
March looked at him as if ascertaining if he was telling the truth. Satisfied, he turned back to his meal preparations.
“Why will there be a war?” asked Neil. “Who is fighting?”
March sighed. “Those who want to inhibit human freedom. You know I am not human, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do. But though I am not, I consider humans my kin. My brothers and sisters. I watch out for them. I fight for them. You, along with me, fight for them. Our work together is to remove the small hindrances here and there that ultimately inhibit human freedom. The people we remove are wicked, and ultimately add to the enslavement of the human race, though in small ways. But the tiny pieces add up to a larger whole. I’ve worked so hard, especially recently, but things are not as they ought to be. Something did not go as planned. Those who want to inhibit human freedom have a thumb on the scale.”
“Who are they?”
“Oh, the usual sorts. Ones like me. Ones different from me. Ones who like restrictions on things. There are those who have false notions of peace through enslavement. They want ignorance and the binding of the human will. I and those like me desire to give humans knowledge of good and of evil. Then they can choose for themselves. And we want them to be free to do so.”
“All people desire freedom. Freedom and goodness.”
March touched his shoulder, and Neil was struck by how much smaller the man seemed now. Then March cut two slices of bread from a loaf Neil had baked the day before and spread butter on them. He handed a slice to Neil.
“Goodness, as you say, is a human desire. But the defining of goodness is something best left to the individual people themselves. Morality and immorality cannot be defined externally.”
“But there are universally accepted rules of behavior. They differ culturally, but they exist. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not lie.”
“And yet you kill. You steal things like identification chips to do so. And do you not lie to get near your targets? I know you do.”
“But my actions are in service to a greater good. They are enacting justice.”
“Indeed they are.”
“And thus, they are in alignment with goodness. They adhere to the idea of an objective good.”
March stopped chewing for a moment and looked at him, his eyes sharp and penetrating. “There is no objective good.”
“But isn’t freedom a good? If you fight for it, then you must believe it is a good.”
“It is, perhaps, the only one. All other notions are false. Good is relative. So is truth. Once you move beyond the idea of good and evil, true and false, virtue and vice, there is a sharper clarity of thought that comes. Only complete freedom of action and will and conscience must exist. Nothing else will do.”
Neil put on the kettle to boil water for tea.
“But isn’t discriminating between freedom and enslavement the same thing as naming them as good and evil? You are placing a higher value on one than the other.”
“I am. And I am not ashamed of the contradiction. I tolerate it because of humanity. Struggling, stinking, stupid humanity. The poor things have little interest in bettering themselves, but I work for them all the same.”
“People aren’t so bad. You do them an injustice.”
“You are no more human than I am.”
Neil turned and found March watching him. He had known he was not human, though this was the first time March had said as much. As the years had passed, Neil had wondered about his place in the world. He wondered about his extraordinary strength, his speed, his ability to go nearly unnoticed, as if people didn’t really see him.
“What am I?” he asked.
“The question the clay asks the potter,” said March with a fond smile. “You are what you were made to be. A man of earth. A man of strength and cunning and loyalty. You are a golem.”
For a moment, Neil thought he meant it metaphorically, but then he understood.
“I made you,” said March.
“Is that why my memories are so few?”
“I believe so. But do not trouble yourself. You are more a human than even I would have anticipated.”
“Humans love beauty and art and music.”
“They do,” said March. “And they can be curious and loyal and creative.”
“I am not creative. I cannot make things.”
“And for that I am sorry. I had never thought to give you that gift. It never entered my mind that you would desire it.”
Neil felt a keen pain, one that he knew would fade a little now, and then come back sharper later, when he had time to think about it. He could never create. The desire to create beauty, that painful longing for it, permeated all of humanity. It wasn’t just books and paintings and music, it was more. The creation of inventions, dances, machines and games, culinary delights and knitted caps, poems and mathematical formulas. All of them were outside his reach. He could not create them, only imitate what already was.
“I wish I were human.”
“Said the wooden boy. But no. You are better than humanity. You are different, and better.”
“You say that because you love me.”
“I say it because I see you. And I see them. I see the people, hungry for affection and doing such stupid things to get it. I see them watching mindless television to drown out the monotony of their self-created misery. I see the young people at the clubs, sweating and drinking, laughing and gyrating in the mindless pursuit of pleasure. You are different. You seek beauty for its own sake.”
“They seek beauty too, I think. They seek delight in each other’s forms and in the pulsing of the music and the taste of the wine. It is not merely the pursuit of pleasure. It may begin as something low and base, but there is more to it. Each man who enters the brothel is in search of God. I read that somewhere. They seek the higher beauty.”
“No. That is not so. You see them as similar to yourself. They are not. Don’t forget that. You are free in a way they may never be. We work for their benefit, but it is hard work and fraught with disappointment. You are not a product of your era, because you have no era. You have no home world, no home time.”
“I have memories of a time and place. I remember things from long ago.”
“But they are not your memories. They were collected from others. You have chosen your own path. The humans, they accept the moral axioms of their day. You are free of such limits. You set your own course.”
Neil wasn’t so sure, but he wasn’t prepared to argue the point with March. He prepared the tea.
March looked a little better now, less haggard and weary. He was still thin, but had some color in his skin now.
“It’s time you knew something,” said March. “I want you to understand. Heaven’s war is fought on earth. It seems to always be thus. In such a war, there are soldiers. And you were not the only golem I created.”
Chapter 18
Another earthquake rattled the hospital building, the second that day. Felicia watched the lights flicker while she held open her locker door.
“We have backup generators,” said one of the nurses who was coming on shift just as Felicia was leaving for the day. “Don’t worry about the patients.”
By the time she got to her car and turned on the radio, the local news had reported on the quake. She knew th
at by the time she got home, the local seismographic results would report that the epicenter was under the hospital. Then, if another quake came later that night, it would be under her apartment.
She drove home and opened the door to find her housemate, Doug, sitting on the living room floor, playing a video game. The aroma of lentil soup filled the room. It was late April, and with her lack of appetite, she had lost almost eight pounds. Her obstetrician said she needed to eat and Doug had taken up the job of cooking healthy food for her and insisting she eat them.
“Did you feel the earthquake?” she asked.
“Yeah, but the news said that they’re so small that they’re not going to cause structural damage to any buildings.” He didn’t look away from his video game. “But the last few have been stronger.”
She thought of her home in Los Angeles, of the seismic reinforcements that the buildings were required to have. Even the freeways were required to withstand minor earthquakes. But New Orleans was not like Los Angeles. The buildings of brick and stone would crumble and people would die. She imagined the older buildings, the historic homes, the places downtown, like St. Louis Cathedral.
She imagined it destroyed, and then remembered that she had dreamed just such a thing. The walls crumbling, the roof falling in, the dust rising and the people fleeing. That part of town called to her and terrified her for no rational reason. The image of the destruction was clear in her mind, but it had not come from an earthquake. There had been a giant, terrible machine.
“I have to go somewhere,” she said.
“You need to eat.”
“I’ll eat when I get back. I’ve been having dreams about Jackson Square, about bad things happening there, and about drowning. I know why I dream about Los Angeles, since that’s home. But there’s something about the cathedral that is bugging me.”
“They’re just dreams. Everyone has bad dreams.”
She had told him about her dreams, about the Irish man and the other weird things, but naturally, he had dismissed it. Any sane person would. But no one else she knew had such dreams, such vivid, soul-wrenching dreams, and hers had only started recently, with the baby.
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 125
