Dead Light March

by Daniel José Older

  “What?” Sierra said. “What do you want? I don’t … I don’t know how to do this.”

  She’d gotten better at distinguishing them from each other. At first, they’d all just appeared as tall, long-armed shadow figures, but gradually they revealed individual quirks and cadences. A few wore hoodies, their faces concealed. Others had on three-piece suits and elegant gowns. None of them spoke, but Sierra felt their message like it was broadcast across the night in fire: WE ARE WITH YOU, EVEN WHEN WE’RE NOT.

  She nodded. Cast a final glance at the dark ocean behind her. Then she walked up the beach, the spirits in lockstep around her, and headed for the train.

  Is it time yet?

  Almost, not quite.

  Sooooon, sistren. Soooon.

  The three golden shrouds whisked in brisk circles around Mina; their whispers slid through her mind, soothing it. This was how every session began — with a cleansing. Mina’s eyes were closed but they registered each passing wave of illumination. She tried to keep the smile from her face as all the dull aches and petty messes of the past week slid away amidst the Sorrows’ tiny cyclone.

  Is she ready, sistren?

  I am, thought Mina. For whatever it is, I am. Increasingly, the Sorrows seemed to be upset about something. Urgency blazed through them now, whereas when Mina had first shown up, running an errand for her batshit, doll-collecting Grandma Tess, the golden shrouds radiated an ethereal calm that was almost creepy.

  Not quite, sistren. Soon.

  But the shadows rise.

  They do, they rise. And quickly, now. Quickly they rise.

  She must become ready then.

  The shadows. They’d become obsessed with the shadows since that night over the summer. Something huge had happened in another part of the spirit world and it sent reverberations all the way to this abandoned church uptown. A girl had stepped into the role of Lucera, had come into her power, and something called Shadowhouse was now in play, whatever that meant.

  Whoever this new Lucera was, the Sorrows hated and feared her, though Mina detected a certain grudging respect in their shrill complaints.

  We may not be able to wait.

  Perhaps, perhaps.

  She must at once link with the others.

  I said we should’ve placed them in touch earlier. I fear it may be too late.

  The Sorrows slid away and Mina opened her eyes to the dim cathedral around her. She stood on the dais; the three golden shrouds hung in the air before her, the empty church stretching into the shadows behind them. “What’s — uh — what’s going on, guys?”

  They conferred quietly for a moment, their glowing heads leaned inward and murmurs a muted susurration in her head. Mina had hoped it’d be like old times, when she’d come by and just talk and talk about all the dumb whimsies and fascinations and annoyances of her life and the Sorrows would listen, comment, and ask questions even, and then send her on her way feeling lifted somehow, that much more alive. It always struck her as magnificent that such regal, ancient creatures had time for her daily banalities, while her friends, hell, even creepy Grandma Tess, didn’t bother to pretend to care half the time. The Sorrows even listened intently when Mina talked about all the different long-dead serial killers she loved studying, a topic that had made more than one cute-and-interested boy smile edgily while making excuses for why he couldn’t hang out again.

  But this time, Mina realized as the Sorrows turned toward her as one and sighed, wouldn’t be like that.

  The shadows gather.

  Shadowhouse rises.

  “What is —”

  And the rise must be arrested in its tracks.

  “What do I have to —”

  You will finally link destinies with the other Children of Light.

  The Sorrows had mentioned the others before, but they demurred whenever Mina pressed them for more information. A surge of excitement rose in her. Now she would meet them. Things were happening so fast suddenly. They would be oddballs like her, strangers in their every world but this strange one, distant compatriots united by this glowing trinity inside a broken cathedral. Mina smiled.

  It is a matter of grave importance, one of the Sorrows urged. Mina tucked her smile away for later, nodded.

  Indeed. The future and past of the House of Light depend on the actions you and the others take in the next few days.

  “How can the past depend o —”

  You will find them.

  You will find them.

  You will find them.

  Mina paused. She was never sure when they were done speaking or just pausing for dramatic resonance. After a moment she squeaked: “Where will I find them?”

  You will find them.

  You will find them.

  You will find them.

  Mina looked around, half expecting a little spinning color wheel to pop up like it did when her laptop stalled out.

  IN THE DINER! they all bellowed at once, startling the hell out of Mina.

  “Oh, wow, okay.” She blinked. “Which … uh … which one?”

  The diner beside the hospital.

  “I’m not sure if … I don’t think that narrows it down too much, unfortunately. Do you know the name of the spot? I could Goo —”

  The Sisterhood of the Sorrows does not deign to know the names of every eating establishment in the city of New York, Daughter of Light.

  The Sisterhood of the Sorrows, truth be told, didn’t get out very much. And most diners were called something generic and unmemorable anyway. Mina would just have to do some research. That was fine — she was just hype to have a mission. Something to do, something she was a part of. The Children of Light! It was almost too corny, but the decrepit chapel around her offset that nicely.

  “I’ll find it,” Mina said.

  The hospital is no longer a hospital, one of the Sorrows added quietly. Mina wondered, not for the first time, if they had their own spirity version of the World Wide Web hidden somewhere in those shrouds. How did their information get updated?

  The other two turned to the one who had spoken.

  Apartments. Luxury apartments.

  “Oh snap,” Mina said. “The old Jewish Hospital on Classon Ave? They made that an apartment building, I think.”

  All three Sorrows nodded.

  “Oh! And!” Mina was almost jumping up and down with excitement. It wasn’t something that happened often. “They got a diner pegged onto the side of it! This guy Gary asked me on a date there once but he … yeah. No. But anyway, cool! It’s a twenty-four-hour spot, I think.”

  Excellent. It approaches midnight as we speak.

  “Wait, when are they gonna be there?”

  The Sorrows chuckled as one. Ah, sweet Daughter of Light, one sighed. Already they gather.

  It was after one a.m. when Mina made it to the kitschy, brightly lit diner, but folks still milled about on Classon Ave, chatting excitedly and preparing for the next two days of festivities. Pretty soon, central Brooklyn would explode with colorful feathers, pounding music, horn blasts, amazing food, smiling people. Mina wished she was in the mood for all that, but she knew she’d just feel like an outsider — pale and awkward and rhythmless. She would stand on the sidelines and gawk, eating something delicious out of a Styrofoam container and dreaming of long-dead murderers.

  Now, though, she had a mission.

  “Welcome,” a little round waiter said when she walked in. He flashed a winning smile as Mina peered over his head at the booths and counter stools. “Table for one?”

  She half expected to see a group of brightly glowing teenagers, aflame with the glory of the House of Light. What did the Children of Light look like? It’s not like the Sorrows had given her a secret hand signal or anything. A family of four took up the booth nearest to her; two middle-aged men sat in one a little farther away, sipping coffees. A homeless guy leaned over the counter, scowling into an empty soup bowl.

  Maybe they’ve left already, Mina thought, feeling everything in h
er start to sink. The ferry ride back to Staten Island would be very long and very lonely tonight.

  “Hello?” the waiter chirped. “To go or to stay?”

  Mina shook her head. Whatever. “To stay,” she said. The waiter’s grin got even larger. “Excellent. Right this way!” He led her to a single tabletop near the counter and Mina settled in. The menu was glossy, full of exclamation points and puns. Eggs and sausages would hit the spot, and coffee. She looked up to see where the waiter had disappeared to and instead found herself staring into the face of one of the middle-aged men from the booth. He was standing over her table, smiling slightly.

  “I’m not interested,” Mina said.

  The man’s mouth broke into a full-on grin. He was a little past middle age, Mina realized, but it seemed he himself hadn’t gotten the memo yet. His gray hair was spiked, and he wore a tracksuit and running shoes. His thick arms were crossed over his broad chest. “Okay, lil’ sister,” he chuckled. “I’ll let the Sorrows know.” He turned and headed back to his table.

  Mina stood. “Wait!”

  He slid into the booth across from the other man, picked up his coffee cup, and took a sip, eyebrows raised. Mina walked over, an uninvited fizzle of nervousness rumbling through her tummy. The other man looked up. He had a narrow face and small eyes. His black hair was slicked back on his head and he could’ve been anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five.

  “This is Bertram,” he said with a casual smize. “And you can call me Mort. Pull up a chair.”

  Mina had been studying serial killers for as long as she’d known how to read. There wasn’t one fixed thing that connected them all to each other, much as experts had tried to find a link. No common element in their family histories, no DNA mutation. But experts had to cling to silly things like the scientific process and proof, accountability. Mina was beholden to no such constraints. She’d looked at more mug shots than anyone, and this is what she knew: There was something in the eyes. Regular old killers didn’t have it. The accidental homicides, the passion slays — they were enraged, terrified, shocked, remorseful. But the true, coldhearted angels of death who walked amongst us, those cats had only ice in their eyes. Sometimes there was sadness, a certain haunted glare, sometimes joy, but always that ice. Cool and unrepentant, unfathomable and relentless. That was the link, and Mina knew it even if the experts didn’t.

  And that’s what Mina saw staring back at her in the eyes of the man with black hair: ice. And she knew instantly and without a shred of doubt the man was a killer.

  She pulled up a chair, suddenly absurdly serene.

  “What’s good?”

  Juan woke up at ten-thirty a.m. and everything was wrong.

  First of all: ten-thirty? A.m.? On a Sunday? Unacceptable. On any day, really.

  Second of all: Bennie. Bennie yesterday and Bennie right now. And Bennie constantly in between. As Juan and Pulpo had trundled through the busy Prospect Heights avenues, noodling along on their acoustics, Bennie’s glowing image had been there all the while, a starring role in Juan’s ever-circling mind, very like a damn ghost. Except those tall shadowy creatures that Grandpa Lázaro and now Sierra were so fond of knew when to back off, and Bennie’s smiling, feather-adorned face was non-damn-stop.

  And finally: That. Damn. Song.

  He sat up. Usually, a song was its own kind of haunting, but a welcome one. It slid along beside him as he went about his business, a gentle accompaniment to his day. And if it stayed, that’s how he knew it’d be a keeper, and then he’d reach for his guitar and strum it out and then bring it to the boys and then pow! A gift. Culebra had another hit.

  This though? This was different.

  Juan shook his head, rubbed his eyes. Reached for his guitar, changed his mind.

  This was a melody. And, just like Bennie, it wouldn’t leave.

  Who wrote melodies? Jazz douches, for one thing. And wack singer-songwritery types probably. Walked around humming little phrases to themselves like hooligans and then plinked them out on a Casio and called themselves composing.

  He let his legs hang over the bed, found the ground, stood. Stretched. Juan wrote chords. Chords made sense, all those stacked notes sliding back and forth into one another — that’s how you told a story. Not stupid singularity threads. Streams, really. Piss streams. “Bah!” Juan said out loud, and then the song swiveled through his mind, teasing.

  Melodies were for people who liked songs that gently laid them down to sleep. Melodies were for those cats who needed a degree to prove they were a musician. Conservatory types. Bah.

  With chords, you could find beauty in repetition. And then you could shake it up — you had that stable backbone so you could play all around it and everyone would feel it anyway. Room to play: That’s what chord progressions gave you. Melody got you nothing but from point A to point B. And who wanted that? Boring people. Smooth jazz-ass boring people, that’s who.

  Bennie, fully bursting with bright colors and that radiant glow around her. The vision so sudden it made Juan sit back down on the bed and just shake his head as the song tilted around him like a mischievous serpent.

  It was pretty though, Juan had to admit. Not as pretty as Bennie, but definitely had some charm. And an off-kilter kind of deviousness. And it was definitely a minor key melody, thank God. Maybe even modal.

  In fact — Juan tapped his bare foot on the floor, let the notes snake in and out of each pulse — it was in five!

  “Juan?” Sierra poked her head in his room.

  “It’s in five!” Juan announced, shining his first smile of the day.

  “Juan, what’s wrong with you, man? Seriously.”

  “What do you mean? I’m smiling!”

  “Exactly! And you didn’t yell at me for barging in without knocking.”

  “Whoa … true.”

  “Also: What’s in five, you freak?”

  “The …” Juan let the word die on his lips. Melodies were for people who liked old-dead-white-guy poetry and had dried-up flowers hanging over their beds. Melodies were for people in love. He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Ah,” Sierra sighed. “There’s the Juanisimo that I know and am annoyed by but love anyway I guess but mostly because he’s family and I have to.”

  “You’re doing a lot this Sunday morning, Si.”

  She lowered her head in a humble bow. “It is my job. Pulpo’s here.”

  “What?” Juan looked around. “Where? When? … How?”

  “Downstairs. For the past fifteen minutes. Talking to Mami about why Culebra prefers Way Down Underground to a major label. And I’m guessing he took the bus. Said he’d been calling but you never have your phone so — whoa! Slow down!”

  Juan had thrown on a T-shirt while Sierra was talking and now barreled down the stairs yelling his best friend’s nickname.

  The smell of María Santiago’s French toast brought Juan to a sudden stop. “Juan,” María said sharply. “Why is it you tell your friends to come over for rehearsal early on a Sunday and then abandon them to the mercy of your family, hm?”

  Pulpo stood. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Santiago! I told you you don’t have to —”

  She shushed him with a wave of her hand. “And I told you it’s fine, Pulpo. I was already about to start cooking. Sientate.”

  He sat, shot a glare at Juan. “Yeah, how you gonna do me like that, man?”

  Juan made a series of frantic and meaningless hand motions. “My bad but yo … yo.”

  Pulpo shook his head. “Yo what, man? I’m listening.”

  “Song. But …”

  “It’s in five,” Sierra said, coming in and kissing her mom on the cheek. “Whatever it is.”

  Pulpo gaped at her but she was already heading to the front door. “Five?” He looked at Juan.

  “I’m going to help B with her hair,” Sierra yelled.

  “Oh, word?” Juan said. “What y’all doing later on? Gonna hit the, like, the thing, or whatever?”

&nb
sp; “Probably,” Sierra said from the doorway. “Considering she spent ages and tons of money on that costume.”

  “Right. Maybe I’ll catch up with you guys.”

  “Laters!” The door closed.

  Pulpo and María glared at Juan. “¿Qué te pasó, m’ijo?” María said.

  Juan got up from the table and shook his head. “I don’t even know. Lemme go get this guitar, I need Pulpo’s help with something.”

  María turned back to the stove. “That much is clear.”

  “And so then Butt Jenny was like, ‘Nah!’” Bennie flicked her fingers with disdain, then saluted. “‘Boy bye!’ And thus ended the story of Butt Jenny and DJ BimBop.”

  “Hm.”

  “Sierra? You ain’t even listening.”

  Folks were gathering once again on Eastern Parkway as the bright September sun dipped in and out of blue-gray clouds and occasional sprinklings of rain. And once again, Sierra was barely there, and she knew it. And she still couldn’t shake it. No elders would guide her; there were none to do it. The path ahead was a dark forest. She blinked, trying to plant her feet back on the familiar pavement of the Parkway. “Have you ever wondered why we call her Butt Jenny, though?” It was just enough to keep Bennie from pushing her about being so distracted.

  Bennie scoffed. “I mean: No! Have you seen that ass?”

  “Yeah, I mean of course that, but like … Did you know she got into MIT with a full ride and she’s gonna study archeology? Like … archeology, B!”

  “But dat ass doe.”

  “Bennie.”

  “I’m sayin’.”

  “Imma start calling you Dimples Bennie and we gonna see what’s what.”

  “I will cut you.”

  “But dem dimples doe.”

  “Okay, Sierra, this isn’t funny anymore. You crossed a line.”

  “They mad cute, though! And they really accentuate ya smile!”

  “Slow down, girl!” Bennie waved her hands like a bus was about to hit her. “Lemme clear something up: Butt Jenny was the one who actively insisted folks start calling her that. It was, one might say, an act of radical self-love. How you gonna deny her that? So, I get what you saying, Si, but no, I really don’t feel any kind of way about it. She not being reduced to her butt, she rising to the occasion of having a magnificent butt. If you know what I mean.”