Apparition (The Hungry Ghosts)

by Trish J. MacGregor

  “Well, now it looks like Ricardo may pose a tsunami of problems.”

  Karina, Liana, and Franco suddenly fell into step alongside them. “Good work, people,” Karina said. “But the reprieve may not last long.”

  Victor cast Charlie a warning look: say nothing about Ricardo.

  “Whatever happened to following rules?” Franco remarked.

  “Probably Maria’s doing,” Liana said. “She’s appallingly naïve. I’m still not sure how she was ever voted onto the council.”

  “Newton wanted her,” Victor said. “After Eva reincarnated, we had to fill her spot on the council and he lobbied hard to get Maria on. She’s staunchly loyal.”

  Karina snickered. “It doesn’t have much to do with loyalty. They’re sleeping together. I heard they’re planning to reincarnate soon to work out some other life issues they had way back.”

  Franco shook his head. “At the rate they’re going, they may end up with lives in Afghanistan or some other hellhole.”

  Karina twisted her braid around her hand, then flicked it out in front of her. It came loose and a flowing black veil swung across her face. “Afghanistan’s too good for Maria. I think the South Pole would suit her.”

  Charlie was thinking something worse, like the edge of time where Wayra and Illary had taken Dominica. “She can be very persuasive when she wants to be. She’s probably figuring all the angles right now and we can be sure she’ll be trying to use her powers of persuasion to change votes.”

  “Right now,” Franco said, “our priorities are to make sure this blackness, this void, is completely gone from the hillside and get a better grasp of what’s going on in the Pincoya.”

  They reached the end of the alley and the five of them gazed out into the park. Charlie heard water spilling over the stones in the fountain. The air smelled sweet.

  Karina murmured, “It’s so beautiful and peaceful. I really do understand why brujos crave physical existence.”

  Charlie and the others nodded. A kind of collective nostalgia for physical life swept over them. “Here’s something to consider,” Charlie said. “If Esperanza is taken back into the nonphysical and something else replaces it, it won’t just be brujos who are disempowered. Chasers won’t be able to assume virtual forms, the veil between the living and the dead will become a concrete wall…”

  “You’re jumping way ahead, Charlie,” said Franco.

  “Besides,” Karina said, slipping her arm through Charlie’s, “if any of that happens, then we’ll all be faced with the same choice that the living deserve—go with Esperanza or stay behind.”

  Charlie barely heard her. He simply liked her nearness to him. She felt strangely familiar, like a favorite texture or color, smell or taste, or piece of music. He liked the way her arm felt against his, how warm and real her skin was.

  “Well, there is a third choice,” Victor said. “We can reincarnate.”

  The mood turned somber and they stood there a moment longer, watching Kali as she lifted from the trees, her blue and green wings painted with sunlight.

  “Okay, people,” Liana said. “We’ve got work to do. First stop, the hillside.”

  “Karina and I will go with you,” Franco said.

  Victor rubbed his chin. “Charlie and I will check out the situation at the Pincoya. I want to know why these brujos stopped thinking themselves to where they want to go.”

  “Maybe it’s just laziness,” Charlie remarked.

  “Or it could be that the brujos are changing in some essential way again,” Franco speculated. “We’ll get together again when we have some answers.”

  Karina leaned toward Charlie and whispered, “Let’s keep each other updated. Deal?”

  “Deal,” he whispered back, and was surprised when her soft, cool mouth brushed his cheek. He caught her hand before she moved away from him and added: “You’re my coconspirator. That’s how this feels.”

  “We’ll explore that, Charlie.” Then she squeezed his hand quickly and joined Franco and Liana. “You two ready?”

  “Good to go,” Franco said.

  The three hooked arms and faded away. Karina’s scent lingered in the air, a soft sweetness, like night-blooming jasmine. He and Victor crossed the street and sat on a bench in the park. The sound of the water in the fountain was louder, lovely, musical, and soothed Charlie’s anxiety.

  “Do you want to reincarnate?” Victor asked, his forehead creasing with wrinkles.

  Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to give it much thought. I think I’d rather wait for the people I love to cross over so we could plan a life together. What about you?”

  “In the twenty-first century?” He shook his head. “No, thanks. Twenty twelve is a major transitional year for the living, Charlie. Life is about to get very difficult, with a wider chasm between the haves and the have nots, more wars, more religious nuts, more natural disasters, and a whole lot of people crossing over because they can’t—or won’t—embrace the new paradigm. The world is in the midst of a massive shift. I think I’ll wait until the beginning of the twenty-second century when things have settled down.”

  The conversation was beginning to depress Charlie. “C’mon, let’s shed these forms and see what’s what at the Pincoya.”

  “It’ll be easier if we go in as birds.”

  They shed their virtual human forms. Charlie thought his consciousness into the shape of an owl and Victor thought himself into the shape of a hawk. They flew into the sunlight together and eventually swooped down toward the Pincoya and sailed through a broken rear window.

  They discarded their virtual bird forms and drifted from one neglected room to another, watching the bits of lights that were brujos, darting and flitting like fireflies through the darkness of the abandoned hotel. Their presence apparently wasn’t detected, which struck Charlie as odd. In the past, in his dealings with Dominica and her tribe, brujos usually knew when chasers were around. Did that mean these brujos were less developed? Or did they see him and Charlie and just didn’t give a shit?

  They followed the darting bits of light into what had once been a ballroom and watched as the lights vanished through a wall of mirrors. You think the portal’s in there, Victor?

  Looks that way. You game?

  You bet.

  But as they shot toward the wall of mirrors, some of the bits of light encircled them and abruptly assumed virtual forms as large, muscular warriors wearing chest armor and carrying long spears. Charlie and Victor immediately assumed virtual forms—Victor as a towering Genghis Khan clone and Charlie in his usual white trousers, shirt, hat, and shoes.

  “Well, well, chasers.” One of the warriors stepped forward and bowed at the waist. “Ricardo’s the name. You can’t pass through those mirrors, gentlemen.”

  “We can pass through anything we damn well please,” Victor replied.

  “It takes you through hell,” Ricardo said. “No chaser steps into hell and returns to talk about it.”

  Charlie laughed. “Hell? Please. There’s no such thing.” He snapped the lid of his Zippo lighter open, shut, open and shut, again and again, a quick, staccato sound. Hell lies inside this Zippo.

  “Charlie Livingston.” Ricardo jabbed his spear in Charlie’s direction. “Met your lovely daughter. She tastes delicious. I gather she communicated my message?”

  Prick. “If you plan on turning your tribe loose on Esperanza, then get on with it. We’re ready for you.”

  Ricardo and his fellow warriors exploded in near hysteria. “Right, sure you are.”

  “Let’s take the city now,” shouted one of the warriors. “We can do it immediately.”

  “I think not,” Victor snapped.

  Charlie flicked his lighter once more and tremendous flames whooshed out of it, incinerating two of the warriors instantly. The others fled their virtual forms and dived into the mirrors. Charlie aimed the lighter at the glass and the flames grew brighter, hotter, and the mirror began melting. Victor threw
his arms up into the air and hundreds of tremendous crows filled the ballroom, all of them cawing, shrieking, their long wings flapping furiously, fanning the flames as they dived for the bits of light that suddenly seemed to be everywhere.

  “Charlie,” Victor shouted, and assumed the virtual shape of a crow.

  Charlie thought himself into the shape of the gigantic white crow he had used several times on Cedar Key, during Maddie’s rescue, and he and Victor soared through the broken window, their wings passing unimpeded and uninjured through glass and brick. Outside, they soared into the sunlit sky. Charlie glanced down only once. Thick fog rolled toward La Pincoya, and within it glistened thousands of bits of lights, the brujos Ricardo had summoned, some of the ghosts within his tribe. So damn many of them.

  We’re fucked, Charlie thought, and flew faster, faster.

  Five

  Café Taquina

  1.

  Every morning, Tess and Ian raced the first mile of their three-mile run. The loser was supposed to buy coffee and breakfast. But this morning when Ian exploded off the curb in front of their building, she simply didn’t have the energy to try to catch up. She jogged a halfhearted mile through light that seemed as sentient as the darkness that had swallowed part of the hill and café deck last night.

  Some mornings, Maddie and Sanchez jogged with them. But after they had driven Tess and Ian back into old town this morning, Sanchez said he wasn’t feeling up to a run, so Maddie had backed out, too. Life was apparently in flux again and she hoped it wouldn’t mean a complete upheaval.

  Tess circled back to the plaza where all the food stalls were set up and bought two cortaditos and a full Ecuadorian breakfast. Between the plaza and their apartment, she stuffed her face, appalled that she could eat so much and still be hungry. Since Ian wasn’t back yet, she headed to the shower, stripping off her sweaty clothes, leaving them where they fell.

  When she was in the shower and the steam had thickened to the point that she could hardly see her feet, the door opened and Ian stepped inside.

  “Hey, what happened to you, Slim?”

  “I was too hungry to give chase.”

  He squirted shampoo into his hands and began lathering her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp, then he nuzzled her neck. His soapy hands slipped over her breasts and tummy and then lower. She turned and sought his mouth and guided him inside of her.

  For long, sensuous moments, they moved to a rhythm only they could hear, the hot water pounding around them, over them, steam rising up around them. The first time they had made love, they were transitional souls, staying in cottage 13 at the Posada de Esperanza. It had felt as real and magnificent then as it did now.

  Tess wondered, not for the first time, if they were still transitionals, their bodies long dead, their individual consciousness spinning illusions. Her gasps and soft moans, his rapid breath against her neck, the delicious sensations of his mouth and hands, the electricity that shot through her: how could this not be real?

  She reached behind her and laced her fingers across the back of his neck, drawing his mouth closer to the curve of her shoulder. He slipped more deeply inside of her and began to move, slowly and deliberately, his hands slipping over her soapy breasts, her soapy stomach, between her thighs. She turned her head and his mouth found hers. Their tongues dueled, the water pounded over them, and it went on so long that the heat inside of her built to almost unbearable levels, until she was a nuclear reactor in meltdown.

  Afterward, they clung to each other. She knew he felt as disturbed about recent events as she did. “Clooney, do you ever wonder if we’re actually dead?”

  Ian drew his fingers through her wet hair and she tilted her head back and looked up at him, into the dark pools of his eyes. “I hope you’re kidding, Slim.”

  “Only half.”

  He kissed her, then turned off the shower. Beads of water rolled over his eyelids, out onto the tips of his eyelashes and perched there for an instant like high divers, then dropped onto his cheeks. “So we’ve lived the last four plus years in, what, The Matrix?”

  Even The Matrix, she thought, couldn’t accommodate the fact that Ian had actually been born in 1924 and that when he’d had a massive heart attack and died at the age of forty-four, in 1968, his soul had moved forward to 2008 and they had met and fallen for each other. When they began to emerge from their comas, their souls were snapped back into their bodies, in their respective times. Ian had remembered nearly everything; Tess had remembered nothing. But as she had slowly recovered her memories of what had happened while she was dead and comatose, as he had started to heal and put his life there in order, they had both known they needed to return to Esperanza in order to find each other.

  If it hadn’t been for Wayra, that never would have happened. The shifter, capable of moving through time, had brought Ian forward to 2008.

  Now here they were, more than four years later, two people who would never have found each other if they hadn’t died and ended up in Esperanza. She understood now that her father’s death some years before that had been necessary in the greater scheme of things; he had paved the way. But even before Charlie had passed on, there had been forces at work in the background, connections she still didn’t fully understand and probably never would.

  “The Esperanza Matrix,” she said with a quick laugh, just to show him she had been joking, that she knew the difference between illusion and reality.

  The irony was that a man born in 1924 had so fully adapted to life in the twenty-first century that he could reference The Matrix. But what shocked her was that Ian understood as well as she did that until they had died, they each had been living in a kind of cultural matrix, blinded by their limited perceptions of what was possible.

  “Here’s how I figure it.” He opened the stall door, grabbed a pair of towels off the rack, tossed one to her. “If we’re dead and are having such great sex and are faced with perplexing and strange mysteries, then death isn’t a problem for me. The world’s norm is not my norm.”

  With that, he snapped his towel at her ankles, a small biting sting, and darted out of the shower and into the bedroom before she could retaliate.

  Did other couples in this city have these weird conversations? She toweled herself dry, wrapped a second towel around her wet hair, and glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. “Hey, Ian?”

  He popped his head through the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “Do I look fat?”

  His eyes slipped up and down her reflection, then turned to her actual body, exploring her as intimately as his hands had moments ago. “Oh, sure, horrendously fat.”

  “Seriously. I bought enough food for both of us, but I was so hungry I ate everything.”

  “I seem to recall that you’ve always eaten like that. Your metabolism burns it up. At least you didn’t drink my coffee,” he teased. “We should grab a cab in about twenty minutes to get to the café on time. Bring your car keys so we can pick up our cars.”

  Tess stood in front of the mirror a while longer, toweling her hair dry and turning from one side to another, examining herself in the mirror. Okay, so she wasn’t fat. But she felt fat. Then again, she’d just stuffed her face, so of course she felt fat.

  “Forget it, get moving,” she muttered.

  2.

  In the morning light, the grounds around the Café Taquina looked like a war zone, Tess thought. Stuff littered the ground—handbags, shoes, cans, bottles, loose change, jackets, sweaters, plates, and glasses. No corpses: the dead had been removed.

  Half a dozen cop cars were parked inside the area that had been cordoned off last night. She also saw a van from the science department at the University of Quito and another from the local forensics lab. Journalists, many of them from neighboring towns, and camera crews congregated just beyond the forbidden area. A few stray cats and dogs skulked about.

  “Amigos,” someone shouted behind them, and Tess and Ian both turned around.

  Diego Garcia strode
toward them, a handsome, energetic young man with a bounce to his walk, a quick smile, and dark eyes like those of a child, wide, curious, vibrant. He threw his arms around them both, hugging them hello. “They’re about to run the plates on cars left here last night. If you give me the keys, I’ll have the cars moved out of here before that happens.”

  Tess and Ian turned their keys over to Diego, he excused himself and went over to one of the other cops, and returned a few minutes later. He handed them each an ID badge. “Clip these to your jackets. You’re now experts from the University of Quito.”

  They put on the badges and followed Diego around the yellow crime tape toward the steps to the café’s rear deck. Choppers kept circling, Diego’s radio crackled with voices, a crisp wind blew across the empty parking lot.

  As they neared the steps, Diego said, “Engineers are conducting tests to find out if the deck is safe to walk on. Until we know for sure, we can’t go any farther than the top step. But you’ll be able to get plenty of photos from there.”

  Tess didn’t have to climb to the top step to see the ruin—overturned tables and chairs, a blanket of shattered glass, silverware, shoes, jackets, scraps of papers and napkins fluttering across the debris. Midway across the deck, everything simply dropped away into nothingness. Floor gone, railing gone, roof gone, wooden planks gone, heaters, lights, tables, chairs, everything gone. It looked just as Illary had described it, as if a mammoth eraser had rubbed it all away. But instead of the blackness, the erased area was now a blinding white that reflected sunlight like a mirror, like smooth glass, like the surface of a still lake. It flowed erratically downhill, as if some weaving drunk had splashed luminous white paint from side to side as he stumbled around. Here and there stood a lonely pine tree or a bush or a flower bed that hadn’t been swallowed up.

  “Jesus,” Ian whispered, and started taking videos of the area.

  Tess snapped several dozen photos. “Why hasn’t this part of the deck just crumbled away?” she asked. “How can it still be standing? It’s not connected to anything.”