by Lex Chase
The howler looked down at the SPÖL and ran his fingers over the surface of the walnut particleboard. “We were building the TV stand. And we were missing a screw. I came back to see if I could get an extra. I think? And that man over there, he’s going to buy the same thing. But there aren’t enough screws.”
Patrick snapped his fingers. “Ah! Yes! I have seen just the screws you’re looking for. If you head out to the exit, I’ll have them delivered, all right? And I’ll make sure the gentleman across the way picks up a pack of extra hardware. You should get going. Mary is probably getting dinner ready.”
The howler nodded. “Dinner. Yes, dinner.”
Patrick rubbed his stomach. “Mashed potatoes with extra butter, am I right or what?”
The howler brightened. “Oh yes! Definitely. Mary makes the best roast. Just like my grandmother.” He stepped back into the aisle, flowing with living customers. “You’ve been most helpful, young man. What’s your name?”
Patrick offered a bright grin and tapped two fingers to his forehead in salute. “Patrick, sir. Have a good dinner. Bring me the recipe some time.”
The howler nodded and turned one last time. He vanished into the crowd, leaving only a trail of smoke.
Patrick took a breath and then coughed. The cold of the overactive air-conditioning seeped into his skin. Nothing a hot shower wouldn’t cure. Patrick flicked his fingers and watched his hands, noting the graying of his fingertips. He concentrated and flexed his fingers into fists and then unfurled them. The pink of fictional blood flow returned.
Benji whistled a low note. “That was awesome.”
Patrick crossed his arms and nodded. “And that, my dear Benji, is why I’m employee of the decade.” He stalked over to the customer who’d been looking at the TV stand and reached into his own pocket, fishing around until he found a small packet of screws. He tucked them into the customer’s pocket unobtrusively. “Ten thousand saved….” Distantly the entryway bell sounded over the showroom. He nodded with satisfaction. “Ten thousand and one.”
Benji chuckled. “I gotta admit, you’re pretty helpful.”
Patrick pulled a long stretch of the shoulders and yawned. “Yeah, y’know. Some things just come naturally.” He reached to pat Benji on the back and then rethought it. He grunted with another fake stretch. “Now you give it a go.” He pointed across the floor to the living room section. Agnes sat on her usual pristine white couch, knitting away. She paused to count stitches and then nodded at her findings.
“Her?” Benji asked.
“Ten bucks says she’s not here waiting on family.”
“But money doesn’t matter here.”
“Eh. Semantics,” Patrick said and shooed Benji forward. “Go on. It’s an easy one.”
Patrick would feel guilty later, but right now he refrained from pissing himself with giggles.
Benji nodded and straightened his shirt, then readjusted his jeans. The way they hung on his hips was definitely a nice touch. Patrick tilted his head as Benji took the lead across the floor.
“Remember what I said about expending energy!” Patrick called as he hung back.
Later, he would think back on sending Benji into Agnes’s domain and marvel at the fact that he hadn’t laughed himself silly, giving away the joke. Benji strolled by her, trying to play it cool. Patrick scratched his chin. The oddball strategy was a touch charming. Patrick would work that out of Benji’s system soon. As Benji pretended to straighten items, Agnes caught on and shot Patrick a warning look. He shrugged in mock innocence.
“I hope you know how much of a shit you are,” Karin said just behind him.
“The newbie’s gotta learn, y’know,” Patrick said.
“You need to stop being so willfully oblivious. He’s more than just a newbie.” She laughed softly. “Cupcake? Honestly?”
“Get off it,” Patrick warned her.
“You’re going soft.”
“Just need something to pass the time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t you have kitchens to take care of?” Patrick scowled.
Across the floor, Agnes glared at them both as Benji approached her.
Karin whispered to Patrick. “Here we go. Three… two….”
Patrick flicked his attention to Benji just at the right second. Like an idiot, Benji reached out to touch Agnes….
And then the poor schmuck promptly dispersed in a puff of spiritual smoke.
Agnes threw down her knitting needles in a huff. “Patrick Harrison Bryant!” she bellowed.
Karin chuckled. “Ooh. You got Harrison.”
Patrick waved her off. “C’mon now, wanna come along as we fish Benji out of the ball pit?”
Karin stepped back and held up her hands. “That’s all you, big guy. I don’t tread on Agnes’s turf.”
“But it’s fun.” Patrick batted his lashes.
“Until Agnes decides to throw you in and not pull you out.” She slapped his shoulder. “Now, go get your precious sweet cupcake.”
Patrick happily gave her the customary salute of the middle finger.
Chapter Five: BRESIA
Benji felt weightless. But also like he was lying in bed, if bed was a cloud that smelled like plastic. He shifted, his stomach swooping like he was falling as the small movement dipped him lower.
His eyes shot open. The darkness around him felt like it had weight. He moved again, managing a breathless shriek when he sank deeper into the nothingness.
“Welcome to drama queen, population one,” he heard from somewhere above him.
“You have no business here. Don’t you have someone to haunt in the café?”
That voice was unfamiliar, but the first one—Benji racked his brain, trying to figure out how he knew it. It gave him something to focus on aside from the blinding terror he’d felt a moment ago, which was nice.
“I’m not bringing him up until you’re gone. Go,” the second voice said. Benji recognized the tone. She had to be a teacher. No one could nail disappointed condescension quite as well as a teacher.
“He needs—”
The woman snorted. “What he needs to do is accomplish what he was put here to do so he can move on.”
“I’m wounded, Agnes. That feels like a dig at me, not a statement about our dear Benjamin.”
“We hear what we want to hear, Patrick,” the woman said.
Patrick! Benji took another breath, grimacing when the inhalation brought more plastic-scented air into his lungs. He was in the ball pit at CASA. Because he was dead.
Jesus.
Benji went limp, letting himself sink deeper into the balls. He didn’t want to see Patrick. He didn’t particularly want to see this Agnes woman either, but needs must. He’d rather the devil he didn’t know than the one he did in this instance.
Though Patrick had been adamant that this wasn’t hell. Were there devils in purgatory? Probably. And Patrick, with his sinful good looks and screw-everything attitude, was definitely a prime candidate to be one.
He stayed under a few more minutes until a bejeweled and wrinkled hand thrust down into the balls.
“Patrick’s gone. It’s time to come out,” Agnes said.
Benji put his hand in hers, wincing at her surprisingly tight grip as she pulled him up. He gasped when his head broke the surface, the open air tasting sweet and light on his tongue after the heavy, fetid atmosphere at the bottom of the pit.
There wasn’t any accompanying relief in his lungs, though. He took another cautious breath, alarm spiking through him when he realized his chest wasn’t moving.
“We don’t need to breathe. Most of us do, just because it’s familiar. But that’s a corporeal need, son, and we’re most certainly not corporeal anymore.”
He’d only met Agnes briefly before everything had gone dark, but she sounded much kinder than she had when she’d been dressing Patrick down a few minutes ago.
Benji swallowed hard. There was saliva in his mouth, but he probably didn’
t need that anymore, either. If they didn’t need to breathe, he doubted they needed to eat or drink. That revelation made Patrick’s obsession with sitting in the café even more curious.
“New Guides are usually paired with Karin, but Patrick got to you first, I’m afraid,” Agnes continued, her expression dour. “We used to have someone else who—” She shook her head. “The past is the past. Karin should have been the one to greet you, but we didn’t want to get between you two. You’re the first person he’s shown any interest in meeting in a long time.”
Patrick didn’t give off the loner vibe at all. He was so—loud. But that did shed some light on his general ineptitude at actually explaining anything at all about their situation. Not that things would have been any less traumatic with Karin, but at least he’d be better informed. He still had no idea what was going on, aside from the fact that he was somehow dead.
“I wouldn’t call it interest as much as amusement,” Benji said dryly.
“Well, that’s been lacking too.” Her smile managed to be fond and disappointed all at once. “At any rate, I’m sorry you were the one to suffer for it. Patrick’s a good man, but he’s… conflicted.”
Conflicted wasn’t the word Benji would have chosen, but he let it slide. Agnes obviously knew Patrick much better than he did.
Agnes tugged on their joined hands again, and Benji took the hint and sat up. He sighed when he realized he was back in his old clothes.
Agnes chuckled. “Occupational hazard,” she said, winking at him. She patted his hand, sandwiching his between both of hers. Her skin was translucent and wrinkled just like he’d expect for a woman her age, but it seemed to almost crackle with energy. Holding her hand wasn’t unlike getting a static shock on a dry winter day. Not enough to feel painful, but enough that the current was obvious.
She gave him a squeeze before letting go so he could make his way out of the ball pit. He felt much better than he had when he’d woken up. His head was clear, and his skin still felt like it was buzzing where it had come into contact with hers. He was usually muzzy for a bit after he woke, something that made facing a classroom full of five-year-olds excruciating for the first hour or so, but right now he felt like he’d been awake for hours downing Red Bull nonstop.
Agnes let out another low laugh when he looked from his hands to hers. “Patrick thinks it’s the ball pit that recharges auras, but I think you’ve already figured out he’s wrong, haven’t you?”
Benji flexed his hand, surprised to find it looked perfectly normal. “I didn’t feel like this before you touched me. I was tired and confused.” He looked over his shoulder at the ball bit. “So why do we end up there if it isn’t to recharge?”
Agnes’s eyes lit up, and for a moment there was a timeless quality to her appearance, a luminescence that was there and gone so fast Benji could have imagined it. He didn’t think he had, though. He was still learning the ropes, but Agnes was definitely more than she seemed. How could someone as smart at Patrick not have picked up on that? Especially if he’d been around as long as Agnes seemed to be hinting.
“Honestly? Because it’s a goddamn hassle for me, so it’s sure as hell going to be a hassle for you.” She snickered when he gaped at her. “Don’t look so shocked. I may spend most of my time knitting, but I’m not a delicate flower.”
He had a clear memory of her now that she’d done her mojo on him. She’d been knitting on a couch in one of the display houses, and Patrick had tricked him into touching her.
“But before, you didn’t recharge me. Everything went blank.”
She clucked her tongue. “That was Patrick’s fault. You can’t touch me.”
“But—”
Agnes cut him off with an unimpressed stare. “I said you can’t touch me. I can touch you. In fact, it’s necessary when your aura gets so depleted that you dematerialize. You were well on your way to that. Touching me just jump-started the process.”
Benji looked down at himself. He could feel the texture of his jeans against his thighs, including the uncomfortable stiffness of the stained fabric. He clenched his fist, focusing on the sharp bite of his fingernails into his palm. He felt solid. He felt real. But Agnes had said earlier they weren’t corporeal anymore. So what were they?
“You said Patrick haunts the café. So that’s what our lives are? We’re what, spirits? Ghosts?”
“You aren’t a ghost. I said ‘haunt’ because he won’t move on. Over the years I’ve wondered if he was called to be a permanent Guide, like Karin, but I think I just didn’t have all of the pieces. It makes more sense now.”
Benji was glad it made sense to her, because things were rapidly making less sense to him the more they spoke.
“Patrick’s problem has always been his inability to take anything on blind faith. You want to know what you are, son? You’re exactly what you were when you were human. Energy and matter and grace. Patrick talks about plasma states and harmonic frequencies and atom vibrations, but at the heart of it, that’s just denial.”
She pinned him with an intense stare that made Benji feel uncomfortably exposed and like she wasn’t seeing him, exactly. Or at least not just him. It wasn’t lost on him that she’d never once said “we” when answering his questions. You aren’t a ghost. You’re made of energy. Not we. Benji shivered under the force of her gaze. Maybe he didn’t want to know what Agnes was.
Her expression softened. “You’re whatever you want to be, Benjamin. You didn’t get the chance to figure that out when you were alive, and it’s a lesson you’re going to learn here before you can move on. But you won’t be here long. You aren’t a stranger to stepping out in faith.”
He had no idea what that meant. His mother was religious, but once he’d flown the nest he’d become a Christmas and Easter kind of guy, the kind of lapsed Catholic that made his mother suck her teeth in disapproval when they clumsily knelt on the risers, out of practice and bored during the interminable holiday masses.
Agnes smiled. “Faith is a broad term, son,” she said, and Benji wondered if she could read his mind. “Think of it as trust in the unknown. And Patrick? That’s too raw for him. At least, until now.”
Benji didn’t know how he factored into that, but the significant look she gave him left no question as to what had changed. The air between them felt charged, like Agnes was about to give him another energy whammy. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and Benji shivered. He wasn’t scared of Agnes, per se, but he felt the need to put some distance between them, however meager that was when they were both trapped inside the confines of CASA.
Agnes nodded even though he hadn’t said anything and started walking briskly toward the door. They were in Bambini Mondo, a place that had always appealed to his inner child but now seemed cloyingly bright and claustrophobic.
Karin was waiting for them at the elevators, a tense expression on her face. She’d traded her CASA uniform for a trim navy blue dress that looked like the ones his mother had worn back in the sixties when she’d been a stewardess. He blinked, wondering if Karin was just into retro clothes or if that was the outfit she’d died in. It was a damn sight better than stained jeans and a ratty T-shirt.
He turned to thank Agnes for her help, confusing though it had been, but she’d disappeared. He whirled around. Bambini Mondo was empty, and Agnes wasn’t walking up the stopped escalator, either. She was just gone.
Karin offered him a wry smile and then disappeared as well. He blinked hard, jumping when a second later she was standing in front of him again, this time in the familiar yellow polo shirt and jeans he’d seen her wearing before.
She leaned against the elevator doors, and Benji had to bite back a warning that it wasn’t a safe place. No one else was in the CASA, though he didn’t know if it was late at night or early in the morning. Or if the other ghosts—or whatever the hell they were—could operate the thing. But Karin didn’t look concerned that the doors might open and she’d plummet to her death—probably because she was a
lready dead.
And wasn’t that a mindfuck.
“First thing to know: this isn’t a punishment. Yes, it’s purgatory. But you’re here to help other people, not because you’re atoning for anything.”
Benji gave her a dubious look. “I thought purgatory—”
She shook her head ruefully. “Catholic, am I right?”
He pursed his lips. “Lapsed.”
Karin laughed and clapped her hands together in delight. “So the fact that there’s a purgatory isn’t the hard sell for you, it’s the lack of atonement thing. Think of this as a clearinghouse to the other side. A pit stop where you have the chance to make a difference before moving on to wherever you are going next.”
“But where am I going next? Heaven?”
She shrugged. “Only you can decide that. I’ve seen atheists and agnostics move on. I’ve seen people who were Hindu, Jewish, Muslim—your beliefs don’t matter, as long as some part of you believes there’s something to move on to. Maybe it’s reincarnation. Maybe there is a heaven. Who knows? The point is that you accept whatever it is you’ll see when you walk through that door,” she said, nodding toward the main entrance. The one that had opened up to a terrifying void when he’d last seen them open.
She pushed off her spot against the elevator and started leading him through the store. “Okay, so that was number one. The second thing to keep in mind is that just as what comes after is up to you, so is what happens here.”
Benji bit back a snort at that. He’d had less than no control over anything since arriving at the CASA.
“No, it’s true. Some people are here only long enough to do what they need to accomplish so they can move on. The howler at the SPÖL, for example.”
“Howler?”
“Of course Patrick wouldn’t introduce himself or bother trying to explain anything,” she muttered. She was smiling again when she looked up, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “The howler was the gentleman you and Patrick helped move on yesterday.”
