The Emperor of Any Place

by Tim Wynne-Jones

The fiend is out, Watson.

  Evan tears upstairs. In his room, he opens the closet and pulls down the black box filled with three years’ worth of furious Pokémon buying and trading. Kneeling on the floor, he removes the lid and his blood runs cold. Slowking is no longer in the dead center of the box. The stacks have been returned neatly but not exactly. Evan gingerly removes one stack, then another. There’s no yellow at the bottom. The book is gone.

  He can’t stay here. Not now. He needs to think. He needs to come up with a plan. He has to go — now — before Griff gets back.

  He leaves. Squeals out of the driveway. Next door, Lexie Jane is standing in her driveway with two other girls with skateboards. They peer at him, their hands keeping the glare of the sun out of their eyes. Burning rubber is not what people do in Any Place. You’re not supposed to be going anywhere that fast. You’re not supposed to have to escape from your own home, but right now he needs to be any other place than here.

  So . . .

  Back to the mall. Or maybe to Olivia’s? Maybe her folks can get those adoption papers signed up double quick. But going back would mean talking about Kokoro-Jima and he can’t do that. Then another idea occurs to him. Something that is almost normal. It doesn’t solve anything, but it puts off solving anything, and that’s what he needs right now — because he has a feeling that his head might explode otherwise. He pulls out his phone. It’s not a plan. It’s just an evening, which is as far ahead as he can see.

  The vision overtakes him out of nowhere. It’s what Ōshiro described in the book, but it’s real, suddenly — surprisingly real. Evan sees the soldier make his way up a sandy hill. There’s a white flag hanging limply from the barrel of his rifle. The soldier has a framed picture under his other arm. He’s shimmering a little in the heat haze; light bounces off the glass in the frame. He stops, raises his head. Evan sees it, too: a flash of light high in the trees.

  Intel.

  There are ghosts trailing him — them. Evan is one of them. If he squints he can see others, insubstantial, hovering a little apart from one another. They are spread out like a V of geese following the soldier. They tremble in the onshore breeze as if the wind might unwind them. In the reflection off the blistering white sand, they seem little more than a coalescence of light, a thickening into moving forms.

  He stares into the hot white haze, tramping along, trying to keep up, feeling on his bare feet the heat of the sun-smacked sand, though, when he turns to look, he sees that he has left no footsteps.

  Then his eyes catch a glimpse of other specters, moving surreptitiously through the undergrowth to his left, like jackals keeping their distance from a lion but wanting what the lion wants. These are nothing like children, but large lumbering things with red-hot eyes. Evan looks behind him, and they are there, too, following at a distance, just as Ōshiro described them. He hurries to catch up to the soldier — is drawn to him, pulled along. So are the other ghost children, not like geese now, but more like a pack of skittish dogs on invisible leashes.

  Griff comes to a stop at the crest of the hill, smack on top of his noonday shadow. He stares out to the cool blueness of the sea. His face is covered with sweat; his eyes look grim.

  Evan feels a presence close at hand and, turning to his left, sees a ghost girl looking directly at him. Her hair is almost the same color as the air, long, and lifted by the breeze, flying out about her. Who is she? She is clothed in a luminous shift. She brings a wavering hand up to clear away the ash-white blondness from her face.

  “Evan,” she says.

  He is shocked that she knows his name — that she can talk. The familiars didn’t talk in Ōshiro’s story. When he tries to respond, nothing comes from his mouth.

  “Evan? Evan!”

  And he is sitting in McDonald’s.

  There is a conventionally pretty girl sitting across the table from him with several little red bird clips in her brown hair. For a moment he can’t recall her name.

  “Where were you?” she says.

  Bree, that’s her name.

  “Your eyes got all, you know, far away . . .”

  “It’s nothing. I . . .”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  Evan sighs, smiles. “Sorry, it’s just been a weird time lately.” She doesn’t know about his father’s death. It’s not something you say to a friend of a friend of a friend. The whole date would get really . . . what? Awkward. Pretty well impossible, really.

  Bree gasps. “Oh my God, it’s not like those people who suddenly fall asleep, even if they’re driving a car?”

  “No.”

  “That would be really scary.”

  “Yeah,” says Evan. “That’s called narcolepsy. It isn’t narcolepsy.”

  “Oh,” she says. She smiles. “That’s good, at least.”

  “That was almost what we called our band,” Evan says, aiming for levity and sounding more like he’s on amphetamines.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Narcoleptic Bunnies,” he says.

  Her smile is genuine but edged with concern — not a good expression on a first date, thinks Evan.

  Date? What am I doing on a date?

  “I like your band’s name,” she says. “Pocket Monsters, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “That’s like Pokémon all spelled out?”

  Evan sighs. “Yeah. Pokémon is a contraction, actually.”

  “I know,” she says. “My little brother explained it to me.”

  He’s holding a Coke. When did that happen? He puts it down on the table. His hamburger sits on its wrapper, untouched and not looking all that hot.

  “So. Your little brother is into Pokémon?”

  Bree nods, glad to be having a real conversation, and all Evan can think is why did the band call itself anything so memorably geeky.

  “Do you still play?”

  “Guitar?”

  “No. You know —”

  “Oh, Pokémon. No. Not for . . . I don’t know, years.”

  Bree has a dab of something on her lip that makes her look vaguely vampirish. It’s even a little sexy. Probably just dipping sauce. She looks hopeful and then sort of sad. “You just sort of drifted away,” she says. “Does it happen a lot?”

  “Like I said. Things have been, you know, difficult. I haven’t been getting much sleep.”

  “I get that.” Bree nods sympathetically. “Should you see someone about it?”

  Tell her something. He tries on another smile from his hidden stash. This one is a size too small. He takes her hand. “I haven’t told anyone this,” he says, but then he’s distracted again by the dab of dipping sauce.

  Aware of the focus of his gaze, she licks her upper lip.

  “Gone?”

  He nods.

  “Tell me,” she says, and holds his eyes, damply, in her own. Her hands are kind of damp, too.

  “I just had this weird sort of vision.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She squeezes his hand a little. “You want to talk about it?”

  “The vision?”

  “Sure, if you want. But I was thinking more about how the vision is probably just a symptom of how ‘weird’ things are right now for you. It’s like . . . you could tell me about that . . . if you want. If it would help, I mean. But you don’t have to.”

  He shakes his head. “Thanks, though.”

  “Okay,” she says. Her shoulders droop a little, but she tries on a smile of her own — a pretty good one, all things considered. With her free hand, she pushes back a lock of hair that’s escaped from one of the red bird clips. She’s got nice hands. Her nail polish is blue. Blue and chipped. Then her hand, finished with her hair, drifts toward their clasped hands and rests on top of them. “So you were having this vision?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I was on this desert island. The sun is totally blazing down. And . . . Are you ready for this?” She nods. “There are these ghosts.”

  “
Ghosts?”

  “Yeah. Ghost children.”

  “But it’s daytime?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How can there be ghosts in the daytime?” It is something Evan has not considered. “I mean how can you even see them if the sun is shining?”

  “They’re not kids in sheets.”

  “I know, but —”

  “And I’m one of them.”

  “What?”

  He doesn’t say it again, lets her figure it out.

  Bree’s hand flies to her mouth. “You’re one of the ghosts?”

  He nods, wonders too late if this could be a deal-breaker. They have been together approximately three hours.

  Her eyes grow even wider. “Do you mean you’re dead?”

  Evan gives it some serious thought. “That’s the crazy part,” he says. “These ghosts . . . it’s as if they’re the ghosts of people who will be, instead of the ghosts of people who used to be.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I know. It’s pretty out there,” he says. Bree’s hand, skittish as a pigeon, flutters back down to the pile of hands. Now his other hand joins their three hands, so that there is a knot of fingers sitting in the middle of the table.

  “Preincarnation,” he says.

  “Reincarnation?”

  “No. Preincarnation. That’s what’s so different. They’re ghosts from before a person is born. You know, as in ‘prenatal’ or ‘premature’ or . . . like that.”

  “Or ‘preoccupied’?” she says.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  Her eyes slip away. She looks down at the table.

  “Oh,” he says, suddenly getting it. “‘Preoccupied.’ Right. You mean me?” She nods. He’s impressed in a way; she’s sharp.

  “You don’t have to talk about it,” she says. “It’s none of my business.”

  Her face is actually kind of sweet. Or it was, anyway. It’s sort of sour now. Which is funny, he thinks, because she chose the sweet and sour dipping sauce.

  “It’s not like a social comment or anything,” he says.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, yeah, I’ve got a ton of stuff on my mind, but I’m having a good time.”

  Her hands slowly extricate themselves and slide away along the Formica tabletop, to fall off the edge and disappear into her lap. She looks down at two sad, cold Chicken McNuggets.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Really, I mean it. Bree?”

  She looks up and now there’s an actual tear in her eye. “It’s Kira,” she says.

  Oh! That’s it! She thinks I’m pining over some other girl. Then he looks more closely at her face, at her offended eyes, and he realizes that Kira is her name.

  Evan finds the back door locked. He hasn’t a key. He never carries one anymore, since his father retired. This is yet another habit to unlearn. He pulls out his phone. It’s almost eleven. He drove Kira home in silence. Then at her place, she smiled, really nicely, his slipup forgiven. “When I get back, maybe you can tell me what’s going on.” Her voice was different. She’d dropped the date voice. He liked how she sounded. “I’m going to do that,” he said. “Kira.” She laughed, and her laugh was definitely an eight this time. He looks at the house and thinks how it might be good to see her again. When she gets back from camp. Assuming he survives.

  He peeks through the kitchen door — the curtain’s not quite closed; the kitchen is empty. He cranes his neck. His amp is gone. So is his guitar. He remembers Griff telling him about breaking all of Clifford’s records. Evan remembers how the old man had relished telling him that.

  There’s a light on in the hall beyond the kitchen door. He knocks. No answer. He swears to himself. Knocks louder. Nothing. The grump must be downstairs watching TV, he thinks. Listens. Hears nothing.

  Shit.

  Two thoughts tumble over one another. He’s gone. He’s dead. He tries to imagine finding another dead body in the house. He remembers firemen lumbering through the place. He wonders if they’re going to be as supportive this time. I mean how many dead bodies can you report in one month before somebody gets suspicious?

  So, does that mean he’s gone? Will there be a letter on the table?

  Dear Evan,

  I’ve gone. Fend for yourself, you ingrate.

  Yours affectionately,

  Grandpa Griff

  How great would that be? But he knows it can’t be true. Griff never runs away, never backs off. And now it’s late and dark, and all of Evan’s misgivings are back like a bevy of ghosts huddling way too close.

  He shakes them off and goes around to the front door; tries it. Locked. He rings the bell. Holds his finger on it, getting angrier and angrier.

  He needs to pee. He should have gone at McDonald’s.

  “What is this?” he says to no one. Some lesson he’s supposed to learn? Never trust anyone. He looks through the side window: the front hall is shadowy — the light he saw from the back door was from the upstairs hall, dimly illuminating the stairs. He steps back, out onto the front lawn, and looks up. There is only one other light on, the one in his father’s bedroom.

  Evan looks next door at the Guptas’ house. There are no lights on. It’s after eleven now. He could go there, anyway. They’d take him in, no questions asked. Well, no, not exactly; there would be questions asked, questions he doesn’t have the answer to.

  There are lights on at the Reidingers’, as well, but the only light he cares about right now is the one in his father’s room. He gets a lump in his throat. How many times has he come home late — way later than this — to see that light on? And it was never like he was in trouble, even if he’d missed curfew. It was just that his dad couldn’t sleep until Evan was home and safe. This was different. His dad always left the front porch light on for him, the door unlocked.

  Shit!

  He runs around to the back garden, opens and closes the gate. Looks around and then pees in the begonias. Or are they petunias? Are these the flowers Rachel Cope just did something to?

  Shit!

  Okay, that’s taken care of. Now what?

  He could phone, he thinks, but if Griff hasn’t heard the doorbell, what are the chances he’ll hear the phone? And then he remembers, finally, that there is a spare key. Of course! In the days when Evan was a latchkey kid with a working single parent, there were the occasional times he forgot his key. He goes back to the carport and locates a jar of nails on a shadowy worktable in the back corner. The key is in there. He pricks his finger on a nail. Serves me right, he thinks.

  He heads toward the back door. Stops, turns around. Sees the aluminum baseball bat in the corner of the carport gleaming with a smear of streetlight. Shakes his head. I’m not going there, he tells himself. This is not a military operation.

  He unlocks the door and steps into the kitchen. The kettle stands glistening in reflected light from the hall. The old man had brought a shine back to its greasy sides. He couldn’t stop at just the toaster. There’s no stopping him, thinks Evan. The idea fails to lighten his mood. He crosses the kitchen and listens at the entranceway. The light above the stairwell down to the rec room is off. Maybe Griff has retired early and just left the light on upstairs. After doing what?

  He climbs the stairs, his hand too tight on the railing. Silent on the broadloom, he reaches his father’s open bedroom door. Griff sits on the far side of the double bed, his back to the doorway, seemingly unaware of Evan’s presence. Evan checks this time. There is no mirror or darkened window in front of Griff — no way to see Evan’s reflection. Besides, the old man is leaning over something in his lap. Evan waits, holds his breath, his hand on the doorjamb, prepared to push himself off and bolt.

  “Are you just going to stand there?”

  Must be Spidey sense.

  “How’d you know I was here?” says Evan.

  “I can smell you, boy. Smell the fear.”

  Evan goes very still. There’s a bed between them — between him and a ninety-ye
ar-old man. He could take the car. Get the hell out of Dodge. Or he could reconsider violence — go to his room and get that walrus penis bone and put it to good use.

  But, no. No violence. Not here in his father’s room. And the bottom line is he’s not going anywhere. He’s not the one trespassing.

  “What are you doing?”

  Griff turns his head but only so that it is in profile. “I was looking for something.”

  “What?”

  “Something your father took, when he left home.”

  “He took a backpack with a few clothes in it.”

  “Was that what he told you? Is that the fable he spun?”

  Evan doesn’t speak. He can feel the old man lifting the hammer of a mousetrap, bending it back against the pull of the spring. “He didn’t tell you about the money, did he?” says Griff. Now he’s folding the hold-down bar over the hammer, setting the cheese in place. “It was money we kept in a coffee tin for emergencies.”

  “He did tell me. What was it, fifty bucks?”

  “It’s still theft.”

  “So you want the fifty dollars back?”

  Griff snorts. “Don’t be a damn fool.”

  Evan waits. Gets his feet firmly underneath him. Makes fists of his hands. He’s ready to smash his hand down on that mousetrap just to hear it snap!

  Whatever the old man has up his sleeve, Evan is not going to get fooled into losing his shit. He takes a deep breath. Waits. Hears a clicking sound.

  “There was one other thing,” says Griff.

  “Something Dad took.”

  “Something of mine.” Now he turns his head enough to look at Evan. “Well?”

  Well, what, shithead? But Evan knows exactly what he means. Can he resist asking? Can he resist knowing what it is that Griff is talking about — maybe even holding in his lap?

  He steps into the room, stops. Waits. “Did you find it?” he says at last.

  Griff nods. Then jerks his head in a come-here motion.

  Evan doesn’t move.

  “Are you going to take all day?”

  Evan cautiously circles the bed and stops five feet from his grandfather.

  Which is when he sees the gun.

  He gasps but doesn’t move. The gun is in the old man’s lap, held lightly in his right hand. It’s an old-fashioned pistol with a wooden handle and a black barrel about three inches long.