by G. K. Lund
“It was nothing,” she began, offering me sugar which I declined with a quick wave of the hand.
“Seems to me that is what people say when they want to downplay or draw attention away from unpleasant or embarrassing things.”
She stopped in the middle of lifting the coffee pot again, just staring at me. “Something is different about you, Ben. That is certain.” She poured herself some coffee, added some milk and then sat back in a soft red and purple chair.
“Yes,” I agreed instead of deflecting like she did. “I am. Don’t ask me what, because I honestly don’t know. You know why that man was yelling at you though.”
“Oh, very well.” She puffed up her cheeks a moment and blew air out, before lowering the cup and saucer in her hands. “He came for a reading. He is a widower. Misses his wife.”
“And?”
She shrugged with one shoulder. “So, I told him. His wife is in a good place. She misses him and watches over him. The dead do, you know. Anyway… he did not like this. It seems, his wife would not do that. He might miss her, but they hated each other.”
“Ah,” I said and took a deep drag of the coffee. Her accent was thick and almost theatrical now, but her voice serious. She had told the man what he wanted to hear, what people always wanted to hear. Only this man wanted something else. “If he hated her so much… why care about her afterlife?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Ben. Perhaps he wanted to make sure she is not all right?”
“Huh…”
“Yes, then he started yelling. Wanting his money back. I do not do refunds.” She said the last thing with such emphasis there was no doubt she meant it. That had not pleased the man. “It does not matter now though. Mr. Barnes is not welcome back here.”
“So, the readings?” I hinted, raising an eyebrow for some reason at the implied scam.
She smiled and looked down before putting her unfinished coffee on the table. What a waste. “Are you asking if I cheat people?”
“Yes,” I said, going for the safest word of them all. She might get mad, but I didn’t really care, and besides, that didn’t happen.
“I am not. Sometimes the spirits are not… cooperative. I seldom hear them. And people only want to be sure their loved ones are safe and happy anyway.”
“Uh-huh?”
“You do not believe me. And after you being in a life-and-death accident too.” She clicked her tongue with obvious criticism.
Not really an accident, I thought as she left her chair and came to sit beside me on the couch. She took the coffee cup from me without asking and put it on the table, making me stare after it with longing.
“Let us see if we can find out what happened to you,” she said and grabbed the nearest hand in both of hers. She closed her eyes and began taking deep breaths, focused, and slow. I sat there, experiencing what had to be embarrassment for the first time. I had no idea what to do, where to look or what to say. Mishka was still staring, though his owner was not. Her closed eyelids revealed thick dark eyeshadow that had even darker lines where the lids naturally folded.
“Um…” I finally uttered, trying to pull the hand free.
“Patience,” Sophie commanded, hardening her grip.
So, there I sat, holding my neighbor’s hands, wondering if I could reach the coffee cup if I leaned forward for it.
“I have trouble seeing you,” she said after a while.
No kidding, I thought. Given who I was, I was willing to believe many things, but her being a psychic? Not so much, no.
Mishka stopped purring and gave a soft meow instead. At the same time, I began feeling a warmth around the right hand which was clasped between hers. No wonder, I thought at first. She was holding on tight to make sure I didn’t reclaim it. But the heat kept rising, moving a little up the forearm, not quite up to the elbow. I looked at Sophie in surprise, but she didn’t notice. Just kept on doing her breathing thing.
“Yes, very difficult. Are you sure you were in an accident?”
“Yes,” I began as the heat shot up the arm, past the neck, and to the head. It filled it with a pressure distinctly different from the headaches I had experienced in the hospital. I was then pushed back into the couch. I could feel pressure against the chest and across the stomach like an arm connecting and then forcing the body back. It was not Sophie, as her hands were still holding the right hand. A fog filled my vision, white and thick, as I struggled to sit up again. The fog covered everything. I heard Mishka meow again, the sound coming off as nonchalant. Like this didn’t matter much to the animal. The fog had blinded me by this point, and I couldn’t see the living room anymore, couldn’t feel the pressure between the body and the couch either. All I could sense was the feel of Sophie’s sweltering hands and the pressure across the torso. I couldn’t talk or cry out for help. I couldn’t see anything but swirling smoke in front of me and around me. Couldn’t smell the coffee anymore. Nothing. The body’s senses pretty much useless. Except the hearing.
A voice sounded.
A clickety noise as well.
I listened hard, trying to turn an ear toward the sound. What was it?
Click clack, click clack.
And I knew. Shoes with wooden soles, walking on cobblestones.
The footfalls sounded loud through the fog. Click clack…
And the voice again. “Father?” the words were repeated.
More clicks and clacks. One of them stopped, then the one I had heard at first as well.
“Father Clement Moreau?”
And then I heard a strained and hoarse voice by the left ear. A voice fighting to be heard. “He is the one who remembers…”
“What?” I exclaimed and sat up. Then I realized I could see Sophie’s dimly lit living room again, as well as move and talk.
“You all right, Ben?” she asked and let go of the hand. It felt like it was back to a normal temperature now.
“What? Yes?” I turned toward her. “Did you not see that?”
“See what?” She gave me a puzzled look. “I’m afraid the spirits were not helpful.”
“But they were,” I said and got up, realizing the left arm was positioned across the torso. Had I held the body back? Or someone else? No time to wonder though. “You are amazing,” I added to Sophie for good measure.
“I am?”
“Yes.” I headed for the front door. “And forgive me, I have some remembering to do.”
Chapter 12
The joy I felt after leaving Sophie’s was physical as well as manifested in happy thoughts flying around inside the head. I kept pacing back and forth in Ben’s living room, moving the hands as if I were talking to someone. Only on the inside though. I had finally remembered something. Something important. I could feel the lips widen, the corners of the mouth continuously pointing upwards.
A name.
That was wonderful. It meant there was some hope for me, didn’t it?
Didn’t it?
I stopped in the middle of the room as something dawned on me. What was I supposed to do with a name? I had to find this Father Moreau. But how? I was basically helpless. I knew many things of the world and knew them from previous knowledge. Like hospitals for an example, or nursing homes. I knew the significance of water to a thirsting body, to everything. The rage of men. The pain and suffering from disease. All of these were things I understood without remembering why. But cooking food, using Ben’s phone or a computer were not things that would have been important to me before. I could barely use the remote for the TV, and that only required pressing a couple of buttons.
How was I going to find this man?
The mouth suddenly felt different as the lips now formed a straight line. At this point, I realized a couple of Old Ben’s memories would have helped. I shook the head and went to the kitchen counter where I found his laptop and brought it back to the living room. As I sat trying to get it started I noticed the city’s mayor on TV. A news section on his speech that Rose and I had seen but
not heard earlier that day. If I was lucky and persistent, I thought, I would not have to care about who was elected mayor in this city. I could, perhaps, get some help to leave instead.
The laptop would not cooperate though. It kept asking for a password, and no matter what the index fingers kept typing it was not correct. I wanted to throw the thing on the floor. Then I remembered Old Ben’s list of passwords. I found it in the bedroom, where I had hidden it in the nightstand. With Ben’s friends using the living room as their bedroom these days, I didn’t want to keep anything important in there.
I was lucky. As I scanned the paper I found the password I was looking for and headed back to the machine. I typed in ‘bensdamncomputer’ and the thing came alive. Like magic. I smiled again, but that stopped as I got no further with the thing. What was I supposed to do now?
About half an hour later, Peter came in and it dawned on me immediately that I had to ask him for help.
“Hey,” he said absentmindedly as he gently put his satchel on the floor next to one of the chairs. “You working?” he added when he noticed the laptop in front of me on the table. I could see the tiny glimmer of hope on his face at this. If I was working, that would mean I remembered Ben’s life. I could not be having with them believing that had happened.
“No,” I answered. “I think I need help with this. Can you use a computer?”
Peter pursed his lips and blew air through them. “Can I use a computer? What a question. It’s only my job…”
I looked at him. Had no idea what he was getting at. “So… can you?”
He rolled his eyes at that and sat down beside me to take a look. “Yes. And so can you…?”
He stared at the screen and started looking through the open tabs. “Drawings, phone assistance, virus update? What are you trying to do?”
“Find the internet.”
He halfway looked at me while he clicked a small icon on the screen. “You mean that?”
I shrugged. “What do I do now?”
“Seriously?” He stopped using the laptop and turned all the way now. “Have you forgotten how to use a computer?”
I thought about this for a second and then found it best to confirm. I hadn’t forgotten exactly. I had never learned to begin with. He wouldn’t know that of course. Shouldn’t either.
“Okay then,” Peter said and focused on the laptop again. “I guess I’ll have to teach you.”
“And the phone,” I added.
“Like a cave man,” Peter commented. “Okay then. I don’t really know where to start. Obviously, you managed to start it up. The indicator maybe?”
“No. I need to find someone.”
“The guy who can’t remember anything?”
“Yes.”
Peter was pushing the little arrow-thing around on the screen, pressing certain buttons, precision in his movements, but at this, he stopped. It took him a moment to hear my words.
“Do you remember something?”
“Yes. I need to find someone.”
“Hey, that’s awesome.” Peter’s bearded face cracked into a broad grin. “Rose said you’d get better.”
I was about to say something, but for once managed to stop the body from speaking without thinking. Rose was wrong. And Peter was genuinely happy about my remembering anything. It had nothing to do with them. But they were so invested in their friend’s recovery. An odd feeling snuck through the stomach. It was not painful, but not comfortable either. For some reason, I hesitated a little, but I needed Peter’s help.
“Can you help me?” I asked him and was rewarded with a vigorous nod.
“Sure thing, Ben. Yeah. Just tell me what you remember, and we’ll figure it out.”
It would not be the way Peter and the others wanted, but I decided to stop thinking about that and instead told him that all I could remember was a name.
“A priest?” he asked when I told him.
“Yes.”
“When did you meet a priest?”
“Well, I don’t know that, do I?”
“Sorry. No. Okay.” He flexed his fingers for good measure and began typing on the keyboard. “Father Clement Moreau. Canadian?”
I didn’t answer this time. He knew I didn’t know. Maybe it was the whole not wanting the answers one got again. He worked quickly though. I saw him opening and closing tabs, searching different sites, and as I watched this unfold I began to achieve a rudimentary understanding of the machinery. That was interesting. Was it me? Or was it the body remembering something it had done many times? Either way, it was easier to let Peter do his thing.
“How do you know all this?” I asked after a while, becoming a little bored as the name I needed to find out about did not appear on the screen.
“I use computers in my jobs, but it’s not rocket science. Everybody knows how to do this.”
He kept working a little while longer, before sighing heavily and sitting back on the couch. That could surely not be good for me.
“How did you meet this guy? There’s no trace of him online. A couple of guys around the world with the same name, sure, but no priests. Nothing on any social media, no articles, pictures… nothing.” He scratched his beard. “Are you sure you remember correctly? Seems like we’re looking for a ghost.”
I smiled. “No. I know he’s here somewhere.”
“Okay.” Peter dragged the word out, sounding like he didn’t believe me. “But he doesn’t have a presence online. That’s weird.”
I did not like the sound of that. Could the man not be found? I needed to find him. It was the only thing I was sure of. The way I had come over the name. It had not simply popped into the head. That had been a memory. A bit of a fuzzy one? Yes. But I knew as certain as Old Ben being dead, that I needed to find the man with that name. He was the answer to my current predicament.
I wanted nothing more than to leave.
“Is it impossible to find him then?” I asked with caution, for once not certain I wanted to hear the answer.
“Well,” Peter began, dragging the word again. “It won’t be easy, but there are other things we can try.” He gave a weak smile at that. “We have to, don’t we? To help you remember again.”
I nodded, that odd and uncomfortable feeling jabbing the inside of the stomach again. What was happening to me? Somehow this false hope of Ben’s friends affected me. I didn’t like it. Not at all. But that could not distract me. I needed to find Father Moreau. That was what mattered the most now.
Chapter 13
Searching the street around me for any indication of where I was, I saw little correlation with the tiny map on the phone I held in the hand. Why had Peter praised this feature? Sure, it had looked easy when he showed it to me, but now, on my own with no one explaining it, everything was a crisscross of streets on the map, and towering buildings blocking my view in real life. I was due to meet him to work on the Moreau problem, but with this speed, I might be the one he should be searching for instead. Not for the first time since waking up in this infernal frame of tissue and nerve endings, I made an exasperated hissing sound in the back of the throat and managed to find Peter’s number on the phone. Still, I searched yet again for anything familiar that could tell me where I was. Not even a damn street sign. I looked at the screen again. Sometimes you swiped and sometimes you tapped. No pressing, everyone kept saying. What did they think the stupid finger where for besides gripping?
The focus of the eyes went past the phone toward the ground as it suddenly sank under me. The layers of the city melted away and leveled out, the smell of fresh grass almost smashing into me. No more exhaust fumes, shadows from buildings, or the ever-present chatter from people who were everywhere. No more mixed scents of urine, garbage, food, and smoke. The crisp smell around me almost stung the nose in its abruptness. No, now there was only the heat on the skin from the sun. The tweets of birds, more of them than in the city, yet less noisy somehow.
I found myself standing on a field, grassy with patches of wil
dflowers, its uncultivated status was seen on the uneven surface. Forests surrounded the field, but the open landscape dominated the area around a wide river in front of me. The water passed slow and unhurried. Much like it had done when Old Ben had been broken on its surface. I didn’t doubt where I was, but the landscape had been altered completely. There was no sight of the city that had surrounded me mere moments ago.
I looked around in bewilderment, Ben’s cell phone still in the hand. What was going on? I might be new to everything human, but this was not normal.
The soft scraping of feet dragging along the ground caught my attention. Nothing else seemed out of place. Except me that is. I turned to see a man walking along the water. He came toward me but didn’t notice me. By his appearance, he should have found me interesting at the least. The clothes I wore didn’t fit with his at all. He wore loose and baggy trousers made from wool. A long shirt that might once have been white, but was now varying shades of brown and gray. A belt held it together at his waist, a single-shot pistol placed there as well. Long and steel-gray hair fell around an old and weathered face. The ochre skin wrinkled to the point where there were more lines than smooth skin. Deep-set and dark eyes squinted as he watched the ground where he walked, though whether it was from tired old eyes or the sun was impossible to know. A narrow-brimmed and dusty hat did little to shade his eyes and face.
He walked with slow steps like he had chosen to walk together with the river on that day. I noticed an unevenness in his steps though, not really a limp, more a lack of force as he pressed on. His head was slightly bent, and his arms hung heavy by his sides. There was little energy to spare for the simple task of walking. I looked around but could see no trace of human life anywhere. No smoke, no noises. The nearest settlement had to be far from here. This might be Ashdale, and yet it was most definitely not.
What was it though? Why was I there? I was about to shout a greeting to the old man as he stopped and made a grimace while a tingling pressure flew from the neck into the head. I winced at the sensation. By the way the old man shut his eyes and his knees wavered, I thought it a grimace of pain. Turned out I was right. The man clutched at his chest and made a groan, a deep sound from his throat, that would never be heard more than a few feet away from him. There was not enough strength in him. He sank to his knees as the pain took over. His heart would take no more. He had lived a long life, and it would end there in the sunshine, by a river that would greet him with open arms. It was not the fact that I saw this happening that told me this. Not understanding from mere sight; no. I understood inherently that this was to be. Knew it in my core. And so I watched it happen and knew, though he did not, that at least he wasn’t alone.
