“Good work, my friend,” said Obie, taking the steps up to the porch. He stuck his head in through the doorway and looked around, then turned and motioned for the others to follow. The rest of the group slipped past him into the house, save for Jack, who stood on the sidewalk shaking his head. Obie put a hand on Grace’s shoulder to stop her as she entered and gestured back toward her friend. “Will he join us?” he asked.
Graced turned. “He wants to help,” she answered. “But he cannot. His mother and father war within his heart, he says. He is not allowed.”
Obie walked back down the stairs to speak with Jack. The young hybrid retreated a few steps, but then held his ground. “We need a lookout and witness, Jack,” said Obie. “To alert us if anyone approaches from outside, and to report on our efforts, no matter how this goes. Will you do that for us?”
Jack nodded with relief, almost smiling. “I will watch out,” he said.
“Thank you,” said Obie. He turned and walked back into the house, closing the door behind him. The Forces of Good stood together in the neat, cozy living room. An old brown sofa lined one wall, with cheap paintings of ocean waves and wolves filling the space above it. There was an old leather recliner and a glass-topped coffee table, a bookshelf with a stereo on top, a television on a rolling cart. It did, indeed, seem that there was nobody home. Then Obie realized that they were not all present.
“Where’s Payok and Evlyn?” he asked.
“Securing the second floor,” said Sina, as though it were obvious.
16.7
“Not a soul in sight,” said Evlyn as they walked down the dark, narrow hallway.
“Then what was that screaming?” asked Payok. The eagle on his shoulder glared angrily.
The woman of light shrugged and turned to head back down to the living room to tell the others. Payok followed.
The living room was empty.
Payok strode to the front door and pulled it open. Seeing no one, he closed it and followed Evlyn into the kitchen. “Where have they gone?” he asked, feeling foolish as soon as the words spilled from his mouth. How could the old woman know? The kitchen was empty, as was the bathroom and the utility room. They started together up the back stairs, scouring the house once more. It was empty, but for them.
Back in the living room Payok again checked the front lawn. Even that weird kid had disappeared. He shut the door and turned around to call out to the empty house, “Hello?”
“I’m going to check the back yard,” said Evlyn.
Payok started up the stairs. “I’ll search the second floor again and meet you there,” he said.
16.8
While Payok and Evlyn were exploring upstairs, Obie and Sina made sure that the first floor was clear. The house was tiny, and the others could watch their progress from the living room. The front of the house was one large space, the living and dining rooms sitting side-by-side and fully open to each other. The stairs, with an open banister, ran up along the far wall of the living room. A hallway that led to the back door divided the backend of the house.
On one side of the hall was the kitchen, separated from the dining room by a half-wall. Behind the kitchen, by the back door, was another stairway to the second floor. Across the hall from the kitchen was the bathroom and, behind that, there was a utility room with a washer and dryer. Obie and Sina made a quick search, opening doors, flipping on lights, and peering into these small rooms. Clearly there was no one home. Obie called upstairs to Payok and Evlyn but received no reply. Sina started back to the living room. Obie followed, then ducked into the bathroom to check behind the shower door. He did not come back out.
“What the fuck?” muttered Sina, walking back to stand in the bathroom doorway. The space was tiny, crammed with a toilet, a small pedestal sink, and a shower stall, with the translucent glass door now wide open. Obie was gone. Impossible, as they could see the door the whole time and there was no other way out. But he was not there. “Obie?” said Sina, a trace of fear in her voice. Her words echoed off the ceramic surfaces and fell to her feet. The walrus shuffled back and forth beside her, as though sharing her anxiety. “Payok!” she called loudly, angling her head to the ceiling as if she could push her voice up through the joists and flooring to reach her warrior.
She looked at the others, who stood in the living room in a rough half-circle, watching her. “We have to find them,” she said decisively. She stepped forward, grabbed Immaqa’s hand, and started toward the front stairs.
“Wait,” said Utterpok. The polar bear barked sternly. “We knew to expect this,” said the shaman. “Things are not what they seem here. We must go together.”
Sina stopped, opened her mouth as if she were going to argue, then nodded her agreement. Utterpok started for the stairs. Grace and Dennis followed.
Together they searched the house, the two bedrooms upstairs, the bathroom, the back stairs down to the first floor, the utility room and the kitchen and the dining room. Dennis and the Arctic fox ran ahead, sniffing the rooms as they went. There was no sign of Obie, Payok or the old woman. No sign of the “scary people” Grace had feared. No sign of a skeleton. No sign of Cole. The house was quiet. Again they searched the second floor, climbing the back stairway and checking every space. Finding no clues, they headed back down the front stairs, Utterpok in the lead, with Grace and Dennis right behind him.
Sina stopped for a moment to unclasp her parka, then started down the steps, with her sister right behind her. The young leader stopped halfway down the stairs and looked down at Utterpok, who stood on the landing below, looking back up at her. “How can this be?” she asked her shaman, her voice beginning to shake.
“Our opponents are devious,” answered Utterpok, a flash of excitement in his eyes. The polar bear, scratching his neck on the newel post, chuffed in agreement.
The toilet flushed in the upstairs bathroom and Sina turned and started running back up the stairs, grabbing her sister’s hand and pulling her along. The sisters gave no heed to Utterpok’s cry of warning as they took the steps two at a time, the walrus and seal at their feet.
They did not return.
16.9
Ruth crawled back into bed and spooned up to Cole’s back, checking the clock before closing her eyes. Only one-thirteen and already she had to pee? Maybe it was the wine. She needed to stick with one glass. And what was that dream? A window breaking? And some poor animal screaming? She hugged her husband close to herself and fell back to sleep, hoping for more peaceful slumber.
16.10
Immaqa knew she should not be here. She should never have agreed to come. She didn’t even believe in this shit. When Sina told her that she’d been chosen for this mission by the aliens themselves, she should have run the other way. This was too much like television. Except on television people didn’t have animals tagging along everywhere they went.
Immaqa followed her sister down the upstairs hallway to the bath. There was nobody there. It was like a bad nightmare and Immaqa was ready to wake the fuck back up. The last thing she wanted was to run into a skeleton.
It was Sina’s fault. What a stupid name. Why couldn’t her sister just be Debbie Okalik, the schoolteacher? And why couldn’t she be Agnes Okalik, instead of Immaqa? Didn’t her sister realize why she’d taken the name “maybe”? As in maybe Agnes didn’t believe a word of this prophet crap. As in maybe when you start seeing animals following you around it’s time to check yourself into the loony bin.
Immaqa wasn’t like Sina. She didn’t want to be. They were only half-sisters, after all. Debbie could have this Inuit spirituality bullshit. Agnes was heading another direction. She’d already registered at modeling school for the fall. With her looks she could go far. She had the clear, delicate features of the Inuit, slightly softened by whichever-the-fuck white guy had nailed her mother the night she’d been conceived. Her resultant “exotic looks” drove the boys at her school crazy.
But then she’d had that goddamned dream: little alien guys, flyin
g her around the planet and telling her that her sister needed her. And she’d just dropped everything and headed north. The next day! Spent her school money on plane fare! It was insane. What had she been thinking?
Sina stepped into a bedroom and Immaqa followed. The seal and the walrus were nosing through the closet. The bed was covered with a beautiful quilt, red and blue tulips on a white background, it looked like. But its elegance was undermined by the painting on the wall. Immaqa snorted. That velvet Elvis had to go.
Sina turned and smiled at her sister. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Immaqa shrugged and looked down at her feet. “This is all pretty strange, Deb,” she answered, making sure to remind the great “Sinaaq” who she really was. She looked up at Sina. “Are we dreaming or did you guys spike the tea?”
Sina stared into Immaqa’s eyes. “We walk the levels beyond our own, little sister,” said Sina, pushing in the word “little” like a thumbtack. “The land of the dead. The realms of Sila and Sedna. Our courage and obedience here will determine the course of the world.”
“You really believe all this crap, sis?”
Sina took her sister by the elbow and pulled her toward the stairs. “Your words threaten us all,” she hissed.
Immaqa threw off her sister’s grip. “Yeah, well, fuck you, Debbie,” she said angrily. She turned and stormed down the hallway toward the back stairs.
Sina sighed sadly as her sister walked away, took a deep breath, and then headed down to the living room. Utterpok was not there. Nor were the girl and her dog. She never saw her sister alive again.
16.11
They’ve built a maze from Cole’s memories, thought Obie, sitting on the sofa with the Arctic fox. Like so many times before, he didn’t know how he knew it; he just knew it. To test his hypothesis he grabbed a pair of CDs from the shelf under the stereo and placed them on the coffee table, leaning them against each other like an A-frame. Then he headed up the front stairs and down the back ones. Walking through the dining room he could see he’d been right. The CDs were not on the table. He checked the shelf. The titles he’d chosen were right where he’d first found them.
Obie laughed. As fucked up as it all was, he had to admire the twisted brilliance that had created such a place as this Confusion. The maze itself had all the marks of Mr. Random, that crazy fuck. This maze was like Random’s own mind. But the style was Rice. Or Bob. Or both. Trapping Cole in his old house. Playing with his heart. Keeping him happy until they had some use for him, at which point they could rip him again from his life. The deep cruelty and sheer arrogance of these people never ceased to astound Obie. From such minds came things like 9/11 and the Miami Nuke.
No doubt they were watching him right now, laughing their asses off. They would split his group into ones and twos and then take them out with ease. Like shooting fish in a barrel of monkeys, as his father had often said. Obie sighed. This had to stop. When you start killing little girls it’s time to go.
He sat in the leather recliner and pulled himself into the lotus position. The fox padded a loop between the living and dining rooms, stopping to look out the window now and then. Obie closed his eyes to interrupt the illusion. He would not stop this by wandering around a maze.
He would have to find a different way.
16.12
A heavy snow had started to fall and the Inuit tenders had erected small tents from tarps and logs and rope to shield the travelers. The wind was increasing, flapping the tents and causing the snow to drift in tiny rivulets and gather around Linda’s feet. The President hunkered down, laying her head across Cole’s chest to get out of the snow. Aamai had brought her a tarp of her own, which he’d tucked around her body and legs. The fire, burned down now to half its former glory, kept her warm enough.
She could hear Cole’s heart. Steady. Strong. But his emptiness still assaulted her. He was not just sleeping. He would not open his eyes and kiss her if she tickled him. He was gone from this world. Beyond the event horizon and past all knowing. “Come back, Cole,” she whispered. The words clogged her throat. She knew he could not hear her.
An Inuit woman with steel gray braids pulled out a small frame drum and beat it steadily with her fingers, as if challenging the wind and snow, declaring their right to be there. Linda peeked her head up and smiled across the circle at the woman. The woman, sensing Linda’s gaze, looked up and returned the smile, revealing a missing front tooth.
From somewhere in the distance came the cracking of ice. Linda looked at the sky. The snow clouds now concealed the heavens. The stars and the northern lights were nowhere in sight. She laid her head back on Cole’s chest and closed her eyes.
The white rabbit was still right there, sitting next to Cole’s head. And crouching beyond him, a dark figure made of shadows and static that reminded her, vaguely, of Theodore Rice.
16.13
Immaqa was frantic. What the fuck was that? And where was Sina? She ran through the living room and back up the front stairs, flicking on lights as she went. She ducked into the main bedroom and slammed the door. She was alone. Goddamn motherfucking sonovabitch she was scared! That was… fuck! That hand … all bones and sinews and shit. Reaching at her from the closet. She’d slammed the door and run like hell. And that stupid seal had stayed behind!
Immaqa tried to control her breathing, listening in the silence for footsteps. Nothing. She grabbed the bedside lamp, yanked the plug from the wall, and held it over her head as a weapon as she opened the door back to the hallway. It had been stupid to hide in here. She’d trapped herself. She had to get outside.
She looked both ways. Figuring the back door was closer, she started in that direction, still holding the lamp over her head.
When she was halfway down the stairs, the whole house began to shake like an earthquake.
16.14
Grace had liked Utterpok immediately. She’d watched the old man kneel down and let Dennis lick his face for as long as the little dog had wanted to. That meant he had a good heart. And the old man was strong, like the polar bear spirit that waited beside him. She could feel it.
But Utterpok didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know where everybody had gone. Grace had beamed her heart to him, and taught him to do the same back to her, hoping that then they’d be able to find each other if they got separated. But he’d never even heard of doing that. That worried her. He was good and strong, but maybe he and his people didn’t know much about this realm.
She was glad they were sitting on the sofa when the earthquake hit. It would have knocked them to the floor otherwise. From the back hallway came the sound of a ceiling cracking, or a wall caving in. Dennis jumped into her lap, shaking so hard she wondered if he would crack too. The house stopped shaking, but Dennis didn’t. She petted and kissed him until he calmed down.
And then she cocked her head and smiled.
“What is it?” said Utterpok, noticing.
“I think I can feel my Dad,” she replied.
16.15
“Fuck fuck fuck a crack fuck fuck,” said Mr. Random in the darkness of the closet. “Fuck a crack a crack a crack.”
“Not yet,” whispered Bob, reaching out to grab his bony shoulder before he could open the closet door. “It’s okay. Just a minute longer. Let them get really panicked first.”
Random sighed and slumped. “Fuck fuck fuck who who who?” he chanted more quietly.
Bob remembered when she’d first found Mr. Random wandering around in the astral. He was confused, even then, but he could cobble together enough moments of lucidity that you could stand to be around him. How he’d died but stayed tethered to his decaying body nobody could ever really explain, but it didn’t seem to matter. He was suggestible and eager to please, and his odd status might give them capabilities they wouldn’t otherwise have. They’d brought him up to speed, located his body in a drainpipe just south of Scranton, and fetched it to the Rock and put him to work. Since he couldn’t really remember who he was or what he was
up to, and since he seemed to be stuck with his sorry state, he was content just to belong.
But as his body had mummified over the years, so had his mind. On the one hand he got wilder and stronger, which were certainly useful traits whilst trekking. On the other hand, he was not much fun to be around. Bob knew why Alice was creeped out by Random. Bob was creeped out as well. But mostly she was bored. “Fuck fuck fuck” did not make for stimulating conversation.
Bob listened as one of Carl’s pals stumbled by, obviously terrified. Must be that tall warrior type. She heard him muttering, heard him kick the coffee table.
“Where the hell are you guys?” he shouted.
Bob reached out to steady Random, who’d started to pant like a dog when the man walked by. She smiled. Where are we? We’re in every front closet in every living room in every house in every fold in this maze, asshole. And my little Alice is upstairs. And soon enough you’re going to find that out.
16.16
It was one thing to have visions and write about them, another thing to be in communication with an alien species, and an entirely other thing to be wandering around in the land of the dead, looking for someone she’d never met and trying to avoid these so-called “scary ones.” Sina sat on the edge of the quilt-covered bed and buried her face in her hands. She understood why the tuurngait had withdrawn: this was a human mess. And it was humans who would have to make amends now, to right the wrongs, to show themselves worthy of continuing. If the aliens stepped in to fix things, humanity would be forever diminished. She understood that. But she still wished they were here.
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