“She is not angry with you. Hurt perhaps, but your mother covers that well.”
“She should be angry.”
“I think now she is worried.” Dušan finished his coffee and raised his hand again to signal the server. “Were you going to tell me about Helena?”
Faron’s face flushed hot. “Did Mom tell you?”
“Only what she knew. I believe there is more.”
His mother must have trusted Dušan enough to talk with him, and she trusted very few people lately. Maybe it would be better to have it all out in the open.
“She doesn’t know about the mouse.” He looked down at his hands in his lap and pulled the leather bracelet Ivanka had given him around his wrist.
“Tell me about the mouse.” Dušan propped both forearms on the table in front of him and clasped his hands together.
“The last time I was at Helena’s, before she was killed, before I stopped going over. Her cat trapped a mouse in the kitchen and gave it a mouse heart attack or something. It wasn’t bleeding or anything, but Helena asked me if I’d take it out to the trash before I left. I picked it up by the tail with my bare hand.” He looked down at his hands again. They didn’t seem like his anymore. “On the way to the door I felt this spark between my fingers and the mouse. It squeaked and jerked out of my hand and ran toward the door.”
“What did Helena say?” Dušan leaned in closer as he spoke.
“She laughed. She’d asked me if I’d always been able to wake the dead.”
“That is all?”
“Yeah. I thought she was joking or flirting in her weird way. I figured the mouse was stunned or something.”
“Did you see Helena after that?”
“No.” Dreams didn’t count, right? He had stopped going to Helena’s when things had gotten more serious with Ivanka, but he couldn’t control what his brain did when he was asleep.
“Have you seen her since she died?”
Faron’s stomach tightened. “No. I can’t do that thing Mom does.” It unnerved him that his mother still hung out with Helena. He didn’t want to be a topic of conversation between them.
Dušan leaned back against the wall. “You are a better liar than your mother, but not by much.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What you want factors very little into this. It is almost entirely about what Helena wants from you. I suggest you get over your distaste for me and start being honest. I cannot help you if you are not truthful.”
“What are you talking about?”
His father turned the cup in his saucer until the handle faced away from him. He peered into the cappuccino foam rings then picked it up and looked into the bottom. His eyes darkened for a flash of second, and he smiled to himself.
“What did you see in that cup?” Faron’s stomach turned over when his father looked up at him, his eyes completely blackened, even to the edge of the whites.
“Nothing I had not already seen.”
“What are you?” Running was probably the smartest thing to do, but giving his father the satisfaction of his fear wasn’t going to happen.
“Your mother asked me the same question, and she did not like what I told her. I suggest you think about whether you are ready to know the answer yet or not.”
The server approached and asked if they needed anything more. Dušan looked up at him with his usual eyes and shook his head.
Faron put his hand in his pocket to get his wallet, but his father stopped him. “Go. Look after the shop. I suspect your vandals will return.”
Chapter 9
Jo shivered in the early-morning darkness. The sun took a long time to find its way over the snow-covered mountains and into the bowl of the high valley where she stood in another foot of fresh powder that had fallen the night before. Her breath billowed into a cloud in front of her face. She’d have icicles hanging off her nose if it didn’t warm up a little when the sun came up.
Her companion didn’t have a cloud of breath floating in front of him. He didn’t even have a coat. He had an armful of blankets and a flask of milky coffee to get her through this. She had no idea how this was going to work. She needed to be more careful about the pillow-talk promises she made to shades. She needed to not be indulging in pillow talk with shades.
Henry had uncovered a camp chair in one of the closets at the farmhouse. He dusted off the spider carcasses and set it up for her. She sat down and draped herself with blankets. Still cold. Her feet were warm though. She’d stuck the chemical hand warmers Gregor had tucked in her coat pockets into the calves of her boots.
“Are you ready?” He looked terrified. He knew what was coming better than he’d let on.
She nodded and took off the tam she’d knitted, poorly, with her own hair and the silver thread Jackie had recommended twined into the yarn. She replaced it with a much warmer toboggan and waited. The mountains always hummed with a dull drone when she was outside. With her freak flag of an aura let fly, the drone quickened and pulsed. The souls of thousands of days of war headed her way.
The first shade who appeared fell into the snow ten feet from her chair. Henry opened his notebook and folded it over to expose a clean page. He was going to record the names for her to leave with the museum in town. She was pretty sure the curators would think she was crazy, but she’d promised.
The shade, a teenager by his round, beardless face, stood and stumbled his way to her. His eyes were wide, and his hair was matted to the side of his skull with blood and tissue. He reached out to touch her. It took everything she could muster not to flinch when his dirty fingers gripped her arm.
“Puoi vedermi.” His astonishment would have made her smile if the situation had been different.
He’d spoken Italian, but she had no idea what he said.
Henry put his hand on her shoulder. “He says, ‘You can see me.’”
She nodded at the young man. “Come ti chiami?” Henry taught her the simple Italian for “what’s your name?” She knew how to ask in German and Slovene.
“Arturo. Arturo Ballarin.”
“Arturo.” She touched his face. He wasn’t as old as Faron, or he hadn’t been when he had died. He’d probably been born before her grandfather. Tears froze in her eyelashes but came anyway.
She felt a door open behind her. She was afraid to turn to look in case it disappeared, but she could see the relief in Arturo’s eyes. He looked at her one more time and whispered, “Grazie.” He stumbled past her in the deep snow.
The pale light of dawn pulled the snow-topped, blue-gray mountains around them into sharp relief and revealed an international army of mangled and frozen soldiers making their way to her perch on the camp chair. The beauty of the place and the horrors that had been visited on the soldiers were completely incongruous.
Each one needed to touch her to reassure themselves she was real. Some touched her arm, others picked up her hand, a few caressed her face with their frozen fingertips. One older man burdened with a medic’s bag kissed either side of her face. She asked their names, and Henry wrote them down. She didn’t tell them they could leave, but they knew the way was open for them as soon as she repeated each name — even when she tripped up on the harder Italian ones.
Her cheeks were chapped with wind and the tears that came and went. The bodies of the soldiers as they became corporeal made the air around her even colder. The sun was bright and clear but did little to warm the thin mountain air. She looked into each face, some torn or frostbitten beyond recognition as faces, until the sun made its way across the sky and began to tuck into the western peaks where it met more snow clouds. They would get another storm tonight.
There were many more men making their way to where she sat with Henry as her sentinel. This would take far more time than she had imagined.
“John Wiley.” His English was clipp
ed and surprising. He must have come to this place like Henry had, a volunteer in a war that wasn’t exactly his.
“John, my name is also Wiley.”
“From Hanging Langford. But you’re a Yank.” His eyes were the same shade of blue as hers and looked out from a gray face ravaged by frostbite.
She nodded. “My people are from Wiltshire, as far as I know.”
“Well, thank you, dear cousin. This was more adventure than I’d bargained for.” He shook her hand and walked behind her.
She craned her neck up at Henry. “I have to stop. I’m frozen, and I don’t think I can take any more today.”
He nodded and found her hat so she could switch.
The next man also spoke English, with a heavy Austrian accent. “Are you coming back?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.” She’d already promised Henry she would.
“I have waited this long. What is another day?”
She looked up into the shade’s long face. “What’s your name?”
“It can wait. I will tell the others.”
She nodded and put her tam back on. The hum of white noise pitched higher then subsided. Whoever the soldier had been, he’d kept his end of the bargain.
Her knees were stiff. Henry helped her stand and looked down into her face.
“You look exhausted.” His broad American accent after all the Italian and German speakers was oddly comforting.
“Thanks.”
“And beautiful. I’ve never seen a face I had so much respect for.”
Her words caught in her throat. This thing she could do came with responsibilities. As soon as he’d asked her to help him mourn the lost souls on the mountain, she’d known she had to. Souls didn’t disappear into nothing after they’d been here too long, as Leo believed. They went to the horrible place Dušan had dragged her to. He’d said those had been the souls of people who couldn’t accept death. If they accepted death, could they leave and move on? Henry cared for these shades of the unmourned in the mountains. She would mourn every one of them if it meant they wouldn’t have to meet Dušan.
Jo kept one of the blankets and wrapped it around her on the way back to the farmhouse. The wind increased with the advancing storm and whipped up the previous night’s accumulation. Henry carried the camp chair, other blankets, and the empty flask. There were advantages to being able to make a shade real; she didn’t have to transport all the stuff.
They crested the last small ridge that looked over the farmhouse to find another car marring the drifted snow on the drive. Clearly people had no idea what it meant to leave her alone. Henry walked to the door with her and handed her the gear. He gave her a half-hearted salute.
“I’ll see you in the morning. Not as early. It looks like we’ll get more snow tonight.” What was left of the sunlight had been hidden by heavy storm clouds. He disappeared off to wherever it was he went.
She pushed open the door and stamped her boots on the mat outside, and stamped them again on the mat inside the door. She was caked with snow to her knees. She looked up into Leo’s worried face as she unzipped her footgear.
“Where have you been?” He, like his niece, gave good mom face.
But Jo wasn’t having it. “‘Why are you here?’ is a much better question.” She finished removing her boots and slid her feet into the fleece slippers that waited beyond the runoff from the melting snow. She hung the blanket on a peg next to her sodden coat.
“Vesna sent me.” He watched every move Jo made like she might jump at him.
“She doesn’t need to be worried. As you can see, I’m fine.”
“You’re frozen.” He took one of her hands in his and rubbed it between his palms. “Your hands are like ice.”
She’d become a shade, if momentarily, or as cold as one. She pulled her hand away. He wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily. “Why are you really here? Even Vesna would have difficulty convincing someone to drive up here in this weather.”
He stepped back. “I was worried, too.”
“I’m still fine.” Her words came out more annoyed than angry. There had to be a reason he’d braved the shitty roads in a crappy rental car to get to her. It was shocking he’d made it, even with chains.
“There’s news. Dušan–”
“I know. He’s been here already.” She walked past him into the sitting room. He must have fed the fire because it was warm.
He shut the door to the entry room and followed her. “How did he know where to find you?”
“He’s got resources, apparently.” She put the kettle on the griddle plate to boil water for tea. She needed something to warm her hands and insides.
Leo nodded. He looked lost as to where to take his story from there. “He talked to Faron.”
“I know.” What she didn’t know was how Faron had taken it all. The faster she completed her task here, the faster she could get to him.
“And the shop. Did he tell you about that?”
She reeled around on him. “What about the shop?”
“Vandals spray-painted racist nonsense on the windows and bashed the planters in.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” The words sounded stupid as soon as she let them leave her lips.
He glared at her.
“Duly chastened. I’m sorry. Is Fred okay? Has Reka started?”
“Fred’s fine. Reka should be there sometime this week, according to Vesna.” He sat at the kitchen table; it looked like doll’s furniture next to his lanky frame.
She pulled two mugs from the cupboard and plonked a tea bag in each.
“Tea bags? I’m shocked.”
“Hey, it’s like camping up here.” She went to the sitting room and brought the lamp he’d lit to the table. “I guess you figured out pretty quickly the power’s out?”
“Yes. The light switch didn’t work. That’s when I started to worry.”
“Wood fire for heat and cooking,” she motioned to the cook stove, “and a whole lot of blankets.”
“Why were you out in the snow?”
“It’s a long story I’m not quite ready to tell.” She picked up the whistling kettle and poured boiling water into both cups. “I’m out of milk, but I have brandy or whiskey.”
“Whiskey.”
She set the bottle on the table and carried the two mugs over. “You know you can’t drive back to Ljubljana tonight.”
He nodded. “I hadn’t anticipated it taking so long to get here.”
“You must have been determined.”
“And slightly terrified. There were a few moments when I thought I might be going back down the mountain the hard way.”
“I’m glad you’re safe, even though it was absolutely idiotic for you to drive up here in a fucking Opel.”
“Needs must.”
She shook her head. “You are full of shit. You’ve delivered your news, and I still find it hard to believe either of those things warranted you taking your life into your hands.”
He pulled the tea bag out and set it on a spoon on the table. “I wanted to see you.”
“That couldn’t wait a few days?”
“I wanted to see you, alone.”
Alone could be problematic. She waited for him to continue.
“I don’t know where to start or …” He looked at her again, like he would find direction in her face. “What do you think of me, Jo?”
Now she had an idea where this was headed. “You’re my friend, and I trust you.” It was true. There was more, but she’d drawn a firm line, even if it was in sand, between her friendship with Leo and any other feelings she had for him. However much she trusted him, however attracted to him she was, he was off-limits.
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t it all there can be?” Her tea was suddenly fascinating and a reason not to look up a
t him again.
“I don’t know.”
She stood up. “Please don’t say anything else. Not right now.”
He sank back against the chair.
She didn’t want to hurt him. “I need you to be my friend. I need you for my sanity. You know me. I don’t do … I can’t …”
He nodded. There was a look of defeat about him.
“I am attracted to you. I have been since our conversation at the rectory. But, I’m … and you’re–”
“Not supposed to want that? Is that what you were going to say?” There was sarcasm in his voice, but it was wrapped in a deep sadness.
“You said this dead whisperer thing was a duty. Don’t you have one, as well?”
“I do. And I have thought of that. But I also–”
“Think of me.” There was no judgement in it. The heart wants what it wants and will take the long way ’round if necessary. She’d found that out the hard way. She could stuff her feelings down all she wanted and bury them under strings of one-night stands, but she’d made her own rule about letting her thoughts linger too long on Leo.
“Yes.”
She sat back down. “I cannot actively encourage you to leave the church, even if I don’t believe like you. I also can’t promise you anything if you do. If you leave, it can’t be for me.”
“And there can be no you unless I leave.”
She sighed. Sorry was the wrong thing to say. There was nothing that was the right thing to say.
“So that’s why I came. And now you know. And now I can’t leave in a sweeping gesture of romantic folly.”
“I wouldn’t let you leave. Folly is putting it mildly. It would be suicide tonight.”
“Would you like to eat, then? I’m starving.”
They both laughed, if nervously.
“I have dahl and bread. Afraid I’ve finished off the rice.”
“I brought dinner, though I had planned for it to be lunch.” He stood and retrieved a basket from the entryway.
Our Lady of the Various Sorrows (Voices of the Dead Book 2) Page 8
