by Anela Deen
“I’m dead?” The girl—Margaret—glanced down at herself. She held up her palms and stared at them as if they had better answers. “I was driving. The road was icy and then…” She glanced around with pained confusion. Who’d have thought death would be disorienting for those going through it?
I moved closer, trying to find something comforting to say until Alice lifted her hand again, and in the same bland tone, said, “You are passed into judgement and have been condemned. I deliver you unto darkness and in darkness shall you reside.”
The ground changed beneath Margaret, blackening, softening into a mire of dark ooze. Tentacled fingers slipped over her legs, winding around her waist. She screamed, terror and pain.
“Help me!”
I rushed forward, then wheeled backward just in time to avoid the arm Alice shot out to block me.
“You can’t interfere,” she bristled.
“What is this? What’s going on?”
“She is condemned to dwell amongst the flames.”
“But—She’s just a kid. What could she have possibly done?”
“More than I’m at liberty to tell you and this is not your concern.”
The shadowed ooze crawled over Margaret’s arms, lashing them to her sides. Her skin sizzled beneath their dark touch. She shrieked and struggled to tear free. Her feet disappeared in the opaque puddle, her cries rising to a high-pitched sound of agonized terror. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I dodged past Alice, ignoring her shout. She might think this wasn’t my concern, but standing by while someone suffered was the same as being complicit in their suffering. Very much my concern, in other words.
The dark gunk had swallowed Margaret up to her waist. Careful to keep my boots from touching it, I leaned over and wrapped an arm across her ribs. The solid feel of her surprised me. For a ghost, she felt unsettlingly alive. The stench of sulfur and burning pitch punched me in the face. I turned my head aside with a hoarse cough, braced my feet, and pulled. A few black tendrils snapped off, enough for Margaret to free her arms and grab hold of me. The ooze lost its grip on her waist but held firm to her legs.
“Don’t let go,” she pleaded, fingers digging into my shoulders. “Please, don’t let me go.”
“I won’t,” I promised, my heart thundering. “I’ve got you.”
From the corner of my eye, Alice approached. “What do you hope accomplish here, Locksmith? You can’t save her from this. It is an end of her own making.”
“But I gave her last rites. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
“Last rites, like confession, only have meaning when there is repentance.” Alice gestured toward Margaret. “She is not at all sorry for what she did.”
“Yes, I am,” she cried, clutching at me. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.”
Alice leveled a cold glare on her. “Even now you lie? Do you think you can hide from what you’ve done? Your soul has been stripped bare, branded with the evil you have lived.”
Margaret shrank back against my chest. “They hurt me. I was only trying to protect myself.”
“And all the others? They did nothing to you.”
“They would have. I could see it in them.”
“The children too?” She said nothing and Alice shook her head, turning her gaze to me. “Release her to her fate. It is no less than she deserves.”
Maybe she did deserve it. Children? The horrors lurking behind this story sent a shiver down my spine. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to stand by as the darkness ate her up. There had to be a better way. Consequences, I understood, but punishment such as this felt more like vengeance. The turns of life didn’t always lead us toward our best selves. Sometimes the world made bad choices seem like the only ones available.
“What about redemption?” I asked Alice. “Can’t you give her that option?”
“A wasted effort.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I was there when she committed her sins. Their suffering meant nothing to her. It means nothing to her now.”
“That’s not true,” Margaret whispered to me. “I want to be better. I don’t want to be what I was.”
Her brown eyes pleaded with me.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” I said firmly.
“Sam, you speak in ignorance and my patience is at an end. Release her and step away.”
“So that’s it then?” I blurted in outrage. “You think you deserve the chance to redeem yourself, but not someone else? What makes you a better candidate than her?”
Something flickered behind Alice’s blue eyes and she leaned back slightly. I’d cut her with that remark. Instant regret crashed over me. I hadn’t meant to imply she didn’t deserve it, or worse, that it was a wasted effort in her case too.
“Alice,” I tried again. “I only meant—”
She cut me off with a hard gesture, tilting her head up as if to listen to some distant voice. When she returned her attention to me her eyes were glacial.
“Your request has been heard and granted,” she said. “You are given two days.”
“To do what?” I asked.
“To guide her toward redeeming herself. Her second chance.”
“In two days?” I sputtered. “That’s all? What am I, a celestial drive-through window?”
“Full redemption is not expected, obviously. A single moment of grace. That is all she must show to stay her damnation.”
“Am I supposed to know what that looks like?”
“This was your idea,” Alice snapped. “What it looks like is for you to determine. I cannot instruct you in this.”
She waved a hand and the slithering fingers grasping at the girl melted back into the ground with a defeated moan. The dark puddle vanished, replaced by the forest floor.
“Thank you, Sam,” Margaret breathed, a trembly smile rising to her lips. “You won’t regret it. You’ll see.”
Anger simmered in Alice’s eyes as she looked on her. “You will squander his mercy, but the lesson will perhaps be beneficial for him.”
“You’re wrong,” the other shot back, perhaps feeling more confident now that the darkness pulling at her had gone. “I’m not what you think. I can be better.”
Alice shook her head slowly. “You lie to yourself as sweetly as you did those you harmed. You think it easy to wipe away the past? Atonement is a constant struggle even with a remorseful heart, an oasis forever on the horizon.”
Her voice held a bitter ache. I didn’t think it possible to regret more my thoughtless words from earlier, but I did. She’d never spoken to me of who she’d been in life, or what had brought her to serve in this role. Only once had I glimpsed what she endured, but it was enough to have known better than to be glib about her redemption. I stood, extending a hand toward her.
“Alice, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to say—”
“Her soul will exist between worlds,” she interrupted. “For these two days, she will be tied to you. She will go where you go, and though no one can see her, she can still interact on the physical plane. Be wary, Sam. Any harm she commits will be on your head.”
I drew and released a breath, nerves twisting my stomach. “I understand.”
“No,” she said, “you don’t. But then, you rarely do.”
Chapter 28
Two hours later, when the weather eased off somewhat, the emergency responders finally arrived. I’d still been close enough to Ames that Story County police showed up to the scene of the crash, rather than Bellemer’s. A small reprieve, given everything. The last thing I needed was Nana and my mother finding out about my near miss on the road.
It was another hour before they cleared me to leave the scene, and that only after they took pictures of my truck from every angle, gave me a breathalyzer, and demanded ten ways to get ahold of me later if needed. I didn’t take it personally. A life had ended here. The least I could do was not make things difficult for those tasked with putting order to chaos—at least in t
he living world. I’d bungled things colossally with Alice, but I was too exhausted to dwell on it as I drove home, especially with worry for Nick weighing heavily, and this new responsibility sitting next to me in the passenger’s seat.
“They couldn’t see me,” Margaret said softly, the first words she’d uttered since Alice had left us. “The police and the firefighters, they looked right through me. I’m really dead.”
“Yes,” I said for lack of anything better. “I’m sorry.”
“I was driving too fast. I knew it was going to storm but things had gone rotten with this friend I’d been staying with. I didn’t want to wait.” She sighed. “Why didn’t I just wait?”
That had to be why she only wore a t-shirt and cutoffs in the middle of November. “Where were you heading?”
“I know a couple people in South Dakota. I was coming up from Texas and got a little turned around on the highways.” She glanced at herself with a slight, rueful smile. “I meant to stop and pick up something warmer. I hate extra delays on long car trips though.”
How many cross-country drives had she done in her life?
“You’re more of ‘second star to the right and straight on till morning’ kind of gal?”
“Yeah.”
“Margaret, do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
“Seventeen last month, and call me Maggie.” She looked at me a long moment. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what made you stand up for me back there?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Most people do.”
“You said you didn’t want to be what you were. I believed you.”
“Why?” she pressed. “You don’t know me.”
“I’m not sure I can explain it,” I told her honestly. “Only that you asked for a chance to be better and I think it’s wrong not to give you one.”
She considered that. “Will you get in trouble for this? She seemed really mad at you.”
Oh, she was.
“Let me worry about that. Either way, it’s worth it to help you.”
She gave a small, surprised laugh that didn’t quite hide a touch of mockery. “I’ve never met anyone who thinks like this. Are you an angel?"
“Ah, no. My socks stink as much as the next guy.”
“But you can see me—and they put you in charge of my second chance.”
“That’s because, well…” Should it be this mortifying to say aloud? “I’ve been told I’m a saint.
“A saint?”
“In-training. I asked for a button but the bosses are stingy.”
Maggie nodded slightly, as if what I claimed to be was normal. “That explains all the light around you.”
“What light?”
“You kind of glow.”
“I do not.”
“Seriously, you do.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Like I’m radioactive?”
“More of a nightlight. A bright spot in the dark.”
“That’s just the dashboard lights.” It unnerved me to think I was marked in some way, whether or not I was aware of it. “Let’s talk about you. If we’re going to figure out this ‘moment of grace’ business, I should know more about your life.”
Now Maggie shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I totaled my car today—or yesterday,” she amended, gesturing to the time on the truck’s digital clock. Five-thirty in the morning, though the clouds kept the morning packed in shadows as thick as midnight. “I’m seventeen. Recently deceased, and I enjoy country music and trail hiking. Guilty pleasures are reality TV shows and blue-raspberry icees.”
“Okay,” I said when Maggie fell quiet. “While interesting, these aren’t really the details that’ll help us with our goal.”
"You aren’t going to like the other details."
"Probably not, but I’ll need to know them. There’s no point in keeping secrets anymore."
She didn’t reply.
"Maggie,” I said, “I'll still help you."
A long pause followed. In a slow, deliberate voice, she said, "Nine people. Five adults, four kids. Some I killed directly, others I set up to die.”
In books, the hero could always hide his revulsion behind a manly façade of stoicism. Not so easy in real life, though if a person could hear that and not be shaken to their core, they had problems they should be worried about. I felt my mouth twisting in horror, my eyes squinting as I imagined these victims, alive one moment, gone the next. Maggie watched me. I concentrated on the road, on keeping my breath even, gripping the wheel tight enough that my fingers went stiff.
I’d promised to help her. This was her second chance, and maybe the only one she’d be given. I’d known whatever her crime had been, it would be horrendous. No one was sent to hell for flipping the bird or parking in a handicap spot, after all, but the undertaking suddenly became a lot steeper than I’d anticipated.
“Sam, you haven’t said anything.”
We passed the sign welcoming us to Bellemer, my headlights illuminating the cheerful lettering edged in colorful blossoms, the words untouched by the November gloom lurking in the skies. I was tired. Too tired, but I didn’t want to go home and tramp this terrible night in behind me. I turned off the main road, taking us toward the river.
“Let’s go to the farmer’s market,” I said. “It opens in a few minutes.”
“They aren’t closed for the season?”
“Not till Thanksgiving. They’ve still got root vegetables out and jams from the summer.” I cleared my throat, coming to a decision. “And while I’m picking out zucchini and winter squash, you’ll tell me the rest of your story. All of it. Start from the beginning and leave nothing out.”
In an uncertain voice, she asked, “Are you sure?”
“It’s the only way, Maggie. Everything out in the open.”
She drew her knees to her chest. “But what if you…”
“What?”
“What if I tell you everything and you give up on me?”
I took a deep, fortifying breath and hardened my resolve. I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but I might’ve been hoping the right thing wouldn’t be this hard. Next time, perhaps.
“Let’s make a pact then. No matter what, we will never hold the truth against each other. Agreed?” I extended a hand her direction.
“The truth,” she said ponderingly, and took my hand. “Okay.”
***
While I wandered past vegetable stalls and morning stretched across the sky like spilled bleach, Maggie told me her awful story. Abandoned at a bus stop at seven years old. Taken into a foster home a few months later. Abused until she was nine. After that, she bounced around different group homes for five years. Then a new foster family.
“They were good to me,” she admitted as I bought a big bag full of onions, carrots, and potatoes just to have something solid to hold. “They had two boys, eight and ten. The mom made an awesome apple cider in the fall.” She fell quiet a moment, shrugged. “I knew it wouldn’t last though, so I enjoyed it for about a year.”
I squeezed the bag against me as I turned away from the stall. “Then what?”
“You know what happened then.”
“You have to say it out loud.”
“What for?”
“Call it my sixth sense. I’m guessing you’ve never done it before.”
She made an annoyed sound. “What, like a confession or something? I’m not Catholic you know.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s important.”
She paced along beside me as I headed toward my truck. I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.
“This is a trick,” she said. “You’re trying to get rid of me. I’ll tell you and you’ll call me evil and dump me.”
“We made a pact, remember?”
She snorted.
“Take a risk, Maggie. It’s obvious you don’t trust easily but we can’t do this without trust.”
“Trust is a myth. People only help each other when they’re getting so
mething out of it.”
“That could be true,” I said neutrally. Arguing with a viewpoint like that was useless. “You’ve got to take the leap anyway.”
When I got in my truck, she was already in the passenger seat, eyeing me askance as I settled the bag on the center seat. I decided to find her reluctance encouraging. She might harbor shame for what she’d done without even knowing it.
She surprised me by asking, “What’s your reward in all this?”
“There’s a reward?”
“There’s always a pay-off, a carrot at the end of the stick.”
“Ah, the infamous carrot.” So much for her reluctance being motivated by shame. I started the engine and pulled out of the lot.
“Well?” she prompted. “What do you get?”
“Three wishes from a magical cave troll.”
She glared. “I’m serious. I need to know.”
“What if I said I get nothing?”
“I’d call you a liar, even though I can’t see how helping me benefits you.” She bounced a fist against her thigh. “That’s the problem with trust. If you can’t see the price, you don’t know what it’s going to cost you. It was the same with the Martins, the second family who took me in. They bought me nice clothes, cooked for me, did my laundry. They even gave me an allowance. Why? I couldn’t figure it out. Sure, they got a stipend from the state, but they earned enough money on their own. They didn’t need it like that first family I was stuck with. It didn’t make sense. I was getting too comfortable. A couple times I fell asleep without locking my bedroom door. That’s why I had to do it.”
Then at last, she said it, “I killed them.”
The words spilled out of her, unshaded by empathy or remorse. A necessary act. Heaped beneath the chilly surface I sensed her resentment for their kindness, her glee to have taken from them the life they’d built. It pleased her to know they were dead. The others too. A volunteer at a homeless shelter after she ran away. A trucker who gave her a ride across country, his cab full of family pictures and cards. Numbness settled over my chest as she listed the rest in graphic detail, the pattern obvious. Anyone who showed her kindness without a clear ulterior motive deserved her violence and her hate.
