Our Lady of the Various Sorrows

by Victoria Raschke

  Her eyes flew open and she stopped moving, terrified. She scrambled off him and out of the bed, pulling the duvet with her to cover herself.

  ——

  “Go.” Jo pointed at the door.

  “It isn’t what I want from you.” He stood. Still naked. Where the fuck had his clothes gone?

  “I don’t care. Just go. I need to be alone.” Her whole body was shaking with anger and something like shame, but sinister and more twisted even than that.

  It was dark, but the moon reflecting on the snow outside filled the room with pale blue light. Henry’s skin glowed in it, making him look more like the ghost he was than he had at any point up to that moment. He sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I will go. If that’s what you want.”

  Did she want him to go? Her head felt like it was full of cotton. Indecisiveness wasn’t usually an issue for her. “Fuck. I don’t know. Go sit on the couch and give me a minute.”

  He disappeared. She stood with the bedclothes wrapped around her. What the fuck was going on? She was still aroused and still wanted him. The thought was a gut punch; her own body was betraying her.

  She threw the comforter on the bed and found a robe to wrap around herself. She grabbed a pair of thick socks and walked into the living room.

  Henry sat on the end of the couch fully dressed. He was perched like a schoolboy who knew he was going to be scolded. No one needed to be scolded but her. She sat as far away from him on the couch as she could and pulled her socks on.

  He turned to her. “Why didn’t the god stay?”

  “I don’t know. It didn’t feel like he wanted to.” She didn’t add the god had wanted her to go with him instead.

  “Are you afraid of me now?”

  “Shouldn’t I be?” She should be, and yet she wasn’t.

  He didn’t answer her. “What are you, truly?”

  “I told you. Vox de Mortuis, a Voice of the Dead.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  She repeated the line she used when she encountered new dead people who didn’t know what to do with her. “I can talk to dead people, and the dead can speak through me. In my presence shades are corporeal and can interact with the physical world.”

  “How many shades have you ‘interacted’ with?” She felt him smile in the darkness.

  “Only you.”

  “Did you know?”

  “I did not. Gustaf left that factoid out of our lessons. I knew I could be a Portal for gods and demons, and even for shades, but not like … that. What did you see?”

  “A door. And I knew. I’ve spent years waiting for a door to open. But I knew I’d have to walk through you, and you would die.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I commit murder?” He laughed. “That was not the door I’ve been waiting for.”

  Jo wrapped herself in a flannel robe. The sun was almost as high as it was going to get, and she was hungry. And besides, hiding in bed all day wasn’t going to solve any of her problems. She poked the coals of the fire and put a couple more logs on to warm up the griddle plate.

  Caffeine. Protein. Carbs.

  She took half a dozen eggs out of the basket on the counter and cracked them into a blue earthenware bowl she’d found in one of the cupboards. She broke the yolk of the last egg with the tip of her whisk. How had she gotten back to the exact place she said she didn’t want to be? Henry wasn’t alive, but his presence put paid to her idea she really wanted to be alone. She had invited a shade into her carefully warded lair and tried to fuck his brains out. She liked to think she was smarter than that.

  Before Helena died, before everything was turned completely upside down, she had cherished her solitude and the ability to pierce it at her own will. Her son was grown and lived on his own with friends. She could come and go as she pleased, eat when she wanted to, and sleep alone or not as the mood struck her. Now with Helena on the prowl, her time never felt like her own. She was at work or went to Niko’s hoping the crush of people drinking and talking around her would keep everything else at bay. She rarely left alone. Niko teased her about using his gallery as a poaching ground and using sex like some people use alcohol. Vesna had tried to call her on it, too, and she’d brushed her off.

  Henry startled her with his cold hands on her hips. He brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” She sidled away from him and got the coffee started. “Sorry, I’m not much good as company before I’ve had coffee.”

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Herb omelettes, toast, cheese, fruit.”

  “Do you make breakfast like this for all your guests?” He leaned against the counter and watched her.

  He was fully dressed, even shoes. She had never figured out where his clothes had gone the night before. There was a lot to this dead whisperer business she would never understand. Like had he actually slept when she’d banished him from her bedroom? And where did the food go? Whether or not ghosts could shit was probably not a topic to ponder before breakfast.

  When everything was ready, she made plates for them both and set them on the table.

  “Milk?” She held a cup out to him. “Sugar?”

  “Black.”

  She tipped warm milk into her cup and carried them both to the table.

  Maybe Henry was her door, her way out. No. She’d been offered that before. She wasn’t ready to slip into whatever the Next held. She needed to keep telling herself that.

  “You don’t seem like the type of woman who waits on a man.”

  She laughed. “Is that what you think is going on here?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No. I was hungry and wanted breakfast. It would be rude not to make you some, too.” She spread butter across her toast and took a bite.

  “So I shouldn’t get used to the effort?” He took a bite of omelette.

  “You are dead, and eventually I am going home. There’s nothing here to get used to.” She waited to see if he was insulted.

  “Then I will just have to enjoy the moment.”

  She nodded her head. “Me, too.”

  They finished breakfast in companionable silence. She piled the dishes, except for their coffee cups, in the sink. He followed her like a puppy but at a respectful distance, until she turned back to the bedroom to get dressed. He stopped her and put his hands on either side of her face.

  “I don’t know what to make of you.”

  “Your hands are very cold.”

  He stepped away from her, dropping his arms back to his sides. “Jo. It’s such a funny name for a woman.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t. I have almost forgotten that despite enjoying your excellent breakfast, I am not here.”

  “You are here. And it’s short for Jolene.” His presence made her shiver, in both ways.

  “Jolene?”

  “Yes. From a song.”

  “I don’t think I know that song.”

  “What year did you die?” She touched the thickly cabled cotton sweater he wore. She still couldn’t remember when he had gotten undressed, and it bothered her. She hadn’t had that much wine.

  “Nineteen sixty-something.”

  “It was after your time then. Dolly Parton wrote it. It came out the year I was born. My mother loved the sound of it, the name.”

  “It sounds nicer than Jo.”

  “Hmm. It wouldn’t if you’d had it sung at you by every jerky boy you went to school with in the worst-possible, off-key way. Trust me.”

  “What’s the song about? What does Jolene do that would make boys mock you with it? Not that young boys need much reason to mock.”

  “In the song, the singer is begging Jolene, who’s this fiery redhead everyone is in
love with, not to steal her man.” She picked up a hank of her hair: “Not a redhead. And until college, I wasn’t really interested in men.” Or anyone.

  “I think I see why you prefer Jo.”

  “Yes. Henry, whose real name I do not know, sometimes it’s best to choose our own names.”

  He picked up the same piece of hair. “You would make a good redhead, though.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it.” She wrapped her hair into a bun and secured it with the elastic she had on her wrist. “I need to wash up. Anything in particular you’d like to do today?” She wanted a hot shower, but the power outage ruined that plan.

  “I’m the guest here. What do you usually do?”

  “Go for a walk and then sketch for awhile.”

  “I can do that. Would you make a sketch of me?”

  “I’d like that.”

  They walked next to each other in the snowy woods near the farm. They had been too busy to pay much attention to the storm, but the fresh snow was a few inches deep. The sky held more. Outside he was more like a live person, as he and the air were closer to the same temperature. It was still strange to see only one cloud of breath when they spoke.

  “When will you go home?” He looked off ahead through the trees.

  “When I feel like I’m ready. The tattoo, the scar. The wounds inside have not been so quick to heal.” It was good to have someone so far removed from everything to talk to. What did she care if he judged her? “I haven’t been very good about not reopening them over and over again, either. The scar is going to be much worse.”

  “What happened to you?”

  She told him the whole story, from Helena’s murder and her realizing she could speak with and for the dead, to recovering at Gregor’s house and finally escaping to the mountains to figure everything out. She skipped over the worst parts. She hadn’t been able to describe it to anyone after that first day she’d woken up battered, in an unfamiliar room, at her friend’s house. She left out the devastated faces of her friends. She omitted the horror of what had happened to her father’s shade. There would be no Next for him.

  “There’s more isn’t there?”

  She stopped. “I can’t talk about it. If I think about it too much, I’m there again. I don’t want to go back.”

  “Shell shock. You have nightmares.”

  “Yes. When I’m alone.”

  “I never put much stock in all that Freud and Jung stuff, but I can tell you what I’ve learned in these mountains since I died.”

  She waited for him to finish.

  “Whatever you don’t deal with is what you are left with.”

  “And what are you left with, Henry?” She took his cold, gloveless hand in her mittened one.

  “The faces of the dead whom no one named or claimed. I never actually came here in the war. I was near here, and I wrote about it. Writing exactly what I had seen was hard, like you said. And now I am here, and this is my own hell.”

  “I don’t think I believe in hell. At least not one that we don’t make ourselves.”

  “I made this one, then. I suggest you not do the same.”

  She took a deep breath. “When I was trying to find Faron, I went to Tomaž and Katarina’s house. The demon had already gone. It …”

  “Maybe you should sit down. We can go back to the house.”

  “No. If I stop …” She took a deep breath and looked off at the snow-covered mountain tops. She couldn’t face another person and tell them what she’d done. Even a dead one. “The kitchen was like something from a horror movie. Two of their daughters were there. Veronika, the older one, had blood spattered on her face, like big red freckles, and she was too horrified to speak. She and Ana clung to me, and I couldn’t do anything to help them. I took them to a neighbor and ran to the museum to save Faron. I left them. Mute and blood-splattered.”

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Is that the thing you are so ashamed of? You took them somewhere safe, and then you saved your son from some unspeakable thing.”

  Jo couldn’t find any other words. It was close enough to touch but felt like it had happened to someone else decades ago.

  “Jo.” He pulled her into a hug, his arms around her were warm for a brief moment, like her father’s had been when he’d hugged her by the river. “You can’t save everyone.”

  She sobbed against him. Her tears stung her face in the cold. She didn’t deserve the catharsis of letting go, and definitely not whatever absolution Henry was offering her. Still, it was good to not try to hold everything that had happened because of her inside of her, however briefly.

  She stepped back and rubbed her arms. “Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I could do. Breakfast was very good.”

  She laughed. “No really. Thank you for listening.”

  “You aren’t cured. These things take time. I know this.”

  “We should head back. I’m cold.” It took her longer to feel chilled, but when the cold finally got to her, it settled around her heart.

  “Your face is pink.”

  “Thanks.” She checked him with her hip.

  “It suits you.”

  They walked out of the woods near the farmhouse. A black, all-terrain vehicle hulked in the driveway.

  “Expecting someone?”

  Chapter 6

  “I don’t care if he is your father.” Ivanka shoved her pajamas into the laundry bag and turned on Faron. Her face was flushed. “You shouldn’t trust him. Why now? Why is he here?”

  “I don’t know.” He pulled a sweater over his head. “But you’re late for work, and I need to get to class.”

  “You just don’t want to have this conversation right now. I cannot believe you told him. And Gustaf! What a jerk. Has he been in contact with your dad this whole time?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want you to lose your job. Mom wouldn’t fire you for being late all the time, but Vesna will.”

  She pulled leggings on and finished getting dressed without another word. She didn’t need to say anything. Her anger rolled off her in waves as she shoved her arms into her coat. “Let’s go.”

  Tension crackled between them on the silent walk to the teahouse. He knew she was right. He shouldn’t trust Dušan, but he also didn’t want to be in the dark about why he was there.

  They turned into the courtyard. Vesna, Fred, Goran, and Gregor were all wrapped in their coats and standing on the cobbles in front of the shop staring at bright-red letters spray-painted across the front window. “Bela Europa” and “Go back to Afrika” screamed out from the glass and black-painted wood. The pots Fred and his mom grew herbs in were turned over and broken, and it looked like someone had punched the glass in the front door.

  Vesna turned to greet them. “Good morning. Or at least it was.”

  “What the hell?” Who would scrawl such bullshit on his mom’s shop?

  Ivanka reached out for Fred’s hand. “I am so sorry. We’ll scrub it off right now.”

  Fred nodded. He didn’t look angry, which was sobering.

  “We have to wait for the police to get here so they can take pictures.” Gregor had his phone in his hand and tapped out a reply to a message.

  “How long will they be? This shouldn’t be here a second longer than it has to be.” Ivanka’s voice got higher as she got angrier.

  Faron took out his phone and took a picture. He sent it and a message to a few of the Zombie Church members.

  The replies came back immediately. “On my way.”

  “Bringing razor blades and paint.”

  “Fuck that noise. Tell your mom we’ll take care of it.”

  Faron was glad she wasn’t there. The last thing she needed was to feel like she and her friends weren’t safe. From the living.

  “I’m going to g
o get started on prep.” Fred dropped Ivanka’s hand.

  “We can’t open today. This is threatening.” Ivanka looked at Faron and then back to Fred, like Faron was going to tell Fred what to do.

  Fred stepped over the broken glass and opened the door. “We open. They don’t get to tell me where to live, and they sure as hell don’t close us down, even for a day.”

  Vesna and Gregor nodded. Ivanka and Gregor followed Fred into the shop.

  “You should go to class. We’ve got this.” Vesna took Faron’s hand.

  “Are you going to call Mom?”

  “Not yet. Her phone’s turned off, anyway.” She shrugged, but it was clear she was worried, too.

  “She’ll be pissed if you don’t tell her.”

  “I will. When she gets back.” She said it with finality.

  He hiked his backpack up on his shoulder. “Call me if anything else happens.”

  She nodded.

  As he turned to go, Goran stopped him. “It’s none of my business, but you should be wary of Dušan Črnigad.”

  Faron nodded. “I know.” He turned and walked through the arched doorway back out onto Zajčeva and headed toward class. No one needed to warn him about a man who had never bothered to show up before.

  His mom had enough crap on her plate, but he really needed to talk to her. She couldn’t stay up there forever, right? If she knew about the graffiti, she’d be back to town in a heartbeat. Fuckers. Fred had been in Slovenia since before Faron had been born.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket.

  “Are you still there?” Marko was on his way to the shop and would gather up some others from the Trans-Universal Zombie Church of the Blissful Ringing. They usually protested corruption in the government and were working on opening a pro bono clinic, but cleaning up racist garbage, especially for friends, was right up their alley.

  “No, I’ve got class. Ivanka’s there.” Faron hiked his backpack up, redistributing the weight of the books and computer wedged in it.