Who By Water

by Victoria Raschke

  “I was definitely surprised.”

  “Eh. I probably would’ve been, too. I’m just glad you didn’t deck me or something.”

  “Not sure ghost punching is approved dead whisperer conduct.”

  “Is that what you are? A dead whisperer?” Maja looked at Jo. Her eyes were clear, but there was sadness in the set of the corners.

  “It’s a recently acquired title. Helena’s death seems to have awakened my family’s gift.”

  “Not much of a gift.”

  “I’m not sure yet. You okay?” That was a stupid question.

  “Aside from being dead? Yeah. It’s surprisingly peaceful. I don’t really want anything and nothing really matters anymore.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “That is strange. I woke up in water and at first I panicked, but I wasn’t cold and didn’t feel wet. I climbed onto the bank, but my body was still in the river, tangled in the ties of one of those party boats down where the river cruises turn around. Honestly, my first thought was that I should have worn blue lipstick to match my hair.”

  Jo huffed a small laugh. Clearly she wasn’t the only one who survived on gallows humor.

  “I looked up the river bank back toward the central city and there was this kind of silvery thread above the roof lines. I knew it was you and I needed to get to you and tell you what happened.”

  “And I gasped at you.”

  “Shit, I know I didn’t handle that very well. Sneaking up on you in the bathroom in the middle of the night. By the way, damn. Milo. The man is hot.”

  “What happened?”

  “I left like I said, to go quit at Spotlight. I wanted to talk to my boss, but he wasn’t there. Tomaž was.”

  “Oh my god, did he hurt you?”

  “No, he fucked me on the desk.”

  “You were sleeping with Tomaž?” This was not where she thought this conversation would go.

  “Yeah. I know it was stupid. He is kind of slimy, but I seem to like them older.”

  “You had a crush on Frédéric. He would have been a better choice than that snake.”

  “You knew?”

  “I’m pretty sure everyone knew.”

  “Even Fred?”

  Jo put her hand on Maja’s cold arm. “He didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but he thought he was too old for you.”

  “He’s pretty smart.”

  “Then what?” How was she this calm? Maybe she’d come to some level of acceptance. Maybe she’d fallen completely and utterly down the rabbit hole.

  “His wife opened the door while Tomaž and I were going at it. She was pissed and she came at him like a tiger, all claws and hissing. She didn’t even acknowledge I was there. I picked up my shit and left as fast as I could.”

  “That explains their behavior when they came by here.”

  Maja shrugged. “I walked around for a long time. Had a beer or three with a friends in Metalkova. I was walking home along the river and it was raining pretty hard. Someone came out of the shadows at me and started choking me. I ended up in the river. It was moving fast and I don’t swim. I don’t remember drowning, though.”

  Jo coughed in a poor attempt to hide the tightness in her throat. “Then you woke up in the water and came looking for me.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “What were you doing all day yesterday?”

  “I thought if you could see me, maybe one of my roommates might be able to. Mira was home, but high as a fucking kite. She could hear me, maybe. She kept asking God why she was so angry at her. I left and kind of waited for you to be alone.”

  “Sorry. I was being a chicken and was in some denial. I really didn’t want you to be dead. Your roommate is a space cadet. I met her when I went looking for you.”

  “Thanks. It’s not as bad as I imagined.”

  “Don’t you feel like you need to go somewhere? My da– others have had this real urge to leave, to go to whatever it is that’s next.”

  “No. No white light. No door. No, nothing. I was hoping maybe it was going to be like Valhalla or something, but instead my afterlife seems to be stalking you, boss lady.”

  Jo laughed again. “I’m not sure what that means. I have someone I can ask though.”

  “Cool.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  “I definitely don’t want to hang out in your apartment while you go at it with that hairy guy.”

  “Wait, I thought you liked them old?”

  “Old, yeah, but grizzled? Not so much. He’s a fucking bear.”

  “Whatever. While you’re out exploring dead Ljubljana, I’ll try to get the police on finding your body so we can tell your family.” That would be another fun conversation with Marta, or rather, Investigator Klančnik.

  “Can I come back tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  Maja was gone as silently as she’d arrived. Her departure didn’t even disturb the gauzy curtains.

  Jo watched the brown bird wake up and fluff its feathers up in the cold, readying itself for the possibilities a bird’s day held. And Maja. Twenty-four, a handful of years older than Faron, and all her possibilities were all gone. At a certain point in her brief life, she had come to work at the tea house. She’d chosen the line that crossed Jo’s path and that led to her abrupt end. This had to stop. Jo had to stop it.

  She plugged in her phone and waited until it woke up.

  “Hey. Isn’t it the middle of the night there?” Jackie sounded wide awake.

  “No, it’s about 5 am. I’m glad you’re still up. I need some immediate advice.”

  “More weirdness?”

  “Um. More dead people.”

  “Someone else you know?” An edge of worry crept into Jackie’s voice and broadcast across the connection.

  “Maja, who worked at the teahouse for me.”

  “Jolene!”

  “What? I didn’t kill her.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m coming over there.” Jo could hear papers shuffling in the background.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Well, I think it is. Michael is going to come stay at the house with the dogs. I fly out Friday night.”

  “I’m guessing that means you bought your ticket already?” Jo sighed. She wanted Jackie’s hand to hold, yet she really didn’t want to involve anyone else she cared about.

  “Yes. And I booked a hotel room. I love you but staying in that dinky apartment of yours is like being trapped in a dog crate.”

  Jo laughed. “I love you, too.”

  “Anyway, what’s this immediate advice?”

  “Two things really. You said there were some things I needed to do to protect the flat from unwanted visitors?”

  “When you didn’t Skype me, I sent you an email with some stuff you can do. Don’t you check your mail?”

  “Not religiously.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “What does it mean when a ghost or spirit or whatever you call them doesn’t feel the need to leave or move on?”

  “Shade. I call them shades. And, um…Oh.”

  “Good ‘oh’ or bad ‘oh’?”

  “Mm. Neutral ‘oh.’ Who are we talking about?”

  Jo paused. She realized just how little she knew about how all this worked. What if she’d already done something really bad? “Maja. She said she knew she had to get to me but that she had no desire or sense that she needed to go anywhere else.”

  “It may mean that she’s your spirit guide.”

  “I get one of those? Why couldn’t it have been Dad?”

  “It’s not usually someone that close to you. Helps to keep emotion from clouding your judgment, or theirs; at least that has always been my best guess as to why. Is Ma
ja kind of feisty and irreverent?”

  “She has blue hair and is covered in tattoos.”

  “I take that as a yes. If she’s accepted death and was drawn to you, it means she has work to do.”

  “Okay. Is there protocol for this? I wasn’t exactly ready to have someone looking over my shoulder all the time.”

  “I don’t think she can actually do that. There’s usually a signal she’s near. A song you sing or hum.”

  “Damn it!”

  “What?”

  “I think I know why that damn Rancid song has been stuck in my head for two days.” That was probably why she’d kept hearing the M*A*S*H theme song, too.

  “Could be worse. Could have been the chicken dance song.”

  “That would be evil.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “At this point, I doubt it. Who’s your guide and what terrible song are you stuck with?”

  “I’ve had a few over the years. Currently, it’s a woman named Betty that I used to play Bunco with occasionally. She’s a mess.”

  “And the song?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Edelweiss.”

  Jo laughed. “Guess you’re regretting that Sound of Music obsession right about now.”

  Jackie laughed, too. “Right about always. Okay, kiddo. I do actually need to get to sleep. Check your mail. Do those things this morning. Promise?”

  “I promise. See you on Saturday. Oh, are you flying into Ljubljana?”

  “No, too expensive. Venice, then a GoOpti shuttle to the train station.”

  “Cool. Send me your itinerary and I’ll meet you at the station.”

  Jo touched the red receiver button on the screen and then pulled up her email. What nineteenth century dead whisperer could have guessed their progeny would wind up halfway around the world holding a supercomputer in her hand learning to set wards to protect herself and her apartment from bad shades. She scrolled through Jackie’s email. Most of it was doable with the stuff she had in the apartment. She didn’t have a porch, so she didn’t need to worry about painting it “haint” blue.

  Rok knocked softly at the door, then opened it.

  “Why’d you knock, silly?”

  “You were talking.”

  Jo gestured with the phone, “To my aunt.”

  “All is well?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “The mattress is dry?” Rok ran his hand over his beard and blinked. He seemed a little more awake.

  “I think so. I’ll leave it unmade today, just in case. Hungry?”

  “I could eat.”

  She stood and walked to the wardrobe to pull out a robe. It was the one Milo had worn the morning before. It still smelled of him. She started to put it back, but she didn’t have the emotional reserves to be sentimental about it. Rok stood still in the doorway instead of letting her pass. Standing on the step made her a few inches taller than he. He stepped back and she stepped down so they were eye to eye. He put his warm, calloused hands on both sides of her face.

  He looked her hard in the face. “There’s something you are not saying that you need to say.”

  “Breakfast first. I don’t think I can make it through the whole story without caffeine and protein.”

  He laughed and kissed her chastely on the mouth. He tasted of morning breath. “Okay.” He moved aside to let her pass.

  He showered while she made eggs and toast and coffee as strong as she could stand it.

  They sat opposite each other at her dining desk. She thought about how many interactions, conversations, and revelations this configuration had been witness to, especially in the past few days. Maybe she needed to set a ward on it, too.

  “How superstitions are you?”

  Rok seemed genuinely surprised by her question. “Not very. I accept there are many things I don’t know of or that there isn’t an explanation for yet.”

  “I can talk to dead people.”

  “Is this new?”

  “That’s it? ‘Is this new?’” It was her turn to be surprised.

  “What? I believe you.”

  She stared at him, open mouthed. “Really?”

  “You don’t lie well. Or make up things.”

  She set her mug down with a thunk and leaned back into her chair, still staring.

  He leaned across the table and took her wrists and pulled her back to him, almost nose to nose. “My Jo, I am not interested in uninteresting people.”

  “I know.”

  He continued to hold her wrists, gently. “Do you? I wonder. I do not think you know your own power.” He let go but Jo didn’t move away.

  “Will you help me?”

  “If I can.”

  “I need to protect myself. Protect the flat. I have a list from Jackie.”

  “Why does your aunt know of such things?”

  “It’s probably best if I start at the beginning. With Helena.”

  Their coffee was cold. Rok stood and motioned for her to stand. He wrapped her in a rib-crushing hug. “You are strong. This is a heavy burden.”

  She could barely breathe out. He was taking the whole thing remarkably well. Maybe a little too well. Maybe there was something he needed to say that he wasn’t saying.

  God, she hated this thing. It made her doubt herself and her friends. She was not going to let it beat her down.

  He let her go. “This list?”

  She retrieved her phone from the bedroom and showed him the list. She started pulling things from the kitchen cabinets and then went back to the bedroom to get a carved wooden box from the wardrobe. She ran her hands over the deep grooves depicting a flowering dogwood branch. Her grandfather had made it for her when she was in high school. To keep her treasures in, he had said.

  Together she and Rok ran lines of salt along the window sills and the threshold outside the front and only door. She had six different kinds of salt, but decided on salt from Piran because it was local-ish. She tied bells around the inside knob of the front door. The only bells she had were on an old Indian anklet Rok had bought her in a market in Delhi. They made a witch bottle to Jackie’s specifications, using needles she’d raided from her travel kit and salt and herbs from the spice rack, and placed it in the eastern most point of the apartment which they established using the compass on her phone. Finally they burned some rubbed sage in a ramekin and walked around the edge of the apartment fanning the smoke with a sketch book to cleanse the space. Rubbed sage probably wasn’t the kind Jackie meant but it would have to do. Rok chanted a prayer he’d learned in his travels and set the ramekin in the sink to let the sage burn out.

  “We have done our best.” He dusted his hands together.

  “Do you think Maja will still be able to get in?”

  “I think all this is for – haints? – that want to hurt you.” The word was new to him. Jo explained that “haints” wasn’t exactly proper English. “If she can’t get in, maybe she isn’t the guide.”

  “True.” Jo flounced onto the edge of the still-open futon and threw herself back against it. The silk of the robe fluttered and settled around her. She was calmed by the quirky rituals and relieved that now four people, well, four living ones, knew her secret, and none of them thought she had lost her mind. Maybe that said more about them than her, but she would take it at face value. Faron, she decided, still should not be told. She wouldn’t endanger her son by drawing him into this mess. Nor was she ready to tell Gregor. He would worry and try to fix something that couldn’t be fixed, and his efforts to help would only put him in harm’s way.

  She looked up through the window. The sliver of sky above the terra cotta roofline was fully blue. She pulled her phone out of the robe pocket to check the time. Rok took the phone from her and set it on t
he table. He lay down next to her on the bed and propped on his elbow so his face was over hers. His dark eyes were soft and hungry. “It’s been a long time.”

  “It has.” She touched his face, cupping his bearded jaw in her hand. “But what about Nepal?”

  “Nepal can wait. Maybe I need to be here.”

  Chapter 15

  Jo was late to work. It was getting to be a habit, but it was worth it this morning. Sex with Rok was the tether she had needed. He kissed her goodbye at the door to the teahouse and headed off into Ljubljana to do whatever it was he did when they weren’t together. She was relieved that he was putting off Nepal. It wouldn’t hurt to have him here until this was all resolved.

  In the cramped kitchen, Frédéric was already deep into the prep list. Vesna was in the office, leafing through the papers, but she had her hair up and an apron on.

  “Sorry I’m late, guys.” Before Jo could announce that she was going out to look for Maja, Vesna stood up.

  “I think we all need to talk.”

  Frédéric laid his knife down on the cutting board where he’d been removing the crusts of deviled egg salad sandwiches. The look on his face was inscrutable, but Jo knew he was worried about Maja. Vesna stepped out of the office and waved them both out of the kitchen. There wasn’t any music playing. The bells on the front door rang. The sound reminded her of the anklet she and Rok had hung on the door upstairs.

  Faron and Gregor were hanging their coats by the door as she walked into the main room. Jo looked to Vesna, whose face was stern and set. Her in-charge mom face.

  “What the hell? Why are they here?” She had decided against telling Faron and Gregor anything about the dead whisperer thing. And she needed to get to the party boat dock.

  “Maja’s been missing for two days. We need to make some decisions.” Vesna’s delivery was matter of fact.

  Jo sat at one of the bigger tables, her stomach knotting and re-knotting with every shallow breath.

  Faron sat down next to her. “Mom, are you okay?”

  “Yes and no.” Jo sighed. “Vesna, can we at least have some tea for this?”

  Frédéric turned back toward the tea station and got a pot started before returning to the table. He sat down next to Gregor, who sat across from her. “Okay. What is all this about?”