by Pratt, T. A.
Marla remembered her childhood phone number just fine. The voice that answered was smoke-roughened and way too old, but it had an aggrieved and peevish tone she recognized instantly: "What?"
“Nice to talk to you too, Mom,” Marla said.
“You got a wrong number, girl.”
“Don’t hang up!” Marla shouted, glad she’d sent Rondeau and Pelham out of the shop. Making this call was hard enough. “It’s me, mom. It’s Marla.”
A long silence, and then an inhalation that probably involved a cigarette. “Well, well. What kind of trouble are you in?”
Marla gritted her teeth. Her relationship with her mother wasn’t the only reason she’d run away from home before turning sixteen, but it had been in the top five. Gloria Mason had been a roadhouse beauty with a string of drunken boyfriends, and as soon as Marla hit puberty, her mother started to view her with a combination of distrust, suspicion, jealousy, and entirely unhealthy competition. “No trouble at all. Just... thought it was time I got in touch.”
“After nearly twenty years? Isn’t that sweet of you, to remember the woman who gave birth to you and kept you clothed and fed. I just naturally assumed you were dead, murdered by some psychopath the first night after you ran away. Nice of you to call and set my mind at ease.”
“I sent money,” Marla said. “A few times.”
A laugh. “Did you now? Jason told me he was the one who sent it.”
Of course he did. “He ran away too, you know”
Her mother’s voice was patient, and as condescending as a god talking to a wayward worshipper. “No, dear. He told me he was leaving. He kissed my cheek and gave me an address where I could reach him. He moved away. That’s not the same thing. I guess all this time you’ve just been confused about the difference. So now you know you should feel bad. I’m sure you’ll get right on that.”
Marla leaned forward in the chair, resting her forehead on the smooth wooden surface of the desk. She’d rather kick a hellhound than do this, any day. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was young, and stupid, and ungrateful.” And you were an evil bitch who was either willfully blind to the way your boyfriends groped me, or who thought I deserved it, or who thought I wanted it. But saying that wouldn’t get her what she wanted, so she didn’t. “Listen. I ran into Jason a few months ago. That’s why I’m calling – I’ve been thinking about family.”
“Blood isn’t much, but I guess it’s something. So this is just a call to catch up? Let me know whether or not I have any grandbabies?”
“No babies here.”
“Learned to keep your legs closed, did you?”
Marla had to literally bite her tongue to keep from saying something nasty – I was a virgin when I left home, no thanks to the efforts of your thousand asshole boyfriends. She almost hung up the phone, and her hands started to shake, but she took a deep breath and powered through. “I... we should talk. Try to get past this... all this time and distance between us.”
“You abandoned this family.” Gloria’s voice was cool and poisonous. “Now you think you can make one phone call and get back on the Christmas card list?”
“I have to start somewhere, don’t I? And like I said, I saw Jason. We were supposed to get together again recently, but I got sidetracked and couldn’t make it, and now the number I had for him doesn’t work. Do you have a way to reach him?”
A long silence. “I see. This is about money, isn’t it? Jason always was a soft touch, he’ll probably even give you some, the fool boy.”
“It’s not about money,” Marla said. “It’s... more a matter of life and death.”
Another harsh laugh. “His, or yours? I can tell you which one I’d favor. Never mind, never mind. Give me your number. I’ll call Jason and tell him you’re trying to reach him.”
Marla rattled off Rondeau’s cell number – no way she was giving her mom one of her numbers, and they could always throw Rondeau’s phone in the ocean later. After performing an exorcism. “Thank you. I know I wasn’t the easiest daughter in the world, and this means a lot.”
“You were plenty easy, and don’t think I didn’t notice. I’m glad this means something to you. It doesn’t to me.” There was a click as she hung up the phone.
“That went well,” Marla said to the empty office.
Marla was crap at waiting, and she had nothing to do but wait – for Death to get back in touch, and for Jason to call her back, assuming her mother even tried to pass on the message. So she locked up the bookshop and went out out onto Front Street. She walked down a couple of blocks, then crossed to the ocean side, going down a short flight of steps next to a mediocre cheeseburger restaurant with spectacular views. Just like that, she was on the beach, and what a beach: pale sand, views of the sea, sailboats, and the island of Lanai, that last partially obscured by clouds. A far cry from the bay of Felport, with its iron-gray water fizzing and sloshing with pollution by the shore, and the scraggly wooded islands farther out. Marla would never admit to liking this view better than the one in her old city – but she could grudgingly admit it was lovely enough in its way, even if she was sick of looking at it by now.
She took off her boots and stood in the surf, gazing at the leaning mast of a dead sailboat that had been reefed a few score yards out and abandoned years before. “I know how you feel,” she told the boat.
“And how’s that?” The voice was cheerful enough, but so unexpected that Marla reached for a knife before turning her head.
A shirtless, athletic Hawai’ian man wearing knee-length blue shorts and rubber sandals sat down in the sand next to her feet. A long black ponytail, bound with colorful elastics along its length, hung down between his shoulderblades, straight as a plumb line. He was somewhere north of twenty and south of fifty, but Marla had trouble pinning his age down any more precisely than that – his face was young, but something about his calm dark eyes suggested they’d seen a lot of things over a lot of years. He looked up at her, smiling. “Will you sit and talk with me?”
Marla sat. “Have we met?”
“We have now. My name is Reva.” He offered his hand.
She didn’t take it. “I’m Marla.” She didn’t get any whiff of bad crazy off him, or any intimation of power, either – which meant he was either an ordinary man, or strong enough in magic to hide every trace of the uncanny.
“Oh, I know. I told Glyph and the others of his tribe about you. How’s the job going, by the way?”
“I shouldn’t discuss an ongoing investigation.” She looked him over. “Glyph told me a god recommended me.”
“Yes.” Still calm. But crazy could be very calm under certain circumstances.
“Reva’s your name? Can’t say it rings a bell. I’ve heard of Pele, and Lono, and Uli, and – ”
“Oh, they’re all much greater than I am. I’m the sort of god only a hipster could love – so obscure, almost nobody’s ever heard of me.”
“I always thought the big gods were sellouts anyway. So what exactly are you supposed to be the god of?”
“I was the god of a little island in the Pacific, far from here – far from anywhere, really. Not many people lived there, but there were enough inhabitants to kindle me into specificity, to expect the local power to have a mind and a personality, and so draw me into being. I lived a simple life of storms, and fishing, and births, and deaths. But, alas... my island sank.”
“Wait, what? You mean sank? Like Atlantis?”
“Atlantis was a great city. My island was little more than a village and some trees. But, yes. It sank. That happens sometimes. Volcanic activity. Earthquakes. Land rises, land falls.”
“Huh. So all your worshippers died?”
“Oh, not that many. Most just left. Islands don’t sink overnight. They departed, and left me behind. I found myself a genius loci with no loci, or no worshippers anyway.”
“Isn’t that a death sentence for a god?”
“Eh. Not necessarily. Belief is a factor in the birth of gods –
some gods, anyway, sometimes. Others seem to exist because the universe needs them to exist. Those gods were around before there were people, though they’ve come to resemble people more and more over the years, at least in some of their aspects. I mean the big gods – sea gods, storm gods, like that.”
“The god of death.”
Reva nodded. “That’s another one. But smaller gods, yes, we emerge from raw magical power, taking on specific forms based on the beliefs and expectations of our worshippers. But that belief just starts us going, like crumpled up newspapers are used to start a fire. After it’s started, the fire can continue burning long after the original source of fuel is gone – as long as it can find something else to keep it going. So, with my home and original purpose gone, I had to find another niche.”
“And more worshippers to consume, oh burning bush?”
“All right, the fire metaphor was ill-chosen. I do not consume my followers. Nor do I look for sacrifices. Since I became a wandering, displaced god, I became the god of wanderers and the displaced. Exiles, and the homesick, and the expatriate. I’m the god of people who aren’t from around here – wherever ‘here’ might be.”
“Uh-huh. No offense, but I don’t get a real godly vibe off you.” Marla squinted, letting Death’s gift of true seeing fill her. The man before her wore no illusions – he was just what he appeared to be.
Reva nodded. “Good. That means it’s working. When I come to a place, I like to take on a shape that conforms to local norms – this body is perfectly human and quite unremarkable here, as it should be, even though I made it from dust and sand and dead animals and sea salt. Everything is just atoms, after all, and it’s trivial to assemble the atoms this particular way. Just be glad I didn’t appear as a loudmouthed middle-aged sports fisherman instead. That shape would fit better on the Big Island anyway.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. I’m not in the market for a new god, anyway, so you can take your pitch elsewhere.”
“Oh, Marla Mason. You’ve lost heart, haven’t you? Lost your purpose, along with your home. A man once told me, ‘a person needs a purpose like a car needs a driver.’” Reva rose, brushing sand from the seat of his shorts. “I’m already your god, Marla – because you are an exile, and far from home. I’m not asking for worship or tax-deductible donations. Just know that, when I can, I help my people.”
“What makes you think I want your help?”
“I know you don’t want it.” Reva began to walk south along the shoreline, and called after him: “But I also know you need it.”
Marla watched him until he was just a speck in the distance, then flopped back on the sand to look at the sky and the clouds. Maybe he really was a god. She’d met enough of them, more than most people ever did – maybe some god-stink had rubbed off on her, attracting others.
Someone cleared his throat discreetly, and a flash of anger rushed through Marla. Godsdamnit, couldn’t she have a few minutes alone to contemplate her mortality and think about who she might have to kill to stay alive? And what she’d do with herself if she did manage to survive? And if it was even worth bothering to survive?
“What is it, Pelham?” she said, calm as calm.
“Your husband appeared in the grocery store where Rondeau and I were shopping. He is now waiting at the bookshop.” Her valet paused. “He told me to let you know he has bad news.”
“Of course he does. Why ruin a perfect streak?”
DEATH MAKES AN OFFER
Rondeau had, remarkably, never needed to make small talk with a god before. “What do you do for a living?” and “Which kind of massage do you like better, hot stone or shiatsu?” seemed like fruitless lines of inquiry. But Pelham was off looking for Marla – it was weird that the god hadn’t managed to show up where Marla actually was, but presumably Death didn’t need to be omniscient about anything except maybe actuarial tables – leaving Rondeau here alone with one of the more powerful personifications of an impersonal force in the universe. Probably better to keep mum, but Rondeau had a pathological aversion to silence, so he had to say something. He settled for, “So, did you find that dead guy? The one who got murdered?”
“Mmm? Yes, I spoke to Ronin.” Death sat in a soft, red leather armchair beneath a light-filled window. He looked like something from a Renaissance painting (specifically the sort of portrait commissioned by wealthy and amoral merchants). Death must have brought the chair with him, or conjured it into existence, as the chairs that normally furnished the bookshop were straight-backed and wooden. Rondeau hadn’t actually seen the chair appear, but that was Death’s whole modus operandi. He insinuated himself. By the time you started wondering where he’d come from, he was already in place.
“Ronin,” Rondeau said, leaning against a bookshelf. “Something about that name has been bugging me, it sounds familiar. It’s Japanese, right? Wasn’t there a movie called Ronin?”
“I wouldn’t know. But yes, the man was born in Japan, though that is not his given name – he chose it.”
“Right. I don’t know much about Japanese mythology. Ancestor worship and stuff, right? What kind of hell, or heaven, or whatever, do they favor?”
“Once upon a time, Japan had some interesting visions of the afterlife. The ten judges of Hell, and the old hag Datsueba, who would rip the clothes from your back as you passed by – and if you weren’t wearing clothes, she would rip off your skin.” Death took an art book featuring pictures of the moon from the shelf and began flipping through it idly as he spoke. “Many Japanese are quite secular now. The religious ones tend to be Buddhist or Shinto, and Shintoism eschews the issue of death almost entirely – they leave that for the Buddhists. But neither faith is known for its rich and complex visions of the afterlife. Nirvana for some, or the purgatory of the bardo, followed by reincarnation – which does happen, sometimes, it’s very strange, and I don’t entirely understand it, but I usually don’t interfere. Nothing of the original personality seems to remain when a soul is reincarnated and returns to Earth. It’s more like... recycling a plastic bottle into a plastic bag. The raw material is the same, but the end product is quite different. When those people die again, and come back to me, they’re like a wholly different soul.”
“Huh. So is this Ronin in the reincarnation queue?”
“Oh, no. His spiritual inclinations lay in a different direction, and his afterlife is... rather more unique. I never cease to be amazed by the heavens and hells people conjure for themselves. Ronin made himself into a sentient ocean on a watery planet. I had to create a boat of reeds and papyrus and ply his waters for a while before he noticed me, and even then, it took a while before he consented to talk to me. I could have made myself into an asteroid and smashed into his surface, and really gotten his attention, but... he was so beautiful. Blue and vast. I couldn’t bring myself to do something so crass. Besides, there was no hurry. Time in the eternal realms functions differently from time in this world. Things are much slower down there.” He sighed. “That’s part of why waiting for Marla to die is so tedious – ”
“Wait,” Rondeau said, standing up straighter. The moment he spoke he realized he’d just interrupted Death, but, shit, too late now. “So you’re telling me everybody gets to create their own afterlife?”
Death shrugged, closing the moon book on his lap. “People get what they expect, mostly, or what they think they deserve. Very few realize they’re the ones creating the afterlife they live in – shaping the raw magic of my realm into appropriate shapes.”
“Huh. So the bad guys come to bad ends because deep down they know they deserve it? But there are plenty of evil people who don’t think they’re evil.”
“Yes.”
“So, what, they just get to cavort in the corpse gardens of Pedophile Island or whatever, happy and depraved for eternity?”
Death shrugged. “Sometimes. And why not? It’s not as if rehabilitation or punishment really matter – occasional reincarnation notwithstanding, eternity is eternal. It doesn’t ma
tter if the souls are reformed, or tormented. They can’t hurt anyone while they’re locked in the palaces of their own imaginings – every figure they conjure is an aspect of their own selves. Anyway, when freed from the pressures of the flesh, and the poison of bad brain chemistry, people can be remarkably different, and some very nasty folk have felt profound remorse for their actions in life. Still, as someone who once dabbled in cruelty and later saw the error of my ways, I... occasionally intervene, and try to bring a certain amount of moral clarity to the truly repellent souls. But you’d be surprised how seldom it’s necessary. Most people realize, on some level, when they’ve done unforgivable things.”
“But if I ever manage to die, you’ll totally hook me up, right?” Rondeau said. “I mean, I assume I’m an immortal psychic parasite who wears human bodies like you wear pants, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. You can’t know the unknowable and all that. I could die someday.”
“I doubt you’ll have any trouble in the underworld.” Death leaned forward. “Although, if you’d like to make sure, I’d be open to making an arrangement. Not just limited to the pleasures of the afterlife, either – I can make sure your days on Earth are pleasant beyond your imagining.”
Rondeau frowned. “I’m... pretty rich, and just as bone idle as I’d like to be already.”
Death snorted. “You can afford to live well on a nice island, Rondeau. But I could give you the wealth to buy your own islands, and the influence to rule them, and the power to shape them to your whim.”
Rondeau licked his lips. He knew, instinctively, that he wasn’t the kind of person who should be trusted with reality-altering powers. But he was exactly the kind of person who found them very tempting. So: why was Death trying to tempt him? “I’m guessing this would be more in the nature of a transaction than a gift?”
“I wouldn’t ask for much,” Death said. “Only, if there comes a time when you could do something and save Marla Mason’s life, or do nothing and let her die, I’d ask you... to choose nothing.”
