The Secret Life of Souls

by Jack Ketchum

  “One does not meet oneself until one catches the reflection from an eye other than human.”

  —Loren Eiseley

  THE

  SECRET LIFE

  OF SOULS

  PROLOGUE

  It’s six in the morning.

  Delia is deep asleep, sprawled on her side. She’s dreamless. For the moment, content. A breeze from the open window drifts a lock of hair across her forehead. She takes no notice.

  Caity lies curled beside her, Delia’s arm resting lightly across her belly. But like all dogs, her senses remain alert even as she sleeps. Her ears twitch. She blinks awake. Hears a faint tapping from downstairs in the study. But it’s familiar enough. She returns to sleep.

  Delia’s twin brother Robbie sleeps too in his own room, dreams of a sailing ship on which he is somehow both captain and cabin boy and then, as is the way of dreams, adrift alone in a capsule in deep space. He is comfortable there, not frightened, his mind at ease.

  His father Bart inhabits a world between sleep and wakefulness, between night and morning. His eyes have opened six times now only to close again. He has glimpsed the rumpled empty space on his wife’s side of the bed, the canopy above him, his water glass and ashtray on the end table. He has also glimpsed, in dreams, Jack Dannski and Shiela Lake laughing over bar nuts and whiskey at his high school reunion and his brand-new ’62 Corvette tooling through the bright summer wind along the Parkway. These last two moments elude him. He grasps at them with eager fingers.

  Delia’s mom–Pat, Patricia–is wide awake in her study, poring over photos of her daughter on the computer. Her fingers tap the keys back and forth from photo to photo. Headshots. All of them good because she’s hired a very good photographer. But she’s quite attuned to nuance, Pat is. She’ll easily pick out the best of them. She knows her young daughter’s face as well as she knows her own—reflected as it is now in the monitor, ghostly, as though Pat herself were inside the monitor, drifting, overlain, peering out through her daughter’s eyes.

  Does she detect a wrinkle?

  Not a one.

  It will be another hour and a half for them to meet in their modern, well-appointed kitchen over coffee and English muffins and begin their morning as a group, as a family.

  In the meantime, Caity lies awash in the scent of them, near and far.

  PART ONE

  ONE

  I want you to have a look.”

  Patricia spears a black olive from her small Greek salad and rolls it in the viscous oil and crumbled feta on her plate.

  Across from her Bart holds a baby back rib poised between thumb, forefinger, and ring finger as he studies the owner’s manual for their brand-new cherry-red Firebird. Delia munches her charcoal-broiled chicken wing. Robbie pops a mozzarella stick into his mouth and sucks noisily at the spicy red sauce.

  Nice thing about takeout from Chicken Little. You can order anything from corn on the cob to a veggie burger, from Philly cheesesteak to orzo to chocolate pudding. The menu’s all over the place.

  Ribs are the family favorite, though. To this, on the floor between Bart and Delia, Caity bears silent witness. The platter in front of them holds the sad remains of a triple order. Just two left.

  Pat slides her iPad across the table to Bart. The image is the one she’s selected that morning.

  Yesterday was a damn good day in the studio. The photographer, Scott, is only in his late twenties but he has a good eye and can take direction.

  And Delia had been marvelous.

  They’d sat her on an apple crate in front of a plain muslin backdrop, Caity at her feet. Caity was always at her feet or somewhere within Delia’s sightlines whether she was in the shot or not. The dog’s a kind of talisman. Pat doesn’t mind. Whatever gets the job done.

  She’d helped him select the lenses and gels and they got down to business right away. Delia sat up straight, her attitude poised and centered, instantly ingratiating herself to the camera’s eye as though they were old friends, she and the Nikon, as though the camera were a living thing, Scott merely a finger on the trigger, Delia giving him just the slightest of head adjustments, a tilt of the chin here, a tiny slide into or out of a hot spot there, exactly what he needed, Scott knowing it was good, the triggerman smiling back at her.

  Pat orchestrating the whole thing.

  “Okay. Game face on, Delia. Scott? Can you line up on my axis?”

  “Sure thing, Pat.”

  “Okay, march in.”

  She watched the monitor as he moved the camera closer.

  “Right there,” she said. “Stop.”

  And that was where they got the shot.

  The soft light imparts a hint of the painterly—but acrylic paint, not oil. Edges super crisp, tones sharp.

  Bart bites into his rib, puts down his owner’s manual and squints at the shot. She envies him the goddamn ribs. But they aren’t a good idea for her. All that fat. All that sugar.

  “Nice,” he says. “Very nice. But I still don’t see why we don’t use Mills Photos. We can afford them. Everybody else does.”

  “Exactly why we shouldn’t,” she says. “We want hers to stand out. You see the way he’s cropped it here? Slightly off-center? Mills Photos wouldn’t think of that. But it pops the lighting on her hair. See?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Besides, Delia knows Scott by now. She’s comfortable. And it shows, doesn’t it.”

  “True. It does.”

  Comfortable isn’t exactly the right word, she thinks. Natural is more like it. Her daughter has the uncanny ability to take an entirely unnatural environment and shape it into her own living room, her own bedroom, her own swimming pool or backyard. And to do it almost instantly.

  They’ve talked about it. This small skilled leap of the imagination.

  “I just see it,” Delia tells her. “I see it and it just stays there in my head. For as long as I want it to be.”

  Pat feels it had little do to with any rapport with Scott. Scott is just easygoing, familiar, and modestly talented. Plus the price is right.

  Delia reaches across the table.

  “Lemme see.”

  She smiles and turns the iPad toward her daughter. Once again she’s aware of being very proud of her. Proud of her talent, her poise, her enthusiasm.

  “I look like you!” Delia says.

  Pat laughs. “No you don’t. You look like you in a grown-up skirt and blouse.”

  Delia studies it some.

  “It’s okay. I like it. But where’s the ones with Caity?”

  All her shoots had to end with a few of her and Caity.

  “The producers want you, Deal. Not your dog.”

  “Producers won’t protect me from the ghosts, will they. Caity does. She deserves some good pictures.”

  “Ghosts?”

  “Yeah. Like the ones in my dollhouse.”

  “You mean my dollhouse. You’re just borrowing it, remember?”

  It had been Pat’s since she was eleven years old.

  “You can have it back. It’s weird now.”

  “What do you mean, it’s weird?”

  “You know. Weird.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve had it since you were a baby.”

  “I told you. It’s got ghosts in it.”

  Robbie snorts, grins. Pat interprets. Little sisters. Even though he’d beaten her out of the womb by all of seven minutes.

  “Nothing in it but a bunch of old furniture, Deal,” he says. “You got to relax. You want that last rib?”

  Somehow one of the remaining two ribs has simply disappeared. Pat looks down at the floor. Caity gives her one of those “what, me?” looks that attempts to deny the three inches of gnawed pork bone between
her paws and shoots a glance at Delia. Her conspirator.

  Delia ignores her.

  “No, go ahead, you can have it.”

  “Thanks, sis.” He reaches for the rib. “Okay if I go work on my models?”

  “Sure,” says Bart.

  “What’s wrong with the coleslaw?” Pat asks.

  “I had enough, mom. Can I?”

  Typical of Robbie, she thinks, to ask approval from both of them. Not just Bart or Pat but both. Robbie’s a pretty good kid.

  “Wait!” says Delia. “I want to show you guys something.”

  She gets up and walks into the living room. Robbie chews his rib. Caity does the same, openly and noisily now that the jig is up. Bart goes back to his manual.

  She returns with two rubber racquetballs in hand. One purple, one blue. Sits down and turns to Caity.

  “According to the Internet,” she says, “dogs have trouble telling the difference between purple and blue because they see a more limited speckrum than . . .”

  “Spectrum,” corrects Pat.

  “A more limited spectrum than people. But not Caity. Caity’s not color-blind. Watch.”

  Delia holds both the balls out to her, one in each hand. The dog gets up and sniffs them.

  “You can have the purple, Caity. Purple.”

  Without hesitation the dog selects the purple ball between her teeth and sits. Robbie sighs. Boring. He may or may not be bored for real. No way of knowing. He’s at that age.

  “No wait,” Delia says. “I want the purple. You can have the blue.”

  Caity gets up, deposits the purple ball in Delia’s hand and takes the blue. Sits again.

  Robbie sighs again.

  “This is pretty dumb.”

  “Be nice, son,” Bart says. “That’s it?”

  She smiles and shakes her head and retrieves the ball from Caity. It’s showing signs of drool.

  She puts her hands behind her back and switches the balls back and forth a few times and then holds them out to her. Palms down this time, concealing them.

  “Caity? Dad wants the purple ball. Robbie wants the blue.”

  The dog sniffs them and nuzzles Delia’s right hand. Delia turns it over. The purple. She takes the ball in her mouth and drops it in Bart’s lap. Then takes the blue ball from Delia’s left hand and does the same for Robbie.

  “Pretty good,” says Bart. “Maybe we should get her a TV gig. What do you think?”

  “Not done yet,” Delia says.

  She gets up and walks around Caity and cups her hands over the dog’s eyes.

  “Hide ’em,” she says.

  “Huh?” says Robbie.

  “Hide ’em.”

  He gets it. In the spirit of the thing this time. He tucks the ball into his armpit. Bart sits on his.

  “Caity, I want the blue ball. Can you get me the blue ball, please?”

  She takes away her hands and Caity goes directly to Robbie and immediately starts nuzzling his armpit. It tickles.

  “Hey!” he laughs and the ball drops free. Caity picks it up and brings it to Delia.

  “Thank you, Caity.”

  Now where the hell have they learned that one? Pat wonders. When had they practiced? Her daughter’s full of surprises.

  “Neat trick, Deal,” she says. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to send this photo off to Roman and the printers for their overnight so we can have it first thing tomorrow.”

  “Can you e-mail me the ones with me and Caity?” says Delia.

  “Sure, hon.”

  Truth be told, some of the shots with Caity are damn good too. She’s a Red Queensland Heeler and photogenic as hell. Two-and-a-half years old. Sixty pounds of healthy dog-muscle. A fine delicate ginger color, frosted throughout with white. Dark intelligent eyes with that distinctive black patch over one of them that gives her the look of some kid playing pirate around Halloween time.

  Maybe Delia should teach her a few more tricks, she thinks. Get a real repertoire going.

  What the hell, you never knew.

  His father pushes away from the table.

  “I’m heading out to the lift. Robbie? Want to come?”

  The Firebird is his father’s new toy. What was the word? Enthusiasm. That’s what his mom calls it. His new enthusiasm. His father is enthusiastic. He hoped it lasts awhile. It isn’t the kind of thing his dad would consider Robbie really ought to be interested in, where he’d have to be involved, like football or baseball were, or very briefly, soccer. Robbie can get away without not caring too much about the Firebird.

  Though it surprises him a little actually. Robbie’s good with his hands. His father knows that. So it sort of surprises him a bit that his dad doesn’t insist his son join him doing guy stuff out there, tinkering with the chassis or whatever.

  “Pass, dad. I’m gonna go mess with the models.”

  And maybe some other things.

  “Right, sure. The models.”

  “Want some ice cream?” Delia asks.

  “Nah,” he says. “Maybe later.”

  He watches them head into the kitchen. First his sister to the refrigerator and then his father to pour himself a drink from the bar.

  Caity begins to follow them. He calls her.

  “Cait? Caiters?”

  She stops and turns.

  The pair of racquetballs lie on the table in front of him. He picks them up palms-down and conceals them just as his sister had done and offers them to Caity.

  “You can have the purple one,” he says.

  She cocks her head and takes a few steps forward. Sniffs at his hand. The left one. He opens it.

  Blue.

  Well, she’s Delia’s dog, he thinks.

  Much as he loves her he has to recognize that fact on a daily basis. Caity is Delia’s, not his. She tails his sister like a pilot fish.

  With Caity it had been love at first sight, though, for both him and Delia. Ever since that Christmas morning two years ago when his mom had made them wait at the foot of the stairs, all the other presents unwrapped by then and stacked beneath the Christmas tree, while she opened the door to their bedroom and this tiny ball of fur had come bounding out, seeing them down there below and running, skittering on the floor and catching herself just as she was about to go over the landing, pausing, looking bewildered there for a moment before thumping down on all fours onto the first stair and then the second, and finally getting the idea that the stairs belonged to her completely, and flying down them as though with a lifetime of practice.

  She’d gone first to Delia and then to Robbie. He’d never seen his sister smile like that before or since.

  He can still feel the warmth of her tongue. Recall the smell of puppy-breath. Remember the small tight bulk of her beneath his hands.

  This awesome new creature among them.

  A dog was magic.

  And it didn’t wholly matter that she belonged to Delia first and to him only second. He’s read up on dogs. He knows about pecking order and pack. Robbie’s pack. By rights mom or dad ought to be top dog—alpha they call it—dominant. They were biggest, loudest. They gave orders.

  But that doesn’t seem to matter much to Caity. Caity has her own mind about things. And in this she turns the tables on the common wisdom. The voice she listens to second most often, second most attentively, is his own, not his parents’. And Robbie is pretty content and maybe even a little grateful that, to her way of thinking, his place in the pack is secure.

  He hears the freezer door slam shut. Ice cream.

  Caity turns away from him and trots to the fridge.

  No way he can compete with that.

  Stegosaurus, she thinks.

  Two scoops of peppermint ice cream—green flecked with chocolate. Three big wavy yellow potato chips stuck on top with a handful on the side for dipping. The potato chips stuck in there give the dinosaur his fins. Though if she were to be really accurate about it what she has here was more like Dimetrodon in fin-size to body-size, which wa
sn’t a dinosaur at all but some early mammal. But she’d been building ice cream Stegosauri since she as a little kid and only recently learned that. So whatever.

  She crunches into a peppermint-flavored chip and looks down at Caity sitting politely beside her licking her chops.

  “You can have one. One. Then I’m putting them away.”

  Caity gobbles up the chip and gazes longingly at the bag on the counter.

  “Okay. Two.”

  She gives her another and rolls the bag closed and seals it with the clothespin against the humidity. Digs into her ice cream.

  The dog hops up on two feet and snags the bag off the counter. Then sits down beneath the table, peering out at her from between the rungs of the kitchen chairs, tail thumping on the floor.

  “Bad girl! Gimme those back . . .”

  The dog gets up and saunters over to the counter. Stands up on her hind legs again and deposits the bag amid the crackers and cookies and other chips that line the back wall between the designer mason jars of flour and sugar. Sits down and wags her tongue.

  Delia blinks at her, amused and a little amazed. You just never could tell what this dog was going to do.

  “Whoa,” she says. “Good one, Caits!”

  She plucks a chip off her bowl and feeds it to her. Caity crunches away.

  “Come on, you.”

  She picks up her bowl and walks back through the dining room and into the hall to the stairs.

  Caity’s eager.

  “No running on the stairs, wiggle-butt,” she says.

  Her dog has a tendency to slip on her front feet, paws skittering against the high polish. She gets to the top way ahead of Delia anyway and turns, waiting on high ground.

  “Where’s Robbie?” she says. “Where’s your brother?”

  Caity trots down the hallway to the closed door next to Delia’s and sits.

  Delia taps at the door.

  “Yeah? Hang on a minute.”

  She hears him close his closet door. His chair pulled out and then back in along the wooden floor.

  “Okay. Come on in.”

  She opens it, sees her brother at his bench table under a single bright desk lamp, the rest of the room so dark so that you can barely make out the clutter of horror movie and Marvel Comics action figures, airplanes, rockets, cars, and trucks that line the shelves behind him. Never mind the posters of Clone Wars, Minecraft, and Elvis on the walls.