Mortals: Heather Despair Book One

by Leslie Copeland

"Your spirit name is Emmett," I said. "But it's all hazy and unclear. Why are all those extra names attached?"

  I opened my eyes to find him watching me. When I gave him my full golden-eyed stare, he held my gaze easily, his eyes searching mine. Whatever he found must have pleased him, for he flashed a delighted little smile.

  "That is in remembrance. I have kept the names of many of my lives," he said.

  "How, if you don't remember living them?" I asked.

  Emmett sniffed. "I'm a mid-level spirit. We have our ways of knowing. I, for example, have a record of much of it. Also, we have a hypnotist. Madame Fustery. Lovely lady. Marvelous at calling back memories for spirits."

  I had to turn away, disconcerted by the way he held my gaze. My weird golden eyes didn't bother him in the least, but looking into his eyes gave me the sensation of falling. My stomach had that fluttery feeling again, and heat rose to my face. Maybe he was mesmerizing me. I distrusted that fuzzy feel of his name. He was Emmett—and yet he was not. But I sensed his honesty, too. How he confused me!

  "Who you are, Emmett, it's a slippery thing," I said.

  "Truer words were never spoken. You excel at telepathy. You'll be a splendid medium," he said.

  "Like my father?" I said. "Where is he, anyway? If this is the afterlife—"

  "Sorry to be enigmatic, but we'd better discuss it in the safety of All's Hold. This is not the safest time and place to have that conversation." We had reached the tree line, and I walked up, but he blocked the way with his arm. "The forests here are a little strange. I don't really know why I came this way. Completely foolish way to come with a mortal such as yourself. However, if we move quickly through the Disenchanted Forest, we should avoid any unfortunate incidents with the Feeders. Just keep your—ahem—spirits up, okay?"

  "O-kay . . . Feeders?" I was so busy imagining what Feeders might be that I missed Emmett's joke. Unfortunately, I also missed his literal meaning, for the second I entered the woods, a great overwhelming emotional weight rolled down on me like a thousand depressions. I stopped cold. "Ugh," I said.

  Emmett regarded me, totally unfazed himself. The Chihuahuas flapped around, wildly rolling their eyes, even though they were weirder than anything in the forest. They flew to Emmett, who allowed them to crawl inside his waistcoat. There he apparently absorbed them, for they disappeared without a sound. I watched this, frozen in misery, my spirits were so low.

  "Girl—Aether! Stay with me, now!" shouted Emmett. In response, I slumped against a tree. The sticky surface of the bark gave way, and my head sank into it little by little.

  Dark molasses thoughts oozed through my mind, slow and despondent. What difference did anything make. I was a freakish girl lost in the spirit world with two bat dogs and a weird ghost boy who couldn't even remember my name. My friends would think I was crazy. My father was gone forever, and so, probably, was Sam. What did it matter if I sank my head into this tree?

  From very far away, I heard the whirring of some annoying insect. I listened, distracted. The sound resolved into Emmett's voice, talking on and on. "Oh no, Aether, that's a slough tree. Don't put your head in there. That's exactly what it wants you to do. I just knew it was a bad idea to come this way. Come on, if you put your head in there, you won't get it out again. Pull it out of there. Pull it out!"

  A long, mournful, hooting howl sounded through the forest. It ended in a high-pitched shriek, like a woman in pain. I straightened in alarm, pulling free from the tree's suction in the process. "Coyotes! Sybil, where are you?" I shouted.

  I searched the forest shadows, but saw no coyote pack, no junkyard, no sand. Where was I?

  "Those aren't coyotes. They're Feeders," Emmett said with an airless sigh. "And they're so tiresome. Always sucking the souls out of those who despair. Especially dangerous to mortals, I'm sure. And you are not very effectual at warding off despair. Low marks on this test."

  I lifted my head and fixed on Emmett's eyes. In my stupefied state, I leaned toward him, drawn into their blackness, like falling down a well. My head spun.

  "I do like walking in the woods," Emmett continued. "And one thing you'll learn about spirits, they stick to their habits. It's practically all that gets us through the centuries. But you look dreadfully miserable. The Feeder is probably picking up on that. Oh, great All! Here it comes!"

  The forest, already dark, grew even darker as a gloomy mist settled in. Ear-splitting shrieks and howls bounced off the trees and echoed all around us. I froze.

  "Don't let it get to you," said Emmett. "It's just a big, ugly, soul-sucking predator that threatens the fearful and the desirous. So clichéd, really."

  From between the trees, a dark, wraithlike shape emerged. I could see only blackness under its ragged and ghostly hood. A pair of wolf-like fangs floated before its head, snapping and slavering. Without a second's hesitation, the horrific creature charged straight for me!

  "Under the circumstances, perhaps it would be best if we floated over this part of the forest—much as I hate to fly," said Emmett. He reached out to me. I grasped at him in fear, spectricity shocks searing up my arm and into his. He gritted his teeth and lifted up like a black-and-white balloon, drawing me after him. Up I drifted, light and buoyant, amazed at how easy this was, rising higher and higher through the treetops. The Feeder below howled in disappointment. Then, as we cleared the tree line, the Feeder's teeth detached and launched through the air, snapping wildly. They hooked into the heel of my left shoe. I slipped the shoe from my foot. It fell, teeth attached, spinning into the woods. Emmett glided still higher, the Feeder's frustrated howls fading as we sped upward.

  "That was quick thinking. I didn't like that shoe either," said Emmett.

  Stunned, I didn't answer, but spread my arms wide instead, feeling the musty spirit world rush past my ears. I was really here. Jubilant thoughts replaced despondent ones as low-hanging clouds tickled my nose, and I tried a little swoop, still holding tight to Emmett's hand.

  "It's so beautiful up here! I had such horrible thoughts, but now they've all lifted!" I shouted. I kicked off my other shoe, and watched it spin all the way down to the dark trees below.

  "Yes, that's what happened the last time I took someone in there, and I had to float her out too," said Emmett, but he stayed tight-lipped and grim until we cruised lower and alighted on a dale of gray grass beyond the Disenchanted Forest.

  "That was so awesome! I hope we get to do that again!" I said, all breathless and flushed, and not a little tingly from holding Emmett's hand.

  "Not if I can help it," said Emmett. I noticed his haggard face and shaking hands.

  "What is it? Are you bothered by flying?" I asked.

  "Flying and I don't get along," he said. "Close to the ground is for me. A little low floating—fine. But you can keep the sky swooping. I hate it up there."

  We strolled in the gray grass, getting used to land again. Finally, I said, "Why don't you like to fly?"

  "I knew you were going to ask. I don't know, okay? Something must have happened to me in the air. I either died, or perhaps someone I loved died. I don't remember," he said.

  "You died? You mean—" It struck me then what Emmett's two-thousand-year existence must necessarily entail. Why hadn't I realized before? I mean, I knew he was dead, but—

  "Emmett, how many times have you died?" I asked.

  He turned away, inspected the gray trees on the horizon. After a moment's silence, he spoke, his voice tense and quiet. "First thing you should know: this is sort of a private issue among us. It's like someone in the mortal world asking a very personal question. If everybody knew how many times I'd . . . done it, you know, it, death. They already think I'm a little loopy. Let's say it's a sensitive topic."

  "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me." I patted his arm, sorry I'd pained him.

  He stared down at my hand. "Yes. Well. All you need to know right now is I haven't done it in quite a while. My last life was a lulu, and I am not, repeat, not, going back. I'm happy to st
ay right here, safe and sound, where spirits will always want and respect me."

  We passed through a grove of trees. On the other side, a sea of dark buildings huddled below, filling the valley and climbing the surrounding hillsides.

  Emmett let out another of his airless sighs. "Home again. Heather Despair—welcome to Dead Town."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dead Town

  I gazed, spellbound, at the dark spirit city. Cuidad del Muerto! This had to be it!

  "Beyond the city is the Dead Sea." Emmett snickered. "We thought it would be funny to call it that. You have a Dead Sea in your realm, I know. But our Dead Sea really has the dead in it. It's a cleansing pool for the newly dead, and a portal for them to travel to other places. You might call it a spirit highway."

  I squinted into the distance, where I could make out a silver mirage shimmering on the horizon. "You mean they're all swimming around in there?"

  "Exactly. I swam around in there for about, oh, say, ten of your mortal years after my last death. That's a bit above average." He paused and cocked his head, listening to some faraway tune. I strained to hear the tinny song, barely audible.

  "You have one among us, don't you, girl? What, what was your name again? Blast it. I'm going to have to write it on my inner eyelid to remember, and I hate to do that."

  "Oh, don't! I'll remind you. It's Heather," I said, taking his arm. He dematerialized a little, arm buzzing. "All right?" I asked. He nodded, a delighted grin crept onto his face, and he solidified again. What on earth—I mean, what in the spirit world—was wrong with him now? "What do you mean by 'one among us'?" I asked.

  "Someone who has died," said Emmett in an even voice. A little shock hit the pit of my stomach when I realized who he meant.

  "My father! He's here?" I stood on tiptoe, straining to hear that little tune, scanning the fields, the distant city, anywhere he might be.

  "He's not likely to greet you," said Emmett, still in that same blasé voice. Did he have to be so casual about death? Tears had risen to my eyes, and I blinked them away, frustrated.

  "When—how can I see him? I have to see him! This is the afterlife, isn't it? Don't people see their deceased loved ones when they visit the afterlife?" I asked.

  Emmett stopped midstride and whirled, his posture stiff, one hand in the air. He hovered up onto his air-soapbox. Uh-oh. Lecture time.

  "Strictly speaking, this isn't the afterlife, because that term loses all meaning once you've been around the metaphysical block a few times. But the short answer is no. You do not immediately run into your loved ones when you visit this place. That's like assuming that because you're in New York City, you're going to run into Theodore Roosevelt. What you call the afterlife is really a vast network of spirits in various states, and where we really are, and whether any of us is living or dead, is anyone's guess. Most of us only know where we are relative to other nearby dimensions. What I can tell you is that, unlike mortals in your realm, many of us here are aware of other lives we've had. So, there's that. But am I alive or dead? Who knows. In this dimension, I do not."

  Waiting for Emmett's spate of lecturing to pass, I concentrated on the funny little tune instead. Flashes of my father trickled through my mind—his scratchy beard, and his dusty, inky smell. The insistent baritone of his voice sounded in my head, though I heard no words. But the tune was taking shape all the same. "I can feel him. I can even hear him. He's near," I whispered.

  Emmett had lowered to the ground, but now he sprung back up. "Hold on one moment, Miss, Miss . . . Aether."

  "Heather."

  "Miss Heather—are you sure that's it? Could have sworn it was Aether," he said.

  I shook my head no, about to tell him I knew my own name, when another jagged little song distracted me. I heard a creak of leather, sensed spikes, torn jeans—Sam! He was here, somewhere! He was really here!

  I reached out to message him with my mind.

  "All right," Emmett was saying, "Let me make this clear. If I weren't so cruxing forgetful, I'd have told you this by now. In fact, maybe I did. Regardless—you must keep quiet about the unusual things you can do. Understand?"

  I nodded, but . . . I kind of sent a little message anyway.

  —Sam! I'm here! In the spirit world. Please, are you all right?

  "No! Not here! It's dangerous!" Emmett expanded like a frightened cat, wider and taller, until he stretched a good fifteen feet high and three feet across. I stepped back, but . . . I might have sent another message.

  —I'm outside the city of the dead with a spirit named Emmett. I'm coming to find you!

  "Stop! Please, Aether, for the love of All. There are malevolent spirits out here who can sense that you're sending telepathic messages!" He hovered above like an overblown balloon, shielding me from the sky.

  "He hasn't answered me anyway." I sighed. Emmett snatched at the air and tucked something into his waistcoat. I stared, then said, "I can feel them—my father and brother. Please, Emmett! If you knew how much I'd cried over Sam's disappearance, you'd help me find him."

  Emmett's face fell into sorrow, and he shrank down like a deflating balloon. The two Chihuahuas popped out of his chest, fresh and ready to romp around on their bat wings. They yipped and shrieked, fluttering in the air, more like butterflies than dogs. "Not here. I'm sorry. Opening that part of your mind here could bring on an attack. Your father and brother must know this. They won't answer. We cannot discuss this until we're safe inside All's Hold. I'd have warned you earlier, but I didn't realize—you're much more talented than I thought. I'm dead serious about this—no more messaging, or I'll send you careening back to the prior world myself, so fast you'll need an airsick bag."

  "I'll try. I can't always control my, um, talents," I said.

  "Ah. Exactly why we must hurry. I am beginning to see. Usually, I can sense abilities like yours." Emmett floated urgently toward the city, tugging me along behind him.

  "You could have asked me," I said.

  After what seemed like only moments—although the distance had appeared vast from above—we reached the city wall. Emmett unlocked a tall iron gate that creaked terribly and required a heavy iron key. He slid the gate open for me, then wafted through the wall himself. Once on the other side, he adopted his lecturing stance.

  "These gates are not strictly necessary for any useful purpose, since any of the spirits could pass right through them, but most of us agree they make for great effect—the sort of effect we definitely want in a place called Dead Town. In fact, these gates cause spirits who wander to carry several thousand heavy iron keys about their person. These, once again, have little purpose, since many of them don't fit anything at all, and a lot of them fit gates and doors the spirit will never again need to access, but I've observed that spirits tend to attach to objects like keys as material and solid. The spirit term for this kind of attachment is 'kriot.' Mortals in the prior world who gain a lot of kriot sometimes become hoarders of objects, or great collectors, or establish great materialistic empires. King Solomon's spirit, now a resident of Dead Town, was an early holder of massive quantities of kriot, before he reached his current state of high levity. This spirit now holds so little that he often goes completely nude, floating a good fifty feet above the town. Were he not so vaporous, it could be embarrassing to some of the lesser-evolved spirits." Emmett flashed his infectious grin at me. "I myself find it highly amusing."

  I smiled back at him—that smile! It was impossible not to—but then my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the city walls, and a wave of awe washed over me. We stood inside a huge maze of dark, narrow streets, the high walls almost blocking out the daylight. Not that there was much daylight. Since we'd come inside the city walls, the sky had grown a lot darker and foggier. I hadn't an inkling which way to go, or what direction we were headed. I drew closer to Emmett as we walked along the dark streets.

  The walls, constructed of small stones, had a cold quality, bleached of color and warmth. When I brushed my ha
nd against them, they remained solid, but were cool and slightly damp to the touch. A slimy vapor clung to my fingertips. I held out my hand to Emmett.

  "Ectoplasm. It's like dust on your level. It's everywhere here. But it's not so bad. It's clean, it doesn't smell, and we have no such thing as dust mites, thank All. Now there's a permutation of existence, right in your realm, that is truly horrid. Dust mites. Ye-ech!" Emmett shuddered, wavering in and out of materiality.

  I felt inclined to agree with him about the dust mites. Still, the ectoplasm unsettled me. Anywhere I looked, bits of it wafted up and formed tantalizing shapes, shifting like shadows. As a child, I'd found shadows as compelling as real people. Thinking of this, I searched around for a shadow. I found none.

  "You don't have shadows," I said.

  "You're right. We don't. That's because, my dear, we are shadows." Emmett grinned wickedly, and I wondered whether to take him seriously or not.

  We wound along endless twisting streets, and I lost all sense of direction. We encountered no other people, but every so often, we'd come upon a cobblestone circle with a fenced statue in the center. The statues, with their shifting, abstract shapes, complicated by the many dark birds perching on them, perplexed me. So still were the birds, that I doubted they were animate, until one of the Chihuahuas—Sybil, perhaps—bumped into a bird, and then they all rose screaming into the sky. They ascended more like wraiths than birds, leaving vaporous trails behind them. I admired the tangled patterns of vapor that knotted in and out.

  "Are they dead birds? Do animals come here?" I asked.

  Emmett shook his head. "They're not dead. They're just here."

  "But—how? Why, if they aren't dead?" I asked.

  Emmett folded his arms at me. "Look, birds travel, okay? Birds come here, birds go there, birds are everywhere. Have you never noticed there's something a little funny about birds?"

  "Hmmm. Not really. I've always wondered why certain people obsess over their migratory patterns," I said.

  "It may be because they suspect something funny is going on. Which it is," said Emmett. "There's a lot that's funny going on with birds, like there's a lot more up here than there used to be, but I can't get into all that right now. As for other animals, we think—those of us who have put any thought into the matter—that the more attached to people they are, the more likely they will come here. But we're not entirely sure. We do know we have a lot of dogs."