The Ghosting of Gods

by Cricket Baker

  Her gaze shifts, and her body drifts away. It lands against the chapel, lifeless. The winds blow, but the body is securely pinned. Poe clutches the window casing, screams for her, and though her face is turned toward us, and her eyes are open, she doesn’t respond.

  I search along the side of the chapel for handholds in the rotted boards that I can use to climb to her. The loose shutter bangs wildly. Finally it comes loose, and I duck as it soars by my head. With it gone, I see Leesel.

  She’s stuck to the outside of the chapel, too.

  A violent updraft lifts the house, throwing me to the floor. I stare at the wall before me, keenly aware that Ava’s body is pressed to the boards on the other side. The body I once touched and loved, the body that shared my couch and kitchen and bed with me.

  Leesel’s gone too.

  I ball my fist into my mouth.

  Poe is braced in a corner, his legs crossed, rocking. “Annabel Lee,” he chokes, weeping. I crawl to him. On my knees, I hug him close as the chapel shudders. It’s breaking apart.

  All the burden comes off my body.

  6

  life review

  Something clatters on the roof.

  Ghosts careen outside the chapel. Ava’s is angry. She points a finger and yells, though I can’t hear her voice. Watching her, I’m able to catch glimpses on all sides of the chapel because of the missing boards in the walls. Her back turns. She crosses her arms over her chest and stalks away, deeper into the vortex until I can’t see her anymore.

  Leesel appears in the swirling dark. She’s very small, a toddler, sitting on the lap of a woman who is clearly her biological mother. The woman has Leesel’s eyes and nose, but not her full cheeks. The woman is emaciated. Sick with plague. She’s buttoning Leesel’s dress. Leesel strokes her mother’s hair and looks solemn.

  They blow away.

  I want to ask Poe if he sees. He’s beside me, eyes closed, like he’s sleeping. He’s smiling. I let him be.

  Free of my body, my own ghost appears in the whirlwind outside the chapel. Poe’s too. We’re on the playground, swinging on rickety swings, our legs pumping back and forth, seeing who can go higher. Jumping off, I land on my feet. Poe is awkward and twists in the air. I remember this. He sprained his ankle.

  We’re lost in the twister, like Emmy was. Is this what a life review is? Am I dead?

  Of course. I must be.

  A new scene, and my breath catches.

  My four-year-old self stands eagerly at the gate of New Salem’s most famous cemetery. My priestly escort nods at me, a calculating expression on his face as he watches me walk among the graves in bliss. I remember. Cemeteries used to be places of peace for me. The scene dissolves as the priest scribbles a note in his black book, the one with the silky pages that I’ll later try to steal.

  A new ghost, cloaked in a flowing garment, catches a sprinting Leesel. Long hair spills out the front of a robe cowl. I glimpse a profile with a small nose and rounded chin—a woman. She carries Leesel close to her chest for a few steps, then vanishes. Ava reappears and chases after them, but she falls out of view.

  More boards break away. I see that Ava’s and Leesel’s bodies are gone. I’m not upset. Just observant.

  I realize it’s strange that I’m so calm. Yet it’s a comforting, familiar feeling.

  Something continues to skitter on the roof. I’m not afraid.

  Our chapel transport is headed toward the top of the vortex, where there’s light. We speed toward it, but it turns out to be only a candle, glowing silver, hanging in the vortex, and there’s a small wooden sign with some sort of lettering, but we streak past it so quickly I can’t see what the words are.

  Poe is screaming.

  I can see him clearly beside me, despite the fact that the burning bush no longer burns and gives light. Poe leans against a pew. He’s still smiling, an expression of bliss on his face.

  But I recognize the screams. It’s definitely Poe. I’ve heard him scream a million times, and it’s distinctive.

  Weird. I’m screaming too. I hear me. The screams increase in volume.

  The tunnel ends as I blast into light. That fades. My jaw drops so that I can release the screams.

  7

  weregods

  We’ve landed. The vortex is vanished.

  There’s moaning beside me. I lie flat on my back, looking up into haze. Dogs howl in the distance.

  “My blood is caffeine,” comes Poe’s voice.

  My body buzzes too. Static sparks when I move my arm.

  Heavy fog. Where did it come from? Boards jumble everywhere. The chapel is destroyed around us. Cratered into the ground, it’s only a broken roof atop a pile of ruined construction.

  What happened?

  There was a burning bush. God was signaling, seeking to communicate to me…

  Broken glass creaks beneath my boots as I climb, carefully, over what used to be the roof above the covered porch. I’m confused. How did I get here? I think back…Leesel was on the porch. Ava’s eyes reflected my fear. A half-circle of priests, their forms a dark sickle under the moonlight.

  A vortex.

  Abruptly, I remember. Ava and Leesel, pressed dead against the chapel. My groan startles me.

  “I have to find their bodies,” I mumble. My body goes into action even though I’m numb. “Ava?” I whisper to the ruined chapel around me. “Leesel? Baby?”

  Poe calls after me. “Purgatory! We’re in Purgatory.” I hear his panicked breathing. “What are you doing, Jesse? Quit looking for her. Ava Lily would never be here. We’re in Purgatory!”

  My body moves faster. My hands heave boards, toss them aside. The numb feeling fades, and anger takes its place. Is this God’s way of answering my prayer? Bringing death to those I love?

  It’s a punishment. For seeking hidden knowledge. For doubting the priests even more than I doubt myself. Of course it’s a punishment.

  But not the kind Poe thinks.

  “We’re not in Purgatory,” I tell him. “We’re in bodies, alive. Help me find them. We can’t leave them in this.” I caused this. I have to bury them. But first I need to hold them. Kicking broken pieces of chapel, I flinch again and again, frightened to uncover their bodies.

  Poe rubs his arms, watching me. He begins to pray. I work alone. I move every board, shingle, and shattered pew.

  Exhausted, I finally drop to the ground. “They’re not here,” I whisper, stunned.

  “What’s that howling?” Poe suddenly asks. I ignore him.

  Minutes later: “I told you, Jesse. Ava Lily wouldn’t be here. She’s in heaven.” He squats, holds his head in his hands. I hear Latin, but a moment later he pitches forward onto his knees and vomits.

  I wait for him to finish.

  “We have to find their bodies,” I insist. I close my eyes, and see my girls lifeless, pressed to the chapel. “They’re dead, like we were. Our ghosts left our bodies. Didn’t you—“

  Wait. This doesn’t make sense. We were dead. Now we’re not.

  “They could be alive,” I blurt, relief flooding me. “Poe, this has…this has happened to me before. Going through a vortex tunnel. I came out of it alive, with my body. If we’re still alive, then the girls may be too.”

  I need him to agree with me, but he looks doubtful.

  “We’re not in Purgatory?” he asks. “But this looks like Purgatory.” He paws at the fog. “I know it is. We’re not in our world anymore.”

  Motioning for Poe to follow me, I leave behind the chapel carnage. I pick my way through haze and trees, calling Ava’s and Leesel’s names, but receive only silence in return. “This way,” I direct Poe. “We’ll walk a circle around the site of the crash.”

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “Of course I won’t. Come on.”

  Rectangular shadows in neat rows materialize out of the murk. “A graveyard?” Poe mumbles. “Why would Purgatory have a graveyard? Priest never mentioned this. What’s that howling?”

 
; One tombstone in particular draws my attention. Coarse rather than polished, the slab has small chunks knocked out of its surface, giving it an ancient appearance. I trace a chiseled drawing with the tip of my finger. It’s hard to tell what image was etched in the stone, but it seems to be a human figure draped in chains.

  My finger pulls back.

  There’s no name, no dates. Stomping down weeds, I find an inscription. It’s faded, hard to read.

  Poe leans over my shoulder. He gasps. “It says FEAR NOT WEREGODS. You don’t think that’s what’s howling, do you? I do. I mean, it’s about werewolves, right?” He presses his crucifix to his lips, invents a prayer against full moons.

  We move among tombstones. Poe points one out that’s easy to read:

  ghost be saved

  body decays

  beggar for chains

  Poe trails after me through stunted trees with trunks covered in a hardened glaze. Reminds me of petrified wood. Needles, pale green with black tips, coat the ground. Cones crunch beneath my boots—they’re tiny, look like spiky thimbles.

  These trees are alien. I take a steadying breath.

  The air smells like…rosemary.

  Poe’s expression is both thoughtful and pained. “Jesse. It’s not what I expected, but I think this is how the Resurrection works.”

  Light seeps into the day, diluting the fog. A break in the trees reveals a small white sun low in the sky…as I watch, I can actually see it sinking. Smoke arrives on a breeze.

  We’re standing on a cliff.

  Far below coils a river, its waters gushing from a canyon with walls as gray as the froth of the rapids. A town lies on the shores, across the river. At the sight of it, Poe drops his crucifix.

  8

  beware

  We shouldn’t be here.

  Acrid smoke carries on the wind across the river and up the cliffs. Flecks of ash settle on my shoulders. My mouth is dry. I can’t speak.

  Poe whistles. “Medieval,” he says, incredulous. “True rapture.”

  The town is old, antiquated, sunken into the earth. Maybe two kilometers across, it’s encircled by a fence of razor-thin bars that soar taller than any of the buildings. The metal railing curves inward at the top. A barrier. In the distance, a large herd of what looks like sheep presses together and rushes over a hill, away. The wilderness is barren with a jerky horizon.

  We passed to another world, taking our bodies with us. The laws of the universe are collapsing.

  Black smudges creep along dirt roads. People. A bell tolls, deep and reverberating, and they scurry out of sight. Like rats.

  “Vespers?” Poe wonders.

  What I wonder is what sort of people live in a town like this. What makes them build such a barrier? Suddenly, standing in the open at the top of the cliff, I feel vulnerable. Another thought occurs to me. Weird how that fence curves inward at the top. I find my voice. “Do you think they’re prisoners?” I ask Poe.

  He doesn’t seem to hear me. “I’ve got chills man,” he says. His head is ducked low, like he doesn’t want to be seen, but he’s grinning. He begins pointing out the architecture to me. “More Romanesque than the later Gothic, but definitely medieval,” he says. “See the wooden roofs? Bad for catching fire. And the arches are rounded, not pointed. There’s a church! They must fear God, that’s good…”

  What place is this? It’s the world of ghosts I want, not this. We shouldn’t be here.

  We shouldn’t be here.

  Why has God abandoned me?

  But Poe is here too. God wouldn’t abandon Poe. My friend is the best person I know. So, taking a deep breath, I look for a divine sign as I stare at the town. A sign that all of this has meaning, that God is trying to give me the knowledge I seek.

  Guilt twinges in my gut, and I bend against the pain. It’s Emmy I need to be thinking about first. And Ava and Leesel. Knowledge can come later.

  Poe goes on about the winged forms clutching the arches of the church. Most of the town isn’t as impressive. Plats of squat houses constructed of stone walls and ridiculously thick chimneys cram the pinched roads. Bell towers frame both sides of a colossal gate. Even from this distance, a lock is visible.

  Maybe the people don’t want to go beyond the barrier. Or they’re not allowed to.

  Poe shakes his head in delighted wonderment, not exactly a match to my own mounting anxiety.

  A moon, yellow and enormous, is rising over the cliffs. The little sun is now half buried on the horizon, its white center rimmed with black and purple, as if by setting on this landscape it’s being poisoned.

  I turn to Poe. His face has fallen. “Leesel’s rain boot,” he says. He points at the shore directly below us, and there it is. Neon pink. Just one, cast on the rocks, in a shallow pool of water. “Did she…fall?”

  My heart loses its beat. “No. No. She couldn’t have. She’d be dead where she fell, it’s too far down…” I’m convincing myself as much as Poe. He yells Leesel’s name. I yell. She’ll answer me, not Poe.

  No response. I pace along the edge of the cliff. “We’ve got to get down there.” Peering over the edge of the drop-off, looking for a way down, sickens me further. Heights give me vertigo. Poe knows this and volunteers to crawl out on a protruding rock.

  “There’s a path,” he shouts back at me. “With a rope. It zigzags down the hill to the river bank. You can do it.”

  The sun reduces to a bloodspot and is gone, so that a black curtain falls over Poe, but only for a moment. His face reappears, yellow in the glow of the full moon. His eyes are clenched shut.

  Howls reverberate in the river canyon.

  I coax him back.

  Thorns grow in patches of grass along our descent. More calls of Leesel’s name bring only silence. Ava’s, too. Fear for them overrides my phobia of heights. Mostly. Our descent is steep. The rope at least provides a firm handhold, though it ends several feet above the shore of the river. I grit my teeth and let myself drop. Poe’s there to catch me.

  Leesel is nowhere on the stone-covered shore. I pick up her boot. It’s greasy with some kind of stringy moss growing on the underneath side. What could have happened that she would leave behind her boot?

  Poe gazes across the river to the town.

  Running up and down the shore at the base of the cliff, I search shadows. “She’s not here,” I tell Poe.

  “We need to get help,” he responds, still staring at the town.

  “From the people who’ve been caged up? I don’t think so.”

  “But Leesel’s gone. How can we find her? We don’t know anything. Maybe she’s over there.”

  Enormous rocks scattered in the river are too far apart to leap from one to the next. “How would we get across? The current is fast, and it looks really deep.” I dip a hand in the river. “It’s freezing.”

  Poe says nothing, jumps up and down, blows in his cupped hands. My own hands are raw from gripping the rope on the way down. They ache.

  Another howl, long and high-pitched, close by. I look above us, at the top of the cliff, expecting to see a starving coyote staring down at us. It was a scream of…pain. Eerie. It was almost human.

  Poe is gone.

  I find him pressed inside a crevice of the cliff. He’s stuck; I have to pull hard to get him back out. He gets skinned up on the bridge of his nose. There’s a little blood, and I hope the coyote can’t detect it.

  Poe licks his lips. “Remember that tombstone inscription about weregods? And, it’s a full moon. You know what that means. I’m telling you, we need to get over to the town. Behind that gate. Where it’s safe.” He scrambles around, picking up pieces of drift wood and making a pile.

  A lone cloud glides over the moon, darkening the night. All is quiet. “Coyotes sound just like someone screaming,” I suggest to quiet my own fear as much as Poe’s. “I read about it in a book.”

  He ignores me, goes back over to the rope, yanks on it.

  “I know what you’re doing, Poe. It won’t work.
You can’t make a raft out of that. We’d sink and drown.”

  He starts to argue and I turn my back.

  Lights. Over in the town.

  A congregation with lanterns clusters inside the gate. I get the idea they’ve spotted us.

  Poe is leaping into the air, waving his arms. I yank him to the shadows, ready to stuff him back in the crevice. “Are you insane?” I hiss at him. My hand is on his mouth before he can answer.

  There’s a great wrenching sound.

  In a rush, people spill out from behind the gate with their lanterns, rushing toward the river’s shore. It’s chaos. Racing in every direction, they knock into one another so that some of the lanterns fall to the ground and extinguish. All of this is in complete silence. Until one of them screams. It’s wretched, tearing. Lights wobble in frantic retreat to the gate.

  Quiet again. I breathe. Blood rushes in my ears.

  One by one, several small groups of lights vanish, I suppose returned inside the walls of their homes. About a dozen townspeople remain. Several minutes pass while I keep Poe quiet. Four lanterns creep, slowly, outside the gate. I hear the word vessel loud and clear.

  “They speak English!” Poe cries out.

  One of them wails and runs, tripping, back to the gate. Another lantern follows him back. Two remain. There’s a splash.

  Not good.

  I drag Poe after me, making for the rope even as I search the river, expecting to see the lunatics swimming across. The moon frees itself from a cloud, and what I see is worse. “Hurry,” I command Poe.

  They’re on a raft. The bigger of the two hangs a lantern on a hooked pole at the front of the vessel. The other lantern they leave behind, a beacon on the shore.

  “I can’t reach it,” Poe complains as he jumps for the rope. Hell. If he can’t reach it, there’s no hope for me.

  They dip paddles into the water.

  I kneel. “Get on my shoulders.” Poe hesitates. Looks over at the rafters. “Now, Poe.”

  He’s skinny, and I get back to my feet easily.

  “I still can’t reach it.” He goes to stand on my shoulders, and I lose my balance, pitch backwards. I break the fall with my right shoulder. Poe is moaning, but sitting, holding the side of his head.