The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness

by Yukako Kabeif

  It was the first afternoon of the Colonization Days holiday, and people hunched over as they walked along the streets of Easterbury, all bundled up for winter. Still, there was a sense of merriment in the air. Those who could take long holidays would be traveling with their families, and those who couldn’t most likely planned to go home early to spend a leisurely evening indoors.

  The Colonization Days came every year as the seasons readied themselves to step through winter’s door.

  The planet had greeted hundreds of winters since the Saints’ ship made its autumnal landing. The story was that, thanks to the abundant fuel resources they mined from the planet’s strata, the planet used to be highly advanced. But before long, a war broke out over those resources, and the long war itself ate up almost all of them. That happened long before Kieli was born.

  All anyone could mine on the planet now were the dregs of inefficient fossil fuels. Bundles of exhaust pipes projected from the roofs of all the houses, coughing up thick, yellowish-gray smoke as if to paint a sky already the same color.

  The train station’s clock tower came into view at the end of the main street, sandwiched between buildings to the right and left. People holding large bags were sucked under the vaulted roof; they were most likely going to spend the holidays in a different town. The station building had been remodeled just a few years ago when it adopted a new railroad line, and a magnificent domed roof matching the design of the central cathedral rose toward the sky. To Kieli, it was needlessly magnificent, and she felt she would still be more comfortable with the old abandoned station building on the other side of town with its simple and unfriendly concrete walls.

  She went around the rotary, casually gazing at the three-wheeled taxis (these, too, used fossil fuels with frighteningly bad gas mileage and carried cylindrical fuel tanks resembling unexploded bombs on their roofs) waiting for wealthy passengers in front of the station. When the entrance to the station drew near, a man’s silhouette unexpectedly caught her attention. He was sitting on a bench toward the front, his head hanging down.

  Kieli stopped walking for a second.

  “Is something wrong? I’m leaving, you know.” Becca looked curiously back at her from a few steps ahead.

  “Yeah…He’s dead.…” Kieli murmured shortly before she began walking again.

  At this time of year, if anyone bothered to look, they could find the frozen corpse of at least one homeless wanderer somewhere in town every morning. They were generally elderly people, but the dead body on the bench still looked fairly young. He might be a seminary student. Seminarians from the university in the capital came on study pilgrimages for their priesthood exams, after all.

  But then, a seminarian on a study pilgrimage would never die in the street, and considering his casual attire consisting of a nylon half-coat and rough workpants, along with his rusty, copper-colored hair, she couldn’t really say he was a proper seminarian. Regardless, the girls at her boarding school recognized all men about his age as seminarians, so, for lack of any better ideas, Kieli decided to think of him as a seminary student.

  The seminary student had expired where he sat, his back leaning heavily into the bench and his head drooping. He must not have had any unfinished business, because she couldn’t see his spirit around anywhere. Kieli had mixed feelings when she caught herself confirming that so casually. Most people wouldn’t see a dead body and start looking for its ghost.

  “Ugh, Kieli!” Becca urged.

  Kieli picked up her pace and passed in front of the bench. She would inform a station attendant later. Then they would contact the priests in charge of body disposal who would come clean it up.

  Kieli was only a few steps past the bench when she stopped again. Out of the corner of her eye, she felt like she saw the corpse move. She thought it was her imagination. I mean, there’s no doubt about it. He’s dead.

  She turned her head back stiffly and stared at the body on the bench.

  To Kieli’s surprise, the seminary student on the bench slowly raised his eyelids. He twisted his neck as he took in his surroundings, a groggy look on his face. Finally, he stood and turned toward a now very rigid Kieli.

  Eyes the same copper color as his hair met hers.

  “Eek!”

  Kieli let out an involuntary twitch of a scream. A second later, she started shrieking that a corpse had come to life in a voice that rang throughout the entire rotary in front of the station. The seminarian slipped off the bench, then, recovering from his daze, rushed to cover Kieli’s mouth.

  “I’m really very sorry, sir. She’s just a little weird.”

  Becca had no right to call her weird. Forced to stand next to Becca as she smoothed things over, acting as if she was the mature one, Kieli stared sullenly at the tips of her shoes. When Becca admonished, “Come on, Kieli, say you’re sorry,” she had no choice but to bow her head and say, “I’m very sorry.” Her head still down, she turned up her eyes to glance at the seminary student.

  Thrusting one hand in his coat pocket and ruffling his hair with the other, the seminary student spit out, “Well, it’s fine now,” with a sigh. After being roused abruptly by the screaming girl in front of the station, he’d been accosted by the station attendants who came running to her aid, treated him like a suspected criminal, and nearly arrested him. So, having suffered enough calamities for the day, his face still bore quite a scowl for somebody saying, “It’s fine.”

  Becca had introduced herself as Rebecca, the full name she used only when she had some ulterior motive, and had introduced Kieli as her roommate, almost as an afterthought. In exchange, they learned that the seminarian was named Harvey.

  Seminarians were candidates to be leaders in the capital, and to the girls at the boarding school, getting to know one was kind of a status symbol. A group of trainees once came from the university at the capital to participate in a worship service in Easterbury, and Kieli’s classmates ignored the service to whisper things like, “That tall one, second from the right! He’s gorgeous!” They even had a popularity vote. It goes without saying that they had to endure a lengthy lecture from Miss Hanni that afternoon in homeroom and that the whole class had to write essays reflecting on what they’d done. (Kieli, who hadn’t participated in the uproar, suffered with all the rest.)

  So of course Becca was in high spirits over this fortunate encounter and one-sidedly lamented in exaggerated tones the fact that she had to leave Easterbury.

  “Will you be in Easterbury until the Colonization Days are over? It would be nice if we could talk again after I get back.”

  “Oh, I’m leaving tomorrow. Going the opposite direction of Westerbury,” the seminarian said without the slightest hesitation, easily crushing Becca’s hopes. As other people bustled across the platform, Becca stood stock-still. “I see.” She hung her head in disappointment, and her actions reeked of those of the heroine of a romance novel who’d resolved to leave her lover behind to go to the city. Kieli got a bit uncomfortable standing there and let her eyes wander.

  As travelers heading toward Westerbury pushed their large bags onto the passenger car and boarded the train, they looked annoyed at Kieli, who blocked their way in front of the car as she talked to her companions. Busily making the rumbling, exhaust-spouting noises of fossil-fuel power, the train announced its departure.

  “Will you be boarding?” a railroad worker in a conductor’s uniform asked in a somewhat irritated tone, leaning half his body out of the last car.

  The seminary student answered with a “No,” adding a “Take care,” and the conductor turned next to Kieli. “And you, miss? Will you be boarding?” When Kieli shook her head, the conductor nodded and rang the bell to announce their departure.

  “Hey! Wait, wait! I’m boarding,” Becca cried in dismay. She lifted her Boston bag in both hands and hurried onto the passenger car steps. As the departure bell rang across the platform sounding much like an alarm clock, she turned reluctantly back to bid farewell to Kieli and the semina
rian. “See you, Kieli. You’ll be okay without me, right?”

  Kieli’s answer of “I’ll be fine” was drowned out by the sound of the bell and the tumult on the platform. It didn’t even reach her own ears, so instead of repeating herself, Kieli simply nodded. Becca nodded back in understanding and turned next to face the seminary student. “Harvey, I pray we’ll meet again.”

  The seminarian said a few words in response, but Kieli couldn’t catch them. Apparently Becca did hear them, however. Kieli didn’t know what he’d said to her, but her beautiful face lost its expression abruptly as she looked down at them from the train.

  The bell suddenly stopped ringing. A strange moment of silence reigned over the platform, and then the train slowly started to slide away.

  Even after the train started moving, Becca remained there, floating in the place where she had first gone up the steps. The walls of the cars that ran by passed smoothly through Becca’s body one after another, like an illusion.

  To be more accurate, it was Becca’s body that was like an illusion.

  Her best red coat and her Boston bag, her plans to meet with her parents and brother, the new theater, the ice cream, the souvenir she was thinking of getting for Kieli — everything about Becca’s travel plans was nothing more than a game of pretend that she’d made up for her own amusement. Becca’s body for wearing coats and her hands for carrying luggage were actually already at the bottom of her grave, and Becca had forever lost the ability to spend holidays with her family and stuff her cheeks with ice cream.

  From his post in the last car, the conductor stared dubiously at Kieli and the seminary student standing there until, finally, he too passed through Becca’s body.

  “You’re stupid,” Becca said, her expression still blank. “I just wanted to pretend I was going on a trip. It’s not like you’re really a seminarian, either, stupid!” The abusive words she spat from her comely lips could only be considered a parting insult, and Becca floated down from where the train had been, then suddenly ran toward them. Kieli drew back automatically, but right before Becca crashed into her nose, her image vanished, and her formless presence blew through the ticket barrier with a gust of air.

  All that was left on the platform were Kieli, the seminarian, the moderate chatter of those who’d seen people off, and their footsteps as they headed home.

  “I never once said I was a seminarian.…” the man muttered to himself in annoyance. Then he noticed Kieli gazing at him as she stood beside him and glanced sideways at her.

  Kieli looked up at her tall companion and asked, “What did you say to Becca?”

  “All I did was ask how long I had to play along with this travesty,” the man answered with an exasperated sigh, picking up his own luggage — an unusually small backpack for a traveler and, for some reason, a small, old radio.

  “I don’t like to meddle in other people’s affairs too much, but…it’s better not to bother with spirits like that; just ignore them. If you don’t, they get carried away and never leave you alone.”

  “You should have told me that before this spring.”

  At Kieli’s response, the man sneered, “Don’t talk nonsense,” and started walking away, joining the thin stream of people leaving the station. Kieli trotted after him, her shoulder bag bouncing against her lower back.

  “You’re not surprised about Becca?”

  “To my mind, you’re more of a surprise. You have a strong spiritual sense?”

  Kieli nodded. “But my grandmother told me not to let too many people know. She’s dead now, though.”

  “Yeah. It’s less trouble that way.”

  “Hey, can you see other dead people? How do you know so much?” She naturally became more talkative than usual as she tried to keep up with the man’s athletic pace. This was the first time she’d met anyone other than herself who could see that world, and based on what her grandmother said, there weren’t that many of them, so she felt something of a kinship with this Harvey person.

  Harvey, on the other hand, must’ve felt differently because he stopped momentarily and let out a sigh of very obvious annoyance. “…Hey. Well, I can’t say I don’t know how you feel, but I’m sorry. I have no intention of getting mixed up with a spirit-sensitive little girl. Now go home, do your sixth-grade homework, and have a nice holiday. Good-bye,” he declared without a shred of the sincerity expected of one who “knew how she felt.” Kieli had stopped in spite of herself; he left her there and resumed his long stride. Without looking back once, he disappeared through the station’s gaping, square exit into the white outside.

  “Ah…” This brought her high spirits to a surprisingly sudden and crashing demise, and she stood there, alone under the station’s domed ceiling.

  After standing in a daze for a while, she slowly began seething with anger. He didn’t have to say it like that. He really is nothing like a seminary student. Seminary students are friendlier and more gentlemanly.

  And who is he calling a sixth-grader? I know I have the build of a sixth-grader, but still. Kieli’d heard rumors that after they measured her height last spring, Miss Hanni doubted whether or not she was really fourteen years old and checked her citizenship form. If that was true, it would be extremely rude, and even if it wasn’t true, it would be rude for a rumor like that to be going around as if it was.

  Kieli gradually lost track of what she was angry about, and, feeling downhearted, she set off toward home.

  Becca didn’t come back (she was often quick to take offense and disappear, but she would usually be grinning close behind Kieli again in no time) as Kieli walked back to the boarding school alone. Kieli realized that she hadn’t walked around town completely alone like this since Becca’s spirit started haunting her last spring. In the corner of her mind, she thought about how unexpectedly lonely and boring it was not to hear Becca’s voice chattering away next to her.

  Kieli hadn’t had any pleasant memories of the Colonization Days holidays since her grandmother’s death six years ago, but this year had gotten off to the worst possible start, as if foreshadowing an even more awful holiday than former years.

  She had Miss Hanni lecturing her first thing in the morning, she had the uncomfortable experience of wearing a different uniform than everyone else, Becca was still in a bad mood and wouldn’t show herself, and to top it all off, sitting across from her at dinner was freckle-faced Zilla and her little minion of a roommate, the two girls Kieli hated most of all the girls at the boarding school (there was no doubt the feeling was mutual). Normally, she was careful to sit away from them, but during the long holiday, ninety percent of the students went back home to their families, and the remaining ten percent gathered at one table in a corner of the empty cafeteria, whispering to each other as they ate dinner.

  The students that didn’t go home to their families were generally students with no families to go home to. They were children with no relatives, who were allowed to attend the boarding school with financial assistance from the Church. And as far as Kieli knew, children with no relatives were generally the rebellious type. Instead of rallying together with others under similar circumstances, they would rather drag someone down by the ankles just so they could say that they were at least better off than that girl.

  That being the case, no matter how hard anyone tried, there was no way a gathering of students like that would enjoy a meal in peaceful harmony, and after managing to endure the tense atmosphere of mealtime, Kieli escaped the cafeteria. The other students were still sluggishly cleaning up their trays as they insulted the students who weren’t there.

  She quickly returned to her room, and when she opened the door, Becca was lounging on the top of the bunk beds that occupied half of the small dormitory.

  “Welcome back!” she said in her usual cheerful voice, as if nothing had happened that afternoon.

  Kieli, after standing and gaping in the doorway for a second, complained insincerely, “…Aww, here it was so nice and quiet,” and closed the do
or. She hated to admit it, but she had been a little worried about Becca after she vanished at the station, and for some reason she felt a bit disappointed.

  Becca floated through the top bunk’s mattress and sat on the bottom bunk. The bottom bunk was Kieli’s bed, and Kieli, who wasn’t especially messy or especially neat, had made the bed, arranging its modest bedding with about seventy percent thoroughness (when she had extra time, she could do ninety percent; when she slept in, about fifty).

  The top bunk was empty, and a thin layer of dust lay on its yellowed mattress.

  When she advanced to ninth grade and this room had been assigned to her, her roommate hadn’t even lasted a week before crying to the teachers and begging for a different one. Her reason was that she could hear a strange girl’s voice in the middle of the night. But no matter how thoroughly the teachers investigated, they couldn’t hear any suspicious voices. Unable to get them to listen, the roommate ended up transferring to a school in a different town.

  Since then, to an outsider it would seem that Kieli had become the only student in the boarding school with the luxury of having a double room all to herself. Kieli learned a little later that a female student two years her senior had died in a train accident the year before last, and there was no one on the top bunk of the room for a year until she and her roommate moved in. That’s when Kieli finally understood who the beautiful blond girl was who looked so becoming in the black school uniform — this girl who was already staying in the room, doing something like living in it and acting as if she owned it, when Kieli got there.

  And of course it was Becca who scared away Kieli’s roommate, who had obtained the top bunk through a game of rock-paper-scissors, all for the truly simple (and if you asked her, legitimate) reason that the bed was hers. After that, she was so happy that Kieli could see her that she went ahead and treated her like a roommate, and followed her to class, to worship services, and on outings.