Part V: The Procession
So they started walking West into the setting sun, Doctor Stevenson gallivanting in front, chest poked out, big smile, Missy striding behind him like the compliant wife. And a good ten paces back, Eudaemonia and Oa shuffled. They didn’t talk. They didn’t need to. Missy jabbered and jabbered out of earshot.
“How far away is this place?” Oa finally shouted out to the front.
“Oh, about nine more miles,” Doctor Stevenson said, without turning around, without slowing his pace, without breaking the contented smile.
“Nine miles?” Oa said, slowing even more. “Why are we walking?”
“It’s a fine evening. Brisk walk. Good for the heart. Stay healthy.”
Eudaemonia stopped and said, “I can get us a car. Give me a minute.” So within the quarter-hour she found a funeral. It was like a hunter finding a stag at this point: not a rational deduction or a psychic phenomenon, but that subconscious realm in-between where hunter and stag are drawn together and the animal gives himself over for food.
The two Tone siblings got into a limousine with a big family leaving a burial ground. A man about their same age said, “Wait a second. This is the Shepherd family only.”
“Yeah, I’m Jennifer. This is my brother Jason.” Oa waved and pretended to smile. “We’re cousins.”
The man stared at them blankly for a second, cocked his jaw to the side. His gaze drifted to the rest of his family in the limousine, then out the window. His eyes narrowed. He started checking his pockets, as if the activity in the middle of which he lost his concentration ended somewhere in his pockets. Then finally he slumped over and gave out a “Hmph.”
Then Eudaemonia tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “Turn down that road, would you? We’ve got to pick up two more people.” The driver stared at her blankly a second, like all the others, then obeyed, as if “turn down that road” was a forgotten bit of his directions catalogue that suddenly dislodged and forced his movement. Then she patted Oa’s knee and said, “Don’t worry. I do this all the time.”
Something compelled her to stare at the man sitting across from her, the one who originally tried to stop them from coming in the limousine. She stared deeper and deeper into his eyes and a tear welled up in her own until finally she said, “Who died?”
The man across from her said, “What? Don’t you know?”
“Humor me. Who died?”
“Um ... It’s my grandmother.”
“I ... I remember your grandmother. She was beautiful. I remember you. We used to go to school together. We dated for a week.”
“But you said you were my cousin.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed a little and a tear fell: this was the one thing he remembered, the cousin thing. He was always close-minded. “My name isn’t Jennifer. It’s Eudaemonia. I go to a lot of funerals. But this is the second time ... third time in a week I’ve seen somebody I know. I think I’m in some kind of loop, like they say happens after the white tunnel. My white tunnel is bleeding away. And I think as a consequence, completely out of order, my loved ones are gathering around.”
“What?”
“Please just listen and don’t interrupt. You’ll remember this as a dream in about a half an hour. Your name is E. M. Shepherd. Everybody thought you were pretentious because you wanted us to call you E. M. like some damn novelist or something.” She laughed and wiped away a tear. “I thought it was cute. We used to go out to that tree house you had on your grandmother’s apple orchard.” A tear came to the man’s eye, not because of the weird shadow-woman, but because of the memory of the tree house, or something deeper and inaccessible by any other means but the direct conduit between tear duct and inner darkness. “But you wouldn’t let me back into that tree house.” Oa was nodding the whole time, shared memory. “Back then it wasn’t so bad, this thing I had. People could remember me for a lot longer. I don’t know why. But I remember everybody. I remember everybody perfectly. I remember your grandmother. I remember every little damn thing about your grandmother. I remember the way her hands looked when she carved apples. I remember her laugh. And she’d tell stories for hours. I remember the last thing she said to me before she forgot me, ‘Ya’ll don’t come up here enough. Come back and see me.’ I remember her exact tone of voice. I remember her amazing eyes, like the sky had come alive in them.”
The whole car was weeping. Oa, of course, was dry eyed. Like a good brother, Oa pulled out his rifle and cocked it and aimed it at the crying E. M. Shepherd. Eudaemonia put her hand on the barrel and shook her head no. When her weeping was dry, when the whole car reached that place where sniffs are only occasionally interspersed with sighs, Eudaemonia said, “God damn it, we just passed Misery and what’s-his-name. Driver, turn around. Those are the two we need to pick up.” She pointed behind them and to the side of the road.
Missy and Doctor Stevenson were severely confused about the whole situation. They were walking along, oblivious to everything, unaware Oa and Eudaemonia had gone missing, and suddenly a funeral limousine pulled up beside them. Two marginally recognizable people told them to get in. And they were jammed in a car full of waterfaced, black-clad emptiness. “Where are we going, Doctor?” Eudaemonia said.
It took a few seconds for Doctor Stevenson’s comprehension to kick in. “Oh, yes, yes, the procedure room. It’s in the abandoned factory district, two blocks past the Roanoke Goateater Bottler.” Eudaemonia commanded the driver to take them there.
When E. M. Shepherd came to the full fruition of his weeping and comprehended the two new strangers in the car, he stared at them and squinted and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not too sure myself,” the doctor said.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Doctor Tobey Stevenson. This is my fiancée Missy.”
Eudaemonia expected E. M. Shepherd to get angry and kick them out of the car, and she would’ve laughed and followed the funeral to its apex. Losing Missy was never a tragedy. But E. M. Shepherd looked at Missy and said, “Have I seen you in a movie before?”
Missy giggled, loving it in her Missy way, and said, “Maybe, I’ve been in a couple,” which was her favorite lie. They giggled at each other in that nauseating mirror-practiced Missy flirtation.
Doctor Stevenson grabbed Missy’s hand and said, “We’re to be married at the end of the year.” And Eudaemonia grumbled and half regretted stopping her brother’s defensiveness.
The Egg-Shaped Room Page 5
