by J. L. Powers
What is the secret everybody wants to know? Knowing my dad, the secret he believes everyone needs to know is how to speed-read ancient texts without suffering papyrus cuts on your index finger.
When he opens his mouth again, I think he’s going to tell me. Not the secret itself but the thing everybody wants to know. After a pause, he says, “Listen, son. In our business, The Book of Light is forbidden. Even an unverified, plagiarized summary of the original like this bootleg copy is banned. The knowledge it contains terrifies the men and women who run the Synod.”
“Okay,” I say uncertainly. “Who, um, who is the Synod?”
“Oh!” Dad looks surprised. “Oh, the Synod is made up of the men and women who regulate our services and makes sure no member is . . . uh . . . breaking the rules. They have been searching for this book for generations so they can destroy it—along with all the knowledge it contains. So this book is not something you should mention to anybody at school. All right?”
“But . . . why would they ban books?” I ask. “I thought we lived in the land of the free and the brave and free speech and all that crap.”
He looks annoyed, but he still answers: “They’re scared of the ideas inside it. But the most dangerous ideas are those we try to suppress. If the Synod would let us make copies of this book and read it, we’d know what our enemies are up to. Words aren’t magic; it’s what you do with the knowledge they give you that makes them powerful.”
“But what about the thing he said in there? About the original surfacing in Rome last month?” I don’t know what I was hoping to hear Dad say—but he suprised me. Because even if he’s right about what he says next, how could he say it after everything he’s just said about censorship?
Dad shakes his head and slips into Italian: “Why do you think I went to so much trouble to buy it, even though it’s only a copy? If this book falls into the wrong hands, in Rome or anywhere else, it will be a disaster of epic proportions.”
CHAPTER 7
My grandfather lives in a studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that doesn’t even have its own bathroom. I always make sure I don’t have to use the gross toilet out in the hallway. I don’t think Grandpa uses it either. Actually, I think he might pee on his carpet instead. It sure smells like it.
Usually, he gives me twenty bucks or something, and I feel bad about taking it because it seems like he could really use the money—I mean, the only food I’ve ever seen in his apartment is a big tin of oatmeal and not even any milk or sugar to put on it—but Dad kicks me in the foot when I start to refuse so I always take it.
“I suppose you’re looking forward to going to this useless little school?” That’s how he greets me as we head inside.
I’m startled that Grandpa is on my side about this but it still feels like a trick question. I don’t answer.
I’m sitting on the only available chair in the apartment. Dad’s standing at the window, looking down on the street below, and Grandpa’s sitting bolt upright on his sagging little bed, the way he always does when we visit. I hate being here.
“If the school is so useless,” Dad says, in an extraordinarily controlled, measured voice, “why did you call the Finders and tell them about your grandson?”
“You did this?” I choke. “I have to leave home and go to boarding school because of you? This is what you were talking about outside the hospital, wasn’t it!”
“Hospital?” Dad asks. “What hospital? I thought we agreed to stay away from hospitals, John!”
Grandpa turns his glare on Dad. “Abaddon, the boy fell apart at school screaming about demons so they rushed him to the emergency room.”
Dad’s head rolls back and he looks at the ceiling, exasperated or maybe he understands or both, I’m not sure.
“I’ve gone along with your lame-brained plan long enough,” Grandpa says. “What did you think would happen? Did you think we’d magically find some family member that the Synod overlooked? Or did you think we’d just pull Adam out at some point, like a rabbit out of a hat, and say, Ta-da! We have someone who can take over our territory after all? Did you think that would stop a civil war from happening? Or were you hoping it would start one? Because it could.”
Dad clears his throat. “I suppose I was hoping for a miracle, yes.”
Grandpa slams his hand down on the bedside table, making me jump. “Adam,” Grandpa practically shouts, “I agreed we should keep you secret from the Synod, that nobody in our business should know about you. But things are different now. Everybody else who could have done what you’re going to do has died. In the past twenty-five years, all my brothers and sisters, all my nieces and nephews, my only child your mother—they’ve all died, under mysterious circumstances. Tragic accidents. Things that never happen—happened. My whole family—gone, just like that.”
I look from Dad to Grandpa. “I didn’t know we had family.” I always thought it was just me and two cranky old men.
“Well, we don’t now,” Grandpa growls. “It’s just you, me, and this fool.” He jerks his hand toward my father. “The Synod is ignoring the fact that our clan is under attack. They know this, we know this, everybody knows this, but nobody wants to talk about it.” He looks at Dad. “Speaking of which, Abaddon, have you warned him yet?”
A panicky feeling lodges somewhere in my throat. “Warned me about what?”
“We haven’t spoken about it yet, John, no,” Dad says. There’s an unspoken Back off in his voice but Grandpa just wades right in, where men and angels fear to tread.
“This is completely irresponsible of you,” he snaps. “The boy needs to know what he’s up against. You can’t send him off to school half-cocked like some gun that’s going to backfire.”
Dad sighs. “I know, I was just . . . waiting.”
“Until what? Ten minutes before he says goodbye?” Grandpa starts chewing on something ferociously, probably his tongue because I didn’t see him put anything in his mouth. I expect blood to start pouring down his chin at any moment.
Grandpa turns into a dragon, rapid-firing questions at Dad, flames leaping out of his mouth: “When are you going to tell Adam what happened to him when he was four? When are you going to tell him about his mother? When are you going to tell him we can trust no one? No one.”
That sliver of panic burns its way down my esophagus, through my stomach, and rages into my intestines. I have to get out of here. But Grandpa and Dad are locked into this, whatever this is.
“And when, for god’s sakes, when are you going to tell him that we have enemies? When are you going to tell him that his life is in danger? That there are people who want to kill him?”
Dad’s growing by the second until his enormous frame fills every corner of the room and I can barely breathe. I want to warn Grandpa of the danger he’s in but he’s practically apoplectic by now.
“Talk to your son, man!” Grandpa shouts. “Tell him what he needs to know!”
He snorts up a big mouthful of air and starts to cough as though he’s going to choke. I’d pound on his back but I’m too busy dealing with my own feelings. Except then he falls over on the bed and starts to writhe. He stiffens and his mouth foams as his body jerks.
I look at Dad, panicked. “What’s happening?”
Grandpa lets loose a long, low groan. He slumps and lies there, face pressed into the mattress, suddenly very still.
“Is he dying?”
“No, son.” Dad has gone quiet on me. “You’d know if he was dying. You’d feel it. It’s in your blood to feel it.”
He’s right. Of course I’d know. Just like I always know. Like I knew about Sarah’s sister a couple days before she died. Like I knew about that woman at the AA meeting. Like I know about perfect strangers I pass on the street.
I don’t think I’ve ever exhaled as deeply as I do now. So, Dad understands the burden I carry. Apparently, he carries the same burden.
“What kind of school is this?” I ask finally, after a long moment of silence. “What
is the family business?”
He looks uncomfortable. Like we’re about to have the S-E-X talk. “Uh,” he says. Literally at a loss for words. “Didn’t I . . . you mean . . . I’ve never told you? You never . . . you haven’t figured it out? Surely you know what I do.”
So I make a joke. Sort of. “Are you in the Mafia?” I ask. Thinking about that guy earlier, the one he almost killed.
His shoulders relax and he chuckles a little.
“No, wait, wait, wait, I’ve got it,” I say. “You’re really Darth Vadar, aren’t you?” Now I’m thinking about the way he can make people stop breathing just by looking at them, as if he’s using the Force to control the air they breathe.
He smiles. “You’ve read the books I’ve given you over the years. And you’ve looked at the titles of the books in my office. Maybe even sneaked a peek or two?”
My memory sweeps the shelves of my room, lined with books I’ve deliberately stayed away from. The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Death and the Afterlife in Ancient China. The Book of Graveyards. Mummies: What They Took with Them and Why. Yeah, I’ve wanted to read them, but I’ve been afraid to. Afraid to be anything like Dad.
“Those books are irresistible to people like us,” he says. “Our version of porn.” He laughs awkwardly. “I’ve tried not to burden you with too much information but you’ve gone with me on business trips. Surely you’ve noticed my obsession with death. All those trips to cemeteries. How do you think I make money, anyway?”
“Dad,” I say, feigning shock, “you’re a grave robber? That’s the family business?”
He seems at a loss for words.
“Kidding,” I say. “I get it; you’ve been dying to talk to me about it all these years.”
He looks relieved. Like he thinks I do get it. Like he’s not going to have to explain wet dreams to me after all.
“It’s just that we’ve done so much work together,” he says. “You’ve learned how to summon souls. You’ve learned how to block me when I’ve tried to summon your soul.”
Is that the sick game we’re playing when Dad tries to separate my shadow from my body and I won’t let him? Or vice versa? Summoning each other’s souls?
“I know I’ve never given you the scientific explanation of what we’re doing,” he continues, “but you’ve picked up on it instinctively.”
“Right,” I say. “Instinctively.” And, not to be outdone, I add, “As if I was born to do it.”
“Exactly!” he exclaims with as much gusto as I’ve ever seen him put into something.
Out of nowhere, Grandpa starts speaking, voice muffled against the mattress: “You’re the last of us. The last of our clan. Do you understand what that means? It’s really important, Adam, more important than anything—you have to stay alive. You can’t let them kill you. Trust nobody. Nobody. Assume everybody you meet is lying to you. You got that? Everybody!”
He sits up to stare at me.
I look at Grandpa. Does that include him? Cut my eyes over to Dad. Does that include Dad? Are they lying to me too? Yeah, maybe. Maybe they are. After all, they’ve lied to me all my life, or at least for as long as I can remember.
“I don’t think you need the training at this school,” Grandpa grunts. “You’re smart, you’re a natural. But we need you credentialed and official, so that there’s no question when we hand everything off to you. So that nobody tries to challenge your claim to our territory, when you become the Patriarch.”
He inhales air up his nose so forcefully, it sounds like half his brain is being sucked up those nostrils along with snot and air and whatever germs are floating around in this horrible apartment.
“You’ll meet enemies, Adam,” he says. “You’ll meet people who want you to fail. People who will work—work hard—to make you fail.” He shakes a finger in my face. “That school is crooked, but it’s the only way you can take over the business. We just need you to survive, get through it. Keep your nose clean. Keep your ass wiped. For god’s sake, don’t get expelled. Do you hear me?”
I follow Dad down the stairs and out the front door into the busy city streets, into one of those safe spaces where anything you say is lost to the crowds and noise and wind, and nobody who overhears anything will ever think twice about it, even if what you say is absolutely the craziest thing in the world.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Dad says.
“How about beginning with the most important thing of all: is somebody really trying to kill me?” I feel like I might hyperventilate just asking the question. I try a meditation trick that I usually find soothing, even at night when I wake up in the graveyard instead of in my bed, but it’s barely working now.
I mean, I already know the answer to this. Because surely She is trying to kill me. But the real question is whether somebody else is also trying to kill me, if I have another enemy out there, and if I do, does this enemy at least have a face?
“Well,” he says finally, after an interminable pause, long enough for me to lose a few hundred heartbeats off the rest of my life, “if people knew about you, they would try to kill you.”
“That makes no fucking sense!” I sort of shout this a little bit, probably due to stress.
“Language, son,” he says mildly.
I glance around the crowded street. Nobody even paid attention to my outburst. A drunken man is sitting on the sidewalk, slumped over, but as we approach, he presses himself into the wall, giving us space to pass by. People do that all the time for Dad, just make room for him, even when they don’t look at him.
“Yeah, but . . . I mean . . .” Apparently, I can’t figure out how language works anymore. My words are broken bits of the alphabet, strewn randomly on the sidewalk behind us. “What?”
“I’ve tried to protect you by keeping your existence secret from—well, from the other families who do what we do. I let everybody believe you died when your mother . . . died. As far as they’re concerned, that’s still true. I hope I haven’t made a mistake.”
I stop and stare at him. He makes an impatient hand gesture for me to continue walking.
“Adam, nothing will happen to you because nobody knows who you are. But promise me this: don’t tell a soul where you’re from. People will jump to conclusions about who you are, what family you belong to. It’ll be dangerous for you. If they ask where you grew up, say you moved around a lot. I hope it’s enough to protect you.”
“All you’re doing is making me wonder if I’m supposed to be afraid of my own shadow.”
He laughs. “Never fear your own shadow! You never need to be afraid of the darkness, Adam. What you must fear is the light.”
Well, that couldn’t be any more cryptic. And it sure is the opposite advice I’d imagine any other father giving his son. I imagine being on my deathbed and screaming, No! My dad said not to look toward the light! No! No!
“Why can’t you hide me again—somewhere else?”
He shakes his head. “I could do that, yes. But they know about you now. So they’d get the Synod involved and there are things I don’t want the Synod to know.”
I start to shiver and I can’t stop. We’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, people flowing around us like we’re rocks in the middle of a river.
Dad grasps my forearm and looks me in the eye. “Have I ever left you alone in that darkness? Have I ever left you to fall forever?” I stare at him and he repeats himself. “Haven’t I always come to find you? Have I ever abandoned you?”
And that’s when I know. My nightmare is real. Dad really does walk through a graveyard. I’m walking behind him but he doesn’t know I’m there. My father is there when She takes me. He joins me in that endless fall. It really is him, he really is that light, and he really does come to rescue me. Night after night after night.
We’re both breathing hard, staring at each other. And then we turn and we start to walk, fast, fast fast fast, all the way home to Brooklyn.
Chapter 7.5
And so the Grim Reap
er and her lover-husband returned to Rome, to the Eternal City, to face the Synod’s verdict. Would they be allowed to choose their own destiny or would it be made for them?
They stood, heads bowed, as Her Excellency expressed the Synod’s deep frustration and anger.
“You have behaved like spoiled children, eloping to carry out this unsanctioned marriage,” she said, her face grim, like a goblin’s. It was one of the remarkable things about Her Excellency—how precisely like a goblin she looked. “Marriage among soul guides is a weighted decision, not one to make alone. Each alliance must be carefully calibrated to determine which families can bear to lose a member of their clan, along with that member’s future progeny.”
Upon hearing these words, the Grim Reaper fell to her knees. Her bosom heaved.
Oh, please! Elder #5 yelled. Do we really have to listen to this rubbish?
Pardon me, he said. I thought you wanted details. Or am I offending your artistic sensibilities? Did you want the story or did you want great literature?
This is ridiculous. He is talking about his daughter, Elder #4 said. Can we not command him to stick to the facts?
You creeps are the ones who wanted details, he said.
Her Excellency jumped in, chuckling as she spoke: I don’t think we have much of a choice, he is having too much fun with us. But really, sir, restrain yourself. So I look exactly like a goblin, do I?
He smiled, a glint in his eye. I’ll restrain myself as much as possible, madam.
She was young, freckled, her red-brown hair tumbling past her hips, her eyes a deep, blazing sapphire. Her lover-husband’s eyes burned with pride as he gazed at her startling and fierce beauty.
“Is there no room for love?” she cried, falling to her knees and ripping her bodice. “Are we not allowed comfort and happiness during our short sojourn on earth?”
CHAPTER 8
The subway rocks gently and lights flash on and off as we tunnel deep beneath the city’s streets. I’m heading to Coney Island with my friends and trying to find the right moment to mention boarding school.
