by J. L. Powers
“So you think it’s beneficial to me if I learn the secret of the universe?” I ask and don’t hide my tone, a tone that, if he cared one ounce, which he does not, he would realize isn’t sarcasm so much as a plea for some help here.
Even so, Dad ignores the question. “Don’t let anybody at school know you have this book,” he says. “Remember, it’s banned.”
I flip it shut.
He disappears into his office. I know from experience he’ll be there all night and I’ll eat dinner alone.
Sometimes I wonder if Dad even eats. I mean, of course he does. Occasionally. We go to dinner every once in a while, to these strange little Mongolian or Pakistani or Senegalese restaurants, holes in the wall located in questionable neighborhoods where the owner ushers us to a back room or maybe even a broom closet and we sit at a little table, all alone, in a room lit only by candlelight. They bring us strange dishes and I’m glad it’s dark so that a) I don’t know what I’m eating, and b) I can’t see how dirty the floor is.
Once, pushing a plateful of purple baby squids to the side—at least, I think they were purple, and I think they were squids, and I know they were babies—I actually asked him why we went to these places.
He gave me a five-second stare. “You can’t understand an individual human being unless you understand where they’re coming from,” he finally replied. “Food is a window into the soul of a culture, into the soul of a human being.”
I got goose bumps. But despite what he said, Dad mostly picks at his food.
So when his office door clicks shut at five—which is when most normal people leave their offices—I sigh and go to my room to pack.
I pick out clothes for seven days before realizing I don’t know how often I’ll be able to do laundry. Also, I still don’t know where the school is located. It could be in Siberia for all I know. I imagine trudging from my dorm room to the classroom in snowdrifts as tall as my father, the tip of my nose black with frostbite because all I packed were T-shirts. I end up in the hospital, dying of some romantic nineteenth-century disease, like consumption or something. My father weeps at the foot of my bed as I take shallow, rattling breaths, trying to stay alive. If only I hadn’t sent you to boarding school! he howls, throwing his head backward in agony.
In the end, I toss in almost all the clothes I own. Mostly this consists of old T-shirts, ragged boxer briefs, sweatshirts, jeans, and old socks with holes in the heels.
Hope it’s not one of those British-style boarding schools where young men are supposed to wear button-down shirts, slacks, ties, and dress shoes, because—well, I don’t own any. I guess if it’s a problem when I get to school, I can pry open my father’s stingy fingers and buy new clothes.
I wonder briefly if I should pack a weapon but we don’t have anything remotely weapon-like. Even our knives are dull.
* * *
I feel very lonely all night. None of my friends are answering texts and even though we were together all day, and they just found out I’m leaving, I can’t help wondering, Have they already forgotten about me? Are they all out having fun together my last night in town? I should have arranged to meet up with them later. Of course, it’s Sarah I really want to see. It’d kill me if she’s out with Jeremy, tonight of all nights.
But she held my hand.
That would make me feel better except that all she did when we said goodbye was hug me. She gave Jeremy and Carlos the same hug goodbye. Probably the hand-holding didn’t mean anything. She was just, I don’t know, excited about having her fortune told. And I happened to be there.
At one point I linger outside Dad’s office door, but I know better than to disturb him. I put my ear up to the door, wondering if I’ll hear anything. The rustling of papers. A pen scratching on a notepad. The clicking of a keyboard.
Nothing. It’s as silent as a grave in there.
Chapter 9.5
Her Excellency turned her gaze on the Grim Reaper. “Comfort! Happiness! These are but small matters compared to the fate of the world.” Her tone was severe, as though she were speaking to a small child. “You are the head of your clan, a clan that suffered terrible losses during the Great Civil War—losses it has never recovered from in terms of numerical strength. And, in recent years, your clan has suffered unfortunate accident after unfortunate accident. You and your father are the only ones left! Did you not consider how your actions would affect the entire future of the Reaper clan? Are you so selfish you think only of comfort and happiness?”
I said nothing of the sort, you ridiculous man, Her Excellency said.
Elder #4 said, delicately, Your Excellency, I was there and you did say something along those lines. It was sixteen years ago . . . perhaps your memory . . .
Oh, shut up, Mildred, Her Excellency snapped.
Then Her Excellency glared at the lover-husband. Though he paled, he met her gaze full-on.
“And you,” she said. “Did you not even once think about your responsibilities to the Eternal City—indeed, to the entire country of Italy? The two of you gave not a second’s thought to the way your so-called marriage of love”—the scorn in her voice scorched the hair on their arms—“could cause the destruction of the Reaper clan and create a ripple effect, destabilizing the entire soul guide world.”
The lover-husband bowed his head. “I am deeply sorry you feel that way, Mother,” he said. “Laws can be changed. Alliances can be made. Is there no way the Reaper and Mors clans can be aligned?”
“Rules cannot be broken. Bent. Yes. Bent very far even,” she said. “But you can’t change laws willy-nilly. This so-called marriage of love has addled your brain.”
CHAPTER 10
The old leather suitcase Dad gave me for Christmas one year is bulging, even though I don’t feel like I packed very much. I grab a few of my favorite books and throw them into my backpack along with my phone and laptop and the banned book.
I’m ready. Oh wait, toothbrush. All right. Now I’m ready.
I lug everything into the dinky living room, where Dad’s waiting at the door to say goodbye. He emerged from his office just a few minutes ago. He’s haggard and unshaven, eyes a little bloodshot—not because he’s been drinking but from lack of sleep. Is this a hazard of the profession? Will I ever get a good night’s sleep? Or am I doomed to this crappy fear-of-sleep life forever?
“So where am I going, Dad? Are you ever going to tell me where this school is?”
“They change the location every year for security reasons,” he answers. “This year it’s on an island off Maine. But you can’t tell your friends where it is, understand? The school will reinforce this need for secrecy, but I want to make sure you understand from the outset. No texting your friends on the way there to tell them where you’ll be.”
“Yeah, yeah, I promise.” Because my super-bad, super-dangerous friends are going to come kill me and my classmates if they find out where I am.
“I would take you to school myself,” Dad says, “but I can’t risk people seeing you with me and figuring out who you are. I asked a business colleague I trust to travel with you. She should be here in a couple of minutes. At school, she’s how I’m keeping my eye on you.”
It all comes out in a giant thunderclap of emotion: “It’s not too late, Dad. I don’t have to go. I could stay here. I mean, you said yourself that people think I’m dead. So how many people know? Just that one guy that visited? We could move, couldn’t we? Find another place to live? I don’t want to go!” Sobs are shoving, pushing their way forward, my eyelids a dam, and finally I can’t hold it back, rocks crumbling and water burbling, foaming, spraying out, soaking Dad’s shirt.
He puts a hand on my shoulder. When I don’t calm down immediately, he shakes me a little. “There is not a lot of reassurance in this strange business of mine, the one you are inheriting. Just when you think you know the rules, they change. You are going to have to learn—the hard way—to be brave. But I promise—I wouldn’t put you in a situation if I didn’t kn
ow that in the end, you will be all right.”
When I fail to respond, his hand drops.
“Remember, Adam, you have powers. Don’t be afraid to use them, to protect yourself and others.” He rustles deep inside his pants pockets and pulls out a small, shiny black card. “Keep this on you at all times. Use it in an emergency.”
I turn it over in my hands. It’s the shape and size of a credit card, but it has no magnetic strip, no name, no information, no numbers. It’s a perfectly blank card. It feels like plastic but heavier. “How do you use it?”
“Just like a credit card,” Dad says.
Apparently, the only kind of emergency he can imagine is the kind where I’m going to need money. Cuz if I stabbed somebody with this, it’s not going to do much.
“Trust me on this one,” he adds. “It’s all you’ll need.”
Can I trust him? He’s been lying to me my whole life.
But then I think about how he comes to rescue me, night after night, when I’m alone in the depths with that hideous Thing—Her—in that endless fall toward hell. I look closely at him now, at his eyes.
“Trust me,” he says again, and for just a moment, we’re on the same page.
“Okay.”
“If you have to escape something, if you need to leave suddenly, if you need to come home—I don’t care what it is—you use this card, understand? It can get you anywhere in the world, no questions asked.”
It sure doesn’t look that special. I put it in my pocket. My first sort of credit card. A perfectly blank one, but still.
“Just remember,” Dad continues, “everything has an end. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, ends up in the same place eventually.”
Always look on the bright side of life, right? Thanks, Dad.
Somebody knocks on the door, a firm, confident knock. Dad smiles. “That must be her.”
He swings the door open wide. A young woman dressed in a denim skirt, a black jacket, and boots stands on our doorstep, smiling. Her short hair is bright pink and even though I’m tall, she towers over me by at least three inches.
I look up at her awkwardly.
“You must be Adam then.” Her voice is rich and raspy. “I’m Aileen Cu Sith.” She looks beyond me to my father. “Good morning, sir.”
Dad’s smile has always seemed more like a grimace, but now his face breaks out in a warm grin. “It is good to see you, Aileen, very good to see you. Thank you for your help.”
“Pleasure.”
They shake hands and Aileen blushes—really, I swear, she blushes, and who the hell blushes when greeting my father? The only thing I’ve seen people do is try to avoid touching him when he passes. Then he places a hand on my shoulder. “I hope you enjoy yourself.”
“Will I see you at Christmas?” I ask.
“I hope so,” he mumbles.
What does that mean? Does he mean he’s not sure he’ll be here at Christmas and I’ll be stuck in an empty boarding school? Or does he mean, Despite everything I’ve said to try to reassure you, I sure hope you survive and you’re still alive at Christmas?
Fuck you, Dad.
I trail after Aileen out the door, heart frozen with an impending sense of doom.
* * *
Eyes follow Aileen wherever we go, not just men’s eyes, everybody’s, even old ladies. It’s not the pink hair, it’s something else, something in the way she carries herself. Her shadow is very confident, an ocean, alive and awake and powerful. She owns herself. Even if she did blush in my father’s presence.
Aileen hails a taxi and we slide in together, our bags on the floor beside us. She tells the driver to take us to Penn Station and we settle back for the ride.
“I love your dad’s work.” Aileen fiddles with the strap on her bag. “I studied his best-known cases as part of my research during training. I mean, hello, Mussolini? And Fellini? Not to mention all those popes! He’s one of the best, if not the best, of all times.”
“Oh good,” I say. “That’s . . . amazing.”
“Your dad is a walking legend.”
Does Aileen really know my father? The one who never leaves the house and spends most of his time locked in his office, probably singing lullabies to his latest acquisition—some old book nobody else cares about—as he lovingly strokes its stained leather?
She smirks. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Noooooo,” I admit, which feels kind of like a relief, at least at first. But it also puts me in a strange position. In my experience, which is not that great—I’m only fifteen, after all—when somebody knows something you don’t know, they can use it against you. It gives them power. This is why I’ve always refused to dive in and see what’s going on in my friends’ heads. You know, read their souls, the way I’ve done with my dad once or twice. I know you’re just getting a snapshot about what they feel at that moment, not what they really feel, like reading a diary—it’s real but not necessarily true all the time. But still, it gives you power over them. It lets you see things they wouldn’t tell you or want you to know. The last thing I want is to have power over my friends. I just want us to be normal.
“So your father never told you what he does?”
“No, but it’s okay, he’s never explained sex either.” And then I just about die. Because, did I just mention sex—to her?
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. I shift uncomfortably, my face turning red. The silence is awful until I realize she’s trying to hide a smile.
“When I was little, I used to tell people he was in finance or business or something like that . . .”
She laughs. “Not a bad thing to call it. You could easily say he’s in the services sector . . . kind of like a financial advisor is in the services sector . . . but your father deals with end-of-life issues.” The finality of the word “end” sinks into my brain like a stone through wet paper towels.
I mean, I’m not stupid. I’ve already figured out that whatever we do, it has something to do with the big D. My only question is precisely what it is we do. Like, do we KILL people? Are we professional hit men? Or is it even weirder and more horrible than that? When I just know that people are going to die, is it because I’m somehow making them die?
I sit on my hands to keep from squirming too much but Aileen apparently isn’t bothered by long, awkward silences, kind of like Dad, and finally my hands fall asleep. I shake them out to get rid of the pins and needles.
“Don’t worry about it,” Aileen finally says. “Occasionally, there are kids who come to school who don’t know what their parents do or what the school’s about, so we have a special orientation.”
Ugh. I’m already “one of those kids.” Why didn’t my father explain? Like, years ago?
* * *
The first leg of our trip is a train ride to Boston. We take window seats and face each other.
I flip open my laptop and plug in my earphones. Aileen does the same. I don’t look at my computer screen or notice what tracks are playing. I think about my nightmares, the one in the graveyard and the other recurring one. The one with a woman in the yellow dress, riding an endless train. My mother, I think. A strong emotion I can’t identify—loneliness, maybe, or homesickness—clamps around my heart when I see her figure, the fuzzy edges of her, the little I remember. The yellow dress, like sunshine or daffodils. Her freckles and the red-brown curls that were so soft to touch. A silvery voice, always with a hint of laughter in it. I remember peeking over the edge of her bed, the bedspread rubbing softly against my cheek. She lies still, fists clenched tight. My father kneels on the other side of the bed, eyes closed. He’s breathing deep and he’s here but not here, I know that much. His face contorts.
I jerk back to the present train ride, the one where a sexy young teacher with pink hair is sitting across from me. Aileen seems pretty absorbed, reading something on her computer and occasionally typing.
I start wondering how I should present myself when I arrive. I mean,
to the other kids. Finally, I decide not to pretend that I know more than I do. Faking it only makes things worse when everybody realizes you’re actually an idiot. I’ll just have to be That Kid. If you can’t change who you are, embrace it, right?
Then I wonder what my friends are doing, torturing myself, imagining Jeremy and Sarah hanging out together. Without me.
Finally, I take out my phone. Aileen looks up from her computer. “You’re not texting anyone, are you?”
“No,” I say. “Video game.” Like my stupidphone has video games. I turn the phone’s sound off. Then I text Sarah, telling her I’m on my way to school.
She texts back a few seconds later, saying she’s at some lame family gathering. We should have had a party last night to say goodbye.
That would have been nice, I text. I’ll miss you.
I’m hoping she’ll type something cheesy and romantic back but no.
So where’s the school? Will we be able to visit?
I wish I understood what Dad is afraid of, who my enemies are, why the location of the boarding school has to be secret. Why would it matter for somebody like Sarah to know I’m going to be in Maine? Maine’s a big state. Still, I stick with the script. Until I know what’s going on, it’s better that way.
In the middle of nowhere, I text. We’ll just have to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas to see each other.
Nothing will be the same without you, she responds.
Not quite I’ll miss you, but it makes me feel a little better. For a few seconds. Because she’s right, nothing will be the same, and because I’m not there, somebody (Jeremy or maybe Carlos) can step right in and take my place.
CHAPTER 11
In Boston, we take a cab from one station to the next and get on another train. We ride it for what feels like hours and finally stop in Brunswick, Maine. The end of the line. It feels like the end of the world.
“Are you okay?” Aileen asks.
I nod. What else am I supposed to do but hide my real feelings about the situation?
