Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  “It’s not my blood,” Allison told him, without lifting her head. She knew him well enough to know why he was panicking. She also knew him well enough to know her brief comment wouldn’t stop him.

  “If the two of you could have your huddle someplace other than the door, the rest of us could enter the room,” Chase told them.

  “I’m not sure that would be a net positive,” Amy replied. She started to say more, then sucked her breath in; the sound had so much edge it might have killed a lesser person. Emma looked up and met the eyes of Merrick Longland.

  Allison disengaged. “He saved my life,” she said, with a trace of defiance, knowing what had caught Amy’s attention. She caught Michael’s arm. “A Necromancer was about to kill me, and he—he killed the Necromancer before I died.”

  Michael was blinking. Emma sympathized; she was blinking as well. But she caught Michael’s other arm, and she and Allison retreated to the fireplace, taking him with them. There, she took a deep breath. “Ally, come let me help you clean up?”

  Allison glanced at Michael, but nodded.

  * * *

  You’ll need to tell Allison about her brother.

  Emma wondered, as she walked up the stairs at the side of her best friend, if this is what Nathan’s mother had felt when she’d phoned Emma to tell her about Nathan’s accident. She knew only what her father had told her: that Allison’s brother had been shot. She didn’t know if he’d survived. And she knew it would be the first question Ally asked.

  But Allison said, “Chase knocked on my window. He practically broke it. I was studying with headphones on.” She was watching her feet. “I opened the window; Chase was on the roof. Well, the part of him that wasn’t in front of the window. He told me we had to leave—and we had to leave now. He didn’t tell me why.” She swallowed. “I didn’t even grab my phone. I climbed up on the desk and he dragged me up to the roof. You don’t want to know how we came down.” They reached the second floor and made a beeline for the bathroom, where Emma picked up a face cloth and soaked it in hot water.

  “Stand still,” she told Allison, who obliged. Mostly. “You came down the old tree?” She began, carefully, to wipe the blood from her friend’s face, pausing to dump her glasses into the sink; they needed at least as much cleaning.

  “I almost missed it. I saw them from the tree,” she added, her voice dropping again. “I saw them open the front door. I heard shouting.” She closed her eyes. “We climbed down the tree—I was better with that—and Chase started to move us.

  “I heard a gunshot. I tried to go back.”

  “Chase wouldn’t let you.”

  Allison shook her head. “I was so afraid. So afraid. For my family. For myself. I don’t know who was shot—” she stopped, meeting Emma’s eyes in the vanity mirror. After a long pause, she said, “You know.”

  Emma swallowed. “Toby.”

  “Tobias was shot?”

  “Yes. I don’t know more than that. We were leaving Mark’s mother’s house—I promise I’ll tell you all about that later—and Amy called.” She ran hot water again to rinse the towel out. Steam rose in silence, like mist. “People broke into her house. Her father was shot. He’s alive and he’s mostly fine, according to Amy. Amy was enraged.”

  “And you—”

  “She couldn’t reach my phone; I’d turned it off. She couldn’t reach yours either. And when Eric said you weren’t answering—” Emma closed her eyes. Opened them again. “I asked my father to go to your house and tell me—tell me—” Her smile broke. “And tell me whether or not you were alive. He told me you were. But he said your brother had been shot, that emergency vehicles—and the police—were on the way.”

  Allison’s hands were like ice as Emma set the cloth down and caught them in hers. “Amy has a car, a suitcase full of clothing from various members of her family, credit cards and keys to a number of her family’s various cottages. We’re leaving with her.

  “Ernest thinks, if we disappear, our families will be more or less safe.”

  “Have you—have you talked to your mom?”

  “Yes. Before you arrived. There was a break-in at Amy’s house; Amy’s father was shot. They mostly missed him—I don’t know how. Amy staged a breakdown.”

  “Staged?”

  “She pretty much came up with a reason that most of us can skip school for a few days. Or more. She flipped out and told her mother she was so terrified she couldn’t be in the house.”

  Allison snorted, and they both managed a smile; parents could be so naive.

  “I phoned home to tell my mother about Amy’s break-in and Amy’s subsequent breakdown. I said I was at Nan’s, with Amy, and that Amy was hysterical.”

  “Your mother bought that?”

  Emma nodded. “Enraged people are often hysterical; I didn’t mention the rage part. My mother assumed she was justifiably terrified. I told my mother I needed to be with Amy and that I probably wouldn’t be coming home for a couple of days.”

  “She was okay with that?”

  “Not the first time—but she talked to Mrs. Snitman, and that seemed to help.”

  “Michael’s mother?”

  Emma bit her lip. “I’m going to phone her when Michael’s sleeping, because I have to lie to her, and he’s already so wound up it’ll be messy.” She exhaled. “It’s your mom that we can’t get around. Amy’s terror at armed men showing up in her house makes perfect sense to all of the parents who didn’t deal with the same.

  “But your mother—”

  Allison swallowed.

  “I can ask my father to check in on Toby. I think he can do that from wherever it is we’re going. But it won’t be the same as being able to see him for yourself, and we won’t know—” She stopped and closed her eyes. “We won’t know how bad the injury was. We won’t know. If he’s—if he’s dying, you won’t be able to be there. Not with him and not with your mother.”

  Allison closed her eyes. Eyes closed, she said, “It’s my fault he was shot. It’s my fault any of my family was in danger at all.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing. It’s my fault that your brother was shot. It’s my fault that any of your family—even you—were in danger at all.”

  Allison’s eyes snapped open. Emma wasn’t smiling.

  “They’re not going to kidnap us. If you choose to stay home, Chase will have a coronary, but no one’s going to knock you out and dump your unconscious body in Amy’s car. My dad didn’t tell me how bad Toby was—but it’s bad. If it weren’t, I’m sure he’d’ve said so. Amy wants us all to leave—but she understands what’s at stake for you. We’re going to one of Amy’s getaways. Chase and Eric will come with us; I’m sure Amy’s telling them that right now.

  “And Michael’s okay with this?”

  “He’s as okay as the rest of us.”

  “Which means no.”

  “Which means mostly no. But none of us are exactly calm. I think you’re about as clean as you’re going to get if you can’t take a long shower. Here, have a comb—there’s dried blood in your hair; I think I got most of it. I can head downstairs if you need time to decide—and I can make sure people give you that time.”

  “Even Amy?”

  Emma didn’t smile. “Even Amy.”

  Allison fished her glasses out of the sink. “Can you ask your father to check now?”

  “He’s not here right now.”

  “No,” a familiar and beloved voice said. “But I am.”

  Emma turned toward Nathan.

  * * *

  “Em?” Allison said; she had taken a dry towel to the surface of her glasses before she deposited them across her ears and nose.

  “Nathan’s here,” Emma replied. Her voice came out as a whisper. Allison couldn’t see him. Emma lifted a hand and h
eld it out to Nathan—and Nathan dropped both of his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shaking his head. “Allison can’t see you if I don’t touch you.”

  “I know.”

  There was so much finality to those two words Emma let her hand drop to her side. “Ally,” she finally said, “can you give us a couple of minutes?”

  Allison nodded, opened the door and walked into the hall. Then she walked back in and said, “You might want to have this conversation in a room that isn’t the bathroom, given the number of people in the house.”

  “Good idea.”

  * * *

  Nathan was never a person to fill a silence, even when it had gone past the point of awkward into nearly painful. Emma could—but not with Nathan. She knew how to find small, daily things interesting when she needed to. But days when she could cheerfully do this didn’t generally including two shootings and the near death of her best friend.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Back,” he replied. “To the City of the Dead.”

  She nodded, as if this made sense.

  “If I stay, I’ll follow you. If I follow you, I’ll know where you are. I might not be able to tell the living how to get there—but I’ll know. And what I know—” he stopped abruptly. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  She started to lie. Stopped herself. This was Nathan. Lies had never really been necessary, before. She couldn’t quite make herself believe they were necessary now. No, she thought, feeling the cold of all kinds of winter, that wasn’t true. But she hadn’t been lying to Nathan—not directly.

  Only to herself. And those lies were just as harmful, in the end. She exhaled. “Yes.”

  He didn’t seem to be surprised; his expression rippled as he closed his eyes and waited, his Why? unvoiced, but nonetheless loud.

  “You didn’t find me on your own,” she said, voice almost a whisper.

  His eyes widened, and this time he looked away. But he answered. “No.”

  “You didn’t find your way home on your own, either. My dad said it would take a couple of years before you could—” She swallowed. “Before you could tear yourself away from the door. But it didn’t.”

  He said nothing, but he met her gaze; he didn’t hold it for long, but to her surprise, the faintest hint of a smile touched his lips.

  “She sent you.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you understand why?”

  After a long pause, Nathan asked, “Do you?”

  Emma closed her eyes. Opened them again. “Yes.” She wanted to look away from his luminescent, oddly colored eyes, but she didn’t. “When I saw Merrick Longland, I was afraid. We were all afraid. Because we’d all seen him die.

  “I wasn’t there when you died,” she added. “But it must have been just as messy, just as painful. I never expected to see Longland again. But, Nathan—until October, I never expected to see you, either, except in dreams.”

  “Or nightmares?”

  “Or nightmares. But when I saw Longland again—it wasn’t just the fear. It was the hope—” She had to look away. “It was the hope, Nathan. Longland was alive, and if Longland could come back to life—so could you.” When she turned to face him again, he was watching her; his eyes were shining. It was a light that looked familiar to Emma, although she couldn’t immediately say why. “I was angry. I was angry with Eric, because he must have known. He didn’t even look surprised. He didn’t react as if it was impossible.”

  “No,” Nathan said, voice grave. “He wouldn’t.”

  “Necromancers are supposed to raise the dead. We’re Necromancers. He knew it was possible.”

  “Emma—”

  She lifted a hand to her mouth, mute for a moment because her voice was becoming so quavery, and she hated that. “It was everything I wanted. If I could learn how to use this power—this power that I didn’t ask for and didn’t want—I could bring you back. You could be with me. I could hold you. I could hold your hand without losing all sensation. I could—” she stopped. For a long moment, she struggled with breathing, because breathing right now was too close to tears, and she was still Emma Hall. “But Longland isn’t alive.”

  His eyes widened slightly.

  “He’s—no one living would be able to tell the difference, but Longland said it’s different. He’s not alive; he’s dead, and he’s trapped in a body that’s not really his. He can interact with the world. He can pretend to be alive.

  “But he’s dead. He’s cold. And the only thing he now wants—”

  “That is not all I want from you.”

  She turned to face him. “Isn’t it?” she whispered. “Can you tell me, honestly, that if I could somehow open that door—or remove the impenetrable glass from that window—you’d even be standing here now?”

  Nathan had never, to her knowledge, lied to her. He was therefore silent. It was a silence that stretched and thinned, and Emma was almost afraid of what would happen if it broke. But conversely, she wanted it to break. People were just like that.

  “No.” He looked down at his feet. “If the way had been open, I would have gone almost immediately. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t understand—not completely—what being dead meant. I was cold, Em, yes. And it’s warm there. Don’t ask me how I know—I can’t explain it. I don’t think even your dad could. I didn’t think of going home after I—after. I didn’t even think of moving. I didn’t think of moving on, either—I was lost.

  “And when I did see the light—and I realize how melodramatic that sounds—I walked toward it. I knew it was where I belonged. I wanted to go there, I wanted to be there. But I never tried.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I got close enough, I could hear the screaming. The wailing. The sobs. I knew—I knew if I tried, I’d join them, and I could probably howl there like a lost toddler for too damn long.”

  “How did you get back?”

  “She found me.”

  “She?” But Emma already knew the answer. The Queen. The Queen of the Dead. She frowned, then, and approached Nathan. He stood his ground, but stiffened—and that surprised her. It also hurt a little.

  “Why do you think she sent me back?”

  “The same reason,” Emma replied, looking at his hands, at his face, and then, eyes narrowing, at the center of his chest, “that she sent Longland.”

  “Em?”

  And she closed her eyes. Closed them, because even closed, she could see Nathan. She had always been able to see him with her eyes closed, because while he was himself, he was also some huge part of her hopes and her dreams. Her daydreams. Only his death had plunged him into nightmares—and even in nightmares, it was his sudden, inexplicable absence that caused her to wake, crying.

  She could no longer see the narrow halls of an older Toronto home. She couldn’t see the white doorframes that had clearly been painted half a dozen times. She couldn’t see the carpet, which was so neutral a beige she might not have noticed it at any other time. She could see Nathan.

  And at the center of his chest, glowing faintly, the links of a slender chain. She lifted her hand, and she knew as she did, that Nathan was bound and that she did not hold him. Her hands closed in fists.

  She opened her eyes. Nathan was standing before her, but the world reasserted itself around him, as much as it could.

  “She sent you because she knew.”

  “About you?”

  “About me. About—” She exhaled. “She knows how I feel about you.”

  “And Longland?”

  “He’s an offer.”

  Nathan’s smile shifted. He looked tired, to Emma. She didn’t know whether or not the dead usually experienced the exhaustion that comes from too much fear, too much stress—but Nathan clearly did. “People always underestimate you
. I had no idea why she sent me. She didn’t ask me to do anything. She didn’t ask me to say anything or learn anything. She didn’t tell me to watch you. She just told me—to come home.”

  “She knew—she had to know—that I would want to see you,” Emma continued. “But it’s not that—it’s Longland. He was meant to be proof that I could—” she couldn’t say it.

  “You could bring me back.”

  Emma nodded. “But I don’t know how. I don’t understand the power I have. I don’t know how to use it. I see the dead—but it’s not a struggle. I don’t try. It happens. It’s like weather. Or breathing.” Her voice dropped. She looked up at him.

  When they’d first met, she hadn’t really noticed him. He was one of a dozen people who drifted in and out of class. He played computer games. He read. He tinkered in the science labs.

  But he was friendly—and entirely without condescension—to Michael. That had caught her attention. Held it a little bit too long. He wasn’t classically gorgeous. He wasn’t daydream material. But her daydreams were wild and incoherent; you couldn’t build a life on most of them, because they couldn’t bear weight.

  Nathan could. While he was alive, he could. He could listen. That was a gift. But better, he could accept her. Not just the good bits. Not the parts other people might find attractive. She wasn’t a trophy girlfriend, although she could have been. He was a quiet space. A quiet, accepting space. He saw her as she was, good and bad.

  There weren’t many people who saw her. Not as she saw herself; if he’d done that, he would have walked away as quickly as he could, especially on the bad days. But as she actually was. He surprised her with the small things he noticed. He surprised her by noticing things about her she hardly noticed herself.

  She had never lied to him, not deliberately. If she didn’t want to talk about something, she said exactly that: I can’t talk about this right now.

  “I don’t think she thought Longland would actually speak to me. I don’t know if she understands what it does—and doesn’t—mean to him, to be half alive. And, Nathan—it would have worked if he hadn’t.”