by Nisi Shawl
“Pal is faster than human breaths, but I still worried about his safety, you know? I asked the escorts, ‘Are the shimmers dangerous?’ I was worried they’d shove Pal out a broken window somehow and I’d lose him to the sky.
“This gruff police guy said, ‘One of them is. Google it sometime.’ So I did, right there in front of the brick building, with these storm clouds gathering overhead. I don’t think the gruff guy expected me to own a phone that could Google stuff. Joke’s on him. The first article that popped up characterized the deaths as a murder-suicide, which made me start shivering, like the realization ripped a hole in my jacket and let the chill of the city inside. I work with last breaths, but most… well, they go easy after a long life. Or they’re chickens, pigs, and cows. Those poor animals don’t go easy, but they aren’t murderers.
“I didn’t read beyond the title… didn’t want to scroll down and see faces…”
Kelsey paused. The waitress, a brunette white woman wearing orange lipstick and black-framed glasses, was idling near their table, a carafe of coffee in one hand. “Can I top you up, Ma’am?” she asked. Kelsey glanced at her cup of coffee; it was only half empty.
“Maybe in ten minutes,” she said. “Thanks.”
Kelsey resumed her story, eager for the chance to talk. It was nice to reminisce about her life, even the dark parts. “Pal found them in a drama classroom, of all places. The far wall was set up like a mini-Broadway stage, red curtains and everything. I whipped those curtains aside and looked up. There they were. The two breaths. They went in circles. One chased, and the other ran—or maybe they were both chasing—embroiled in an unending game of tag.” She bit her lip. “No. It ended.
“The two breaths must have started arguing, because a window in the classroom shattered. In swept the winter. I shouted, ‘Hey! Hey! You can escape now!’ I should have known, though. I should have known they never wanted to escape. There were plenty of broken windows in that school.
“One of the breaths paused, like I’d startled it. And in that moment of stillness, the game ended. Two became one, and the one sank languidly, resembling this partially deflated helium balloon. Burdened. I remember thinking, ‘I have to protect Pal.’ So I threw my jacket over the burdened breath and pushed them through the broken window. A gust of wind blew them over the weedy strip of grass between the building and the basketball court. That’s when I lost sight of them. They probably drifted over Houston a couple days before flying off. You know, Clint, I often wonder: had the cannibal been the wrathful victim or the violent murderer?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “That’s… terrible either way.”
“Yes,” Kelsey said. “For my own peace of mind, it does.”
“Guess so.”
She sighed. “I hate to talk business, but I’m going to need an advance,” she said. “Unfortunately, home is three hours away, so I’m overnighting in a motel.”
“Local one?” he asked.
“Uh huh. The one with a mermaid on the sign.”
He smiled. “Good choice. I know the owner. Be sure to have their breakfast. Everything’s local. You can order an omelet with wild mushrooms from the heath.”
In addition to the advance, Clint gave Kelsey three files on a thumb drive before he left. The file names were MARTHA GIBBERT FRONT PORCH SECURITY, MARSH BIRD CAM, and PATRICIA LAWN PHOTOS. Kelsey used her tablet to view the pictures and videos. The waitress lingered nearby, sneaking glances at the screen with unconcealed interest.
MARTHA GIBBERT FRONT PORCH SECURITY: In a black and white video that was filmed between 2:34 a.m and 2:39 a.m, the porch door shakes. Moments later, its lower glass panel shatters. Inside the house, Martha’s golden retriever barks. No further disturbances occur.
PATRICIA LAWN PHOTOS: Clint photographed Patricia’s property after her body was discovered. Most of the thirty pictures show damage to the potted flowers and ornamental bushes outside her bedroom window. The plants are crushed, as if somebody had flattened them under a boulder. A photograph snapped through her open window shows her bedroom floor. A tube of lipstick has been flattened, its red, waxy stick pressed into the carpet like a spray of blood.
MARSH BIRD CAM: The green and black night-vision video, captured between 1:43 a.m and 1:47 a.m, shows a stretch of marsh outside the brackish pond. In the right-hand corner, grasses shake and bend, as if something unseen is rolling from the water to higher ground, crushing the vegetation beneath it.
As the waitress refilled Kelsey’s mug, a tear slipped down her pale cheek, made gray by mascara and chalky foundation.
“Are you okay?” Kelsey asked.
“Sorry. Clint has such a loud voice. I heard… it’s just… they used to eat here.”
“Who?”
“All of them,” she said.
“My condolences.”
“What happens to a soul when it’s eaten?” The question, whispered, seemed afraid to be heard. So Kelsey pretended that she hadn’t.
After finishing her coffee, Kelsey drove to the coast and parked on Clint’s driveway. He lived in a typical upper-middle-class New England home. It was painted pastel blue; every house along the street was some variety of pastel, no doubt coordinated by a strict homeowner’s association. Kelsey wondered if the neighbors knew that Clint had hired her. Maybe it had been a collective decision. One discussed during an emergency homeowners’ meeting. As she unloaded supplies from the trunk, a wind that smelled like the sea tousled her hair. She inhaled deeply and slipped into thigh-high wading boots.
“We’re going on a walk, boy.” Kelsey lifted Pal from the truck where he rode in his backpack, surrounded by pillows. Together, they hiked to the marsh; Kelsey located the two-foot-wide trail over the mud, grasses, and pickleweed. The plants were bent inland, their blades matted by sticky earth. “If you sense it, bark. Detect, boy. Detect.” Last breaths sensed their fellows and communicated with them through a language that, although unheard by the living, raised goosebumps and broke glass.
The route became messy fast. Halfway to the pond, one misplaced step sent Kelsey’s left foot calf-deep into the mud, which clutched her boot in a vacuum-tight grip; she leaned back with all her weight and twisted. The earth held fast.
“Shoot.”
The hair on Kelsey’s arms prickled. Was Pal barking? Perhaps her distress had upset him.
Or perhaps…
She slipped out of her trapped boot and hop-sprinted from the marsh. The mud seeped through her cotton sock, gritty and cold. A sharp edge poked her heel; no time to investigate, but she glimpsed feathers and cracked bones woven between grass blades, as if a plover had been crushed when the burdened breath rolled to land.
It must be fast.
She abandoned her second boot and sprinted.
Safe in the car, Pal’s bag buckled to the passenger seat, Kelsey pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and waited for her heart to calm, her stomach to settle. She felt silly for visiting the marsh alone, like a real private investigator with the know-how and mettle to escape death. Now, she probably owed the wildlife center thirty bucks for the loaner boots.
At least the trip hadn’t been fruitless. Clint said there was just one fresh path between the pond and neighborhood. Kelsey had not found evidence—such as grasses bent toward the water—that the burdened breath had retraced its figurative steps after killing Patricia.
It did not return to the sea caves.
Where was the murderer hiding?
Not in Patricia’s house. The police scoured crime scenes for breaths, in case the victim or other dead witnesses remained.
Maybe the murderer had fled the neighborhood, a wanderer, traveling along the coast, drowning divers, feeding and leaving before people recognized its modus operandi.
That theory did not accommodate Patricia’s suspicious death, however. Instead of moving when the pond closed, the burdened breath had lingered until desperation compelled it to murder a woman in her bed.
So it had a motive more
complex than “eat and hide.” But what? Why would it remain in quaint, unremarkable Sunny, with a population so small everyone knew everyone, except for the steady stream of tourists who were making a pit stop on the way to Cape Cod?
At a loss for answers and afraid to leave her car, Kelsey decided to drive around town. Pal was trained to search for other last breaths, and although that usually involved herding, he could detect noisy ones from inside his backpack.
She started in Clint’s neighborhood. There were very few signs of life and no signs of afterlife. In the distance, a cloud of gulls flew in circles, occasionally swooping, their bodies bright against the graying sky; she thought of buzzards and endless games of chase and the Ouroboros consuming its own tail. She took a right, delving inland.
Most tourists passed through the town of Sunny, Maine in a day. They played a round at Mermaid Mini-Golf, viewed the nautical museum, and ate lobster for 3 p.m. dinner. Kelsey drove down Main Street twice, once going east and once going west, to check the storefronts on each side of the two-lane street. The candy shop advertised fresh fudge and seawater taffy. There were oil paintings of the sea in the art gallery window. She didn’t notice any cracked glass, however. “Detect,” Kelsey reiterated. “Detect, Pal!”
Nothing as they passed the nautical museum, which promised a wealth of REGIONAL MARITIME HISTORY and AUTHENTIC VICTORIAN TREASURES for just FIVE DOLLARS & FREE FOR CHILDREN, based on the sandwich board outside its door. The shop that sold beach supplies, postcards, and keychains had an orange “Closed” sign over its door. The coffee shop was also closed.
“Hear anything?” Kelsey asked.
Pal didn’t make a peep.
“Well, then…” On the curb, a seagull nibbled salt from a french fry bag. It occurred to Kelsey that buzzards weren’t the only feathered scavengers on earth. Gulls could eat meat, too.
She made a U-turn and returned to the street that passed the brackish pond. Kelsey continued along the coast, heading toward the swarm of gulls. Most of the birds were huddled near the roadside, although they scattered upward as her car approached. Kelsey parked and rolled down her window. From the awkward vantage point, she couldn’t tell whether the dark smear on the pavement was an animal or garbage.
“Detect,” she reminded Pal, slinging his bag over her shoulder. “We’ll be fast.” Outside, she could feel every grain of sand beneath her feet, a reminder that she wore mud-drenched, threadbare socks. It only took a moment for Kelsey to confirm that the shape used to be a racoon. The poor thing could be the casualty of a sports car. She hoped that was the case.
Kelsey called Clint.
“Did you find the bastard?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She considered the street. “I did find evidence that it’s still in town. Can I ask a favor?”
“What do you need?”
“Spread the word to watch out for fresh roadkill. It’s probably too smart to hunker down near a meal, but any pattern we find may help pinpoint its location.”
“He’s consuming animal breaths?”
“Most likely. This burdened breath is an opportunist.”
“I’ll spread the word,” Clint said. “What are your plans?”
“Widen my search.” Her stomach rumbled. “After a late lunch.”
After Kelsey ate lobster bisque in a café on Main Street, she took Pal on a walk, ostensibly to get a closer look at the storefront glass but actually to buy a bag of taffy. Along the way, she noticed the museum display window. Much like the sandwich board, it advertised:
REGIONAL MARITIME HISTORY!
OVER ONE HUNDRED DETAILED SHIP MODELS!
NEW! TREASURES FROM THE DAMNED QUEEN MARY!
“A shipwreck,” Kelsey said. “That’s a disaster. What do you think, Pal?”
“Were you talking to me?” An elder drifted behind them, her steps long and moonwalk-light. A yellow canvas balloon, easily large enough to cradle six human last breaths, was strapped to her back.
“Sorry, no. Just thinking out loud. I’ve never heard about the Queen Mary.”
“Sad exhibit,” the woman said. “All the things they left behind. Mary drowned six hundred people.” A breeze snagged her balloon, and the woman nearly stumbled. “It used to be easier,” she said, “when I weighed more, and they… and they were fewer.”
“Who?”
“My family. I carry them.”
“Me too.”
“In that little backpack?”
“It’s just my dog.”
Her parents hadn’t lingered. When the time came, they slipped out the eastward-facing window. Although Kelsey had not been there—in fact, she had been a thousand miles away, sleeping in a motel room with old timey circus posters on the wall—she knew they fell up together, as if holding hands.
Sometimes, the heartache in her chest demanded to know: why didn’t they wait to say goodbye?
“Enjoy the exhibit,” the woman said, waving as a gust of wind pulled her down the sidewalk.
It occurred to Kelsey that last breaths had little use for things. But family? Friends? Enemies? Those were eternally meaningful. Maybe the burdened breath was desperate to remain on Earth because somebody they loved couldn’t leave.
Kelsey pushed her way into the museum—the door resisted her, dragging against a thick mat—and stepped into a small lobby; there was an unoccupied reception counter to her left and a laminated poster on the wall to her right. Navy blue text across the poster read:
Beyond this point, you will witness the following artifacts from the damned Queen Mary on display in the Sunny Nautical Museum:
Ornate pocket watch
Tobacco tins
Child’s boots
Reading glasses
Jewelry and jewelry box
Multicolored vials
Paper money, playing cards, cutlery, keys, clothing, sealed urn, suitcases and purses
A cherub’s head
Binoculars, boarding passes, hand mirror, hats, toys, a toilet
Stained glass from the ballroom dome, a thousand pieces splintered by the screams of six hundred last breaths.
After reading the poster, Kelsey was certain that she knew how to find the murderer. She strode into the dim exhibit room beyond the lobby. There, a young man in a tartan vest and a matching checkered bowtie guarded the cherub head, which had its own display case. A tag with the name “Billy” was pinned over his heart, but Kelsey would have guessed that the guy worked in the museum based on his professorial outfit alone.
“Hi there,” she said.
“Hello. Did you pay for admission?”
“Nobody was at the front desk.”
“Huh.” He leaned to the right, making a show of checking the lobby for himself. “Mr. Kay must be on a break. You can buy a ticket on the way out. Unfortunately, I’m a guide, not a money-taker guy.”
“Actually, that’s great,” Kelsey said. “Because I have questions. How long have the Queen Mary artifacts been here?”
“Six months,” he said.
“Do you know where they came from?”
“The Iowa City Natural History Museum.”
“Just a minute.” She took her phone from her pant pocket, ignoring Billy’s disapproving eye roll, and searched for “Iowa City accident” on her phone. Ten months ago, a child drowned in a drainage pipe. Thirteen and sixteen months ago, two unrelated people drove into the Iowa River, where they perished in their cars. And those were just the unusual deaths reported by a cursory internet research. “What’s in the urn, Billy?” She pointed to the display case across the room; a three-foot-high crematorium urn shaped like a blooming lily dominated the collection. “Better yet: who’s in the urn?”
“The urn? If I recall, imaging tech found ashes. They couldn’t identify the person.”
“Did they also screen for last breaths?” She recalled how a hundred years ago, it had been in vogue to carry the deceased with their ashes.
“Imaging tech always screens for breaths. It just has
ashes.”
“In that big thing?”
“Sometimes, a vessel is commissioned before the family knows whether the breath will linger.”
“I think you should open it.”
“The lid is soldered shut.”
“Shimmer screens are unreliable. They just detect noisy last breaths. By the way, how often do you get goosebumps here?”
Billy crossed his arms and glanced at the display case. “I mean, in the evening, I guess I… but goosebumps aren’t compelling enough of a reason to damage a relic. It’s been five hundred meters under the sea.”
“Have you heard about the murders in town?” she asked.
“Obviously,” he said. “Are you implying that there’s a shimmer in the urn, and it’s… somehow… escaping? And killing people? That’s impossible.”
“No,” Kelsey said. “I suspect that about one hundred years ago, a mysterious person—let’s call him Frank—boarded the Queen Mary with that urn because he took it with him everywhere. He couldn’t leave it behind; it carried the last breath of his beloved wife or child. And when the boat sank, Frank drowned—but instead of drifting up, he stayed with the urn. Frank dwelled down there, cannibalizing other stragglers and the breaths of crushed squid and fish. That was his existence, decades spent in the black and heavy water, until divers found the urn and stuck it in this exhibit, which forced Frank into the light. He won’t let go of the person he loved.
“He’d rather be a monster.”
Kelsey took a plain glass microscope slide from her pocket; during work, slides were her miner’s canary. “Take this, Billy,” she said. “Humor me.” She crossed the room and knelt outside the Plexiglas display case with the cherub head, urn, and silverware. Kelsey shouted, “Who is he? Who follows you? Who carried you onto the Queen Mary? Who do you call at night?”
