Dead Souls (3 page)

He pulled out a bottle of Ibuprofen (one of the many over-the-counter bottles segregated to the lowest shelf in the medicine cabinet hierarchy), popped the top and dry-swallowed two pills, a preventative measure to ward off the headache he'd be bound to develop upon Mary's return home.

He closed the medicine cabinet and peered into the mirror, frowning at the face staring back at him: meek and mousy, skin peppered with acne; hair, short and curly, already receding at the hairline, the promise of baldness perhaps six or seven years away. He rubbed his eyes, then paced out of the bathroom, the wood floor creaking noisily beneath his footsteps.

He unzipped his knapsack and removed his textbooks, thinking now of his father, an act not so commonly performed. He peered over at the photo of his parents sitting on the nightstand—a decorative choice on the part of Mary;
It matches the portrait of Jesus on the wall
, she'd once said—taken by Johnny himself a few months ago, just moments before they'd all attended his mother's co-worker's funeral. An odd time, Johnny had thought, to snap a picture for prosperity. Ed Petrie was a big man, now losing the dark curly hair he'd passed along to Johnny; this single feature, however, was where their similarities ended. In contrast to Johnny's wiry frame, Ed boasted a gut like a medicine ball that exploded over the waistline of his pants, making it damn near impossible, Johnny thought, to ferret out his privates in order to take a leak. His shirttail was always out—as it was in the photo—and he was always in need of a shave. He held a job—a
union
job, he would brag—as a longshoreman on pier 121 directly below the Brooklyn Bridge. He drank often, and smoked even more.

Ed was a big pushover when it came to Johnny's mother, giving in to all of her idiosyncrasies and religious outbursts with calm replies such as 'Yes dear', and 'Of course,
hon
'. He'd rub his eyes at her every word, most likely hoping to find her gone when he opened them. Of course, she'd still be there in all her bible-slinging glory, reciting the Lord's Prayer, or the Twenty-Third Psalm, and he'd find no choice but to give in and grant her the freedom to run the household under her restrictive guidelines, as long as he was able to go to work twelve hours a day, Monday through Friday, and watch the latest sporting events at Glen's Tavern on the weekends. Ed had spent most of his time avoiding the wrath of Mary. And, avoiding Johnny.

Johnny's relationship with his father was trifling, their conversations kept to a bare minimum. Sometimes weeks would pass without them uttering a single word to one another; the fact of the matter was that Johnny only saw his father on the weekends, at some point between noon and three after Ed woke up, before he headed out to Glen's Tavern on 2nd Avenue and 64th Street. It'd seemed obvious to Johnny that Ed Petrie had never really wanted a child in the first place—the man was a huge lazy ne'er-do-well that only showed attention to his son when he returned from
The Food Emporium
with arms full of groceries (strangely, Johnny would be allowed to the grocery store by himself, but Mary would always preface the two-block walk with a firm "Don't get lost" followed by an emphatic sign of the cross; it seemed that having food in the house was quite worth risking their son's life for). Oddly enough, Johnny was always pleased with the smile on his father's face when he handed over the bags of food.

He tore his eyes from the picture, then dug out the H.G. Wells book from his knapsack. He tossed it on the bed and went back into the kitchen where he took out a quart of milk from the fridge and chugged it straight from the carton, an act, according to Mary, worthy of eternal damnation.

As he chugged, his eyes darted over to the kitchen table where a light beige envelope peeked out from between the pages of a drug store circular. He could see the return address clearly, printed in a dark, old-style font:

Andrew Judson, Attorney-at-Law

14 Main Street

Wellfield
, ME 12789

There he stood, quart of milk in hand, staring at the envelope and wondering what a lawyer from Maine might want with his parents. Soon, however, he quickly came to assume that the letter had been accidentally mishandled, that it had gotten caught up in the circular and was really meant for someone else in the building. He put the milk back in the refrigerator, then stepped toward the table. Looking at the envelope, he felt strangely tentative, as if approaching a cockroach with a paper towel in his hand. He stopped, reached forward and pinched the corner of the envelope, breaths escaping his lungs in quick, sudden bursts.

He wondered incredulously:
Why am I so damn anxious? Is it because I'm snooping into something I really have no business in? Or is it something else? Perhaps I've inherited some of my mother's ills? Lord Jesus Christ, come strike me dead!

He slipped the envelope out from between the ad pages, realizing instantly upon peering at the address that these curious apprehensions he felt were surprisingly justified, rooted by something intuitive he couldn't put into words.

The envelope…it was addressed to him.

August 24th, 1988

5:17 AM

B
enjamin Conroy opened his eyes. The golden light hovering in the air before him slowly vanished, like a shot from a movie projector turning in on itself. Once gone, the circles of gray mist alongside his ears performed the same magical feat. At the tolling of the next bell, he slowly stood up, keeping his feet at the core of the circle, flat against the floor, eyes pinned to the flames rising from the candles centering the pentagrams. He folded his hands together, feeling the beads of sweat running down his naked body as he silently recited a prayer of thankfulness to Osiris.

Flexing his muscles, first in his arms, then his legs, he stepped free of the circle, to his right, between the two pentagrams. The aroma of sandalwood incense filled the room, its rising smoke creeping out of the censer like lengthening tentacles. The candle on the bureau tossed its glow against the smoke-coated walls in quaint, nimble flickers. He stood before the bureau, listening to the vibrating hum of silence between the bells, feeling his nerve endings idling in heated anticipation, and the eager beat of the blood in his ears. For a moment longer he peered longingly into the candle's flame, then opened the bureau drawer where he removed a hooded black robe that had been folded in thirds. He immediately donned the robe, all the while keeping his tear-filled sights on the flame, its golden depths drawing him in, deep into its comforting warmth. He tied the braided sash around his waist, the perspiration on his body melting into the warm cotton fabric of the robe. Then, he pulled the hood over his head, drawing the sides close against his ears. Inside the drawer, he pulled out a small black book, its
 
worn leather releasing a bitter odor—of dry autumn leaves burning in the distant fields. He opened the book to a page scrawled with hieroglyphs and sigils, and silently recited the ancient prayer. Once the prayer was complete, he spread the robe at his chest. He dipped his finger into the censer, dousing it with ash, then gently ran it along the wrinkled scar tissue on his sternum.

"Bryan," he whispered. "May your soul live with us for all of eternity."

He squeezed the book in his hand, the leather comforting beneath his grasp despite the feeling of something heavy turning in his midsection. He turned and exited the room, then stood in the hallway, peering ahead as he awaited the next toll. The sun had begun to climb up over the horizon, sending elongated shadows down the hall, through the front window—the sheer curtains had been drawn, but were mostly inefficient in blocking the pervading light. A bell rang. He looked both ways, up and down the hall, then went left. Hands groping the wall, he reached the first door, which was left ajar, and at the toll of the next bell, pushed it open.

Here, in this room, the curtains were black, and fully drawn. The light, it did not break through at all. The lingering mouth of darkness invited him, cool and welcoming, establishing a faultless milieu for the sacred cause.

He stepped forward into the room, closing the door behind him. Looking forward, he regarded his wife Faith, she kneeling naked in her very own circle, hands upturned against her knees, beaded sweat glistening beneath the toss of candlelight rising from the quartered pentagrams. He gazed about the room and smiled, seeing it perfectly prepared for ritual: the circle, drawn to precise circumference and etched with the many names of God, her personal triangle positioned on the floor alongside it in the southern hemisphere, its apex pointing south. Within the triangle, a line of hexagrams ran like soldiers along the edges, sandalwood smoldering in a
censer
at its heart, a sole candle burning alongside. At her knees lay a leather parchment containing the seal of Osiris, wrapped in black silk. Beside it, two small chalices, one containing water, the other salt, both offerings to the spirit of the Lord.

Benjamin approached the circle. Faith's crystal blue eyes stared straight ahead, toward the curtained window. Within the walls, the bells tolled. Immediately thereafter, a dull pecking sound surfaced at the window, Faith's unwavering stare fixed to it as her lips trembled in soundless prayer. Benjamin spread the curtain, and cracked the window.

On the sill was a single black feather.
A gift from Osiris. Thank you, my Lord
. He retrieved the feather, then closed the window. He returned to Faith and knelt down facing her. Gripping the feather between two fingers, he lifted the lid of the censer and placed it inside. Both husband and wife inhaled the pungent odor that developed.

He took her hands in his and allowed his eyelids to close, his heart now beginning to pound at the initial state of perfection the ritual had brought. He called out to Osiris, his voice a monosyllabic string: "
Come, thou all-powerful Lord Osiris, who exists amongst the Gods in the astral plane, and governs the Realm of Resurrection and Everlasting Life, I conjure thee to bestow upon Faith Conroy your influence of spiritual rebirth, so that she may purely and honorably engage your powers for the purpose of ancestral afterlife, with utmost earnestness and commitment
."

Upon his utterance of the final word in the spell, a bell rang. Benjamin grabbed the candle positioned at the outermost point of Faith's triangle, and dropped it on top of the parchment containing the sigil of Osiris. It immediately burst into flames. They held their hands over the flame, both repeating out loud, "
To your service I dedicate water to cleanse your body, and salt to feed your blood, oh infinitely powerful Osiris, in hope that you may find this an acceptable offering for your bounteousness
."

They broke their grasp, at which point Faith grabbed the chalice of salt and Benjamin the water. At the same instant, they overturned their offerings onto the flame, extinguishing it. Benjamin opened his eyes and gazed at his wife, she naked and glistening with a passive grace in the flickering gloom. He forced himself to cage in the smile of satisfaction attempting to pry his lips wide.

So far, things were going perfectly.
God bless
…

A bell tolled, signifying the next stage of the ritual. Using his index finger, he rubbed it in the wet mess of ash between them, held it up as though displaying a harmless injury, and nodded. Faith closed her eyes and stuck out her naked chest.

On her sternum, directly above the
breastline
, was a mass of scar tissue exactly like her husband's. Benjamin pressed his finger against the bottom of the scar. He slowly traced the shape—a loop up, curving over, and then back down, leaving a trail of wet ash upon the ridges of gnarled flesh.

He pulled his hand away and admired his work.

"Osiris is with you, Faith," he whispered, standing up.

She nodded, then stood and put on her robe, which had been folded on the bed behind her.

The bell tolled.

Joining hands, they both exited the room.

September 6th, 2005

4:03 PM

D
ownstairs on the second floor of the apartment building, someone began playing
Jimi
Hendrix at a high volume, sending vibrations up into Johnny's feet. The beat of
Purple Haze
fought hard against the chilling strike of nerves that assaulted the rest of his body. He made a deep-breathed effort to ignore his thumping heart, and his shaking hands, and tucked an index finger into the corner of the envelope and ran it across the top, tearing the paper along the crease. Inside, a letter folded in thirds peeked out. It was in the same beige color of the envelope. He licked his dry lips, and removed it.

He found himself hoping that the letter would be an odd piece of junk, part of a mass mailer directed to future college students (of course Mary had no intention of sending their boy to college; no, her grand plan was to send him to work so he could play his part in supporting the everyday foundations of the Petrie family,
thank the good Lord for my boy's presence
; needless to say, Johnny hadn't worked a day in his life yet, with all the religious studies imparted upon him). He peered at the envelope again and saw that it had been manually stamped—no presorted marker here. This letter, whatever its contents, was deliberate, and meant for him.

Dropping the empty envelope to the table, he unfolded the top third of the letter. Centered on the paper was Andrew Judson's heading, printed in the same old-style font. Below, just above the fold-line, was a date: August 25th, 2005.