Lightbringer (24 page)

“Ha-ha, very funny. Okay, so if they can talk, could a horse, I don't know, tell a knock-knock joke?”

“Not exactly,” Piotr drawled, looking at Wendy oddly, as if she'd suddenly grown a third eye or sprouted wings from her shoulder blades. “Words are an entirely human concept, Wendy. But the Never is different from the world you exist in. Things are far more free-flowing and open. Language exists, yes, but not exactly as you know it. Words aren't always finite over here, they carry ideas straight to the heart.”

“So specific languages don't really matter once you're dead? You all can understand one another anyway? And get what horses and cats and whatnot are saying?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Piotr smiled. “I am Russian,
da?
When a concept is hard to express in English, I still speak my native tongue. The gist is passed on to the others but not the exact words. But they do understand.”

“So weird,” Wendy said. “I guess it's just one of those things I'll have to be dead to get. Piotr, you are blowing my mind over here,” Wendy laughed, shaking her head with disbelief. “When I get home I'm totally gonna sit down and see if Jabber will talk with me. But you! I still can't believe that you had your very own Mr. Ed.”

Piotr frowned. “Mister who?”

“It was this old TV show? From the fifties?” Wendy licked her lips, feeling foolish, and shrugged. “You know, reruns? Nick at Night? No? It's not important. You were probably too busy saving the Lost or whatever to pay attention to television in the fifties anyway.”

“I'm told the television set is an amazing invention,” Piotr said gravely. “However, most mechanical things, unless they are very, very simple, do not work in the Never. So I've never seen one that worked. The shells of television sets, certainly. Many people pour emotion daily into those boxes, the way they are doing with computers now, so more than a few show up on our side. But advanced machines rarely work for us. They turn on but there is just static.”

“But my calculator isn't a simple machine. It's got a computer chip in it, right?”

Piotr shrugged. “I do not know. I died before these computers were created. Perhaps it is simple enough in its own way?”

“Huh. Weird. Maybe it's a combustion engine thing. I mean, I've always wondered why I saw only certain sorts of cars in the Never,” Wendy mused as they crossed the street with the light. She hung to the back of the pack of lunchtime businessmen so Piotr could avoid being bumped and burned. “Fancy cars mostly, BMWs, Porsches, Ferraris, and such. But they never moved.”

“They wouldn't. Bicycles, skateboards, skates…simple machines to use and well-loved in general, especially by children. Any of them are real finds.” Piotr indicated a bike messenger, whizzing by at frightening speeds with a stack of red insulated sleeves strapped to the rack behind the seat. “See how that bike glows around the edges? When he finally throws it away it will most certainly come over. It's well used and well loved.”

“So if you've got bikes lying around all over the place, why don't the Walkers use them?”

Wendy stopped near a wheeled cart where a man was selling fragrant hot dogs. Piotr's eyes twitched and the cartoons on the cart popped out at him, frantic yellows and reds that screamed across his retinas in a fury of painful color. Piotr turned away as Wendy purchased her lunch, forking over neatly folded bills for a cup of sloshing soda and a long dog oozing onions and relish. They walked across the street and she settled on a bench beside a pocket park, a tiny fountain birdbath festooned with thick fronds burbling merrily only ten feet away.

Piotr shrugged. “I don't know everything there is to know about Walkers,” he tried to explain as Wendy bit into her lunch. A quartet of teenagers passed the small park, singing
Deck the Halls
in four-part harmony, unconcerned with the looks they were getting or the warm gust of wind blowing their hair off their faces and billowing the backs of their choir jackets nearly off their shoulders. “But I do know that when Walkers lose their life cord they lose most memories of what it's like to be human. All they remember is what it's like to feed.”

Wendy, still gazing after the fa-la-la-ing students, took another large bite of her lunch. “It still seems so weird,” she mumbled as she chewed, holding up one hand to cover her mouth. “What in the hell were half a dozen Walkers doing running through town, then? Especially these Walkers. They jumped a bus to get down here, Piotr. Phased right into one and sat at the back. I nearly gave myself a hernia racing to catch the dumb thing.”

“You are serious?” Stunned at this, Piotr struggled for words. For as long as he could remember the Walkers had struggled with the remnants of living society, preferring to live at the edges and avoid all mention and memory of who they'd once been. Walkers walked—that was what they did. They didn't run and they most certainly didn't
catch buses
to travel across town. The thought of them doing otherwise sent chills down Piotr's spine. But…was he truly surprised? Really? Because he'd had an inkling about this already, hadn't he? He'd sensed that something wasn't quite right.

I knew there was something strange about those Walkers in the park yesterday
, part of him triumphed.
Walkers just don't work in complex teams like that, strategizing their attacks. At least, they never did before.

“I bet it's the White Lady,” Wendy said. She drank deeply of her soda, pressed fingers over her mouth, and burped behind her hand. “Excuse me,” she muttered. “Anyway, yeah, maybe the White Lady is teaching the Walkers all about technology on top of everything else.” Wendy wrinkled her nose in distaste. “And you saw their faces yesterday, right? More and more of those sorts of Walkers are showing up. You know, mutilated and stitched back together somehow. It looks really sick, if you ask me.”

“Specs said they were taking him to see the White Lady,” Piotr agreed. “That she had the ability to keep him from walking through walls somehow. What if she has some way of enhancing the Walkers around her, too? Not just mending their flesh, but their minds as well? What if she can make them remember how to use machinery? Or could reteach them?”

Wendy whistled. “That would be bad. Real bad. They could go anywhere then, not just hang around the cities.”

“We must stop her,” Piotr whispered. “Not just rescue the Lost, but stop the White Lady herself. Undo everything she's done thus far. Maybe make the Walkers forget what she's taught them. Start over from scratch.”

“I agree and I'm there with you, every step of the way,” Wendy said. “But the question is…how?”

T
he day spun its hours out the way days do. Twilight found Wendy unlocking her front door and stepping into the foyer. In the living room Chel was sprawled out on the couch, arms pillowed beneath her head and snoring as some reality show droned on low in the background. Wendy covered her with a light blanket and went into the kitchen for a snack.

There was a good smell of cooking there: tomatoes and garlic, onions, and a hint of something spicy and sharp. A pot squatted on the back burner, simmering, and when Wendy lifted the lid and leaned over it she was hit with a cloud scented with rich, creamy garlic. It smelled heavenly and Wendy's mouth filled with water, stomach grumbling.

“The sauce is okay, but we have to eat it over spaghetti since I messed up the ravioli,” Jon said, entering the kitchen from the back yard. His basketball was clutched under one arm and he was limping, supporting his weight on his right leg. The knee of his jeans had been torn out; gravel and grass flecked the spongy, raw wreck that had been his knee.

“What happened to you?” Wendy snatched the paper towels off the kitchen counter and hurried to the sink, dampening a handful under the cold tap. Jon slid onto one of the high kitchen stools at the counter and provided his knee for inspection, wincing each time Wendy dabbed the damp edge against the bloody flesh.

“My lay-ups suck now,” he admitted as Wendy flicked on the kitchen light in order to better see his wound. Mournfully he plucked at the fabric on his thigh. “Nana just bought me these jeans, too.”

“Well, it's just a scrape,” Wendy replied, gingerly pulling the shredded jeans away from his knee when she was done, verifying that it was the only wound on him. “A nasty one, but it doesn't look like you need stitches.” Rising, she patted him on the shoulder. “Hang tight, there's some knockoff Neosporin and gauze in the bathroom.”

When she returned to the kitchen, Jon held out his hands. “Give me that stuff and go stir the sauce, will you? I don't want the bottom to scorch.”

“Aye-aye, Cap'n,” Wendy agreed. “Anything else?”

“Turn the heat down to low. It needs to sit for fifteen or so.” While she did so, Jon thumbed the lid off the antibiotic ointment and slathered a largish dollop across his knee with fussy precision. “When you're done, can you hold the gauze while I tape it down?”

“Gladly.” Wendy ended up applying the gauze for him and it reminded her so strongly of the prior times she'd done this very chore for Jon that she found herself growing misty eyed.

“It's just a scrape, you big baby,” Jon admonished as Wendy applied the last stripe of tape and straightened, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I'm not gonna die.”

“It's not that,” she sniffled, ripping a paper towel off the roll to use as a tissue. “It's just, I don't know, you haven't come to me with a scrape in, what, five years? Six?”

Uncomfortably, Jon shrugged. “When he was here, Dad usually handled that stuff. You and Mom were always busy, you know, at the park and stuff.”

At the park. Wendy sighed. “At the park” had been the code she and her mother used to mean “out reaping.” She hadn't had to use that excuse since their mother's accident. So long as Dad wasn't around, saying simply that she was going “out” usually sufficed, and these days the few times a month Dad was home he was generally at the hospital. Thanks to their sort of truce, Wendy felt little need to explain her whereabouts to him.

“I guess you're right,” she agreed. “I was at the park a lot.”

Jon shrugged. “Whatever. We got used to it. Mom and Dad didn't care, so what's the big deal, right?” He limped to the stove and dipped a long wooden spoon into the sauce, smacking his lips and smiling widely at the taste. “Momma mia, the sauce, she is perfecto!”

“How are the calories?” Wendy asked and then kicked herself for asking. Jon had enough stress in his life as it was; the last thing he needed was for her to get on his case about his weight, especially since they hadn't yet talked about her bitchiness over the past few months.

But Jon didn't seem to care. He rolled his eyes and licked the spoon elaborately, running his tongue far past the point where the sauce ended. “Ish's gweate,” he declared around his mouthful of spoon.

“Sorry I asked,” Wendy cried, throwing up her hands and chuckling as her brother slobbered all over the spoon. In the living room, Chel stirred and sat up, her curls sticking up every which way and frizzy at the top.

Wendy affected an outrageous accent. “My apologies, good sir!”

Discarding the damp spoon in the sink, Jon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Naw, no worries. It's got a skim milk base, I promise, and it's going over whole wheat pasta.” He patted his gut and grinned, waggling his eyebrows wildly. “This baby's goin' away slow, but yes, ma'am, she is a goin’.”

“Smells tasty in here,” Chel yawned, staggering to the refrigerator and grabbing a plastic bottle filled with some thick, milky-looking liquid. Flush with sleep, Chel caught Wendy's eye and shook the bottle. “Protein shake,” she said coolly. “Want some?”

“I'll pass,” Wendy said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Especially if it's from Dad's can. That stuff is foul.”

Chel shrugged and took a deep gulp of the stuff. “Add some fruit, it's no big deal. It stays down, too.” She wiped her thumb against the corner of her mouth, checking for stray drops of shake. “I saw you go out with Eddie this morning. You done being a bitch yet?”

Amused at how casually Chel asked, Wendy couldn't help but smile. “No guarantees, but I think I'm over my bitchy phase, yeah. You done puking after every other meal?”

“Working on it,” Chel said mildly and took another sip. “It's a little harder than I thought it'd be.” Her head dipped down and she scowled, fingers tapping in rapid rhythm against the plastic sides of her bottle. “Okay, a lot harder.”

“She quit the squad,” Jon explained. Chel scowled and shot him a dark look. Jon returned her scowl with a calm smile, shrugging as if to say
she had to find out sometime.

“But you love cheering!” Wendy protested. The idea that her bright and vivacious sister would quit cheerleading was as foreign to her as the idea of ceasing the search for their mother's soul. “What about Dad? Does he know?”

“Nana does,” Chel said, belligerent. “She said she'd pay Dad back for all my gear for this year as a Christmas gift. You know, in case he flips about the money.” Nervous now, Chel gnawed her lower lip and lifted the drink up once again. Looking at her trembling hand, Wendy realized that Chel's perfect nails, always manicured and glossed to a high shine, were now ragged and blunt, ground down nearly to the quick.

She's chewing on them
, Wendy realized, examining her sister closely for the first time in months. Chel's nails were now too short, her hair starting to show glossy red at the roots, and even her makeup was barely there, only a one-two swipe of lip-gloss and eye shadow, leaving her forehead shiny and cheeks pale.

“You're a mess,” Wendy breathed, hardly able to get the words past lips gone numb with shock. Guilt clawed at her chest, making breathing tough. “Did I do this? Make you a mess by picking on you over the diet pills?”

“I did this to me,” Chel retorted, draining the last of the protein shake and throwing the bottle in the sink for Jon to rinse out. “You just gave me a wake up call.” She snorted. “But don't congratulate yourself just yet; you've still been a mega bitch and if I were smart, I ought to tell you to go to hell.”

“But you're not smart?”

She shrugged. “No one's smart when it comes to family. Blood is thicker than smart.”

“Before we all break down and group hug like the bunch of sissies we are,” Jon interrupted, “Eddie stopped by earlier, Wendy. He's going out of town for the holidays after all. He said you'd better text him back later and he dropped off a box. It's on your bed.”

“A box?” Wendy straightened up from the counter and started toward the stairs. Though she'd seen Eddie just that morning, the idea that he'd taken the time to stop by her house made her a little nervous. They may have made up, but things were still tense between them and she wasn't sure what to expect.

“Probably a Christmas gift,” Jon called. “Food's almost ready, though. You coming down for dinner?”

“Yeah,” she called back, mounting the stairs two at a time. “I'll be right down.”

The box was compact and papered in old national geographic pages. Wendy lifted it and shook. There was a small rattling noise within, albeit muffled.

Careful of her fingers, Wendy used the nail file rattling around her pen cup to slice through the scotch tape layered around each edge of the box. The lid lifted off and fluffy cotton balls puffed over the edge of the box in a white cloud. Wendy set these aside.

“What the hell?” she murmured, shaking a seatbelt buckle and a piece of folded black construction paper out of the box. Holding the buckle up to the light, Wendy depressed the bright orange button on the front but the buckle appeared stuck in its clasp. The strap it had once been connected to was gone but a tough, thick beige thread was pinned within a crack in the clasp. The end of the thread was darker, rust colored, and stiff.

Blood
, Wendy thought, and thumped to the floor.
Dried blood.

Running her fingers over the buckle, Wendy wished that she'd been there to greet Eddie when he'd brought this gift. She didn't need to be told what it meant to him, or what lengths he'd probably gone to in order to get his hands on it after the accident. Instead Wendy turned the buckle over in her hands and tried to recall Mr. Barry's face, the face she must have seen hundreds—if not thousands—of times before the accident.

“Oh Eddie,” Wendy sighed, squeezing the buckle tightly. “I'm so sorry.”

Eddie's note was written in his familiar looping cursive—silver ink shone bright against the black paper:

Wendy
,

I know you think it's a joke, all the times I've said that I love you or that I'd do anything for you. But the thing is…it isn't. I am in love with you. I have been for years. What's not to love? You're smart and funny and fun to hang out with. More importantly, you're my best friend, my amigo, the only person who gets me and doesn't think I'm some weird freak.

I know that Miss Manners would probably frown on a missive of undying affection added alongside a Christmas gift. It's probably rude or something. But I've been wanting to say this stuff to you for years. And I have been. I've been saying it all along but you always blow me of for think I'm joking and the one time I got you to even halfway consider it, back at the start of school when I kissed you, you thought I was just blowing off steam cuz of the crap I said about your mom or the crap you said about my dad. Either way, you forgave me for the kiss. But the thing is…I didn't want your forgiveness Wendy; I wanted you to kiss me back.

Because I love you.

So a few months ago I made this deal with myself. I said, “Self, if she doesn't take you up on the next offer, say goodbye. Do your own thing for a while. See how she likes life without Eddie the Great hanging around, slobbering after her affection like a dog waiting for scraps.”

Well…you know the rest. I started dating Gina and you started falling apart. At first a big part of me was sort of thrilled—you loved me back, you just didn't know it yet!—but then I realized that it wasn't about me. Something else was going on. But by then it was too late. You weren't answering my calls or texts and you were avoiding me at school.

I was a shitty friend, Wendy. I am so sorry about that. I decided to make up for it. I talked with the twins and we decided an intervention was in order. Obviously my declared love for you would heal you! This time I wasn't going to take no for an answer. This time I was going to honestly figure out what was going on in your head without projecting all my hopes and wants onto you. This time I'd be a friend first and a wanna-be-boyfriend second.

It worked, sort of. You'd just started to open up and then WHAM, you had to go. So I waited. And waited. And waited. I expected you to be like normal when you came back to the car—tired, cranky, maybe angry, the way you normally are after a reap—but you weren't. You were glowing, Wendy. And just like that, I knew.

You were in love…but not with me.

So all during that talk we had this morning at the diner, I knew. Every single time you said his name—Peter, all gooshy like—it was like you were stabbing me in the leg with your fork. Before, when you talked about your new “ghost friend” I figured you'd picked up a human equivalent of Jabberwocky, except not so grouchy, and probably around our age. But I had no idea you'd fallen in love.

Suddenly everything made sense. And I hated him. I don't even know the guy but I wished him dead…again!

I'll admit, Wendy, I love you but the idea of you being head over heels for some dead guy grosses me out a lot. I know, I know, it's not like that, ghosts aren't like their bodies, they're not rotted or anything unless they've let themselves go bad, but still…honestly, Wendy, what do you know about this guy? I mean, you couldn't even tell me when he freaking DIED. “He's Russian,” that's all you could say about who he was before. Is that a good basis for a relationship? He could be, like, Rasputin's bastard stepson or something! He could have been some peasant farmer that beat his wife daily! He could have been a vodka-obsessed alcoholic…or worse!