Psychopomp: A Novella (2 page)

For the next few nights, I couldn’t tell what was real and what my subconscious created in dreams. I might have seen living corpses, ambling around in tattered clothes. There might have been faces breaking free of the dirt, a snake slithering among them. And one man orchestrating some sick experiment, his voice low and soothing, like honey.

We will meet again
, he told me, and I believed him.

I thought it a mercy I couldn’t remember that man’s face.

But I thought of the ambassador outside the center and knew something terrible had happened in the three days Blanca said I’d been gone. Somehow I could feel the mark those days had left on me, horrible memories fighting to make themselves known.

Finally I felt physically better, almost strong again, and I left the house. Talking to Pell would ease my mind.

The haze seemed especially thick that day. Before leaving school, I’d learned about the severe drought that had left the world barren and dry. Wind had stirred dust into the air, where it had hung for decades. Though this layer of dust tended to trap heat on the ground, if the drought continued, eventually the dust would become so thick it would block out the sun altogether. Then the earth would see a new ice age and humanity would have a whole new set of problems to face.

Wiping sweat from my brow as I walked, I imagined a world encased in ice. My cheeks would be red not from heat, but cold. I would know what frost felt like. I could walk on the frozen surface of the ocean.

Passing the med center, I tried not to look at the desperate people clustered outside. They were so sickly and pathetic, yet hopeful too, as they waited to see one of the doctors who took turns visiting from Cizel. Most of them would go home without seeing one. Some of them would die, unable to afford treatment. Sometimes their bodies gave out in the streets and sat there until a friend or family member—or maybe even the psychopomp-man—moved them.

This was a possible future for any of us here in Marshwick.

The med center wasn’t always overcrowded, since most people tried to treat themselves at home or did whatever they could to avoid falling ill in the first place. But a cold or a stomach upset was easy to handle at home. Organ failure, infection, and fever were different problems entirely.

With the med center behind me, I breathed easier. Up ahead, I began to hear the comforting sounds of the lane. Hawkers called out to passersby. Customers haggled fiercely. Children darted back and forth. There were stalls, carts, and blankets unrolled over the ground. They sold homemade food, handmade clothes and décor, small fish. If the docks were the blood of Marshwick, the lane was the heart.

Pell had laid out her jewelry, bright against the dark blue blanket she used. As always, I was amazed at the delicate, beautiful things she’d made with her own hands from materials she’d found in the dirt.

“Have you been sick?” she asked.

“I gave plasma,” I said, nodding. “But… there’s something else.”

I told her about the ambassador I’d seen at the center. I told her how I’d suddenly found myself standing on the docks without knowing how I’d gotten there. I mentioned the days missing from my memory and the dreams I’d been having. These things were connected somehow.

Pell believed me, but she looked uncertain. “This could be serious,” she agreed solemnly. “You don’t want to get involved with an ambassador. You should just lay low for a while.”

“Yeah.” My shoulders sagged. Talking to her about this hadn’t eased my mind at all. “Good idea. Thanks.”

After leaving her, I wandered along slick streets plastered with the tattered squares of anti-war flyers. Some of the flyers remained in shop windows, colorful and angry. Their corners fluttered swiftly in passing breezes like the wings of trapped butterflies.

The screens were tuned to a pre-recorded government speech. A dark-skinned ambassador flatly explained that the next produce delivery would be delayed. Her voice overlapped itself, echoing hollowly through the alleys. I stopped to look into her unsympathetic eyes. Home filtration systems would be installed soon, she promised, as the ambassadors were always promising.

This recording had been made specifically for Marshwick. In Cizel, most of the homes were already equipped to recycle urine into potable water. And they could easily buy their own produce on every corner whenever they wanted. They lived closer to the greenhouses and always got produce before us.

“Marlo?”

I turned at the familiar voice, my heart thumping. “Dominique. Hey.”

Her skin glowed with perspiration, strands of dark brown hair plastered to her forehead. “Anden finally let you out of the house, huh?” She smiled.

“What? I don’t… Oh.” I fiddled nervously with the hem of my shirt and managed a laugh, realizing she was only teasing. This was the first time I’d seen an old classmate since I’d stopped going to school. “Yeah.”

“How are you? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

Three years. I was thirteen when I stopped going to school. Somehow, after my parents were gone and Anden started taking care of me, I couldn’t muster the ambition to go back there.

“I know. It’s been… busy.” I gave an awkward smile.

“I live in Cizel, but I’m out running errands today,” Dominique said. “I work at my mom’s cleaning agency now.”

“You go to the mansions?” A bead of sweat trickled down my temple and I wiped it away.

She nodded. “They’re huge. No one’s ever home. You’d be surprised how filthy those people can be.”

But I wasn’t surprised at all. My mind filled with darkness and my hands started to shake.

“Are you all right?”

I nodded quickly, curling my fingers around the hem of my shirt to still my hands. “Sí. Estoy bien.”

Both of us glanced up at the screens, then back at each other. We smiled because there was so little to say.

“I’ve gotta go now,” I said.

“Oh, me too. See ya!”

We parted with awkward waves, and I ignored the screens, lost in thought and furious at Dominique for speaking to me.

It wasn’t right I should feel this way. I’d done nothing wrong and my situation wasn’t so different from anyone else’s. Plenty of people stopped going to school while still young to help out their families. Times were desperate. People understood. But I knew my distance from my old friends had everything to do with shame.

I made my way to the building that used to be the library back when people read paper books. It had flooded a long time ago and now it just sat there, a graveyard of words. I was the only one who ever visited.

All the ultramarine tiles that had once decorated the exterior were cracked into thousands of tiny pieces that littered the ground. Inside, part of the low ceiling had collapsed in a near perfect circle over the children’s reading area. The sun’s faint light permeated the rubbled aisles and mildewed air. All the books remained, squished together on bowed shelves. Decades ago, one of the last rainstorms had flooded the area. Water had completely submerged the bottom row, soaking the pages through. The pages had expanded as they dried. Now they were stuck together with salt and dried black mold. Time and dust had ravaged the rest.

I wasn’t a reader, so the ruined books didn’t matter much to me. But sometimes, as I wandered among the debris, I’d come across a book that caught my eye. The print or pictures might be completely faded, but not all the time. I’d hold the book, listening to the stiff, fragile pages crackle lightly as I turned them. My eyes would skim idly over the words. This was how I learned about fabled lands and hypothetical landmasses, and how I learned to dream. This was why I returned again and again to a place that served no purpose.

And it was why, one day, I would leave my home and never go back.

It had grown dark, though it was never really dark in Cizel. At night, the streets blazed with purple and pink lights. Even the metal plants along the sidewalks burned from within as they spouted oxygen into the atmosphere.

Dominique wasn’t supposed to be out after dark, but she’d had to retrieve the laundered uniforms before returning. The task had taken longer than she’d expected. Behind her, the launderer’s door locked for the evening. Until now, she hadn’t really felt alone.

She was fearless. Most of the time she believed it. Others must have too, for people tended not to bother her.

With the bag of uniforms folded over her arms, she began to walk. Streets away, she could hear laughter and the dazzling music of some party. But on this street there was only the sound of her own footsteps.

And men’s voices, just ahead. There was no reason to worry, not yet. But she couldn’t tell exactly where the voices were coming from, and so she couldn’t avoid the men. The streets of Cizel were familiar but not always safe. She’d managed all right so far, but she knew horrible things could happen. Just last night she’d fallen asleep to a litany of bombs, unable to tell whether they’d come from warring countries or one of the terrorist groups that opposed the war.

Holding her breath, she rounded a corner. There, directly in her path, were two men. In their fine clothing, they looked respectable enough. Neither of them appeared to notice her. Clutching her bag more tightly, she started to turn around and find another way back to the agency. She may have been fearless, but she wasn’t stupid enough to court danger.

And yet she couldn’t help but pause when, suddenly, one of the men collapsed to the glittering black pavement. The man left standing began cleaning the blade of a small knife, bloodying what had been a pristine handkerchief. Dominique’s brown eyes were round and she couldn’t bring herself to move. If she didn’t move, he wouldn’t see her.

But he looked up, catching her frightened gaze. Very calmly, he folded the soiled handkerchief and placed it in his lapel pocket. She didn’t notice what he did with the knife.

“You saw what happened,” he said blandly.

Dominique gulped. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Come here.”

Damn. He was going to kill her. She knew it, yet his certain, precise command was somehow too difficult to disobey. Her legs quivered as she stood before him and she couldn’t meet his shadowed eyes. Instead, she stared at the dead man, unable to look away.

“I’d ask you to make me a promise, but in my experience, they don’t mean anything,” the killer said.

“Please,” she begged, her gaze still locked on the dead man. “I was only on my way back to work.”

“Where do you work?”

“A cleaning agency. We clean the mansions in the forest, mostly.” She took a deep breath, fighting down a growing panic. “I really didn’t see anything. You must let me on my way—”

“Of
course
I’ll let you on your way,” the killer said caustically. He removed black gloves and tucked them inside his coat. It was too hot for coats. “But because of what you’ve seen—and I
know
you saw it, dear girl—I must ask you to agree to grant me a favor whenever I may require it.”

“A favor?”

“Yes, a
favor
. You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Y-yes, of course.”

“Good. Now get out of here. You needn’t worry about finding me. I will come to you.”

With those words she could move again, and she sprinted past him. She made her way back to the agency without any other incidents. Delia didn’t even yell at her for how long it had taken to retrieve the uniforms, which was a small relief. But when Dominique retreated to her room upstairs, her thoughts clouded with trouble and terror.

In the morning she went right to work, so she didn’t have time to think about what had happened the night before. Delia was proud of owning the one agency that had managed to secure the business of most of the mansion owners. Other cleaning agencies were relegated to offices or institutions or the aftermaths of parties. But hers was exclusive. The work was steady, relatively easy, and the owners were hardly ever home.

Dominique had three mansions to visit that day. She’d never managed to count how many mansions the metal forest contained. It was as if the forest was actually a living thing, shielding those who resided within it.

But Dominique knew that was a ridiculous notion. It was simply the shadows that made counting difficult and the fact that all the white mansions looked the same, like bird’s wings, or the sails of boats.

Her back ached by the time she was ready to leave the last mansion, as it did at the end of every workday. Gathering her supplies, she started for the glass-paned front door.

It opened before she could reach it. She froze. An owner had never come home while she was still there. And this owner, this man with a cold expression and dark hair stepping in from the aqueous outside light, was disturbingly familiar.

The murderer lived here.

“I’ve paid in full for your services,” he said without preamble, removing his gloves and shucking off his coat. He hung it on an old-fashioned coat rack near the door. “You’ll be the only one who cleans for me from now on, and you won’t take any other jobs.”

Dominique recoiled, her mouth dropping open.

“Feel free to check with your supervisor,” he continued. He spoke so carelessly and didn’t even look at her. “You’ll find I speak the truth.”

He walked past her into the house. Tall and broad-shouldered, he moved with ease and grace. She hadn’t noticed, last night, how sleek and impeccable he appeared with his short hair and tailored clothes. It was almost impossible to believe he’d stabbed a man and cleaned the bloody knife with a handkerchief.

Grabbing her tote, Dominique fled the mansion. She followed the path out of the metal forest, trembling with rage and curiosity. There was no doubt he spoke the truth; this wouldn’t have been the first time a rich man thought he could just throw credits at the lowly maid who cleaned up after him. Dominique knew exactly what kind of “services” he’d purchased, but she had no intention of rendering them, favor or no favor.

Bursting through the front doors of the agency, Dominique marched into the back office. Facing Delia, she quickly lost her bluster.

“Delia,” she said stiffly. “Did a man purchase my services today?”

Delia was looking through her ledgers. She nodded, distracted as ever. “Yes. Hiram Bartholomew. He was very polite.”

“Polite?” Dominique cried, distressed. “How can you say that? You know what those men want. You know—”

“He only wants you to clean,” Delia said calmly, holding out a hand to shush her. “Nothing more. Do you really believe I would offer one of my girls to a strange man in such a manner?” The woman’s eyes flashed as if she were appalled Dominique would think such a thing.

One of her girls. Dominique gave a small shake of her head at her mother’s casual dismissal before continuing. “I thought— But he— He’s a—”

Delia’s sharp eyes fixed on her. “Take care of him as you would any client. If he makes advances toward you, let me know immediately. I won’t tolerate such demeaning behavior in my business.”

“All right,” Dominique said. She hesitated before asking something that had haunted her for a long time. This was as good a time as any to voice all her concerns. “Do you ever worry we’ll become a target? This is an older area, but the terrorists—”

“Of course not. Who would ever blow up a cleaning agency or any of the other businesses around here?”

“You’re right, Mother. I’m sorry.” She backed out of the room, adding, “Thank you for this opportunity.”

And then she ran upstairs to her room, heart pounding.