Finally he walked through the door. I followed him down a shorter hallway until we came to a second door. This one had a small window about head height, and was a pale green. The doc paused again and turned to look at me. I almost screamed.
“We’ll go through the door,” he said quietly. “In the upper-right corner, there is a TV. When you are ready, I’ll turn the TV on, and on the screen, you’ll see a video of the room next door. I’ll ask the ME’s assistant to show you a face. You say yes or no and that’ll be it. We’ll be done. You can leave. You can go back to your family and let them hold you. That’s what you will need, and you have to let it happen. Do you understand?”
I was distracted by a low buzzing noise. I looked up. The fluorescent light overhead was flickering. The electrical buzz was soft but steady. I stared at the light as it went out then back on. Out then back on.
“Benji?” Doc said, sharper.
I looked back at him and nodded tightly. The light continued to sputter.
He opened the green door. It made no sound. I was led to a windowless room. It was colder than the hallway, much colder. A small desk was against the far wall, battered and littered with papers and pens. Pencils and a handful of paper clips scattered near the edge. A stapler and a half empty cup of coffee. The swivel chair next to the desk was blue and worn. There was another door on the opposite side of the room. It was closed.
In the right-hand corner above me was a TV. The screen was black, and I could see myself in the reflection, eyes blown out, mouth slack. The light in the room flickered here too. I disappeared on and off the black screen with the flashing light. The doc muttered to himself, something about the wiring in the old building. He said nothing about the charge in the air that I was sure he felt. How could he not?
He turned to me again and opened his mouth, but I stopped him. “Doc,” I growled at him. “If you ask me if I’m sure one more time, I’m going to get angry.”
His shoulders sagged as he exhaled. “I’ve known you since you were born,” he said finally. “I’ve known your father since he was even younger than you are now. I can tell you the ache I have in my chest, but it won’t even compare to what I know you are feeling.” He looked away. “I hurt,” he said. “Because he was my friend, I hurt. But you? Benji, he was your father. I can’t even….” He couldn’t finish.
“Show me,” I said. “Show me.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Eric? The family is ready. Okay. Okay.” He closed the phone and slid it back in his pocket. “Deep breath, okay?”
I nodded.
He reached up to switch on the TV and I thought no, no, no, because it wasn’t real, none of this was real. I thought I felt the brush of a hand on my shoulder, but that was impossible because my back was against the wall. There could be no one there.
But even as I screamed at the doc in my head, I said nothing aloud, because I needed proof. I needed proof in this nightmare. Tangible, verifiable proof that I could see with my own eyes, so I wouldn’t have to hear the words I still considered untrue. It was necessary, I told myself. It was the only way.
Doc touched the button on the front of the TV, and there was an electrical snap. A small shower of sparks fell from the back of the TV to the floor, hissing as they hit the cold concrete. The doc jerked his hand away and stared dumbfounded at the TV. A smell of burning plastic permeated the room. “Goddamn wiring,” he muttered. “Told them a thousand times to get this fixed. Not in the budget, my ass.” His phone rang. “Yeah? No, the TV shorted and damn near shocked me! The what? The camera went out?” He frowned. “That’s not hooked up to any of the wiring, is it? That’s odd. How the hell…. No. Just give me a moment.” He snapped the phone shut and reached up carefully toward the TV again, which had already stopped smoking. He tapped the power button quickly, as if thinking he would still be shocked. Nothing happened. He pressed the button and held it down. Nothing.
“Benji, I’m sorry. I don’t know what the hell happened. Looks like the monitor is dead. This building has had the same wiring since the fifties. I guess there was a surge somewhere.”
And now I would never know if my father was truly gone. This was my only chance to see and it had been taken from me. I would have to take it from the words of others that he was gone, and there would always be that little voice in my head that said ‘what if?’ What if they were all lying? What if this whole thing was one big hoax? Big Eddie wouldn’t leave me. He told me he wouldn’t. He told me he’d be back in the afternoon. He promised.
“Open the door,” I said.
Doc’s eyes widened. “What?”
“The TV won’t work. Your camera doesn’t work. Open the door. I want to see for myself.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think—”
“I’m not asking you to think,” I snarled at him. I immediately felt guilty at the way he recoiled, but it did nothing to stop me. “Open the door, Doc.”
“Your father wouldn’t want this,” he said. “He wouldn’t want this for you.”
My eyes started to burn. “If he’s gone, what does it matter?” I said hoarsely. “What does it matter what he would have wanted?”
“It will always matter,” the doc argued.
I shook my head. “You have to have this for your reports. I have to have this for my sanity. Open the door.”
He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse. I thought I was going to have to push my way past him and bust through the door myself. I would be careful—Doc was getting older and I didn’t want to hurt him. But not even he would stand in my way. The sinking feeling I’d had in my stomach for the past two days was swiftly turning into a black hole, and I had to stop it or let it consume me completely. I didn’t know which option was safer. I wasn’t sure if it mattered.
Doc closed his eyes and his lips moved as he muttered to himself, and it took me a minute to realize what he was doing. Out of all the things he could have done, the fact that he seemed to be praying was the most unexpected. I felt sick at my anger, but it did nothing to quell it. I let him have his moment, let him say whatever he wanted to whomever he was saying it to. The buzzing of the lights grew louder, like a hive of angry wasps.
Doc finished his prayer and opened his eyes again. There was still doubt there, but it was resigned. He knew I would not back away from this. Not now. He didn’t even ask me if I was sure again. I almost wished he had.
He turned to the windowless green door that had started to take on a menacing shape. Maybe they were telling the truth, I thought nervously, starting to fall into the black hole. Maybe this is real life. Maybe I’m not asleep.
He opened the door and stuck his head in. I heard the murmur of conversation. I couldn’t make out the words. There were protestations from the unseen Eric, but the tone in Doc’s voice silenced him. I heard footsteps, and then a young man who seemed oddly colorless came through the door, pushing past the Doc. He moved with an economic grace, no step wasted, almost like he was floating. Eric wouldn’t meet my eyes as he flitted by me and out the other door, shutting it behind him.
“It’s cold in here,” the doc told me kindly. “I have a jacket if you think you’ll need it.”
“Why is it cold?” I asked, suddenly unsure.
“To… preserve the body.”
“Like a freezer?”
“Yes.”
That didn’t sit right with me, the thought that my father could be cold. What if he didn’t want to be cold? What if he wanted to be warm? It wasn’t fair. If he couldn’t be warm, then I wouldn’t either. “I don’t want a coat,” I said roughly.
“Okay, Benji. Okay. Do you want me to be in there with you?”
I thought I did. I thought I wouldn’t want to be alone, even more so than I already felt. The black hole was opening wider and I was starting to collapse in on myself. I didn’t want to be alone. But I heard myself say, “No. I’ll go by myself.”
He nodded, as if he’d expected this. “Then
you need to understand something, Benji. I need you to listen and listen good. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“That may be your father in there. But it’s not really. It may look like him, but it’s not him, okay? Your father is in a better place, a warmer place, a happier place, so whatever you see in there is not who he is anymore.” His voice started to waver. “You should pull the sheet from his head, and take just a moment to be sure. You might want to stay longer, but I am begging you not to. I don’t think I could stand it. Just take a peek and then come out, and I’ll help you remember who he was. I’ll help you remember everything he was to you. He’s not what’s lying in there. That body is not all he was. Do you understand?”
That’s what they say to prepare you, I thought. That’s what they say when it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be bad.
“Yes,” I said.
“I wish you’d change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
Unbelievably, he smiled as he shook his head. “Stubborn. Just like him.” And then he held open the door.
A wave of cold air washed over me, carrying with it a sharp medicinal smell, like antiseptic. My arms prickled, the thin long-sleeved shirt I wore doing nothing to keep the cool air out. I felt dizzy when I inhaled, but I swept away the vertigo, forcing my vision to clear, forcing myself to take the next steps until I was through the doorway into what was essentially a freezer.
“Close the door,” I said, trying to keep my teeth from chattering.
For once, Doc did not argue and did as I asked.
I turned away from the door. In the center of the room stood a metal table. On this table was a great white sheet. And under this great white sheet was the form of a man. I could see the points of the feet, facing away from each other at a slight angle. Following the sheet I could see the gentle press of a stomach. Further, a slight peak of the nose.
I tried to breathe through my mouth because the cold air in the room was becoming harder to take, the medicinal smell like waves crashing over me again and again and again. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Get it done! I cried to myself. Get it done and get out!
I took a step.
I ignored the way the lights above began to flicker.
It’s just bad wiring, I told myself.
I took another step and gagged on the smell.
It’s how they keep things clean.
I shivered with the next step, my teeth starting to chatter.
It’s how they keep things preserved.
Another step, and I knew it would just take one more.
I was almost there, so I took it. I took the last step.
The lights buzzed loudly.
Before I could stop myself, before I could turn and run from the room screaming that it was a lie, this was all a lie, and please, please, let me just wake up, I raised my hands to grip the sheet near its edge. I focused on what was so clearly the point of a nose and thought, Big Eddie never had that big of a nose. A mistake! There’s been a mistake and he’s alive! He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s alive. My father was alive. He was not under the sheet. His nose was not that big. He was somewhere safe and soon would come out of hiding and take me in his arms, and I would feel my back crack as he hugged me tightly.
With this certainty, I pulled back the sheet.
And moaned.
It was too much at once. Big Eddie Green was lying there, in this cold room, on this cold table, under this cold sheet that felt scratchy in my hands. I thought I could refuse to believe it at first, that my mind in a last-ditch effort to save itself wouldn’t let me see what was actually there. But it did.
His skin was starkly white, much whiter than it had ever been in life. I was distracted by splashes of color, though, like paint on a canvas. The area around his closed eyes was violet, like a mask made of bruises. A bloodless red cut zigzagged across his forehead, starting from his left eyebrow and rising up to his right temple. A navy blue knot of flesh rose from the left side of his head, as if he’d struck it on impact. His parted lips, a pale pink. The hint of white teeth underneath. That dark stubble on his head. On his face.
Only then did I become aware of a low sound in the room, almost like a strangled cry, a gasp of air. I looked around wildly. No one was there. I was alone. And only then did I realize the sound was coming from me as I let it out again. A hand had seized my lungs and my throat had closed. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t pull in air. I was suffocating next to a Big Eddie whose face was covered in impossible colors, in such an improbable shape. Bile tried to rise, but my throat was too constricted for it to get any farther.
It’s a lie, I tried, one last time. He said he’d come home in the afternoon. It’s a lie. It’s a lie.
I thought the life I have now would not be possible. Your mom. You. None of this seemed like it could be real. Like it could be mine. It seemed impossible.
I opened my mouth to admit the truth to myself.
Instead, I screamed.
I had to be sedated then and for the days that followed. I was told later my screams could be heard throughout the building, and I didn’t stop until Old Doc Heward injected something into my arm. The world fell into a hazy mix of violet, like bruising. Red, like cuts. Blue, like knots. For want of my father, I was lost.
A week after Cal returns, we sit on the roof, in the dark. Waiting. Watching.
So much to say, so many things to ask, but for the moment I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it. For the moment, all I care about is the way I fit against his chest like we were made for each other, two separate pieces interlocking to be made whole. All I care about are his arms around me like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him. For all I know, maybe I am.
That’s all I care about. Until I open my mouth. “The dreams are getting worse,” I say as the sky begins to lighten in the east.
Cal pulls me in tighter. “I know,” he says gruffly. “Don’t you think I know?”
“You saw it the last time, didn’t you.”
“Saw what?” he asks, but he knows.
I wait.
“Yes,” he sighs. “Yes, I saw it.”
“Why would my father have a feather in his hand? One of yours?”
I can feel his frustration mounting, but not at me. Not yet. “I don’t know,” he says. “I wish I did. I’m praying every chance I get. I’m begging, I’m threatening, I’m demanding an answer. I can’t remember, and I need to know why. My Father is testing me, and I don’t know why. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” He’s vibrating by the time he’s finished, his anger spilling over.
“You guard,” I say as I burrow myself further into his embrace.
I feel his tension ease slightly. “What?” he whispers.
“You guard,” I say again, letting my lips brush against the hollow of his throat. “You come here and you do what you are supposed to do. You guard. You stand and be true.” Those last words hurt.
“There haven’t been any threads in a few days,” he says. “I don’t know what that means.” He’s right. It’s been almost a week since Corwin was buried, and not once has Cal been called away, not once has a thread made itself known to him.
“Maybe they hired someone else to take over for Roseland,” I try to tease, but it falls flat.
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Benji. There’s protocol, procedure. At the very least, I would have expected Michael by now.”
“Or more of the Strange Men,” I mutter, shuddering at the thought. I was sure they were going to descend on the town in droves after Dark Man and Light Man were sent into the black, but there’s been nothing. It’s been quiet, aside from Corwin.
“It’s like I’ve been cut off,” Cal says. “Like I’m alone here. I’ve done something, and I can’t remember what it is. I don’t know what I did.” He sounds so forlorn that I can’t help but twist in his arms and kiss him soundly. He huffs his surprise, but he lets me in, my tongue touching h
is. He kneads at my back almost desperately, and I can feel his breath, hot and harsh against me.
“It may be a test,” I say, pulling back, allowing my lips to brush his cheeks. “And you may be cut off, but you are never alone. Even if the majority of the town hadn’t already fallen at your feet, you’d still have me.” I kiss him again, hoping he can feel how true my words are.
He smiles weakly at me as I run my fingers over his cheeks. “You say that now,” he says. “But Benji, I had something to do with your father’s death. You can’t deny that. Not anymore.”
I ignore the dark twinge in my chest. “Dreams are just that,” I manage to say. “Dreams.”
“Except when they’re not,” he replies.
He’s right, of course. I’m at the river almost nightly now, sometimes able to get close enough to see the feather in my father’s hand before Cal pulls me away. There are times when I feel like he allows me to linger, like he wants to see what else there is under the river’s surface, but he remembers his duty and pulls me away. I’m on the brink of something; a precipice. The edge of everything.
“Something’s coming, isn’t it?” I ask him, making sure I can see his eyes.
He hesitates, but then: “Yes. Yes, I think so. I think this whole thing has been a beginning and that the end is coming. This is my test. I think this is my test.”
Chills, like ice, spread down my spine. “Do you remember anything? Anything at all?”
He tries to pull away, but I don’t let him. I press my forehead against his, making sure I’m as close as I can get to him. “Little things,” he says finally. “Like flashes of light. Pieces that don’t quite fit. I can see the threads as I used to see them when I was On High. I remember praying, but I can’t remember what for. I remember Nina talking with me before I fell, but I can’t remember what she said. I remember the surprise I felt at her hearing me, but knowing it was because I was close.”
“Close to what?” I ask, trying not to let him see how my heart is aching.
“To you, Benji,” he says, bringing a big hand to the back of my head, holding me tight. “It may be pieces, but it’s you. It all comes back to you. You are in my pattern. My shape. My design. Even through everything, it all comes back to you.”