Death looked out from the tunnel of light to gaze upon his, dare he say, friends. Channeling the inflatable of The Guardian’s dreams, he put his lanky arms to work while humming a faint tune that sounded to the incoming parade of souls much like the happy birthday song. It was regarded as an utterly charming touch and several made a mental note to report it later in their satisfaction surveys.
FINDING THE DANCER
Andrija Popovic
I knew my day was fucked the moment I saw Death’s Jester perched outside my window like a vulture. This vulture, though, wore a full tuxedo with tails and a red flower in his lapel. His bright yellow mask flashed a saw-toothed smile as he sat atop one of branches of the old oak tree.
Phantoms lived by specific rules. The first one is that the Jester will be the first face you see after you die, and the Dancer will be the last before you move on to whatever follows this existence. It’s in the book. At least, it’s in the version I wrote. Aspects of Death appear at moments of pain, trouble, and transition.
The Jester always followed pain and trouble.
Pain and trouble phased through my door in the form of Alicia, friend and ghost road trader.
“Trish! Thank gods you’re here.” Alicia dropped her backpack on the floor. Brick-like cell phones, 3.5 inch floppy disks, and 35mm film cartridges tumbled from the half-open flap. “I need your help.”
“Alicia. Dammit!” I banged my knee against my desk. My typewriter let out a plaintive ding. “Hi. Good to see you. Help how? Guidebook writer help? Or…” I looked over at the Jester in the trees while Alicia cleaned up her backpack. Her peacoat spread out around her like a black, woolen dress.
“Maybe ‘or.’” She flipped open a cell phone, circa the late ’90’s “Bill’s gone missing. I tried finding him, tried calling him and texting him. He was supposed to meet me when I got back. None of the other traders have seen him in a week.”
“He’s not a newborn phantom, Alicia.” I stood up, deliberately blocking out the window.
“He was my apprentice.” Alicia frowned and glared. “I have a responsibility. You know this.”
Once upon a time, Alicia was a newly dead phantom. I took her on as my apprentice, teaching her the ways of unlife the way someone taught me. We traveled together. I helped her adjust. She found a career trading in old, memory-soaked objects—the only kind phantoms could use—and traveling the ghost roads. I found a friend who kept my more unusual skills close to her tweed vest.
Eventually, she took on her own apprentice, Bill. I settled down in one spot to write my guidebooks and histories for phantoms. When Bill fell in love with a local phantom, Simon, I was overjoyed. My apprentice passed an important milestone in our society—her charge was now an integrated and functioning phantom. I gained more friends, and another neighborhood trader to boot. It was comfortable and safe until now.
“I’ll help. But, I think Simon’s a better person to ask.”
“I did ask him. Simon just swore at me, called you a sorcerous bitch.” Alicia stood up, leaning against my bed. Tattered notebooks spilled from the rumpled covers. “He said ‘Bill’s gone to find the Dancer, and I hope he does!’”
“Wait—he said what?” I pulled my heavy jacket closer. Phantoms never feel totally warm. Fingers and noses always remain cold to the touch, even in the height of summer.
“He said he’s finding the Dancer. But you can’t do that. It’s not how it works. It’s—” I stepped away from the window. The Jester tilted his head like a curious bird and waved to Alicia. Alicia covered her mouth and backed away, almost falling through the door again.
“It’s not right. I know. He’s not right. But there he is, outside my window like a turkey vulture.” I reached under my desk for a worn Jansport backpack, stuffing in a box of typewritten pages, unopened packages of blank bond paper, and the smallest SmithCorona typewriter ever made. “Let’s go to Bill and Simon’s. How’s your ride these days? Bill was supposed to fix mine.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get us there.”
“Good, because we might have to outrun him.”
* * *
The Jester followed us as we drove into town in Alicia’s massive Ford F-150 truck. He ran along the treetops, keeping pace as the truck pushed one-hundred miles per hour. He never missed a step, hopping from branch to branch. The grin on his mask seemed to get bigger and bigger as we got closer to Bill and Simon’s house.
For the living, Kent Hills is just another sleepy little town in rural Maryland; lots of antique stores, a quaint downtown, and nice restaurants for anyone relaxing after winery hopping. Its better years are behind it, though. Along the road you can see abandoned homes, old barns, and shuttered schools.
For phantoms, Kent Hills is a thriving metropolis. Buildings drink in memories as readily as objects do. In our world, one step removed from life and reality, everything old is actually new again. We can build a life from the leftover memories of the living.
This is important. We need to keep occupied. This is the first lesson any old phantom passes to their apprentice. Travel, trade, explore, but do something to keep focused. I wrote travel and guidebooks. Alicia traded on the ghost roads. Phantoms still have a little life left inside them—just enough to resonate with the real world and keep them going. When that dissipates, there are worse things waiting for a phantom than a visit from Death’s Dancer.
Simon stepped out of his house the moment Alicia’s truck pulled into the driveway. Deep black circles ringed his eyes. His hair, last seen in a trim cut, was now bristled and uneven. Dust covered his button-down shirt and once crisp slacks—the same outfit I’d seen him in one week ago. A rusty demolition hammer dangled from his fingers.
“This is your fault, Red. And yours, Chica.” Simon gave everyone nicknames, even if they didn’t fit. Alicia is a thin blonde lady. I haven’t had red hair since I died.
“Simon…” Alicia slowly stepped down from the truck.
“He was happy here!” Simon smashed the hammer into driveway, cracking the asphalt. “Got off the road. Settled in with the local markets. Got this place with me! He was happy!”
“That’s what we thought.” I took a step closer.
“You thought wrong!” Simon pointed the pry-bar end of the hammer right at me. “Those traders you hooked him with? The computer guys? They fucked it all up!”
“It was just mechanical stuff,” I said. “He was helping them find parts, keep newer machines running. Getting ribbons for my typewriter. That’s all.”
“Not lately! Started getting shit from out west to clean up and sell. Hard drives. Tape drives. ZIP discs. Memory devices, Red!”
“Memory devices?” Alicia glanced at me. I grew cold again. Salvaging and restoring old technology keeps a lot of phantoms busy. Computer resurrectionists, though, do more than keep old technology going—they salvage and sell data. Hard drives stored memories along with files, photos, and programs. Phantoms are nothing if not voyeurs, and it is far too easy to become obsessed with the world of the living. Hard drives give some a dangerous window into the past.
“He’d go up into his workshop and when he’d come back—“ Simon sniffed and rubbed tears from his eyes. The hammer fell from his fingers. “The last few weeks we’d fight every other night over the same thing: What’s going on? Why aren’t you talking to me? Tell me something! But, no, he’d be all about those damned shipments from out west and how he needed to print shit out.”
“Print out?” Alicia stepped closer, putting a foot on the hammer and a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Print out what?”
“Mostly photos. When he left, he had a big box of those under his arms.” Simon fixed me with his eye. “And he had pages. Typewritten pages, with marks all over them, like a draft copy. Found one after our last fight. Looked like your guidebook shit, but corrected. With parts scratched out. All about the Jester and the Dancer…and the City.”
“Oh, no.” I crossed myself out of habit and fear.
“Yeah
. That’s right, Miss Sorceress. So what did you give him, huh?!”
“Nothing!” I shook and slumped against Alicia’s trunk. “Not deliberately. I mean…”
“Did he have a workspace?” Alicia reached down and grabbed the demolition hammer.
“Yeah. Up in the attic. Tried to get in. He locked it somehow. Can’t pass through.” Simon sat down on the driveway. “Tried smashing my way in. Didn’t work. But, if anyone can get in, she can.” He pointed right at me.
“Thanks, Simon.” Alicia nudged me in the shoulder with the hammer head. “I’ll get the bags. You go inside and see what he’s done.”
Numb, I nodded and walked to Simon’s front door. It opened before I could touch the knob. The Jester stood inside. He swung the door wide, bowed, and motioned me upstairs.
* * *
“I never understood why you used haiku to break down barriers.” Alicia stood behind me, arms crossed, watching as I typed the final draft of my seventeen syllable poem onto a fresh sheet of paper. The Jester watched as well, gloved fingers on the chin of his mask in pantomime fascination.
“It’s different for every one of us. Pages and ink are my style. It helps me—”
“Connect, I know.” Alicia leaned close as I pressed the page, ink first, against the door. Bill had poured a little of his own essence in the lock. Even at a distance, he held it closed by force of will. “But haiku?”
“Small and impactful. It’s a verbal breaching charge.” The locks clicked open, and I pushed the attic door up and over. Bill’s workshop was a museum of obsolete technology, broken down and catalogued by manufacturer, part number, and region.
“Yeah, this isn’t it.” Alicia fingered the bins of hard drives—all dismantled, and disconnected. “Parts, but nothing he can read it with. And no printer, either. Where’s the real workshop?”
“I think I have an idea.” I frowned as The Jester pointed to a blank wall. It cut the attic in half and felt wrong. New construction from old materials give off a strange vibe. You can sense the ghost world trying to reconcile the paradox.
Alicia smashed the hidden door apart with the demolition hammer. Within we found walls of CRT screens all hooked into a series of beige computer towers. A keyboard rested on a small bench, white cord leading into the back of one of the computers. She started booting everything up. “Some of this is relatively new, but those ZIP drives are mid-90’s, at best. And I think those are tape drives.”
While Alicia focused on the computers, I rummaged around a work desk flanked by an old laser printer and a copier. Mounds of printed pages, all liberally covered in notes, obscured sets of hand-labeled three ring binders. Atop it all was a single printed photo of a smiling blond man in a bright yellow shirt. His curly hair and beard were a stark contrast to Bill’s straight, black hair and clean shave. Who’s this?” I asked. “Old boyfriend?”
“Yes.” Alicia snatched the photo out of my hand. “Daniel. His boyfriend from before he died. When I found Bill out west, he was still in a shroud. Our smiling friend was standing over him. Daniel’s name was the first thing he said when I pulled the shroud free.”
“Oh, shit.” I spun Alicia around. “The computers.”
The screens were on and humming now. On the left, every screen was a mosaic of photos featuring Bill and Daniel together. The photos belonged in any couple’s album: dinners out, vacation photos, and holidays. A few were portraits of Bill holding notes: “Miss you. Can’t wait until you’re back from Texas.” Bill dressed a bit square in life, while Daniel seemed ready to go clubbing at any moment.
But as the photos progressed and the ‘miss you’ images grew more frequent, the smiles on Daniel’s face were less genuine. He looked just off camera, as if mentally elsewhere. Bill, for his part, seemed intent on smiling twice as much and twice as wide, as if to make up for Daniel’s lack of enthusiasm.
On the right-hand screens we saw where Daniel’s enthusiasm went. He obviously traveled for work, but didn’t always share his adventures with Bill. There was a large set of photos from various nude beaches showing Daniel’s tan, fit figure lounging with handsome companions of both sexes.
As the photos progressed, they became more explicit, featuring a wide variety of partners in a wide variety of carnal escapades. I tugged at my shirt. The memories in the photos radiated electric life. If phantoms always feel a little cold, then strong emotions warm us. And passion—well, that’s like a mug of hot chocolate by the fireside.
“Oh, Bill.” I looked back at the left-hand gallery. “Why didn’t you let this go?”
“I thought he had. When we traveled together on the ghost roads, when he was my apprentice, he talked about Daniel less and less. Then he met Simon. I thought he would be happy.” Alicia dropped the photo onto the floor. “What’s this?”
Before I could stop her, she grabbed a binder from under the pages. The sheets fell onto the floor, covering my feet, almost sticking to my legs. Alicia opened it to the first page. Her jaw set. She flipped the binder round and showed it to me.
Hidden Rules The City. It was an exact copy of the manuscript I was revising when the Jester first appeared outside my window, down to the ink smudges. I looked at my feet. All the pages were mine—copied from my home.
“Well? What is this?”
“He copied it. He must have copied it when I was out traveling or—”
“That’s not what I asked, Trish.” Alicia shoved the binder into my arms.
“It’s mostly stories. Histories I’d picked up about phantoms and the City. A few rituals, maybe. But just a lot of stories about the Jester and the Dancer. Where they show up and what they do—”
“And how to summon them?”
I steadied myself against the desk, clutching the binder. Alicia crossed her arms, her expression halfway between screaming and weeping. Behind her the Jester casually read through a few scattered pages, tossing them to the ground when done. “Yes.”
“Gods, Trish.” Alicia grabbed at her hair. “Can he do it?”
I nodded. “Yes. He has to be back where he died, back in Van Nuys, but if he has all my notes he could.” My legs gave out. I fell onto my scattered writing. “Oh, God. I told him about the book. Told him I was writing it. I wanted to make a real history of the phantoms. So it all went in there. The City. The Dancer. The Jester. Sorcery. All of it was there. And I just left it where he could see it. I left a loaded gun where a depressed man could find it.”
“He hasn’t pulled the trigger yet.” Alicia grabbed me by the jacket. “Get up. He may know what you know, but he isn’t a sorcerer. He has to travel by the ghost roads. That takes time. But we’ve got another road we can take, don’t we?”
I stood up. My hands shook, so I grabbed the edge of the desk. “I haven’t done it in years. Not since you were my apprentice. And not this far.”
“But you can still do it.” She walked over to the computers and yanked out the power. The monitors went dead, one by one. “And we need to do it. Now.”
“OK.” I took a deep breath. I didn’t breathe, but I needed it. I needed the memory of breath, and life, for what I had to do next. “We’ll head to Van Nuys through the City.”
The Jester just politely applauded and waited for us to head downstairs.
* * *
If phantoms are echoes of people, the ghost roads are echoes of highways. Traders travel long circuits around them, finding memory-soaked items from all over the country, setting up markets, even delivering packages. For phantoms, they are UPS and the mail and Amazon all bundled together.
Why not send it by air? Good question. Airplanes don’t work for the dead. Folks who try end up lost.
Any phantom can travel from Maryland to Van Nuys, if they find the memory of a good car. But it’s a week’s worth of driving across country. It’s safe, but slow. And being well out of the rat race due to death, we tend to be OK with it.
Every now and again, though, you need to be somewhere fast. You need a short-cut, a way to
quickly connect disparate places together. You need the City.
People aren’t the only ones with memories. Places have them, too. Since the first human built a permanent shelter against the elements—a home—and created the first temple to the gods, the memories invested in those places have accrued. Eventually, they grew together, building one atop the other, until a City arose.
The City connects all cities, both in space and in time. It is a living record of human existence, stretching from today into the distant past. In the City, the walls not only talk, but they scream and sing.
There is power in the City. If you can reach it, you can travel anywhere, or see any event. You can alter the world by changing its memories. It’s a dangerous thing, but possible if you find the right key: words of power scrawled on the ground or chants spoken while meditating or photos that capture old memories and souls alike. With that key, a person can travel, they can manipulate, and they can survive when the City begins to defend against manipulation.
In life, I was one of those people: a sorcerer. Death did not change that.
I connected to the City through writing. My little bits of typewritten paper were infused with memories and places, thoughts and dreams, and with them I built spells. This time, I was building an onramp, one page at a time. I walked four paces from the truck, sat down, and used my typewriter to describe our destination in a brief prose poem. Once two pages were done, I would drop them six feet apart, weighed down with stones, to mark our lane.