The Ghosting of Gods (27 page)

60
noose

Flames from the bonfire glow brilliantly against the dark of the night as we turn one corner after another, trying to make our way back to the center square of the City. Embers carry on the wind, landing in crevices of cobblestones and extinguishing. I slow, panting, and put Leesel down. “Stay back here,” I tell Ava.

“What? No. We have to find Willy. We have to go on the exodus with him!”

I pause, listen to the yells for mercy. “Something bad is happening.”

“The flagellants,” Ava begins, but her voice trails off. She nods, eyes wide, and pulls Leesel back into shadows.

“I’ll be back,” I promise.

Townspeople scurry past me, away from the bonfire.

Wind blows my robe cowl off my head. Looking up into the black of the sky, I see debris—bits of newspaper?—flying. A larger piece catches fire when an ember comes into contact with it.

What’s going on?

I whirl to find a tunneler approaching—clattering—my way. It wears a sheepskin of curly wool tied to its ribcage with rope. The clattering is its crystal ball bouncing along the street. It’s moving on all fours, loping like an animal.

I shrink against the wall. It passes me by.

I follow it.

Trying to memorize the convoluted path down twisting alleys so as to get back to Ava and Leesel, I struggle to keep pace with the rabid tunneler. It clacks its Morse code. With a final turn, it chatters in a frenzy as it unties its wool blanket and disappears into the crowd.

Skeletons riot around the wooden platform outside the courthouse. They shed their sheepskins, exposing themselves, seeming to revel in it. Wool is wrapped around sticks, dipped into the bonfire, held high as torches, jabbed like fiery pitchforks.

The heat is unbearable. Sweat pours through my skin and I pull off my robe. Wind gusts and embers fly. Whatever is wood and not stone will burn throughout the City. What the hell are they doing? It must be revenge. They want to destroy the City of Sacristies and the people in it.

The vision of the bonfire holds me captive. Tunnelers throw sticks and even large branches on it, making it burn higher. A limb snaps, and burned leaves explode around the square.

It’s a burning bush
.

Flames churn and flare into the night sky, a divine signal for me.

Tunneler elbows jab me as I push my way forward, toward the platform where I see three nooses blowing wildly in the growing winds.

Hell.

Looking up, I see flagellants gripping the prison bars of their sacristies, but they are silent.

Tunnelers open burlap bags, pull out virgin crystals, and clack. Others prod dozens of City denizens, ushering them forward, toward the platform. With every touch from a bone, the people yelp, begging for rescue as the flagellants gaze on.

Poe’s voice rises over the rest.

Poe
.

He’s here. Somewhere.

I yell his name, but the crowd surges, clacking and chittering, and I’m thrown to the ground. Bony feet trample across my back. A grip like a vice lifts me by the shoulder. A skull with missing teeth greets me. Danny. He points to the platform.

Dragged by a tunneler on each side, Poe is led to the center noose.

No
.

Fear drowns my heart.

Poe doesn’t see me, but he calls my name. He’s so afraid, so helpless. I hear it in his voice. One of the tunnelers cracks him in the head.

Rage detonates within me.

Tunnelers snatch at me, but I knock them down, kick them out of my way, fight my way toward my best friend. “Poe, Poe,” I scream. He opens his eyes, sees me.

Behind me, I hear Ava’s and Leesel’s cries. They’re screaming for Poe too. Briefly, he turns his head to see them, but his eyes come back to me.

A tunneler loops the noose around Poe’s neck.

“Jesse, do something!” Leesel screeches. “Save Poe!”

Flames from the bonfire rise, briefly blocking my view of Poe. For a moment, he is lost to me. And I know I can’t lose him. Not for real. I won’t.

Danny’s grip on my arm turns my head. His empty eye sockets gaze at me. I hear him.

Surrender, Jesse
.

I jerk to get him to let go of me. But he’s too strong. I glance down at his hand and see my own. There’s a stone clutched in my fingers. I was going to throw it.

Jamison. I’m like Jamison.

Shaking, my fingers loosen and the stone falls.

Yes. Surrender
.

“No! I won’t. I can’t let him die. Of everything,
I can’t lose Poe.”
I fight to move forward, but the tunnelers hold me back. I can’t get to Poe. He’s looking up at the sky, and I know what he’s waiting for. He’s waiting for God to act, to do the right thing, to save him.

Surrender. Surrender
.

Danny’s words are soft in my mind. Calm.

I quit fighting.

Tunnelers clack in victory, lift me, carry me toward the nooses. Toward Poe. They dump me on the platform, and one of the tunnelers there clutches my cowl to haul me to my feet. Smoke makes me dizzy, but I hear Poe crying my name.

“I doubt, I doubt,” he repeats, frantic. “Why isn’t God saving me, Jesse? I do as Priest says. I confess my sins…why has God abandoned me?” He holds up his arms, bows his head, and sobs.

He resembles the crucifix, which hangs on his sunken chest.

I can’t bear his doubt. I can save him, but I’ll have to face my sins…I won’t get home, I won’t be able to save Emmy…I don’t know how to save Emmy…

I can’t bear Poe’s doubt.

I lunge forward, taking the tunneler restraining me by surprise so that he loses his hold on me. I hug Poe. “I’m here. God sent me to save you, Poe. It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to die, Jesse.”

I wrap my hand around his that holds the crucifix. Hold my friend’s eyes. Lift the noose from his neck.

“Jesse? No…no!”

I shove him backwards and drop the noose over my head. “Follow in the wake of my ghost, Poe,” I yell over the uproar of clacking. Denizens—the living—call for my death, eager to delay their own. Danny holds back Ava and Leesel at the edge of the platform. “Follow in the wake of my ghost,” I yell again. I remember my sister. Willy is taking her home. “Poe, save Emmy! I can’t do it, Poe. But you can. You’ll have to be her savior…free her ghost from the crystal…” My girls are crying. I don’t want to see them like this, so I lift my eyes.

Perched on the apex of a nearby roof, Willy shakes his little black box, reaching inside and pulling something out.

I lift my eyes further, look at the sky where heaven is supposed to be.

My angel materializes, his giant wings beating furiously against a sudden onslaught of wind. He’s barely distinguishable
from the blackness until wind peels back his robe to reveal peeks of glowing white bone. Rotating his cowled head to look down, he crooks a finger at me.

My time has come.

61
face to face

“Witch!” someone screams.

Elspeth strides through the crowd. She appears battered. Scraped, bruised, bloodied. She survived our sacrifice of her.

Chills trickle down my spine. Despite her appearance, she moves with
power
.

Saint Thomas, spine straight and indignant, cries out in his elderly voice. “Treason! Treason!” He trails after Elspeth, ignoring the pleas of the denizens for the saint to save them. “I doubt your sanity,” he shouts at them instead. As he draws near, I see that he carries a barbed whip in his left hand. He swishes it side to side, crying out in ghostly pain when the barbs stab his backside.

Of course. He’s a flagellant.

“Cowardly beast,” a woman cries when he pushes her away.

Elspeth skirts the bonfire so closely I think she’ll catch fire. She pays the flames no mind, however. Her eyes meld with mine. Tunnelers, most of them, jump off the back of the platform when she climbs the steps.

She needs me to see the Holy Ghost, to learn the secret of no chains. She needs me to break the chains of Thomas.

She’s here for me.

The tunneler who has me wags a finger at Elspeth. As if making a point, the tunneler yanks upward on my noose, choking me. It lets me down almost immediately, and I grab my throat, coughing.

“Let Jesse go,” Poe pleads. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his skeletal captor hit him again.

I can’t get free of the noose. “Help Poe,” I croak at Elspeth. Her face is impassive. At first. She lowers her chin and smirks.

“Please,” I beg.

Her body crumples to the platform.

The tunneler holding my noose lets go, clacks in surprise, bends over her body. Grabbing Elspeth’s hair, he drags her across the platform, clacking loudly and gesticulating. His comrades clack, raising their fists, and he takes a bow.

I realize I’m holding my breath.

The skeleton’s spine twists. Into a spiral. It breaks.

Lying in two halves on the platform, the tunneler chitters. His body parts seize. He drags his upper body along the edge of the platform. Tremors rack his body, and he rolls, falling into the bonfire.

Willy shrieks from his perch on the roof. “My friend! My friend!”

Saint Thomas whirls, sees the tunneler with his black box. “Traitor!” the saint shouts. “He looses threads! He, not the Holy Ghost!”

Tucking his box inside his robe, Willy scampers away, vanishing beyond the roofline. Seeing this, the crowd of tunnelers immediately let go the denizens and run in his direction. Why? They don’t want to miss the exodus?

Time is running out.

Stunned at their sudden release, denizens fumble inside their robes, extract keys, run for their homes. Some remain crouched on the ground, crying beneath their capes, hiding. No one is left to shout for my death.

Elspeth has saved me.

I rush to the side of the platform and look down. Poe isn’t there. I look across the square. Ava, Leesel, and Danny have gone as well. Whirling around, I see Elspeth attempting to get up.

She’s returned to her body. Veering like a drunk, she stumbles as she walks.

She comes to me.

Her toes touch mine, and she lifts her eyes to mine. “You must
not yet die,” she whispers. She reaches a hand to my face, caresses my cheek. “Will you tell me how to break the chains? You must have seen the Holy Ghost. You must know the secret.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Knowing how I let her be sacrificed, I can’t look her in the eyes any longer. I try to turn my head, but her hand shoots up to grasp my chin. Squeezing, she turns my eyes back to hers.

“You know,” she insists, and I taste her breath. “The time has come. You must know. You must have seen the Ghost face to face, as prophesied by the seer.”

“We are face to face,” I say, surprising myself.

Her eyes cloud. “What riddle is this?”

“Maybe the prophecy said that I would see the Holy Ghost
Incarnate
face to face. Not much difference between incarnate or not. I’ve noticed the terms are used interchangeably. Is the Holy Ghost Incarnate
you
, Elspeth? At last, tell me the truth, all of it. Why must Thomas be saved? Why is the Ghost jealous?”

Her face hardens. When she answers, her voice is earnest.

“Do you not understand what the Holy Ghost is capable of? Thomas loved me when he found me wandering…he possessed me, and my Ghost was jealous. When I witnessed Thomas cowering in fear of me, I committed suicide. But I resurrected. Without the hated Ghost. It hides. But I will make certain It never harms Thomas again. Thomas, who taught me
possession.”
She closes her eyes. Breathes. “Tell me you learned the secrets of the Ghost. Tell me you then disposed of It, Exorcist.”

“I haven’t seen the Ghost, Elspeth. In fact, I never see the ghost you have now, even when it comes out of your body. You hide it. So maybe I can’t see the Ghost, either.”

She mutters. “No…Chastity prophesied you would see the Holy Ghost face to face, that you would break the chains of many, that you would die…I looked in the crystal and saw for myself the chains of Thomas broken, your dead body on this very platform…”

“Crystals often show scenes out of order…” But what does that mean? The crystal still showed my death. Or did it? Could I have only been lying injured, and not dead? “In my world, you see God
after
you die. Maybe that’s when I see your former ghost. Elspeth, do you really believe you’re the Holy Ghost?”

“Chastity told me it was the Presence which threatened Thomas! Chastity does not lie.”

Elspeth’s anguish is palpable. Her enormous eyes wild. I need to get away, or maybe she’s the one to kill me when I don’t give her all that she’s hoped for. I suspect she has the power to do things I know nothing about. The coven feared her. Chastity flatly stated that Elspeth was too powerful for them. That she would put them to sleep. Did that mean she killed them all? One against a hundred?

I’m beginning to think Elspeth may not be delusional. Maybe she really is the Holy Ghost Incarnate. But can she be, if the Holy Ghost no longer resides within her, but instead roams the world? Her identity confuses me.

“Elspeth,” I say, my voice gentle, but she looks at me like a caged animal. She’s not powerful at all. Not now. She’s afraid. “Elspeth, what do you really want with me? You didn’t even know I was an exorcist when you plotted to bring me to the coven village.”

She lifts her chin. “But I knew you were a medium.”

This startles me. “So what? I can hear ghosts…that’s all. You don’t need me. Chastity is a medium. There are surely others. Mediums aren’t even needed in Memento Mori! Ghosts don’t leave this world upon death.”

“Exactly! I want to leave. I want what you would call heaven, though your beliefs are primitive.” She looks at me accusingly. “You were to meet the Ghost, learn the secret of breaking chains, so I could come loose from my past and die into freedom. But you were also to do what Chastity would not—you were to die as a sacrifice, your ghost leading the way out of this world for me
to follow. You’re to lead the way for us. Our fates are bound together. A new beginning…a crossing over. Chastity revealed much.” She drops her voice, and I can barely hear her. “I mixed, I gave the seer drink, and when her tongue was loosened, I shoved the crystal into her hands. I listened as she prophesied, looking with her weird eyes, seeing things I myself could not see. I held her face to the crystal, I commanded her to see for me!”

She recognizes the disgust on my face, she must, for she shrinks away. “You will not deny our fate,” she shouts at me with desperation. “Your ability to cross over is the key!”

Saint Thomas stands alone, speaking with a follower from his past who no longer exists. “You’re getting threads everywhere, Brayword,” he chastises.

Lightning strikes repeatedly. Closely. My angel is illuminated in the flashes. Stalling, I yell at Elspeth over the growling storm that grows stronger by the second. “I thought you loved Thomas. What of him, does he go with us?”

“I’ve told him to follow in the wake of your ghost. Of mine.” She pulls a knife from her cloak.

“I’ve never seen the Ghost, Elspeth,” I say.

She gazes at me, uncomprehending.

The wind whips the black ropes of her hair. Her lips move in silence, as if she’s praying. She shakes her head. The knife falls from her hand.

I kick it away.

She looks around the City square in confusion. The life goes out of her eyes, as if her faith has been crushed. “I think Chastity tricked me,” she says.

Is this it? Is it over? Wind blows my robe. I sense the vortex coming for me.

I feel as disappointed as Elspeth.

Crystal balls roll in the driving winds around the City square. Here and there, a tunneler reappears. They’re returning. Pointing at the sky. Suddenly, a flood of tunnelers enters the City square,
flowing from every alley, clacking loudly, jumping up and down in celebration. They stumble over one another as they tip back their skulls to watch what is happening to the sky.

“I’m sorry, Elspeth,” I say, but she turns from me.

Looking in to the crowd, I call for my friends. It’s chaos. In the mad rush, a small figure slips among the skeletons, skipping in an awkward way.

Emmy?

I shout her name, but she’s not there. I hold my hand over my heart, pressing down against the physical pain there. Wind lashes against me, and I only wish it would take me away. I look up.

A monstrous vortex is forming.