The Umbral Wake Read online

  The Bowl stretched for half a mile, a near perfect circle, its center a placid murky blue, the edges obscured by fog. Around its rim was the memorial wall, a lining guardrail that listed the tens of thousands of names—all of them victims of the Cataclysm that she helped create.

  When she had met Orrin, she was on the verge of being orphaned, her father lost to Mr. Henry, her stomach empty. It was the raven who led her to the cellar, told her to line the walls, showed her how she could make something new out of junk. Together they had sabotaged the lab, and now this Bowl was all that was left. It was hard not to resent the raven, or even hate him for this—how many people had she helped kill? It was a nasty, nasty little secret. And yet, she had wanted to do it, knowing full well she was being bad, knowing that it might end up hurting people—she had done it to save her father.

  Gil passed mourners, kneeling to place flowers at the list of names, the dead tinkerers, police, medics, civilians who had died in the strange implosion, their names taken from registrars at the Confessionals. An additional wall listed the names of those who died months later from rogue energies and strange growths just before medicine had arrived to help.

  She had been here a hundred times, strolling along the banks of the lake, her eyes scanning the plaques for one name: AXEL KASTNER. It wasn’t until she had passed behind a maintenance shed that Gil stopped. The name was carved into the concrete there, chipped into the stone with her own hands where nobody could see it or remove it.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said, the tears melting away with the foggy moisture of the morning. “Sorry, no flowers, but I know you never liked flowers. I just wanted to say hi, and to let you know that I’m still around, still getting by… I’m still looking for you.”

  A group walked by behind her and Gil wiped her face, waiting for some privacy.

  “I’m building a camera,” she continued. “It’s like the fancy ones we once saw people use in the store windows… I realized… after you were gone that it was becoming hard to remember what your face looked like. I… I thought that this time, when I find you, I might get a picture of us together. You know, so I won’t forget anymore… And… well, maybe it will help you to remember too.”

  More footsteps, and she stood to see a woman frowning at her from underneath a shroud. She said nothing, but the look of disapproval was clear. Gil turned away, heading in the other direction.

  *

  When the cataclysm first struck her city, a large number of emergency shelters had opened. Some were pay-only, reserved for the wealthiest, while others were for more common residents, offering nothing more than some gauze and a shot. There were also those that specialized in the Confessional sinners, those people who had returned to the church facilities over and over again, selling their sins and memories for food vouchers. Her father had been one of these people.

  Most had been converted into sanitariums, giant warehouses of the irreparable, stockades for people who had been made violent by their emergent personalities. Gil had visited over a dozen of these in the hopes of finding her father. She was headed to one now.

  One could gain access by any number of ways. The security was more for keeping the inmates inside, rather than keeping the public out. Some facilities found a decent profit in memorializing the asylums, A TESTAMENT TO THE TRAGEDY AND HUBRIS OF OUR HISTORY painted above the entrance.

  She hadn’t been to this facility before, which was just as well. There was no line to get in. The novelty associated with the tragedy had worn off; people were interested in getting back to normal. Gil shadowed a couple walking up the steps and through the front door, staying close enough to appear part of their group, but not close enough to draw their attention. She waited behind them as they spoke to the receptionist, “We’re here to see my sister,” said the man. She then followed them through the doors.

  The inside smelled… organic. It was the sort of masked smell one might notice in a sewage plant office, chemicals covering up something too strong for any bleach. It was an unhealthy mixture of chlorine, alcohol, feces, and other mystery bodily fluids.

  Each cell door had a tall thin window for viewing, the glass ancient and yellowed with cigarette smoke and age, and Gil stopped at each one, standing on her toes to look in. For such a large number of inmates, their symptoms were all extraordinarily similar. A woman stood at one end of her cell, her forehead bloody. Every few seconds she would close her eyes and run at the wall—not the lit end of the cell, but the darkest corner. She bounced off, sometimes going unconscious, before getting up and screaming at the corner.

  “You’re in there! I know you’re in there! In there! In there!” she screamed before slapping her forehead.

  In another room sat a man who stared again at the darkest shadows of the room, his head cocked. He rocked back and forth as if listening to something, waiting for someone. It must have been a good story, because according to a passing orderly he had been doing that for three weeks straight.

  An hour later and Gil left, her feet feeling heavy as stones. There were plenty of people recovering from the Cataclysm, none of them her father.

  It’s just as well, she told herself. He didn’t recognize you anyway the last you saw him. He hardly knew you. Do you want that burden on top of everything else? Just how complicated do you want your life to be?

  Complicated enough to be happy, she supposed. Complication that led to closure was fine. She just wanted to be able to sleep again without dreaming of her father’s vacant fish eyes staring back.

  She fondled the coin in her pocket. The shops would be opening again and her stomach was growling. Awnings unfurled along the tall buildings lining the street, the banners and signs choking the space overhead. She stopped at a fruit vendor, discretely offering the woman her coin. As always, the woman took it, mesmerized by the copper and green rust on its surface. She grabbed an apple from the bin.

  As she left, Gil felt the coin plop back into her pocket. I’ll never get used to that, she thought.

  Felton’s Curio & Repair was at the end, a tiny little building with apartments above. The owner was an older, grumpy gentleman whom she hardly ever saw, but the clerk who ran the shop most days was nice enough. Gil knew that if she arrived early, Mr. Montegut would always be happy to help, sharing stories and offering up any items slated to be tossed out.

  A tin soldier stood out front, an abstract sculpture, a suit of armor, but too thin and tall for a man to fit inside. One gloved hand held a wooden sword, in the other a copper pinwheel, spinning lazily in the morning breeze. Boy gangs had graphitized the metal chestguard and some of the arms with street names and crude paintings of genitalia. She frowned in sympathy.

  Though the CLOSED sign was visible, Gil pressed on the door anyway, feeling it give and hearing the bell ring overhead. Mr. Montegut poked his head out of the back room, rubbing the oil from his hands on a rag.

  “Bit early,” he said, his eyes narrowing over his mustache.

  “I’m always early,” she said, looking around cautiously. “Is he in?”

  “No,” Harold said, tossing the rag into the back. “I’d say a few hours still. I just wanted to get some early projects done.”

  Gil cleared her throat. “I… was hoping you might have some scrap again, something I could tinker with.”

  The man paused a moment, just enough to make her think he might be lying. “Well, nothing much more than the last time you were here.”

  He led her to the back room, a cluttered area that reminded her of her own workspace.

  “What sort of things are you looking for?” he asked.

  “I’m playing with light,” she said. “I’ve made a camera.”

  The man’s eyebrows rose in surprise and he looked down at her with respect—and a healthy amount of skepticism. “Is that so?”

  “I can bring it in if you don’t believe me,” she said.

  “No, no I do. That’s just a lot of skill for…”

  “For a girl?”

  “I
was going to say, for someone so young,” he said, his face serious for a moment. “And yes, a girl. Your parents must be proud.”

  She blushed. Normally lying came so easy for Gil, but never to an adult she actually liked.

  “They don’t know.” Not too much of a lie. “It’s a private hobby.”

  He grunted approval. “Well, perhaps if they knew you were so skilled, they might allow you to take courses up in Arist. Or maybe once the guild here opens again, assuming there are plans for that sort of thing.”

  “Who knows when that would be,” she said. She let her eye wander the room. Among the schematics along the wall, Harold had accumulated an impressive collection of sketches.

  “These are amazing,” she said, happy to change the subject.

  He followed her gaze and crossed his arms. “Oh yes. They are quite good.”

  “Good?” She stepped closer. “They are almost photographic. I had no idea you drew so well.”

  “I don’t,” he said.

  “Oh,” her eyes drifted down to the workbench where the portrait of a young girl sat. “Your daughter?”

  There was an uncomfortable pause. The picture was old, faded, creased as if it had lived in a man’s wallet. It was even too small for the frame it sat inside. Immediately, Gil knew she had asked the wrong question.

  “No,” he said, his voice losing steam. “I mean, yes, that’s my daughter… no she didn’t draw these.”

  “Oh…” She could feel herself blushing now, could feel the man retreating from the conversation, growing distant. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Here are the items we have for sale.” He scooted a crate along the floor with his shoe. “I’m sorry I don’t have more, but the gang boys tend to pick over things at night and Felton likes to clean up at the end of the day. We really don’t have a lot of salvage lately.”

  She looked at the box of junk, now feeling obligated to buy something. She had offended the man, or simply said the wrong thing. Without really looking, she simply pointed.

  “That cog-differential could be useful,” she said.

  He reached down and handed the pocket-sized device to her. She took it quickly, afraid to meet his eyes. She replaced it with the coin.

  “Thank you,” she said and began to leave. He was already staring at it, she could tell. Its hypnotic power held the man’s attention until she slipped out the door and down the street. A few moments later, wiping a tear from her cheek, Gil felt the weight return to her pocket, but she hardly cared anymore.

  Chapter 9

  Bollingbrook

  FRANKIE GAVE THE gold pocket watch one last glance before placing it into the courier bag. Twenty-five years of his life, summed up in a casing filled with whirring gears and sprockets, the BOLLINGBROOK COAL AND UPKEEP emblem on its surface. He hefted it in his hand then slipped it into the thick envelope. Sliding the package through the slot, he listened for the dull thud of paper on burlap, then sighed.

  It would reach them in time for Christmas, he hoped, clapping the soot from his hands. Of course, he wouldn’t be around to see their smiling faces—not now, not ever. Even those smiles couldn’t erase the shame he felt. The last time he had spotted Rosemarie she was in the arms of a tall strong bricklayer. Good for her. She deserved better than Frankie. It was the right thing to do, leaving them.

  The cashier cleared her throat. He forced a weak smile as he slipped the money under the window. She took it without looking at him. He thanked her anyway and left through the revolving door.

  Frankie looked down at his hands, at his old, cracked, callused hands. He was only forty-three, but you’d never guess it by looking at those old paws, the hands of an eighty-year-old, his gnarled fingers too weak to grip the handle of the shovel anymore. And nobody wanted to train a forty-three-year-old coalman, much less one who could barely lift a slice of bread to his mouth with one hand.

  He slouched down the steps of the Bollingbrook courier’s office and onto the streets, avoiding the pitying eyes of the graceful men and women as he passed. Look at the filth! Look at the way he walks, the dirt under his nails. What business does a Gutter Wedge mechanic have up here?

  Frankie wondered the same thing. What business did he have being anywhere?

  He had been thinking of this for a long time, but maybe it was the brisk October air that really drove it home. In a few months it would be another Christmas, him sitting alone in a broken hotel chair, sipping from a bottle, staring at nothing. It was unbearable. He simply couldn’t, not again.

  Couldn’t? Or won’t? he asked himself.

  Won’t. Definitely won’t. I’m still in control. I can still choose.

  As he walked through the crowds, he gazed at the shops of toys and dresses, such distant presents he knew he could never afford his daughter or his wife.

  (Ex-wife.)

  But the watch would help. Hopefully they’d sell it, use the money to buy themselves something he didn’t have the courage to bring them in person. Nobody wanted a broken old man showing up on some cold doorstep with a cheaply made doll in hand. The watch was the best of his years. They deserved that much. There was nothing more for him to give.

  It felt good, that last gesture, slipping the watch into the sleeve. He didn’t care if they knew it was from him or not. For all they knew it could be a mistake. For him it was closure. At last he could move on.

  (Let go.)

  Walking past the city guards and under that brass and brick archway drove it all home. Entering the industrial wedge was like a slap in the face, knocking him back down to reality. He shuddered as he pulled the flimsy fabric of his jacket together against the cold autumn breeze.

  The houses all looked about the same here: rotting shanties with holes in the roofs, weeds in the yard, sad slanted cabins better suited for a trash heap than over people’s heads. This was a world of muggers and tramps, of whores and drunks. Rumor had it that the Gutter Wedge even had a resident witch at one time, but that house had long since burned down, the wreckage visible as he passed by the train yard on Nile Street.

  Tonight should be the night, he thought. Of all the nights this should be the one, while I still can.

  It was a kind of prayer he realized, asking for some sort of intervention. If you are going to stop me, now’s the time. Come on, God. If it isn’t meant to be, tell me now. Drop an angel from Heaven to warn me.

  The sign wasn’t at all what he expected, his eyes drawn to the coiled white rope along the ground. It seemed unusual among the soot and decay, a gossamer thread amid the rusted wheels and broken gaskets. He held the rope up to inspect it. The pain from gripping it reminded him of just how badly broken his hands were—of how broken he was. The rope was sturdy, he could tell as he pulled it taut, felt it snap. Gathering the length in his arms, Frankie carried it home to his tiny hotel room.

  The reception desk was empty, nobody to see him with his length of rope, nobody to ask what he was doing—nobody to stop him. Just as well, he told himself as he trudged up to his room, opening the door with a creak.

  The bottle sat waiting for him on the table, unopened and eager, the whiskey glowing under the dim light fixture.

  Hello dear, it said. Have a nice day at work?

  Why yes I did. Thank you for asking. My boss gave me a nice gold watch and a free vacation for the rest of my life.

  Oh, that’s lovely, the amber bottle said. We’ll spend it together… and I see you brought company.

  “I did,” he muttered, tying the noose, ignoring the pain in his knuckles. “A very good friend.”

  Should I be jealous?

  “No. No. Hush. We’ll have plenty of time together before I introduce you two.”

  Well as long as you don’t forget you belong to me. The voice was somehow different this time, the bottle’s voice more than just his internal monologue. It seemed to drift out from the cracks in the wall, from the drain in the sink. It beckoned him with a soothing voice. If he closed his eyes, Frankie could almost imagine
a woman’s hand reaching out to caress him, missing and clawing the air. He shivered, throwing the noose over his head, wearing it like a necktie as he sat at the table.

  Alone at last, the bottle sighed in the dark.

  “Alone indeed.”

  Frankie twisted the cap and kissed his poison mistress, drinking her in and feeling the warmth, feeling the numbness wash away the pain and regret. It was almost as good as a time machine, for a moment letting him remember the better days, the happy days before the flood.

  “An amber flood,” he thought and looked at the empty bottle. That’s been your name the whole time hasn’t it?

  You just never asked.

  It’s good I tied the noose already, he stood and swayed. His hand shot out to steady himself against the table.

  It’s been a good run.

  It took him a few staggering attempts to get one end of the rope over the rafter, and even longer before he could anchor it to the pipe in the kitchen, but at least now there was no pain. He tested the knot then laughed at what he had done. There was too much slack.

  I can’t even do this right, he chuckled, removing the rope necktie. He threw the noose over the rafter a few times, shortening it with each toss until it hung a good eight feet from the floor. More than enough room.

  Standing on the broken kitchen chair, Frankie shifted the noose ninety degrees from his chin. It was important to do it that way, to ensure that you would snap the neck. Frankie had no intention of strangling… not for long anyway.

  He rocked the chair as the bottle cheered him on from the table.

  And a one! And a two! And a—

  The chair slipped. Gravity pulled. A quick twist of his neck, and a dull pop.

  But no pain, just a curious tingling as his feet did a dance above the fallen chair. Dancing with Amber.

  It was as if his body had disappeared, a strange, draining feeling. His lungs starved of air screamed out at him in some distant part of his mind, but Frankie could not feel them burn. He couldn’t feel much of anything as he stared at the bottle, stared at Amber as the darkness drifted in from the corners of his vision.