It takes me a few minutes and several tissues before I can recover enough to really think about what we’ve just read.

“Remind me never to listen to depressing music the next time I read these.”

Viticus smiles and just hands me another tissue. “Are there any more letters?”

“Uh… (Sniffle.) Nope. (Sniffle.) Nope, I think that’s it.” I dry my eyes. “There are no more letters after that.”

The Saint frowns. “Shit. I always figured he loved her, but I never…y’know. Shit. I never realized just how much--”

“She was all he really had in the hospital, y’know?” I shrug. “She stuck by him through those last few months and treated him like a human being. You’d have to be brain dead not to feel something.”

“Yeah, I know. I know.” He sighs. “So…what now? Do we tell him we know about the letters, or…?”

“No. We just wait for him to come home, and…and if he went to see her, then… I-I dunno. My guess is that he won’t be very happy coming home from a visit like that. So we just wait for him to come home. And if he’s depressed, then we let him be depressed and…we…do what we can to comfort him.”

It’s all we can do, really. I don’t see Ean up for much else, personally… Viticus smiles at me a little, like he knows some great secret he isn’t supposed to share.

“What?”

“I swear, Cris. Sometimes I think you’re a perfect mother in the making.”

“I am not. I--” He cuts me off with a gentle kiss. “I am not. I just know…y--you know. I know people. I know how they are or how they can be, y’know? And Ean… Well. We’ll figure out what to do about Ean once he comes home.”


He comes home the day after Mother’s Day looking like he’s carrying the entire weight of the world on his broad, thin shoulders. His entrance startles the hell out me, largely because I had my earphones on and partly because he enters through the back door instead of the front like most of the others tend to do.

“Ean…”

“Hi, Cris.”

His voice is soft, weary. He looks older, absolutely miserable, with nothing helped by his choice in travel clothes. Black pea coat, black sweater, black pants and shoes… The scarf is the only thing with a hint of color. Dark circles tug underneath red, sleepless eyes. Shadows hide in the hollows of his cheekbones and his entire body just looks… Ean looks like he might collapse at any moment. It reminds me of the very first time I met him, only there isn’t any of the fire that normally lives in his look. It also reminds me of the letters. Any sensible person with half a soul would have crumbled to tears after reading them. Trust me. I did.

Viticus comes out of the laundry room, pulling on a t-shirt. When he sees Ean, he stops cold.

“Ean--”

“Idonotwanttotalkrightnow.” The words come out in a rush as he makes a beeline for my bedroom, brushing past the Saint as he pulls off his coat. “I don’t…”

“Ean.” He turns around at my voice, the miserable look hitting me full force. “Ean, I just wanted to tell you--”

Tell him what, exactly? That I read his letters and that I know where he’s been?

Somehow, I think he knows.

Somehow, I think he expected that of us.

Somehow…

“I’m glad you’re home safely.”

Ean smiles weakly, forcibly. He looks like he just wants to fall asleep and never wake up.

“Home…” he murmurs. “There’s a funny little concept, isn’t there?”


Mother’s Day. 3:30PM. (According to the clock over the stove.)

He sits on the counter that divides the kitchenette from the living room, watching Allys survey the current piece on the easel she has near the window. Her living room is full of art supplies organized into makeshift groups--paints in one corner, canvases in another… He sees his sketchbooks arranged neatly at the top of a bookshelf, reigning over a region of other books covering various topics from the art of Van Gogh to Catholic saints. The coffee table and couch are full of books, too; Ean’s earlier inspection of their titles pulled a grim smile out of him. All of them are theories on death and the afterlife, on theories of dreams…

She looks so different now. Her hair is purple. A few self-portraits suggest that she pierced her left eyebrow in the last four months, but either she isn’t wearing anything in it today or she allowed it to close up. Her nose is pierced, though, and she has some extra piercings in her ear. None of this he minds, of course. She’s still as pretty as when he last saw her, and just being here, just being able to sit in her apartment and see her…

He only wishes, however, that she could see him. But Ean doesn’t have the capability to appear to just anyone at will. Not alone, anyway. If one of the Saints or Ghosts had come along to help, becoming visible to her would be as easy as thinking about it. Saint Essex says this is normal of the Dead; that it takes time and concentration to masquerade effectively as one of the Living.

But Ean Amherst doesn’t want to masquerade as one of the Living. At least not for very long.

He just wants Allys to see him--to hear him, at least--even if it’s only once.

He just wants enough time to tell her--

“You need more light.”

Allys turns her head, but it’s not because of his voice. A pigeon has just crashed into one of her windows, startling her with the sickening crack! of its collision before plummeting to the sidewalk eight stories below.


“You should go check on him.”

Present’s voice is soft, startling at this hour.

“Hm?”

“I said you should go check on Ean.” He nods in the direction of the room. “Things are quiet in there. And Viticus won’t go--”

“I’m giving him his space,” the Saint interjects from his place at the wide window seat behind me, occasionally picking at guitar strings. “He told me, when we last talked--or argued, or whatever--that he wanted space to be any way he wanted. So I’m giving him space to be miserable, if that’s what he wants.”

“Lovely time to honor that request, Viticus.”

“Hey. Fuck you, man.”

“Come on, now, guys. Quit before you start. Last thing I need is for you two coming to blows,” I mutter. “And Present, that is a bit out of line, considering the circumstances.”

“Sorry…” The Ghost looks over to Viticus. “Sorry, man.”

The Saint just waves it off, entertaining himself by playing “Spaceboy” on his guitar. His voice is soft as he sings, but I think it has more to do with trying to hide his worry than not waking anyone who’s sleeping.

“And spaceboy, I missed you…
Spinnin’ round my head.
And any way you choose me,
You’ll break instead…”

Present and I exchange looks. I let out a heavy sigh.

“Alright. Fine. I’m gonna go see how he’s doing. In fact, I think I’ll just go to bed, period. You guys are on your own for the rest of the night.”


Mother’s Day. 8:30PM. (According to the grandfather clock in the lobby.)

They catch Ean as he is walking away from her apartment building--a pair of twin girls standing to almost-equal height with him only because of their heeled boots. The streetlights catch on the shiny polish of their leather shoes, on the gold buttons of their uniforms, on their scheming eyes… They hold hands but the gesture is empty of any Sapphic undertones. They are sisters, after all, and any weird behavior between them comes from the uncanny bond they share as twins. They don’t need to introduce themselves. Ean already knows who they are. When he lived, he used to see them all the time, patrolling the halls of his floor. They were the ones who pushed the girl in room 522 to suicide, although why it matters to him now when it didn’t matter to him then…

The funny thing is, the only reason it didn’t matter to him then is because he didn’t really believe the girls were real. With the painkillers he took and the occasional shot of Valium, there were even a few days early in his friendship with Allys where he doubted even her realness. Because, naturally, no one as nice as she was--is--would be caught dead talking to someone as pathetic as he was.

Is…

“What do you want?”

They smile ambiguously and chills run up Ean’s spine. They speak in unison, and the blood freezes in his veins.

“We were drawn to you by your misery.”

Ean scoffs. “You and everybody else.”

“On the contrary. While the writer and the artist are drawn to your general tragedy, we were drawn--”

“--by your regret of dying before speaking your heart--”

“--and by your fear she will forget you in time.”

“You obviously haven’t looked inside lately,” he fires back at the pair.

“We are barred entry from her place,” the twins answer. “She is protected.”

This piece of information startles Ean in a way he doesn’t let show. If she’s protected from the Dead, then how is it that he can go inside? And who’s protecting her? And why?

All good questions. Now all he needs are the answers.

“Well…judging from the way things look inside, I’d say she’s a long way from forgetting me. So whatever you’ve come to torture me with--”

“We come at the request of another. We come at the request of a Saint.”

And before Ean can ask what they mean, one of them--the silver-eyed one--hands him a small red envelope sealed with black wax. Carefully, his eyes study the seal stamped into the wax, wondering what Saint would mark their letters with a snake…and having the feeling that he already knows the answer.

“His offer has no expiration date,” they say. “The exact terms are inside.”

“I don’t need his ‘offer’.” He holds the envelope back out to them. “You can tell him thanks, but no thanks.”

They smile again, and it draws another chill out of him. Just what is it about these girls that so bothers him? Apart from their obvious significances… What is it that just downright frightens him? And suddenly, fleetingly, he wonders if they were present the day his father died.

“The offer has no expiration date,” the say again, “and once given, it cannot be returned unaccepted. However--”

“--when your fears finally consume you--”

“--and your regrets make you desperate--”

“--we will gladly deliver you to him to finalize the arrangements.”

“Sure,” Ean mutters, turning away. “Don’t hold your breaths.”


I feel foolish knocking at my own door, but I do it anyway because I have an infallible respect for anyone’s privacy--Living and Dead alike.

“Ean?”

No sound. I push the door open a little and see…nothing. Just darkness.

“Ean? Ean, it’s--it’s me…”

“Cris?” As he sits up, his form is just one shadow moving against larger shadows on the bed. “That you?”

“Yeah.” I shut the door behind me and stroll up to bedside. “I just came in to see how you were doing.”

“I…” Ean sighs. “I don’t feel a damn bit all right, Cris. I feel miserable. Lost. Desperate. And I miss her worse than I ever thought I would.”

He shifts over to make room for me on the bed. He’s still wearing his scarf; I can feel the knitting as he huddles close.

“You went to see Allys.”

“I couldn't help it. I couldn't…I just couldn't stop thinking about her, y'know, ever since I started going through those letters and finding details I had forgotten--details I promised myself I would never forget. And--and when I found those last three…”

Ean swallows a little; his hands search for mine and cling tight. He feels cold, the way Viticus felt on Saturday. Why is it always like that? Why do they always feel cold at times like these? I can never figure it out, and no matter how hard I try every theory and answer I can think of just kind of falls short.

“What kills me is that I don’t remember if she ever saw them. If I ever--if I ever left them in a place for her to find. Something tells me I did, but I can’t remember for sure and it…it hurts to think that she hasn’t. That she n--never knew. I mean…I used to tell her sometimes, but it… I…” He sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It scares me to think she might not have believed me at any point, or that my memories are completely wrong and that I never told her I loved her except for in those letters.”

“So you went looking for her.”

Ean nods. “I went looking for her. I never knew where she lived but…Viticus said you can find anyone just by concentrating on them, so I… That’s how I found her.”

He bites his lower lip; a strange sound halfway between a bitter chuckle and a sob escapes his throat. Sniffling, he presses the heel of each hand against his eyes, trying not to cry.

“Ean--”

“She lives alone, Cris. C--Claire shows up sometimes, I guess--I heard her talking on the phone about a…a visit--but…” He sniffles, wiping away tears. “But she lives by herself. And there’re all these paintings and sketches and…and-and books about death and art and-and…and Catholic saints.”

Ean sighs, hugging himself closer to me. His whole body is shaking, perhaps with fear and sadness, and it’s all I can do to just comfort him.

“I never knew she could paint like that. That she could sketch…” There is definite awe in his voice. “She always said she envied my…my ‘talent’. (He smiles a little.) That she could knit and photograph and even…even dance but that she couldn’t do much more than…than ‘shitty stick people and aimless abstracts’.”

Again comes the bitter chuckle/sob; his fingers idly play with the fringes on his scarf.

“I wonder where it all came from. (He sniffles.) Where she found that sudden talent to just--I mean… God, if--if you could just see them, Cris. They’re beautiful. Everything she does turns out beautiful. Even the darker ones…especially the darker ones… And she’s still so beautiful, too. She’s changed a bit, physically, but…but she’s still so beautiful inside and out.”

The ensuing silence is awkward. I’m not sure what to say to help him, and I get the feeling that he’s just talking out loud instead of talking directly to me. So I just do what I do best. I let him ramble…and I listen.

“They say that…trauma sometimes--(Sniffle.)--that it sometimes unlocks hidden talents. Maybe that’s what it is, y’know? The trauma of being so close to death, of seeing what I saw, even for just a moment…maybe that’s what did it.”

“Maybe.”

“But I don’t-- It bothers me to think of it that way. Because if I think about it like that…then what was I to her? Really…what was I? Just another person in her life to leave her behind in the end. Another person to leave her on her own… I was just another traumatic event--someone she probably talks about in therapy.”

“Ean, my love, if you are a traumatic event then you are certainly one of the better ones.”

“Hm?” Even in the dark, I can feel his eyes on me. “What are you getting at?”

“Just… Okay. Maybe…sharing in your death, I guess--seeing what you saw for that brief moment--maybe it did have a traumatic effect on her. But you didn’t leave her behind on purpose. You didn’t leave her because you wanted to; it was just your time.”

“Because I finished that piece. If I hadn’t finished that piece of--of that messenger--”

“No one can escape their meeting with Death. If anyone has taught me that, it’s you guys. But maybe…”

“Hm?”

A bit of remembered conversation with Saint Essex comes to mind, something that shakes me in a way I can’t quite pinpoint.

(“Of course, there are ways to restore someone. However, such things are best left to the deciding whims of those who wield the power best.”

“You mean like Death.”

“Death, yes, and the proper Saints.”

“Which ones? You? Orpheia?”

“That isn’t yet something for you to know. However, I can tell you that such items of interest come at a very high price.”

“What sort of high price?”

“That’s another thing you shouldn’t worry yourself with.”

“Yet.”

“Cristina--”

“Come on, Essex; what’s the harm? It’s not like I’m gonna go around telling people--and besides, who would believe me anyway?”

“I promise you, Cristina. When the time is right, you will learn all you will ever need to learn.”)

“Cris?”

“It’s nothing, Ean. Just kind of thinking, is all.” I stroke his hair and kiss his forehead. “Go ahead and try to sleep.”

“Okay.” Ean’s voice is weary. “Cris?”

“Hm?”

“I miss her. S-so much… I miss her.”

“I know, honey.” I sigh. “I’m sure she misses you, too.”


“Say what?”

“Seriously!” Allys insists. “It was weird--very weird. I was painting and I felt like somebody was just…just watching me, y’know? It was weird.”

“But you live on the eighth floor!”

“I know. It felt like someone was almost in the room with me, I guess.” She laughs shyly. “I dunno. It was strange, but it also felt…it felt comforting. I wasn’t scared or creeped out or anything. I felt really safe, actually.”

Claire laughs too, lifting a forkful of beef lo mein. “I keep telling you, Al, you need to get out of that fucking apartment for more than just school. It’s starting to drive you crazy.”

“I--I don’t know. I’m not ready yet.”

“‘Not ready’? Al, it’s been four months, already.”

“Three and…” The photography student tilts her head to count the days. “Three months, two weeks and four days.”

Claire frowns. “Now you’re just being a smartass.”

Allys smiles at her, but they fall into uneasy silence. The journalist’s frown deepens a little as she watches her friend poke halfheartedly at her order of beef with broccoli. The topic of Ean and his death are still touchy with her, but what bothers Claire more is the younger girl’s reaction to it. The physical and emotional changes, the adoption of the hermit’s lifestyle… She sees her therapist twice a week now instead of once, and her sleeping pattern is…

Suddenly Allys chuckles. “Maybe it was Ean, y’know? Coming to see how I was.”

“Honey--”

“Think about it, Claire--” Allys’s eyes brighten a little now. Death and the afterlife--those are her favorite topics now. “Haven’t you ever thought about it? All those moments where you’ve felt you were being watched--”

“Allys.”

“All those moments where you’ve felt a presence or--or seen something--just for a split second--that you can never quite explain later--”

“Allys. Honey. I’m really worried about you.” Claire reaches across the table, resting a hand over that of her friend’s. “I see you sitting in your apartment--day in, day out--doing nothing but painting or reading about the Tarot or…or about Catholic martyrs or death and…and it scares me, kid. It really does. You only go out to meet with your shrink or for school…or for Subway… You hardly even take pictures anymore.”

“I-I--”

“I-I mean…hell, if I didn’t drag you out of your apartment every so often, you’d never leave.”

“I go to school…” Allys offers. “I go to St. Mark’s…”

“To see if you can see that guy again--Vit…Vincent or whatever his name is.”

“Viticus.”

“Him. You only go there to see if you can spot him again. Kid…” Claire sighs. “It’s not healthy, you being like this. Ean wouldn’t want it for you. I…I don’t want it for you. And I count, huh?”

“Of course, you count. You count a lot. I just…” Allys glances around the restaurant, blinking rapidly--her old standby to avoid showing she’s tearing up. “I know I felt something that night, Claire. I don’t know what it was, but I know that when Ean died, I felt something. Something very powerful. And I still just miss him so much, y’know?”

“Yeah…” The journalist pats her hand. “I know, kid.”

“I think he was the one I could’ve spent my life with.”

“Aw, Allys--” Claire motions for a waiter to bring them the check. “You’re only twenty. You have your whole life ahead of you. And…and Ean might have been a possible great love, but it’s not the end for you. There will be others.”

“None like him though.” Allys shakes her head. “None at all like him.”