“You been with me this whole time? Watchin’ me?”
“Typhus, I been with you every step. My very hand on your heart. I’d be with you past today if you hadn’t a put me out like you just done.”
“I’m sorry I did that,” Typhus started with a crack in his voice, “but I had to. Things was gettin’…so hard.”
“Well, that’s all right. You just settle down. You done nothing wrong, boy. Musta been hard with never a moment’s true privacy. Seein’ that scar on yer chest every day and wonderin’ about it, wonderin’ if yer own thoughts were really your own-”
“Were they?”
“Were they what?”
“My thoughts. Were they mine?”
A beat. “Mostly.”
Typhus hesitated. There was one more question, and the question came in the form of a single word:
“Lily?”
“Your mama’s name was Gloria, son.”
“Gloria.” The word felt holy on his lips.
“And I guess the answer to what you’re asking is
“Gloria.” Fresh tears welled in Typhus’ eyes.
“There was no shame in the love you felt for our Gloria; my wife, your mother. Shame not even in the passion. She was the love of my life, Typhus-and my hand was on your heart through no fault of your own-God Himself having put it there. You had no way of knowing why you felt the way you did. But that bastard Jack sure as hell did know. He knew every bit of it.”
In spite of this truth, Typhus could no longer bring himself to feel hatred or anger towards Doctor Jack. Couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but regret-regret at knowing the most powerful thing he’d ever felt in his life, his love for Lily, was not even a thing he could call his own. It was a passion borrowed from a dead man, his father.
“That ain’t so, Typhus.” After fifteen years residence in his son’s soul, Noonday had no problem plucking thoughts from his head. “Your love was your own. It was always your own. I just give you a little nudge is all.”
“Sounds like you done a lot of nudgin’.”
“Guess I did.” Noonday smiled. “I hope I nudged you right once or twice along the way.”
“Maybe you did. I guess you did. I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s hope-at the end of the day, hoping is all anyone can do. Anyway, now that you done spat out my hand, I guess I’ll be off on my own shortly. Off to the Spiritworld, sure enough. And this time all in one piece.”
“Heaven,” said Typhus, squinting his eyes at the sun. “Up in the clouds.”
Noonday lowered his eyes. “I guess I gave you some wrong information about that back when I was a living man-but damn if I didn’t take the Holy Bible literal at every word. Truth is, there ain’t no heaven and hell, son. Just one Spiritworld. And it ain’t in the sky, neither.”
“Where, if not up?”
“Think.” Noonday winked at his son. Spat another stream of juice in the water; a hint.
“The river.”
“Water, son. Ain’t nothin’ more sacred than water. Even more sacred than air.”
“I think I’m dying, Daddy.”
“I know, son.”
“But I’ve got so many questions-”
“Shhh. Time for that later.”
“I don’t understand.”
Noonday stroked his son’s forehead. “Ain’t you been listening to a word I just said? In the water. We’ll meet again in the water. Soon.”
“I need something, Daddy.”
“What might that be?” said Noonday, knowing full well what Typhus needed.
“I need the truth.”
“The truth is what it is, Typhus. Real truth is common knowledge in the world of living men. Men only get to asking about it when they have a hard time accepting what they already know. But you knew that, didn’t you, Typhus? Ever since you was small, you knew that. You just done forgot is all.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, boy.” Noonday touched Typhus’ cheek. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
The mind of Malvina Latour had been in steady decline for better than two decades now, its process of deterioration having integrated itself into her daily routine. Recent events passed through her head like a sieve and lately she’d found herself mostly unable to form clear thoughts of any kind. Being aware of such weakness failed to distress her, though, for she found comfort in the night.
In dreams, she was vibrant and young, her mind sharp and clear. In dreams, she was not a doddering old woman who babbled endlessly and bitterly about shoes left in the middle of the damn floor. While asleep, all was right and peaceful. All this had been so-until Coco Robicheaux had come to call.
Since the coming of Coco Robicheaux her nights had brought only dread, the vivid calm of dreams stained by something dark and deathly. A ghostly thing had invaded her dreams, never far off but never too near-getting nearer with each night.
Tonight as she drifted off to sleep a heavy sense of dread fell-something like a premonition of her own death. She might have snapped awake had the dread evolved to fear, but the sensation of it had left her remarkably unafraid. Though dread and fear are often mistaken for one another, they are hardly the same thing. She dissolved into sleep with a thin smile on her lips as she let the dream take her.
The thin smile remains as she walks. She is walking now as she always does in dreams, at the bottom of a river. The object of her dreams, she believes, is to find
There is no perceptible current this far below the surface; Malvina moves easily, only remotely aware of the tons of water surrounding her, pushing down from above, reducing far away sunlight to luminescent brown, caressing her skin and causing her thick black hair to drift wildly about her eyes. She is strong in the dream; her joints do not ache, she is not short of breath, her back is straight and absent of pain, her head is held high and proud. She is beautiful in the dream; her skin is a glowing and fair tan, her breasts are firm, her stomach flat, and her eyes as bewitching as they’d been in her youth.
Suddenly she falls, landing softly on palms and knees. Her head turns to investigate what
