We returned to our school bus and drove to Eureka, Hugo in the driver’s seat. Part of the way we listened to emergency broadcasts on the radio reporting power outages, road closures, evacuation zones, and the location of shelters. We reached the south end of town in thirty minutes. Elk River was flooded, but we were able to drive through. Eureka was far enough away from the larger rivers to be affected too much.
Only a few cars were on the road. The town was empty, eerie. The DMV sparking lot was abandoned. I didn’t know why Naomi was there, or why she’d chosen this place to meet. I didn’t care. I was tired.
Bruce poked me in the ribs before exiting the bus and made a cryptic comment about me facing my fears. Naomi walked out of the DMV and greeted Bruce and Pam with hugs and kisses and face strokes.
I turned to Em. “I understand if you still want the body they’re offering,” I said. “I’ll support you. I’ll love you no matter what.”
Em looked at me with resolve in her eyes. “Mom would’ve wanted me to get back on the bike,” she said, calling back to the story I’d told her about breaking my arm when I was a kid.
“Okay.” I thought about the power of metaphors, even the ones without magic entwined in them.
“If I’m not in this body, I can’t help you,” she said.
“This isn’t about me. This is about what’s best for you. You don’t need to help me.”
“Can Suzanne stay with us? She helps with the nightmares.”
“Okay,” I said, looking at Suzanne, who looked down at Em with tender eyes.
Then I stood and went to the door of the bus.
“Don’t,” Hugo said, wary of Naomi.
I stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked through the glass at my ex-girlfriend, who stared back at me from five yards away. The streets were quiet. She could hear me through the door.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I will always protect you, Charlie,” she said, placing a hand over her heart. “I will never let you die.”
I shuttered a little hearing that, then Hugo clunked the bus in gear and we lurched out of the driveway back onto the road. We passed old Victorians with Christmas trees in the windows. I wondered what the people inside were talking about, if the children thought the rekulak had something to do with Santa Claus, if the faithful thought it was a sign of the end times.
After dropping Hugo off at the Lodge, Lou got in the driver’s seat, and we got back on the highway heading north. At my direction, we stopped at the Mad River Inn. I wanted to know what became of my sister’s body. The parking lot there was empty as well. Not knowing what I would find, I said to Em, “Stay here. You don’t want to see this.”
“I’m going,” she said. “I’ve seen worse.”
I had to accept that she was telling the truth. I had to stop deceiving myself about her so that I didn’t feel like I was falling off a cliff every time I was confronted directly with her loss of innocence. She was no longer the child I had known, though she looked the part now.
Kaliah, Hugo, and Suzanne stayed behind, while Em, Lou, and I left the bus. I noticed what looked like a new bronze plaque bolted to the stucco wall by the front doors, and I stopped to read it: “In memory of those who lost their lives to the void so that Blanche could be reborn.” Lou and I exchanged looks of disgust at this, then the three of us walked inside.
A man in a mauve collared shirt stood behind the front desk, unmoving, unblinking. His clothes, skin, and hair all glistened. As I came closer, I saw he was covered evenly in a shiny, thin membrane, as if he’d been dipped whole into a clear glaze and left there to dry. At different angles, the faint outline of small yellow scales caught the light.
“I recognize this,” Lou said. “It’s a Zaditorian ritual, a way of honoring the dead.”
The drinkers that had been in the lobby bar the day May had been killed were honored in the same fashion, glistening statues, preserved in different poses, most watching a TV that wasn’t on.
The elevator didn’t work, so we climbed the stairs. My stomach constricted as we approached the room. Lou went in first and hung his head. May was standing with one hand encased in a black bubble. She was still. She was shimmering, lifelike, gone, preserved in some strange Zaditorian substance.
Em walked out of the room. I went after her, but she told me she wanted to be alone, and I listened.
Lou and I wrapped May’s stiff, preserved body in hotel blankets and carried her down the stairs and past the other honored dead. She was lighter than I would have thought. Outside, Em was beating on the bronze plaque with a hammer she had found. The plaque wasn’t budging. I didn’t try to stop her. But after Lou and I set May’s body down in the aisle of the bus, I went back and held out my hand. Em gave me the hammer, and I chipped away at the stucco around the plaque with the claw end, then I pried and pried at the plaque. After several minutes of work, it loosened, and I gave the hammer back to Em. She smashed the plaque off the wall.
In silence, we drove to Lou’s house. I dug a grave in his backyard. The work was restful for my mind. We buried May’s stiff body in the grave. Em talked about making a headstone. I encouraged her.
Lou’s fridge was full of rotten
