Dust to Dust by Karina Halle
“Rose?” This was crazy. I almost laughed. “So Dex…wait. Did Dex know? He must have.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “He didn’t. Which is why he, well, floundered through life I reckon.”
“He was in a mental asylum,” I said, feeling that anger build again. “You put him there.”
“No,” he said sharply. “I did not. I tried to help Dex, really I did. But I just couldn’t handle it, handle him. You weren’t there, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand. He slept with your girlfriend and suddenly you didn’t want to help him anymore. Is that it?”
“Perry, please, it’s in the past.”
I rolled my eyes. “No wonder Dex hated you.”
He flinched as if hurt. “He didn’t know.”
“I bet on some level he did. That you were there to help him and then you abandoned him.” I tried to slice him with the word.
“I went to help someone else that I could,” he said. “Rose needed me.”
I felt a pang of guilt at her name and wanted to ask how she was doing. She was nearly comatose after New Orleans and our incident with the Voodoo queen. But that was a concern for another time. Now, I had something so big on my plate I could barely handle it.
“All this time,” I said slowly. “From the start. You knew, you believed. And you lied.”
“I did what I had to do,” he said. “To protect you, myself, Dex. To protect the way things work.”
“You knew I was possessed and you sided with my parents,” I seethed. “You made it seem like I was crazy.”
“I had no choice, your parents would not have believed me,” he said, raising his hands. “Not then, anyway.”
I shook my head, unable to take it in. So all this time, he’d always known, always believed. Suddenly everything seemed to slide and click into place. I looked down at my hands, realizing I was tearing at my cuticles so hard they were drawing blood. “So now what? You’re mortal?”
“That’s right,” he said. “I went rogue. For Rose. I gave it all up.”
“Now?”
“Years and years ago. Before it all went sour and we broke up.”
“And so you knew this would happen to Dex!”
His mouth settled in a firm line before he said, “No, I never imagined this. I’m telling you the truth when I say I’m as confused as you are. I don’t know where Dex grew up, I never had that information, and whatever ways I had to find out are now gone. I’m just like you – I know about as much as you. And believe it or not, I want to find him as much as you do. I care about the damn fool.”
The three of us lapsed into a silence that seemed to stretch over the whole city. Finally Ada clasped her hands together and said, “Some people give up their virginity to stay in a relationship. You gave up immortality. That’s pretty rough, dude.”
He shrugged and rubbed a hand across his chin. “Yeah, well I reckon it was worth it in the end. I still have Rose. She is doing better, she remembers who I am. We’ve had to fight against a lot in the last two months, believe me it was pretty scary there for a while, but we’re both where we need to be. We’re each other’s home. And Perry, I know Dex is yours and you are his. That’s why we’ll find him. Things just won’t be right in this damn universe until we do.”
“Then let me go into the Veil,” I said, bolstered even more now.
He tilted his head to study me. “Your bravery is admirable, little lady, but your stupidity is not.” I opened my mouth to attempt to zing him with something but he went on. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do, just as a friend who knows some things, I know it would be a mistake. Every time you go in there, you come back with something. Either you’re weakening the Veil, or yourself. In some cases you strengthen. But strengths that you don’t know how to use only end up being your weakness.”
I mulled over that. It was true that when Dex and I were in the Veil, we came back changed. He was stronger, physically, and I came back with the ability to project my thoughts and, on occasion, hear them. But having that kind of “gift” was still a challenge to navigate. It only seemed to work half the time and when it did work, it was burdensome.
Not to say it hadn’t saved our lives every now and then. But it was hard to rely on something if you didn’t know how it worked.
Dex, though. Dex was unbelievable. He healed faster, possessed amazing strength and agility, and fought against certain death, coming out a winner. There was no weakness with him, not with his body anyway.
His mind, though, that was a different story. I swallowed a terrible thought, the idea that he could be corrupted. Dex, as funny, loving, smart and sexual as he was, always seemed to battling himself, his inner workings. His childhood and “mental illness” were foils of his, chipping away at his self-esteem and encouraging his self-loathing.
Dex was many wonderful things but he wasn’t perfect – he was his own greatest enemy. I had hoped that I could help him over time – with the two of us together, he finally seemed to put many of his demons to rest. But I knew he had a lot of work in front of him. We both did.
Of course, none of that meant shit if I couldn’t find him, help him. In fact, just recognizing that, despite all his strength, Michael could exploit Dex’s flaws, made everything that more urgent.
Fuck Ginger Balls, as Dex would say. If I had a chance to get him back, I was taking it.
I started scanning the area, wondering how to go about doing this supernatural, insanely improbable thing that I had never done before.
“Perry,” Maximus warned again, reading me. “Don’t do it. I can’t go in there and get you out if something goes wrong.”
“Maybe I can,” Ada spoke up. We both looked at her sternly.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told her. “You won’t be able to handle it.”
“And you can?” she shot back.
I ignored her, hoping that if anything did go wrong, that Maximus wouldn’t let her. That was the thing about the Veil. While it seemed you could use your mind to open doors and create portals, shimmering holes in the air, you actually needed to step in with your body. Usually, anyway. Even if I created or found a passage in the air here in Bryant Park, hundreds of New Yorkers would watch me step through and vanish into thin air. Not exactly a subtle practice.
And it’s not that Maximus and Ada would physically let me.
“Fine, fair enough.” I stretched my arms above my head and eyed the paid toilets in the corner of the park. I thrust my iced coffee into Ada’s hands and said, “Hold this for me, just going to use the washroom.”
She frowned, as if she was trying to scan my mind, but I willed myself to be as blank as possible. It seemed to work and she nodded lightly. Perhaps I could learn to control these gifts after all.
I didn’t even bother looking at Maximus though. Who knows what the lumberjack could pick up on.
I walked across the park, utterly conscious of their eyes on me and disappeared into the toilet. It wasn’t as gross as I had expected, perhaps because you did have to spend a quarter to get in. I went pee anyway and after I washed up, I tried to figure out what to do next.
Usually it was Pippa who either pulled me into the Veil or to some other limbo-like place, somewhere between reality and dreaming. Other times, it was my possessed soul that was banished there while my body stayed behind.
Truthfully, I had no idea what to do or how to do it. I remember how Pippa explained how it worked for her, how she had to concentrate and imagine the air bending before she could physically step through, but perhaps that wasn’t the same for everyone.
I stared blankly at the toilet for a few moments until it began to feel like a smelly tomb, then closed my eyes and decided to try from inside myself. At first I called for Pippa, asking for her in my head over and over again, willing for her help, for her to appear. Then, when nothing happened, I moved onto Dex, asking the same. I pleaded with all my heart and soul.
Just like the many times
But I wouldn’t give up.
I took in a deep breath through my mouth and tried to steady my heart, which was thumping hard from exertion and nerves and the mounting feeling of helplessness. Maybe I just had to imagine it, create it, concentrate my thoughts like I did when I was trying to project onto people.
I stared at a blank spot right in front of the door, using the sight as a means to visualize and focus. I imagined the air started to shimmer, like a mirage inside of the bathroom, but though I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t actually see it happen.
I kept at it, sweat pouring down my arms, my face growing hot, trying so, so hard to make this happen. I had almost given up when it happened. As it was, I looked away from the area I was concentrating on for just a moment, enough time to see a small bug crawling up the wall, when the area around the door, just in my peripheral, started to move. I looked back at it quickly and it was still again.
Rubbing my lips together, I tried to both concentrate on the area and look away from it at the same time. I focused but let the focus blur.
And when I did just that, the air started to warp and shift. I slowly brought that into focus and now I could see it clearly. There was a hazy shimmer in the air, like I was looking at the washroom door through clear, moving water.
Cautiously, I raised my hand and put it through the air. Once it passed into the shimmer, my arm turned a de-saturated shade of grey and was instantly chilled. My skin started prickling, all the hairs standing straight up like I was being electrocuted. Every part of my body was telling me to withdraw my arm, to take it back, to stay in this world, this dimension, this universe where the living belonged.
Every instinct told me to not cross over.
But Dex may be on the other side. Answers could hang from trees, ripe for the picking.
Sometimes your instincts were wrong. Your body wants you to survive but sometimes there are more important things than just surviving.
I took in a deep breath and stepped in through the shimmer.
My body instantly froze from intense chill and my limbs grew stiff and rigid as waves of electricity coursed through my body and the pressure inside my head built to a boiling point.
I shut my eyes hard and cried out, not sure where my screams would end up.
I walked another step and suddenly the world was sucked away from me, violently removed, like it was being vacuumed.
I was no longer in the washroom.
I was no longer in this world.
CHAPTER FIVE
Perry
When I opened my eyes on the other side, I was in Bryant Park. But there were no people about. There was no sound. There was no real smell, except for a stale, musty odor, like the inside of an old, upholstered car on a hot day. Except it was no longer hot, like the hazy sun above Manhattan. It was cold enough to make my breath turn to cloud and my lungs to burn with each breath.
That was to say, of course, that I was even breathing air.
I turned around, wondering if I could find my way back to the other side. The air shimmered right behind me, though it looked like it was growing more faint by the moment. I could barely see the toilet on the other side and I wondered how long I had before Ada or Maximus or some New Yorker who really had to piss, would start banging on it. I couldn’t remember if time stood still while you were in the Veil or if it went on as usual. I couldn’t remember if there were any rules.
Fear pricked at the back of my neck but I straightened my shoulders, refusing it. I couldn’t start panicking now at what I had done. I had to follow through. I would whatever it took in order to find him or Pippa.
But where the fuck did I even start? This world was grey and devoid of life. Where were the lost souls, the reluctant dead? Hell, I’d even welcome the giant woodbugs and earthworms that I had seen once before.
Maybe no one knows you’re here, I thought quickly to myself. Maybe that’s a very good thing.
I made a mental note to keep quiet and stop wishing. I began to walk across the park and to the street, past the bench that Ada and Maximus would be sitting on the other side of things. I wondered if they could sense me, hovering behind their existence. Part of me wanted to stay there, feeling safe and tethered to them but the other, more desperate part, needed to go on.
I walked up and down the streets, keeping quiet and sticking to the walls of buildings, hiding in the shadows that formed despite there being no sun in the sky, just this grimy dead light that hanged above you.
For blocks there was nothing. The chill in the air lessened its hold on me, but my footfalls still had only a whisper of sound. I felt like I was walking inside a miniature city kept inside a jar, with only a few holes poked at the top.
I don’t know where I was going, my feet were not being consciously moved, but considering I had no other ideas, I just went with it and walked and walked.
Finally, I saw something.
Or, should I say, it saw me.
There was a grandiose building –a bank I think – with a row of wide, dusty steps leading up to stately-looking pillars, Grecian-style. At the top of the steps was a man, pacing back and forth.
At least I thought it was a man. As I came closer, my pace slowing, I could see some things were off about him. He moved with jerks, like a marionette puppet and his pants seemed too thin, too flexible, like he didn’t actually have any legs under there at all.
He also had no eyes and no nose – just black, crusted over cavities that I imagined would be bright red in another world.
I swallowed my revulsion. Then he turned his bald head toward me and I knew he saw me. Revulsion turned to fear.
Who are you? he asked quietly in my head. To my surprise, there was a note of fear in his voice too. I know you’re there.
I kept my mouth closed, wondering if maybe he couldn’t see me after all.
He reached into his suit pocket, then bent down and placed something on the ground. Two black and white creatures – insects – skittered down the stairs toward me. The closer they got, I realized they were giant cockroaches. But that wasn’t all there was to them.
The insects stopped a few feet away and my mouth dropped open. I took a step back, my hand flying to my lips to keep the bile inside.
The cockroaches didn’t have heads. Instead they had an eyeball each. Human eyeballs, staring right at me from skewed angles, their optic nerves forged onto the legs of the insects, like veiny armor.
Who are you? The voice repeated, and now I knew he could see me. Where did you come from?
It took a moment to gather my words. I’m looking for someone. Can you help me?
The cockroaches skittered closer to each other, their legs making a scritch-scritch sound on the pavement that seemed impossibly loud in this airless world.
The voice laughed but when I looked up at the man who was still standing on the steps of the bank, he was motionless.
I can help you, he said, no more than you can help me. You are here where I don’t wish to be. He paused and my gaze darted down to the cockroach eyeballs that were beginning to dance excitedly. You could get me out of here. There are so many people I wish to see.
Was he starting to rhyme all Dr. Seuss on my ass?
I ignored his plea. Like hell I was going to help him cross over to my world so he could start haunting people. I’m looking for a woman, I told him, she used to live in here.
Here is a large world, the man said, and the cockroaches scampered right up to my feet. I fought the violent urge to step on them and squish the eyeballs into the ground. But who knew what ire I’d draw if I did that. I needed to stay calm and play it safe.
Her name is Pippa, I said. Or was Pippa. The last image I had of her was that she was skin and bone and she was dying. I could only hope she was still around, but if she was
I went on. She said things would happen here, in New York. To be more precise, she had said “That’s where I saw you, Perry. When I first used the Veil to look into your life. It’s where Dex and Michael were born, brought into this world. Where both Dex and I were put away. It’s the beginning of so many horrors. And I believe it will be the end.”
This is not New York, the man said, even though I could see a glimpse of the Chrysler building through the glass office building opposite us. This is not anywhere. You will find no one here except poor souls like me.
Suddenly the man started walking down the stairs toward me and while my attention was on his body, the cockroaches began to crawl up my legs. I shuddered and shrieked, swatting at them in automatic horror.
The man was sprinting now, yelling out in pain as I managed to knock the cockroaches to the ground and leap backwards out of the way. They reared up on their back legs and waved sharp incisors at me, ready to take a bite.
I screamed again as they came for me and turned quickly on my heel. I ran as fast I could through the grey streets, hearing his footsteps after me and the scratching sound of the insect legs as they scraped over the concrete.
Thankfully I didn’t have to run for too long before the man and his eyeballs seemed to give up the chase. It didn’t make me feel any better – if something like him was here, then what else was? But at least I was out of immediate danger.
Unfortunately I was no better off than before. The man had never heard of Pippa, and even if he had, he wasn’t about to help me find her. Perhaps I should have struck some kind of bargain with him – you help me and then I’ll help you. But who knew what would happen if I brought that monstrosity back to the other side with me. Probably not a lot of good.
I stopped and looked around. Something about the place was familiar, though I didn’t know how. Just a feeling I had. I looked around at the buildings, down the empty street, wondering why buildings were here but cars were not.