The Death Seer (Skeleton Key) (3 page)

They all stared in silence until someone in the back of the room stood and stepped out of the shadows. He had on a Deadhead t-shirt and ripped jeans. His brown hair was a little long, hanging over his ears and into his forehead until he pushed it aside. He was tall. Rangy. His jaw was lightly shaded with stubble. He wore sunglasses and an amused half-grin. “Well, hello,” he said. “Where’d you come from?”
 

I couldn’t see his eyes, but the tilt of his head, down and back up, suggested he was giving me the once over. Me, in my pajamas. Not even wearing a bra. I suddenly felt the exposure of every inch of my skin, and I blushed under the heat of embarrassment. “Um, I came from…”
 

He arched a brow.
 

I didn’t feel I had a good answer, but I spoke anyway. “I came from downstairs.”

“Really?” he laughed, incredulous. “Show me.”

The men in the room behind him began murmuring to each other. The man in front of me gestured for me to show him the way. I led him back down the stairs. “I came down this hallway through this door,” I said as I reached the bottom stairs. “That door…” I pointed at nothing but a wall. My door was gone. “Where did it go?”

The man walked past me and examined the wall. He put his hands on it, pushing and touching. “Well, you can’t expect a door to stick around all day. Apparently it felt it served its purpose.” He turned back to me, still wearing the sunglasses in spite of the darkness. “Even so, I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

“I know I’m not supposed to be here. I need to be with my brother who’s just…” I found I couldn’t voice it. Something we hadn’t adjusted to was the vocabulary of it all. How do you say your loved one just died when it appeared they hadn’t really died in the traditional sense of the word. “Can you get me home?”

“Where’s home?”

“Three-oh-four West Riverside.”

“Ha!” he laughed, and his smile was beautiful. But then it vanished completely and his eyebrows went up. “Wait, what did you say?”

“My address. It’s three-oh-four—”

“What’s your name?”

“Brenna Engel.” I don’t know why I was so free with the information except that this man seemed to know what he was doing, and at the moment, I certainly didn’t know what I was doing.

“Brenna,” he repeated. Slowly he removed his sunglasses.
 

The sight of his eyes put me in shock. The irises were blue at first, but as I watched, they seemed to lighten. They were crystalline. Nearly glowing. They changed, morphing, darkening and lightening, swimming with expression. I got the feeling those eyes were seeing things the rest of the world couldn’t. “Who are you?” I whispered.

He put his sunglasses back on and turned away from me, pacing. He stopped, faced me, and asked, “How did you get here?”

I could barely speak. I held up the key. His brow furrowed, but I could no longer see his eyes. He took the key and turned it over in his hands. “You used this in the door that’s no longer there?”

“Well, sort of. There was a tunnel before that and another door. In fact, it was the front door to the house next door to mine.”

“Three-oh-six West Riverside,” he muttered as he studied the key.

“That’s right.”

He continued frowning at the key, his brow furrowed deeply.

“Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?” I asked. It seemed a foolish question, and yet an important one.

“I prefer not to see everything. How did you come by this key?”

The issue of the sunglasses pulled at me, and yet his more immediate question took priority. “It showed up on my windowsill last night.”

“And how did you know to use it in three-oh-six West Riverside?”
 

“It’s…it’s a weird story. My brother’s girlfriend collapsed into a death coma—”

“A what?”

“A death coma. Do you call it something else?”

He was staring at me. I think he was staring at me, though all I saw was my reflection in his glasses. “What the hell is a death coma?”

“You mean you don’t…you don’t have them here?”

His mouth hung partially open. He closed it and handed the key back to me. “Finish your story.”

I gave my head a shake, trying to recall where I’d left off. “My brother’s girlfriend collapsed. And then he collapsed. Then the key got warm and I just knew where it was supposed to go. All of this happened…my God, it can’t have been more than ten minutes ago. But somehow it feels farther away than that.”

The man simply stood there in front of me saying nothing for the longest time. I fidgeted with my key, not sure whether I should say something else.
 

At last he sighed. “We should get you some clothes. Then I’ll help you find your door. Follow me.”

He turned for the stairs and I followed. “Thank you. I’m sorry to be a bother.”

“Not at all.”

“What’s your name?”

He stopped halfway up the stairs and turned. He smiled crookedly down at me. “Kord. It’s good to see you again, Brenna.”

He turned and headed back up the stairs.

Above the tavern were rooms. Terrible, musty, cramped rooms with straw tick mattresses, wash basins, and not much else. Kord led me into a room at the back of the third floor. There was at least a window, but as soon as I saw it, I became disoriented. It was morning not a half hour ago, but out the window was only a dark, reddish glow.
 

“Margaret, wake up,” Kord said.

I had been distracted by the window. Now I saw there was a naked woman lying face-down atop the bed. She did not wake up. On the small table next to the bed was a pipe of some sort and a pale brown brick with a small knife laid on top.
 

Kord sat on the edge of the bed next to her, placed his hand on her back, and gave her a little shake. “Hey, Margaret.”

The woman moaned but otherwise remained still.
 

Kord stood. “Well, it doesn’t look like she’ll be using her clothes anytime soon anyway, so we may as well take them. I’ll leave her a note. You get changed.”

I looked around the floor at Margaret’s clothes scattered around my feet. I barely recognized most of the garments. They looked like costuming from one of those photo shops where you can dress like a southern belle or a good-natured saloon prostitute. Kord was bent over, scribbling something on a piece of paper next to the pipe. He stopped and stood straight. “It occurs to me I don’t actually know if Margaret can read.”

“I don’t need her clothes. Maybe I could wear something of yours?”

He ignored me and crossed the room, kneeling at my feet. He sorted through the clothes, pulling out bits and pieces he apparently found appropriate.
 

I ended up putting on some long stockings, a corset over my tank top—which Kord laced up for me—and Margaret’s tattered brown dress. I dropped the key inside a pocket sewn into the skirt. Kord stepped back and looked me over. “Cute,” he said.

I looked back at Margaret. “Who is she?”

“She was a dancer. She’s got better clothes somewhere, so don’t worry about her. Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”

I followed him back into the hall and down the stairs. I assumed we would eat the unattractive porridge that I saw other patrons partaking of, but Kord took my hand and led me out of the tavern.
 

We stepped out onto a cobblestone street. The buildings were squat, thatch-roofed things. The air smelled faintly of urine. The sky glowed that reddish color, and I found it deeply disconcerting.

I allowed Kord to lead me, my sneakers slipping and twisting on the uneven path.
 

“Where is it? Where is it?” Kord kept muttering. We walked past a few houses, stopped, backtracked, stopped, and backtracked again. “Ah, there’s the little bastard.”
 

We were facing a narrow, dead-end alley between two houses. Kord pulled on my hand, leading me toward the brick wall at the back. I had to follow behind him because of the narrow space, but he held my hand nonetheless. As we got closer to the wall, I noticed we weren’t slowing down. In fact, he was pulling me faster so that I stumbled to keep up.

“Kord…there’s a wall…” I said, just as we reached the wall. He didn’t slow. I dug in my heels and broke from his grip, falling back a few steps.

He turned, trying to retrieve my hand. “Let’s hurry before it moves again.”

“What are you…?” He grabbed me by the shoulders, turned me, and shoved my back against the wall. Only I didn’t hit a wall. I just kept moving backwards. Naturally, I squeezed my eyes shut as I prepared for impact. When impact didn’t come, I opened one eye, and then the other. I was standing in an open market square surrounded by small shops with French names on the signs hanging under their awnings. The sky was the same reddish hue, but the mustiness was faded. The air felt dead. There was no movement at all and if I thought about it, I found it difficult to breathe.

“Better breakfast here,” Kord said, once again taking my hand and leading me toward one of the shops.

It was a café. The floors inside were brick. A few ceiling fans made lazy circulations, moving the air comfortably around us. Kord led me through the shop and out the back door onto a patio that overlooked a small duck pond with a little island in the middle with a willow tree growing on it. Nothing was its proper color. The willow tree might have been green with its summer growth, but instead it appeared nearly black. We sat in wrought-iron chairs across from each other. A server in black slacks and a white blouse brought us menus.

Kord ordered for us in perfect French and with a charming smile that made the server blush. As she walked away, she cast a glance at him over her shoulder. I couldn’t tell because of his sunglasses, but I’m fairly certain he watched her walk away.

“Do you know her?” I asked.

“Not yet.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “There’s nothing but time, here. I get to know lots of people. I figure there are infinite experiences to be had. But lately, no one new has come over. Most people don’t notice, but I do. It’s been a long time…too long, since I’ve seen anyone new. So tell me about these death comas.”

 
I told him everything that had happened since he disappeared that day. I still couldn’t look at him and believe this was the little boy with the blindfold whom I’d played toy soldiers with in his windowsill. There was some resemblance in his occasional smile and in the way he shoved his hair out of his eyes. Otherwise, he looked completely different. Grown and handsome and manly.
 

He listened to me with a furrow in his brow and an occasional nod of understanding. Afterwards he leaned back in his chair and blew out a breath, his cheeks puffing out.

The server brought us pastries and coffee. Apparently even the strangeness of my circumstances and the shock of losing my brother and Annie didn’t affect my appetite. I ate my fill while Kord watched me.

“I always figured you for a blond,” he said.

I looked up. “I dye it black, now.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I just like it better.”

He frowned. Perhaps it wasn’t to his taste. “I used to think you were an angel.”

“Because you thought my hair was blonde?”

“Because you came to my window at night. My mother kept the world away. I never knew anyone but her and you. I thought God sent you to relieve my suffering. But he didn’t. You were just a nice girl.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“I’m not disappointed.”

I studied him, but there wasn’t much to see. A neutral expression and my reflection in his glasses. “Can you get me home?”

“I’ll try. I think I have a bigger problem, though. I’ll need to see my mother.”

“She lives here, too?”

He arched a brow, his lips quirking up into a grin. “Do you know where ‘here’ is?”

I shook my head. It was, indeed, one of the many things I’d been wondering about the past hour. Or morning. Or however long I’d been there.

“This is the other side. The after-life. Welcome to the Underworld, Brenna.”

“Is the sky like this everywhere?”
 

He sat in the grass next to the duck pond. I was on my back with my head in his lap and my eyes closed. He’d caught me before I’d fainted and laid me down. Now he was stroking my hair and massaging my temples. “Mostly,” he answered. “All the time. A little darker at night. A little brighter in the day. There is one place where the sky is golden, but I’ve never been there.”