Chapter Seventeen
Hill hadn’t expected a party on his side of the Veil, but there was one. The dead thronged among the living around the lake house, decked out in clothes that ranged from Prada to…whoever a famous Gilded Age designer was. Butt cracks and bustles were on equal footing.
All of them were muzzled.
Dogs and birds. Cats and rats. One woman in a dress that was just two translucent plastic hands that covered her boobs and her bits, and who had an insect’s flat green mandibles instead of a mouth. As he watched, a frilled proboscis flicked out to lap at her drink.
Even the servers who dodged in and out, between the living and the dead, had short finch-like beaks.
In the middle of it all, Hill felt oddly self-conscious about his lips and teeth. He tucked his chin down and pulled the zipper of his hoodie up.
“Is the lake house on an old burial ground or battlefield or something?” he asked Davy.
Davy stopped in the middle of the hallway as he puzzled over that question.
“How would I know?” Davy asked. “Why?”
“There’s a lot of dead people here.”
“There’s a lot of dead people everywhere,” Davy pointed out. “There’s more of us than there are of you.”
One of the staff hired for the party gave Davy a confused look. Whatever he thought of the man talking to himself, though, he didn’t ask any questions. Or rather, only one.
“Can I take your coat?”
He could. Davy shrugged the heavy jacket off and handed it over. Under it…
Hill briefly forgot to be self-conscious about his chin as he gawped in confusion at the…toga. He supposed there was nothing wrong with that as a costume; he’d just expected something sexier. It was possible he should feel bad for that.
“You’re a—”
Davy shook the costume out, grabbed part of it, and dragged it up over his head, giving the front of it a tug to get the eye holes in the right area. The folds fell into place as he gave his shoulders a quick shimmy.
“You’re a ghost?” Hill course-corrected on the question.
Davy pulled the edges of the sheet back from his wrists. His tentacles squirmed out from under the folds, the material thin enough that they could pass through it without any problems.
“It seemed on brand,” he said.
The man who’d just taken Davy’s jacket just nodded. “I’ve only seen five,” he said, damning it with faint praise.
He gave Davy a ticket for the coat and stepped away to hang it on the long rail that ran along in front of the staircase. Davy headed on into the party. He grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server and moved through the crowd.
“Don’t worry about the dead,” he said. “Just think of them as another department, one that doesn’t get out much. Just stay close to me.”
He lashed a tentacle around Hill’s wrist to make sure he did as they pushed through the dead and people dressed as the dead.
It occurred to Hill to wonder if the dead might not care for that, but there was no point in asking Davy.
He wasn’t the sort to care what other people cared about…
except maybe what Hill did. Which was…heady.
“Do you have any sort of plan?” Hill asked.
“Sort of,” Davy said.
“Is it ‘wing it and see what happens,’ or are there actual steps?”
Davy freed his arm under the ghost-sheet to gulp his champagne. “Sort of.”
Someone had queued up Bloodhound Gang on the sound system.
It pulsed through the air as Davy quartered the party efficiently on a hunt for Fraser.
No sign of him in the foyer or the main dining room.
Someone had given Davy a strange look when he’d asked if they’d seen Fraser, but after the double-take had pointed him toward the kitchen.
When they got there, a frazzled member of staff had shooed them back out and directed them to the gardens.
Strung fairy lights hung from trees and decorated the rose bushes. They didn’t provide much light, but enough to walk over the manicured lawn without breaking an ankle. Hill wished there’d been a little less light, as he caught a few unexpected glimpses of the dead trysting out here.
Hill could hardly judge, he supposed, but some of them made tentacles look quite tame. He was a little bit annoyed by that.
They found Fraser by the glowing light of the cigar he had just lit. He glanced at them through the cloud of blue-gray smoke that drifted from pursed lips.
“Don’t tell your mother,” he said.
Davy paused a beat and pulled the hem of the costume up over his head to drape his shoulders. He scrubbed a hand through his sweat-flattened hair.
“How did you know it was me?”
“I’ve known you since you were a toddler,” Fraser said. “And I recognize your shoes.”
Davy looked down at his damp Converse. He wriggled his toes.
“Fair play.”
Fraser laughed. He took a puff of the cigar and tapped ash onto the grass.
“You got that from me, you know,” he said. “I’ve not been much of a stepdad, but I guess there’s that.”
Davy hesitated at that opening. He scratched his lower lip with his thumbnail and glanced sidelong at Hill.
All Hill could do in reply was shrug in confusion.
It was, he supposed, the sort of self-reflection they wanted.
He had just thought the various war crimes and a few murders would have been where the doubts set in.
“I guess it wasn’t something you set out to be,” Davy said. “I mean, who does?”
“Perverts.”
That got another quick check-in glance with Hill. Davy raised his eyebrows in a “Well?” expression. When it dawned on Hill what he was asking, he shook his head in a violent no. Fraser had been…
He’d never been a bad stepdad, Hill supposed. Detached, reserved, and sometimes disinterested, but Hill realized that had been his best. It was better than some got. If Fraser hadn’t killed his dad, Hill might even have been grateful.
“I appreciate you weren’t,” Davy said. “That would have sucked.”
Fraser puffed smoke like a dragon when he laughed. “I guess there’s that too, then,” he said. “I never wanted kids or a wife, but…I can appreciate why people do. It’s comfortable.”
That wasn’t the most passionate declaration in the world. Hill appreciated that. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something pale flap in his direction. He looked over, and to his surprise saw Hen duck out from behind a tree, gesture emphatically at him, and then nip back out of sight again.
He hesitated. She poked her head out and looked at him expectantly. The chicken beak was missing—reminded, Hill felt for it in his pocket, ready to offer it up--replaced by a wooden mask of interlocked fingers. She gestured urgently for him to come over to her.
Hill took an uncertain step in her direction, and then another. A glance back over his shoulder showed that Davy hadn’t even noticed he was gone yet. Emboldened by that, Hill covered the rest of the ground to where Hen was hidden.
“Hen,” he said. “You’re OK?”
She came in for a hug. Hill froze, his body at odd angles and his back hunched to compensate.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing. Didn’t realize.”
She squeezed him tight, rubbed his back with both hands, and then leaned back. “I’m OK,” she said. “You need to come with me.”
Hill stepped back. She tried to cling to him, but he’d had a lifetime of extricating himself from over-affectionate people. He squirmed free.
“I can’t,” he said. “There’s not much time left. I have to—”
“That’s why I’m here,” Hen said. “I found your father.”
Hill froze. Figuratively, of course, but it didn’t feel that way. The chill of the Beyond sank right down into his bones and made him feel stiff and slow. He opened his mouth to say something, and where his words had been there was just a hollow.
“You have to come with me.” She tugged on his arm.
A second try and Hill found a few words. “Is he…”
What? OK? Albie Rosen was dead; that was the definition of not OK.
“He’s here,” Hen said. “But he can’t be seen. You can’t be seen. There’s things we couldn’t tell you before. Come on.”
She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him with her.
Hill dug his heels in for a minute, but the promise of being right—that people really had kept secrets from him—was hard to resist. He checked back on Davy, who was still making awkward conversation with Fraser, and then gave up and fell into step behind Hen.
Maybe Davy could talk Fraser into his redemption, Hill could find his dad, and things could all be set to rights by Christmas morning.
Everyone—his steps slowed without him meaning to, his feet dragging through the dull, dead grass of the Beyond—back where they belonged. That was it, wasn’t it? The closest thing to a happy ending they could get.
“Come on,” Hen urged him. “Hurry up. He can’t wait to see you.”
Hill did as he was told. They cut around the back of the house and headed toward the stables.
They had never had horses. A donkey one year—he didn’t remember why, or how—but no horses.
They still kept the stables, because apparently, it improved the value of the property if they ever sold.
As they got closer, Hill saw vague flickering lights at the small square windows.
“You said you didn’t remember Dad,” he said slowly as he watched the lights.
Hen clicked the fingers of her muzzle together as she looked around at him. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight.
“I lied,” she said, smooth as icing. “I had to, because we couldn’t tell anyone what was really going on.”
She nodded in agreement with her own statement. It made Hill want to buy into it, even more than just his basic desire for this to be real.
“Tell me something about him,” he asked.
“He’s your dad,” Hen said. She gave a little laugh at the silliness of the question.
Hill dug his heels into the grass. Her hand tightened on his arm, sharp nails pinching his skin.
“What color are his eyes?” he asked.
“Blue,” she said immediately.
Hill thought she was wrong, but the confidence in her voice made him hesitate. His dad’s eyes had been hazel. That was right. He was sure of that, but he didn’t know if he actually remembered it or not.