Chapter Twenty- Eight • Out of the Bag • Damien #3
Livor mortis has settled in across the left side of Lillith’s mother’s body.
The deep purple hue tells me she’s been dead for a couple days.
I don’t mention to Wren that the timing lines up for the day we left Del Lune.
The last thing I want is for that information to get back to Lillith and make her feel responsible for her own mother’s death.
“It’s called livor mortis,” I say, then hesitate. “Do you want me to tell you what that is? It’s kind of gross.”
“No,” she says a little too quickly. “I’ll just... Google it later, or something. But I assume it means she wasn’t fucked up before her death?”
“No signs of trauma, really. Her ribcage and everything looks intact,” I tell her.
She nods, her sallow complexion almost concerning.
“Do you need me to remove her bra?” I ask delicately.
“No,” Wren says, “I can work with that. Thank you for helping me.”
“I’m going to step away, alright? I don’t feel right sitting here while she’s half-naked.”
“Yeah,” Wren says. “And, uh... When I’m done, maybe we can call someone? I know this woman sucks, but... it feels wrong to just leave her here.”
I nod. “Yeah, I already planned to,” I say as I stand up. “We’ll get her squared away.”
“Good, good,” Wren says with a shaky exhale.
I leave her and follow the steps I saw Satoshi take into the next room.
A faint orange glow emanates from the doorway, and when I step through it I find him standing in the kitchen, looking down at a charred tea kettle.
Stagnant air fills the room, too hot when compared to the dank air of the rest of the cabin.
The kitchen’s walls are papered in an off-white floral design, and the wooden cabinets hem in an enameled green stove that must have been installed in the seventies.
“She was in the middle of making tea,” Satoshi says, nodding over to a waiting teapot with a sieve settled over the mouth of the vessel.
It remains filled with dry tea leaves waiting for their steep.
The light over the range colors the room the same ugly yellow of a fading bruise.
“Fire was still on when I got in here, but no water in the pot. Must have boiled off.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Who is this person?” Satoshi asks. “Why the fuck are we here, Dame?”
“Lillith’s mother,” I say. “And, uh... Well, do you want the truth? Because it might fuck you up a little.”
“We almost got obliterated. The girl I’m into is literally doing freaky corpse shit right now. I think I’m already a little fucked up,” he says.
So, I tell him. The whole thing. Lillith’s curse, why she’s not with us, The Buried City, the hope of finding a way to get Lillith free of her magical house arrest. When all is said, Satoshi stares at the doorway to the kitchen, sighing.
“Gonna bail?” I ask. Wouldn’t be the first time Satoshi vanished when things got too real.
To my surprise, Satoshi drops his head and shakes it. “Nah. I’m kind of all in, I think.”
“Guys?” Wren calls. “I need some muscle.”
We both go out to the living room, finding Wren brushing away tears from her face.
“Uhm—sorry,” she says, collecting herself.
“Just—one thing we have to do before calling. There’s a gun safe downstairs in the basement.
We gotta move it, and... and she has a little hiding spot behind it. There are some books in there.”
“Alright, we’ll work on that,” I say. “Why don’t you make the call while we do? Get some air.”
“Okay,” Wren says, her breath hitching a bit. “Yeah. Okay.”
I brace for Satoshi complaining but when I look at him, he’s staring at Wren as she exits the house. He frowns and, without looking at Lillith’s mother, says. “Can we cover her back up? She shouldn’t just be laying here on the floor half naked.”
His throat bobs in a way that looks painful, and I find myself having a rare moment of worry for the guy. “Yeah, I’ll get her covered up. You want to head downstairs? If you’re uncomfortable...”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” he says quickly. I think he meant to say it harshly, like he always does. But it just sounds... sad.
“You okay, man?” I ask him.
“Your girlfriend or whatever. Was she close to her mom?”
I know Satoshi was standing right there when Lillith talked about her shitty mom with Oren, but I don’t give him shit for it. This is the closest I think I’ve seen Satoshi come to acting like a fucking human being instead of a lump of anger.
“No. They were estranged,” I say gently.
He nods. Like that’s a good thing. Like he’s relieved on her behalf. He runs a hand through his loose topknot, his eyes shining in the dingy light with something that might be tears, but how would I know?
“I uh—when my Mom passed...”
I kneel to start rebuttoning Lillith’s mother’s shirt, careful not to look at him. I’m worried if I do, the moment will shatter. He’ll just go back to being the same asshole he usually is.
“My dad—he just ignored her wishes. For what happened after. I just—I worried that without Lillith’s input... I mean...”
He trails off, and I lift the woman’s head to set one of her throw pillows beneath it. I grab one of her threadbare quilts and drape it over her body, folding it just under her chest. Finally, I fold her hands over her stomach. She looks like she’s sleeping.
I rise back up to my feet. Satoshi stares down at the body, but I don’t know if he’s really seeing her. I think he might be seeing his own mother.
I pull him into an embrace. A very manly, very dude-like embrace. Because I just get the feeling that if I make it too real, he’ll bristle up like a porcupine and lash out.
“Thank you, man,” I say. “For caring about her wishes.”
He doesn’t return the hug, but he sinks into it. He’s like a stray cat being scratched under the chin for the first time.
“Your girl’s or her mother’s?” he asks against my shoulder.
“Both,” I say. “For a fucking dickhead, you can be pretty thoughtful once in a while.”
It’s an attempt to lighten the mood a bit.
An out for him. But he doesn’t really respond to it in any real way.
I think he might be somewhere very far away.
Some other time. And I feel like a dick for not asking him more about his life in the past. I always just chalked it up to him being one of those dudes that’s always mad. Chip on his shoulder and all.
Now I’m wondering why he hates being called “Samuel” so much.
But there’s a lot to do. And I don’t think he’d answer if I asked him now. And it feels like a dick move to suddenly start caring when I’ve never made a point to care before.
So, I make a mental note to stop calling him Samuel when I’m mad at him. And another mental note to try and crack him open over drinks again sometime later. When things aren’t so complicated. And I clap him on the back, hard, once or twice.
“Come on. Let’s go look for the books Wren mentioned.”
“Yeah,” he grunts, a bit awkward as he leads the way.
I don’t know why, but as we find the dusty old journals behind the gun safe and make a call for local paramedics, I feel the shift in my life—in all of our lives. The crossing of a threshold I wasn’t expecting.
Up until now, all the magic and secrets have felt like little treasures.
Meeting Lillith was like stepping into a fairytale.
Full of fun and whimsy and love. But a woman is dead.
No, not just a woman. Lillith’s mother is dead.
And as relieved as I am that the paramedics called it cardiac arrest, I doubt that’s what killed her.
For the first time, I realize that Lillith’s probably in very real danger.
I guess I am too, theoretically. But my sense of self-preservation has always been pretty quiet. That knowledge is a whisper in the back of my mind compared to the alarm bells going off for Lillith.
I just want to get back home.