Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
The sound came from everywhere and nowhere—from the ground beneath my feet, from the trees overhead, from inside my own skull. A howling that rattled my bones and made my teeth ache, rage and agony and hunger all twisted together into something that shouldn’t exist in the natural world.
I clapped my hands over my ears, but it didn’t help. The sound wasn’t outside me.
It was inside.
And it was furious with outrage.
Pressure closed around my lungs, crushing inward, making it impossible to breathe. The temperature dropped so fast that frost formed on the grass at my feet, spreading outward in crystalline fingers.
Mordechai remained in the center of the small courtyard, shofar still raised to his lips, and his eyes were on me, bright with fire. Not metaphorical bolts of strength or power, but actual flames, golden and terrible, burning away everything false to leave only truth behind.
Shadows peeled away from the gravestones like living things—twisting and ripping up from the earth. They lunged at Mordechai with too many angles and edges, converging on him, swallowing him whole.
“Go, Delia!” His voice came out wrong—so wrong—layered and harmonized, like a dozen voices speaking in unison. The flames in his eyes blazed brighter. “Run! Get as far away as you can—go now!”
I didn’t think. I didn’t question.
I fled.
Arms churning, mouth agape and gasping for air, I stumbled out of the cemetery almost wildly, sure the cops were on their way. There was so much screaming! So much fire, pain, and fury!
I ran the whole way back from Holy Angels cemetery, my mind blanked with terror.
Smoke clogged my nose, and explosions jarred my ears, a terrible, racking pain clutching my throat like a vise.
I fell down more than once, the last time on the sidewalk leading up to my house.
One of the Soos saw me through the window, but no one came outside.
Just as well. I gagged and retched on my own front steps, reeking so strongly of burning sulfur I kept checking myself for scorch marks.
Eventually, I dragged myself inside and shut the door.
Steve was asleep on the couch again, dead to the world, but messy, human, and real.
Real.
Everything got quiet after that. No voices shouted anywhere.
No people, no smoke. I tiptoed through the house, dumped my smoky clothes in the laundry, then retreated to my freshly sterilized room.
I opened the door, the smell of the dried white paint calming and familiar, then dragged myself toward my bed.
I passed out before I reached it.
The TV came on downstairs, blaring at top volume.
“What the fuck?!”
Steve’s protest was so freaked out that I practically vibrated off the floor of my bedroom, jerking upright and half-stumbling against the bed. I bolted for my bedroom door and yanked it open. “Steve?”
“What the fuck!”
I clattered down the stairs, my steps in time to Steve’s staccato fury as he crashed around the living room, apparently looking for the remote. He found it and stabbed at it as I bolted into the room, but I caught enough of what was on screen that I screeched “Back on!” as it winked out of sight.
“Fucking so loud, man,” Steve groused, but he turned the TV back on, scrolling the sound all the way down as I stared in disbelief.
On the screen was an outdated picture of Rabbi Mordechai, grinning self-consciously at the camera, juxtaposed over a live feed of Holy Angels Cemetery—only it was now cordoned off with police tape.
Steve stooped his long, lean body forward, squinting. “Hey, isn’t that—”
“Shut it.”
Together we stood and watched the smoothly perfect news anchor of the local TV station explain that Rabbi Mordechai Schneider had been discovered at the Holy Angels Cemetery after a loud commotion had drawn the attention of neighboring residents.
Nine-one-one had been called, and he’d been rushed to the nearest hospital, only to be pronounced dead at the—
I didn’t realize I’d backed up until I smacked against the wall of the living room, the sheer solidity of it the only thing that told me this wasn’t a dream. “Dead?” I rasped through parched lips, a swollen tongue. “But—how? Who?”
Steve shook his head, then swung his face toward me. I stared at him, shocked by the empathy, the real emotion in his deep brown eyes. Something skittering and nervous curled in my belly. He looked—weirdly sober. “Shit, Delia. I’m so sorry.”
He might have tried to step toward me, I didn’t know. I stiffened up against the wall, wanting more than anything to crawl inside it like Mrs. Klein’s sister had done. To get away, just get away.
How could Mordechai be dead?
Steve said something else, but my feet were moving now, and I didn’t hear his words, didn’t hear the TV.
I stumbled out of the house and onto our little stoop, my mind balking and stuttering like a car that was slowly running out of gas and hadn’t realized it yet.
I stepped down the few steps of our rental and onto the sidewalk.
It was still warm out, but dark now, of course.
It would be dark at eleven o’clock. It was supposed to be dark.
Just like it was supposed to be warm, and it was supposed to be Tuesday, and the only thing that wasn’t right was—
“You all right?”
I jolted, shocked to see I wasn’t alone on the sidewalk.
The short, dark-eyed Mrs. Soo stood in front of me.
She was old, but I couldn’t tell how old, her burnished skin and bright eyes making her seem almost timeless as she stared up at me, with a soft, sad smile and softer, sadder eyes.
She wore a thin white T-shirt and blue pants, and she put a frail hand on my arm.
“You all right?” she said again, in that confused way of someone trying out a language they weren’t too sure about.
I stared at her fingers on my sleeve, tiny, gnarled fingers that suddenly seemed wrong to be touching me. Like anything that could touch me would be destroyed, defiled.
“I’m fine,” I said roughly, and shook her off, stepping around her like she had some sort of disease. Or I did. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m fine. I have to go.”
Then I was walking, moving faster now. Down the street and through the alley and into one of the forlorn city parks with its tiny jungle gym and swing sets on patchwork pieces of concrete.
A place I used to be afraid to come to at night, scared of everything that was out there in the shadows.
Now I just stared at the swing, then up at the stars.
It was like I was the only person in the universe, now forever and completely alone.
“What happened, Mordechai?” I whispered.
His house, I thought suddenly. His pretty little house and his messy, terrible office.
Would I even be able to see it again? How would I know where to go—where to see him?
How could he possibly be dead, and what did I do now?
I didn’t know if he had family, not real family.
I mean, he had a brother, nephews and nieces, and even grandnieces and grandnephews in Missouri.
All their pictures were on his office fridge, slowly shifting over the years as toddlers turned into messy-haired kids, and the messy-haired kids turned into gangly, awkward teenagers.
He had people who still knew him at the Rockdale Temple too.
The temple. I would go there. Of course, I would go there. I would go there, and they would tell me what I could do, where I could see him. How I should act. How I should be. They would tell me.
The hole in my heart didn’t shrink with that decision, however. It didn’t go away.
I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets, chilled despite the warm night.
My breathing wasn’t right, too shallow, too quick, like I wasn’t bleeding enough oxygen from the air.
But I had to try and remember. Slowly, I shuffled over to the ancient slide, and sat down on its surface, everything still and silent around me.
The night held its breath even as I fought to fill my lungs. Fought and failed.
What happened to Mordechai?
I frowned fiercely, trying to recall, and my headache came back with a raging force. Not enough caffeine today, I thought. Not enough water. Too many fumes.
Remember!
Pain lanced through me as I hunched over on the edge of the small slide.
My nails cut into my palms, but it was no use—nothing came back to me.
The police said there’d been no indication of foul play, according to the TV reporter.
So he hadn’t been shot, hadn’t committed some sort of spontaneous suicide.
He’d simply been a rabbi with a shofar in the middle of a Jewish cemetery, dead as a flipping doornail.
Had he even died right away? Or had he been still gasping for breath, still reaching for me, only I was nowhere to be found?
Instead, I’d been running through the night, running so hard and so fast I could still feel the jarring strikes of my feet against the pavement.
Had he even reached for me? Had I known he was dying?
Dying!
How could he possibly be dead?
A new fear slid through me. What if they were secretly looking for Mordechai’s killer right now? What if the killer was me? What if I had somehow managed to kill Mordechai without touching him, or even remembering it?
How could he be dead?
“Pull it together,” I hissed to myself, looking up suddenly to see if anyone was there, anyone who was listening to me. I had to remember more of what had happened tonight in case the cops intended to talk to me. Though why would they talk to me? I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I stared into the dark shadows of the playground, hearing the echo of children who’d run and laughed here, seeing them in flashes and spurts, their energy still radiating off the monkey bars and slide.
I wasn’t afraid of anything waiting for me in the dark, I realized grimly.
But I was still more afraid than I wanted to be.
What had I done?
And then after all that silence, after all those empty hours without a sound—a whisper from deep inside me finally spoke, flowing through me like poisoned silk.
Nothing, beautiful Delia, it whispered. Nothing.
My lips twisted. It was right. I’d done nothing.
And Mordechai was dead.