Chapter 8 #2
A long moment passed before he answered. “Elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere,” she repeated. “You need that to tear the veil. That’s what the handbook says. Seems sloppy not to have it handy. You know what I think?”
“I’m sure you will tell me.”
“I think you need me. Not because you drained yourself to save me. I think you needed me before that. Something went wrong and you went looking for someone near the veil because you can’t get across on your own anymore.” She paused to gauge his reaction to her wild speculation.
The bottom hem of his robe fluttered in a gentle breeze, but he remained otherwise motionless.
Considering how her world turned upside down since the prank, Geri had remained remarkably anger free.
She nearly died. Temporarily died. She wasn’t dead dead.
The hallucinations she believed were proof of a brain injury were painfully real.
There was an entire afterlife with rules, regulations, and handbooks.
The boundaries of reality kept shifting and she adjusted. She owed Bazel a debt. He sacrificed part of himself, for reasons unknown, to save her. The terms and conditions of that debt weren’t great, but it was better than being dead dead.
Now she felt angry because the entire situation was messed up. The least he could do was be honest about it.
“You didn’t save me. You trapped me.” She took a step forward and jabbed a finger into his chest. There was the slightest bit of resistance. “You needed me, and rather than asking for help, you watched me die and trapped me.”
“I needed a bridge.”
He didn’t even try to deny it, which only frustrated her further. “Why? What could you have possibly needed from a simple mortal who was moments from dying?”
“My scythe was stolen. Without it, I am unable to interact with the mortal world and perform my duties.”
That felt like the truth.
“And?” she prompted.
“And your debt will be repaid when my scythe is returned.”
Geri stepped back and gave a sarcastically sweet smile. “There. Doesn’t it feel good to tell the truth?”
“You would not have believed me. You did not even believe I was real.”
“Oh, don’t turn this back around on me,” she snapped. “Maybe don’t lurk outside in the dark like a stalker—and never just materialize in someone’s apartment. It’s scary and rude.”
“Should I have knocked?” He reached over to knock on a tree trunk, his hand sinking into the bark.
This wasn’t productive. Railing at Bazel wouldn’t change her situation, even if it did make her feel better. She had a ton of questions about the debt and the missing scythe, but that could wait. She walked back into the park, passing a cluster of food carts near the entrance.
“Actually, I want ice cream,” Geri said and pointed to an ice cream cart. The familiar melody played over speakers, giving it a distorted, tinny quality.
“Can you eat? I mean, not in an are you hungry sense, but can you physically eat?” she asked. He had previously said that he had limited culinary experience, which implied some experience.
“I acquire nourishment through other means.”
“That’s not a no,” she said.
“I do not.”
“Not even a little bite to satisfy your curiosity? Not even for ice cream?”
“I have always been thus,” he said, as if mystified at the concept of being curious.
“Well, that’s a crying shame. Ice cream really puts the sprinkles on existence.” She grinned, pleased with herself.
Bazel made a grumbling noise.
“That was funny,” she said.
“It was not.”
“Mildly amusing,” she amended.
He made a noise like bones and cartilage grinding together that sent a shiver up her spine.
Charming.
At the window, having placed her order for a chocolate and vanilla twist cone, Bones appeared. She nudged Geri’s hand.
“Amazing how you do that,” she muttered. “And a dish of soft serve vanilla.”
Geri took the treats to a nearby bench. Bones danced around her, completely blocking the way. “Chill. You’re only slowing me down,” she said, holding the dish up, out of range of the dog’s snout.
Satisfied at the location, she set the dish down. It lasted all of six seconds before Bones licked her chops and settled down at Geri’s feet.
“One last question,” she said, licking the melting ice cream that dribbled down her hand.
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“Wow, that’s an awful lot of attitude for someone who hasn’t apologized for this mess.”
A woman passing by gave Geri a concerned look.
Geri took a lick of the cone and waited. She didn’t have to explain herself. Once the woman was sufficiently far away, she said, “Would you like a taste?”
“I cannot.”
“Not even if I hold it? Will that bring it close enough to the veil for you to have a bite?” They had touched, briefly. “When I jabbed your chest, I felt something.”
He was silent, as if contemplating. “It would serve no purpose.”
“Well, I could argue that food and culinary traditions create a bridge between the generations and with the culture as a whole. It nourishes our body and our spirit. Food tells a story,” she said, repeating something she heard on a documentary.
“And what story does ice cream tell?”
“Well, modern ice cream was invented in Philadelphia, for one. The oldest ice cream company in the country is here. It’s hot. I deserve a sweet treat. Mostly it tastes good. That’s the story. Now, do you want a lick or not?”
His face just shadows over bones, but she knew he raised an eyebrow as if amused. She had no idea how he could be so expressive without eyebrows, or even skin.
She rolled her eyes in response and swiped a finger through the top of the cone. Chocolate and vanilla ice cream clung to her finger as she offered it to him.
“Live a little,” she said, pushing her finger against his mouth. Well, his skeletal grin and the gaping black void where lips and a mouth would be.
He opened his mouth and she could feel the warm interior, briefly, and then the touch of a tongue.
Geri gasped, certain she imagined the sensation.
“It is cold,” Bazel said, sounding surprised.
“It is ice cream. The clue is in the name.” She shouldn’t give him a hard time. He said he didn’t consume food and she shoved her finger in his mouth.
“It is agreeable.”
Geri finished her cone before it melted, savoring the chocolate and vanilla swirl. A bit of melted ice cream trickled down the back of her hand. She licked it, momentarily forgetting she had an audience.
“It’s sticky,” she explained. “So you don’t eat? Like at all?”
“Not mortal food.”
“Rainbows and sunshine? Puppies?” she asked in a teasing tone. “Is it souls?”
He did something and it was like his eyes darted nervously from side to side. Again, no actual eyeballs, so it was weird.
“It is! You eat souls.”
“It is complicated. I have always—”
“Been thus,” Geri intoned over him and laughed, momentarily forgetting about the debt, her death, the complicated nature of Bazel’s existence, and how he changed her life in an instant. This was nice, enjoying an ice cream in the park with her invisible friend. Almost ordinary.
It’d be nice if it could last.
BAZEL
He had always been thus.
He sprang fully formed into existence during an autumnal night. The moon had been full, the air cold, and the leaves rattled in the most delightful way. He sat on the bare ground, doing nothing more than watching clouds drift over the moon and listening to the quiet sounds of the night.
Being a new creation, Bazel knew his purpose and his designation. He had all the knowledge he needed to navigate the mortal realm and spoke several languages. He wasn’t of the world but he could experience it and every experience was new and fascinating.
If he had ever been mortal—human—he had no memories of the experience.
Yet he had odd desires. Food cravings that he could not account for.
He was not required to consume sustenance in the manner that humans did, but he had eaten.
He shared meals with the occasional mortal who was not too afraid to break bread with death.
More often, he shared meals with those enamored with death.
The idea of death, though, never the reality.
His body did not receive nutrition from food yet he could not say that he ate purely out of the need to be sociable.
He enjoyed the taste. The aroma. Warm bread dripping with butter and jam was a particular favorite.
The ritual of preparation and consumption gave him something far more than sustenance and he very much wanted to share an ice cream cone with Geri.
Had he been human once? Was the craving for vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles a clue to his past?
Perhaps it was nothing more than Geri’s endless questions rattling him. Surely that had to be it.
He did not desire to be human. They were, as a whole, messy and loud. In his four centuries of observing their brief lives, he had never once felt anything akin to envy.
Until today.
Until that ice cream cone. He did not want to consume the ice cream. As he watched Geraldine savor the cone, he wanted to lick the sweetness from her lips, to taste vanilla and feel her warmth.
He wanted.
He had not wanted anything for a very long time. He was a shade now, unable to interact with the physical world, but the truth was he had been a shade for years, perhaps decades. Walking the world but never a part of it, existing only as a shadow.
Mere existence was no longer enough.