Chapter 13 #2
I’m already out of Cecil’s office before I can read the clue a second time.
It’s quite a bit longer than the first, and part of me can’t help but admire Amir’s writing skills in these clues.
In any other circumstance, this might be fun to figure out.
Hell, I would probably sit down with my coffee and puzzle through it, instead of frantically pacing along the lobby of the mortuary with my fingers raking through my hair until it’s half fallen from its knot on top of my head.
“I hate this,” I grumble. “God, I hate this. I think I’d rather, I don’t know, sit through another driver’s test or something.”
Andrew paces beside me, turning when I do, and looks at the note in my hands. “Or, you could look at it again. Maybe sit down so you can stop focusing on not bumping into the chair or the desk?” He gives me a plaintive look that I return, but he has a point.
“Okay, okay.” But I don’t sit in the lobby.
This has never felt like my place, so I shoulder open the double doors leading back to the embalming room.
Once I’m there, I feel a little better. Like this is where I’m supposed to be, instead of where the public comes to meet with Sarah or Cecil and eventually tour the viewing room or flip through the coffin book.
God, maybe my job really is a bit morbid. Not that I think there’s any ‘woo woo’ like Betty says, and it doesn’t mean I love it here any less. But today, I can sort of see why this place weirds people out. Especially when I’m the only one here.
Andrew leans on the desk when I sit in the spinning chair, and as I smooth the paper down in front of me, he glances down at it as well.
“I hate this,” I inform him flatly. “This is literally awful. Did you know that?”
He shrugs but points to the first line of the paper, running his finger along the words. With his hand this close, I can distinctly see the ring line on his finger, and I swear my mind is doing this just to taunt me about what I need to find. And what I don’t have.
“I have no tailor, but garments change here.” The only time garments are on anyone when they’re here is when they first roll in.
By the time they’re back in the cooler, their clothes are off and placed in a bag for their loved ones to claim.
Or, I suppose, at the end, after we’ve switched them into the clothes their bodies wear for the funeral.
“I have no painter, yet faces are restored. Well, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no painting going on here, and the only restoration—” I’m on my feet before I can even think to stand up, and the chair rolls back to thump gently against the wall.
I’m stupid.
Literally, this is the easiest clue in the entire world, and it’s taken me almost fifteen minutes to figure it out. Well, at least it’s not as bad as the last one. If it were, that would just be embarrassing.
Where are garments changed?
Where are faces restored?
Here.
Right here, in the room I consider myself to be the most at home in. I glance around and keep an eye out for any pieces of paper, going up on my toes so I can reach the top of the cabinets against the wall. I even check my trocar altar, though it is free of any folded-up piece of paper.
It takes another round of the room before I drop to my knees and start crawling.
“That’s attractive,” Andrew remarks from where he leans against the desk with his arms folded. “Good thing no one else is here to see you.”
I roll my eyes up at him but continue on, looking under cabinets and counters, until I sit up and my head finds the lip of the embalming counter with a crack that sends a wave of pain through my skull.
A few unpleasant words leave my mouth, and I sit back, hands pressed against my hair while my eyes well with unbidden tears in response to the pain.
“God. This is fucking ridiculous,” I whisper. “Here I am, on the fucking floor of the embalming room, looking for a piece of—” My watery eyes focus on a folded-up square wedged underneath the table’s surface, and with a scornful huff I reach out to pluck it out from its hiding place.
Leave the room of final preparations.
Find the place where strangers become family
for one brief afternoon.
There are chairs but no congregation,
flowers but no garden,
and silence, waiting for someone to speak.
The crack on my head must have done me some good, because I’m up off the floor and out of the embalming room instantly. At a jog, as if I only have a few minutes left even though I’ve got hours, I head to the viewing room.
“Impressive,” my ghostly companion remarks, already there and leaning against the podium on the small, raised dais where coffins are placed for viewing. Today the room is empty, and the lights take a few minutes to warm up after I flip the switch.
“I had to get one done easily, right?” I scoff, feeling confident as I start checking chairs, over and under them, before going to every place in the room that could hide a piece of paper.
In the end, I decide I’m actually an idiot.
It takes thirty minutes for me to find the paper, and then another minute to pry it out from under the podium where Andrew is still standing.
My head aches, and I reach up a hand to press my palm against where I smacked it on the table.
Mentally, I make a note to take the ibuprofen I have back at the desk before unfolding the paper and squinting at it in the soft lighting of the viewing room.
“Surely I have to be almost done,” I whisper to myself. “How many more times can I possibly run through this fucking place looking for paper?”
Some part of me is impressed. I can’t imagine when he could’ve done this, or how he wrote these clues so…
perfectly. Belatedly, I remember what Hestia said about them spending a lot of time here when they were teenagers, and I wonder just how much of their teenage years were spent here at Kindred Pines.
Did Amir have a bad time at home?
The thought comes unbidden, but I mentally stomp my foot down on it, squashing the whisper like a bug. I will not sympathize with the killer who’s making my life miserable.
Even if he doesn’t treat me like a child, despite knowing about the ghosts.
“Stop it,” I whisper. “Stop that right now.” I have to blink a few more times, and in the end I leave the viewing room to stand in the lobby to read the paper while trying to leave my swirling thoughts behind me.
Return to where the outside world
meets the house of the departed.
Look not beneath you, where arrivals rest,
nor behind you, where the doors close.
Raise your eyes.
The answer waits above the place
where the last thing to cross the threshold
is always the door itself.
And once again I’m back to feeling like I’m positively awful at scavenger hunts. I groan and lean against the wall, eyes sliding closed. I still haven’t taken an ibuprofen, and all I want is for the pounding in my head to knock it the hell off.
Though that is made infinitely more difficult when my phone rings, and Cecil’s ringtone plays from the pocket of my sweatpants. I fish around for it, still holding the paper in my other hand, and lift the phone to my ear while trying not to sigh.
“Hey Cecil. Everything okay?”
“No, well, yes.” He sounds frazzled, which is never a good sign. “Mrs. Addison’s husband died. Car crash.” There’s sadness in his voice, and I remember with a touch of sympathy that Mr. Addison was one of Cecil’s few friends he really stayed in contact with post-high school.
“Oh, Cecil, I’m so sorry.” I gaze down at the paper again, eyes tracing over the words.
“I’ll be there soon, but they might beat me there.
And I’m worried about Carla getting there before I do.
She’s only coming because she knows me, but I won’t let her see him, if it’s as bad as it could be.
” The grim tone of his voice has my heart twisting for the wife who wants to see her husband one last time.
It isn’t unheard of, but we tell people it’s never a good idea.
They shouldn’t have to remember their loved one the way they look on the embalming table, before I’ve worked to make them look closer to what they did in life.
“Can you keep an eye out for her? Hang out in the lobby until I get there?”
Shit.
But I can’t say no. And whatever happens—I glance up at the clock, finding that it’s almost two in the afternoon—there’s no way this situation can take more than a couple of hours to deal with.
“Yeah,” I agree, realizing I haven’t replied. “Yeah, absolutely. I’ll go there now. See you soon, Cecil.” I shove the paper into my pocket, and head to the front to wait, even as I try to keep my churning anxiety under control.