Chapter 29
ASPOTLIGHT SHINES ON DIRECTOR MORIAH, seated in the middle of the room at a table lit by tall crystal candelabras.
The crowd on the dance floor disperses. Dez pulls away from Rafe, finding a seat at a high-top table with Simon and Esther.
They’ve fallen into an unspoken formation: first-years on the right, last-years on the left, the director in the center of them all.
“Good evening, filmmakers,” Moriah says, petting the cobra winding around her arm. She’s donned a black velvet cape over her gown, the hood lowered to the nape of her neck. Her lips and nails are glossy bloodred.
“As some of you know,” she says, looking over at the last-years, “and as the rest of you will soon discover”—she turns to the first-years—“this is a night you’ll never forget.”
Dez glances at Simon, whose uneasy expression mirrors hers. On his other side, even preternaturally chill Esther is cracking her knuckles one by one. Dez looks across the dance floor where Yael compulsively smooths her dark hair with her fingertips while Jet sits smiling with his arms crossed.
And Rafe? Dez can’t even pick him out from the shadows on the far side of the room.
Intuition quickens Dez’s pulse. She tries to remind herself this is a celebration. But it’s an Acheron celebration, so who knows what lurks around its edges.
“What are we looking at here?” she whispers to Simon.
“I’ve heard nothing,” Simon says.
“You always hear something,” Dez says.
“Not tonight.”
“When I was getting dressed,” Esther leans over to whisper, “my mentor sent me a dozen dead roses with a card that read memento mori.”
Dez swallows. As if any of them needed that reminder after what happened to Alice Quinn.
“This season has been a difficult one,” Director Moriah says, her snake slithering around the microphone. “We are grieving a profound loss.”
“Hear hear!” Jet calls from across the room.
The spotlight sweeps up from the director to light the wall behind her, where an oversized portrait Dez has never seen before now hangs on the wall. It features a strikingly handsome young man with curly russet hair and intense green eyes. She reads the gold plaque under the painting:
Samael Sophus Abbadon
Applause rises from the last-years’ side of the room. Moriah silences it with a wave.
“The sudden retirement of Dr. Abbadon marked a significant change for us all,” she says. “We have strived to continue our essential work, while maintaining our institutional integrity.
“To the first-years,” Moriah continues, “you may be wondering, what is this night really about? What is this place really about? You know it holds secrets, but you don’t know what they are.”
Dez leans forward in her seat.
“Tonight,” Moriah continues, “you’ve earned the right to know the truth.” She places both hands on the table in front of her. “So here it is. You are not here to make movies.”
Dez turns to glance at Simon, at Esther. They stare at Moriah, eyes wide.
“At least not in a traditional sense,” Moriah continues. “Acheron is no ordinary film school. What you produce here is neither for the art house theaters nor the festival circuits. Instead, you are making the most important films that have ever been.”
Dez wishes she could see Rafe’s expression right now. But he’s either hiding in the shadows, or he’s left the party early.
“Mark me,” the director says, now looking straight at Dez.
“Though I am speaking plainly, this is hard to understand. My words are not hyperbole. I will repeat them: Each of you—be you Visionaries or Scribes, and regardless of the genres you’ve been assigned—are making the most important films that have ever been.
They are called Life Reviews.” She pauses, looking all around the room, until she has everyone hanging on her words.
“Their purpose is to separate the living from the dead.”
The last-years pound on their tables. Dez hears confused murmurs all around her on the first-years’ side. She’s watches Simon whisper to Esther, sees the way the two of them clasp hands. Goose bumps rise on her skin as she turns the director’s words over in her mind.
How can a film separate the living from the dead?
Dez knows art makes people feel alive, that a life without art wouldn’t be life at all. But if Moriah’s statement about them making the most important films that have ever been isn’t hyperbole, what is it?
“Mr. Mayhew,” Moriah calls out, suddenly making Simon snap to attention.
The spotlight finds him as he nervously straightens his tuxedo jacket. “Yes, Director Moriah?”
“When speaking of death,” Moriah says, “have you heard the phrase ‘his life flashed before his eyes’?”
Simon nods. “I have.”
“And you, Ms. Rae?”
Dez is in the spotlight now. She blinks, looks around, but she’s blinded by the bright light flooding her face. “Yes, I’ve heard it.”
“Very well,” Moriah says as the spotlight returns to her table. “But have you ever considered the logistics of this feat?”
Dez has thought about this. She has marveled at the capacity of the human brain at the end of life, storing and unspooling such a meaningful finale.
But Moriah doesn’t let Dez answer.
“I’ll tell you,” Moriah says slowly, clearly.
“When a human body dies, the process mimics sleep: the muscles of the mind slacken, the blood cools. The mind becomes more focused than it’s been since the moment of birth.
This makes the dying an ideal audience, open and receptive.
At a certain point, the soul begins to shimmer right above the body …
and with one last rise of the electrical brain waves, life flashes before their mind’s eyes. This is their Life Review.”
“How …?” Simon murmurs.
“And every one of these films is made,” Moriah continues, “not by the dying human mind, but by a highly gifted, specially trained filmmaker. That’s where you come in.”
“What the hell?” Esther whispers.
“Acheron Scribes write the script the film will follow,” Moriah says.
“Acheron Visionaries compile and edit the montage of scenes in the dying experience. Then, when the time is right, Acheron’s Distribution Department shoots the film straight into the dying cerebral cortex. ” She taps the back of her head.
Dez grips the side of the table, feeling faint. She doesn’t see how the dean’s words can be true. But somehow, she knows that they are.
“We are inside of things,” Moriah says. “We are inside humanity in a manner that might previously have been inconceivable to you. When you came here … when you joined us to help the dead … and tonight when you take the next step with us—you are in alliance with powerful friends. And you will find very little is impossible.” She pauses, surveying the first-years with a strange smile. “I’ll take questions.”
A riot of objections rise inside Dez. She never agreed to this. None of them did. If any of what the director is saying is actually real, to trick them into training for such work is sinister, deceitful.
“Why?” Dez calls out, clear and loud, before she even knows she’s going to speak. “Why did no one tell us this before?”
“For one thing,” Moriah says, “because you needed to prove through your work that you could be trusted. For another, you simply couldn’t have handled this information any sooner.”
“What if we can’t handle it now?” Simon asks.
“In dreams begins responsibility,” Moriah says. “No one asks to be born a princess either. Greatness has been thrust upon you. Forgive me if I dropped my tiny violin.”
“What is the purpose of the Life Review films?” Paul Rowan asks.
“Excellent question,” Moriah says. “The dead cannot move on without them. Our films enable the soul’s transition into death by framing mortal lives with meaning. Souls require meaning for completion. Nothing is more profound than closure.”
“What happens when the movie’s over?” Esther asks.
“When it’s over, the human soul enters the White Light.” She looks around, taking in their faces with some satisfaction. “Yes, that part’s true as well. There really is a tunnel of White Light awaiting all mortal souls.”
“Heaven?” a first-year asks from the shadows.
Moriah pauses for a moment but doesn’t answer. “Without our films,” she finally says, “the dead can’t even find the White Light.”
Dez’s limbs feel numb, her breath shallow. She’s thinking of the phrase the director keeps using. The dead. The dead. The dead. A chill spreads through her, seeps down to her bones.
Shakily, she rises to her feet.
“Sit down, Ms. Rae,” Moriah says.
Dez can’t sit down. She’s disassociating. She can barely feel herself move.
“Moses,” she whispers hoarsely.
She feels eyes fall on her, the director’s, the last-years’. She sees Rafe finally step out of the shadows, his eyes on hers like he’s seen a ghost. A brick takes shape in her stomach.
“Sit down,” Moriah barks. The snake hisses. “Everyone finds this disturbing at first. But death happens. It is the nature of things.”
“No,” Dez whispers. She grips the edge of the table.
Her fear weighs a metric ton inside of her.
She can’t let herself believe it. Even if this place does make Life Review films, even if it does somehow magically shoot them into the minds of the dying, her film is different.
Her secret assignment. Only a practice run.
Surely.
Mo can’t be … dead.
Weeks ago, maybe, he was close to death. Because of what Dez did to him. But he’s been in the hospital getting treatment. At some point, when she was able, Dez was going to see him again.
“Your films are what keeps the world as you know it at peace,” Moriah’s voice rings distantly in Dez’s ears. “By helping the dead move on.”
Dez chose to make a film about her brother. Broke the rules and devoted herself to a film about the person she loves most. It can’t be possible that by making Lazarus, Dez has killed her brother.
Rafe just brought the film to her brother tonight. He would have told Dez …
Her knees quake. She looks at Rafe.
He’s watching her. And looks destroyed. He takes a breath, closes his eyes.
And he nods.
In the darkened Vault, Dez stares as a golden light shimmers around Rafe’s silhouette.
She blinks and rubs her eyes, but the glow only gets brighter.
No one else looks Rafe’s way; no one else seems to see what she does.
Soon she realizes it’s familiar, this glow.
She saw it once before, boarding the jet in Death Valley.
Her first time breaking, Rafe explained. He said her intuition knew that moment on the tarmac marked a shift in her life, in her destiny.
Here’s another one.
No, she begs, even as the truth slams into her. Empty. Ringing. Senseless. This isn’t a game. Somehow what the director just said is real.
“Some of you are fresh off a dose of Soma,” Moriah says, her attention on Dez.
She knows Dez took the Soma tonight. She knows Dez made the film about Mo. She’s known it all along.
“The gift there is that your subjects are still close. Can you feel them entering the Light? They are thanking you—”
Blood pounds in Dez’s ears, drowning out the director’s voice. She stumbles backward from her table and runs out of the Vault as fast as she can.