ERINN L. KEMPER
illustrated by Martin Hanford
Gramma began haunting the little casita a few weeks after Nissi moved in. At first there was a faint smell of smoke puffed through the shuttered windows, enough to make Nissi’s heart race. And a sound she felt, more than heard – there, then gone – accompanied by a rustling in the grass roof.
The power was out, another massive tree down somewhere up the road. In the dark, at the kitchen table, she sipped a warm rum and milk concoction her landlady, Miss Elena, swore by, but still felt far from the sleep she needed. Sleep without dreams.
Quiet had fallen over the jungle. In a strange way it reminded her of back home – the quiet after a fresh fall of snow. Houses wearing puffs of white, flakes drifting like ash from the smoke-grey sky.
And then the papery sound again from above.
When she shone her flashlight up, the scratching ceased. Shadows flexed and swelled as the beam of light rippled across the ceiling. A few orb spiders hung from invisible webs, their gold-painted abdomens sparking in the light. One albino gecko froze mid-creep. Certainly not the swarm of creatures it would take to make that much noise.
She strained for the sound, but there was nothing. Only the snick snick snick of the ancient wall clock. Nissi pointed the flashlight on its pale moon face. Two more hours until the howler monkeys roared at the sunrise.
Gradually the insect hum of the jungle resumed. She clicked off the flashlight and climbed into bed, eyes open, awaiting the whisperings in the dark.
***
“Hey Ma. Gramma’s back,” Raymond called to Miss Elena, who sat on the porch of her tin-roofed house drinking coffee.
The morning sunlight shone through the trees. Leaves glowed green and sent sharp shadows knifing across the ground. A breeze scratched through the jungle, the shadows danced, and goosebumps slid up Nissi’s arm.
“What do you mean, Gramma’s back?”
Nissi knelt by the husky puppy clawing at her leg and retied its bow. Her favorite, she called him Honey. She inhaled his warm dog smell. Raymond, dreadlocks pulled back and in his best silk shirt, took one of the huskies to town every day. A blue ribbon tied around its neck, the color of its eyes. Most days he came back with the puppy. Some days he came back with a big sack of rice – or beans – and a six-pack.
“You said you heard something moving around the roof at night.” Raymond raised his eyebrows. “That’s Gramma. She died before I was born, but she comes visiting this time of year. The anniversary of her death, I guess. Just for a couple of days, maybe a week.”
“You mean a ghost? Nice one.”
Raymond smiled and shrugged.
“This ghost comes every year?” Nissi played along.
“Maybe. Hasn’t been anyone in that house for a while.” He called up to his mother again. “You hear from Gramma last year?”
“Nobody stayed in that house last year. Or the one before. Expect she’s been pretty lonely.” Miss Elena, hair dusted with white, all sinew and bone from days spent keeping up her land with a machete and rake, poured another cup of coffee and handed it down through the railing. “She’s gonna talk your ear off, you don’t watch it.”
“I think it’s probably an animal…or bugs. Is there some kind of spray?” The coffee felt too hot on Nissi’s still tender throat. “I can pick it up on the way to work.”
“You can try that. But it won’t make Gramma go away.” He tucked the puppy under his arm and it blinked at her, slow and sleepy. “You make sure and ask her the Lotto numbers. She won’t offer them to you. Keep a pen by your bed so you don’t forget them when you wake up.”
“It’s just something on the roof. Nobody’s talking to me.”
“She will. You got to ask her the numbers. Don’t forget.” He nodded and headed up the path, flip flops slapping clumps of mud up the backs of his legs.
***
Smoke.
In a panic, Nissi ripped herself free of sleep and ran for the door. Outside on the deck, wrapped in her threadbare sarong, she looked back into the room. It was clear. The smell lingered, but with no heat, no swirling, lung-searing haze. The night sky sparked through banana trees and palms. The shush of the sea came in waves of white noise.
A full twenty minutes passed before her heart stopped racing. Nissi sat at the table and counted them on the clock. When her pulse finally slowed to a mere throb, she got up and turned on all the lights. Not much chance of falling back to sleep any time soon. She pulled her laptop out of the gap between the wall boards and wood siding.
Her heart started pounding again when she clicked on the email from Martha Lennox. It was three days old. Time to face the music.
Dear Nissi,
I hope you’re finding some peace wherever you are. Jimmy is awake now. He asked about you yesterday, so this is me checking. I can’t lie to you, dear, he’s in a lot of pain. When he’s conscious he screams some. I can hear him when he’s in the tank. Fortunately he’s not conscious often. He’s had three surgeries so far. Doctors are optimistic.
He wants you to know he’s happy you left.
If you have time to write I’m sure he’d love some news. He can’t use his computer, but I can read it to him.
Take care,
Martha
Nissi hit reply and sat with her fingers resting on the keyboard. A moment later she snapped the laptop shut and slid it back in its hidey-hole.
The smell of smoke had dissipated.
***
“Has she talked to you yet?” Raymond threw a stick along the beach. Three puppies ran after it for a few yards, then turned on each other in a growling ball.
“There’s still that rustling in the roof.” Nissi leaned back, the driftwood log smooth and warm against her back. “And the smoke from someone’s fire was blowing right in my room last night.”
“Takes her a little bit to get here.” Raymond threw another stick. “Like Ma said, she’s gonna talk your ear off. If you want Ma can put you in another house. But that one doesn’t have a kitchen.”
Nissi shifted over when Raymond sat beside her. He pulled out a joint and lit it, took a drag and passed it her way.
“I’m good.” Nissi’s lungs hurt at the thought of smoking. “You really believe your grandmother haunts that house? Why?”
“She’ll tell you, soon enough. Just an old lady’s ramblings, Ma says.” He shrugged and leaned back, his dreadlocks spilling over the log. One of the dogs climbed onto his lap and curled up tight. “It’s a good story, though.”
Waves cut slivers of sand off the shore, rolled them over and lay them back. Glistening spines of urchins bristled from a coral head that jutted out into the turquoise sea. The other two pups pulled charred sticks from last night’s bonfire and dragged them around, writing undulating scribbles across the sand.
***
Nissi woke with the sour taste of lime and spiced tequila coating her mouth. No rustling in the roof, no wafting smoke.
Sweat soaked the sheets and the funk of a night of drink mingled with the foul mildew stench that rose from the mattress when she rolled over. Nightmares receded, mercifully unremembered. A low booming sounded from over the sea. Half way to the bathroom she stopped and glanced back to where two bug-eaten chairs sat next to a rusted card table. One of the chairs, further in the corner, deeper in shadow, appeared to shift. A low creak, and the floorboards trembled under Nissi’s feet, then stilled. The hissing rush of rain moved toward the house over the jungle’s dense foliage, then struck the roof in a sudden deafening wash that slowed immediately to a steady drip. Curtains puffed inward, then settled. Another storm to keep her from sleep.
Nissi poured a glass of rainwater that Miss Elena funneled in from her tin roof. It slid over her tongue, down her throat, soft and sweet. She turned to go back to bed and froze mid-step.
The room filled with the stench of soot and fire. Nissi scanned frantically for smoke, but there was none, just the smell, catching in her lungs till she choked and her heart raced with the need to escape.
The creak of dry wood, rising and falling, trickled through the casita. A billowing shadow formed on the chair in the corner. It swelled and darkened, growing, filling in gentle contractions until a figure sat, drawing darkness from the edges of the room to shape its shoulders, its neck and head.
“I can’t see you, mi amor. Come sit over here by Gramma.” All of the sounds of the jungle merged into a voice. Frog’s rasp, cicada’s scream, bat’s chittering, the low grunt of a howler monkey wakened from sleep.
The shadow rippled forward and an oily appendage dropped down and slid over the seat of the second chair.
Nissi backed up until the counter cut into her back. “Raymond. This isn’t funny.”
“You talking about my grandson? How is that boy? You tell him he wants those numbers he can come see me. Would be nice to have a visit from family.” Gramma’s voice, deep and sonorous, rattled like a stick along a picket fence, vibrated through Nissi’s stomach, right down into the floor.
The room swayed and the floor tilted. Nissi found herself stumbling over to the card table and dropping into the empty chair. Sweat dripped down her back, despite the cool air wafting from where Gramma sat. Am I dreaming?
“Now that’s better, amor. If it makes you feel good, sure this is a dream. You just sit there and take a breath.” Gramma’s hand drifted down and patted Nissi’s knee, leaving a frost-bitten trail across her thigh. “My name is Miss Junie. But you can call me Gramma, even though we could be the same age. Sorry for scaring you. Just want to meet the girl who’s staying in my house.”
Gramma’s colorless muumuu luffed and contracted, the figure beneath at once roundly voluptuous and bone-thin. Her skin lost to shadow, and her eyes flashed mercury. Thick black hair tumbled down her back, shifting and shivering to the rhythm of her speech.
“I built this house, you know. Maybe my little girl told you. Had a hammer and a saw, but that was plenty. My man, he went to work for the train, and I got tired of living with my mama. She couldn’t take care of all of us and our kids. You have kids?”
Nissi shook her head. The movement made her dizzy, and she clutched the sides of the chair until her fingers went numb.
“Ah well, then you just have to imagine. Three of them kids always underfoot, sleeping like sardines in that bed over there. And me only having seventeen years.” Gramma leaned back in her chair and something shifted under her dress. “But I raised those kids. Sent ’em to school. Did what work came along so when my man came home with his pay we already had a cupboard full.
“This piece of land, it belonged to my daddy, and before he died he told me ‘Junie, you can’t always rely on a man to take care of you. You keep this land and you give it to your young ones. Take care of it and it’ll take care of you.’” Gramma slapped her knee, a wet smack that sent her shadow-flesh quivering. “I did what he said. Here’s plenty land for my children. There’s only Elly now. No brother to try on her what my brother tried on me.”
Nissi cleared her throat. Her voice came out in a trembling whisper. “You mean Miss Elena?”
Gramma’s body rocked in a slow nod. “She’s the only one of my children left. She’s a good girl. Keeps the land up nice. I’m sorry her husband had to go off to work, but those cruise ships pay good.”
“What did your brother do to you?” Nissi asked.
“He got greedy. Wanted more than his share. Found him a buyer with bulging pockets and an eye on the future – hotels in chains along this beach. Saw my brother’s weakness and used it against him. Babylon is a disease, it infects, destroys. Well, those boys, my brother and his friend from the big city, they got me, didn’t they.
“But that’s a story for another day. I hope you’ll be here tomorrow. Been a long time since I had company. Most folks don’t stay on. They’re not keen on a good story, I suppose. Don’t have time for an old woman. You go to sleep now, mi amor. You look worn thin by that thing that’s eating you. Your story needs telling, too. Guilt is heavy company. Sleep will help some. Just keep your dreams pretty.”
The curtains blew into the room on a gust of cold air, then sucked back tight against the screen. When Nissi looked back, Gramma’s chair sat empty.
***
Scratching at the door woke Nissi. Morning sun shone through the gaps in the wall.
She pulled on cut-offs and a tank top and let the puppies in. They pawed at her legs and sniffed a circuit around the little shack.
“You want some coffee?” Miss Elena called from her porch.
Nissi waved. “I’ll be right there.” She shooed the puppies out of her room.
The coffee was already poured when Nissi sat down on the stool next to Miss Elena.
“You look tired. Ma been keeping you up?”
Nissi’s laugh turned into a cough.
“You got the grippe? I can give you something for that.” Miss Elena started to heft herself from her chair.
Nissi shook her head and held up her hand. When she could speak she said, “I was hoping I dreamt it. How long has your mother been, um, gone?”
A queasy motion-sickness stole over her when she thought about Gramma, the coffee turned hot and sour in her stomach. Her throat felt raw.
“Can’t really call her gone, can you? She died when I was a child. If she’s bothering you, we can move you to the other house.”
“I’m okay.” Nissi looked across the garden at the little shack on stilts.
“Ah, she got you hooked? Well, don’t believe everything she tells you. She’s from the old school. Got them bruja ideas. She’s just lonely, fretful, can’t let the past be. Always best to get over things, let go, move on.”
Nissi tried another sip of coffee and closed her eyes.
***
The coastline, from Punta Uva to Manzanillo, dwindled into the morning haze. Far out over the sea a curtain of storm-black cloud hung low. The concussive thud of thunder pulsed, and the wave sizzled through the sand as they hit, then fell.
Nissi lay on her surfboard, hands cooling in the water, as the swell lifted and dropped. Beneath her, fish darted. The reef rose and fell away, ripples of light playing across the coral. An earthquake in the area had pushed the reef up, too close to the surface. For a time it had decayed. Bright patches of color against grey showed where the reef was coming back. The predatory shadow of her surfboard slipped by, the fish unaffected by her passing.
It was beautiful here. She and Jim had planned their time in Costa Rica together. Walking the beach, snorkeling, dozing the afternoons away under a filmy mosquito net. Just the two of them in a jungle paradise.
She held on to those last happy moments, refused to think about what followed.
“I’m gonna fuel myself on weed and rum. Drink everything out of coconut shells.” Jim had said at that final party as he lit a joint and took a long drag before passing it along. He swept little bits of weed from the cover of his sketch book back into the baggie. “No shirt, no shoes, no watches. Just live by the natural rhythm.”
“Until our money runs out, then you’ll have to learn to catch lobster or we’ll be living on bananas and roadkill.” The joint slipped from her fingers onto the couch. Nissi swatted a coal off her lap and checked her pants for burn marks.
“That doesn’t sound too bad.” Jim grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips, one after the other. “Just you and me and the deep blue sea. Maybe we’ll never come back.”
They’d passed out, side by side, on the futon upstairs. Nissi wished she’d at least kissed him good night, told him she loved him and couldn’t wait to go away with him. But the haze of booze and pot had pulled her under too quick.
Missing him hurt like a torn muscle.
A flock of osprey rushed across the water, dark arrows in flight. Nissi paddled her surfboard for shore, away from the darkness looming on the horizon.
***
She got home late, creaked up the stairs to her shack, wary of waking Miss Elena or the pups. Bats swooped across the timid beam of her cellphone screen.
A glass of water helped clear some of the boozy fog from her head, washed the bile from her mouth.
In the dark, the momentary stillness of the jungle, a sound, quiet as a piece of paper lifted by a puff of wind. Nissi turned slowly. A long, thin shadow slid across the floor. The bits of moonlight that slipped through the wall-boards showed the darker diamond pattern that ran down the snake’s back.
Afraid to move, to spur an attack, her limbs grew cold, weak, numb. The picture flashed in her mind of what they would find when they broke down the door. Her body, rigid in death, blue lips, black tongue, bulging eyes, the snake coiled on her chest, claiming her. How long until word of her death reached her family? Would they come down to claim her? Would they have her jungle-rotted corpse cremated? She shuddered to think of the flames eating her flesh, her skin blackened, curling, turning to ash.
Cool air washed down her neck, the hairs prickling up. An exhale of breath and sound from behind Nissi shook the walls, rattled the few plates and glasses, stopped the snake’s advance. It lifted its diamond-shaped head and licked the air, then turned and slid back into the shadows under the chair where Gramma now sat, body shivering with mirth, but making no sound.
“Just like that brother of mine. Thinks it can slither in here and make all kinds of trouble.” Gramma focused her moon-reflecting gaze on Nissi. “You been drinking your sorrows again?”
Gramma shifted in her chair, her ghost-flesh slipping wetly against the wood. “Make yourself some tea. That’ll clear your head. We’ve both got a lot of ground to cover, and I can never stay for long.”
Nissi wanted to ask Gramma what she meant, but her stomach heaved when she opened her mouth or moved her eyes. She made it to the sink in time to puke out the night’s share of tequila. Once the room was a little more stable, she splashed her face and filled a pot with some water to boil.
“Better? Sit now and listen. I’ve got my story to tell, and then we’ll see about yours.” Gramma sighed and leaned back, hands folded over her belly. “I was telling you how my brother schemed with that fellow, looking to take my land. Well, first they tried buying. Offered me some money, but I could see it on my brother’s face, there was more money and he was keeping it as his.
“Thing my brother never understood. When you have good land, you don’t need money. Money only lasts a while, but land, a home, that lasts. You always gotta have somewhere to live. The rest is easy.
“So I said no, I wasn’t selling. They acted all shocked, told me I was crazy. Told me they’d find my husband, talk some sense into him. But my brother knew me, knew it wasn’t going to work. I never thought they’d go so far. I figured they’d try to scare me, push me around like playground fools. But they found a different way. The shortest path to their end. My poor babies. They should never have brought my babies into it.” Streaks of silver glimmered down Gramma’s cheeks, leaving only darkness behind. “It’s too easy, here in the jungle, to get rid of a problem. Folks do it to the dogs that bother them. Leave ’em a steak with something added. Get rid of the problem for good. They put something in my water bucket. The big one that catches the rain. Nobody believes me on this, say we just got sick. A fever took us. Say because it didn’t catch Ellie it couldn’t be poison.
“But my little Ellie, she never liked to drink water much, always sucking on coconuts and fruit. Now it’s all that coffee. She’s going to rot her gut. You tell her that. But the rest of us, my babies and me, we got sicker and sicker and one after the next we died. I wasn’t sure why, until I went to see my brother.”
“You went to see him after you died?” Nissi had fallen under the sway of Gramma’s story, but now she was confused.
“You sitting here talking to me and you don’t believe that?” Gramma chuckled, a hollow tone that coiled in Nissi’s guts. “Went right to his house, whooshing through the trees like a nasty little wind. Full of rage. Found him there with his Babylon friend, papers all over the table, rum spilling out every time they raised a glass. Me not even in the ground and here they were, toasting their devilry.
“At first they didn’t know I was with them. I rattled around outside a bit. Gave the shutters a good banging, mashed down a few banana trees. Mr Big City worried it was a hurricane, but my fool brother told him that wasn’t it. Don’t get hurricanes in these parts. Just a freak wind. But he took notice when I started up with moaning his name. Didn’t like that one bit. He killed my babies. I couldn’t let him get away with that, could I?
“Well, he fastened the shutters tight. I tried to get in, but he built his shack sturdy. One thing my brother could do well. And he yelled at me to go away. Take my ghost babies and be off to whatever afterlife we could find. Mr Big City told him he was talking crazy and maybe it was time to break up the celebration now the obstacles were taken care of and the papers were all signed. Obstacles. My babies were nothing but an inconvenience to this man. So I called up some help. My ancestors. I brought their bones with me when we moved to these parts, kept them safe. Pulled those bones from my ghost-pockets and told them to come.
“First come up was Grampa Barrington. He rattled and shook free of the soil. Grampa broke his back working the fields and they put him down like a lame horse. His daughter, my ma, came right after, seeping in over the ground like a boiling fog. I could hear the others hollering, wanting to come over, clawing at the trees, tossing their limbs. But with Grampa Barrington and my big old ma I had what I needed.
“It’s a strange feeling being dead, a spirit roaming around, fueled by anger and vengeance. When they crawled up in me, joining their ghost flesh to mine, I was almost solid. I was the wind and the sea and the mountain and the earth. I beat on that house and laughed when those boys inside started crying, begging. Don’t know that Grampa knew who was in there. Might not have helped me, knowing it was family. Knowing my brother was a weak man who’d been used and would be thrown away first chance. Ma sure knew. Did she ever rage. That woman gave her life for us children, worked herself right to death without help from her own brothers. She knew what needed doing.
“Those boys cowered inside, their celebration dinner still bubbling away over the gas stove, their drinks all spilled and mingling with the piss that ran down their legs.
“Grampa and me and Ma we rampaged through the trees, dropping branches on the house like cannon fire, till we found one big old tree my brother’d missed when he cleared his land. A strong, healthy tree. I felt bad for the old soul later, but I had my fury on. With a bellow and a good strong shove, that tree came loose. I could feel its roots give, like muscles tearing, one fiber at a time. We pushed again, our voices shrieking together, Grampa and Ma and the tree and me, and the old thing fell, right smack through the roof of my brother’s house, crushing the man from Babylon, and pinning my brother there for the cook-fire to finish off. My brother screamed a while as he burnt. Beyond sense, no chance to reflect on why he was dying. No chance to ask me to forgive, not that I had any forgiveness in me.
“That was years ago now. Little Elly’s all grown up, and the land is still taking care of her. That old tree smothered the fire quick. It was a strong one, like I said, wet with its own blood. Not ready to burn. They used it to build new houses, left this one empty. No one wants to be bothered with an old woman and her stories. But you listened to mine, honey, and so I’ll hear yours. It needs telling.”
Nissi shifted in her chair. Her body heavy, like she’d fallen into a deep sleep.
“You’re tired tonight. We’ll talk again while I got time. You’re too late to do it right with your fella, but there might be something I can do.”
For a moment, Nissi closed her eyes. When she opened them, Gramma was gone, and the sun was high, shining bright through the gaps in the walls.
***
Two days passed and Gramma remained silent.
Nissi spent her time pedalling up and down the snaking coastal road on a rattling old bike, surfing, even picked up a shift at the local beach bar. She left the computer hidden, knowing emails were piling up. Each time she considered checking, her heart raced and a panicked sweat slid over her.
She turned down the path to Miss Elena’s and the huskies came yipping and bucking as she rode up to her casita. Only two left, and they reared onto their hind legs as she dismounted, tongues out, tails a wagging blur.
“Package here for you.” Raymond stood at the outdoor sink scaling a fish. He’d been going out in the mornings, trolling for jacks and diving for lobsters. With high season gearing up, he had fixed up his dad’s old fishing boat. “Good haul today. Already got a bunch of restaurants asking me for some. Forgot how much I loved fishing.”
“Why’d you quit?” The flat, rectangular box sat on the bottom stair of her casita. Nissi leaned her bike up against a tree and sat on the ground, in the shade.
“It was something I did with my dad. Without him around I didn’t see the point. But being out there, it’s good. Feels right.” He pulled another fish out of the bucket. It landed on the cement drainboard with a wet slap.
“Your gramma wouldn’t give me the numbers.” Nissi scratched at a bug bite on her leg.
Raymond shrugged. “These fish will bring plenty. You gonna open that up, or not? Don’t think it’s going to bite.” He gestured with the knife at the package in its innocent brown paper.
“I guess I’ll take it inside.” It was heavier than she expected. Smelled faintly of smoke. The return address written with a shaky hand was Jim’s mom’s. She set it on the table and lay down on the bed to stare at the ceiling. The heat and the insect buzz soon had her drifting into sleep. Where Gramma waited.
***
The heat had woken Nissi that night. Heat, and the bedroom closed in and full of strange sounds. A shrill creak, like the walls of the old rooming house were screaming, and a blow-torch hiss. Confused, still half in a dream of playing outside with Jim, their cheeks and hands scorched red by the snow.
Nissi opened her eyes, but couldn’t see. So hot. She took a breath that ripped into her chest like a searing blade. Downstairs glass shattered in bright bursts, followed by a series of thuds as things fell to the floor.
Smoke hit her like a wall, so heavy it pinned her to the futon. She reached for Jim, hands weak, tried to shake him, but his body was like stone. With a discarded T-shirt over her mouth she rolled onto her stomach and slid across the bed. She shook Jim again. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes.
A loud crack, and a low moan shook the room. The floor dipped down, sagging in the middle. Nissi crawled along the wall and pushed open the door. Smoke filled the hall, billowing along the ceiling like storm clouds, being sucked up the stairs at one end of the hall, and out the window at the other end.
She looked back into the bedroom, opened her mouth to call to Jim. Hot air boiled down her throat, thick enough to choke on. She dragged herself past the bathroom, the old linoleum on the floor bubbled up and popped, splattering her with a thick lava. Somehow she managed to pull herself to the window at the end of the hall, the wood floor burned her hands. Up over the sill and out. She hit the back porch roof and rolled down into the tangle of bushes below.
Darkness.
Then Gramma spoke.
“You can’t get past until you face it. What came next? I’ll get you started. They pulled something from the fire…”
Nissi opened her eyes. Gramma stood over her, dress glowing red on the edges with smoldering embers, smoke roiling up from under her skirt. From high above white flakes spiralled down. Snow or ash, Nissi couldn’t tell.
“No.” She tried to shake her head. Her eyes stung and Gramma blurred and faded.
Hands on her arm, her cheek. A man’s voice.
“Are you okay? Can you move? The fire department is coming. Let me help you.” A strong arm slid under her and hefted her up.
She felt her feet on the ground, took wobbling steps. The man helped her around to the front of the house. Lights swirling, fire trucks, people running, shouting. A paramedic rushed over and supported her other side. He asked about her breathing, if she was burnt anywhere.
A firefighter stomped out of the building, walking backwards, half-carrying, half dragging something down the stairs with him. Something Nissi wished she hadn’t seen. Blackened, mouth shrunken back, melted into an awful scream. Clothes and hair burned away, features boiled. Something that shouldn’t be alive. Nissi prayed and prayed it wasn’t alive. Please, no. It opened one wet eye, the other slid down and fused shut, held up the remains of one hand. Meat fell from the palm, a greasy lump that landed on the ground where a boot crushed it into the dirt.
Nissi tried to scream, but her throat closed and she ended up gagging, choking, spitting up smoke and soot. The paramedic strapped a mask to her face and she could breathe. She closed her eyes, tried to shut out the sound of the burning. The stretcher bounced and rolled, and the doors slammed shut, then the siren.
Gramma sobbed, next to her in the ambulance. “That’s what I did? To my own brother.” Gramma reached down to smooth Nissi’s hair from her forehead, her strokes like gusts of cool air. “I was out of my mind with grief. But to do that…I didn’t stay around to see what I did. Took my revenge then rushed back to my babies, but I was too late, their spirits already gone. My poor babies. I didn’t protect them, and I did this to my own flesh and blood.”
Nissi closed her eyes for a moment, the fire still smoldering in her throat, her lungs.
The air around her cooled.
“It was my fault,” Nissi whispered, her voice ragged and hoarse. She stood with Gramma in Jim’s hospital room. The doctors had put him in a coma. He would be gone for at least a month. Might never come back. Swaddled in bandages, covering his face, bloated white mitts over his hands, yet still he looked small, shrunken. “I dropped the joint in the couch. I thought it was already out. I should have checked.”
“Something so small can change everything, can’t it? But avoiding won’t keep him here, won’t stop what needs to happen.”
“I thought if I left… He needed to fight.” Nissi took a slow breath. “I just wanted it over. That thing…that wasn’t Jim. He needed me to be something I’m not. I needed it to be over.”
“Ah. Poor child. And yet you hold on.” Gramma leaned close to Jim’s bandaged face. “It’s too much pain. He can’t bear it. You don’t have much time, mi amor. Had to do some folding to get you here. Say what needs saying, while you have the chance.”
Gramma stepped back so Nissi could approach the bed. Gramma’s body paled into vapour, and she nodded toward Jim. Her voice a mere scratch of insect legs on the wall. “He needs to go.”
Nissi stepped forward. The bandages, the room. All so clean. So white. Beneath his wrappings lay the horror they had pulled from the wreckage. Blackened, oozing, flesh running like molten wax. The thing that should not have lived. The thing Nissi wished she could undo, unsee. The thing she left behind.
“Bye, Jimmy. I miss you. I’m so sorry.” Nissi ran a hand lightly over his bandages, afraid to cause more pain, wishing for release. She leaned close, her breath an exhale on a winter night. “I love you.”
***
Nissi opened her eyes. She’d left the door to the casita open, and the puppies had curled up with her on the bed. Their heat and the sun on the roof didn’t warm her. She sat up and reached for the package with cold-stiffened hands and slid it onto her lap. She peeled the paper off, the layer of plastic wrap, and folded them carefully, reluctant to touch the contents. Jim’s sketchbook. It smelled charred, felt aged and brittle.
The cover wore a collage of stickers from different concerts they’d seen. Indie bands, DJs, music festivals. New stickers covering old, some partly melted, some peeled back in the corners allowing the adhesive to contract a film of blackened debris. She opened the book and found two letters written in Jim’s mother’s trembling script. Jim always had a book like this on hand. She flipped through, pausing to read some of the song lyrics, quotes that he scribbled around sketches, doodles, fully realized portraits and landscapes. There were drawings of her – at the beach, leaning back against a driftwood log like a lizard soaking up sun, dozing on the couch in the flickering light of the TV – always with her eyes closed, half asleep, posing unaware.
The last was a self-portrait of Jim. Her Jim. His beard a wild curling mass, his expression one of stern concentration as he attempted to capture his reflection on the page.
Nissi picked up the two letters.
Dear Nissi,
He passed last night. There was an infection, then pneumonia. He couldn’t fight it anymore. It is better this way. He was in so much pain.
He asked to be cremated, said we might as well finish what the fire started. We still have the ashes, for now. Please come and see us when you get home.
He had me write to you. He was wearing dressings on his hands, most of his fingers were gone. Talking was difficult for him. I hope I got it right.
Please come see us. Or write. Or call.
Take care,
Martha
And the next letter, from Jim. She read it two times – words blurring, throat tight – and then a third.
Nissi,
I bet Costa Rica is amazing. Wish I could have made it. I think about you all the time, picture you down there in the sun. Surfing. In your bikini. It’s a great distraction. When I’m in the tank I imagine we’re snorkeling, with fish and coral, an octopus’s garden.
They’ve been stitching skin on me. Turning me into a patchwork man. I don’t have enough of my own so they’re using some from a dead guy. He’d better be good-looking. They debrided all the gross stuff off me while I was under. Glad I wasn’t around for that.
Every time they change my dressings they put these virtual reality goggles on me and send me to ‘Snow World’. It’s the opposite of where you are. Fields of white, snow coming down, I almost feel the cold.
And you’re there. I can feel you behind me. Your breath on my back. I click the mouse to throw a snowball and spin around to catch you, but you slip around behind me again. So fast. But I can still see the mist of your breath, your laughter, hanging in the air.
You’re with me.
I love you.
Always.
Jim
Nissi placed both letters inside the sketchbook. It took a while for her to come back to her surroundings, the numbness leaching from her body, leaving her minty, tingling.
In the yard Raymond chatted with his mom as he gutted the day’s catch. “Maybe next year I’ll stay in that casita. Been a long time since I talked to Gramma. Bet she’d be happy to hear about the fishing.”
Nissi couldn’t hear Miss Elena’s reply.
Beside her on the bed, the puppies huffed and nestled closer, warming her. Honey, the blue-eyed pup, nudged her hand and licked the tops of Nissi’s tear-salted fingertips, one by one. At the kitchen table the chairs sat, vacated and slid out of the way. The old walk clock counted the seconds like feet tapping, impatient.
Nissi got up from the mattress and walked to the open door. Outside the sky was blinding-bright.
***
Erinn lives in British Columbia, Canada and in Costa Rica where she writes, walks her dog on the beach and drinks ridiculous amounts of coffee and coconut water, at least until happy hour. The rest of the time she designs and builds things. She has sold stories to Cemetery Dance and Dark Discoveries and appears in various anthologies including A Darke Phantastique, The Library of the Dead, Qualia Nous and Chiral Mad 2. Visit her website at erinnkemper.com for publication news and sloth sightings.