The morning of the funeral, Z’s Uncle Hugh made eight pots of bitter coffee. He circled the house holding the silver coffeepot, pouring cupfuls into different cousins’ Fiestaware mugs.
“Are you taking her back to New York with you, then?” It was one of Z’s aunts. She was talking to Uncle Hugh outside Z’s room. Z could see his shadow on the floor.
“I suppose I have to,” Hugh said. “The other option is to sign her into state custody. I asked about that. I called the hospital, and they said that meant they’d send her into the foster care system with a note. We know they wouldn’t have wanted that. I don’t want that.”
“That’s a lot of pressure.” The aunt shifted her weight and the floorboards creaked.
“I’m going to have to get through all of this stuff in the house in the next couple weeks and then just leave the rest up to the lawyers,” Hugh said, and sighed. Z could picture him wringing his hands. “I don’t know that I’m ready to deal with her. My life isn’t set up for that.”
“It’ll only be for a little while, though, won’t it?” the aunt asked very quietly. Z strained to hear more, but couldn’t pick out Hugh’s reply.
Z chose not to go to the wake, the funeral, or the reception afterwards. Instead, they sat in their room with their science fiction books spread around them on the bed. Folded into the cover leaf of one of the books was a printout of the web page Z had visited at the computers at the public library. The page described the results of the online quiz Z had taken on a website called transsexual.org four months earlier. The pink background of the site had not translated well onto the library’s black-and-white printers, so the letters were a little hard to read.
COMBINED GENDER IDENTITY AND TRANSSEXUALITY INVENTORY (COGIATI)
Your COGIATI result value is: -40 Which means that you fall within the following category:
COGIATI classification THREE, ANDROGYNE
What this means is that the Combined Gender Identity and Transsexuality Inventory has classified your internal gender identity to be essentially androgynous, both male and female at the same time, or possibly neither. In some cultures in history, you would be considered to be a third sex, independent of the polarities of masculine or feminine.
LAST UPDATE DECEMBER 19 1996.
Z threw the book to the end of the bed. The printout fell onto the floor and lay there, in the heap of trash and clothes. Z turned over on their stomach with their face pressed to the sheets. The printout’s text, which had seemed so important a few days ago, now seemed stupid and useless, like something from an imaginary world. Z lay on the bed for several hours and let their hands go numb. When Hugh and the others returned from the funeral, Hugh stuck his head into Z’s room. His face looked like a bald cat’s.
“Hey. Susan, I don’t mean to intrude, but if you aren’t going to talk to anyone, you might start packing. You got stuff all over the place here. I know it’s sudden, and very hard, but I don’t have a lot of time. We’re going to need to be out of here in the next couple weeks. It might be good to start putting together what’s important to you to take.”
“Oh,” Z said.
“I pulled one of the suitcases out of the garage. It’s outside your door.” He paused. “Here, actually, you probably can’t move it on your own.” He opened Z’s bedroom door and pushed the suitcase inside with his foot. “If you want to come down for dinner, you can. Otherwise I think it’s fine for you to stay right here. Uh.” He made eye contact with Z, swallowed, and looked over at the wall, where an Oregon Ducks pennant hung against the dusty plaster. “Oh, you, uh. You like the Oregon Ducks.”
“I follow them, yeah,” Z said.
“You know I used to go to games all the time, when your dad and I were in college. I never played football but my friend Joe did.”
“Oh. Cool.” Z rolled off the bed and moved a pile of laundry from the floor into their suitcase, then looked up at Hugh. He made a strange bald-cat grimace and walked away from them down the hall. Z sat for a minute and then leaned over and shut their door.
Z stared at the mess in their room and, after a long time, moved the Oregon Ducks pennant from the wall to the floor. They looked around the room. They couldn’t focus on any of the books or papers. Z’s pen pal Chad’s last letter to them was still on the dresser. He hadn’t written because he was on the road. Z picked it up and carried it with them through the house, sitting in rooms with nobody else in them and rereading the note until the words lost their meaning. When the streetlamps came on in the neighborhood, Z was still curled in the nook between the kitchen and the living room, mumbling the text aloud, though their voice was barely audible over the noise of the radiator. Dear Little Brother/Neutrois Sibling, the letter began. You’re going to be totally okay. I can’t, like, take you in and be your godfather because I have one backpack and eight cans of Spam to my name but I want you to know that we’re out here and we love you and are waiting for you.
But waiting where? And what did it really matter?
After the funeral and memorial service, the relatives left casserole dishes behind, stacked in the refrigerator like bricks: Mexican, Pork Mint, Green Bean, Dill and Spinach. Z wasn’t eating. Hugh packed the Chilworth family’s things into boxes or threw them into black trash bags. The house grew emptier. Z let Hugh throw most of their things away rather than try to speak to him about what they wanted to keep.
“I think we should go to your father’s church this Sunday,” Uncle Hugh said one day. “To say goodbye to your father’s congregation.” He was standing in the kitchen cleaning out the coffeepot with a dirty sponge. Z was sitting at the kitchen table, in the same place they had been sitting for five hours.
Z had gone to church less than once a month before the accident. Since they had gotten home from the hospital, Z had trouble concentrating on anything and wondered if it was because they hadn’t left the house once.
“You can go,” they said. “I’ll stay here.”
“I think you should go too,” Hugh said, rubbing at the coffee stains on the marble countertop with a dish towel.
On Sunday morning Z got up and dressed in new clothes for the first time in a week, pulling things out of the drawers Hugh hadn’t already emptied. The pants were clean and the shirt had no stains. When they heard Hugh get up they moved into the kitchen and sat near the coffeepot.
“That’s no good,” Hugh said, looking at Z’s corderoy pants. “Wear a dress. There’s a dress over in one of the suitcases that’d be nice.” He moved into the hall where the suitcases were piled on top of one another, and rummaged inside the plastic dry-cleaner wrapping. He returned to the kitchen and laid the thing out on the table.
Z looked at it. It was purple with long sleeves and a fake belt. Z had worn it for thirty minutes the previous Christmas and then fought with their mother about it.
“I’m already dressed,” they said.
“I’ll be wearing dress shoes,” said Hugh. “I think you should try it on. Sunday is for dressing up. You get home, put on pajamas for all I care.” Z noticed he did not look them in the eye as he spoke. He poured himself a cup of coffee and turned away.
“I’ll wear dress shoes,” they said. “Not a dress.”
Their dress shoes were slightly too small, but their smallness did not seem to hurt Z’s feet like they had before the accident. In fact, Z could not feel their feet at all, though they could still move them.
Beads of ghostly rain broke across the window of the car. In the lobby of the church, there was coffee. Z did not drink it; they stood instead on the scratchy short-haired carpet and watched their uncle. Hugh drank two cups of coffee and ran his tongue against his teeth.
The sermon was about the joy which was mankind’s natural state of being, the basis of connections between people and God.
“I would also like to take a moment to mark a great sorrow,” the pastor continued. “As many of you know, we lost four members of our congregation last week, when Darren and Suzanna Chilworth’s car hit a patch of ice out on the highway. Their three children were in the car at the same time. I know many of us knew Darren and Suzanna extremely well. Darren and Suzanna and their daughters Mary and Lucy were interred here this past week and I saw many of your faces at the funeral. I think a lot of us have really rallied in supporting Suzanna and Darren’s daughter Susan and Darren’s brother Hugh in this difficult time, but we can never do too much for each other. Susan, Hugh. I want you to hear from all of us how lucky we are to have you here alive.”
A few people turned around and stared at Z. Z began to pick at the skin on their hands.
“May we keep now three minutes of silence and pray for their peaceful rest, thank God for Susan’s life, and ask ourselves how we can make her feel cared for and safe in this time of grief,” the pastor concluded. He asked everyone to close their eyes. Z stared blankly at the floor. Their contact lenses itched and Z was worried they would get blurry if they blinked. Z realized they should put on their glasses instead of continuing to wear contacts, since there were probably all sorts of microbes growing on their eyes, but Z hated the way their glasses made their face look round.
“Stop fidgeting,” Uncle Hugh said.
“I’m not fidgeting,” Z said loudly. Their right eye suddenly really hurt. They reached up to touch the contact lens and pull it out, but they couldn’t find where the lens ended and their eye began. They began poking at their eye, aware that several people were still staring. Z recognized several of their mother’s friends. Their necklaces and styled hair contrasted sharply with Z’s disheveled appearance. I am a charity case, Z thought. They poked their finger into their eye. The contact lens would not move. Z scraped at their eyeball with two fingers instead, hoping to gain purchase on the small rubbery lens.
Suddenly, Z’s right eyeball came out into their hand.
They stared down with their left eye—it took a moment to figure out what it was. There was some black gooey blood on their palm.
“Oh no,” Z said. A few people looked around and saw them. There was a hysterical, horrible humor to the situation. They began to laugh, a low, humming, electrical noise that made the pew shiver. It was the first time they had laughed since the accident.
Uncle Hugh looked over and made a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat. He spluttered. He looked around frantically; most people who were looking did not seem to realize what had happened. He reached over and pushed Z’s head down below the pew so nobody would see the eyeball, leaning over as if he was concerned for their safety.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Uncle Hugh grabbed Z’s shoulders and lifted them forcefully from their seat on the pew, steering them rapidly to the doors of the church. A few people watched them exit. Nobody intervened.
The connective tissues were still there, trailing back into their eye socket, Z realized, as they tried to blink. Z could see blurry images out of the detached eye. The carpet in the church hallway was a dark musty shade of green and was dotted with spots where stains had never really been washed out. Black fluid dripped from Z’s eye socket onto the green carpet, leaving small splotches. Uncle Hugh steered Z to a chair in the hall near the entryway, throwing them into the chair with such force that the back of the chair slammed into the wall with a loud thump.
“Hey,” Z said. “That was unnecessary.” They looked at Hugh’s strange bald-cat face and laughed again. The situation was so macabre. They waited for some sign that Hugh thought it was funny.
Uncle Hugh looked horrified and angry. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t understand it,” Z said. “Just the way this works now, I guess.” They were trying to focus their left eye on their right one, to see if they could figure out how to put it back in.
“Trying to terrify people—everyone is looking at me— what are you doing? Can’t you stop?”
“I wasn’t trying to terrify people!” Z turned their eye in their hand. Why on earth would they take out their own eyeball in church on purpose? “I was trying to get my contact lens out. It was itching me.”
Uncle Hugh wasn’t listening. He was standing over Z, sweating and staring at Z’s empty eye socket. “Do you know how terrifying it is to live with you?” he asked.
The question surprised Z. “No,” they replied.
“Every moment I wonder when you’ll snap and eat my brain. You pull out your eyes and you make that awful humming noise. It’s like a demon. It’s terrifying.”
“I just—I don’t know, I just talk.” Z thought about the humming sound.
“I don’t deserve to put up with this!”
Uncle Hugh was so large and looming that they decided to proceed cautiously. “I suppose not,” Z said.
Uncle Hugh grabbed Z by the collar. Z had not been expecting this. They couldn’t lift their hands against their uncle, because one hand still held their eyeball. Z shrieked, and it sounded a little like a generator exploding. Uncle Hugh lifted them so they were standing on their toes.
“Let me go,” Z said. They tried to turn their head, to see if there was anyone in the hallway. Their vision was blurry and lopsided and they couldn’t see anything clearly.
“You don’t understand,” Uncle Hugh hissed. “I have worked all my adult life to ensure that monsters like zombies are dealt with cleanly, efficiently, and present the minimum risk to the public. You know what kind of cases I have done. Prosecuting those who fail to contain monsters in their custody, lobbying to get them off the streets, and to incinerate those which present a criminal threat.”
“My eye fell out on its own. I’m not terrorizing anyone.”
“I don’t deserve to put up with this. This isn’t fair. This degeneration will reach your mind too. You know how much the legal work of the last few decades has made a difference? But the monsters keep coming.” He paused and wet his lips. “If people in there saw you with your eye out . . . In taking you on I am going to have to watch you disintegrate until you’re beyond help, hungering for blood. I don’t know what animates you—the hospital wasn’t able to identify a curse— but I know you must have one inside you, and I don’t know what it’s going to do to me.” Hugh’s neck wrinkled upward toward his eyes along the creases in his cheeks. He looked hysterical, red, pulsing. Z could hear his heart.
“Let me go,” Z said. The mass of tissue that connected their eye to the socket stretched; their head bobbed back and forth. They tried to remember the self-defense spell their mother had taught them. It had been a long time ago, when Z was six or seven. They remembered Suzanna Chilworth’s face, alive, smiling. But something was wrong. Z couldn’t feel the magic under their skin like they used to be able to. They hadn’t thought about it during the week in the house because they hadn’t seen the point in trying to use magic, but now that they needed it the absence felt like the absence of a pulse. They concentrated. Focus your magic at the point of contact—think of a wave, a surge, lean into your attacker. Let them take the heat of your fear. Release the spell. Z leaned into Uncle Hugh, throwing him off balance. They felt the magic going through their body now, but it was at a distance, as if it was coming from somewhere else.
“You deranged—” Uncle Hugh began, but then he stopped as an electrical current surged through his body. He let go, looking puzzled and alarmed. A second current surged through him and he doubled over.
“Sorry,” Z said, getting up. They walked quickly away to the women’s bathroom. Uncle Hugh made no attempt to follow them.
There was nobody inside, because everyone was at the service. Z squinted and made their way to the sink. They knew they needed water for the eyeball. Saline solution would be best, but water would do. They turned on the tap and let the hot water run until the stream was lukewarm. Then they rinsed off their eye, carefully, hoping nobody would walk in. They gently pressed their eyeball to their socket, slowly increasing the pressure and hoping for the best. Their eyelid got caught, so they held it open with their other hand. After a few seconds, the eye slid back into the socket. Z blinked a few times, and the contact lens they had been trying to get out fell into the sink. Z took out their other contact lens. Their vision was blurry now, but at least they had eyes.
Z returned to the service and sat down in the back, far away from Uncle Hugh. They watched the weak gray sunlight come in through the windows. Z wondered why everything, everywhere, seemed so gray.
After the service, as always, there was sour coffee and dry ginger cookies. Z stood in a corner. Children stole sugar cubes from the bowl by the coffee and dropped them on the floor or ate them. Z was thinking about what they would do when they got home with Hugh, and how to avoid Hugh, when they noticed a small, wrinkled witch in a bright orange sweater standing nearby, staring at them avidly.
“Mrs. Dunnigan!” they said, with the first real feeling of relief they had had in the last week.
Mrs. Dunnigan was an old friend of the family and godmother to Z and their sisters. She ran a bookshop in downtown Salem. She had short, well-kept hair. Z had not seen her in over two months, and didn’t know if she had gone to their parents’ funeral. They forgot she attended church services weekly. As she approached, her manner intent and gregarious, her knees cracked. Z braced for the inevitable condolences.
“You still look just like your mother,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. Her brown wrinkled face had not changed since Z was young. Mrs. Dunnigan was the same as when she had babysat for the Chilworths.
“Ah,” said Z. They reached up and ran a finger through their hair. They thought there might still be some blood clotted in it. Z had not taken a shower since the accident. Their skin was discolored slightly, whether from not washing or something else, Z was not sure. They did not think they looked remotely like their mother.
“It’s the worst thing that could have happened. I’m only happy you’re still here.”
“For now. Hugh is taking me back to New York with him.”
Z glanced around. Uncle Hugh had disappeared into the men’s bathroom. They felt a question rising in their chest, but weren’t sure what it was.
“Looking for your uncle?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, let’s go sit out in the garden and avoid him. I want to chat with you.”
“It’s raining,” Z said.
“I have an umbrella,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. She brandished a monstrous hot-pink umbrella hung with water-repellent charms. Mrs. Dunnigan’s entire person seemed to pulse with bright colors.
“I missed you,” Z said. They and Mrs. Dunnigan went out, the huge umbrella clanking against the doors to the church. The rain was coming down much harder now. Mrs. Dunnigan led Z through the wet grass outside the church. There was no garden, only a few raised flower beds near the sign at the front of the parking lot.
Mrs. Dunnigan turned to Z when they reached the row of wet cars farthest from the church doors. “How have you been?” she asked Z.
Z wondered where to begin. There were no feelings to dredge up. “Well,” they said, “I’ve mostly been just at home since it happened. Tomorrow Hugh and I leave for New York.”
“New York. And you’ve been staying with him since the crash? How has that been?” Mrs. Dunnigan looked, for a second, very fierce and concerned.
“It’s . . . I’ve been all right. We don’t, you know, talk very much. I stay out of his way. He’s, uh. He’s dealing with stuff.”
“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Dunnigan said, rocking back on her heels. The rain pattered more softly on her umbrella. She looked at Z very intently. “I am very worried about you, dear. I saw what happened in the hallway earlier.”
“Oh,” Z said. “Yeah.”
“How terrible, Susan. Did your parents leave you with him on purpose?”
“It wasn’t clear, in their will. They didn’t think I’d be . . .” Z looked at Mrs. Dunnigan to see if they could trust her. “I’m undead now.”
“I’m sorry?”
“In the crash. I died and came back.”
Mrs. Dunnigan bent forward and looked at Z more closely. “Those scars,” she said. “Good lord.”
“Yeah,” Z said. They studied Mrs. Dunnigan’s face. She looked uneasy. “That’s why it’s so rough with Uncle Hugh. He’s nervous I’m going to end up the kind of zombie who eats people. And he does legal work around that, so he knows how bad it can get, I guess.”
“This is worse than I thought,” Mrs. Dunnigan said.
“I mean, I’m fine. I’m me.”
“I know, dear. I mean worse for you. Living with him.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow. I thought it was going to be all right, but now I don’t know. Maybe I’ll run away when we’re in New York.”
“That’s not a good idea. I’m saying that as someone who has run away before.” Mrs. Dunnigan reached into her pocket and pulled out a container of mints. As she opened it and popped two small mints into her mouth, Z kicked at a wet mushy place in the grass.
“Stay with me instead,” Mrs. Dunnigan said suddenly. She proffered the silver case of mints.
“What?” Z took one, but didn’t put it in their mouth. They clutched it in their palm like a penny.
“If I’d known sooner, I would have offered sooner,” she said, putting her hands on Z’s shoulder. “I’ve been asking about you and no answers. I think it makes sense. People don’t like to talk about this, though it does happen. But it’s not right to treat you like Hugh just did. We can leave here together now, if you want to. I mean it.” Mrs. Dunnigan leaned forward. “He should not be near a child if he thinks it is appropriate to hurt you like that. I’ve liked you for a long time, Susan. It would be an honor for me to have you in my house. And I have to say I am worried about you in his.”
Z said nothing for a moment. They felt a little dizzy. The incident in the hallway had changed things, and staying with Uncle Hugh no longer seemed like a remotely good idea. There was something wrong with him, something beyond his fingernails and fish breath.
Z made a quick decision. “That would be lovely, thank you,” they said with as much sincerity as they could muster. Their voice rasped like a grave opening in dry earth.
“Let’s go catch a bus,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “My car broke down in November, so I’m afraid that’s all we really have to work with.”
Mrs. Dunnigan’s apartment was in a complex where the buildings looked like very long two-story suburban houses smashed together. The upper stories had a stairway up to a locked door, and the lower stories had front doors shadowed by balconies. It was close to the bus stop, and although it was very small, there was an extra bedroom. It once had been the office of the other Mrs. Dunnigan. It was only in the last year that Z had noted the meaning of the lesbian symbol on Mrs. Dunnigan’s refrigerator and on the pin on her brown overcoat. The Dunnigan couple had lived together for over forty years. Z remembered the apartment from childhood, when the Chilworth children had sometimes stayed over for long weekends. Mrs. Dunnigan had more cats now than she had then.
Mrs. Dunnigan phoned Uncle Hugh at the house and left a message saying that Susan would be living with her now.
“He’ll come and try to find me,” Z said.
“Let him try,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “We’ll sort it out. Have you met my cats? There’s Millicent, Carlos, Pamela, Antonio, Isadora, Angelina, and Marceline. I originally named all of them Angelina but that got very confusing for everyone very quickly.” Mrs. Dunnigan laughed. The cats took an interest in Z, nipping at their fingers.
The old office had a small bed and was papered in bubblegum-pink and acid-yellow stripes, which peeled slightly at the corners.
At four in the evening, five police officers appeared at the door. Uncle Hugh was just visible behind them, his white forehead spotted with sweat. Mrs. Dunnigan answered the door and then looked around at Z.
“We have received a report of you illegally harboring a dangerous, rabid zombie,” the tallest policeman said to Mrs. Dunnigan. He looked skeptical of this claim as he scrutinized the pastel clutter of her domestic space.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “Susan is undead, but she’s perfectly lucid. I’m her godmother, I should know.”
“Can you provide evidence of that, ma’am?”
“She’s right as rain, ask her yourself.”
Uncle Hugh bristled. “The zombie’s eye fell out today and she attacked me.”
Z felt compelled to rebut this lie. “I’m okay,” they said. “I promise I won’t hurt anyone. He was grabbing me and shaking me. That’s why I left.”
“It is true, officer,” Mrs. Dunnigan said politely. “I saw it and I was alarmed, and I thought, as a good Christian and dear friend of Susan’s mother, I have to take this child away. I know Hugh is very concerned about monsters but it just isn’t right to hurt a child.”
“I have custody!” Uncle Hugh said. He looked at Mrs. Dunnigan. “Ma’am, we haven’t met, but I promise I am more capable of handling this situation. I know you still see Susan as who she was, and she is that, sort of, but there is something else there and it will be too much for you.” He reached inside the door and tried to grab at Z’s arm.
“Don’t touch me,” Z said, and stepped back. Hugh fell in through the door and landed on all fours.
“Sir, please calm down. Escalating this isn’t our policy,” said the second-tallest policeman.
“Officer, I’m leaving tomorrow and traveling to New York,” Hugh said, looking over his shoulder from the ground before standing. “I have to settle this tonight. Susan, come and get in the car.” Z saw his car was parked outside. “You’re my niece. I have custody of you.”
“Do you?” Mrs. Dunnigan asked. She looked at the policeman. “Does he?”
Z looked at the officers, and felt a weight in the center of their chest plunge into their stomach. “Mrs. Dunnigan is my godmother,” they said. “I’ve known her all my life. She knows me better than Uncle Hugh. If I’m a danger, she’ll tell you.”
The policeman turned to Uncle Hugh. “Unfortunately, sir, though the deceased is a minor and your relative, in Oregon State there’s no kind of law that says you have custody. If she wants to live with this woman and this woman wants to take her on and can contain her until she disintegrates, that’s legal. It’s the Benjamin decision. Nineteen eighty-nine. The state can neutralize threatening undead, but has no authority in family disputes over nonthreatening undead relatives.”
“I’m the only family in this conversation,” Hugh said. “The zombie is only related to me.”
“Look,” the policeman said. “The only action we can take on zombies is shooting them or incinerating them when they present a danger. We take that very seriously. You told us she wasn’t lucid and that’s why we’re here. But she’s lucid. The kid’s not dangerous at this point. That means we’re not in the picture. She’s undead, so it’s not a kidnapping, it’s not a custody battle. It’s more like a dog, who gets custody of a dog.” He looked at Z. “No offense.”
“As the dog,” Z said as clearly as they could, “I’m expressing now that I would like to stay with Mrs. Dunnigan.”
One of the policemen smiled.
“Of course, you have to sign on as a custodian,” the tall policeman said to Mrs. Dunnigan, scratching his nose. “And allow for an investigation to confirm that no illegal necromancy is being performed and that the deceased’s state is the result of a preexisting curse or condition. Without a custodian, any member of the undead is eligible for incineration as part of the anti-necromancy act. That’s if anyone reports them traveling alone in public. And you have to prove she’s lucid and psychologically well every six months. I think it’s within a week, you have to sign the papers. Up at the courthouse, that’d be. Get a registration card. All that.”
“I’ll do that,” Mrs. Dunnigan said.
Uncle Hugh spluttered, “This woman is not competent. She may be fine, personally, but this is an undead creature. I work in monster case law. I know what I’m dealing with.”
“Sir, look, the state will work to evaluate her competence. And if there’s any trouble, we’ll intervene.” He looked back at Mrs. Dunnigan. “I have to say, though, ma’am, this was a rather sudden move on your part. Do you know what you’re getting into? At your age, and all.”
“Absolutely,” Mrs. Dunnigan said.
The police went away, and Uncle Hugh stood for a moment outside and then got into his car and drove away as well.
“The impudence of that man,” Mrs. Dunnigan said bitterly as they got onto the bus to go and buy Z replacements for all of their clothes the next morning. “Just because you’re dead. It isn’t like you aren’t awake.”
Z didn’t say anything. The people in the bus stared openly at Z’s scars.
They went to the courthouse with Mrs. Dunnigan on Thursday and signed the papers. There was a test that involved a civic spellcaster, who had a long sharp nose and cystic acne. Z stood inside a machine. The machine identified the location around Z’s heart as the source of a necromantic spell. Z pulled up their shirt and sports bra and showed Mr. Sindul the nine-pointed star that had appeared on their skin after the crash. He took them to a different room, where another machine with a bulb like a camera was pointed at Z’s heart.
“It’s a spell cast by someone who is now deceased,” the spellcaster said. “A protection charm to guard you from death and restore you to life if you perish. It’s one of a set. Did you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Yes, but they’re dead.”
“It’s not very well cast,” the spellcaster said, looking at the sheets of film being printed out of the top of one of his gray machines. “It’s disintegrating rapidly. It could be that the other loci were dissolved immediately with the death of the spellcaster.”
“Do you think my mom could have cast it?” Z asked.
“Perhaps. Was she a dissident?”
“I don’t know,” Z said. “I didn’t think so. But it couldn’t be my dad, he couldn’t do spells much.”
“We’ll assume she was the caster, given the lack of other evidence. Based on the looseness of the magic, I doubt she had access to necromancy books when she cast it, so there doesn’t seem to be any reason to investigate further. The spell seems to be undoing itself fairly quickly. I would say in under a year it will unravel.”
“What does that mean for me?” Z asked.
“You may gradually lose control of your body and also may be driven toward violent or cannibalistic acts,” the civic spellcaster said. “Or you may simply lose consciousness.”
“Is there any way to not have that happen?” Z traced the slightly raised lines of the star.
The man looked at them seriously. “That would be illegal necromancy, unfortunately. You are already dead. Physically, there’s nothing that a doctor could do. Necromancy beyond what has already been cast is going to just prolong your disintegration in any case.”
Mrs. Dunnigan had the people at the courthouse call the hospital to get another copy of the note saying Z was lucid, since Uncle Hugh had taken the first one back to New York with him. She filled out a form stating her income and listed all potential factors that could complicate her ability to care for and control an undead being.
“I may have fibbed about the income part a little,” she confessed to Z on the bus home. “Nobody makes the amount I put down, running a bookstore in this town of illiterates.”
“That’s okay,” Z said. “Money isn’t everything.”
Every evening after she took her vitamins Mrs. Dunnigan would make a strong-smelling salve out of various powders from the jars of herbs on her shelf and tell Z to put some on the bruises, but all that seemed to do was to keep the cats from getting as close to Z.
“It’s about all we can do,” Mrs. Dunnigan said. “But that’s what I do when I have joint pain.” Mrs. Dunnigan kept some of the salve for herself every night.
On the eleventh day after the accident Z realized that they were starting to smell. They hadn’t showered since getting out of the hospital, and their hair was tangled, except for the patches where it had been sheared away from their scalp as doctors tried to stop the bleeding in their brain. Their sense of smell hadn’t been very good since waking up, and it was possible the odor had started much earlier without noticing. Z took a long, hot shower in the yellow bathtub while Mrs. Dunnigan was out grocery shopping. They scrubbed hard oatmeal soap into their skin. It had taken on a faint grayyellow color in some spots and a kind of funny mauve in others, and parts of it peeled off when scrubbed hard. Z wondered if the hot water would actually do any good or whether it would somehow hurt them, now that their body was different. As Z dried their hair and rubbed most of a bottle of clove oil every place that still smelled odd, they made a mental note to check Mrs. Dunnigan’s library.
Z still had Chad’s last letter to them. They kept it in their sock drawer, which was half filled still with things left behind by the other Mrs. Dunnigan. Chad had survived a lot. He’d been homeless for years, after running away because his parents kicked him out for wanting to live as a boy. His life seemed impossible, but it was real. For better or worse he was alive. Z wanted to email or send a letter to him, but they didn’t know where he was. His forum account was still down. They couldn’t tell if he had deleted it or someone else had gotten him blocked from the forums where Z had met him. Besides, Mrs. Dunnigan didn’t have a computer except at her bookstore, and she used that one for sales.
Z finally went back to school. Z’s mother, Mrs. Chilworth, had worked at the Integrated Academy of Lower Salem as a calculus teacher for six years. Z used to dread the day when their mother would be teaching them higher mathematics. When Z and Mrs. Dunnigan went into the school, Z saw that their mother’s name had not yet been removed from the door of her old office.
Mrs. Dunnigan and Z had a hard time trying to convince the school to allow Z back. Though the meeting with the secretary in the hallway had initially gone well, the principal glared suspiciously at them both over his desk as he explained the school’s policy concerning the dead to Mrs. Dunnigan.
“Our policy is to provide a safe learning environment to living students,” Mr. Bentwood told Z when they and Mrs. Dunnigan went to the office to explain the long absence. “Susan was, when alive, a proficient student and a powerful young witch. I am sure she is still capable of great things . . . if she is as you say fully conscious. If she isn’t, you understand that we have much to lose.”
Z stared at Mr. Bentwood over the top of the desk, feeling they needed to speak up on their own behalf. “Trust me, I’m right as rain,” they said in their scratchy, whispery paper-voice. They realized as they spoke that their voice sounded less than convincing; their voice was still raspy, deep, and ominous.
Mr. Bentwood turned to Z and glared at them. “Other schools have had undead students in the past that have been less than completely in control of their own actions, and I have no desire to repeat those incidents. The last thing I need on my record is an outbreak of necromancy. Pardon my vigilance, but we just can’t take too many chances. Especially with an elderly guardian. Pardon me, ma’am, but Susan would have had four more years here, and who knows what health issues might come up for you in that time.”
“I’m perfectly capable of child care,” Mrs. Dunnigan said with a hint of ire.
“I’m not a necromancer,” Z said. Their left leg hurt, painfully, and so did their head. It was aching and burning. Their head twitched on their neck in a brief spasm that was very difficult to conceal. Horrified, Z clutched their chair tighter. The ache in their leg got worse. “I’m really not.” Z thought about what Mr. Bentwood would think if he knew the real necromancer had been one of his employees.
“We’ll have to get a written document from you to ensure that you don’t. A precautionary measure,” Mr. Bentwood said. “I understand that this is a difficult time and I don’t mean to place undue stress on you, but we really cannot let you attend classes unless you confirm in writing that you won’t use any form of death magic on the campus.”
“I’ll sign whatever,” Z said, staring at the ceiling.
“It’s just our policy. We don’t want any more zom—undead roaming around. Not all of them are as well-mannered as you.”
“I sort of wish I had stayed dead.”
Mr. Bentwood frowned. “How did you wake up?” he asked, flipping through the papers on his desk. “I don’t have any records of you being the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, or having any prophecies associated with your childhood or adolescence. Did your parents ever place any protective spells on you?”
Z and Mrs. Dunnigan exchanged a glance.
“The test at the courthouse said it was a spell cast by someone who’s dead now,” Z said. “It might have been one of my parents, but the origin wasn’t totally clear.”
“Hmm.” Mr. Bentwood pushed a sheet toward Z. It was already filled out neatly in blue ink; the only blank space left was next to the x at the bottom where Z was meant to sign. “This confirms that you will only use approved forms of magic and will not raise any deceased persons or animals while on this campus.”
“I don’t think I could do that even if I wanted to,” Z said, taking a ballpoint pen from the table and clicking the button on the bottom.
“Not that pen,” Mr. Bentwood said, his tufty ginger beard quivering with nervous laughter. “It’s a permanent promise.” He held out a fountain pen. “A blood oath.”
“Oh.” Z rifled through their pockets and pulled out a short penknife, making a cut along their index finger. No blood came out; the wound stayed gray and dry. After all, Z was dead. It was so unexpected that Z started to laugh shrilly, still staring at their hand. The laughter echoed and bounced off the walls. Mr. Bentwood laughed nervously too, sounding like a panicked goat.
“I wonder if you can be bound by something other than a blood oath,” he eventually said, sounding slightly unsure.
“No, hold on, something’s coming out,” Z said. A little drop of red-black viscous liquid had bubbled up at the cut. Z dipped the pen into the droplet and signed Susan Chilworth on the dotted line. I wonder if that still counts if I don’t think of it as my real name, Z thought idly.
“Beautiful,” Mr. Bentwood said, his yellow teeth showing. “You can go to your next class while Mrs. Dunnigan fills out the rest of the paperwork.” He pulled at his mustache. “I’ll write you a note.”
Z stood up and grabbed their bag. Mr. Bentwood handed them the little yellow note and watched Z as they crossed to the door. The hinges creaked as they opened it and then slowly shut it behind them.
Z’s locker was exactly as they had left it. Z picked up their history book and crammed it into their bag. The bag felt much heavier than it had felt before. Z wondered how long it would have taken for their mother’s body to decompose if it had not been burnt. Z wondered how long it would take for the rest of their body to fall apart, or for their skin to fall off.
“Susan! You’re back in school! You look terrible.” Bethany Black appeared next to Z as they turned to go to class. Her braces glimmered in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. “So skinny, though. Did you lose weight?”
“I bet I did. I’m exhausted.” Z tried to smile and then stopped, realizing that was probably inappropriate. It occurred to them that Bethany’s comment probably hadn’t been in the best taste either. Bethany must have realized it, as she also made a nervous smirk and then hastily rearranged her face into a concerned expression.
“I heard that . . . I mean, I heard about what happened with your family. We had a vigil for Mrs. Chilw—your mother last week here at school. I am so sorry.”
“Yes,” Z said, unsure of what face to make. Bethany was their best friend, but suddenly that didn’t seem like it necessarily meant she needed to know everything that had happened.
“Were you in the car too?”
Z pointed to the stitches across their jaw. “Yes,” they said again.
“Oh. Oh! I’m sorry, I’ll stop talking about it.”
“It’s okay,” Z said. “But thanks.”
Bethany walked next to Z as they went upstairs to history class. She didn’t seem to know what to say, but it did not stop her from talking. “Sam and Ginger got back together,” she said.
“Isn’t Ginger such a dumb name?” Z asked, relieved to be in familiar conversational territory and to be talking about a subject unrelated to death.
“Her real name’s Agatha. I’d prefer Ginger too. She’s got that nice hair, so it works.”
“She’s so mean. She did push Tommy Wodewose off the roof last year. Did you forget?”
“If Sam likes her she can’t be that bad. And Tommy’s weird. He wears sticks in his hair.”
Z shrugged and went into class. “I don’t know.”
Bethany hesitated at the doorway for a moment and then walked away. Z wondered if they should have said goodbye. They suddenly didn’t remember if they had used to say goodbye at the end of conversations with Bethany. In fact, Z didn’t remember much of anything of their old conversations with Bethany. The blurry spot in between dying and waking up seemed to have expanded over Bethany and any knowledge of why Bethany and Z had ever become friends to begin with. Z wondered if it was temporary but that made them wonder if their existence as a resurrected life form was temporary in general, and that was frightening to think about. Z opened the textbook to the page named on the whiteboard and waited for class to begin.
Mr. Holmes was one of the few nonmagical teachers at the school. It was a condition that caused adults some embarrassment. In the last thirty years, there had been more and more programs to teach adults basic spellcasting, and the number of magically stunted adults had been reduced in America by ten percent, but Mr. Holmes was apparently beyond help. He wore a large, shiny amulet at all times. As he entered he rapped on the wood of the door three times and threw a salt packet over his shoulder, a ritual he pretended was an elaborate joke but which everyone else suspected was at least half-serious. It was a little sad, since every one of his students knew that salt only worked against fey—who were not allowed at the Integrated School or anywhere else in America—and that knocking on wood didn’t do anything at all, besides maybe give one splinters. It was widely believed that Mr. Holmes had an endearing personality, though, so none of his classes were too hard on him.
“Today we will be covering the Second Undead Uprising of Portland,” he said. Z looked up with a start. The page listed on the board corresponded to the beginning of a chapter on magical participation in the Civil War.
Cecil Pritchett noticed as well. His hand shot up. “Mr. Holmes, the board says—”
“I’ve decided to switch focus for today, Cecil,” Mr. Holmes said. “We haven’t focused on the West Coast very much in our studies, and I figured it was time to pay the sturdy pioneers a little attention.” He laughed jovially.
Cecil lowered his hand, his brow furrowing.
“Can everyone turn to page 675?” Mr. Holmes asked.
Z flipped the book open to the page. There was a large woodcut of a skeleton with flesh falling from its arms sprinting down a muddy street, under the heading “Filthy Sewers, Walking Dead.”
“Can someone read the first paragraph?”
Z started to bite at their fingernails before realizing with a jolt that their fingernails probably wouldn’t grow back.
Cecil raised his hand, and Mr. Holmes called on him.
“The late nineteenth century,” Cecil drawled, “was a time in which many towns along the Western Coast expanded at unprecedented rates. The towns often did not have access to resources which would ensure consistent infrastructure like paved roads or sewer systems. The town of Portland, Oregon, for example, was called ‘the most filthy city in the Northern States’ in 1889. Nevertheless, the population at the end of the century was expanding. The First Undead Uprising of Portland, discussed in Chapter Six, had been very small by most standards, and was an isolated event most likely caused by a lone necromancer.” Cecil paused as Mr. Holmes gestured for him to stop reading.
“Does everyone remember that? Chapter Six? Do we remember what the identifying characteristics of the undead were?”
There was a long silence.
“Susan, can you tell us?” Mr. Holmes was suddenly standing directly in front of Z.
Z looked up sharply at Mr. Holmes. He had always seemed perfectly decent, but Z could swear there was something rather cruel in the way he was staring at them with his little smile.
Z looked down at their hands. They were cold and gray and dry. “The undead were at first mistaken for victims of cholera, because in dying they lost most of their body fluid. The people—the living ones—could only identify them as . . . you know, dead . . . because of the gray and greenish tone of their skin and the fact they had no pulse.” Someone behind Z snickered. Z resisted the urge to touch the place where the vein in their neck used to mark their heartbeat.
“Very good, Susan,” Mr. Holmes said, smiling. “Now, could you read the next paragraph?”
Z swallowed, to no effect. There didn’t seem to be much water in Z’s body anymore. Could Mr. Holmes already know they were dead? Why would he want to let Z know that he knew? “Okay.” They took an ineffectual breath. “However, in 1891, three hundred warlocks of Irish and Chinese descent employed by Northern Pacific who had assisted in the construction of the railroad through Stampede Pass went on strike after their wages were withheld. Their numbers were not significant enough to prevent the use of the railroad, so they raised a group of forty dead former citizens who were buried in the cemeteries of Portland and Clackamas.”
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Mr. Holmes asked nobody. “The dead, walking.”
The class stared at him, puzzled. Mr. Holmes did not usually behave like this. Cecil glanced at Z sharply and Z realized that no matter how confused everyone else in the class was, Cecil had noticed something rather off about their skin and the stitches on their wounds.
The bell that rang at the end of history class sounded dull and tinny in Z’s ears. The din of zipping book bags and chairs being pushed back drowned out the little pathetic noise of relief that rose up from Z’s throat. Z stood and left the classroom as quickly as possible, but they didn’t move quickly enough. Mr. Holmes followed them into the hallway and stepped in front of them. His soaplike pale face looked down on Z. They could smell his warm garlic breath and hear the blood pumping in his heart. Which was odd, Z thought, since their senses, particularly their sense of smell, had otherwise been so dull lately.
“Susan, I understand if you’re upset.”
Z squinted at him.
“As you know, I am preoccupied with safety,” he added, making a little uncomfortable chirruping noise and clicking his teeth on the last word.
Z tried to move around Mr. Holmes, but he moved again to block their path. Other students, going to lunch, glanced back at both teacher and student curiously.
“All your teachers have sworn not to inform students about your new condition, but I felt that it was in the best interests of everyone if I provided my students with more information on the living dead.” The loud whisper Mr. Holmes was using had a theatrical resonance. Z would have been astounded if any of the students passing by didn’t hear him.
“Mr. Holmes, I don’t know if you were told of the details of my new circumstances,” Z said, struggling to keep their voice low.
“I have been told you aren’t dangerous, Susan, and I am sure that they are right. However—”
“I mean the part where my entire family is dead.” It was the first time Z had said this to anyone, and it sounded hollow and false in their own ears. Z didn’t even care that much. But it had the desired effect.
“I’m very sorry,” Mr. Holmes said.
Z pushed past Mr. Holmes’ shoulder and stomped down the stairs. They were faintly aware that they left a slight smell of decay behind, hanging foully in the air.
Bethany had started sitting next to Catherine James while Z had been away. Z sat down at the table near the two quietly and smiled awkwardly at them. Catherine and Bethany were having a conversation about hair color, and as Z sat down the girls continued to talk.
“I heard that the store in the mall is having a sale on Charmed Pink dye this weekend,” Catherine was saying. Her hair was short and bleached blonde with imperfect magic.
“I don’t want pink though, eww,” Bethany said. “I wish I could get my mother to fly us out to the city for a day so I could get some Midnight Blue.”
Catherine looked over at Z. “Have you ever dyed your hair, Susan?”
Z blinked. “No. And, um. About my name. I like going by Z. Instead of Susan.”
“It’s because she’s like, such a tomboy,” Bethany said. “Nobody calls her that, though, don’t worry.”
Z looked over at Bethany. Bethany dropped eye contact and invested attention in her fruit cup.
“I can call you Z if you want,” Catherine said, laughing.
“I just like it better than Susan,” Z said, shrugging. “I
don’t feel like I’m a girl, and Susan is a girl’s name. And it’s too much like my mother’s name.”
Across the room, Tommy Wodewose was standing on his plastic chair and chanting quietly. In front of him on the cafeteria table was a bowl of salt, a bowl of water, and a tall black taper. In his hand he held a black stone about the size of his fist. A group of gawky ninth-graders had gathered to laugh at him.
“Doesn’t he usually eat lunch outside?” Catherine asked. “It must be too cold. Yikes, that kid is weird. Who the hell uses candles? It’s the digital age. Did he get lost in a fairy ring or something?”
“He’s only trying to be thorough, I guess,” giggled Catherine.
Purification rituals were supposed to happen before every meal, especially in a place like the school where so many types of magic were gathered and where magic was constantly happening. In theory, not performing purification would result in mixed magic, which supposedly attracted spirits that might tamper with spells.
“Nobody really performs purifying spells according to the old method, though, do they? Not seriously. Like, what reason is there to draw pentacles and stuff when you can just wash your hands?” Bethany pointed over to where Tommy was now carefully blowing out the candle. “He’s just doing it for attention.”
“Maybe,” Z said.
Z wasn’t yet sure if they could eat or not. Since Z had not eaten a meal since the accident, not eating did not seem to be a problem. Mrs. Dunnigan had packed Z a lunch, and Z took it out of their book bag now and arranged it neatly on the table. The sandwich on white bread was cut into four equilateral triangles. Z tried to eat a little bit of the sandwich, but it had no taste and seemed very, very dry in their throat. They spat it out onto the table.
“Honestly, you made the right choice, Susan. White bread is so bad for you,” Bethany said.