The collected souls, p.7
The Collected Souls, page 7
“Very well.” Anything to remain near the Key and hopefully get closer to it.
“Do you like apples, Damien?”
My brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“Apples. Do you like them? The exercise involves eating a piece of fruit.”
“Oh. Yes.”
Jaeger holds the fruit bowl out for me to grab an apple. When I do, he tells me to close my eyes. “Now focus on a good memory with one person you lost. When that memory and its emotions are vivid, take a bite. Focus on the sweetness of both the fruit and the memory.”
The memory I choose is one of the few happy ones I have from between my time in the army and when the Collector rose to power: I was with my little sister, Evelyn, who was aged four years, in a field. She had loved the tall grasses and had made us both a loose necklace and bracelet from some long strands. She asked me to weave some into her long hair.
“I can’t wait for your hair to grow back, Fay,” she said. “I want to braid your hair with it.”
Fay. It sounds a little like my name and means butterfly. I had not thought about her calling me Fay for a long time. I miss it.
Before I can think of how I have never allowed my hair to grow very long again and why, I take a bite of the apple. No sooner do I swallow than the feelings of bliss and melancholy are gone.
My eyes snap open. I stare at Jaeger, cold with confusion and the faintest touch of fear.
“That hits the spot,” he sighs pleasantly. “Thanks for letting me in.”
The apple falls from my hand. I slump in my seat.
“Now, now, don’t be so indignant! I do this to all my patients! Well, I only take their ayuve with me. But you—” He licks his lips. “—you didn’t think I would ever let you leave, with or without the Key?”
Everything goes black.
7
Tess
Ireturn to the same seat I had occupied earlier.
Amber is nowhere to be found.
I find a Homes & Gardens magazine to flip through, wanting to distract myself from the thought that maybe I need to see a therapist for grief and loss. A real therapist, of course. It isn’t until I have skimmed the entire thing that I realize how much time has passed. How long was this supposed to take again? The hour-long consultation should be done soon. I shift impatiently.
Amber isn’t even back.
I fidget in my seat, rifle through the magazine pile once more, stare vacantly at the photo on the opposite wall that I am pretty sure came with the frame.
Then comes a series of small tapping sounds.
Bored, I look around for the source but see nothing.
(Maybe it’s from a neighboring office?)
It comes again. From above.
Slowly, apprehensively, I look upward.
Clinging to the ceiling is a massive spider-like creature. Pincers, a hairy rotund body the size of a pony’s, sharply jointed legs. A mostly-human head that looks suspiciously like a certain receptionist.
Amber clacks her pincers and scurries forward a few steps.
“What the f—” My words turn into a shriek as Amber dives. I throw myself out of my chair.
Amber the spider lands where I had been a fraction of a second before in a tangle of furniture and limbs. She hisses in fury and leaps toward me. I kick at her. My foot connects with her chin, barely missing her pincers. I scramble to my feet as she recovers.
She charges.
I jump onto the desk.
Amber nearly collides with it, then lunges at me.
I spring aside and lob a stapler at her face.
It connects (thank you, years of softball), disorienting her. She shakes her head.
Before she can even click her pincers again, I scoop up her gooseneck lamp and slam the base down over her skull.
The spider person crumples, motionless.
Triumph flashes inside me, tempered by wariness. Keeping a close eye on her, I hop off the desk. Just to be on the safe side, I overturn the desk to pin her down. I don’t feel like making sure she’s okay.
“Keeper!” I yell. I pound on the door to Jaeger’s office. “Get your skinny butt out here!”
No answer.
I try the doorknob. Locked.
(Locked?)
“Keeper?” I lean in to listen. Silence emanates from the other side. I curse under my breath at the chills racing up my spine.
How does one break down a door? I chew my lip. Perhaps with determination. It looks flimsy enough. I take a step back, hesitate, kick the door. It shudders under the impact but doesn’t give. I kick at it four more times before it splinters enough for me to fully open it.
“Keeper?” I call as I shove my way inside. To find an empty office. “Keeper?” I repeat, as if he is hidden somewhere in the small room. I nearly step on an apple on the floor as I walk across the office.
What the hell?
I check the window, but it’s locked from the inside. So how did they get out?
I turn back to the door. I blink.
It is whole again, closed. As though I had not broken it and opened it just a moment ago.
I swallow. Reach for the knob. Open the door.
On the other side is darkness.
What the hell?
Apprehensively, I step through and feel gravity shift just before I am slammed backward into a solid surface. I stand to find myself at one end of an immense table set with a feast.
And when I say immense, I mean set for people thirteen times the size of the average human and stretching into the dimness. Oddly, though, the food is sized for the average human. People—normal-sized, and not spider people—sit in each of the huge chairs. Their eyes are all closed, and they are each translucent.
This magic stuff is…a bit much.
I set off walking down the table, examining each of the people as I pass, able to see only a few at a time due to the dimness of my surroundings. The people are more opaque the farther I go, but never fully so.
The table must be a quarter mile long.
Eventually I hear something: the crack of bones, noisy chewing.
Gross. Wait, I hope those aren’t the Keeper’s bones—I need his magic.
I move faster, urgency pulsing in my veins, weaving between platters and bowls of food. I slow when the head of the table comes into view.
A skeletal man, tall enough to easily fit the grand chair upon which he sits, leans over his plate, shoveling entire turkeys, whole casseroles, into his gaunt face. The food before him is somehow not running out, despite his best efforts.
Between movements, I spot the tie: a repeating motif of Garfield.
“Hello, Teresa,” Jaeger says without looking up from the table.
A chill runs down my spine. How does he know my name—my first name? I lift my chin defiantly. “What did you do with my—companion?”
Jaeger gestures to the chair on his left. The Keeper sits there, so small, eyes closed. He is the only opaque form, aside from Jaeger.
I clench my jaw. “What did you do to him?”
“He partook of the feast, which means I am now consuming his ayuve.”
I think I recognize the last word—the name of the Keeper’s home island?
“Come, Teresa, partake of the feast.” Jaeger waves for me to sit in the empty chair to his right.
I cross my arms. “Maybe stop eating him first? And tell me what an ayuve is.”
Jaeger scoops another ham into his mouth before leaning back with a contented sigh. “Fine. I will pause eating his ayuve.
“There is no singular word or expression in your language to describe it, but an ayuve is the emotional center of the soul in both a magical and spiritual aspect. The people here have allowed me access to theirs so I may take away their pain.” He grins with too many teeth. “And then some. But they do not mind.” He laughs. “Ah, yes, ayuve are excellent fuel for a starving man. Especially Thane’s, so volatile and intense.”
As my mind races, I examine the food from where I stand. It’s not really food at all, I realize, but something else shaped to be like food. Tentatively I reach forward and touch a bunch of grapes. A feeling of bittersweetness diffuses up my arm. Is this food an ayuve? While the translucent people are the souls being stolen from?
“So, all these people,” I say, “you lure them in through therapy, promising to help with their grief, and instead you just eat part of their soul?”
Jaeger dabs at his mouth with a napkin, a move so dainty for his previous lack of manners. “There is no ‘instead’ about it, Teresa. They give me permission.
“Come now, come sit with me. Let us talk. I won’t eat Thane’s ayuve so long as we talk.” He pats the empty seat beside him.
Can I trust him?
I wend my way through the dishes and pause before the Keeper. “Can he hear me?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jaeger says dismissively around a mouthful of noodles. “His body is here too, unlike the others, so possibly.”
I purse my lips. “Hi, Keeper,” I say. “I’m here for you.” Mostly the Key, but you know. You too, I guess. Then I turn and seat myself next to the empty plate at Jaeger’s right hand. The plate is at least eighteen feet across.
From here, all I can see is the top half of the Keeper’s head.
I watch Jaeger as he continues to devour, both mesmerized and sickened.
Something glints on his finger—a ring. The Key!
Eagerly, I glance at the Keeper. To my disappointment, his eyes are still closed. I recall our rings and shout for him with my mind.
I get no response.
“I can feel your reluctance at calling him a friend,” Jaeger says between casseroles. (The variety of flavors cannot be good together.) “I can sense the two of you pulling away from each other while simultaneously drawing closer to the other.”
I grunt noncommittally. I strongly disagree, but Jaeger isn’t exactly a real therapist. Or an empath, I’m sure.
He takes a swig of water.
I look to the Keeper once more.
His eyes meet mine.
You’re awake! Jaeger must really have stopped eating him. Or, well, part of him. As discreetly as I can, I tap the ring he gave me.
He nods.
Jaeger is too busy stuffing his face to notice. “Teresa, would you consider therapy?”
“Everyone should be in therapy.”
“I mean for grief and loss.” He grins at me, broth dripping down his chin. “My specialty.”
“Hm.” I probably shouldn’t be honest with a man who eats metaphorical hearts for a living. “No, I think I’m good there.”
He chuckles. “We both know that is a lie, Teresa.”
My face hardens. “Why do you say that?” I cut a look at the Keeper, suddenly desperate for him to do something. Or signal what I should do.
“I can sense your grief. I could feel it from the waiting room.” He takes a sip of wine. “Tell me about that.”
Before I can think of an answer, the Keeper leaps onto the table, lightning crackling around his hand. He snaps his hand forward, sending the lightning flying outward.
It wraps around Jaeger’s wrists, binding them to the table.
The giant howls and strains against his bonds.
“Get the ring!” the Keeper orders me. He springs onto Jaeger’s shoulder, sash in hand, and whips it over Jaeger’s eyes like a blindfold.
I grip the ring—it’s almost too wide to easily grasp—and yank on it. At the same time, I try not to think of fingers being degloved.
The Keeper whispers into Jaeger’s ear.
Jaeger relaxes, slumps into the chair.
It makes it that much easier to pull off the ring. “Keeper, I’ve got it!”
My voice startles Jaeger out of his stupor; his hand jerks, tearing through his bonds, and slams into my chest, knocking the ring out of my hands as I tumble backward.
I fall off the table. My body slams into a chair, the air flies from my lungs. I try to yell for the Keeper, but I cannot speak, cannot even see him; he is no longer on Jaeger’s shoulder.
Jaeger leans forward once more and resumes eating. As though nothing had happened.
Slowly I regain my breath, and when I do, I haul myself back up onto the table.
Where’s the Key, where’s the Key? I fumble for it among the dishes of food.
Jaeger’s hand crashes down next to me.
I yelp, but he only grabs a nearby bowl of green beans. My hand collides with something curved and metal. This time I grasp the ring silently, but Jaeger notices.
He howls and before I can react, a massive hand clasps around me.
The ring is knocked from my hands once more and clatters into a bowl of soup.
“Keeper!” I yell. I begin to claw frantically, desperately at Jaeger.
The hand tightens around me, cracking bones and joints.
I wheeze.
The Keeper appears from nowhere, dodging the giant’s free hand while holding something in both his own. He rolls aside as one immense arm swings at him. The other fist, with me in it, slams into the table next to him.
The force whips my head around and cracks my neck.
As Jaeger pulls his hand back to strike again, the Keeper bounds onto his wrist and catapults off. In midair, he propels a squash into the gaping maw of the giant.
Jaeger chokes. He drops me.
I fall onto the table with a crack as my ankle snaps with a white-hot fire.
The Keeper lands lightly beside me. He places a hand on my shoulder. The same warmth from the other night spreads throughout my body, and my ankle clicks back into place.
Maybe this magic stuff isn’t too bad, if I can always be healed so quickly.
“Where is the Key?” he asks.
“In a dish of soup somewhere.”
Frantically we search for it until moments later, I spot the dish and scoop it out.
“Hurry!” the Keeper urges.
I don’t need to be told twice. I swear I run a personal record in the four hundred-meter dash as we race along the table, gruesome protracted sounds of choking rising behind us. As we run, the souls around us wake and vanish, the dishes of food disappear.
Jaeger has not caught up with us as we reach the door and dive through.
The Keeper slams the door shut behind us and taps the frame in various places, leaving sparks as he goes.
“Is he dead?” I pant.
“No. I only stopped him from consuming more ayuve.” He reopens the door.
I open my mouth to yell, but the door opens onto the mess of a waiting room.
Amber is gone.
I tighten my grip on the ring and smile to myself. Pride sparks in my chest. I did it! I helped get the piece of the Key!
As we move into the hall, I remark, “You’re an acrobat, then, huh?”
“I am not,” he says shortly. “That was from the Crusader army. They put spells on us so we can move like that.”
Oh.
My thoughts move to what should be done with the Key. I want to hold onto it, but I suspect the Keeper won’t be amenable to that.
Sure enough, he holds out his hands, gesturing at the Key.
I hand it over with a frown.
It shrinks to a more typical size the moment it passes into his grip.
The Keeper is silent and dour as we enter the ISERE. He beelines for the console, where he flicks switches and levers, taking us somewhere far away. As the engine rumbles, he places the piece of the Key in a small compartment of the console. Next he collapses onto the bench nearby. “I do not feel anything,” he says, staring at his hands.
My eyebrows knit together as I try to deny the concern nesting in my chest. “What do you mean?”
He shakes his head. “I am…numb. Emotionally. I should have been scared, angry, but was not. I should be worried now over my numbness, but I am not.”
Can I be numb too? I shove the thought away and sit next to him. “It’s probably just a temporary side effect.”
“I would say I hope so, but I do not.”
The Keeper soon vanishes behind a pocket door across the atrium from the room I have been staying in.
The moment the door shuts again, I dart toward the console and run my hands over the area where I saw him stow the Key. Minutes pass before I give up, scowling at my reflection in the mirror. “Is it you?” I snap at the ISERE. “Are you why I can’t find it? Some sort of spell or something, so only the friggin’ Keeper can access the Key?”
No response.
Figures.
I shoot a look at the door which the Keeper lurks behind and make my way into the room I’ve been staying in. After locking the door behind me and dragging the bookshelf to block anyone from entering, I stride over to the window and peer outside. A deep breath of relief escapes me upon seeing only a sunset behind jagged, snowy mountains—no Tomb. I slump into the desk chair and pull out Ada’s necklace.
What would she be doing right now, if she…were alive? Monday afternoon…she’d be at the gym with me, probably, in between classes and study sessions.
But she’s not doing that. Because the Collector killed her.
I clench the chain in my fist.
The Collector killed Ada. The Collector has killed entire universes. The Collector wants to kill the rest.
What if I tried to kill her?
8
The Keeper
Isleep for a few hours. I dream of Adeka, a woman I met in my second dimension, who helped me stop hurting myself. I traced my skin with paint instead of the ink I use today, the way she taught me to. We speak of the Key, words spilling from us that I cannot remember.
I feel better when I wake. For a while, I sit with the memories Adeka brings with her, of me learning to move forward from loss, to find a purpose. Memories of me changing the color of my clothes from the blue of fresh mourning to the white of older grief.
With relief, I notice that the memories bring with them emotion; it seems the generalized lack of feeling resulting from Jaeger has more or less resolved. But when I think back to that memory with my sister, I just feel numb.
To avoid pondering this further, I decide to tackle the spell for the next piece of the Key.
