Chapel Orahamm

A click of a phone settling back into it’s cradle made me flinch. “You kidnapped a Live out of Sante Fe forest and you want me to hide him for you?” An older woman’s voice fully woke me from a gloriously empty sleep. I found I was sleeping on a three person couch that smelled faintly of rose and thrift shop.

“Not hiding. I just didn’t know what to do about his Aether, far. What the hell is he?” The crow guy’s voice was something I would never forget in my life. I tested my heavy eyelids, trying to open them to the couch, but they were staying stuck. Sleep paralysis? My heartbeat took off as I pushed and pulled to come out of it. As a weekly occurrence, I had quit napping on couches at my share-house because I was worried about my roommates messing with me. If I napped now, it was in my room with the door locked.

“Rook! Language.”

“Sorry, far.” The man sounded half apologetic, but more like this was a re-occurring issue that he had no desire to address.

The woman sighed while I lay paralyzed on a couch. “Explain, once more, from the top, concisely.”

“I went up to the forest Tuesday on my own.”

The woman sighed even deeper. Stating the obvious was not what she meant.

“I was looking for elk to cross over. They’re big, skittish, and-”

“I’m well aware.”

“Oh. Um. Yesterday I spotted a white glow, same color as Death Glow, making it’s way up one of the game trails near where I was perched. I watched this man with the glow walk under my tree and continue up the trail with a bunch of painting supplies. I thought-”

“I don’t care what you thought he was, what did you do next?”

“He settled down with his paints. I went and watched him work for a while. His glow intensified the more he painted. I got close to see if there were any Flickers. It was solid Death Glow. He saw me when I landed on one of his paintings. He saw me, far! Then he told me I should die and move on. A ghost! A ghost told a grim reaper to move on!”

I grunted a protest at that. Which made both of the people in the room skitter away. The paralysis was evaporating enough where I finally got my eyes to open. The couch was that chartreuse and gold floral from the 70s.

“He’s awake,” Rook whispered.

“His glow isn’t taking over the whole room,” the woman whispered back.

“And he’s hungry,” I yawned and fell victim to an all encompassing full body stretch. Truth be told, it was the first time in months that I felt well rested. I sat up, pushing my tawny curtain bangs out of my eyes to look at the two giants cowering behind a red velvet wingback armchair. “Gonna complain about the knife to the chest just this once, but if it makes me fall asleep like that and wake up feeling like I finally slept, I might pay you to do it again sometime.”

The woman looked exactly like Rook; longer hair, a bit of age, and a little bit more curve being the only difference. She also wore a lot less eyeliner and eyeshadow than him.

Rook went from scared to angry, coming around the armchair to lean over me. “What the? Are you psycho, dude?” Rook had overlapped canines. He had taken off his biker jacket, exposing a stack of silver necklaces draped in crossess and pentagrams. The turtleneck was skin tight and tucked into his jeans, a massive rodeo buckle in turquoise and silver adding a touch of color. He was a narrow rod from top to bottom.

A low throb hit me uninvited. No. Absolutely not. I was not going to go all lusty for a goth who just stabbed me through the heart and then kidnapped me to what was clearly his parent’s house. Well. Maybe for a minute.

“It’s called a coping mechanism, jerk. What did you do with my paints?” I snapped back.

“Paints? That’s your concern right now? You’re half-ghost! Like, kinda dead, dude.” His expressions were intense, over exaggerated with what I figured out was well defined eyebrow makeup. I had seen plenty of Goth and Glam-punk record covers to know men could wear makeup. He was the first living breathing flesh one I had actually interacted with, though.

“My concern, dude, is that I bought those with my own money and they were expensive.” I got my butt of the couch.

He scooted back a step, cocked his head, and looked down on me with one eye like a bird studying a bug. “Expensive? Like, how expensive?”

“Like I sell thousand dollar paintings off those at Christmas to the snowbirds expensive.” I hissed back. To be fair that had happened once on a large canvas to a very drunk New York cowboy who had left a florally letter with the gallery owner waxing on about my talent. Most of the rest of my pieces only ever net me fifty bucks or so.

“Alright. Let’s calm down.” The woman, who I was beginning to suspect was Rook’s older sister or maybe mom tried to step in.

“Calm? I don’t think I owe you calm. Those were Winsors. That canvas I stretched myself for specialty frames I just got done cutting down this summer from my mom’s orchard. Calm? Did he leave everything there?” I demanded.

The goth was deflating under the deluge. “I-I thought I’d killed you. I thought it was best to get you to see someone who could put your Aether back.”

“Maybe next time don’t go stabbing someone in the heart uninvited. You’re replacing those paints and my canvas.” I patted down my pockets to find my wallet and keys missing. “Awe, hell naw, man. What’d you do with my wallet? I was going to El Paraguay after I got done with those.”

“They’re on the table.” The woman pointed to the coffee table where my beat up leather wallet and keys sat in a little birch basket. I sighed out, my stress level coming down a pinch.

Between the goth guy and the woman, I found what amounted to be a couple of people who looked guilty and apologetic enough for me to bring my screaming down to just yelling. I clicked my tongue. “You keep going on about me being half-dead. I don’t know what to tell you about that. I’ve seen ghosts all my life. Maybe that’s why. But I’m not dead.”

Rook perked up at that news. “You see ghosts? Like all ghosts, or just the little balls of lights passing through walls?” He side-eyed me again like I was one of those corn ball investigators with the radios and cameras that would go into ‘haunted houses’ at night and spook the owners out of their money.

“Like I got the shit beat out of me at school because I was talking to a guy’s dead girlfriend who told me what he did, and I got him arrested for it; so his dad’s family broke my nose after that beating kinda ghost. Got part of my college and the nose job paid for out of the settlement. The types of ghosts who walk the same path every day kinda ghosts. The kids who wrecked up on the game trail this summer kinda ghosts. You wanna talk ghosts? Tell me what the ones are that look like black tar oozing out from under the pine roots up in Santa Fe forest,” I unloaded on the man.

The woman’s color paled, if that was possible. “There’s an Abyssal Shadow in the Santa Fe forest?”

“Five. I’ve seen five of them. Back to the point at hand. Who are you? Why am I here? What did you do to me? How did I not die? What do you want from me? Am I free to go?”

“I-um…what was the first one?” The goth guy had the blank expression that the boys who struggled at keeping up with teachers in school had when they were given a list of instructions a mile long.

“Your name.” I pulled my coat off, tossed it on the end of the couch and sat back down. This was going to take a while.

“Oh, yeah. My name’s Rook Vinthre and this is my mom Vilde Vinthre.” He motioned to the woman who had sat in the red wingback when I sat on the couch. I suspected Rook wasn’t his actual name. Not the way he was dressed. I was lucky he hadn’t named himself Vlad or something equally vampirically corny.

“Why am I here?” I ticked off the second question on my list. Usually I would have responded with the ‘pleased to meet you’ formalities, but I didn’t think that was necessary in this situation.

“I might have tried to move you along because I thought you were-”

“Might?”

“Chill, man. I thought you were dead and was just moving you along and then figured out you were actually sort of alive.”

“You could have asked?” I bit back.

“Ghosts don’t really know they’re dead.”

“Oh, no, they do, honey. Trust me, they like to be really chatty about that fact.” I leaned back against the couch and jammed my hands into my pockets.

“I-what?” Rook found a seat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from me.

“Yeah. Ever actually talked to one longer than it takes to draw that atheme?”

“You know what an atheme is?”

“Circle back to that. Do you not actually talk to the ghosts before you stab them? And you thought I was psycho. Why am I here?” I pointed down at the mint green carpet.

“I thought mom might be able to put your aether back in you. It wasn’t moving along, but it wasn’t going back, and I didn’t know what to do about it.” Rook pointed at Vilde.

I turned my attention to her. “And seeing as I’m now awake, I guess you’re a grim reaper too and was able to get my soul or whatever back in me?”

She looked abashed at the question. “I don’t reap. Trained in it, but I’m a planetary scientist at NMU. And for the record, no. I didn’t touch your Aether.”

“Why did it go back?” I found her ice blue eyes chilling. Glancing past her and into the kitchen beyond, the world had turned white with snow.

“I’m not entirely sure. I have something I would like to see now that you’re awake and can actually consent to an investigation.”

“Nope. I want more answers.”

“Alright.”

“Can I leave?” I didn’t move to leave, but I wanted that answer more than any other.

Rook and Vilde shared a glance. She shifted uncomfortably. “You aren’t a prisoner.”

“But you don’t want me taking it to the cops that he stabbed me. Do I have any proof?” I motioned to my chest where there were no holes in my clothes.

“Well, no, but he did assault you.” Vilde ducked. Rook looked down at the carpet.

“He did. Know what I want?” I growled.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stabbed you without first understanding what it was you really were.” He actually sounded genuinely apologetic.

“And?”

“Your paints and canvas replaced?” he offered with a note of hope.

“And?”

“And? I don’t-”

“A lift back to my truck, dude. Not sure how you got me here, but I need to get home before mom flips and then I really am going to miss tamales at Christmas.” I crossed my ankles. I didn’t expect to be going anywhere, what with the snow coming down. “Probably should call mom and tell her I’m gonna be late. What time is it anyways?”

Vilde glanced at her thin, black leather watch. “It is currently 8 pm. And I called Beverly yesterday afternoon to let her know you were sleeping over.”

I blinked at her, trying to understand what she just said. “And she went with that?”

“She might think you and I are dating and wished us a very pleasant Thanksgiving.”

“You said what?” My mind ground to a halt.

“I did go through your wallet. Your money is still there. I needed the emergency-”

“No. No. She thinks I’m dating…” I loosely pointed a finger at her as my digits turned numb and my hearing started ringing.

“She seems to.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Vinthre but I don’t-”

“I didn’t say we were. She did.”

I dropped my head into my hands with a thunk. “You know what, yeah, sure I’ll stay over. Can make that a whole week long gig. Adopt me now.”

“It’s just a misunderstanding. Easily remedied,” she tried to reassure.

I pressed my hand over my mouth and looked up at her. “Not sure you understand just how baby-mad my mom is right now, Mrs. Vinthre. And I have zero desire to face her wrath or break her heart. She puts up enough with my baby sister.” I rubbed my face in exasperation.

“Rook can get you back to your truck. We just might want to wait for the snow to stop,” she tried again.

“How far are we out from it?”

“It’ll take a couple hours to fly back up.”

“Couple hours? To fly?”

“Yeah, I carried you back home.”

“Home?” I looked at Vilde. “NMU? This is Albuquerque?” I felt my blood drop out of my head.

“Well, yes. I wouldn’t want to be driving all the way down from Taos daily.” Mrs. Vinthe cocked her head. It was a strange tick the two both shared.

“How did you fly me here?” I could only imagine a little crow flying a dead man over the desert and helicopter following after with machine guns.

“Popped you in a Soul Stone and and brought you back.” Rook shrugged.

“Soul Stone?” I was beginning to feel like a parrot, the amount I kept repeating back to these two bird brains.

“Yeah,” he reached into his pocket and withdrew an egg-sized, faceted aquamarine. It had a strange light radiating from within that indicated it wasn’t a typical gemstone.

“You can stab me with an obsidian atheme that doesn’t draw blood but instead messes with some kind of ghost vibe I have and just shove me whole into that?” My voice was rising, and I couldn’t keep it from cracking.

“Yeah. So, what are you?” Rook asked.

“A headache.” I rubbed at my eyes. “That’s what I am.”

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