“Oh, god, Eric, what happened? Alex called and we came right over.” We? What is this woman’s name? I know her, don’t I? That doesn’t sound right. A memory tugs at me and all I can think is that she feels wrong. Lucy should be alone.
I’m not the hugging type, but I can’t seem to let go of my sister. I should be feeling grief but all that I can seem to grab is anger. My insides are a knot, competing emotions tearing me up from the inside. Relief that Lucy’s safe, rage that my parents are dead, that Boudreau murdered them.
I don’t know what to say. There’s been an accident? I don’t know yet? She’ll see through anything less than the truth, so I don’t bother hiding it.
“Mom and dad were in there,” I say.
At first there’s confusion. The words aren’t registering. And then understanding floods into her, and she pulls away from me, tries to run. I hold on tight, don’t let her go.
“We have to get them out.” Her voice is ratcheting up to a scream. “We have to go in there and get them out.”
“Lucy, they’re gone,” I say. She knows what I can do, knows the things I can feel. She’s got to know I’m telling the truth. “Someone let a couple of elementals loose in the house. They’re still there. If we try going in there we’ll die, too.”
The fact that the elementals haven’t come out of the house to look for Lucy and I is, if not a good sign, then at least a thin, silver lining. That means Boudreau went looking for our parents and not for us. We should be safe from them as long as we stay out here. Once there’s nothing left of the house to burn they’ll put themselves out and fade back into the void.
All the color drains out of Lucy’s face. “Do something,” she says. “Do something.” Her voice pitches higher as she repeats herself. It’s a command, a plea. Her voice echoes like a banshee’s cry. She pounds my chest but I don’t let go. I know what kind of person she is. She’ll run in there looking for our parents. She’ll die if she does.
She knees me hard in the crotch and the shock of it makes me loosen my grip. True to form she bolts for the house. I’m running behind her, ignoring the lightning pain in my nuts and the nausea crawling up into my gut. I need to get to her before she gets herself killed.
I manage to, but barely. I get my arms around her and lift her off her feet. She’s kicking and screaming.
“Why won’t you do something?” she yells.
“I am doing something, goddammit. I’m saving your life.”
“You’re a fucking coward. You have magic. You can bring them back.”
“I can’t. Dammit, Lucy, you know I—”
A look of determination clamps down on her face, and I can tell she’s feeling some of the same anger I am. Only directed at me. “Bring. Them. Back.”
I can’t. I can’t do a goddamn thing. I have never felt so powerless in my entire life than at this moment. I have no control over anything. I am too late, too weak and too vulnerable.
I am less than nothing.
Everything freezes. The fire engine lights stop strobing, Lucy stops beating against my chest. Even the water from the firehoses and the flames in the remains of the house go stock still. Then slowly fades into a hazy gray of nothing. I am holding empty air.
I snap out of the memory and back into the present. Like in the recreation of Canter’s I suddenly realize what’s happening. Like a switch that’s been thrown. Maybe this is what Hell is. Living the horrible things that have happened in your life over and over again. I had no idea it wasn’t real.
Wait. No, I did. A little. That woman who was with Lucy. She hadn’t been there when it happened. That’s why she felt wrong. Was that the guide who’s walking me through?
“Why didn’t you save them, Eric?” says a voice. It’s not a man or a woman, just a flat, androgynous sound. “Fear? Surely you could have done something.”
“Is this where I talk about my feelings?” I say. “My inner demons? Is this seriously one of my regrets? Saving my sister?”
“She didn’t feel that way, though, did she?”
No, she didn’t. She saw it as letting our parents die. For the next couple of weeks as we picked up the pieces, prepared for the funeral, paid lawyers, greased palms and cast spells to move things along, she either wouldn’t talk to me, or outright accused me of murdering them.
And the hell of it is, I felt the same way. If I’d been a few minutes sooner I could have saved them.
Lucy didn’t ask, but I knew she wanted me to look for their ghosts. I didn’t want to, and I tried to avoid it as long as I could. And when I finally did there was nothing. No Haunts, no Wanderers. Not even Echoes. I know that was the best possible outcome, but not finding them just added to my failure.
“So what am I supposed to do with this?” I say. “Tap into my inner child and cry about it? You know you’re a shit therapist, right? It’s been more than fifteen years. I got over it. I made a choice.”
“Was it the right one?” says the voice.