Chapter Nine

Nice to meet you

Hope

Are you sure you don’t need me? Jacob is a big boy, he can feed himself without my help,” my mother-in-law was fussing around me in the doorway to our apartment. She’d given me a lift from the abode and had no will to leave me alone, worrying about my mental state.

“Thank you, Laura, I’ll manage it.”

I didn’t want to bother Lewis’s family after what they’d had to endure. And I needed some space away from everything and everyone, even her. Laura did not have an inkling that I had to… No. I might get used to existing without anybody’s hand. Since we’d got married, I’d never been alone for more than two hours in the evenings when it had been Lewis’ turn to be on duty at the university.

“Anyway, Hope, you have our numbers. You can call us anytime; we’ll always help you. Jacob and I love you as our own daughter, you know.”

I nodded and held her, “I love you too. Both of you. Say hello to Jacob.”

“Take care, dear,” Laura Hill kissed my forehead and departed, closing the door behind herself.

Hearing the thud, I toed off the trainers Laura had bought for me with a sweatshirt and denim because my dress and flat shoes had been wearable no more and finally pivoted toward the hall.

Our home wasn’t either our or home anymore. I hadn’t imagined that it would be so hard to come back to your apartment and want to abandon it. The stale stink of dust and moldy fruit was flying in the air where once there’d been his warm scent of peace and love. The cold of loneliness was only my company now.

One step, two, three. Six. Ten. I stood still in front of the embossed door, hesitating to come in out of fear not to find him behind it whilst I knew I wouldn’t. Entering the bedroom, I stepped on Lewis’ sock he’d always forgotten to take to the laundry basket in the bathroom. We’d had so many arguments about that habit which now seemed so silly and needless.

The parquet flooring cracked beneath my heel on the way to the wooden lacquered chest of drawers by the west wall of not our bedroom anymore. My fingers slid down the plain polished surface, passing delicately carved patterns, and seized the plastic handles of the first drawer–his drawer–on both sides. There was Lewis’s knitwear there. I fished out the sweater hated by me so much for its prickly wool he’d bought because we’d brought only T-shirts and shorts for our honeymoon by the Sacral Sea, and it had turned out to be the coldest week thanks to the cyclone. Getting rid of the sweatshirt and jeans, my hands put the sweater over my head on the naked body. It was so wide and long that it looked more like a mini prickly woolen dress. I put my arms around myself with the hope of feeling him. To feel the hugs we’d been deprived of.

I wanted to run away and to cry the grief out of me, but my limbs didn’t obey. Instead, I kneeled in front of the side where he’d once slept. It still kept the notes of absinthe and lavender. A silky touch of satin bedwear was similar to Lewis’ gentle hands on my skin. I sat on the edge of our bed and heard a crack. It’d been cracking since we’d been involved with each other that much to break the rickety carcass of our first and cheap bed because we’d been young and not that experienced to earn enough money for buying something better. And when Lewis had got the job as an art professor of the architectural faculty at Nordery University and we had been able to afford something more comfortable and costly, he’d refused to throw it.

“It was the first purchase after getting married and is a reminder of the beginning of where our family life started,” my husband had said that day. He’d been so sentimental and I had never understood why keep old broken things. Before now.

I’d spent an uncountable amount of time, sitting on the edge of the old cheap bed.

He was here. With each ticking of the wall clock. In each cotton shirt in the wardrobe. In each speck of dust on the surfaces. It was killing me to feel him anywhere but in my arms. My soul was torn apart.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped. It was so loud in the half-empty, quiet flat. I stood on my feet and passed the hall without counting my steps. I rested against the front door but wasn’t in a rush to open it. My lips formed, “Yes?”

The baritone I’d heard not only once on the TV and the radio politely replied from the outside, “Good morning, missis Hill, this is Jeremy Cloud.”

It was unimaginable. Jeremy Cloud himself was standing behind my front door. And he knew my name. I unlocked the door and opened it. A wave of three smells of different perfumes struck me, telling me that the Governor had come not alone, but was escorted by two body guardians. Of course, he was. The governor of Ranita had to be incredibly careful and prudent, especially after the… after what had happened in the university. I wasn’t ready to talk about or mention it yet.

“Governor Cloud, I’m so honored,” I said by way of greeting and bowed slightly, “Can I invite you into my home and offer you a cup of coffee or tea?” I was baffled by Jeremy Cloud’s arrival at my threshold and had no notion of what I should do. The invitation looked like the most suitable for the situation choice.

“I am pleased so much, missis Hill, but, I’m afraid, I have to refuse. My time in Calire is limited. I just want to offer my condolences in person. Your loss is the hardest trial for you and your family, and I’m so sorry for it. May I take your hand, please?”

I nodded.

Ranita, Jeremy Cloud was holding my sweaty palm out of being so nervous.

The Governor didn’t let the pause to present more than half of a second, “Lewis Hill was a great man. His mind and potential were worthy of envy. I’m uninformed if you know, but I once awarded your husband for the discoveries he found during the excavations not so far from Mavrony and donated them to the National History Museum.”

I forced a smile and nodded, although I was ignorant. I remembered his journey to Mavrony several circles ago, but he hadn’t told me a single word about what he’d discovered. Lewis had never said that he’d seen Jeremy Cloud in real life, and I couldn’t understand why. There was no greater honor than to be awarded by the Governor himself.

“Thank you, Governor. Your words mean a lot to me.”

Jeremy Cloud revealed my hand, “Take care, missis Hill. I have to depart now. Thank you for listening to me. And I promise you, the perpetrators will be found and punished.”

I couldn’t control my hand when it relocated to the trench on my chest where it could feel the heart beating. “Thank you very much.”

“Have a good day, missis Hill,” and, with these words, the three pairs of booted in very expensive shoes feet began to thump on the floor, heading down to the exit.

I shut the door and hit my back against it, slowly sliding down with no strength in my legs to keep me on them. I was alone in the enormous for only me flat. I inhaled unevenly.

It was unbearable.

The hair on my body stood on end. The coolness of the hall surrounded me, and my love didn’t give me his soft hoodie which he was wearing at home because my love had found his new home in the embrace of Ranita.

I staggered to my feet, having no more power to be there. Sixteen steps, and I was standing by the kitchen set. My only wish now was to pour the hottest black coffee into me, burning cold and pain away. I switched on the kettle on my right and it made a noise of boiling. I found a handle of the cupboard above and opened it in searching for the glass jar where Lewis had loved to keep ground coffee, but stumbled on a plastic bottle with an uneven lumpy lid. The pills inside it rumbled against the walls.

My husband had always kept all kinds of medications in one of the drawers in our storage room, but this one…

The kettle clicked, but I remained still with the bottle in my hands.

I didn’t know what was propelling me when I unscrewed the lid with child protection and emptied it out on my sweaty palm. There were more than ten pills, and I hoped they were enough for a lethal dose. I should have died that day, not him. I’d been the ballast in his arms. Stupid, feckless, blind ballast. Lewis would have survived if I hadn’t been there.

It was only my fault.

Exiting the Healer’s abode, I hadn’t known that it would be so hard and painful. The guilt and mourning were devouring me from the inside. I wouldn’t get over it.

The shaking hand that was full of meds came up to my mouth and froze in midair, hesitating. I had nothing left. My mother and father had been killed and dissolved in acid by an insane follower of the Reunification Cult dozens of circles ago, and I had no clue where their remains had been buried. The only love of my life was sleeping now under the cold wet earth because of me. I had no friends or acquaints besides Ralody Brine, and she was a friend of my husband, not mine. Laura and Jacob loved me, no doubt, but I wasn’t their son. Deep down I knew they blamed me for surviving.

So did I.

If I swallowed the pills, I wouldn’t feel anything. It wouldn’t hurt. I’d just sleep in eternal sleep. Fucking tautology.

I knew I would possibly end up in the inferno for a suicide. But the possibility of meeting Lewis again would give me more power to overcome any borders or paths to touch him again. Saints, I would have frozen the inferno for one more minute with my husband.

Even if I had any fears or misgivings left, that thought made me finally pluck all the courage I had up and divided my lips to carry out my plan.

See you on the other side, my love.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t take so much vitamin C.”

The strong fear paralyzed my body and mind.

This voice. This monotonous male voice. I’d heard it already when I’d been drugged after Lucy had told me that Lewis’d died. How the hell had he managed to break into the apartment? What did he want from me? Was he stalking me?

“Instead of the desired death, you’ll get diarrhea.”

The voice sounded right above my ear and I flinched with an audible gasp, dropping the pills on the floor. I was alone. A blind woman alone with an adult man in an empty flat. My heart pounded in my ears. I didn’t even know where the knives were kept, because Lewis had never let me use them. My lower back slammed into the countertop.

“Oh, no, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Oh, come on.

“What do you want from me?”

My hand was desperately looking for anything to defend, but found only an old and soft bunch of bananas which I’d bought the day before the attack. I had no more options. At best there was a probability now to distract him by throwing the rotten bunch into the owner of the monotonous male voice and to run out to the neighbors. It was our flat. I’d thoroughly learned each of the corners and bulges. I’d undergo it.

“If you throw these bananas, you’ll need to scrape the rotting puree from your floor. Do you want it?”

My foolish attempts to maintain serenity and prudence fall apart. I took back the bunch and shook my head. Actually, I wanted to die a second ago. Why was I so scared? “Who are you?”

The man chuckled, “Incorrect question.”

“What?”

“I thought you were blind, not deaf.”

I’d said it to him that day. Was he… was he mocking me?

“What do you mean ‘incorrect question’?”

Fuck, I was talking to my stalker in an empty apartment without any possible weapon for self-defense. Really smart of me.

“It means the question you’ve asked is wrong.”

If I had eyes, they would roll that far to see my brain. My stalker delusion was that guy. Great.

“And how should’ve I asked it?”

It was odd that I couldn’t hear his breath or the simple noise of clothes when he moved. Although, it was rather possible that I’d gone nuts, and had a dialogue (or, actually, a monologue) with the haunting me hallucination.

“What are you?”

“What are you?” I said blankly.

“I’m a deathly regent.”

What the fuck? Another insane sect? Or I’d totally lost my mind? I might have cried, got frightened, or whatever, but that. I felt such a strong pressure of lassitude from what was going on in my life that I just breathed out and made a decision to play along. Why not? If I was going crazy, there was no reason to resist. I only wondered whether hallucinations could harm me. Even if they could, I didn’t care anymore.

“Do you have a name, deathly regent?”

“Of course, I have. What a stupid question.”

It was going to be a long way to die.

“And what is it?”

“Letum.”

“Letum?” The urge to laugh got the best of me, “Sounds ridiculous, you know.”

“Tell the woman whose name literally means hope.”

My shoulders went up, shrugging, “Touché.”

I’d definitely go deranged if I paid tribute to my potential murderer or the uncanny games of my mind.

Talking about murdering and games of mind.

“Letum,” who the fuck would ever call her son Letum? “Would you mind telling me what you are doing here?”

“Watching you, of course.”

Damn you. I cleaned my throat not to let the curse out loud, “Why?”

His voice thundered somewhere behind me, and I jumped in alarm, “I’m into finding out how it is possible for a fleshy to hear me.”

“A fleshy?”

“Yes, fleshy, I said it pretty understandable I believe.”

I tsked, “Is it really necessary to be such a pain in the ass?”

“I do not understand.”

I wasn’t surprised.

“What does ‘fleshy mean’? And why is it not supposed to hear you?”

“I am a deathly regent–a paranormal guide to the transcendental world. I’m neither alive nor dead, that’s why people in flesh–the fleshies–cannot hear me or see me before they die. Regents take souls away from bodies and lead them to the Great Line, where their fate is determined. No one knows what happens with the soul after crossing the border, but, if you asked me, I would say that it was alike to your stories where good people go to Ranita for enjoying eternity in peace and happiness and bad ones must be being tortured forever with the Four Traitorresses in the inferno.”

Okay, my sick mentation had not coped with the task of going through the bereavement and had just made up the story to believe that I would find Lewis merely following this deathly regent. The asylum was missing me crying.

“Nice.”

Nice? Seriously? That was all you could say?

Coolness bit the tip of my nose. Damn, of course. Every time he’d appeared my skin had burst into goosebumps. The most popular association with death was cold. Hoarfrost, chills, and seeing your own breath were often painted in the pictures related to passing.

Fine, I knew now he was standing right in front of me, so I had to merely lift my hands up to ‘glimpse’ him, what I actually did.

“Stop!” he yelled and I jumped back.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you? Hope, do not do this ever again.”

“Sorry, Letum. I’m blind, in case you didn’t notice. My palms are my eyes. I just wanted to imagine you, that’s all. If it bothers you, I won’t do it.”

“My touch is lethal, silly fleshy.”

“What do you mean lethal?”

“I mean you will die if you even tap me. Deathly sons, will you ever stop asking idiotic questions?”

Before I was able to advise him to go and do he knew what himself, he casually threw the phrase, “Answer it later. I need to do my job. See you soon, Hope.”

And just like that Letum disappeared, and chills on my skin and coolness in the room with him.

“What the fuck has just happened?” I yelled into the emptiness of the kitchen and, forgetting about the vitamin C on the floor, stomped on the pills, and they backfired me with unexpected pain in the soles of my bare feet.