Graves' end Page 20

  Graves nodded. He didn’t know what ‘soft wear’ was (like maybe they’d had a lingerie business was the way he interpreted it, that they’d been involved in the garment trade in some fashion), but he didn’t want to interrupt her to clarify.

  “Anyway,” Hannah continued, “going into my first full winter there, Lia got very sick. I found her one morning passed out near the spigot behind the office. That old shack off the parking lot, you know? Laying there curled up on the bags of potting soil. I guess at some other point in my life I would’ve called whoever it is you’re supposed to call when you find unconscious teenage squatters on your property, but I didn’t. For whatever reason, I just didn’t. I think maybe I needed to take care as much as Lia needed to receive it. Does that make any sense?”

  “Sure it does.”

  Hannah nodded. “I’m pretty sure it was just a bad flu, for all that,” she said. “But the fever gave her nightmares and awful hallucinations, and I know she thought she was dying. I fed her soup and kept her warm, nothing much more than that, and when she was better she said her name was Camellia Flores, but I know it’s one she chose. Flores was the name of a foster family she liked when she was younger, before someone had medical complications and she ran away rather than go back into the system. She told me that story once and I could never get her to talk about it again, like it’s gotten hard for her to recall. I don’t know if she even remembers who she was, originally.”

  “I grew up kinda the same way,” Graves said quietly, thinking back on it for the first time in a long time. “Joined the Navy soon as they’d let me, just to get the hell outta there.”

  Hannah tipped her head, empathizing. “Looking back,” she said, “I think maybe that time was when Lia started to be, well, what she is now. A witch, I guess. An ‘operator.’ And I also think that maybe, for some reason, maybe just because I was there, that I’m a part of that for her. That I mean something to her, beyond being the lady she works for.”

  “I know you do,” Graves said. “She’d knock the sun out of the sky rather than see you hurt.”

  “She already did nail down the moon.” Hannah’s eyes crinkled with pride and pleasure as she smiled about it.

  Graves laughed softly and nodded. He took out his lighter and played with it idly, clicking open the lid and closing it again, as was his habit.

  “I guess that’s got to have a story behind it too, doesn’t it?” Hannah asked, tipping her chin at the Zippo. “You came back from the grave to get it, after all.”

  Graves considered the old lighter. It glinted, caught there in the frail net of bones that was all that remained of his right hand. “Well, yeah,” he said, “I suppose it does at that. I’m not in the habit of boring nice ladies with old war stories, though.”

  “I’d like to hear it,” Hannah said. “I’d like to know.”

  Graves looked her in the eye. He hesitated. He’d never told this story to anyone before, nice lady or otherwise, and when he started to speak he found he had to look down at the lighter, instead of at Hannah herself.

  “Well…” he began. “A kid named Dave Normoyle tracked me down and gave it to me after the war. Davey. Guess I pulled him outta the water on Easter Morning of 1945, during the battle of Okinawa. That’s what he told me later on, anyway. I wouldn’t have remembered the date, myself.”

  He paused, gathering his memories before going on.

  “I can’t even describe to you what those days were like, Miss Hannah. The Japanese were using a tactic they called the ‘wind of the spirits,’ the kami-kaze…”

  “Their airplanes,” Hannah said softly.

  “Yeah, exactly right, their airplanes, crashin’em into the ships, plane after plane after plane. I still say they must’ve gone through thousands, even though I know that sounds like I gotta be exaggerating. Still, though, it’s what I remember. One of ’em hit a deck I was standin’ on, not fifteen feet behind me. Piece of its engine caught me in the ribs and knocked me into the drink before I knew what was going on.”

  He looked away toward downtown, feeling troubled by the recollections.

  “I remember that, and I remember the dawn,” he said in a voice pitched barely above a whisper. Hannah leaned in close to hear him. “That sunrise, well, it was about as gorgeous as any sunrise I’ve ever seen. Which I guess was sorta the worst part of that morning, in a way.”

  He glanced up.

  “You see,” he continued, averting his eyesockets before Hannah could ask him for clarification. “It, well… it hurt me, frankly, to think about how things like the dawn go on being beautiful for reasons all their own, even when you’re right in the middle of learning firsthand the ugly truth about how easily people can, you know… get themselves broken.”

  Hannah nodded, thinking back to a thunderstorm she’d once watched from a hospital room window, now more than a dozen years in her past-a fact she could scarcely believe. Lightning bolts had forked and clashed all night long. She’d had little to do but watch them sear the sky while she sat there helplessly, feigning calm and waiting hour by hour as a cancer crushed the final drops of life from the wasted remnant of her husband, her Warren, whom she’d married in the spring of 1980 and had truly loved every day thereafter with every last ounce of her soul.

  The memory of that spectacular storm hurt worse than the bandaged bulletgroove in her side. She thought she understood what Dex was saying.

  “Things like the dawn don’t care how messy and painful and scary it gets when people break,” he said, directing his words toward his lighter. “I remember thinking, while I was floatin’ in the blue, half-drowned and losing blood and dumb-lucky to’ve grabbed hold of a liferaft myself, that that old sun comin’ up on the far horizon there wouldn’t mind if I bucked convention and did something a little bit different that morning, like saving one little life. Hell, why not, I figured. As if it could matter anyway, one life, when so many others were comin’ to bad ends all around me, but Davey Normoyle was the closest body still twitching in the water, so he got hauled aboard. And then I don’t remember so much after that, for a time.”

  When Graves chanced a look up at Hannah she was rapt, her eyes full of gentle sympathy. Almost more than he could bear. He turned away again, looking out over the view, although he barely registered it by now. The eye of memory was doing all his seeing for him.

  “Wasn’t till a few years after that he finally tracked me down,” Graves said. “I didn’t really know the kid. I was in the intelligence service, moving all around the Pacific theater during the war, so he wasn’t on my ship or anything like that. But I guess I must’ve told him my name at some point, ’cause he found me later on through a buddy of mine. Charlie Lurp, up here in Los Angeles. Just a couple of months before I, y’know, died. Davey by then had a missus and a baby girl and a life he was glad to be living, which I guess he thought he owed to me instead of to a shellshocked whim that happened to hit me one weird morning. But he was serious about it. Said an angel or some such shit came in a dream and told him that really, he’d been slated to buy it in the surf that day, and his life had been returned to him for the sole purpose of giving this particular lighter to me, Dex Graves.”

  Graves shrugged, examining the thing. It looked old, but otherwise unremarkable.

  “He came up from San Diego to do it, even. Begged me to take the damn thing. Said the angel told him that if I didn’t then he would have died that day. That he would’ve gone under before I ever found him and his happy life would be erased, nothing more than a dream before drowning. Crazy, sure, but hey, war is. Guess I don’t mind telling you I wasn’t always the world’s cheeriest fella after I came back myself. So of course I took it. I was glad for the gift. I let it remind me that something I did one time, whatever my reasons, made a difference for somebody. And I needed that.” He fixed Hannah with his empty sockets. “Like you needed to help out Miss Lia, I suspect.”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said. “Just like, I’d think.”

  She to
ok and squeezed Graves’ bony hand. He squeezed back, kind of hard, but she held on.

  She felt sure that she could trust this man (or whatever he was), this Dexter Graves, to watch out for her Lia, come what may.

  He knew the true value of things.

  “So, there’s the tale, anyhow,” Graves said, feeling a little awkward by the time he was ready to let Miss Hannah take her hand back. “What it means to me. Wouldn’t have guessed it’d be enough to drag a dead man outta the dirt, but hey, like the poet once said: I guess there’s more between heaven’n earth.”

  “Hey, uh… guys?” Riley said from behind them.

  They both looked over, their moment gone. Graves put the lighter away.

  “Not to interrupt the sharing, which I think is really sweet, but-”

  Graves stood up. “Is she awake?”

  “No, not yet,” Riley said. “But her cellphone keeps ringing.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Lia had a sense of something happening nearby, something her friends were concerned with, something that probably could’ve used her attention, but the pull of deep sleep was too strong for her to keep an eye on it properly. She drifted off instead, despite her efforts, sinking away from conscious awareness and down into the deep psychic blackness where the eternal currents churn. There could be other things besides herself moving through this sort of darkness. Shapes ancient and vast, leviathans of the imaginal sea that might, for an instant that would seem to contain the entirety of time within it, turn their alien-yet-familiar brand of awareness toward her.

  Lia never liked it when that happened. It inspired as much dread as it did awe. At least she knew the things she needed to say to keep herself safe out here. She pitied the poor bastards who found themselves lost in these nether spaces due to madness, coma, or sheer unpreparedness for the experience before they intentionally set out to visit-all conditions that left them with little hope of escape or reprieve. One of those shapes that was too large to really comprehend would gobble up such cases sooner or later, but Lia had no way of knowing whether or not that ended their torment.

  Danger, however, was not the only thing to be found down here. This ocean-between-minds was the font of individual consciousness, a primal headwater, older by far than human form itself. The currents here ran pure and strong and could be aligned with in the name of healing and growth, or to aid in the acquisition of knowledge. This was Lia’s own territory, in a way. Black Tom had long ago taught her to use these confusing, often disturbing, yet meaning-saturated dreams as an opportunity to better understand herself, if and when she found herself having them.

  They were important. They always meant something.

  Lia quit resisting, letting the unconscious show her what it would, and almost that quick the featureless blackness around her transformed into rain-whipped foliage that shivered and danced in a cold, gusting wind.

  There was nothing Lia loved better than a rainy night, but the pajamas she found herself wearing-her standard t-shirt and soft, loose pants-were insufficient against the weather, which felt as real as anything. Her bare arms pebbled up with gooseflesh as she hugged herself against the cold and hurried for shelter. She was also wearing a pair of her favorite dainty, soft-soled Chinese slippers, but she ran on the balls of her feet anyway, in a vain attempt to keep her cuffs up out of the mud and damp.

  There were prefab gazebos and patio tents on display on the west side of Potter’s Yard, and Lia found herself in the shelter of her favorite example, a large pavilion with mosquito-net sides that could be zipped closed, without really having run the full distance. She was just sort of there, more or less as soon as she decided where she wanted to be.

  Her sleeping bag was waiting for her, already unfurled across the old futon she kept for nights like this, when the turbulent weather most made her feel like sleeping outdoors, where she could feel close to its wild energy.

  Lia was shivering badly, her shoulders quaking, the point between her shoulderblades that always got sore after too much heavy lifting tightening up into a painful knot. She kicked off her sodden slippers and shimmied out of the pants that had gotten pretty well soaked despite her efforts to keep them dry. Clad in just the t-shirt and her underwear, Lia dove into the sleeping bag and huddled up with her head inside it, waiting until enough warm breath and body heat had accumulated to make her comfortable. Then she poked her head back out, so that she might listen to the rain drumming on the tent’s canvas roof.

  It woke something in her, the rain did. It always had. She found it soothing and nourishing and deeply sensual, and she imagined that the plants around her responded to it in just the same way. She could feel their delight and sense of release, and she longed to experience more of the latter for herself.

  Lia rolled over, thinking that one of Riley’s backrubs would’ve felt like heaven just then, and even as she recalled it his touch became real, palpable, and deeply appreciated. He knew how to work out that recurring knot in her back in a way that felt so good it made her want to go crosseyed.

  She’d spent more time than she liked to admit pining after Riley. Her signature haircut, that sleek little bob, had been his suggestion, and the elegant style continued to make her feel coolly alluring, even to this day.

  They’d met at Valley College, where Lia had taken a few random courses in literature, philosophy, history and other things that interested her, at Hannah’s urging. Riley had been a brainy and fun new influence at that time, into things like books and bands and cool movies, always full of ideas for things to do and places to go all around the city. People liked Riley. He could talk to anyone and make them laugh, and Lia admired that. They’d been more or less inseparable, for a time.

  He’d always been affectionate with her, Riley had, willing to give massages like this one or simply hold her while they talked, and he’d certainly never made her feel threatened by intrusive or demanding sexuality. Not even a little bit.

  Not even when she wouldn’t so much have minded.

  It wasn’t because he didn’t care, or didn’t find her pretty. He was gay and that was all. He tried to make it work for a little while only because he did love her, as dearly as she loved him, and knowing that let Lia feel better, a little less rejected… if still unfulfilled.

  If Riley had been all air-intellect and humor-then his best friend Esteban was all fire.

  He and Lia had sparked off each other from the moment Riley introduced them. As she thought about Steb, her sweet sense-memory simulacrum of Riley changed, and she felt herself rolled over onto her back. She felt Steb’s hard, wiry body on top of her own as he kissed her hungrily, like he meant to consume her.

  A lack of passion had never been part of their problem.

  No, their problem had been the sheer force of Steb’s personality, and the way it made Lia feel overwhelmed and embattled, like she was in danger of losing herself. Which wouldn’t do, as she liked herself, and enjoyed her quiet little life. She cherished the time she spent learning from the plants and from Tom, as well as the regular al fresco breakfasts she shared with Hannah and the occasional DVD nights spent down at Han’s cozy house in Studio City. Lia imagined her own personality as made up of equal parts earth and water (with a touch of air and just the right amount of fire mixed in), representing inclinations toward patience and understanding, manifestation and gradual growth. She was a meditative, reflective sort, while Esteban could barely sit still.

  It wasn’t that he couldn’t be tender. He could be, as well as incredibly observant and thoughtful. He also had money, which she’d judged to be a good thing at the time. He’d kept up a steady stream of gifts and bombarded her constantly with invitations to travel or dine at fancy restaurants. It made her uncomfortable to turn him down, but she liked to stay close to the Yard, and she preferred to eat at familiar, comfortable places, if not cook for herself with the herbs, spices, and vegetables she grew. Besides, accepting those lavish offers always left her feeling awkwardly obligated. The financial
disparity between them ultimately proved to be a source of friction, but it was just one amongst many by then. She’d never been able to properly relax in Steb’s company, for any number of reasons.

  She pushed him away, and he dissolved back into dreamstuff without a qualm.

  She was alone with the rain.

  It saddened her to think that she’d never yet gotten a chance to make love under this tent, on a blustering night like this one. The timing had never worked out. She’d never shared her futon-and-sleeping bag arrangement with another, except in her dreams. It would still have to wait, for a different lover and a different night.

  She found her mind wandering in the direction of Dexter Graves. Not the talking skeleton she knew, so much, but rather the ghostly image she’d conjured the day before, when she bound him and de-animated his bones.

  It had been a brief encounter, but she’d gotten an idea of what his smile had been like in life (mischievous and quick to appear), as well as how good he’d looked in that old-fashioned hat. He had the height and the width at the shoulders to carry off those long coats he liked, too. She’d felt compelled to flirt with that ghost almost as soon as it appeared, she remembered, and her knees had felt a little weak when she climbed back up the tube. Dex had apparently been a sailor in life, before becoming a detective, and those occupations suggested to Lia that he had strong affinities with air and water-qualities that had tempered his fiery and earthy aspects into something like steel.

  Lia sat up, asking the rainy night to go away, and it was as compliant with her wishes as Esteban’s image had been a moment before. These dreams weren’t always like that. Sometimes she had very little say in what happened in them, even as regarded her own actions.