Dagger Key and Other Stories

“The house is so big, it’s impossible to tell. A lot, though. I hardly ever see anyone I’ve seen before.”

“It doesn’t look all that big.”

“When you’re standing outside,” she said, “you don’t really get the picture.”

Shellane worried the problem, turning it this way and that, not trying to reach a conclusion, just familiarizing himself with it, as if he were getting accustomed to the weight and balance of a stone he was about to throw. He heard a rustling, saw that Grace had picked up the sheets of paper on which Broillard had scrawled his lyrics and was reading them.

“God, this is…” She made a disparaging sound. “Delusional.”

“He’s better when he writes about feelings he doesn’t have,” said Shellane. “Grandiose, beautiful feelings. He’s got no talent for honesty.”

“Not many do,” said Grace.

When she left that afternoon, he did not follow her, though he intended to follow her soon. That was the one path available to him if he was to help her, and helping her was all he wanted now. He sat at his computer and accessed treatises on the afterlife written from a variety of religious perspectives. He made notes and organized them into thematic sections. Then he wrote lists, the way he did before every score he’d ever planned. Not coherent lists, merely a random assortment of things he knew about the situation. Avenues worth exploring. Under the word “Grace” he wrote:

—becomes a real woman in my company

—can taste things, drink, but doesn’t eat

—lapses into ghostly state around others (once with me alone)

—endures a state of half-life at the house

—feels that there is something she’s supposed to do

—“knows” I can help her

He tapped the pen against the table, then added:

—is she telling me everything?

—if not, why?

—Duplicity? Fear? Something else?

It was not that he sensed duplicity in her, but her situation was of a kind that bred duplicity. Just like a convict, wouldn’t she be looking to play any angle in order to improve her lot? And wouldn’t that breed other forms of duplicity? It was not inconceivable that she might love him and at the same time be playing him.

Under the word “House” he wrote:

—In my Father’s house, many mansions…

—Philosophical speculations—particularized form of afterlife? For people who’ve given up. Who, failing to overcome problems, surrender to death. (Look up Limbo in Catholic dictionary)

—The uglies (men?). Demons. Instruments of God’s justice. Forget Christianity. What if the afterlife is an anarchy? Lots of feudal groups controlled by a variety of beings who can cross back and forth between planes of existence.

Science fiction, he thought; but then so was Jesus.

—A maze. Hallucination?

—Mutable reality?

—The doors. Core of the problem? Can they be manipulated?

He made several more notations under “House,” then began a new list under the heading “Me.”

—Have passed over into the afterlife once, maybe, twice if dream can be counted. Why?

He circled the word “Why”—it was an omnibus question. Why had he turned off the highway toward the lake? A whim? Had he been led? Was some ineffable force at work? Why had he, after years of caution, been moved to such drastic incaution? He wrote the word “Love” and then crossed it out. Love was the bait that had lured him, but he believed the hook was something else again.

The lists were skimpy. His preliminary lists for taking down a shopping mall bank had been far more substantial. This would be, he thought, very much like the job in upstate New York, the house with the subterranean maze. He’d have to case the place while attempting to survive it…if survival was possible. And maybe that was the answer to all the “Whys?”. He could feel his body preparing for danger, cooking up a fresh batch of adrenaline, putting an edge on his senses. It was the kick he’d always been a chump for, the thrill that writing songs could not provide, the seasoning he needed to become involved in the moment. He had caught the scent of danger, followed the scent to the lake, and there had taken it in his arms. Like Grace, for the first time in a very long while, he felt alive.