The Traveler

No other cars appeared as Gabriel wandered the dark streets. He came to a city square surrounding a little park with benches, an outdoor bandstand, and a few shade trees. Shops with window displays were on the street level of the three-story buildings. Lights glowed through the windows of upstairs rooms. About a dozen people drifted around the square. They wore the same formal, old-fashioned clothing as the woman who played the piano: dark suits, long skirts, hats, and overcoats that concealed thin bodies.

Gabriel felt conspicuous wearing his blue jeans and sweatshirt. He tried to remain in the shadows of the buildings. The shop windows had the kind of thick glass and steel frames that protected displays of jewelry. Each store had one window and each window had one object, illuminated with lights. He passed a skinny, bald man with a twitching face. The man was staring at an antique gold watch in the window. He looked dazed, almost hypnotized, by the object. Two doors down was an antique store with a white marble statue of a naked boy in the window. A woman with dark red lipstick stood very close to the window and gazed at the statue. As Gabriel passed, she leaned forward and kissed the plate glass.

A grocery store was at the end of the block. It wasn’t a modern establishment with wide aisles and glass-door freezer cases, but everything looked clean and well organized. Customers carrying red wire shopping baskets walked between shelves of merchandise. A young woman wearing a white smock stood behind a cash register.

The clerk stared at Gabriel when he entered the store, and he went down an aisle to avoid her curiosity. The shelves held boxes and jars without any words printed on them. Instead, the different containers had colorful drawings of the products hidden inside. Cartoon children and their parents smiled cheerfully as they consumed breakfast cereal and tomato soup.

Gabriel picked up a box of crackers; it weighed almost nothing. He picked up another box, ripped open the top, and discovered that it was empty inside. Checking other boxes and jars, he went over to the next aisle and found a little man kneeling on the floor as he restocked the shelves. His starched white shopkeeper’s apron and red bow tie made him look neat and organized. The man worked with great precision, making sure that the display side of each box was facing out.

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked. “Everything is empty.”

The little man stood up and looked intently at Gabriel. “You must be new here.”

“How can you sell empty boxes?”

“Because they want what’s inside them. We all do.”

The man was drawn to the warmth of Gabriel’s body. Eagerly, he stepped forward, but Gabriel pushed him away. Trying not to panic, he left the store and returned to the square. His heart was beating quickly and a cold wave of fear rushed through his body. Sophia Briggs had told him about this place. He was in the Second Realm of the hungry ghosts. They were lost spirits, fragments of Light that were constantly searching for something to fill their painful emptiness. He would stay here forever unless he could find the passageway out.

He hurried down the street and was surprised to find a butcher shop. Lamb chops, pork roasts, and sides of beef were lying on metal trays inside the brightly lit store. A heavyset butcher with blond hair stood behind the case with his assistant, a young man in his twenties. A boy wearing a man’s apron was carefully sweeping the white tile floor. The food was real. The two men and the boy looked healthy. Gabriel’s hand touched the brass doorknob. He hesitated, then went inside.

“You must be a new arrival,” the butcher said with a cheerful smile. “I know just about everyone around here and I’ve never seen you before.”

“Is there something to eat?” Gabriel asked. “What about these hams?”

He pointed to three smoked hams hanging from hooks over the display counter. The butcher looked amused and the assistant sneered. Without asking permission, Gabriel reached up and touched one of the hams. It felt wrong. Something was wrong. He pulled it off the hook, dropped it on the floor, and watched the ceramic object shatter into pieces. Everything in the store was false: imaginary food displayed like the real thing.

He heard a sharp click and spun around. The boy had locked the door latch. Turning again, Gabriel saw the butcher and his assistant come from behind the display case. The assistant pulled an eight-inch knife from the leather holder that hung from his belt. The owner held a large cleaver. Gabriel drew his sword and stepped back so he was near the wall. The boy set aside the broom and pulled out a thin, curved knife-the sort of thing that was used to cut fillets off a bone.