Page 89 of Installment Immortality

“All right. I’ll work for you the same way I worked for them—part-time. My family comes first.”

“Thechildrencome first,” countered the anima mundi. “If you are needed for the care of children, you may always choose them over us. If an adult wishes you, then you will wait until your duties to us are done, and we may call you away at any time.”

“Just to be clear. I can move freely between my family members with no restraints when I’m not on a job for you, whether or not they’ve called for me, and I can go to the children I’m responsible for with no restrictions. What about the sick?”

“Come again?”

“Caretaker ghosts don’t just care for children. We take care of the unwell. We nurse them back to health. What happens when one of my people is sick?”

The anima mundi waved a hand. “We classify them as children when they ail. You may go to their side.”

It was basically the deal I’d had with the crossroads, with less of a focus on tricking people into selling their futures for a handful of glitter and a promise that would be twisted into a weapon as soon as the contract was signed. I’d enjoyed my brief period of freedom, but if it was this or leave my family undefended…

I shrugged. “Deal. Now send us back.”

The anima mundi smiled, and nodded in a hard, purposeful gesture, and the farm was gone.

Twenty-Two

“You can’t save everyone, baby girl. But when you’re lucky, you can save what matters.”

—Eloise Dunlavy

On the sidewalk outside a definitivelynothaunted house, trying to figure out what happens next

ELSIE DIDN’T OPEN HER EYESas she was transferred from the homestead bed to the cold concrete sidewalk. She just lay there, silent, still, and far paler than I liked. I stooped to check her pulse, then turned to Agnes, who was glowing gently beside me.

“Can you stay here for a minute?” I asked.

She nodded, looking confused, and I disappeared.

Elsie was definitely sick right now, so even though she was an adult, I could be sure the anima mundi wouldn’t call me away while I was in the process of helping her. Less than a second after I vanished, I was standing in the dark living room of Phee’s boardinghouse, where I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled shrill and loud. It was a whistle designed for summoning children out of parks and back across fields, and it was only a few moments before people began popping out of the hall, bleary-eyed and unhappy.

I focused on Amelia. “You’re still here.”

“Nowhere else to go,” she said uncomfortably.

“How far from here to your swamp?”

She blinked, looking utterly baffled. “About an hour if we drive fast. Why?”

“Because I have a way for you to make up for what you did,” I said, and she blinked again, and maybe things were going to be all right after all.

Cryptid populations who have to keep themselves apart from humans for whatever reason, whether it be extra limbs, snakes for hair, or skin that would absolutely draw attention in a hospital environment, well, they tend to maintain their own medical services. It’s sort of necessary if they want to continue being alive.

Amelia drove a small SUV, and she loaded me and Phee into it before driving to the Covenant house as fast as she could reasonably go. Agnes was still on the sidewalk next to Elsie, who seemed to have grown even paler while I was away. Agnes wrung her hands as we picked Elsie up and loaded her into the back seat, and stayed with me and the car as Phee and Amelia went inside—through the simple expedient of crowbarring the door—and emerged with a blood-streaked, solidly unconscious Arthur. We put him in the back next to his sister, both of them united in unconsciousness.

Amelia held her nose as she got into the driver’s seat. She rolled down all the windows, turned on the air conditioning, and then pulled a little box from the glove compartment, smearing some sort of sharp-scented menthol gel under her nose. Her eyes were glassy as she turned to look at me.

“I can still smell her, but I think I can keep control of myself,” she said.

“Let me drive,” said Phee.

They traded places, Amelia taking the passenger seat with agrateful nod, while I hugged Agnes and got into the back with the kids.

“Go check on Jonah,” I said. “I’ll be there soon.”

She nodded and disappeared, presumably returning to her anchor. Most ghosts can’t move the way I do, but they can always flicker between the locations they’re rooted to. In her case, the garden she had learned peace to continue tending was almost certainly one of those locations, and the city hall was another.

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