Page 92 of Installment Immortality

“If everyone’s still standing when the dust settles, you’ve won. You have my full permission to deck anyone who says otherwise.”

—Jane Harrington-Price

The Burnside Fountain, Worcester, Massachusetts

Three days later

THE TURTLE DIDN’T APPEAR TOhave changed its opinion about the boy and what he was doing since the last time I’d seen it. The look of horror on its bronze face remained comical and unchanged. I studied it carefully, hoping it would reveal something of the sculptor’s intent. Instead, it revealed how much nuance could be packed into the eyes of a truly terrified turtle.

“There was something wrong with the person who made you,” I informed the fountain.

“I think that’s true of most people,” said Agnes. I turned. She was on her knees among the flowers, carefully pulling weeds. White ladies can influence the living world a little, but so far as I know, Agnes was the only one who chose to use that ability to tend flowerbeds instead of committing homicides. To each their own, I suppose.

“What does the park service think of you tending the flowers?” I asked.

She looked up, blinking large, luminous eyes at me. “They think that during requisitions season, someone leaves a neat little memo by the phone, listing all the flowers I want them to plant, and beyond that, they don’t have to do any maintenance. They never have issues with harmful insects or invasive weeds.”

“Huh.” I tilted my head, thinking about all the possible implications of a white lady who had somehow rewritten herself into some kind of garden ghost. “I may need to have a word with the anima mundi.”

“You do that,” she said placidly, and pulled another weed.

I turned to face the city hall, and smiled as a slim figure stepped through the doors—literally, they were closed and locked at this hour of the night, and as a homestead, he didn’t have the ability to open them—and started toward me. I waited until he was halfway to the fountain, then waved.

Jonah waved back, and sped up, trotting the rest of the way.

“Hey, Mary,” he said, once he was close enough. “Agnes said you wanted to see me?”

“I did,” I said. “I have a surprise for you. Come here.”

He moved closer, and I offered him my hand. He took it, fingers cool and barely solid against mine, and I squeezed his hand, smiling reassuringly. Then I vanished, pulling him with me.

We reappeared in a dark, quiet hall, concrete floor under our feet and chain-link fencing creating a narrow pathway down the center. Jonah gave me a bewildered look.

“You were asking why the puppies never stay,” I said, starting to walk. “They’re young, and they don’t know how to have unfinished business yet—or all they are is unfinished business. Older dogs are more likely to have unfinished business, but it’s usually going to their owners and staying until they’re sure they’ve done their duty properly. They guard until it’s time for them to go together.” It broke my heart the first time I saw a phantom dog sitting by his former master’s feet, patiently waiting for a reunionthat might take years to come. It broke my heart, and then it healed it, because how many people could say they knew love that would genuinely endure past death?

“Okay…”

“Not all dogs have owners to go back to. And sometimes their unfinished business is being a creature we’ve bred to want nothing more than to be with us—just being dogs—that never got to know genuine love on an individual basis.” We had reached a door. Gently, I tugged Jonah through it to the other side, a large, square room teeming with dogs of all shapes and sizes.

They mostly chose to appear as they had been in the very prime of life, old enough to be past puppyhood’s wildness, young enough to run forever. As one, they turned to look at us, noses quivering. Jonah made a small sound of surprise, pulling his hand from mine, and moved to meet them.

I stayed where I was, watching him go. It had been a long few days. Elsie was up and moving under her own power, and according to her doctors, she’d be ready to make the drive back to Portland in the morning, as long as we stopped to rest any time she got tired. It was going to be a much longer drive home. A lot more motels and roadside diners. And I was fine with that, because all three of us were going home. There had been a time when I was less than sure of that.

Aoi and Benedita had been among the ghosts freed by the anima mundi. I hadn’t seen Aoi captured, but after everything else, it made terrible sense that they had been. Like Agnes, they were mostly fine after their time in the spirit jars, and had already returned to the club—a little more reserved now, a little more careful with their approach to the dance floor, but free to go about their business. As I had expected, Heitor hadn’t appeared in the twilight after his murder. Umbramancers never do.

Chloe and Nathaniel were equally absent. If they’d had any unfinished business worth staying for, they’d been dissuadedwhen the escaped phantoms shredded them into ectoplasmic flecks. With any luck, they either wouldn’t appear at all or, if they did appear, it would be in the province of the anima mundi, where the living spirit of the Earth could explain to them that they didn’t approve of their attitudes.

Phee and her boardinghouse seemed to have gotten off as lightly as possible: the Covenant operatives who’d known about her were gone, and while there was some lingering animosity over Amelia handing Elsie and Arthur to the Covenant, it was mostly counterbalanced by the Hockomock Swamp Beasties providing medical care. Phee got to stay open and keep providing help to local cryptids, and I had a new waystation for when I needed to ask the local living about their ghost population.

Many of the jarred ghosts were going to take years to recover enough to settle again, assuming they ever did. Until they were recovered from their ordeal, they were going to stay with the anima mundi, haunting her hollows and filling her fields with rustling winds. It was a sad ending but among the best they could have reasonably expected.

And me? Well, I had a new employer, and moments like this were part of it. Much as the crossroads used to have me watching for petitioners, the anima mundi now had me watching for ghosts who’d settled slightly outside their normal roles, who didn’t fit, who needed more. Ghosts like Jonah and Agnes. Call it a form of social work—Jane would be proud, if Jane were still around to be anything at all. But I’d have my hands busy for a long time to come. After I got Elsie and Arthur home, I was coming back here to introduce Jonah to the local ever-lasters and get him settled with some kids his own mental and emotional age.

Too many of the systems that should have allowed the dead to find peace and move on had been disrupted by the crossroads, and I’d been a part of that disruption. Now I was going to be a part ofbuilding it all back up to where it was supposed to be, and I was honestly excited about the idea.

Jonah emerged from the pack of spirit dogs with a shaggy mutt that looked like a combination Golden Retriever and Pit Bull Terrier walking along beside him, staring up at him with the loving eyes of a dog that had finally found its boy. Jonah looked at me, almost challengingly, and put his hand on the dog’s back.

“His name is Tank, and I love him,” he said.

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