“There are no events but thoughts and the heart’s hard turning, the heart’s slow learning, where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times.”
~ Anne Dillard
 

~One: Messages~
 

It was late. I was tired. I suppose it goes without saying that at 2:30 in the AM the night comes with its own shock absorption.

I had just dropped off Larry at home which left me driving up my lonely country driveway all alone to a dark and empty house.

Everything appeared normal as I opened the front door into the darkness, dropping the gym bag on the foyer tile floor. The dim glow of the stove overhead light shone over my Mr. Coffee just as I’d left it. But the silence was not complete.

The answering machine beeped softly on the end table, blinking its little red display at me. Even from where I still stood by the door, taking the usual survey of the house before entering, I could tell I had many voice mails waiting.

Hell, that wasn’t unusual. Larry and I had been out of state on a job for a little over a week.

Yet somehow that little red glow made me uneasy. Was I really so popular? No, I wasn’t. Only when the shit hit the fan. I could’ve brushed it off as feminine intuition, but that soft beeping sounded a touch lonely and just a little sad. That’s when I noticed the hair standing up on that back of my neck and that my arms were tingling. Usually that was just residue magic from a night of raisings. But the necromancy was acting as if there was something freshly dead a foot.

I stepped into the house and shut the door behind me, hitting the button for the ceiling light as I did so. I tossed my keys into the little dish on the side table with a loud clank and stripped off my hoodie, making as much normal noise as possible. The tingling subsided, as I knew it would, leaving me alone in my house once more.

//Go away, ghosts. Go away. //

I’d had enough of the dead for one evening. Yep, it was just me, my comfy furniture, and the stack of mail Nathaniel must’ve left for me on my dining room table. I’d make a pot of coffee and go through it…

And avoid the answering machine at all costs. It was down right giving me the willies now.

I set the Folgers to brewing and settled at the table listening to the sound of percolating instead, only vaguely acknowledging the splattering of chicken blood drying on my clothes. A shower could wait. Coffee and mail first.

Mere seconds ticked by as I brushed through the bills at the top of the pile, not knowing that the shock of the evening was waiting for me at the bottom. I was just about to pull up a chair and sit when my fingers ran across a small blue envelope addresses from Donna Parnell. I frowned at it. Hmm. Strange. The wedding invites had been mailed out months ago. And it was only her name on the return label.

Oh dear God. Shit, shit shit. I stared at the powdery blue of the envelope as my blood-caked fingernail began to work it open. Please, God, don’t let this be for a baby shower…

I opened it.  I read it. I read it again. Nothing was registering. Just a fluttering in my chest, as if the tingling from earlier had hopped out of the dark hallway at my back and hollered, HA! I told you so!

I set it gently on the table, and took a step back as if I were dealing with an overly cautious Doberman.

I, Anita Blake, had been invited to a memorial service.

Tuesday at 6pm. In Santa Fe.

For Ted Forrester.

It took me a moment, but I think I burst out laughing then. Even to me it was a scary sound and it died quickly into an insane kind of chortling.

I wasn’t upset. Not yet. I was pissed. My hands itched to find my Browning Hi-Power and cock the hammer back on it.

Fuck if I wasn’t going to kill Edward when I found him, the lying son of a bitch. What better way of getting out of marrying the new age mom of the year than to kill off your only public, albeit fake, identity? I wasn’t just ‘venging for Donna, I was think of the kids, too. Becca and Peter. Shit! Things must’ve gone to hell in a handbasket super fast for Edward to resort to this.

The answering machine cowered as I stalked to it, hoping like hell, for Edward’s sake, that he’d left me a message explaining this absurdness.

The tiny, unfortunate LCD display blinked apologetically: 13 messages.

There was a lost moment then, and I realized that I hadn’t yet hit ‘playback’.

My body was shaking too badly. And not just from anger now. It never occurred to me that Edward could really be dead, but there was something clogged at the back of my mind, spreading seeds of doubt, like lost bits of a conversation long passed that suddenly seemed overly important.

I took in a breath and stilled myself as much as I could, like Marianne taught me. My shields felt wobbly, but I reached out and hit ‘play’ anyway.

The first few were from work and I fast-forwarded through those. Almost all the rest were from Donna and my heart sank.

Donna crying: “Anita. It’s Donna, Donna Parnell. Anita…something horrible as happened. My God. Ted. It’s Ted. Anita, please call me back. I don’t know whom else to call. Please!” And she’d left a number.

And again: “Anita, its Donna. Where are you? Please call me. We’ve lost Ted. He’s dead, Anita. I think I’m going crazy. And the kids…”She trailed off, leaving her number again.

The next one was more resigned, her voice soft: “Anita. The memorial service is a couple days away. I hope you can make it. I think it would really help the kids to see you.”

There were a few more like that one and now some of that anger toward Edward had crept back, only to be squashed by the next message:

“Anita…I’m sorry you missed the service,” Donna’s voice was all hollow and during the staticy pause I squinted up at my penguin calendar. It was Wednesday – the service was yesterday. “You must be away,” she continued, hesitant. “Anita, there was a will. I – I had wanted to discuss it with you. I still do…Please don’t be mad…but I couldn’t wait…we buried the body yesterday -”

//Body?? //

“ – please, don’t be mad…” And she’d hung up.

There’d been a body. My mind was reeling, confused. I pushed the fear away long enough to listen to the next and last message, which was, surprise, surprise, Bernardo, Edward’s some-time backup.

Quietly, my heart sank a little further.

//Edward, where are you? //

“Anita. Bernardo. Didn’t see you in Santa Fe. But you probably have heard the news by now. Call me.”

A little cryptic for my tastes, but something told me that this wasn’t a call of condolence. I grabbed up the handset and my blood-crusted fingers shook as they dialed the number given.

“Yeah?” was how he answered on the third ring.

“Bernardo?”

“Anita.” It wasn’t a question. He’d been expecting my call. And he didn’t sound happy.

“What the fuck is going on!? I just got home.” Part of me was relieved to let the anger go, Bernardo just happened to be the unlucky recipient. I just felt better that I had someone to talk to while the world fell down around me.

“Don’t tell me that Donna hasn’t tried to contact you yet.”

“Oh, she has. She has. I haven’t had a chance to call her yet. First, I wanted to know how pissed I should be at Edward. Where is he, Bernardo?”

He paused a hellava lot longer than he should have. Finally he said, “I don’t know.” That stopped me. Then, he said, “You sound mad.”

I took another deep breath. “I am. Did he tell you about this before hand? No, of course not, the secret-loving bastard. And what the hell is all this about a body. Oh, he’s thorough; I’ll give him that -”

“Anita -”

He tried to interrupt, but I was just getting my second wind.

“Not only am I angry at Edward, but I just realized, I don’t care who’s goddamn corpse it actually is, Donna gave ‘Ted’ a full body burial! I know for a fact that Edward wanted his ashes scattered so there’d be no preternatural interference from revengeful baddies. We had discussed it more than once, or Christ’s sake -”

“Anita!”

“What?!”

“She did it on purpose. Jesus. Will you calm down for two seconds?!”

Normally, I’d have a comeback for that, but I let it go – I was tired. “Did what on purpose, Bernardo?”

“The full body burial. I think she hated doing it – going against ‘Ted’s’ will. She knew you wouldn’t approve.” There was another lengthy pause. Like the calm before the storm.

“But…” I coaxed. The night was not getting any younger.

“…Anita, she wants you to raise the body and ask it what happened. Absurd, I know. But this whole thing is a fucking mess…No one knows what happened.”

I was loosing my patience. “Bernardo. He chickened out on Donna and the kids, that’s what fucking happened. Killing off ‘Ted’ made him a free man.” But suddenly my voice sounded weak and unsure and hoarse. “A little extreme, don’t you think?”

//Unless, Ted got himself in some really serious bounty hunting trouble…//

Bernardo’s voice dropped too, as if he didn’t want to continue for fear I’d loose it completely. “Anita, I can’t find Edward…I think this is for real.”

-I was shaking my head, but he couldn’t see it –

“No one knows what happened. But the body was left on Donna’s front porch. I didn’t see it myself, but Donna did. And the cops seem to have no doubts. Jesus, Anita…Jesus. What could’ve killed Edward, for fuck’s sake?? He’s sorta at the top of the damn food chain, you know what I mean…”

Finally, I was saying, “No, no. He’s not dead.”

“He would’ve contacted you.”

“No…Why do you sound so sure of that, Bernardo? Why?”

“He trusted you. He doesn’t trust me. He cares about you, Anita. He would’ve let you know, even in some small way, if he were still alive.”

“He loved his secrets. He knows I would’ve hurt him for doing this to Donna…He doesn’t care for me that much…” The words were falling from my lips, but the conviction was lost.

“You know what you have to do, don’t you?” Bernardo’s voice had gone suddenly cold.

I would not cry. I wouldn’t. Not on the phone with Bernardo. But I knew what he was about to say.

“No. I can’t. I won’t.”

“Raise him, Anita. Forget your morals for a while and do this. It’s the only way to know for sure.”

“Goddamn it, no, no. I won’t raise someone I know!”

And as soon as I said it, everything became real and crystal clear. It COULD be Edward lying in that grave. The possibility was ugly and nightmarish and plausible.

But Bernardo was going on, “Wouldn’t you want to know who – or what – did this?? He would, Anita. If it were your body in the ground, he’d hunt down your killer, you can bet your life on it.”

Again, he was so goddamn sure of himself.

Finally, I said. “I know.”

Bernardo sighed, satisfied that he’d convinced me enough to make some brief rendezvous plans. His parting words were, “Besides, what have you got to loose?”

I hung up and stared at the phone.

//Another piece of me. That’s what I’ve got to lose. //

I stood in my half-lit living room and couldn’t stop the shaking. The phone stared back at me for a long time.

//Do it. // said a little voice in my head.

I knew I was in shock as I dialed Edward’s secret number from memory. I dialed it and listened to it ring like it was the only sound in the world. I sunk slowly down onto the couch, the chicken’s blood forgotten.

//Please, please, please, please pick up. //

There was a quick click and the recording of his voice came alive in my ear. “Leave a message.” His voice was even and deep and bland as always. But it was just a recording.

The beep allowing me to speak came suddenly, jolting a tear down my cheek, and all I could manage to say was his name, over and over again, as if I could conjure him, animate him, right then and there.

“Edward…Edward…Edward…”
 
 

~~~