It was about sunset when Elias came back to the funeral parlor with the arms loaded with white chrysanthemums and cheap lilies in thick paper. He had picked them well, not that he was familiar with flowers, but by virtue of the fact that the price labels were not expensive and the colors were discreet. Nothing too bright. Nothing that had to be noticed.
The street was calm.
It was the silence of small towns which seemed to be insidiously squeezing into the ears and was broken by the beat of his footsteps and the far call of a dog. Shops were closing one by one. A grocer, on the opposite side of the road, was waving at him. Elias shook his head, and kept the eyes down.
He walked like a shadow.
He was, as usual, going round the block before going back to his place by visiting the convenience store where he bought bread, instant noodles, bottled water and a cheap pack of wet wipes. Routine helped. Things that are routine made things predictable.
Predictable meant safe.
He did not take a glance at the images in the glass windows. He did not recognize the figures that were too near the streetlights, or the figures on the rooftops, or the smeared handprints on the shop doors which no one but himself could have read.
He had learned quickly.
When he neglected them, he was likely to be neglected in return.
The sky had gone a dull purple by the time Elias got back to the funeral parlor. He opened the door, and got in and locked it behind him with a gentle click.
Safe.
The air in was pure--unnaturally so. No whispers. No crawling shadows. No pressure against his skin.
The notebook hadn't lied.
He put the flowers on the preparation table next to the small coffin and stood there holding a moment out what to do next. His chest was tight and pained in a manner that he could not describe.
"…Tomorrow," he said quietly. "The procession is tomorrow."
The boy did not answer.
But the room felt warmer.
Elias walked out and climbed up the stairs, cleaned his hands, ate dinner without tasting it and lay in his clothes on the bed. Sleep was a slow thing, and was dragged rather than induced by fatigue.
It was quite late when he awoke.
and there was one standing out of his door.
When Elias felt it he stopped.
Not heard.
Sensed.
The strain was thick, stifling, as that of a storm-cloud. In the hallway he stood, shallow in breath, heart surging madly on, and he knew it must have betrayed him.
Don't open it.
The idea appeared in his mind.
He approached anyway.
He could make out the figure of someone standing still through the frosted glass of the front door. Perfectly still. Not shifting weight. Not breathing.
Elias unlocked the door.
And sorrowful regretted it.
A woman stood before him.
She was beautiful.
She was delicate and gentle, her skin ivory-white and flawless, her lips crimson like fresh blood, her long black hair falling down her back in waves. She put on a traditional red wedding dress, which was embroidered with golden threads that were sparkling in the morning sun.
Her eyes were black and wet, and their contents were something like almost human.
She smiled.
"Good morning," she said softly. "You must be the owner of this new funeral parlor."
Elias said nothing.
He stared at her.
There was no change in his face.
Inside, he was screaming.
Ghost. Definitely a ghost. Why is it always women in red? Why is it always like this—
The woman took a step forward.
And stopped.
Her foot was just over the entrance.
She tried again.
Nothing.
Her smile faltered.
"I can not come in?", she said, with confusion in her voice. "Why can't I enter?"
Elias swallowed.
That was the problem.
This had been said in the notebook. Some ghosts were required to enter guarded relationships. The funereal parlor with its strengthened charms, seals, and a material, which had been steeped in anti-spiritual, was virtually a dead zone.
Which meant—
She needed his permission.
"Please", said the woman, tremulously. "I just want to talk. Just for a moment."
Elias took a step back.
"No," he said. The term was out of emotion.
The woman stood in amazement staring at him.
"I need help," she whispered. "I have been travelling so much. I don't know where to go. You can see me, can't you? You're different."
"No," Elias repeated.
His hands were cold. His back was damp with sweat.
Refuse. Close the door. Ignore it. That's how you survive.
The face of the woman was in a twist, it was not in anger, but despair.
She fell on her knees before the door.
"I beg you," she sobbed. "Please. No more, I do not want to be alone."
Elias closed the door.
He locked it.
He was leaning against it, taking shallow breaths, trying his legs not to give way.
"…That's enough," he murmured. "I don't want to get involved."
The knocking began several minutes later.
Soft at first.
Then louder.
Through the walls her cries leaked, and finding their way into his ears regardless of how much he was able to stuff in his ears. The failure of this led her to the windows.
There was her face, with sunken eyes and an unnaturally open mouth.
"Help me."
"Help me."
"Help me."
Elias dropped against the wall to the floor.
Just ignore it. Just ignore it.
But the pressure didn't fade.
Hours passed.
The sun climbed higher.
The knocking didn't stop.
Finally, Elias stood.
"…Damn it," he whispered.
He opened the door.
The woman glanced and her face flushed with hope.
He nodded stiffly. "Show me."
They went to the river.
This was a narrow pathway on the outskirts of town, water cloudy and sluggish, reeds growing along the water banks. Elias pulled on his pants to his knees, and left off his shoes on the shore.
I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.
He got into the water and was grumbling inwardly, as the cold was penetrating into his skin.
"Here," the woman said, pointing.
Elias frowned.
He saw it then.
Not bones.
A black suit-case, half-covered with mud.
His breath caught.
"…That's not body," he said.
The woman's face crumpled.
"It's him," she whispered. "My son."
Elias pulled the case out with dead hands. It was heavier than it looked. When he opened it—
There was a little body that was huddled in.
Too small.
Elias stared.
His face remained calm.
Inside, something shattered.
"…How unfortunate," he muttered.
The lady folded her mouth with the tears streaming down her face.
"I didn't know," she said. "I didn't know he was here. I thought he ran away. I thought—"
Elias closed the suitcase.
His hands were steady.
His heart was not.
He thought far away that he helped out of fear. I did not want to hear her any more. I didn't want to see her.
He looked at the woman.
"I'll handle the rest," he said.
Her eyes widened. "You will?"
"Yes."
She bowed deeply.
"Thank you," she whispered.
When Elias turned back she had disappeared.
Only the river remained.
And the suitcase.
Elias pull it ashore.
The preparation room was in silence.
Elias took the little skeleton and gently and yet firmly laid it on the steel table. The river water and time had made the bones clean, but still there was mud stubbornly between the joints, dark and wet.
He was silent and put on his gloves and had tools in a row beside him, and was working to the notebook directions like they were instructions on how to make tea.
Wash.
Clean.
Arrange.
Respect the dead.
Nothing supernatural. Nothing strange.
He told himself that.
The window creaked.
Elias didn't look up.
He already knew.
The lady was sitting on the sill of the window with her red wedding dress hanging down the glass like dripping blood. She was not touching her feet to the ground. Her head was raised in a slight tilt, her long hair waving although it was not in the least windy.
Elias sighed. Hard.
"You are not to be here, you see", he said.
"Yes, I know", the woman mumbled.
He went on with scrubbing the ribs.
"Please leave."
She didn't.
Elias sigh tiredly, he's scared of ghosts!
Ignore her. Just ignore her. Finish the work. Send her off. That's it.
"You should see the back of his neck. you should", the woman said as she point at the yesterday body.
Elias froze for half a second.
Then he went on working, as though he had not heard her.
"I don't know what you are talking about."
"There is a mark," she insisted. "A small red dot. Right here."
She pointed.
Elias did not look.
On the outside his face was still composed, bored even.
Inwardly—
Shit. Shit. Shit. Don't say it. Don't confirm it. Don't look.
The voice shook, though it was not anger in the woman. It was such mourning that it had the sound of hollowness.
"My son", said she, "died of fever as well. They said it was an illness. They said it was fate. I believed them."
Elias swallowed.
"I buried him myself."
His hands slowed.
They buried him, she went on, a long way away. "But one day… a mother knows. Something felt wrong. I went to his grave."
Her fingernails made claws against the glass.
"The coffin was empty."
Elias want to scream but his facial expression didn't want to cooperate.
Then he took another cloth and wiped the bones off with slow movements.
"Nothing to do with me", he said.
The woman laughed softly.
"I went to the East Funeral parlor," she said. "I screamed. I cried. I pleaded with them to open the books. They said I was mad. They claimed that I had brought ill luck by uttering nonsense."
Her smile twisted.
"They claimed that the world should be balanced because I broke the taboo and bother the dead."
Elias felt cold. They have gotten me a ghost marriage, she added. "To appease another spirit. They said it was an honor."
Her voice was lowered to a whisper.
"They buried me alive." The cloth got out of Elias fingers and dropped on the ground. He stood looking at it a little, then, gradually he bent down and picked it up.
"…I didn't ask," he said quietly. "So don't tell me."
The woman watched him.
"Again, they are doing it", she said.
Elias straightened.
"I don't know what you mean."
"They collect dead body," she said. "At night. Quietly. Children. The sick. The forgotten."
She bent nearer to the glass.
"Men with a jackal insignia."
The pounding of Elias's heart rumbled in his ears.
No. No. No. That's—
He knew that symbol.
Too well.
That's chapter two hundred. That's late-game. That's not now. Why is this happening now?
Outwardly Elias only shrugged.
"Sounds like a rumor."
The woman stared at him.
"You've seen it."
"No."
"You know."
"I don't."
She smiled sadly.
"You're lying to yourself."
Elias turned his back on her and went on with his work.
"I am only a funeral director", he said. "I don't deal with cultists. I don't deal with monsters. I do not have anything to do with conspiracies."
Now his hands were covered with the gloves.
"I deal with corpses."
The woman and said nothing a long time.
Then—
"This child body you had yesterday," she said softly. "He has the same mark. A red dot. Right here."
Then she was gone.
The room fell silent again.
Elias stood there, staring at the child's bones.
Slowly, he reached up and checked the back of the skull.
There it was.
A tiny red dot.
Perfectly round.
"Whatever," he muttered to the empty room. "It's not my problem."
He was a mediocre extra.
A background character.
Someone who ran. Someone who closed his eyes.
That's how he survived.
He picked up the cloth again and continued cleaning.