Even now I see the gifts of patient windows keeping watch
as the road grows damp and the ravens gather razor beaks
under iridescent wings. Our porch light flickers once
twice and the sidewalk’s sharpened shadows
fold up like paper stars. And still
I linger. I feel

the ache of me
of Death who is the space
between my footsteps
moving as I move

like a hand
with foggy fingers
wafting hollow
slips of time
they weave a swelling rib cage
from the moonlight for my heart. Though that belongs

to you.
You who wander room to room.

Gather the dishes. Turn out the lights. Settle our cat in your sheltering arms
and when you hear me call, place your hand against my memory. I am only
longing and starlit bones

but if I walk away, will you weep alone?
And if I stay

our doorstep no longer recognizes me.
I cast this throbbing shape against an old tree stump
until my rib cage shatters the air
like rain. The moonlight

my love
it embraces our home
it glitters this road
endlessly.

Felicia Martínez is a writer and educator born and raised in eastern New Mexico. Her deep love of experimental story structures and points of view in poetry and fiction have inspired her work found in The Acentos Review, The Deadlands, Star*Line, Space and Time Magazine, and others. She holds both an M.A. and Ph.D in English from Stanford University and presently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Most people have a pretty good idea of Heaven and Hell, since those are more or less constant across the many denominations of Christianity. Purgatory, however, is by and large a Catholic doctrine, which means it’s not as well known outside the Catholic Church. Therefore, the basic concept of a temporary place of spiritual purification is less well-known than all sorts of misconceptions, ranging from “it’s Limbo” to “it’s part of Hell.” Then, those misrepresentations end up in books, movies, and TV shows, which end up influencing other books, movies, and TV shows, and the cycle repeats to the chorus of the Catholic audience members’ heavy sighs. So, in the interest of not having to sit through so much sighing whenever the topic of Purgatory gets brought up, here’s a handy Catholic guide to the afterlife.

Now, I know what everyone wants to hear about first: what Heaven and Hell are really like. Though actually, if we’re being completely honest, probably just Hell: there’s a reason most people only read Dante’s Inferno and not Purgatorio or Paradiso (sorry for the spoilers if you didn’t know Inferno is only the first act of the Divine Comedy). As your self-appointed guide, I’d be remiss to skip over who goes where—which means first we have to talk about how Catholics define sin.

There are reams of theological discourse about the complexities and nature of sin. For the purposes of this introductory guide, however, sin is when you push God away by doing A Bad Thing, whether that’s murder, adultery, or dishonoring your father and your mother.

While a lot of Christian denominations are content to leave it at that, Catholicism further subdivides sin into two types: mortal and venial. Mortal sins are also called the death of the soul, which is a rather fancy way of saying you’re going to Hell (barring your sins being forgiven, but we’ll get into that later). Venial sins, in contrast, aren’t enough to warrant eternal damnation. The three factors that determine whether a sin is mortal or venial are gravity (i.e. severity), knowledge, and willingness.

Severity is difficult to quantify, but it’s basically the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor; it’s one thing if you go around murdering people, but you’re probably not going to Hell over that one time you stuck your tongue out at your older sibling.

Disclaimer: The example provided is intended as a hypothetical situation for the purposes of contextualizing the concept of severity with regards to sin. Determining the severity of real sins depends on a host of context, and therefore there are conceivable situations in which taunting a family member could constitute a mortal sin. The author accepts no liability for any readers who end up facing eternal damnation due to sticking their tongue out at their older sibling.

But even if a sin isn’t severe enough to constitute “grave matter” (another fancy way to say you’re going to Hell), it might not be a mortal sin if you didn’t act with full knowledge of its wrongness. In other words, if you somehow, some way, through no fault of your own, don’t understand that killing people is wrong, then any murders you commit don’t rise to the level of a mortal sin. Alternately, if you know killing people is wrong, but don’t know your actions will result in someone’s death, it’s not a mortal sin (and unlike the first example, might work as a legal defense). In either case, willful ignorance doesn’t count. No blindfolding yourself before firing a pistol into the general direction of your wealthy uncle’s mansion—not only is it a sin, it’s also a flagrant violation of gun safety.

On to the third and final factor: willingness. If you don’t commit a sin willingly, it can’t be mortal. Examples include coercion (someone’s going to kill you if you don’t rob that bank for them), lacking the capacity to control or predict the outcome of your own actions (see also the legal ability to consent), or having impaired capacity (one example that’s successfully been used as a murder defense is sleepwalking). Much like knowledge, there’s no gaming the system on this one: Telling someone to twist your arm isn’t going to cut it. If you deliberately put yourself in a position where you’ll be coerced or impaired, especially in the hopes of doing something you normally wouldn’t, you’re still responsible for your actions.

In short, mortal sin is when you willingly do something you know to be evil.

Now we have enough context to discuss where you’ll end up when you die. As mentioned before, if you die in a state of mortal sin, you’re going to Hell—or more accurately, if you die without repenting for your sins. Forgiving sins was a big part of Jesus’s mission, after all, and that includes mortal sins. The specifics of what does and doesn’t count as repentance can get complicated, so suffice to say Catholics normally pursue repentance through the sacrament of penance (also known as confession). It’s also why the sacrament alternately known as last rites, extreme unction, or anointing of the sick is so important to administer to the dying; it provides one last opportunity to repent and be forgiven. It’s also possible, albeit riskier, to have your sins forgiven through an act of perfect contrition. The CliffsNotes version is that perfect contrition is having sorrow for what you did wrong and wanting to atone. Contrast with imperfect contrition, which is being sorry for your sins because the consequences are finally catching up with you (for instance, because you’re afraid you’re about to go to Hell).

If someone commits one or more mortal sins and dies unrepentant, they’re going to Hell, cut off from God’s presence because that’s what they chose in life. Conversely, someone who dies without any sins they need to repent of or atone for gets to immediately join God in Heaven. But what about everyone else?

That’s where Purgatory comes in.

Purgatory, broadly speaking, is a place for spiritual purification. If you die in a state of venial sin, or if you still need to atone for your sins, this is your first stop. Just to be clear, the second stop is Heaven. In some ways, Purgatory is a little like airport security: most people have to wait in line, take off their shoes, and go through the metal detector, but someone who did the TSA PreCheck can waltz past all that. Purgatory is also like airport security in that both are decidedly unpleasant (as is generally the case with facing the consequences of your actions).

Speaking of prechecks, that brings us to a topic history buffs saw coming a mile away: indulgences. Indulgences remit the divine punishment required to atone for sins that have already been forgiven. The two main categories are plenary and partial. Plenary indulgences cover the entirety of punishment, while partial indulgences, as the name indicates, cover only part of it. In other words, it’s the difference between skipping Purgatory and having a shorter stay (assuming you don’t go and run up the timer by committing more sins afterward). Indulgences are frequently attached to a prescribed devotion (for instance the First Saturday devotion, which is why Penance is always so crowded on the first Saturday of any given month). In the case of plenary indulgences, penitents generally need to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist as well as confession. Going to confession is technically optional for partial indulgences, but note that indulgences, once again, only affect the punishment for forgiven sins.

For those who aren’t history buffs, the reason this is anything more than a footnote is because of systemic corruption: Once upon a time, certain members of the clergy decided to go into the business of providing indulgences to wealthy patrons. Aside from being a little sin called simony, aka the selling of the sacred, there were also claims circulating that indulgences guarantee a spot in Heaven (not true) or pre-emptively ensure the forgiveness of sins yet to be committed (also not true). This particular time was the time of Martin Luther. Suffice to say it’s not a coincidence that indulgences remain an exclusively Catholic practice.

Back to Purgatory. There’s one more way it differs from Heaven and Hell: it exists within time. Heaven and Hell are both eternal, meaning they exist beyond the confines of time. In Purgatory, time has just as much meaning as it does here on Earth—yet another way it’s like airport security. Which is why Catholics pray for the souls of the dead: Praying for people in Purgatory helps them get to Heaven sooner. Aside from just prayers, Catholics also often offer up their suffering. Depending on context, this can either be a form of sacrifice akin to giving up something for Lent, or it can be a form of uniting one’s suffering with the agony Christ endured on the cross. If you ever hear a Catholic make a comment along the lines of, “I’m getting a lot of souls out of Purgatory,” it is both a case of the latter and an indication they’re not having a particularly fun time.

This is around when the class clown asks why souls in Purgatory don’t just pray their way into Heaven. Answer: They can’t pray for themselves for exactly that reason. Some Catholics believe they can’t pray at all during their time of punishment, but others argue they’re able to pray for the living like souls in Heaven can. Because yes, everyone in Heaven can pray very easily, what with being eternally in God’s presence. This is incidentally why Catholics request the prayers of saints (anyone residing in Heaven, including Mary, the mother of Jesus): God clearly likes these people, so getting them to act as your go-between when you need to ask God a favor is what’s known as a pro gamer move. Though often phrased as “praying to” saints, this is distinct from worship, as it’s not that much different from asking friends or family or celebrities to pray for you aside from the part where saints are dead (For the record, this doesn’t count as necromancy, though now that I’ve typed it out I understand where the confusion is coming from).

So most Catholics pray for the souls in Purgatory and pray to the saints for their intercession, but the tricky part is determining the eternal whereabouts of someone who died. In the absence of clear evidence otherwise, a good rule of thumb is to assume they went to Purgatory and therefore to pray for them. After all, if you pray for them and they’re already in Heaven, the prayers are either credited back to you or applied to someone else in need, depending on who you ask (gonna be honest, I’m not 100% sure if that’s how it works if they went to Hell, but at the very least it can’t make anything worse). If they’re still in Purgatory and you don’t pray for them, congratulations, you just ignored the suffering of someone you (presumably) hold dear.

An exception to this rule is for anyone who’s been canonized a saint. Early in Church history this was a relatively informal process, and was based either on martyrdom or on public acclaim (i.e. everyone agrees this person must have gone to Heaven). Eventually, it was codified into a considerably longer and more bureaucratic process. First, there’s a thorough investigation into the candidate for sainthood; if this shows they were virtuous in life and death, the Pope will formally declare them “venerable”—a fancy way of saying “good role model, but we’re not positive they’re a saint.” The next step, beatification, is similar, but generally requires them to have either been martyred or performed a miracle (the Pope can waive this requirement). If they’re beatified, it means they’ve been declared “blessed,” but it’s still not a 100% sure bet they’re in Heaven. The final step, formal canonization, usually requires a second miracle before the Pope will formally declare them a saint.

There are plenty of saints who haven’t been canonized, which is why Catholics observe the feast of All Saints Day: a holy day that honors all the unknown saints celebrated annually on November 1. The day after is All Souls Day, which honors all the souls in Purgatory. Yes, that’s right after Halloween, and no, that is not a coincidence. But gosh darnit, I’m a tour guide, not a historian, so if you want more details you’ll have to do an internet search.

One last thing about Purgatory, but I’m going to warn you right now that it’s another open question. Some Catholics—remember, this isn’t official doctrine – think souls in Purgatory can manifest as ghosts. Usually, this will be for one of three reasons: to atone for their sins; to offer warning, comfort, or guidance to the living; or to ask for prayers. That’s an inclusive “or,” by the way. Anyone doing the former two would absolutely ask for prayers while they’re at it. This, can lead to a fun interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: though the eponymous prince’s father makes allusions to being in Purgatory, the fact that he doesn’t ask for prayers, but does ask for vengeance, makes it seem like he’s more likely hailing from Hell. Or that he’s a demon masquerading as Hamlet’s father, which is another Catholic explanation for ghosts and also the reason not even the ones who do believe in ghosts go looking for them. The third explanation is, you know, the all-too-common case of natural phenomena being mistaken for a haunting, but that’s boring, so nobody likes it when you bring that up. The long and short of it is that if you end up in Purgatory, nobody knows for sure if you could end up becoming a ghost for a while. Just something to think about on a dark and spooky night…

Thanks for coming this far, but we’ve reached the end of our tour. To recap the most common misconceptions: Purgatory isn’t part of Hell. It’s also not Limbo. Limbo was the temporary waiting-place for people born before Christ who were good enough for Heaven, but couldn’t be let in until Christ died for everyone’s sins. Finally, it’s not a permanent destination for people who were too good for Hell, but not good enough for Heaven: it’s a place where they can become good enough for Heaven.

So if you die and end up in Purgatory, don’t worry: you’ll get to Heaven.

Eventually…

After graduating from a Catholic homeschool, Julia LaFond went to college at NCSU and then completed her master’s in geoscience at Penn State. She’s had short stories published via The Librarian Reshelved (Air & Nothingness Press), The Future’s So Bright (Water Dragon Publishing), and Alternative Holidays (B Cubed Press). In her spare time, Julia enjoys reading and gaming. Website: https://jklafondwriter.wordpress.com/

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that maybe is just the same
simple thing drowned in the parts of bodies swept out
on wild shore becoming other real things
in scrub willow leaning to take sun moon piper
and crab to empty out and fill in
a different whole the tide will not care about
the shape the alien language the lack of color that is
all colors bending inside

and you will wonder when the setting days will leave you
carved and burnished and fit for postcard
or mantel or stone in field a solitary rock suspended
for miracles in a forest the white-grey
of mushrooms dining on the dung of dark beetles
and these quiet limbs like yours are maybe
not done traveling from surface to other
body with roots tangled in pith.

D.B. Goman is a writer, photographer, educator, and walker who has lived in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Poems, stories,  essays, and photography have been published in a variety of print and on-line journals: Quarry, Orion, Eye Magazine, 2River View, Travel Mag (UK), The Literary Bohemian, 2 Bridges Review, New Verse News, Sisyphus Magazine, Amethyst Review, The Raven’s Perch, among others. A collection of poetry has been published by ES Press; another collection of poems and photography, as well as a YA novel (a nature adventure), are forthcoming next year.

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After the greenteeth took our parents, me and Squirrel moved in with Lady Lucy, who owned a bookstore before the water came and turned most of her inventory to muck. Lady Lucy had moved as many books as she could to her upstairs apartment, left her most prized volumes to dry out on the windowsill in the sunshine before shelving them in the various nooks and crannies she’d previously used to store alarm clocks and oven mitts and other things she no longer had use for. Squirrel called her Lady Lucifer behind her back, because our benefactor grew cold and cruel every time she drank blackberry wine. She’d indulge in bitter tirades about how lucky we were to be children because we hadn’t enough hard life experience to draw the greenteeth to us. But I knew that was bullshit. I was living proof that despair didn’t wait for old age.

Black clouds squatted low against the city on the day Squirrel went missing. Cold rain splattered the windows, and we lounged around Lady Lucy’s cave of moldy books, imagining summer days when we might swim through the saltwater streets and dive from the third-story windows of beach hotels. Lady Lucy searched an hour for her copy of Dandelion Wine before remembering she’d loaned it out in exchange for a dry pack of Marlboro Reds and a book of matches. It’s how Lady Lucy supported herself, and us. A one-week loan of a mostly intact copy of Beowulf could be had for a few unexpired cans of cream corn. Or maybe you wanted to borrow her copy of Lonesome Dove. That would cost you a six-pack of bottled Dasani water for the pleasure. Ever since the hurricane cut through Galveston and the waters refused to withdraw, entertainment was at a premium. So, Lady Lucy had quite a racket going, and we all benefitted.

Me and Squirrel had the run of her shelves, and she constantly shoved books in our hands, telling us we simply must read this or that.

“You’ve read Cat’s Cradle, haven’t you, Rowdy?” she’d ask. I’d say no, and she’d climb up on a tottering stool and pull down a copy. One day she gave me a soggy science book, convinced I needed to learn all about how climate change melted the glaciers and raised the sea levels and caused storms—like the one that came through Galveston—to become exponentially more violent. She had a notion that one day I might grow up and figure out a way to reverse all this, but math and science were never my thing, and the book caused my eyes to glaze over.

“Are you hungry, little darlings?” she asked. “Perhaps a tin of Spam?” She always called us little darlings, like we were storybook urchins who washed up at her door, which, I suppose, is exactly what we were.

“Yes, please,” I answered.

Squirrel ignored the question. She’d spent most of that afternoon with her palms on the window glass, peering into the gloom. The apartment above the drowned bookstore was hardly large enough for one person, let alone three, and the open spaces always called to her. Lady Lucy’s rowboat was lashed to the railing of the second-story balcony, bobbing in the swells. Lady’s black cat, Bathory, lazed on the windowsill in front of Squirrel. When he heard the lid peel away from the tin of canned meat, Bathory came to life, bolted to the kitchen, and was rewarded with a salty bite from the end of a fork. Lady Lucy portioned out the rest for our meal, looking half a witch with her tangled gray hair, green hooded cloak, and the amiable black cat navigating the space around her ankles. It was an impression she cultivated. And on the day Squirrel and I had arrived at her window, orphaned and alone, she’d joked that it was lucky for us she no longer had a functioning oven, else fairytale law would demand she cook and eat us.

Lady Lucy was not entirely sane, but I was almost certain she would never eat us.

When we finished our food, she uncorked a bottle of blackberry wine and, as she often did, told stories about Miracle, the woman she’d loved more than anything in the world. Miracle had shared the apartment with Lady Lucy before the storm. They read books to one another by candlelight, stories about lost kingdoms and talking animals and ancient forests full of black-hearted wolves. Lady Lucy often conflated these fictions with their actual time together, though both had lived their whole lives on the island, and there were vanishing few talking animals native to the Texas coast. I was glad she had her fantasies; even imaginary pleasure was better than none. By the Lady’s account, Miracle was storybook-beautiful, with the soul of a saint. There was no way to know for sure if Miracle even existed, or if that had really been her name, but it hardly mattered. The storm changed us all. Lady Lucy had been Lucy Brown before. Squirrel was Tina. My parents named me Adam, but now I was Rowdy. Because, why not? If the city could become something new, so could we, and it was easier to forget who we’d all been before than to sit around lamenting what we’d lost.

Lady Lucy finished her story the same as always. “Miracle stood unafraid on that very balcony, night black as a barrel of pitch. She let her hair down long, like a princess imprisoned in a tower. Let the strands rest on the current as she sang sad songs. I watched her without interfering, certain she was going to leave me, and too in love with her to stand in the way. Eventually they came, the greenteeth. They felt her despair and they drew her down to her death. And she was never heard from again.”

And she was never heard from again.

The way Lady Lucy spoke the words, it sounded like Miracle was a character in one of her true crime books.

She became quiet after that, just sipped at her wine with heavy eyelids. I read a chapter or two of American Gods before growing tired. Bathory lounged in my lap, and we listened to the ocean as it moved through the bones of the city. The sound of the undertow eventually put me to sleep. I woke to black night. Cold air chased in through the open window. I expected to see Squirrel’s slim, anxious form still fogging the glass, but she was nowhere in the room, and there was no conclusion to draw other than she’d gone out through the window, into the darkness.

And she was never heard from again.

I roused Lady Lucy from her recliner. She’d fallen asleep too, the empty wine bottle gripped in her hands.

“What has your darling sister done?” Lady Lucy slurred her words, and there was a knife-edge to her voice that indicated the wine had taxed her patience.

“She left, I think.” I ran over to the window, poked my head out into the drizzle. “The boat’s gone. She sailed off somewhere.”

“She took my boat?”

“She must have,” I said.

“You are certain the greenteeth didn’t take her?”

I was certain of nothing, but it made sense that if the greenteeth had drawn her down, she’d have no need for a boat.

I grabbed my jean jacket off the hook, then climbed out the window and onto the balcony. Lady Lucy followed, her billowing hood up against the drizzle. Ocean water lapped at the underside of the balcony. Standing beside the black sea caused my heart to skip. We never went out on the water at night. The despair was too close. The afterlife was too real. The greenteeth were harder to resist. I grabbed the railing to steady myself, leaned out and looked. And there she was. Squirrel with her skinny arms and black tangled curls, chopping into the water with an oar, making steady progress toward the open ocean in Lady Lucy’s tiny rowboat.

Lady Lucy grimaced. “Had I a spell for making difficult children vanish, I’d cast it in an instant.”

“What?”

“Ignore me,” she said. “I’m bitter. We must follow your sister and bring her home.”

“How?”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to enlist the aid of my would-be suitor.”

She meant Mr. Cortez, who lived in the building across the street. His balcony was opposite ours, but crowded with flower boxes, where he grew yellow squash and green jalapeños that he’d shared with us in the fall. A warped piece of plywood covered his window, and he moved it aside whenever he needed to exit or let the sunlight in. The glass panes had been broken a few months back by a band of teenagers who fancied themselves pirates. They terrorized the neighborhood for months, boating from window to window, smashing glass with baseball bats. Ravaging living rooms for Michelob Light and Slim Jims. Dealing out bruises and broken bones. The rascals tried such an assault on Mr. Cortez, and he met them halfway through the window with his pistol. Put a bullet between one pair of beady pirate eyes. That was enough to send the others paddling away with their lives and nothing more. Lady Lucy jokingly called him Cortez the Killer. She got the name from some old song. That was the last we heard of pirates. They might have continued their crimes, but if so, they’d sailed to another neighborhood.

Lady Lucy called. “Mr. Cortez. Are you awake? We require your assistance.”

The plywood board covering his window slid aside, and he peered out. “What’s the matter?”

He wore a smashed cowboy hat and a blue pearl-snap shirt. His chin and cheeks were furred with gray, and his skin bore the deep cuts of time. Wrinkles and spots and old-man bruises. But his eyes were friendly, and they shone bright as a lighthouse in a storm every time he saw Lady Lucy.

“One of my little darlings has sailed away, and we need to retrieve her before…”

Lady Lucy didn’t need to continue. We all understood what came after before. I motioned up the street, and Mr. Cortez saw Squirrel paddling madly, growing smaller every second.

Cortez the Killer did not hesitate.

“We’ll take my boat.”

He nearly tipped the rowboat over scrambling into it. His long gabardine slacks were tucked into his cowboy boots, like he’d been out walking through the scrub brush.

Old habits, I guess.

Mr. Cortez rowed across to our balcony, helped us into the boat. He smelled of clove cigarettes and sandalwood cologne. He wore his pistol in a leather holster. When we were situated, he shoved off from the balcony with his oar, and Bathory leapt from the railing and positioned himself at the bow. Moonlight painted the water and caught fire in the cat’s eyes.

“A cat on a boat brings good luck,” said Lady Lucy.

Mr. Cortez huffed. “I’ve heard the opposite.”

Cortez the Killer had struck an uneasy peace with Bathory, one the cat often broke with tooth and claw. Lady Lucy told Squirrel that Cortez was a werewolf, and Bathory was an ancient vampire king who’d paid a withered crone to channel his essence into the body of a cat so he might live forever. And, of course, there is old enmity between vampires and werewolves, so why would the two of them have anything but disdain for one another?

“Bathory has already brought us luck,” said Lady Lucy.

“How do you figure?” asked Mr. Cortez.

“Bathory shows himself and the clouds part. We are on a night hunt. Now the moon lights our way.”

“The better to see you with, my dear.”

“Do you intend to eat us, Mr. Cortez?”

“No, I don’t believe I will.”

“Splendid. Then let us proceed.”

And we did, Mr. Cortez at the stern, paddling, Lady Lucy in the middle, whispering spells into the night with tears in her eyes. Drink and darkness made Lady Lucy melancholy, but it was more than that. Muted singing carried across the surface of the water; greenteeth songs were always sad. I ran my fingers through Bathory’s fur, took comfort in the low rumble of his purring. Squirrel grew smaller against the black horizon, and if not for the moon and the candlelit windows on either side of the street, she’d have vanished entirely. We were a year removed from the hurricane, from the day our parents were taken, and in all that time Squirrel and I had never been apart.

We were a matched set, me and Squirrel.

I wasn’t sure either of us could exist without the other.

The boat cut a path between two palm trees, fronds poking up above the surface of the water. Somewhere below was my mother’s bakery, my father’s auto repair shop, the weedy alleys where Squirrel and I chased one another on bicycles, and the convenience store where we bought fried burritos and orange sodas. Somewhere below was the low-slung pink bungalow where we’d lived until the water came in a rush and erased our lives. The four of us had made it onto the roof, but that wasn’t high enough. Our parents sent Tina up the oak tree that leaned out over the house; she moved up it fast as a squirrel, earned the nickname I gave her. I followed, feeling the whipcrack of the wind against my cheeks. Then the water broke over the roofline of the house like a conquering army. Our parents were gone in a moment. We told everyone the greenteeth drew them down, like that was a better way to go than dying in the storm. Regardless, we never saw them again, though I was afraid one day we might.

Mr. Cortez navigated between buildings, their windows glowing with candlelight. Occasional faces peered out, likely certain we traveled to our doom. It was a couple of miles from the bookstore to what used to be the shoreline, and the water ahead rippled with fish or with greenteeth; I couldn’t say which. Nothing broke the surface, but the air smelled like a beached whale left to die in the sunshine. Bathory clawed at the cold air, hissed at the horizon.

“Bathory insists you paddle faster,” said Lady Lucy.

Mr. Cortez had already worked up a sweat, and I was certain we were traveling as fast as his strength could carry us.

“I won’t take orders from a cat,” he said.

“Bathory is more than a cat.”

“We agree on that,” he said. “He’s something worse. I’ve seen that animal lap up a saucer of warm blood.”

“You have not.”

“Well, I saw him drink something.”

“Call in the witchfinder.”

Mr. Cortez smiled. “You know I bow to your whims, Lady, but the cat can go hang.”

Bathory hissed again, but this time with more urgency, and he drew our attention to the water ahead.

A face broke the surface.

It was a greentooth woman with her chin barely above water, long hair trailing in the current. Green moss grew along her teeth, clogged her nostrils, and rimmed her eyes, like the stuff had taken root inside her and was working its way out. She was bloodless. Ashen. Her mouth opened wide in song, and the sound burrowed into my chest. Cut my nerve. The oar stopped, and Cortez the Killer had his pistol in hand. Would a bullet harm a greentooth? Lady Lucy often compared them to sirens, creatures who sang sailors down to their deaths, except the greenteeth were different. They wore the faces of people you knew. They weren’t monsters. They were the dead come back to help us cross over. Mr. Cortez mumbled in Spanish, eyes wide and teary. And a name appeared on his lips, one he repeated over and over: Marta, Marta, Marta.

Cortez the Killer was transfixed. I thought of Miracle on her balcony, waiting to be drawn down while Lady Lucy watched. Mr. Cortez holstered his gun, turned the boat so that the greentooth woman floated right alongside.

Marta, Marta, Marta.

He put a trembling hand out over the water, nearly close enough to touch her, like he wanted to make sure she was real. I believe he’d have left us there, climbed out into the water and allowed himself to be taken down, if not for Lady Lucy.

She put her hands on his cheeks, cupped his face, and drew his eyes to hers. “Today is not the day to follow, sweet one. Your Marta will be there for you. When you’re ready. You have reason to live yet.”

Mr. Cortez closed his eyes, kept them closed tight until finally the greentooth woman sank below the waterline. The itchy feeling of her enchantment relented, and he pressed his face against Lady Lucy’s neck and cried.

“Can you paddle us for a bit, Rowdy?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She handed me the oar, and I did my best to get us moving again in the right direction.

“It was my wife,” said Mr. Cortez.

“I know,” said Lady Lucy. “I met her a few times before the storm.”

“Of course. I’d forgotten,” said Cortez. “She loved to read. Nothing fancy, though. Trashy romances. Horror novels with blood and skulls on the cover.”

“A woman after my own heart.”

Mr. Cortez wiped his eyes with a shirtsleeve and straightened his hat so it fell at the correct, rakish angle. I’d overheard enough of their conversations to know Marta had been one of the first storm survivors to be drawn down by the greenteeth. Their grandkids had been visiting for the summer when the water came and carried both children away. That loss broke Marta, and when they came bobbing up at her balcony, singing a nursery song she’d taught them from her own childhood, she followed without a second thought.

“Rowdy, have a care,” said Lady Lucy. “You’re splashing about with that oar, and my cloak is getting wet.”

The rain had started in earnest again, and I figured my splashing was the least of her worries, but I wasn’t one to argue.

“Sorry, Lady.”

“I don’t want to die,” said Mr. Cortez. “Not yet.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Lady Lucy. “That’s why I stopped you.”

“But I should want to die, shouldn’t I? They’re all gone. And here I am, with you. I should have let her take me.”

“You should do precisely what you wish. The dead have no say in our lives apart from what we give them.”

Bathory climbed over Lady Lucy’s lap and squeezed in beside Mr. Cortez. He scratched the scruff of Bathory’s neck, in spite of himself.

Lady Lucy had a story about the greenteeth. It started with a hurricane so bad everybody remembered it a hundred fifty years later. Close to ten thousand dead, and the worst thing to happen to the island until last year, when the ocean swallowed it up for good. She believed Galveston was a place where the dead never left. They just waited. She called the greenteeth embodiments of our collective despair, which I took to mean they were there to make sure we never forgot we’d be with them one day, beneath the waves. The storm we survived changed the island’s nature, thinned the barrier between life and afterlife. I wasn’t sure if the Lady’s take on the greenteeth was as fanciful as her other stories, but it was one we believed.

The greenteeth never took anyone by force. But they were there to help you die, whenever you were ready.

I paddled harder, hoping Squirrel wasn’t ready.

I had no desire to leave this world yet, no matter the weight of my memories. But anxiety kept reminding me that tragedy burdens us all in different ways, and there was really no way of knowing how close Squirrel was to leaving all of this behind.

We reached what used to be the shoreline. The Hotel Galvez rose high above the water, several of its stories consumed forever by the sea. Debris crowded against the walls of the old hotel: shredded bits of wood that used to be a pier; the partial arc of a fallen Ferris wheel; street signs and broken concrete and coils of electrical line.

Squirrel was closer now. The water became choppy, and she had to slow her pace. Dozens of greenteeth swam in the deep waters, circling her boat, heads poking above the surface like shark fins. They sang their ghost songs. Cried with grief. The sounds they made carried over the surface of the water like slow winter fog, and froze my insides.

“They won’t harm her,” said Lady Lucy. “And they won’t take her unless she wants to go.”

“Okay, but what if she does?”

“Squirrel isn’t ready to go yet,” she said. “Oh, she’s bored out of her skull like most of us. But there’s still a whole lot left for her to accomplish in life. Might be she wants to leave and go to the mainland when she gets a bit older. I don’t think I’m ever moving on from here. This is my home, flooded or not, and it always will be. But you can take her. Better than living out your life in a cave of books with an old lady who drinks too much. And besides, I know for certain Squirrel has no intention of letting the greenteeth draw her down today. Bathory assures me that is not her intention.”

“Bathory is a cat.”

“Bathory is my familiar.” Our expedition had shaken her sober, but her dark mood still loomed like a storm cloud, ready to unleash a torrent if provoked.

“Lady Lucy, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but we need to get to Squirrel.”

“Have I asked you to stop rowing?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Well then, continue apace. And I will tell you a story. It begins with once upon a time.”

“Of course it does.”

Lady Lucy ignored my impatient tone and continued. “Once upon a time, there lived a sad drunk named Lucy who ruled an entire kingdom of books, but was forever thwarted in her pursuit of love. Not for lack of trying, you understand. She was no longer young, and no longer beautiful, if she’d ever been so in the first place, but she had a mind sharp as a samurai sword and certain skills with the dark arts, and so she whipped up a potion in an orange Tupperware mixing bowl and called out to the universe to send her someone to love. And whether by spell or by happenstance, a woman named Marjorie walked into her store the next day, with a midnight-black cat cradled in her arms. The cat’s eyes flashed blood-red and Marjorie’s eyes were deep blue oceans, and Lady Lucy knew that a miracle had happened. Her dream now walked in waking hours. And they were happy, Lady Lucy and her miracle. Marjorie carried a heavy grief, having lost her only child some years before, but her grief and the Lady’s sadness bookended a shared peace when they were together, and for a time they were content.

“But then the water came. A neglected world revolted. And what does the universe care about true love? Lucy and Marjorie moved their lives to higher ground, and even then, the Lady was certain her spell would hold. Their melancholy was enough to sustain them. They read passages from The Tombs of Atuan to one another. Sang mournful songs like “Going to California” and “Black Hole Sun.” They crafted joy from nothing. But Marjorie’s grief was so close to the surface. It was hard to resist. And eventually she couldn’t.

“I’ve told you about Miracle going into the water, but sweet Bathory, with his old soul, helped me understand it was her choice. There was no love I could give greater than the one she’d lost. Who would I be if I stopped her? But less than a fortnight after Miracle left, Bathory spotted my little darlings at the window, with their empty bellies and their sinking boat. Scavengers barely holding on to life. He bid me invite you in, and here we are. A sort of family. All of this is to say, when you have loved someone so very near to death, you come to understand what it looks like. And I promise you, our darling Squirrel is nowhere close to giving up her ghost.”

That may be as close as Lady Lucy ever came to telling her true story, though who can say. It didn’t matter. Our stories were all we had left. Even if they weren’t true, they were still ours.

“Thank you, Lady,” I said.

“Thank Bathory,” she said. “If not for his benevolence, you might still be scratching at my window, begging to be let in.”

We drew within fifty yards of Squirrel’s boat. Cortez the Killer took back the oar, and we soon bridged the distance. Greenteeth swarmed in the water, popped their heads up to look, then dived back down. There were dozens. Squirrel’s tiny boat rocked in the wake of their passage, and she sat motionless. My worries grew teeth. As soon as Mr. Cortez had us alongside Squirrel’s boat, I climbed into it, put my arms around her. But holding her did little to calm my distress. Squirrel’s heart raced. She was hyperventilating. She felt insubstantial, ready to slip away from me again. A pair of greenteeth floated ahead of the boat, commanded Squirrel’s attention, and no matter what Bathory might think, she was drawn to them. A man and a woman. Faces flooded with grief and voices full of static. One had eyes with my same shade of green, and another had long black curls that matched Squirrel’s. And I understood. They looked so much like our parents; how could Squirrel not have followed them? Those faces seemed so familiar, like faded photograph versions of the people our parents had been, but when I looked closer, when I forced myself to see them as they were, and not as I wanted them to be, I knew for certain these were other souls.

Our parents were close, though. I knew that much.

They watched us every day through Lady Lucy’s window. They pressed their ears against the glass in the deep night, listened to our cackling laughter and our arguments. They drifted just below the water’s surface, in the land of the dead, but within easy reach. So, yeah, they were close. But the greenteeth floating in front of us were strangers. We’d see our parents again someday, but if I knew one thing for certain, it was they’d never want either of us to follow them down below until we’d had a chance to live our lives.

“It’s not them, Tina.”

She wouldn’t stop shaking, wouldn’t look away from the faces in the water. They offered a cold, wet death, and I knew how hard I would fight to keep her from leaving me.

“Tina, listen to me. It’s Rowdy. It’s Adam.”

“I found them,” she said. “Mom and Dad.”

“That’s not them. Look at me, please.” I turned her to face me. I gave her a gentle shake, like I was trying to wake her up in time for school.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

The greenteeth kept singing, but Squirrel rubbed her eyes and slowed her breathing. The effects of the song began to fade.

“I don’t think it’s them,” she said.

“You’re safe, Tina.”

She shook her head. “God, I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

Squirrel started to cry. She hugged me. Held on tight, like she hadn’t entirely escaped the greenteeth’s pull.

“They swam by,” she said, “and I could have waked you, but I didn’t want you to die. And I guess I don’t either, but I needed to see them. They just passed by so fast, and it was like they were leaving again, and I didn’t know what to do. And now all of you, having to come out here. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Nothing is okay, Adam,” she said. “I miss them.”

“They’ll be there, when you’re ready. But you’re not ready, right? You don’t want to go to them?”

Squirrel looked back at the creatures in the water, and I held my breath, hoping the allure was not too much for her to resist. Hoping she felt life had more to offer her than death.

“No, not today,” she said.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Can we go home?”

“We don’t have a home.”

“Maybe not our old home, but we have someplace we’re welcomed. Come on, okay? Lady Lucifer and her devil cat have missed you an awful lot.”

“What did you call me?” asked Lady Lucy.

Squirrel held back a grin. I felt something loosen inside her, and she no longer seemed to be slipping away. “Thank you. All of you.”

Cortez the Killer doffed his hat. “Always at your service, little Squirrel.”

Lady Lucy had a tight grip on the gunwale of our boat, afraid perhaps we’d drift off the edge of the world and she’d have to follow. “We were given very little choice. Bathory was quite insistent. And as you well know, he is not to be trifled with.”

Bathory hissed a storm and Lady Lucy whispered a few ancient spells, and eventually the two greenteeth vanished into the sea. All the others followed. Squirrel handed me her oar, and I paddled us toward our neighborhood. Cortez the Killer set a pace right behind us, and our travels home were untroubled by pirates or dead memories.

After that day, Mr. Cortez became a regular visitor to the book cave, and despite loud objections, Lady Lucy and Bathory both appreciated his company. Squirrel and I began to plan. We discussed places we might travel when we were old enough to fend for ourselves. I suggested someplace with snowcapped mountains, where rising tides would never trouble us, but Squirrel insisted on a city with an amusement park, and of course there was no reason to limit ourselves. We had a lifetime to explore. We settled in with our new family and made the book-stuffed apartment the best home we could. We’d sing all our sad songs, and Lady Lucy would recite epic poems. Cortez the Killer would tell us time and again about the pirate raid, but no two tellings were ever the same. Squirrel would dig through the shelves, finding books Lady Lucy had forgotten she owned, including a history of that long-ago hurricane that leveled the island, and how everyone came together then, to rebuild what was lost. Squirrel and I would drink cans of flat Dr. Pepper while Cortez the Killer sipped whiskey, and Lady Lucy grew maudlin from her wine. We’d stay up deep into the night, sharing memories of those who’d gone. Mom and Dad. Miracle and Marta. We told stories to keep them close.

Stories, maybe, to keep them away.

And some of those stories, though certainly not all of them, were true.

Josh Rountree has published short fiction in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Realms of Fantasy, Bourbon Penn, PseudoPod, Weird Horror, and Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror. His latest short fiction collection is Fantastic Americana from Fairwood Press. His novel The Legend of Charlie Fish will be published by Tachyon Publications in July 2023. You can get the whole scoop at his website: www.joshrountree.com

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Her father’s family wants everything lush the first time.

An eagle’s feathers soft as rainfall, coins pouring thick as magnolia blossom,

excess slicing from the belly to the shaking of the world.

There is a luxury in being asked twice.

The sugar cubes ignored beside the porcelain cup

made from bone ashes in a process she is not asked to admire,

the footfalls from the shape she cannot see, the hand

that does not touch her hand.

What sky-breaking abandon, only to say yes

to a single seed.

Ursula Whitcher’s languages include French, Latin, classical Greek, algebraic geometry, and python. You can find Ursula’s poetry and fiction in places such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, Polu Texni, The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, or Goblin Fruit, or by following the links at yarntheory.net. Look for @superyarn on Twitter or @yarntheory@wandering.shop on Mastodon for smaller tastes of words.

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