cHApTEr 16. on vAcATion (3 of 3)

A delicate gazebo stood in the hotel’s backyard. It was made from wood, in a hexagonal shape. Its pointed roof made it a perfect place to hide from the summer sun while allowing some privacy. Inside, it was peaceful, far from the noise tourists usually brought with them, letting through only the whispers of nature and the songs of birds.

Matt sat at the small round table, sheepishly keeping his head down. His father sat across from him, unshaven, his hair disheveled and his clothes worn carelessly, as if he hadn’t paid attention to his appearance since morning. Squinting slightly, he waited for the boy to “contact” his dead son. His jaw was clenched, and he barely moved.

Mioray leaned against the gazebo’s wooden partition behind Matt, watching both the boy and his father, ready to step in if needed. He could tell the man was still unsure about the whole séance idea. That was only natural – in a way, they were deceiving him. Matt wasn’t speaking to the man’s dead son. He was his son. The father didn’t know that, and yet he had still come. Was it naïveté? Maybe. Mioray thought it was the desperate wish to speak with a dead son one last time.

“He’s… asking how you’re doing,” Matt muttered. His voice was barely audible over the singing of goldfinches.

“Who is?” his father asked dryly.

“Matt… Matt Sidon.”

“He’s here right now?”

Despite the roughness in his tone, there was no hostility in his voice. He wanted to believe his son’s soul was really there trying to speak with him, but he was also afraid of being fooled. Mioray had assured him they wouldn’t ask for money, yet in the real world that could easily be part of the trick.

“Yes… He’s right beside you, on your right,” Matt forced the words out. His father turned his head, but of course he saw no one. Neither did Matt nor Mioray. “He says you don’t look very well. Is it because… because of him?”

Matt’s father sighed heavily and rubbed his tired eyes.

“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have a hard time believing any of this,” he said, placing his hands on the table only to pull them back a moment later. “Can I ask a few questions first, before we go any further? I need to be sure I can trust what you’re saying.”

Matt looked at Mioray, uncertain, and Mioray gave him a small nod.

“Can you ask Matt what his favorite candy flavor was?” his father asked once the boy agreed.

“Blue raspberry,” Matt answered immediately.

His father blinked in surprise. The answer was correct, of course. Nobody knew it better than Matt himself. Still, the man wasn’t convinced yet.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “When he was seven, we went–”

“To the water park,” Matt said, more confident now. “He was really happy that day. Except when he cried because he wasn’t allowed on some of the water slides since he was too short. But he calmed down when you promised to take him there again once he got older and taller.”

His father smiled faintly, pressing his lips together. Small wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes.

“Right,” he said. “And what city was that water park in?”

Matt froze.

Mioray, who had been watching them calmly until now, tensed. The boy didn’t remember the name of the city. Of all the things his father could ask, he had to choose that! One wrong answer and everything would fall apart. The man would walk away thinking they had tried to trick him, and Matt would lose his chance to say goodbye.

“Matt says…” the boy stammered. “He says… that city… it was called…”

He tried. He really tried to remember, but just like he had said the day before, the name wouldn’t come back to him. If he guessed, the illusion would break.

“He says he doesn’t remember,” Matt finally admitted, his voice crushed.

His father kept watching him. Nothing changed in his expression; he wasn’t angry or disappointed or anything. He simply sat there, thinking.

“I give up,” he said at last, shaking his head. Then he looked to his right again, straining as if trying to sense the presence that wasn’t there. “You’re really here, Matt… aren’t you? You were always bad with locations. It was in Bayren City. Even when we were there, you could never spell it right.”

Mioray let out a quiet sigh of relief. Somehow, it worked out.

“I might still be getting tricked, but I’ll trust you for now,” Matt’s father went on. “I’d be more suspicious if Matt remembered that city. I love my boy, but let’s be honest, he can’t remember everything.

“So, Matt… you were asking how I’m doing?” the man said, addressing the empty space beside him. “Umm…”

“You can tell him the truth,” Mioray said quietly. “He can handle it.”

The man hesitated.

“Not so good, to be honest,” his cheek twitched. “Your death… it devastated both your mother and me.”

Matt rubbed his palms together nervously.

“Where is she now?”

“Back in Reques City, I suppose. We tried to stay together, but the pain was too much. Being around each other, it always reminded us of you. We sold the house and got divorced. We still keep in touch… we’re just not close anymore.”

So the family really had fallen apart. The weight of the loss had been too heavy. Mioray frowned, thinking of his own parents. What would have happened if he had died for real, or ended up like Matt, forced to stay hidden and pretend to be dead to the whole world? Would his parents have stayed together, or would they have broken apart too, even though he was adopted?

“I saw you with another woman…” Matt’s hands turned pale as he clenched them together. His shoulders stiffened.

“You?” his father frowned. “You mean Matt?”

“Yes, of course he means Matt,” Mioray said quickly, putting a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “It’s easier to speak in the first person during a séance. It strengthens the connection.”

“If you say so,” the man replied skeptically, but he let it pass. “She’s… well… we’re seeing each other. We met a few months ago.”

“But why? Is it because I died?”

“No, Matt, you have nothing to do with it!” The man answered instinctively, speaking to his real son, before catching himself. He turned again to the empty space on his right. “Look, son… it’s complicated. I love your mother, I really do, but we couldn’t go on like that. We were making each other miserable. Sometimes love alone isn’t enough. But believe me, I’ll support her for as long as I live, and I know she’ll do the same for me.”

“You promise?”

“Of course. We may not live together anymore, but I’m never cutting her out of my life.”

Mioray wasn’t sure whether Matt had accepted his parents’ separation or if he simply didn’t want to waste the little time he had arguing, knowing this was the last time he would speak with his father. The boy was clearly hurt, but he kept it to himself. Instead, he asked about his mother, about what she had been doing lately, about the woman his father had met and whether she knew his mom, and finally about his father’s plans for the future.

Little by little, the conversation began to flow more naturally, and Mioray decided to step outside and give them some privacy instead of listening to every word. He left the gazebo and wandered around the backyard, keeping the place in sight just in case, until the talk finally came to an end.

“Matt says it’s time for him to go,” the boy said when the moment for farewell came. He stood up from his chair, and Mioray stopped at the entrance to the gazebo. “He wants you to know he loves both of you, his mom and dad, and he’d be happy if you could get back together… but he’s not insisting on it. Knowing that you stay in touch and don’t hate each other is enough for him. You were great parents. I’m really happy that I got to be your son.”

“We love you too, Matt, with all our hearts. We’re sorry we couldn’t protect you.”

“It’s not your fault,” the boy said with a trembling smile, tears running down his face. “It’s just… I wish it could be different. I wish I could live… and stay with you!”

His voice broke, and he burst into tears, the sound shattering the quiet calm of the backyard. Mioray was about to rush to his side, but Matt’s father was faster. He dropped to his knees and pulled the boy into a tight embrace.

“Me too, Matt, me too,” he said, his voice shaking. Perhaps he had forgotten that the boy in front of him was supposed to be only a messenger. Or perhaps, somewhere deep down, he understood the truth. “I’d give anything for that to happen.

“Where is he going now?” the man asked a few minutes later, when Matt’s crying finally quieted.

“To the other side,” Matt said, wiping his eyes. “He says he’s finished here. He wanted to talk to you one more time, and now his wish is fulfilled. Of course, he’d like to see his mother too, but he can’t stay in the world of the living forever.”

“Is there heaven on the other side?”

“Just like you taught him,” Matt replied. Mioray remembered that the boy believed the realm between realms led either to heaven or to hell. “He’s going to wait for you there. For both of you. Mom and dad.”

“We’ll get there,” his father said firmly. “Whatever it takes.”

Matt looked at him as if trying to memorize every detail of this moment. It was painful to watch. Father and son, reunited for the last time, separated by death. It would take so little to bring them together for real. Just one sentence. Just saying out loud that the boy standing in front of him was truly his Matt. That was all it would take.

If life were a fairy tale. In the real world, it would only bring more pain.

“Matt’s gone,” Matt said quietly. He walked over to Mioray and squeezed his hand.

“I see,” his father said, standing up and straightening the collar of his shirt. “Thank you for giving me the chance to speak to my son. I don’t know if it was real, but… I needed this. Here.” He reached into his pocket and took out a lollipop. “Take it. This was Matt’s favorite. Blue raspberry.”

“Thanks,” Matt said softly, taking the candy as if it were something priceless. “It means a lot to me.”

His father left. Mioray thought Matt would need some time to process what had just happened, but soon Farah and Mia showed up and dragged the boy along for a hike with them. Because of yesterday’s Soul Collective incident that turned out to be a false alarm, they had postponed it until today. Mioray didn’t mind. Maybe it was for the better. The girls would probably have an easier time cheering Matt up.

He himself decided to visit the local museum. He thought about inviting Erinel, but she wasn’t in the girls’ room, and he had no idea where to look for her. Farah told him they had agreed to go to the hot springs at night, so she wouldn’t be there either. In the end, Mioray went to the museum with Kevin, because the lawyer suddenly decided to tag along.

As expected, it turned into some kind of competition between them. The museum was small, and there were no visitors besides the two of them. A staff member kindly offered to show them around, but as soon as the tour touched on historical events, Mioray started showing off what he knew. Unfortunately for him, Kevin was just as well informed, and the two of them quickly turned the visit into a contest of who knew more. In the end, the staff member was the one who won the contest between the two, after which he politely asked them to leave.

Late that night, when most tourists had already gone to sleep, the group headed for the outdoor hot springs. Since no one else was there, they had the place entirely to themselves. The baths were separated for men and women. Erinel, Farah and Mia went to the women’s side, while Mioray, Matt and Kevin went to the men’s.

The hot spring was a round basin of water surrounded by large stone boulders, with steam drifting just above the surface. Trees leaned over the spring from three sides, while from the fourth there should have been a view of the mountains. At night, without the moon, the horizon blended with the dark blue sky scattered with stars. Square paper lanterns hanging from wooden poles gave just enough light to see the area around the bath, their glow soft enough not to disturb the natural feel of the place. The water rustled quietly, inviting anyone who entered to share in its calm.

Matt, in much better spirits after meeting his father, was the first to get in. He threw his towel aside, already naked, and jumped straight into the water with a splash, sending a fan of hot water into the air. Mioray, wearing his swimming trunks, was about to step in too, but Matt suddenly shushed him.

“What are you doing?” the boy asked, with only his head visible above the steam. “There was a sign at the entrance. No clothes allowed!”

Mioray turned to Kevin. “Wait, seriously?”

Kevin gave him a flat look over the rim of his glasses. He was wearing a white fluffy bathrobe, but Mioray knew he had swimming trunks underneath as well. The idea of undressing in front of Kevin, let alone sitting in the same hot spring naked with him, was not exactly appealing.

“There was nothing written about that when I booked the place,” Kevin said irritably.

“But isn’t that, like, common sense?” Matt asked.

“I’ve never been to a place like this, how would I know?” Kevin snapped, clearly embarrassed.

Mioray sighed. He hadn’t known either. And that was after the two of them had been showing off their knowledge of the area back at the museum.

“You go first,” he said.

“Why me?”

“Well, you planned the whole trip. Seems only fair.”

“Funny. From where I stand, it looks like you should go first, considering how much effort I put into organizing all this.”

“Why don’t you both do it at the same time?” Matt suggested, blowing bubbles in the water. He looked perfectly comfortable, completely unbothered by the situation.

They didn’t really have a choice. Kevin slipped off his bathrobe, and Mioray couldn’t help noticing that the lawyer was actually in good shape, with defined abs and all. It wasn’t that surprising, when he thought about it. Kevin was a lawyer. What else would he do with his free time when he was alive, if not work out?

They agreed to undress on the count of three, with Matt doing the counting. But when Matt said “three,” only Mioray followed through.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Mioray shouted, covering himself.

“Just get in the water,” Kevin muttered. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Feeling completely betrayed, Mioray stepped into the spring and leaned against one of the boulders. A moment later Kevin joined him, lowering himself into the water beside him.

For the entire time they sat in the bath, neither of them managed to relax. Kevin stayed with his arms crossed, his eyes hidden behind glasses fogged with steam. Mioray wasn’t much better. Only Matt floated peacefully on the surface, as if nothing in the world could bother him.

From time to time they could hear Farah’s voice coming from the women’s side, loud as always, which made Mioray assume the girls had taken to the no-clothes rule far more easily than they had.

Before long, Matt got bored of swimming and announced he wanted to go back to the room. Kevin immediately used that as an excuse to leave with him. Mioray stayed behind alone, and only then did he finally begin to feel the warmth of the water sink into him. It wasn’t like it healed his body or anything. In fact, physically he barely noticed the effect at all.

But strangely, it felt as if the heat was reaching deeper, warming something inside him, washing away the constant mental fatigue that came from always being awake, from never being able to forget that he was dead. Without sleep, his mind never truly rested, never had the chance to push its thoughts into the subconscious. Or into his soul, whichever was closer to the truth.

Listening to the crickets chirping somewhere in the distance, with nothing urging him to hurry anywhere, eased the tension a little. Mioray stared absent-mindedly at the stars when he heard someone approaching. His first thought was that Kevin had come back to give the hot spring another try, but when he looked toward the edge of the basin and saw who was standing on the boulder there, the rest of the world slipped from his mind.

Erinel stood there silently, a towel wrapped around her. Then the towel fell, and she slowly stepped into the steamy water.

Mioray’s heartbeat rose. It wasn’t the only thing that rose.

He couldn’t put together a single coherent thought as he stared at her like an idiot. She came closer without saying a word and settled in the spot where Kevin had been sitting a moment ago, lowering herself into the water until only her head and the line of her shoulders remained above the surface. Mioray blinked, still trying to understand what was happening. This was the last thing he expected tonight. Erinel was the second woman he had ever seen naked, the first being Farah, but it was a memory he preferred to forget. This one, however, he knew he never would.

“Do you really like it? My body?” Erinel asked, lifting her slender arms out of the water. She was still wearing the ring with the jewel, but at that moment Mioray barely noticed it.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, his mind completely blank. “I mean, yes. I mean… you’re… you know. Beautiful.”

His face felt hot, though that could just as well have been the hot spring. The heat made his head spin, and finding the right words was nearly impossible. There was a faint sadness in Erinel’s eyes as she looked at her reflection trembling on the water’s surface.

“Why? It isn’t really my body.”

Did she regret not looking like this in her true form? Did she regret not being human at all? That didn’t sound like her. Or did it? They had never talked about it. Erinel was a greanrip. She lived as one and never seemed to complain.

“You’re still you,” Mioray managed to say. “This body suits you. So it’s yours.”

Sometimes he wondered what he would feel if Erinel abandoned her human form completely. Would his heart still start racing the same way every time he saw her? She was beautiful as a human, that much was true. If that body belonged to someone else, he would probably still look, but it wouldn’t mean anything. There would be no weight behind it.

Besides, this wasn’t someone else. It was her. It was Erinel. Someone else might catch his attention, but he would forget them soon enough. He could never forget her.

“Why are you here, Erinel?” he asked, glancing around to make sure no one else had come to the men’s side of the spring. “What if someone sees you here?”

“That would mean they won’t have long to live.”

Right. He had almost forgotten that. Still, it didn’t answer his question.

“Farah suggested we play this game of truth or dare,” Erinel said. “I chose dare, and she told me to come to the men’s side and get into the water here.”

That Farah! Mioray winced. What is she thinking?!

“Well, I guess you did it. You can go back now and think of something to make her regret it. I already have a few ideas.”

“May I stay here for a while?” Erinel asked, still looking at the water. Her golden eyes reflected the stars on the surface almost perfectly. “The water here is much hotter. On the other side, Farah keeps drawing the heat away. Besides, I suspect part of the reason she chose that dare was to get rid of me.”

Mioray could easily believe that. Farah would absolutely do something like that for Mia’s sake. He sighed.

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Again, everything changed. When Matt and Kevin were here, Mioray felt uncomfortable. When he was left alone, he felt refreshed. Now? He couldn’t even describe what he was feeling. Shame, uncertainty, anxiety. Joy. Somehow, all of it mixed together and made perfect sense. He recalled yesterday evening, how he and Erinel had stood in front of the shrine holding hands, watching the old man’s soul pick up the linden leaf. In which direction would he have moved it? Left or right?

“Where were you today?” Mioray finally broke the silence when it had stretched for too long.

“I went to the forest,” Erinel said quietly. “It’s been a long time since I was around that many trees. There aren’t many places like that in the city. What about you?”

“I stayed with Matt while he talked with his father.”

“How did it go?”

“Better than I expected.” Mioray let out a small breath. “He was down at first, but his mood picked up pretty quickly. I think he really needed that. It patched up a hole in his heart he had forgotten about.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Erinel said with a faint smile. After a short pause she added, “I wanted to ask, how did your exams go?”

“Oh, those?” Mioray chuckled awkwardly. It already felt like something from another life. “Kiupi. I’m pretty sure I aced the Old Tongue. We only learn it from textbooks, but I had the chance to practice it with you, so that helped. The rest should be fine too. I’m not really worried about it.”

Erinel moved her hand through the water, distorting her reflection, slowly rocking the surface as if lost in thought. Something about her felt off. Mioray couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She wasn’t acting like herself. Maybe the heat was getting to him. Maybe he was imagining things, and this Erinel sitting across from him was just a hallucination. Then again, could the dead even hallucinate?

“Am I a terrible person?” Erinel asked suddenly, still looking at the water.

“What?” Mioray blinked. “Where did that come from?”

“Mia is still avoiding me,” she said. “She won’t even look at me. She hasn’t forgiven me for what I had to do to Terry. I don’t want the same thing to happen with you.”

Mioray would be lying if he said he didn’t understand where Mia was coming from. After all, when she came back after blowing herself up in that suicide attack, Terry was already gone. Gone for good. Erinel was the one who put an end to him. It didn’t help that she showed no remorse for it, even if what she did had been necessary. If they had let Terry be, it would have turned into a disaster. Mioray knew that. Still, somewhere in the back of his mind, he kept wondering if there had been another way to stop Terry, to bring him back to his senses.

“You’re not terrible,” he said at last, and he meant it. “But keeping things from us isn’t right. It makes it feel like you don’t trust us. And when that happens, it’s hard for us to trust you back. If you let us in on your plans, we’d rely on you more, Erinel.”

“Is that so?” she asked, glancing at him.

“Yeah. I think it would help. A lot.”

“And what exactly do you think I’m keeping from you?”

Ah, she got him there. There was one little thing that had been weighing on him for a while. He kept telling himself it didn’t matter, but it did.

“What is your relationship with Lokiel?” he asked.

Erinel frowned and turned her face away. Mioray winced inwardly. He knew this was the wrong moment to bring it up, but he needed to know. He had to understand what he was dealing with. Erinel and Lokiel wore the same rings. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

“There is none,” she said coldly. “He’s just an underdeveloped fool.”

“And yet you called him here.”

“I didn’t,” Erinel replied, shaking her head. Wet strands of her hair caught the lantern light, glinting faintly violet. “We greanrips can contact each other from a distance, through plants and trees. To humans it sounds like nothing but rustling, but for us it’s a way of communicating. Any greanrip can pick up on it. I was only passing along information. I didn’t expect Lokiel to show up.”

Mioray could hear crickets singing, the water quietly gurgling. Leaves rustled in the trees as well. So could greanrips understand that sound? Could it really be a kind of language to them? Having such a convenient way to communicate with each other, Mioray could partly understand why Erinel never bothered getting a phone. She was used to speaking by entirely different means.

Still, he wasn’t fully convinced there was nothing connecting her to Lokiel. There had to be some history between them. But if she didn’t want to talk about it, there was no point forcing her. He chose a different question.

“And what information is that?” he asked. “That there are too many souls wandering around Reques City?”

“Not exactly,” Erinel said after a brief pause.

Something in the way she said it made Mioray uneasy. There was something wrong about it, but he couldn’t tell what. He had a feeling the answer wouldn’t be good. Bad enough that it didn’t even matter that Erinel was standing right next to him, naked.

“There are too many people who can see me,” she said in one breath.

Mioray took a step back. The implication was worse than he had expected.

“You mean living people?”

“Yes.”

“Okay… what does that mean?”

Of course he already had an idea. He just didn’t want to accept that it could be true.

“Well…” Erinel pressed her lips together for a moment. “Usually it means a disaster is coming. A flood, a hurricane, an earthquake. It can be anything, really. Something big enough to claim many lives.”

Mioray instinctively put more distance between them. That was exactly what he had been afraid of, and she had just confirmed it.

“And you’ve known about this for a while,” he said quietly, letting the breath leave his lungs. “Which means it’s going to happen soon?”

“That’s right. I’d say in a few days at most.”

It was so bad that for a moment Mioray felt like he might throw up. But he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t. He was already dead.

“What are we doing?” he said, his voice rising. “What are we doing here, Erinel? This… whatever this is. Why are we here when we should be warning everyone about what’s going to happen?”

“You don’t need to worry, Mioray. I made sure the people close to you, and the others as well, won’t be affected. They’ll live through it.”

“That’s not the point!” Mioray snapped, then realized too late how loud he had been. It wasn’t fair. Why was she looking at him like that? Like he had betrayed her. As if she had opened up because he asked her to, and now he was throwing it back at her.

Am I a terrible person? she had asked just minutes ago. I don’t want the same to happen with you, she had said.

She knew what was going to happen. She knew damn well, and she hadn’t said a word. Instead, she brought all of them to these stupid hot springs. He was standing in hot water, completely naked, furious like an idiot. Like a clown. Why would she do this? She couldn’t be that dense. She didn’t need to be human to understand how wrong this was. The others would be angry too when they found out. This would be on her. Entirely on her.

“Where are you going?” Erinel asked when Mioray stepped out of the water.

“I have to warn everyone about what’s coming,” he said, hurriedly pulling his swimming trunks back on. The whole situation felt absurd. “I don’t get it. Why didn’t you tell me before? Because I’d try to save them? Why are you doing everything like you want me to fail?”

“I don’t want you to fail, Mioray,” Erinel said in her usual calm way, as if she already knew better. “But I don’t want you to suffer either.”

Mioray only scoffed. He turned away and walked off, leaving Erinel alone in the night, filled with the sound of chirping crickets. He was determined to get back to his room as fast as possible. He had to do something. And he knew exactly the person who would answer his call even this late at night.

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