Stacia Kane: Home

But now she had the forms and herbs she needed and she was going to bust them for their rather creepy sex game, and now she had three Cepts and a couple of lines of speed working their warm and delightful way through her bloodstream, so she had reason to be cheerful.

Mrs. Solomon obviously didn’t feel the same. Her face darkened when she saw Chess on that pitiful porch.

“Hi, Mrs. Solomon. I’d like to talk to you and your husband.”

“We really don’t have time right now, Miss Putnam, I’m afraid—”

“It’ll only take a few minutes.” Chess pushed past her into the living room, where she plunked herself down on one of the two armchairs and started messing about with the papers in the file she’d brought. Not that she needed to. She knew where they were, which papers she needed. But it made her look official, and distracted her from the sandalwood smell.

“This isn’t—”

“Come sit down.” Chess’s smile was starting to hurt her cheeks.

Mrs. Solomon looked toward the kitchen, from which Mr. Solomon was emerging with a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. “We were just— Doug, can you tell her we’re busy?”

“Maybe Joe can tell me,” Chess suggested.

The Solomons froze. For some reason, the sight of Mr. Solomon, sandwich still in hand, mouth full of food, body stiff as a board, made Chess want to giggle. Or, well, it was probably a combination of Mr. Solomon looking rather silly and how fucking good she felt.

Good physically—great physically—and she and Terrible had slept late and spent the afternoon hanging out in his big gray bed, and he loved her and she loved him and that was the most amazing thing. Which made her feel good, well, non-physically, too.

“Come, sit down,” she said again, indicating the couch. “Let’s talk, and there are some forms I’d like you to sign. I have a list of attorneys for you—you’ll probably want one, of course, but—”

“Please don’t.” Mrs. Solomon’s voice broke. “Please. It’s not what you think.”

“Oh? It’s not Mr. Solomon here Hosting a spirit so you can have sex with it?” A long silence. Mr. Solomon sat down, placing the sandwich on the side table and resting his hand on Mrs. Solomon’s knee. She covered it with her own. Kind of a sweet little gesture, a sad one.

But ghosts were dangerous. Not to mention that what the Solomons were doing could conceivably be ghost abuse, which wasn’t any less serious than Summoning ghosts in order to kill people. They’d broken the law for their kinky thrills, and they had to go down for it. So to speak. In the legal, being-imprisoned-and-executed way.

Mr. Solomon cleared his throat. “It’s not like that. It’s— Joe is…”

“He’s our third,” Mrs. Solomon said. “He’s our lover. It’s not just sex. We love him.” Right. Sure they did. “Mrs. Solomon, regardless of why you’re breaking the law and endangering your neighbors—”

“I would never hurt anyone,” Mr. Solomon interrupted, and at the same moment Chess’s skin started trying to leave her body. Silver covered his eyes, a thin sheen Chess could still see through. Like a shiny film. “I know what you think but I wouldn’t.”

“You’re Joe, I assume.”

He nodded. “Joseph Bayer. And I am not a killer. I’m not like that. I— Doug and Moxie…I love them. I love them, and they love me.”

A trickle of…something…started crawling up Chess’s spine. Discomfort, maybe? Sadness?

What?

Mrs. Solomon glanced at her husband, or rather, at the ghost in her husband’s body, then turned back to Chess. “We used to have parties, as you know. One week we decided to try summoning a ghost. I know, Miss Putnam. I can’t imagine now why we took such a risk, but we did.”

“They summoned me,” Joe said. “I saw the hole and I leapt for it. Miss Putnam, you can’t imagine what it’s like in the City, how cold, how—”

“I’ve been there.”

Definitely discomfort now. Yes, Chess had been to the City of Eternity, the enormous underground cavern where the dead were imprisoned. The enormous underground cavern everyone seemed to think was a beautiful, peaceful place, the enormous underground cavern in which everyone was thrilled to know they’d live forever. Not Chess. To her it was a hell she never wanted to visit, a place so horrible it made even living worthwhile.

Joe’s shoulder relaxed. “Then you know. They’re…they’re more normal, when no living people are around. They’re just like regular people, most of them. But some of them…they never get over being dead, and they’re so angry. It’s awful. It’s awful to be around them. Doug and Moxie saved me.”

“We started summoning him every week,” Mrs. Solomon continued. “And eventually he started hanging around after everyone left, and…we fell in love.” Again her voice went hoarse. She cleared her throat and went on, her eyes damp. “We did some research. We found out how Doug could Host Joe and how we could make the house a spirit home to keep him safe. Our friends all helped us do the rituals. And we’ve been together ever since, the three of us.”

Joe smiled; he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “The three of us.” The silver sheen left Doug Solomon’s eyes. “We love each other. Joe and I can talk, you see, we experience things together. I’m never alone, because he’s there. Moxie is never alone, because we’re both here. We share my body, and I’m happy to share it with him because…because I love him.” He coughed, wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand like a little boy embarrassed at being caught crying.

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Mrs. Solomon sniffled. “But we’re just…we’re in love.

Joe is our third. He’s part of us. He’s…he’s just part of us. He’s like the missing part we never knew was missing, and we can’t— To lose him… Please, please don’t.” Chess shifted in her seat, looked up at the ceiling, over at the far wall, Mrs. Solomon’s sobs cutting into her flesh. Her own eyes stung. Yeah, she did understand. She did know.

Six months before she wouldn’t have, and she probably would have been calling the Squad at that very moment.

Which was what she should be doing. No matter what the motive, Hosting a spirit was illegal. Consorting with a spirit was illegal. The Solomons were committing a serious crime.

But she’d done it too, hadn’t she? That sigil on Terrible’s chest, the one saving his life—

that was a serious crime. A forbidden sigil. The psychopomp—a hawk, which had been coming to collect his soul the night he’d almost been killed, the psychopomp she’d shot dead because she couldn’t bear to lose him—that was a serious crime. If it was ever discovered, if anyone ever learned that she’d killed that hawk to prevent it from carrying his soul to the City, that she’d illegally locked Terrible’s soul to his body to keep him alive, she’d be executed. They wouldn’t give a shit that she was Church, that she had a great Debunking record, or that she’d done it because the thought of a world without Terrible in it made her literally want to die. Even the City wasn’t as bad as a life without him would be. She’d committed a capital crime, and if that was discovered she would die for it.

But it would be worth it, because that crime had meant she wasn’t alone anymore, that she would never be alone again. It meant some of the emptiness inside her was gone and would never come back as long as he was there to fill it. It meant that she actually had someone she could trust, someone she could depend on, someone who made her feel special and beautiful and good, like a whole person, like someone who wasn’t dirty and wrong and worthless. He did all of that for her because he loved her, and because she loved him, and every day she thought about that with the kind of gratitude she’d previously only felt for the Church and various pharmaceutical companies.