Christopher Moore - Secondhand Souls

“Yep.” She nodded, plowing a nose-shaped furrow into her orange sherbet.

“Okay, I need you to do that. With this rat.”

“You said never, ever.”

“I know, honey, but this creature is suffering, so this would help it.”

“Audrey said that life is suffering.”

“You can’t listen to her, she’s a crazy woman. No, I need you to try it. Just point at the rat and say the word.”

“Okay,” Sophie said. “Hold this.” She handed Charlie her cone and crouched down.

She pointed to the rat, looked over her shoulder at Charlie, just to make sure, and he nodded.

“Kitty,” she said.

Lily was sitting at her call station, headset on, tablet before her, watching a French film about a man who goes insane when he shaves off his mustache, when her line rang. She could see on the terminal that it was one of the hard lines from the Golden Gate Bridge. She paused her movie, took a deep breath, and connected.

“Crisis hotline. This is Lily. What’s your name?”

“Hi Lily, this is Mike Sullivan.”

“Hi, Mike. How are you doing today.”

“Lily, this is Mike Sullivan . The Mike Sullivan who jumped…”

Lily stopped breathing for a second. No one who had actually jumped had called back before. She wasn’t sure she was trained for this. Sure, she would have ignored the training, but it would be nice to have it to fall back on.

“So, Mike, it says here you’re on the bridge, on one of the hard lines.”

“Yes. I’m just sort of connected. I don’t know how.”

“So, you’re not, like, standing there talking into the speaker box or anything?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m just sort of here. Not physically, but it feels like I’m talking to you.”

“You’re calling from the other side?” Lily said.

“What? Marin? No, right on the bridge.”

“It is you!” His doofuscocity had transcended even death.

“I’m here, Lily. On the bridge, like Concepción promised, like I thought it would be—well, not like I thought it would be, but I’m here. So it worked? Did Charlie get my body?”

“Yes, but that was a while ago. Do you not have the same perception of time?”

“It did seem to take a long time to figure out how to get through to you. I tried asking people on the bridge, even risked going to one of my old coworkers. Nothing. I don’t have whatever it is that Concepción and the others had to appear to me.”

“Maybe it was you,” said Lily. “Not them.”

“Really?”

“You’re talking to me from beyond the grave, although not literally. A lot of people have been on that bridge over the last seventy-five years, yet you’re the one she picked.”

“Oh, yeah. How’s your friend doing with my body?”

“He seems pretty comfortable. He’s boning a nun with it.”

“Oh no!”

“No, it’s okay. She’s into it. You met her.”

“Oh, Audrey?”

“Yes. So, what’s it like being dead?” Lily was suddenly aware of the other counselors in the room looking at her, which normally didn’t bother her. Sage was writing down the time on a Post-it, no doubt so she could find the call on the recordings when she reported Lily. “Just a second, Mike.” She’d forgotten for a moment that all the calls were being recorded.

She pressed the mute key and turned to Sage. “This guy thinks he’s a ghost,” she said. “I just need to indulge his delusions long enough to figure out how to get him down. You want to take over? I can put him on hold, probably.”

“No. Go ahead,” said Sage. “Sorry.”

“I’m back, Mike. You okay? One of my co-counselors was noting the time for the recording.”

“Recording? That’s not good, is it?”

“I just need to get you safely off that bridge, Mike,” she said, louder than was necessary.

“Well, I just called to tell you that I was okay, better than okay. I’m, well, I’m not just the me you’ve met, I’m a lot of people. And there are others here. Thousands.”

“Mike, as a trained crisis counselor, I’m not qualified or authorized to give you a diagnosis, but if someone less grounded than you were to say that—that he was ‘ a lot of people, ’ then I would have to recommend he seek counseling.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

“Not really a mystery that you didn’t have any friends in life, Mike.”

“Oh, the recording. Right. I need to know if you guys found the Ghost Thief yet. Concepción says we need to hurry.”

“Not yet, Mike. We’re trying to figure that one out.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks. Keep trying. I guess I won’t jump today, Lily. You’ve changed my outlook. I’m going to go seek some counseling right now.” He was possibly the worst liar she’d ever heard.

“Wait, Mike—”

He disconnected. Lily looked over her shoulder to see if Sage was still listening, but the frizzy-haired traitor in cargo pants was already on her way to the director’s office.

Well, she’s totally useless,” Charlie said as he entered the apartment.

Sophie ran by him into the apartment—wailing like a tiny fire engine—through the great room where Jane and Cassie were sitting, and into her room. She slammed the door.

Jane sat up, wineglass in hand. “I’m suddenly feeling a lot better about my parenting skills.”

Sophie opened her door and poked her head out. “I liked you better when you were dead!” she shouted at Charlie. She slammed the door again.

“So, good first day back?” asked Cassie.

Charlie plopped down on the couch next to his sister. “She can’t even kill a rat that’s already circling the drain. In fact, I think he perked up a little. She kept pointing and saying, ‘Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!’ but nothing happened. A couple walking down the other side of the street gave me smiling pity nods because they thought she was slow.”

“You’re not supposed to say slow,” said Cassie. “It’s unkind. Although, Jane always says it.”

“That’s because she takes like an hour to vacuum the living room, not the developmentally kind of slow.”

“Unkind,” said Cassie.

Charlie scooted away from Jane on the couch. “You make a seven-year-old vacuum the living room? That’s horrible. You’re like a wicked stepmother.”

“First, I pay that child a living wage; second, the reason it takes her so long is because she gets to do whatever she wants during the process; and third, she wants to be a princess, so a wicked stepmother is like a pre-rec.”

“Well she’s not going to be a princess. She’s not even the Luminatus anymore.”

“You told her she isn’t the Luminatus?”

“Well, of course. I need to keep her safe.”

“Jane wouldn’t even tell her that she wasn’t a vegan,” said Cassie.

“It’s not a diet thing,” said Jane. “She really wants to fit in.”

“But she’s not a vegan, right?” Charlie said. “Lily said you told her she could eat animals that only eat vegetables.”

“Yeah, that’s when she was a vegetarian. Now that she’s a vegan she only eats orange food: mac and cheese, carrots, sweet and sour pork.”

“Sweet and sour pork is not vegan.”

“The kid had two dogs the size of cows at her command. If she wants sweet and sour pork to be vegan, then it is.”

“So you just let her do whatever she wants—run around here like a crazed barbarian.”

“She likes to think of herself as a warrior princess,” said Cassie.

“Are you guys fighting?” Charlie asked.

“It’s how we show affection,” said Cassie.

“Honestly, I’m kind of sad she’s not the Luminatus,” said Jane, slouching on the couch. “I feel bad for her. Plus, it really got me through discussions in line at Whole Foods. When the other mothers were going on about how awesome their kids were, I’d think: Oh, your little Riley is an all-star in youth soccer, can play Bach on the cello, speaks Mandarin, and has a brown belt in ballet? Well, Sophie is the Luminatus. DEATH! The grim reaper. The big D. She rules the Underworld and can vaporize demons with a wave of a hand. She’s guarded by indestructible hellhounds that can eat steel and burp fire, so your little Riley can lick dog drool off my Sophie’s spiky red Louboutins, bitch! Now I’ll never be able to say that.”