revealing nothing but slight drifts of dust. Shadows had no place here. I stood back slightly and looked up, realizing that the building was maybe fifteen stories tall, all of them identically holed with glassless windows, and I was certain that each room and floor was the same sterile, deserted emptiness.
Scott nudged against me as he walked by, and when I glanced down I realized that he had done so on purpose.
There were several more wraiths moving along the street. Two of them walked, strutting purposefully together, their expressions and facial features similar. They wore bathing shorts and nothing else, their torsos and limbs dark with suntan, faces young and strong and long, long dead. They did not touch each other as they strode by, and they exuded contempt, staring straight ahead and doing nothing to acknowledge the other’s closeness. Another shape seemed to float and spin through the air, but as she passed by I realized that she was falling horizontally, clothes ripped from her body by the invisible wind that whipped her hair around her head, face and shoulders. She may have been beautiful, but the forces crushing her this way and that were too cruel to tell. She passed over the heads of the striding brothers and cornered at the end of the street, her fall unimpeded. Two more shapes came by separately, neither of them appearing to notice us. One shouted silently and waved fists at the sky, and the other struggled on footless legs, stumping his way along and swinging his arms for balance, as if pushing through mud. One of his hands brushed mine, I saw it but did not feel it—
He was in the sea, trapped by a giant clam that had closed around both feet, his muscles burning acid into his bones as he struggled to keep his nose high enough to snort in a desperate breath between waves, and even though the salt water was doing its best to blind him, he could see the boat bobbing a few feet away, the faces peering over the edge, laughing so much as their tears of mirth fell to quicken his fate—
I gasped and pressed myself back against the wall, watching the dead man hobble away.
Scott had remained in the center of the narrow street, staring about him as the new shapes breezed by. Perhaps they touched him, but he seemed not to have noticed. With the taste of brine still on my lips I went to him, desperate to feel someone real again. I clapped my hand to his shoulder, held on hard, followed his gaze. High buildings, that blue light, no sign of where we had come from… and high up, sometimes, darker blue shapes sweeping by.
“What are they?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But Pete, Matthew is here. He has to be! I have to find him, and however long it takes…” He left the sentence unfinished, ominous with possibilities.
“These aren’t just ghosts,” I said.
“Not ghosts, no!” He shook his head as if frustrated at my naivete. “Dead people, Pete.”
“There’s nothing to them!”
“Do you have to feel something for it to be real or mean anything? Can you touch your dreams, taste your imagination? They’re as real as we are, just not in quite the same place, the same way. And they’re here because they were wronged.”
“How could you know all this?”
“You think I haven’t been looking for this place?” he said. “Poring over every scrap of ancient script I’ve discovered, or uncovered in some godforsaken old library somewhere? Tearing apart whole digs by hand to find a fragment of writing about it, a shred of evidence? Ever since I first got wind of this place the year Matthew died, it’s been my only reason to keep on living.”
“Matthew? Why… ?”
He looked at me then, a quick glance, as if he was unwillingly to relinquish the sight of our unbelievable surroundings. “I wasn’t there when he died.”
“He died of leukemia, Scott,” I said.
“I should have been there.”
“You couldn’t have done anything! He died of leukemia. Just tell me what you could have
Scott nudged against me as he walked by, and when I glanced down I realized that he had done so on purpose.
There were several more wraiths moving along the street. Two of them walked, strutting purposefully together, their expressions and facial features similar. They wore bathing shorts and nothing else, their torsos and limbs dark with suntan, faces young and strong and long, long dead. They did not touch each other as they strode by, and they exuded contempt, staring straight ahead and doing nothing to acknowledge the other’s closeness. Another shape seemed to float and spin through the air, but as she passed by I realized that she was falling horizontally, clothes ripped from her body by the invisible wind that whipped her hair around her head, face and shoulders. She may have been beautiful, but the forces crushing her this way and that were too cruel to tell. She passed over the heads of the striding brothers and cornered at the end of the street, her fall unimpeded. Two more shapes came by separately, neither of them appearing to notice us. One shouted silently and waved fists at the sky, and the other struggled on footless legs, stumping his way along and swinging his arms for balance, as if pushing through mud. One of his hands brushed mine, I saw it but did not feel it—
He was in the sea, trapped by a giant clam that had closed around both feet, his muscles burning acid into his bones as he struggled to keep his nose high enough to snort in a desperate breath between waves, and even though the salt water was doing its best to blind him, he could see the boat bobbing a few feet away, the faces peering over the edge, laughing so much as their tears of mirth fell to quicken his fate—
I gasped and pressed myself back against the wall, watching the dead man hobble away.
Scott had remained in the center of the narrow street, staring about him as the new shapes breezed by. Perhaps they touched him, but he seemed not to have noticed. With the taste of brine still on my lips I went to him, desperate to feel someone real again. I clapped my hand to his shoulder, held on hard, followed his gaze. High buildings, that blue light, no sign of where we had come from… and high up, sometimes, darker blue shapes sweeping by.
“What are they?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But Pete, Matthew is here. He has to be! I have to find him, and however long it takes…” He left the sentence unfinished, ominous with possibilities.
“These aren’t just ghosts,” I said.
“Not ghosts, no!” He shook his head as if frustrated at my naivete. “Dead people, Pete.”
“There’s nothing to them!”
“Do you have to feel something for it to be real or mean anything? Can you touch your dreams, taste your imagination? They’re as real as we are, just not in quite the same place, the same way. And they’re here because they were wronged.”
“How could you know all this?”
“You think I haven’t been looking for this place?” he said. “Poring over every scrap of ancient script I’ve discovered, or uncovered in some godforsaken old library somewhere? Tearing apart whole digs by hand to find a fragment of writing about it, a shred of evidence? Ever since I first got wind of this place the year Matthew died, it’s been my only reason to keep on living.”
“Matthew? Why… ?”
He looked at me then, a quick glance, as if he was unwillingly to relinquish the sight of our unbelievable surroundings. “I wasn’t there when he died.”
“He died of leukemia, Scott,” I said.
“I should have been there.”
“You couldn’t have done anything! He died of leukemia. Just tell me what you could have
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