Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day(21)

Brenda laughs. “Anyway. As I was saying: witches can’t go into what’s dead and gone. There’s no temptation for me in a can of corn. But that doesn’t mean it’s beyond my reach. They put corn in everything these days, thanks to the subsidies and the lobbyists. Short-sighted bastards, every damn one of them. Doesn’t mean I won’t take advantage.”

It takes me a moment to puzzle my way through what she’s saying. Then I stop, and stare at her. “Are you saying you . . . you witched my cats?”

“I’m saying I used the cornmeal in their food to clear up a few little medical problems they didn’t need to have,” says Brenda. “They’ll feel better, they’ll eat more, and they’ll still die whenever they were meant to, because nothing I did would give them any more time. They’ll just be happier until they go.”

I can’t be mad at her for that, no matter how uneasy I am about her using magic in my home. The cats deserve every moment of joy that they can get. “Corn witches are powerful, then, huh?”

“Why do you think we have so many lobbyists?” Brenda smiles as she turns off the stove. “Everything comes back to the soil it’s planted in. Remember that.”

“I’ll try.”

The back door bangs open, and there’s Delia, Avocado on her shoulder. The parrot is shrieking about bacon-bacon-bacon; my landlady is holding a wicker basket brimming with enough eggs to feed a small army. I don’t understand why until someone knocks on the front door, and Delia’s face splits in a smile.

“I may have invited a few people, sweetheart. I thought you could use a little cheer before you go off chasing shadows. Everyone gets a proper wake in this house. Now be a dear, and let them in.”

I can’t tell her no, even though I want to: this is her building, and I’m just a tenant. So I walk to the door, my shroud wisping into my daylight clothes, and hope that whoever she’s invited doesn’t frighten the cats too badly.

Whoever she’s invited turns out to be all the living tenants in the building. People I’ve never met pour into my apartment, exchanging greetings, trading names, settling in for breakfast. Some of them pet the cats. Some of them smile. All of them know Delia, who greets them like a proud parent, Avo sitting on her shoulder and gnawing on a strip of bacon. The whole scene feels familiar, eggs cooking in the pan and Brenda barking commands at anyone who wanders too close to her. One of the boys from downstairs stops by to thank me for a lovely breakfast, and I realize why this has me so on edge. It’s not the strangers in my space or the fact that Brenda and Delia didn’t ask me.

It’s that what Delia said was accurate. This feels like a funeral. This feels like a saying goodbye. When the last dish has been washed and the last visitor slips away, I’ll still be here, but my old existence will be over. I’ll be someone else, someone who works with witches instead of avoiding them, someone who looks for missing people instead of staying safe behind a phone and helping the lost find their own way home.

My first funeral was no fun. This one isn’t much better.

It takes a little over an hour for the occupants of my building to devour everything Brenda has cooked, everything Delia has provided. Then they stream out, some pausing to pet the cats, vanishing back into the halls and the safety of their own homes. I feel a pang of loss. I’ll likely never see most of them again. The fact that I’ve never seen most of them before doesn’t matter. They became a part of my world when they came to breakfast in my living room, and now I have something I can grieve for.

I should have made an effort. I should have met them before this. I should have lived.

The door closes behind the last guest. The only sound is Avo crunching on a piece of toast. The parrot has eaten enough to make up for the fact that I haven’t eaten anything at all, too nervous to stomach anything but air. I look to Brenda, and I wait.

“I don’t know where the other ghosts went,” says Brenda. “I know they were taken. I know someone out there is barring ghosts in glass. And I know Delia has to stay here.”

“I provide housing for more than just ghosts,” says Delia. She looks uncomfortable, like the words are bitter in her mouth. “There’s families, college students, people who’d be priced right out of what this city has turned into, if they didn’t have me to keep a roof over their heads.”

“What she’s not saying is that right now, she’s the senior ghost in Manhattan,” says Brenda. “That comes with certain responsibilities. One of them is staying here, in case new ghosts come along and need to be taught the rules of the city.”

“Delia’s always been good at doing that,” I say numbly.

“It was always just helping out in an unofficial capacity before,” says Delia. “Hopefully, it will be again soon, when those other ghosts come back. I don’t want to be in charge of anything. Being in charge of things will interfere with my painting something fierce.”

I laugh. I can’t help it.

The phone rings.

We all turn toward it. I’m the first to find my voice. “No one from the hotline would be calling me at this hour, and today’s my day off from work,” I say. “No one should be calling me at all.” Because that’s the real tragedy of being a dead girl in a world filled with the living: no one calls. No one comes over for breakfast. I am a tourist here, in a place where I never belonged, and there are very few people who would miss me if I were gone.