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  Heat built in the edges of things; I sweated in my jeans and Pepper was panting when we reached the old Novak place. As I had hoped, meth-freaks Mark and Mindy or whatever they were, did not seem to be home. Bringing Pepper with me to intimidate the portal guardians would have worked just fine had they been here. Perhaps they were on a break or called away to see about another portal intrusion. It was all too easy to descend the cellar stairs and walk into the bomb shelter unhindered. No one to stop us entering the portal: another worry to add to the gathering long list of concerns: Jonah’s absence; where was Dom? Did Ivy have Bijou?

  My darling nephew added another: “The party is tomorrow night.”

  My hand, half-way through the murky, damp veil, stopped. I pulled it back to look at him. “What party?”

  In the light of my tiny flashlight I could see his head swivel back and forth as he took in the bunks, cupboards, ancient stove, tiny breakfast nook with no view except of cement. I remember my grandmother had pasted a poster of a Caribbean beach over it. “Mae’s party. Ms. Caplan is going to read the entire book. We’re going to record it for Friends of the Dead and beam it around the world.”

  Meredith Caplan again. I could call for her assassination, but that would only martyrize her for her adoring cadre of sycophantic students. I disliked being reminded that FOD needed to be discouraged from holding the wake—not really a wake, but more like ritual sacrifice—otherwise Mae would produce a frightening manifestation of violence. Seeing what she could do with wind and property was only a polite warning compared to what she might be capable of. If Meredith could see reason and call it off, I might have a chance. But I couldn’t do that now.

  Instead I had to go see a man about a ghost. The veil opened, and we stepped through.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Pink Poodle

  Three of us, woman, boy and dog, came to stand on a river bank in opal sand, our faces laved by a crisp breeze. But we were not alone. Another stood beside us, and it was not Virgil.

  “Zoe! How did you get here?” I had heard her sharp intake of breath as we manifested on the shore of the river. Turning, I grabbed Zoe’s arm where she stood behind me. Bruce let out a short laugh, but it fell dead and silent in this cold place.

  “Don’t be mad.” In a sweat shirt that came down to her knees and pink stretchy yoga pants—from somewhere she had found a ball cap, and it sat backward on her head—she showed me her teeth in a terrified smile. “I had to come with you. I have to make sure you’re all right.”

  “It’s not the job of children to make sure adults are all right,” I snapped. I couldn’t leave her here on the shore, I didn’t want to fight with her to get her back over, and if she came with us, I would have to be mindful of where she was at all times.

  I stared at her. She glanced away, toward the river.

  Shaking my head, I did not return my daughter’s apologetic smile. So she shrugged and gave me a look chillingly similar to one of Ivy’s: what’s done is done. Let’s get going.

  Pepper’s tail see-sawed back and forth—at least someone was glad to see Zoe. Zoe wore her green backpack and the sight of it stuffed with items she thought she might need for a journey to Phantom City incredibly pushed tears up behind my eyes. Swallowing, I realized I was either sleep-deprived or verging on PMS. But I also knew I loved my daughter more than anything on earth or in Hell.

  “OK, how did you do it? I didn’t see you following us.” Here was something I simply didn’t understand.

  Pressing her lips together in a blatant Zoe-manner: how much should I tell Mom?, she thought for a moment. “Aunt Ivy didn’t want you to know, but she has a little portal in her master bathroom.” She shrugged again, her forehead crinkled with misgiving. “I can fit in, but it’s really small. She told me about it while you were trying to get the diary.”

  Covering my mouth with my hand, I nodded. How could I have forgotten the medicine chest in the master bathroom? If you carefully took everything out and pressed on the back wall, the veil would open. In fact, it was through this portal I took my very first journey to Phantom City when I was the same age as Zoe. Fear of the unknown never stopped any nine-year-old Novak.

  I breathed deeply of the vapors of Hell. “OK, but you stay with Pepper the entire time. In fact, you take her leash and don’t let go. Not once, you understand? Unless I tell you to.”

  Taking the leash, she nodded, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Standing on the shore in the curiously heavy air, I said, “Listen, all three of you. You will do as I say. I will hear no arguments. We must stay together. Don’t talk to any spirits. If they touch you, do nothing. Don’t listen to anything they say. Now be quiet and let me figure out where we are.”

  Not that anyone said much except me, and my voice sounded dead and flat against the moaning chorus rising from the River Cocytys, river of wailing waters. Phantom City was just the other side of this river; while the noisiest, it was the easiest to cross of all the four rivers of Hell. My rusty skills managed to bring us to these shores, not to the River Piryphlegethon, the fiery.

  Stars spilled across a black night sky. Behind us, Dante and Virgil’s famous Wood shouldered up to the strand of beach where we stood. Leo was directly in front of us; as I looked right, or north, I could see Gemini and Cancer. Somewhere between, northwest, lay the City of the Dead where I was most likely to find ghosts of those still with business with the living.

  I turned to my nephew. “OK, lead us across.”

  Pale light smoothed Bruce’s face, pressed a babyish mask over him. A massive child—I could see him struggle with what he had to do. Ivy had brought him here once, he told me on the way over to the house, showed him what he could do. As he described it, a look of cautious pride came and went on his man-boy face.

  Then as Novaks have done over the centuries, he entered the waters of Hell.

  As he waded into the black water, his bulk turned the wavelets into silver chains under the starlight. Behind him, the river bottom appeared between low walls of held-back water flanking a narrow channel. I imagined that, with each step, Bruce grew seconds older, shed his youth-like molting feathers. Age groped at us, but death could snatch and seize. The Dead Zone shook emotions out onto the ground like salt. Taking Zoe by the hand, Pepper leading, we followed Bruce between the flood.

  Zoe and I followed Pepper’s huge paw prints through silt laid down in flakes of skin and bones. Wailing water-voices crescendoed into eerie high-pitched moans and soprano shrieks. Curious, I touched the wall of water and it felt gauzy like thick layers of tissue paper. A jungle smell of human richness filled our noses.

  “Mom, look, he’s swimming.” Zoe pointed ahead at Bruce.

  In sure strong strokes, gliding through the water above as if he were flying, Bruce parted the stream behind him. The River Cocytys was very wide, but shallow. It seemed to take forever, but in less than five minutes Bruce reached the far shore and began to wade, separating the river. Climbing from the depth and into the shallows, we stood on the shores of Hell.

  Behind us the river screamed and cried, throwing a tantrum at our daring to interfere with its course.

  “How does it go back to normal?” Zoe asked Bruce. Perfectly dry, a little out of breath, my nephew resembled a noble god in a fleece jacket.

  “In about thirty minutes, the path will disappear.” He blew on his hands, gave her a smile. “It would be nice if we could get back before that.”

  I didn’t reply. I had no idea how long this was going to take, but I was fairly certain it would take more than a half an hour to find Jonah. And I had another mission in mind that I had told none of my companions about.

  Standing on a shore of pink and white stones, we watched the sky turn into a negative of itself: surface milky white, stars a ragged flock of black crows., landscape a melting oil painting, hues flowing into rivulets of time.

  The beach shouldered between the river and a bluff the color of coffee. Scarring the face of the bluf
f was a path of lighter stones leading to the top. From there we would be able to see Phantom City. On my very first visit to Hell I had only gotten this far.

  We followed a gentle incline winding between ridges of stone. Zoe picked up a rock and handed it to me. It was light, like pumice. Or Styrofoam.

  When we got to the top a cold wind met us. So far Hell was true to expected detail: cold, dim, barren. Novak lore, from a family whose roots went back to the Middle Ages, perhaps combined to invent this country. Aunt Ivana thought up the icy wind reminding her of the Steppes. Uncle Vlad concocted the rolling featureless plain as a sacrifice to suffering. Cousin Petra imagined the shifting milky sky, maybe because she loved ice cream. It was too disturbing to imagine.

  Far across the rocky moon-plain rose the City. What insane three-year-old had thought up this place? Rising from the plain not a quarter mile away, I could see lilac spires, blocky barns, green domes. The City’s garish colors spread like tumbled toys across the horizon to the north and west.

  Complaining as much as the Wailing River, the wind shoved as if trying to turn us away. Zoe pulled her hood over her head. Bruce stoically walked forward, his only concession to feeling cold his hands in his pockets.

  The white pebble trail led straight into the City; we were the only moving objects on the plain, at least the visible ones. Our feet crunched on gravel, our breaths the only sound except for the moaning wind. Zoe’s hand tightened in mine.

  Pepper strained against her leash, catching the scent of Cerberus, guardian of the City. I took the leash back from Zoe.

  Small houses made out of tin lay all around as if discarded by a child in a sandbox. Many lay on their sides, corners buried. If anything lived in them, they did not make themselves known to us.

  As we entered the City we caught the scent of a mixture of smells: woodsmoke, seaweed, heavy perfume, mold. Hairs of warning ruffled Pepper’s coat. Among buildings in eye-jarring colors of chartreuse and hot pink, windows blank with no glass, doors ajar like gaping mouths, the wind was not so noisy. Cerberus was on our scent now. I walked slower, feeling as if we were tasted in the city’s mouth, savored before the swallow came and juices and muscles sucked us into the stomach of Hell. Coming to a stop at the juncture of a gravel trail veering toward the north, while our road struck due west, I looked around. Silence fell on everything. My ears rang.

  City buildings gaped at us like awestruck children. No spirits in this part of the city. Maybe they were afraid of Cerberus. Pepper growled and I tightened my hold on her leash. Zoe slid her arm around mine. Bruce on my left, a foot or so away, pushed his hands in his pockets, his chin elevated as he looked around.

  Above in the milky sky black stars circled like interested hawks. My hands turned to ice.

  I heard what Pepper heard yards before. Slow tread on the gravel; one heavy step, another; an indrawn breath, faint, but cavernous. From somewhere ahead, inside the city.

  All we had to do was wait. Nudging Zoe behind me, I held onto Pepper, whose nose pointed toward the northwest, ears forward. Head down.

  Cerberus had to be compensated for smoothing our way into the City, like a concierge. For any dog, a game should more than suffice. Few live dogs ever came and went to Hell and back. At least that is what I learned from a family member as one way to get around Cerberus.

  I hoped they were right. A doggy smell, trembling ground, or was it myself trembling? In the street in a High Noon sort of way, we stood in arrow formation, Pepper at the point, Bruce, Zoe and me its flared edges.

  Where the northward-bound street curved to the left around a three-story structure encrusted with mosaics, Cerberus came into view.

  Chapter Twelve

  My Hour in Hell

  I didn’t exactly expect the three-headed dog beast with the neck and tail of a dragon and dozens of viper heads along its back, but the dog walking toward us was something I had never seen before. Certainly a dog, but not the dog of myth described by Roman poets, sometimes friendly, sometimes not, eating seed cake thrown by the souls of the dead.

  Pepper pulled forward; it was all I could do to hold her as she barked once, deep and menacing, her tail wagging.

  Behind me Bruce squelched a guffaw. I was grateful he had the presence of mind not to laugh out loud. But Zoe dropped the hem of my jacket, came around me, pointed, opened her mouth and just in time I clamped my hand over it.

  Before us stood an enormous poodle, 15 feet tall, pink-dyed fur in classic poodle cut, a pom-pom mane around his chest and shoulders, circlets of fur on all four ankles, puff ball on the end of his tail. It was not wagging.

  I wondered which ancestor I had to thank for this. Cerberus looked as if he hadn’t been groomed in a while or had just taken a dip in the River Styx. Eying us warily, he approached, setting one massive paw on the white concrete-like pavement beneath our feet. Bruce pulled a packet of beef jerky out of his pocket, but I shook my head. Reaching down, keeping my gaze on Cerberus’s eyes, I unclicked Pepper’s leash.

  She bounded forward, toe-nails scrabbling on the pavement as she gained speed. Going straight for Cerberus, ears flapping, she passed him at the last second, swerved to the right, bolted around him. His head swiveled to look at her; he seemed unimpressed, far more interested in the beef jerky Bruce held in his hand.

  “Mom showed me this. It worked last time.” Walking toward the beast, Bruce held out the jerky, his hand trembling. Behind Cerberus Pepper barked, performed a play bow, circled Cerberus again, dancing, trying to interest him in a game.

  Beef jerky was clearly on his mind. He took a step, then another, and lowered his long nose, stretching out his neck like a suspicious stray. He breathed like a winter wind and with him came the scent of wet fur. I stood my ground as he approached, holding onto Zoe’s hand.

  Nipping the jerky so quickly I was sure Bruce had lost his hand, Cerberus took a step back, gulped the jerky down. I doubted it would be sufficient and I hoped Bruce had stowed a case of it somewhere, but Cerberus gave his head a shake and sat down.

  Great drops of stinky river-water stung us when he shook, ears flapping. Pepper stood next to him; he looked down at her, pushed his great nose under her butt to investigate, and a second later his tail began to wag.

  The thumping tail sound echoed through the City. As if all motion in the City had been stilled by our encounter with Cerberus, it breathed again. Tail-thumping a signal that the visitors were approved to enter? The quiet around us, unbroken by even the wind or ringing in my ears, moved aside for a new sound. People.

  Zoe’s hand tightened in mine. Beyond where Cerberus nuzzled Pepper was a curve in the road. Stepping onto a blue stone sidewalk fronting a series of window-less structures, I started walking, Zoe and Bruce following. Hissing, the sound of corduroy rubbing against itself filled the air. The strange breath of Hell pushed against us, air of a country we had never breathed. It tasted of the dead.

  Bruce cursed under his breath, Zoe pulled on my hand to stop, but I kept going. At the end of curving street I saw a square. Blurs filmed my eyes; I blinked, rubbed, but that made no difference because the visual disturbance was not in my eyes. Around us, the dead flicked in and out of view, appearing and disappearing, allowing themselves to be seen, altering space and light. By the time we reached the square the dead were with us. In moments, they populated the entire area.

  Under the shifting milky sky, we stood in the park which I remembered Aunt Rosie named Revenant Square, surrounded on four sides by garishly-colored lopsided buildings. One had a curved wall leaning away with windows shaped like human eyes. Another flanked by wings resembled the haunches of a sphinx. On all four sides, avenues filled with traffic.

  Shrieks of laughter burst from an establishment like a giant orange with the words Quantum Saloon emblazoned in metallic green above its doorway. Ghosts rode past on tandem bicycles, pulling others in Radio Fliers, a sort of public transportation that included rickshaws and rolling somersaults. I felt as if I had walked into the circus of
the insane.

  All this had stayed invisible while we negotiated with Cerberus. Zoe gasped at the sight of a ghost juggling three small ghosts, and several more trying to construct a ghost-pyramid, failing when the final ghost climbed on top, tumbling to the ground. In seconds they regrouped to try again.

  Spirits were clothed in suits and ball gowns and saris and kimonos in clashing, riotous colors. Some wore nothing at all. For the most part they ignored us, engrossed in games with over-sized playing cards and in trying to walk on their hands. Skin milky like the sky, hair long, shaggy, bald or trained up on scaffolds. All ages abounded here. I wondered what they had done in life, and why they chose to stay in Phantom City. Why had they chosen this place of the mind, this one oasis in the millions of imagined universes where they could have spent eternity?

  But I couldn’t stop to ask. I wasn’t supposed to speak to anyone until they spoke first, but I forgot the reason why. I hoped it wasn’t a critical taboo, because I came here to speak with my ex-husband or even a dead baby. We made our way across the square on a sort of plastic grass. No trees in the park, but it was crisscrossed with pathways and benches occupied by ghosts of every description, lounging on the seats or sitting on the backs.

  After a few moments I realized a group of ghosts had attached themselves to us and were following. One in particular, an old man with a bolt of white hair kept moving in front of me, bowing and smiling. He had perfect dentures and wore a hearing aid, and was dressed in a suit and tie. Finally I stopped half-way across the square, wondering how to ask after Jonah. I wasn’t sure how to communicate with him, and I fought for a solution. Sign language? Morse code with flashlight? Neither of which skill I possessed.

  The old ghost man bowed at me, and smiled at Zoe and Bruce. Holding onto my daughter’s hand, I opened my mouth.