Page 2 of Peacemaker

And with Jin standing behind me, peering at a spot on the far wall, I opened my mind, and then, I opened the house.

For a second, the wanderer’s memories and fear and despair engulfed me, but I closed my eyes and pushed them away. They didn’t belong to me, and I wouldn’t need to keep them.

He appeared with a sound like the humming of old fluorescents, his image dim and wavering until finally, the world, the magic, and the house gave him back his body. Or a body. Perhaps it’d been his in another life, or perhaps it was only similar.

He didn’t appear to realize that he was now in possession of a physical body, or that Jin and I were aware of him.

He stayed crouched and slightly dazed, but suddenly his eyes widened and he put his palm on the old wood floor, then lifted his hand in front of his face and stared at it. “What is this? What is this?”

“Hello,” I said. “Welcome to the way station.”

Frozen, he stared at me, afraid to move or speak. Fear was in every line of his body. Maybe he thought if he didn’t move, I would no longer see him.

I pointed at the chair across the table from me. “Have a seat. I’m here to help you find your way, but first you’ll need to rest and get your bearings. Do you understand?”

He shook his head from side to side, slowly. “What’s happening?”

“Do you remember your death?”

“I remember losing my way,” he whispered.

I nodded. “You died a violent death.” Those were the people who ended up lost. They made no smooth transition. And they needed the way station to put them back on the right path.

He walked toward me, finally, hiding his genitals behind his borrowed hand, and sat down in the chair I’d indicated. “Am I alive, then? Have I come back to life?”

“Not exactly.”

“What…” He looked around the room, his shocked, confused expression slowly changing to one of plain wonder. “What do you mean?”

“The second you entered the way station, you…” I swallowed, tapped the table, cleared my throat. Delayed the inevitable.

I’d had a few people come through in the last two weeks—and each one of them had been devastated by the news I was forced to give them.

Jin, impatient as always, told him for me. “You have already begun to rot. You will be divested of your borrowed flesh in approximately one hour. You must be on your way before then, or you will be stuck as a useless ghost in limbo forever, and you will never find your paradise.”

“It has to be better than the path of nightmares you pulled me from,” the man murmured, surprising me. “I’d rather stay here than go back.”

“You don’t understand,” I said gently. “You won’t stay here as a spirit. You’ll be expelled back to the path you were on before you found the way station.”

He shuddered, and then he began to understand.

All the spirits described different paths, worlds, and experiences. But they all had one thing in common. Sheer horror. And some of them fought their expulsion.

Not all the spirits would have only an hour. Some of them had less time. Some of them seemed able to stay a little longer, and some of them, like Jin, could apparently hang around forever.

But those were the exceptions, and taking a chance usually meant a rotting corpse on the floor and a soul who was stuck forever.

We had to hurry.

“Jin,” I said. There was another reason I liked using the kitchen as the landing spot for the wanderers.

The Jikininki went to the huge fridge and pulled out a package, then walked to the table to set it in front of the visitor. “For you,” he said, magnanimously, as though he were the one who had decided to feed the spirits a special treat before they continued on their way.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Carson.” He tore open the package and then stared down at the tray he’d revealed. He delicately touched a package of cookies. “Is this real?”

“You have only a little while,” I told him. “But while you’re in this house, in that body, you can eat. Go on. Have some sugar and protein.”