Calliope: Then, There Were Three By Imani Wagner (Short Twelve)

Callope, Mavis, and Azrael receive the ghostliest lead yet on the case of The Mad Scientist.

If you've been keeping up with Calliope's story after all of this time, thank you for your support. - Imani

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In front of me was my second Banquet dinner of the day. I spent all of Saturday watching VHS tapes of my favorite cartoons. Next up was season one of Dragon Tales. The screen's glowing color bounced off the glossy redwood-stained television stand. My mother sat on the sofa behind me, flipping through a magazine only after licking her finger first to separate its crisp pages. She sat with one of both legs tucked underneath her and used her toes to play with a growing ragged hole in the sofa's cushion. She hadn't said a word to me since she got home from work. The Dragon Tales theme song began. I bobbed my head as I shoveled another spoonful of mac and cheese into my mouth. The floorboards creaked beneath me.  

"Turn it down," my grandmother said, marching through the door with bags of clothes and things I could not see hanging tightly around her wrists. Our home was old, and when the wind pushed up against the outside of the house, it would groan. Grandma had been getting ready to sell the old beat-up thing, but no one wanted to buy it. There had only been one renovation in the 60s, and the roof needed work. 

"Turn the TV down, Calliope. I'm not going to repeat it. I don't want to hear that shit as soon as I walk in the house,” she continued to mumble about her 12-hour shift at the restaurant and all of the snobby rich folk she was forced to wait on hand and foot for.

I reached for the remote and dug my fingernail into the hole that was once the volume down button. I could barely hear it, but the show seemed simple enough to follow without sound. The loud flick of the magazine pages fed me pieces of dialogue between the cartoon characters. Grandma walked into the kitchen, slamming cabinets and refrigerator doors. I could hear her speaking to herself before shouting, “Calliope, I know you didn’t eat my last dinner."

My stomach felt empty after that. I slugged down the bite I’d just had and sat the spoon down on the coffee table. My grandmother stomped her way into the living room, pulled me by my collar, and dragged me from the opposite side of the table. I could do nothing but meet whatever awaited me in her eyes while my feet dangled above the floor. She became chillingly silent before dropping me on the rug before her. Then, she snatched the TV dinner, and I watched as my spoon rocked from side to side on the glass coffee table. Dragon tales played quietly in the background over the ringing in my ears. The smell of the brownie from the TV dinner lingered in the air. My mother licked her finger and flipped to the next page of her magazine. 

I got up early to run errands for my boss, Gina, before my closing shift at the coffee shop. There were only a few regulars inside when I arrived. Espresso, vanilla, and sugar filled the air. Apart from the afternoon playlist, it was quiet. Mya walked out of the storage room with a sleeve of cups and lids. My stomach sank immediately after seeing her walk behind the counter like it was a typical day. Her eyes were someplace beyond exhaustion and buried deeply in its parts, where the light could not reach, was a great familiar and dejected thing. 

I took my belongings to the small locker room in the back and clocked in for my shift. When I returned, the last person in the lobby was leaving. Mya wished them a great day as she stood behind the register, playing with a crushed receipt. She became very still for a short time and did not say a thing. I didn't have anything to say either, so I went to stand beside her. Nothing else mattered more than what she now understood about the way life and death were sewn together. It seemed like her world had shattered while also having opened all the way up. 

"I don't know what else to do. I can't sit still, so I figured I'd pick up a midday shift," she broke the silence after a while.

"How are you," I asked her. She unraveled the receipt paper and began tearing off little pieces. As she slid them slightly across the counter, I collected them. I held them there, and as I opened my hand to add another little piece of paper, I watched the others wilt under the heat of my closed fist. 

"I don't know. Sometimes, I feel like I'm losing it, but today, I'm alright. I have these moments when it feels like my brother is right next to me," Mya said just as Mavis appeared on the other side of the coffee bar. 

 "Have you talked to your parents," I asked. I could see her reliving a moment as she tried to describe how it had made her feel. 

Eventually, she pulled her shoulders down from her ears and breathed deeply, "They're back home. My mom is completely focused on Mavis' funeral arrangements and hasn't talked about anything aside from that. My dad is there, but not really. So, things are about the same as when they were across the country."

Before I could ask her anything further, there was a line at the cash wrap, and we were sweating over coffee beans. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a man's spirit gliding through the coffee shop. He was looking for something or someone. It was only a matter of time before I realized that someone was me.

I could hear Mavis in my head. Are you seriously trying to hide from a ghost? He asked as I hurried to the back cooler for more Half and Half. 

"I think one dead person is enough for today," I replied out loud.

Oh, am I your designated dead person currently? How sweet. 

Mavis was still out of sight, though I figured he was nearby, likely still following Mya around. As he spoke to me in my mind, I knew we were sharing space somewhere on the other side. Though, I couldn't quite picture it. I imagined we were in the black abyss of the spirit world, standing in front of each other and having this conversation.

Someone I had never met stepped into that space with us. Almost immediately, this unique entity appeared in front of me. "Mavis told me you're the woman to come to when you die." 

It was the man I saw just seconds ago floating around the coffee shop lobby. The dead always had a way with their words. It was so morbid to hear such a thing while looking at someone who was no longer alive and who had experienced such a consequential transition that they were now something completely different. 

I exhaled deeply and opened my energy to this new spirit, "Yeah, I've got a few words for Mavis myself. How can I help?"

This spirit was an older male who looked between the ages of 38 and 40. The man's skin was deeply toned, his hair was the same color, and so were his eyes. His afro grew up and around his head like a sunflower,"that guy they're calling the mad scientist, the one who murdered us—"

"Wait, you're one of the men in the files?" Suddenly, there were a million images in my head like a flipbook. When they stopped, it was as if one final paper had flown out of the book before it swayed to the ground like a feather from some unknown above. There he was, the man with his big hair and deep brown eyes, flat and dead, inside a manila folder with a barcode printed on the page next to his face. The eye of my mind found the top of the paper. His name is Jim Henderson.

"We know at least two other people involved in our case, and we need you to tell those on the other side, on your side, the truth." As I listened to Jim, it was as if my stomach had dropped to my feet and through the floor. I was glad to know they’d be able to help put the others away, but something about this felt much larger than what he and I could understand.

"We?" I asked as the walk-in cooler began to sound, warning me that all the food prep would go bad if I didn't shut the door.

A second ghost appeared behind Jim, it was a young man. Then, there was another, and then three more men, until there were about fifteen souls cramped in the doorway of the coffee shop cooler. 

Azrael met me at the coffee shop once it got dark. He said that night was beginning to fall early, and he didn't want me to leave the shop so late on my own. My boss didn’t mind having a cop at the cafe’ during closing time either. Azrael offered to mop again, but I explained that I had already done most of the cleaning and that this was last on the list. He sat at the counter and told me about his day. We talked about the army of ghosts bombarding me at the cooler just hours earlier. "Are they here now," he asked.

"No, and let's stop talking about them before they show up again." 

I returned all the cleaning supplies to the back closet and shut off the lights as Azrael and I left the cafe' for the night. He stood guard as I locked up. 

"I'll follow behind you to make sure you get home safely."

"You're paranoid," I chuckled, "I can just call you when I make it in the door."

"Cut me some slack, okay? The boogeyman is on the loose." He was right about that. According to my ghost army, the mad scientist was not working alone. Who knew how many people were helping him run his operation?

"You're right. Thank you for always taking care of me." I paused before climbing into the car, "Hey…"

"Hey," he said slowly as his eyes scanned my face. The night air was cool against the thin layer of sweat on my skin. I unzipped my jacket to let the coolness lick my chest.

He reached to readjust the zipper on my jacket, "You'll catch a cold," he said.

"We kissed," I half expected him to flinch as I said the words, but instead, it was like he watched them glide from my lips. I wanted to say more, but nothing came. I opted for a silent conversation and hoped my eyes would tell him everything else. The sky was the darkest of blues behind Azrael. It was brighter where the moon sat between the clouds. Like a perfect painting it created a halo around his head.

"We did. What should we do about that?" He broke up the words as he said them.

I had not realized how close he was until my back was pressed up against the car. I waited for the nerves that would tell me this was all a terrible idea. I imagined I would be opposed to us being anything more than friends. I thought I was against all that could come between us, even if we were included in that which might tear us apart. Though, at that moment all other things were insignificant. It was Azrael and I, just as it had always been.

Azrael walked me to the front door. Mindy was on the elevator when I walked in. Her eyes beamed accusatory through her large bright-green glasses. I looked at her and then away. I held my breath for fear that she would start asking questions about the kiss she somehow knew about and the moment Azrael and I had just shared.

"Hm," She looked away with a knowing smirk on her face. "I bet I know who it was," she said as she sucked her teeth cleverly. 

"I bet you do," I huffed.

She gasped just as the elevator opened to our floor, and something excited and cheerful tried to hide underneath her puckish smile. I knew then that she was creating a mental list of questions to ask during our next encounter. "Well, goodnight to you, Missy." Still smiling, she exited the elevator, and I followed her out.

"Good night, Mindy." I could hardly contain my own enthusiasm.

Just as I walked into the door, I could hear at least two other voices in the dark. I turned on the lights to find the first of the ghosts I met in the freezer, playing with Henrietta in the middle of my apartment. The younger soul was lying on the rug, pulling one of Henri's toy mice along the floor. The ghost pulled it away just as she was about to pounce on the tiny stuffed mouse. His hand covered the toy, but you could still see it there and so could Henri. "I hadn't realized animals could see us," the boy said. I could only see the top of his head. His bald fade moved from side to side as he watched Henrietta chase the toy.

"How old were you when you died?" If I was going to help this group, and if they were going to help me, I needed to learn as much as possible about them. As I connected to them and their stories, I knew I would be able to find the people responsible for their stolen lives.

"I'm 23. My name is Jabari Phillips. His name is Rick. Eh, how old were you again, Rick?"

Soul number three stood looking out of the window before turning to acknowledge me. "Rick Wilson. I was 31." There was something about that one. He was quiet and appeared to always be pondering about something or the other.

"I am; I have always been a thinker of thoughts." He answered my silent question with a chortle. I kind of hated it when they got in my head like that. Though, I guess that is an essential part of my gift’s anatomy. His soul was different, and it seemed older. I sensed that he might even know more about the other side than I did. He turned back around to face the window, his elbow propped on the arm folded against his chest, his knuckles tucked under his chin. 

There wasn't anything significantly unique about his appearance. His hair was black and stood off of his head just a little. He wore a black T-shirt and brown cargo shorts. There was a tattoo of something I couldn’t quite read along the length of his right leg.

"The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again,” he said aloud.