Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Deacon

“ I will learn about humans as I go,” I said with a shrug. “No matter, there is no time to waste. We must be united, then the pomp, then we rescue Silence—”

“Why don’t I go rescue Silence, while you handle the pomp?” Jacaranda asked.

I frowned. “You are my oldest friend. I would be distraught if you did not participate in the pomp.”

“Even on Earth, best friends help celebrate weddings,” Sarah told him.

“I know all that, but you don’t understand—”

“It is settled,” I interrupted Jac. “Please send Wave in to perform the ceremony.”

Sarah frowned. “We’re getting married by the doctor?”

“We are being united by the ship historian,” I explained.

“I thought she was the doctor.”

“No, merely the most knowledgeable Ladrian on my ship. Wave was engineered, like so many classed, to be the perfect knowledge machine.”

“That explains the ego,” she sighed.

“She is confident—again, you make that sound like a bad thing. I do not understand.”

Sarah shrugged. “I think it’s a cultural thing. Americans, that’s what we call humans who come from—”

“I know what Americans are,” I interrupted her.

“Well, we tend to believe humility is a good thing. Unless you’re a politician or a billionaire.”

“Americans are strange.”

She laughed. “You’re not wrong about that.”

“I know. That’s why I said it.”

Jac put his hand up and said, “She’s agreeing with you, Deacon.”

Sarah’s ways mystified me, and I looked forward to unraveling them. “Very well, then. Jac?”

He nodded and when he left, trepidation had taken over his face. Why is he so upset about the pomp? I would have thought he would be in support of such traditional things, considering our untraditional union. Regardless of his concerns, there were other issues to attend.

I asked Sarah, “Are you comfortable uniting in what you’re wearing now? I understand humans prefer special clothes for their ceremonies, and I can have a small dress delivered, if that makes you more comfortable. But I should get started on that now, so we do not waste any more time.”

Her brow crinkled in a frown. “Wait, you said you sent Lanai Dea to Ryan as a police officer investigating my missing person case, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“How long have I been missing?”

“A few hours, Ladrian. But that is approximately two days on Earth.”

Her eyes fluttered as she rapidly blinked. “What?”

“Time here is different than Earth. It’s not a one-to-one ratio, but I can acquaint you with the formula we use to calculate the two. Are you familiar with advanced calculus?”

She laughed. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Advanced calculus, it is what we base many of our—”

“No, Deacon, I’m sorry, that’s just an expression to tell you I’m lost in the conversation at this point.”

“Very well—I do not have the time right now to explain it. We must make haste for the union.”

“Deacon, I know you’re dead set on us being united, but you need to understand, I don’t want this.”

I huffed loudly. “Sarah Hollinger, I—”

“And if you’re going to keep saying my name, just say Sarah. I don’t hear you always calling Jac ‘Jacaranda Cozz,’ so why are you using my whole name like that?”

“Sarah Hollinger is not your conversational name?”

“Just Sarah.” She smiled the way someone smiles at a child who did something sweet and pointless.

It bothered me. “Fine. Sarah, I do not understand why you would want to go to Halla un-united, when I have told you what will happen. Do you not believe me?”

“It’s not that—”

“Then what is it?”

“I want to go home, Deacon. Even if this is a hallucination, I don’t want any of this.”

I stretched my spine down to my tail, trying to avoid outward signs of annoyance. She challenged me at every turn, and I was not accustomed to such rudeness, but in school, I had learned humans were disagreeable by their very nature—they did not know any better. My schooling taught us humans responded well to reason. If I keep a cool mind, she will understand .

A deep breath later, I said, “Sarah, what I am giving you is a great honor. Please accept it in the spirit in which it is given.”

“It’s an honor I do not want!” Her voice had cracked with emotion and her eyes welled. “I’m not a conduit—”

“You see ghosts.”

She shook her head and her wavy brown hair swished side to side appealingly, but her face turned pink as she mumbled, “I don’t. I just see hallucinations. They’re not real. That’s why I take all those drugs that Ode was worried about. They keep the hallucinations at bay. No one sees the dead, Deacon. None of it is real.”

My insides twisted for her. I finally understood why she was so confused. Jac had told me when the light-skinned humans turn pink, they were embarrassed or ashamed, and I never wanted that for her. I took her hand in mine, the way she had done to me earlier. It was so small and cool to the touch. Delicate, like one of those butterflies Jac had brought me as a present from Earth.

I held her hand with both of mine and softly said, “I am so sorry the drugs take your gift from you, Sarah. You do not see hallucinations. You see ghosts. It’s a part of who you are, and you should never be ashamed of that. It’s a wondrous gift, and you should be proud of who and what you are. A conduit.”

She swallowed audibly, but I could hardly hear her words. “I’m not.”

“You are. That’s why I have brought you here to help save my sibling. You are the only active conduit with your heritage that can save them.”

Jerking her hand away, she snapped, “Well, I don’t want to save them. You kidnapped me, Deacon! Why should I do anything to help you? Why should I save someone who could do that to another human?”

I thought I had gotten through to her. I was wrong. “You are going to help me, Sarah, whether you want to or not. I am uniting with you to save you from the misery of being violated by ghost after ghost after ghost. I don’t have to do this. I am doing this as a favor to you, to show my gratitude for the work you are about to do for me. But if you’re not grateful, then why should I be?”

“Grateful?” her voice sizzled. “You think I should be grateful that you kidnapped me and you’re forcing me into some job that I never wanted? Is that honestly the tactic you’re trying right now?”

“You are right, of course. I did have you stolen from your home, taken from everything you’ve ever known and thrown into a strange situation.” I folded my arms and my tail raised with my anger. “So, since you have had all your other choices taken from you, I will give you this choice. You can choose whether to unite with me. You can choose to let the ghosts violate your body until they’re done playing with you, and they leave you broken and dead. And once you’re dead, I’m not sure what will happen to your ghost. I am not certain what happens to a human ghost on Halla, if the human died there—I don’t know if that has ever happened before. Your ghost might be stuck there for eternity. It certainly won’t join the ether—”

Confusion flashed across her face. “What are you talking about, Deacon?”

“When a Ladrian dies, their body is delivered to Halla and burned before the next full moons on Orhon. Their ghost emerges from the fire and lives among the other ghosts on Halla, until they die—”

“Your ghosts die?” she sounded incredulous.

We were getting off the topic, but I needed her to understand everything fully. I nodded. “Yes, it is generally one hundred years after their arrival on Halla, though lately, it has been happening much faster. My point is, when a ghost dies, they return to the ether from which all ghosts are reborn as Ladrians.”

Her cute nose scrunched up in thought. “It goes, Ladrian, then ghost, then ether, then Ladrian again? So, it’s like reincarnation?”

“Yes.” She finally understands something . “We are reincarnated and born on Orhon.”

“Do you remember anything of your past life?” She sounded fascinated.

I shook my head. “Very few of us do. But we are said to have innate memories of our former lives. Like if someone was burned to death in their original life, then they may have an overwhelming fear of fire in their next life, things like that.”

“How do you even know any of that is true?”

“It is a part of our history, our culture—”

“But if conduits are the only ones who can see ghosts, how do you know any of that is real?”

I smiled. “On Halla, we can all see the ghosts. Sometimes, ghosts can become strong enough to travel, either in form or in voice, and haunt the living. But it is only the conduits who have authority over them, so if a ghost leaves Halla, it is to find a conduit.”

She sounded so sad when she said, “Then you have proof of your religion?”

“Yes, why does this bother you?”

“I keep thinking that if any of Earth’s religions had tangible proof it was real, then there would have been far fewer wars in our history.”

“You are sad for your people?”

She nodded. “Billions of people wouldn’t have died in a million nightmarish ways, if we had one unified religion among us.”

I thought of my father’s beheading and the way my heart cried out when it happened. I was the only one of my family who did not turn their back on him at the ceremony, so I watched as it happened. I had never felt so much rage and helplessness in my life. When Silence collapsed to her knees beside his body, I focused all my attention on the Ladrang baby in her belly. I couldn’t watch as his body drained blood onto the crowd below. I struggled not to think of him not being able to hold his future child.

I swallowed my rage for that day and said, “It is hard to think of what might have been.”

“What is it like to grow up, knowing what will happen when you die?”

“You do not know what will happen when you die?”

“No,” she sighed. “It’s one of the great mysteries for humans.”

What a horror . “That must be terrible for you.”

Sarah’s eyebrows pinched together, like she was deep in thought. “It is, and it isn’t. Since we don’t know what happens, we try to live our lives to the fullest. Most of us anyway. Maybe if we knew, we wouldn’t try so hard to make things better for our families.”

I shook my head and smiled. “That does not stop, just because you know what happens when you die.” I laughed softly at the thought. “For instance, I have embarked on a strange and perilous journey to secure the life of my unborn sibling.”

She smiled up at me. I wondered if I could ever love a human—it seemed wrong. But when she smiled at me like that, I wasn’t sure what was right or wrong anymore.

Sarah said, “Yeah, you did.”

My door opened and Wave strolled in. “Jac says you are to unite now?”

“That is Sarah’s decision,” I told her.

I was concerned she would refuse the union. If she did that, what good would she be to my sibling? But she was right—I had taken all her choices from her. She deserved to choose this part of her future.

Sarah took a deep breath and asked, “There’s no way I can go home, is there?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry for this, but you are needed here more than you are needed there. You saw what your fiancé was doing. Your sisters are independent. No one needs you there. But I need you here.”

Her lip quivered, and I thought she might cry. But she said, “If this is the only way to keep me safe from the ghosts, I guess we unite.”

I could finally take a full breath. Smiling, I said, “Wave. Unite us.”

Wave asked incredulously, “Now?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Very well.” She sneered with disdain at Sarah. “You need to lock your arm with his.”

I moved my elbow out toward her to show her the gesture. “Like this.”

She laced her arm around mine, but our height difference made her wrap her arm around my wrist. “Like this?”

Wave answered, “Close enough.” Then, she pressed her cylindrical badge to record the event for the official record. “On the 12, 497 th day of Muraska, I unite Deacon Amroll-Bellket Ladrang to Sarah Hollinger. May you produce many heirs.” She pressed her badge once more to end the transmission.

“Oh, god, heirs?” Sarah’s body tensed next to mine.

“Offspring, children, descendants,” Wave said, annoyed. “Does she not understand what heirs are?”

“I know what they are,” Sarah snapped. “I just…I didn’t think about that when I said yes.”

Wave looked to me for direction.

“You may return to your other duties,” I told her.

She nodded once and left us.

“Do not think about that now,” I said to Sarah. “There is one more thing we must do to protect you from the ghosts.”

She stepped away from me and asked with apprehension, “Is it sex?”

The union wasn’t official without the pomp. “Yes.”