Hover & Sound – Chapter 5 (Eddie)

Now he had to go back to school. It was an imperative marching in the back of his mind: Go to school. Hire a detective. Find Alma.

  If only Viggo hadn’t told him they had a new lead, he could stay home and sit next to him while they played piano. They could explore music together, explore…life…together. 

  But he had to find Alma. Some things were rules that governed the soul, and that was one of them. His sister had died years ago, before his far even got sick. They knew she was alive, but she’d been impossible to track down. Now…something had changed. Eddie intended to find her.

  He stuffed clothes blindly into his suitcase. He didn’t want to go. He slammed the lid shut and glared angry, blurry tears, at the room that was never quite his, and the clothes bought out of charity — even if it was also out of love — all representative of the life that was never quite his.

  “Packing already?” a voice said, and Eddie whirled around to see Far Viggo standing behind him, looking almost corporeal. Some days, he looked like it was a struggle to be here. Other days, he looked more present and alive than Eddie felt. This was one of the second kind of day.

  He ducked his head, not meeting Far Viggo’s eyes. He would leave for school right this second, if it was allowed. Instead, he’d arranged the next best thing. “I have a rehearsal with the orchestra the day before school starts. We have to go to Copenhagen early.”

  Far Viggo frowned, but all he said was, “Don’t forget your good socks.”

  His good socks. Something about that rang deep in his soul. Here was this man — this dead man — who cared about him enough to know he hated socks with seams. To know he would go barefoot in his shoes no matter the weather, just to avoid them.

  Quietly, he reached for his good socks.

  “I’m sorry we’re leaving you alone,” he murmured.

  He didn’t deserve any of this. Not the seamless socks generously provided by Giana, or the affection of a man his own far had caused the untimely death of. This was his last year of school. He wasn’t sure he would even have a home here after he graduated. Would he be expected to work for the orchestra full time? Get his own apartment far away in Copenhagen?

  He tucked his socks into his luggage without meeting Far Viggo’s eyes. 

  Far Viggo rested his palm on Eddie’s back. Eddie couldn’t feel it there, but he could feel the intended affection almost as if it were there, almost as if he deserved the love. 

  “Being able to spend some time with you is a gift,” Far Viggo told him with such affection that Eddie could almost imagine the warmth of his hand on his back. “I’m sorry I can’t come with. What are your academic goals this year?”

  To find Alma and his mor. “To get Niels through the year without doing anything he’ll regret as an adult, and to read through to the L’s in the library. What are your goals this academic year?”

  Far Viggo laughed. “All the L’s?” he echoed.

  Eddie stayed resolute. It hadn’t made sense to Niels either. Their family were performers and doers; they didn’t crave the solitary companionship of a book or the tutelage of sages long dead. “I got through F last term.”

  “A good goal,” Far Viggo acknowledged. He shifted so he partly blocked Eddie’s view of his neatly-rolled socks. “I want you to stay away from looking into your mother and Alma. VJ shouldn’t have told you about them.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have, but Eddie knew now. No force in the world would stop him from finding them.

  “Maybe,” was all Eddie said.

Far Viggo groaned. “Not maybe. It’s too dangerous. I will find out what I can, but you are not to go looking for them yet.”

  Why would it be dangerous? Unless they were part of a Russian crime ring or human traffickers… “What do you know that you aren’t telling us?”

  Far Viggo shook his head.

  They faced off for a moment and then Eddie reached through him and plucked a roll of socks from his luggage. “Then I’m not going back to school.”

  “You’re giving up learning?” Far Viggo was incredulous, his tone a mix of shock and frustration. “Because I won’t allow you to go hunting for people that don’t want to be found?”

  He would have thought Far Viggo — adopted as an infant — would understand the need for Eddie to find his roots, his family, his anchor. If they were out there, he couldn’t just go to school and pretend everything was fine. He met Far Viggo’s murky green eyes, feeling coldness in his own. He didn’t want to be cold. He wanted to be successful. “I’m using leverage that matters to you, to get information that matters to me.”

  After a pause — likely an internal debate — Far Viggo sat on the bed. Eddie had a flashback to his childhood, to the day Far Viggo had first told them all he was sick. He’d sat on Niels’ bed then, because everybody liked to play in Niels’ room. Fun things happened when Niels was around. “The only information we have is from the recently-deceased.”

  “Would you rather I went looking for them?” Eddie offered with that same chill darkness.

  Far Viggo shook his head. “That would require you to die.”

  “That was the idea,” Eddie acknowledged. Moreso, it was a threat. He hoped Far Viggo understood that. For Eddie, life was a series of unpleasant happenings that hinged on the generosity and pity of others.

  “Eddie,” Far Viggo murmured. He conjured a ball literally out of thin air and tossed it over his head before catching it. “When we arrived in Death, both your mother and your sister were missing. We looked everywhere for them and encountered a man who has a connection with another man who is alive. He knows your grandmother — the living man does — and grandfather, though not…in the best light. They’re enemies. From there, we learned that your mother is alive. And not human.”

  Eddie sat on the edge of the bed and let silence hover over them. He could not decide which bit of Far Viggo’s statement to pick apart first, but settled on: “Am I human?”

  “You are not,” Far Viggo said.

  That was very final. Very…permanent. Very far away from VJ.

  Eddie swallowed. “Is that why I can see you?” But no, it couldn’t be. VJ could see Eddie’s far, and he was human.

  “It’s a possibility,” Far Viggo said anyway. “Though, it doesn’t explain VJ. He isn’t human, but he is unique in a different way than you.”

  VJ wasn’t human either?

  Possibilities opened up, roadways of future opportunity. Eddie slammed the thought closed before Far Viggo could see it on his face.

  “It would be horrible,” he joked, “if we were unique in the same way. Also impossible.”

  “So is seeing ghosts,” Far Viggo pointed out. Either he’d missed the joke or he wasn’t in the right mood for Eddie’s humor. “You have…” Far Viggo sighed, stretching his back. “…superhuman talents, most likely.”

  “Such as?” He would love to be like comic superheroes, capable of saving people, capable of undoing damage caused by others. Wasn’t that his whole point with wanting to find Alma and his mor?

  “Perfect pitch?” Far Viggo said, his tone almost playful like he thought these should be obvious to Eddie. “Excellent vision in the darkness of night, superior hearing, above-average hand-eye coordination, strength…We don’t entirely know the whole list. Wicca, we think.”

  Eddie didn’t bother asking what Wicca was. He knew people who grew plants and wore pentacle necklaces and burned candles at altars. He had no interest in becoming part of that community, nor any faith in its efficacy. Like all religions, it was a construct of humankind to help the mind cope with death.

  Eddie’s mind knew how to cope with death. He talked to it all the time.

  Instead, he joked back, “Single-mindedness?”

  Far Viggo laughed and nodded, and a companionable silence fell over them both. Eddie decided it was safe to ask. If it wasn’t safe…he would be gone soon. Asking wouldn’t cause too many problems. “There’s a kid here,” he started. “Birky’s son, Jace. Has he ever…” Eddie mimicked dying, sliding his finger across his neck and then sticking his tongue out.

  Far Viggo straightened, his eyes suddenly measuring and shrewd. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because it was brief, and…”

  “He said it was hours,” Eddie corrected. 

  Far Viggo sighed and hedged, “Hours can be brief.” He was less corporeal, and looked physically fatigued, his expression wan. In all these years, Eddie had never seen his ghost far look tired.

  He shivered at the thought of what it might mean, but still he pressed forward. Knowledge that scared Far Viggo enough to make him paler than his usual ghost form, was knowledge Eddie wanted control over. Especially if it concerned him or VJ — or even Jace — in some way. “He died for hours and then was fine?”

  Far Viggo groaned. “Eddie.” He pulled his hands down his face and stretched the skin around his eyes as he pulled. “There was interference.”

  A scattering of questions flashed through Eddie’s mind in quick succession: There was interference for Jace, but not for their fars or for the rest of Eddie’s family? What kind of interference, and how did it work? Why Jace? Was Eddie special, too? Was it why he could see ghosts?

  “There’s interference,” Eddie said. “There’s…moreness. Out there. And everybody thinks they have to protect us from it.”

  It  felt like a sound summary of the situation, but Far Viggo shook his head, his expression pained. “If you knew about who you…what…There are things—”

  Eddie cut him off, since he clearly had no intention of sharing. “It’s like how we can’t know Jace quit school, because Niels would quit too. You don’t trust Niels not to try dying, too. Or…” He looked at Far Viggo’s tight worry and a different realization struck him. “Maybe you don’t trust me.”

  “He has one year left, Eddie. We wanted him — all of you — to finish school.” Far Viggo sat on something that only existed in Death, so to Eddie it appeared as though he sat on the air near Eddie’s bedside, legs crossed. “I didn’t know during my life, but Giani and Cide had secrets, and Birky and Gemma had secrets. This home is hardly occupied by humans.”

  It was time for Eddie to follow up on some of Far Viggo’s less casual references to his heritage. “Who are my grandparents?” Giani and Cide were Niels’ grandparents, VJ’s grandparents, but Eddie had grandparents too — Far Viggo had mentioned them.

  “Michael and Sabine St. Just,” he said, with an accent so it sounded more like san zhoost. “They don’t live on Earth.”

  They didn’t live on Earth and they didn’t live in Death. “Is this because we’ve colonized the moon?”

  Far Viggo laughed again and looked at Eddie like he wouldn’t mind tousling his hair. Eddie had one of his rare moments of being glad Far Viggo was a ghost who couldn’t do that to him.

  Instead of touching him, Far Viggo pressed a piece of paper into Eddie’s hands. Somehow, even though it had been translucent only a moment ago, it became corporeal in Eddie’s hands. Eddie’s far and VJ often passed things back and forth in this way, but it was still a novelty to Eddie. He wanted to hold the paper and never let it go. “Go here,” Far Viggo said, gesturing to the address written on the paper. “And you’ll see, if you must be inquisitive.”

  Inquisitiveness wasn’t the issue. Protectiveness of his mor and sister was the issue. And Far Viggo worried too much. He’d forgotten what it was like to be desperate. “Can I explain something to you?” Eddie asked.

  “Yes,” Far Viggo said solemnly. “You may.”

  “I think—” Eddie didn’t want to mention how desperate he was to not be living off charity and pity anymore, so he targeted Far Viggo’s worry. “It’s been too long since you were young. It’s so easy to be invisible in a group of others. And you can get away with more.”

  “I think you underestimate how visible you are, Eddie,” Far Viggo said, perhaps with a little sadness.

  Eddie regarded him. There must be more he didn’t know. “Do I need to quit the orchestra?”

  “No.” Now Far Viggo was firm, insistent. “Absolutely not.”

  “But if I’m too visible…” He didn’t want to be in danger.

  “I meant,” Far Viggo said with gentleness, “your personality stands out. You. You’re charismatic.”

  Eddie almost laughed. How many times had people asked to meet with the great Eddie Lund and assumed, out of Giana’s flock of children, that Niels was the prodigy? Eddie wasn’t charismatic. He was background noise, just one of many moons orbiting Niels.

  But there was another kind of standing out, that made some older boys at school — and even one disgusting tuba player — notice Eddie in an unpleasant way. “I think I know what you mean,” he acknowledged at last. He wouldn’t tell Far Viggo about any of that. He’d always managed to avoid more than just looks and quick, unwelcome touches.

  Nonetheless, Far Viggo frowned. “And that makes you feel like a dark storm is brewing inside of you?”

  Eddie ducked his head. He hadn’t ever lied to Far Viggo, and he couldn’t start now. “Sometimes at school, I get attention I don’t want. Sometimes with the orchestra, too. But less often.”

  “Yes,” Far Viggo said, “That’s my point. You must be careful. Your far and I will continue to look into things as we are able.”

  He hadn’t lied to Far Viggo, and he wouldn’t, but he realized he was very much about to defy him and it barely bothered him at all.

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

  Far Viggo must have read the resolution on his face because he said, tone defeated, “If you die, you’ll have to spend time with your far. I hope that motivates you to stay alive.”

  Eddie flinched at the thought. “Then I better not die.”