Alan tried to overturn the tables, the chairs, anything he could get his hands on. He grew angrier when the chairs barely moved, the tables not at all. He kicked at them, but it was no use. He stalked around the room. Apollo snarled when he got too close to them. Wallace stood quickly, putting himself between Nelson and Alan, but Alan ignored them, eyes blazing as he tried to destroy as much as he could to no avail.
He tired himself out, eventually, hair hanging around his head as he bent over, hands on his knees, eyes bulging. “This isn’t real,” he muttered. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”
Hugo stepped forward. Wallace tried to stop him, but Nelson grabbed his arm, holding him back. “Don’t,” he whispered in Wallace’s ear. “He knows what he’s doing. Trust him.”
Hugo stopped a couple of feet away from Alan, looking down at him with a sorrowful expression. He crouched down in front of Alan, who sagged to his knees, hands flat against the floor, rocking back and forth. “It’s real,” Hugo whispered. “I promise you. And you’re right: it’s not fair. It never really is. I don’t blame you for thinking that. But if you let me, I’ll do what I can to show you there is more to this world than you ever thought possible.”
The man sat back up on his knees, tilting his head back toward the ceiling. He screamed again, the cords in his neck jutting out in sharp relief.
It never seemed to end.
* * *
Wallace tried to argue when Hugo asked them to leave, telling them that Alan needed space. He didn’t like the idea of Hugo being left alone with him. He knew deep down that Hugo was more than capable, but the wild look in Alan’s eyes was almost feral. Mei stopped him before he could tell Hugo in no uncertain terms that they weren’t leaving. She jerked her head toward the back of the house.
“It’s okay,” Nelson said, though he too sounded worried. “Hugo can handle him.”
Apollo refused to budge. No matter what Mei did or said, he wouldn’t move. Hugo shook his head. “It’s all right. He can stay. I’ll let you know if I need you.” He and Mei exchanged a look that Wallace couldn’t parse. Alan growled at the floor, flecks of spittle on his lips.
The last thing Wallace saw was Hugo sitting cross-legged in front of Alan, hands on his knees.
He followed Nelson as he shuffled after Mei. They walked down the hall toward the back door. The air was colder than it’d been the last few nights, as if spring had momentarily lost its grasp. Wallace was dismayed when he realized he didn’t know the date. He thought it was Wednesday, and it had to be April by now. Time was slipping here. He hadn’t noticed, so wrapped up in living the life he found himself in. He’d been in Charon’s Crossing for almost four weeks. Mei had said the longest anyone had stayed at the tea shop was two weeks. And yet no one had pushed him toward the door. No one had even mentioned it since the early days.
“You all right?” Nelson asked Mei as she paced back and forth on the deck. He reached out and took her by the wrist. “That had to be difficult.”
She sighed. “It was. I knew it could be like that. The Manager showed me as much. He’s not the first person I’ve dealt with who was murdered.”
“But it’s the first time you’ve been on your own,” Nelson said quietly.
“I can handle it.”
“I know you can. I never doubted that for a second. But it’s okay not to be okay.” She slumped against him, her head on his shoulder. “You did good. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks,” she muttered. “I was half-convinced he was going to listen. At least at first.”
“Where did you find him?” Wallace asked, looking out at the tea garden below. No one had thought to switch on the lights, and the moon was hidden behind clouds. The tea plants looked dead in the darkness.
“Near where he was murdered,” she said. “He was … yelling. Trying to get someone’s attention. He looked so relieved when he knew I’d heard him.”
If Alan were anything like Wallace, it would have only been temporary. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
He didn’t look back at them. There was a thread he was pulling in his mind, one that he knew he should leave alone, but it was insistent. He worried at it as he chose his words carefully. “Was he already dead when the file came?”
There was a beat of silence. Then, “Yes, Wallace. Of course he was. It wouldn’t have been sent to us otherwise.”
He nodded tightly, hands gripping the deck railing. “And you … what? Take it on faith?”
“What are you talking about?” Nelson asked.
He wasn’t sure. He tugged on the thread. “You get sent the files. Our files. But only after we die.”
“Yes,” Mei said.
“Why couldn’t you get it sooner?” he asked into the night. “What’s stopping the Manager or whoever from sending it before it happens?”
He knew they were staring at him. He could feel their gazes boring into his back, but he couldn’t turn around. He was struggling, and he didn’t want them to see it on his face.
“That’s not how it works,” Mei said slowly. “We can’t … Wallace. There was nothing that could have been done to save y—him.”
“Right,” Wallace said bitterly. “Because it was his lot in life to die bleeding out in an alleyway.”
“It’s the way things are,” Nelson said.
“That’s messed up if you ask me.”
“Death is messed up,” Mei said. She moved toward him, the deck creaking with every step she took. “You won’t hear me trying to argue otherwise, man. It’s not … there’s an order to things. A process we all have to go through. Death isn’t something to be interfered with—”
Wallace scoffed. “Order. You’re telling me that man is part of an order. That man who suffered and no one stopped to help him. That’s what you believe in. That’s your faith. That’s your order.”
“What would you have me do?” she demanded. She leaned on the railing next to him. “We can’t stop death. No one can. It’s not something to be conquered. Everyone dies, Wallace. You. Nelson. Alan. Me. Hugo. All of us. Nothing lasts forever.”
“Bullshit,” Wallace snapped, suddenly enraged. “The Manager could have stopped it if he wanted to. He could have told you what was going to happen to Alan. He could have warned you, and you could have—”
“Never,” Mei said, sounding shocked. “We don’t interfere with death. We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s always there. No matter what you do, no matter what kind of life you live, good or bad or somewhere in between, it’s always going to be waiting for you. From the moment you’re born, you’re dying.”
He sighed tiredly. “You have to know how bleak that sounds.”
“I do,” she said. “Because it’s the truth. Would you rather have me lie to you?”
“No. I just … what’s the point, then? To all of this? To any of it? If nothing we do matters, then why should we try at all?” He was spiraling, he knew. Rattled and spiraling. His skin was like ice, and it had nothing to do with the air around him. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.