August Prather Is Not Dead Yet

Chapter 1-1

1This is a very old story.

Once upon a time in a land neither East nor West, there lived two families.

One family lived upon a hill, and in winter, they always had the brightest lights glowing from their windows, onto the snow. The glow was softened only by heavy shutters barred against the wind. But in spring, when the snow melted, and the hill turned from white to green, the house stayed close. It did not flower into an unabashed display of color; it stayed gray and stately.

The second family lived at the bottom of the hill. In winter, there was no glow from their windows—only a deep coat of musk from the smoke rising out of their crooked chimney. But in spring, when their fields turned brown again, the family flayed the gray skin of their home to reveal painted patterns on wooden beams, interlaced with figures of the most vibrant red, blue, and gold.

The family at the bottom of the hill had two sons and the family at the top of the hill had a daughter.

The two sons were named Dmitri and Ivan.

Ivan was sixteen when the incident occurred. He was not old nor was he young. He was not much of anything really. And the question is, and will remain: did he ever want to be? He was handsome in a bright, unaffected way. His eyes were a slick gray and held deep reflections giving him an uncanny advantage at lying. It also helped that he began his life by being honest. If he had started out lying, they would have found him out by the time he was old enough to cause trouble. Instead he went into it slowly, when no one was looking, and by the time they had figured it out, it was too late.

Dmitri was twenty-one when the incident occurred. He had been away at the monastery on the other side of the hills, set away in darkness. He was training to serve his God. There was only one problem about Dmitri’s arrangement. He did not believe in God. Everyone in the village always thought of Dmitri as a fine young man, mutedly good-looking and sincerely well-intending. Of course, this is because they never really knew anything about Dmitri at all. He was more of a ghost than a person, and he was aware that he liked being that way, so he was persistent about remaining so.

There was only one person in town who was more of a ghost than Dmitri and that was the daughter of the family on the hill. Her name was Maria.

Maria was nineteen at the time of the incident. Only a few people had seen her, and so she was said to be the most beautiful girl in the mountains. Those who had seen her reported similar descriptions: she had light hair that wafted off her shoulders, honey-blue eyes and fair skin. Some people thought she was an angel and some people thought she was a demon, since she never left that house on the hill. Her mother was dead. Her father would only come into town on market day, once or twice a month.

Her father was once asked by a woman pushing a cart of flowers in the market, “Is young Maria afflicted with a sickness?”

“Yes, she has a weak constitution,” the father replied.

“She is much like her mother then, do you say?”

“Yes. Much like her mother.”

“Katya was a strong girl. A strong and beautiful girl, never sick. What weakness have you brought on her child? The very same that caused her to commit such sin upon . . .”

“I loved Katya,” he threw his arm out with such force that the woman thought he was going to hit her. Instead there was only a finger, flung at her, in great accusation. “And she is dead. Do not call her death a sin. She was weak . . . that was all. Weak and lowly.”

In case you were curious, Katya, Maria’s mother, jumped out of a window the day after Maria was born. No one really knew why. She got all tangled up in the cane so when she landed—twisted and broken—she looked as though she were tied up in lead restraints. Bits of glass stuck out of her face and reflected the lights of the village below. She might have looked happy.

But that is another story.

This story begins with a dead cat.

Ivan and his two friends weren’t certain who had killed it, but they found it in the churchyard one crisp fall morning and it looked like it had been beaten to death.

“What a pity,” Ivan shrugged. “I bet it was someone’s pet too.”

“It looks just like Katrina Alexandrovna’s cat,” said one friend, poking at it with a fallen branch. “Who did this? Did we do this?”

“s**t . . . if one of us killed Katrina Alexandrovna’s cat, then we’re f****d. We are, right Ivan?” The other friend looked back and forth as though expecting someone to be watching them.

“I didn’t kill it.” The first friend put down the stick. “She loved that damn cat. And her dad would kick us out of town if we even as much as spat at her cat.”

“Ivan, maybe we should check and see if it is her cat or not . . . and if it is, we can get a replacement before she even realizes it’s dead!”

“How are we going to get a new cat, you i***t?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“And how are we going to get rid of the dumb dead cat you went and beat up on?”

“I don’t . . . hey, I didn’t kill it!”

“How do I know, you were so damn drunk last night . . . and you always get violent when you’re drunk . . .”

“Well, so do you!”

Suddenly, Ivan turned back around to face them, and they went cold silent.

“What should we do, Ivan?”

“I think we need a prostitute.”

“What?” the first friend blinked.

Ivan laughed.

“I’m tired of all these childish games. We need to have some real fun.” Ivan crossed his arms over his chest.

“Where are we going to get a prostitute?” one of the two boys asked in awe.

“There’s a place on the west side of town. I’m sure we can get a girl there,” the other boy answered.

“What’ll we do with her?” the first boy asked.

“You know what we’ll do with her . . .”

“No . . . wait . . .” Ivan stopped. “Wait, that’s too easy, getting a trash girl to play with. We need a girl that’s a challenge.”

“Katrina Alexandrovna?”

“You i***t, we just killed her cat!”

“From what people say about her, she is more than willing to go out at night with young men. We need a challenge. We need a girl who acts like she’s better than the rest of us, like she’s more than just a way to have a good time . . .” Ivan sat on a headstone, thinking.

“Maria! What about Maria?”

“The girl on the hill?” Ivan stared at the two boys, his eyes dull and hard. “She’s not real. She’s just a myth. That’s what my brother told me.”

“She’s real. I saw her once. I really did!”

“When?” Ivan brushed the dark hair out of his eyes. “When you were intoxicated?”

“No! I saw her plain as day. She’s got that long golden hair and it enveloped her like a halo . . . like a full-body halo in a painting I saw of an angel in a church once . . .”

“A mandorla. That’s what it’s called,” the other boy joined in. “I read a book once.”

“Yeah, and she had these eyes that were clear like water from the mountains and she was wearing a white dress . . .”

“And I’m sure she had wings and could fly.”

“She’s real!”

“Maybe she was a hallucination after all . . .”

“No, she wasn’t!”

Ivan was quiet a moment. He was not thinking, he was just waiting.

“Let’s go see if she’s real.” Ivan stood up and smirked back at the boys who instantly shut up. “Let’s go take the b***h off her pedestal. If she’s up there living on that hill and looking down on us, then we should bring her down here and show her that she’s no better than the rest of us worms festering in the wounds of the earth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s go see what happens.”

CATHEDRAL“If you don’t mind, do you think you could get out of my car?”

Garnet thought it was a dream. She hadn’t had a dream in a long time.

“Um . . .” the placid female voice continued. “Are you even alive?”

Garnet didn’t know how to answer that. She felt something pinch her arm.

“I wonder how a dead woman got into my Prius.”

Garnet opened her eyes. She saw pink hair. She knew she was doomed.

Somehow Garnet wriggled out from the backseat floor. Her back hurt, so she focused on popping it and on smoothing down her skirt as she sat on the seat. She started fixing her hair, avoiding the stare of the girl kneeling on the seat beside her.

“I know who you are!” She pointed like a child pointing out a new toy.

“Mmm?” Garnet said, while holding a hair tie in her teeth.

“You’re Katherine Garnet.”

Kate let her hair fall. She gradually lifted her gaze from her lap to the person beside her. August had apparently lost all interest in her at this point. She was busy trying to scrape a strange orange substance off the driver’s side headrest.

“Yes, I’m Kate Garnet.”

No response.

“Think it’s cheese?”

“What?” Kate reeled.

She pointed at the orange stuff.

“But how would cheese get up here . . . I don’t even eat cheese . . .” August kept scraping.

“Um . . . so it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Oh! Nice to meet you, I’m August Prather.” She held out the hand she’d been using to scrape up the orange stuff and smiled. Kate shook her hand. “I thought I’d get you out of the car so you wouldn’t suffocate. That would be awkward. I have to go.”

August indicated the scene outside the window.

They were in the desert. They must have been driving for a long time. The sky stretched over the land and engulfed any idea of scale. They could be miles away from the nearest town. Or they could be days.

“Where are you going?”

“The church.”

Garnet hadn’t noticed it before. An enormous Gothic revival church in the middle of the desert, complete with bell towers, flying buttresses, and stained-glass windows.

“I have to go to confession.” August sounded serious. “Want to come?”

Like she had a choice.

They went into the church, heading straight down the center aisle beneath a rolling vaulted nave, making a sudden turn at a white pillar smack into the confessional. August shut them inside. It was almost totally dark. Kate sat on a bench and August moved in beside her, closest to the screen.

The silhouette of a man could barely be made out from the other side. His features were indistinguishable from shadow. He could have been old or young, large or small. He could have had some hideous scar. He could have been dead, as far as she knew.

“Bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been at least five years, Lyosha,” August smiled through the screen.

“Has it really been five years?” The voice had an accent. Something making his translucent voice grow in lines to full byzantine patterns of sound for Kate’s lips to trace.

“So as far as sins go . . . well, I accidentally kidnapped someone,” August stretched out on the bench. She was wearing slinky black pants, traffic-cone-colored Converse sneakers and a blue shirt with a cupcake on it.

“You what?”

“Accidentally kidnapped someone,” August said, chewing on her lip. “She was in the back seat of my car, I didn’t know, and I brought her all the way out here.”

“What was she doing in the back seat of your car?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t asked her yet.” She turned to Garnet. “What were you doing in the back seat of my car?”

Garnet was stunned.

“I . . . uh . . . well . . . I . . .”

“Who is she?”

“Kate Garnet. That writer I told you about a while ago.”

“Oh . . . yeah, I kind of liked that one book she had . . . Hey, August, wait. You kidnapped Kate Garnet?” The voice was unaffected, deadpan.

“Accidentally.”

“How does she feel about it?”

“I don’t know . . . let me ask her.” August turned to Garnet again. “How do you feel about being kidnapped?”

“I guess . . . I guess it depends on where we’re going?” Kate tossed out there, unprepared.

“Oh. Well, we’re going on a trip. And Lyosha and Mitya are coming also.” August turned back to the screen. “Is it okay if we go on a trip Lyosha?”

“I don’t know . . . I should ask Mitya . . . I can’t just . . .” he stammered.

“Well, what else do you have to do?”

“Um . . . well . . . nothing really . . . But, August, what’s this about? Is it about her?”

“No, it’s about . . .” August opened the door and stepped outside. She smiled at Kate and closed the door. Garnet sat as the silhouette of the man disappeared and the sound of murmuring rose and fell like cicadas.

Eventually the door opened again.

“Kate!” August stood there, grinning. “Want to come meet Lyosha?”

“Okay,” Kate stepped out of the confessional.