The Cloud Atlas

“Not ghosts,” Lily said, “but possibilities. In Alaska, it's all possible. Maybe elsewhere you need things like ghosts to explain what's on the horizon of what's real. But here, you're already past that line. And on this side, the whole world is creaking.” Something, somewhere, made a tiny clink, on cue. “We're all ghosts.” She came around to face me. “We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”

“Sure,” I said. “Your mother's brown eyes. Your father's height.”

Lily shook her head. “Stop thinking like a kass'aq. At home, my home, someone dies, and a child takes up the name. Feed and clothe the child, and the deceased-they are fed and clothed in the land of the dead.”

“Land of the dead? Lily-”

“It's true,” said Lily. She'd stopped acting: her voice was now urgent, emphatic, and didn't quite match her eyes, which looked almost full of tears. “The dead who return, they come wearing things given to their namesake. One elder arrived wearing a dozen parkas. Years of gifts, layered one atop the other.”

“You've seen this?” I asked.

“I know this to be true,” she said angrily. I started to say something, but she continued: “I have heard the stories. Any elder will tell you.”

“Tell me a story,” I said, stalling so that I could quickly scan our surroundings. Something was wrong. A lot was wrong. I'd thought this walk might lead to a kiss-even if it was just a goodbye kiss-and instead we'd found our way to wherever we were. I wondered whether there was a chance the conversation would teeter back toward intimacy while she spoke.

But when I turned back to face her, she was crying. “Louis,” she said. “Please, if I tell you this-”

“Of course,” I said, distracted. “Lily-”

And then I found myself beset by ghosts. One I heard behind me- a quiet footfall, like someone barefoot or wearing moccasins, followed by a slow exhale. I turned, saw nothing and didn't really expect to- my imagination had plenty to work with by then.

But I hadn't been imagining Lily. I couldn't have been. We'd talked, walked, had dinner together. So I turned back around, sheepish smile in place and ready to admit that, okay, perhaps she was right about spirits, because I swore I had just heard something behind me and-

She wasn't there.

Not there, not down the block, not anywhere. I spent a minute looking, but only a minute, before starting back toward base, anxious now to hitch a ride home through the dark. But the only vehicle I saw was a jeep going the wrong direction-into town-and I ducked into the shadows in case they were MPs enforcing curfew.

There was just a single man in the jeep, and though I caught only a dim glimpse as he sped past me into town, I could tell it wasn't an MP, but Gurley.

CHAPTER 10

RONNIE RETURNED EARLY AS WELL. AND WHEN HE AWOKE, he was angry and scared and breathless. This was a couple hours ago-not long, actually, after he'd finished explaining how an angalkuq traveled the tundra. He'd closed his eyes, his breathing deepened and slowed, and I assumed he was reentering his trance-or his coma-or simply falling asleep, exhausted from the actual or imagined journeys he was making in and out of consciousness.

And I felt guilty. Here was a poor man trying to get some rest and here I had been rattling away at his bedside, taking grateful advantage of a confessor deaf and dumb with sleep. I stopped talking. My decades-only stories, secrets, and sins could wait.

But Ronnie could not. I had been silent for a minute, perhaps not even that, when his eyes blinked wide. His hands, which had been lying quietly at his side, sprang open as well. Perhaps he'd met his fearful wolf, I thought, and the nightmare had awakened him.

“Lou-is,” he said, and though his voice was barely louder than the whisper it had been, it was enough change in volume to make it seem like he was shouting. I jumped. “You stopped,” he said. I started to ask what he meant, but he cut me off. “Talking. You stopped talking. You must not stop talking. I have told you this. I have told you the story of the boy and his mother. You must not stop talking.”

“Ronnie,” I said. “I was just trying to let you sleep.”

He glared. “Not sleep. I have told you this. I have told you of my journeys. I have told you the story of the boy and his mother.”