Page 15 of Aftertaste
SOUL FOOD
KONSTANTIN POSTED THE flyers under the influence of alcohol.
One near his apartment in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, taped to a sticker-book traffic pole. One in Washington Square Park, affixed to the gate of a dog run. One all the way downtown, at Trinity Church, stapled to the cemetery fence. One taped flat on the sidewalk in front of the New York Public Library, the stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, eyeing him disdainfully.
He’d been aiming (could you aim at that level of inebriation?) for places where ghosts might hang out, and where the people who wanted to see them again might go looking. When he couldn’t think of any, he settled for foot traffic. The flyers read:
DINE WITH GHOSTS
Have you lost someone?
Recently bereaved, and reliving the past?
Mourning for the long haul, unable to let go?
Wish you had one more chance to tell them how you feel?
We can help.
Have a last meal together at the Hells’s Kitchen Supper Club .
You bring the memories; we’ll bring up your ghosts. (Literally.)
RSVP required. One diner per night. Seating at 8 PM. Pay what you can.
Serious inquiries only.
This was followed by a fringe of paper tear slips along the bottom, saying TEXT FOR DETAILS and giving Kostya’s phone number.
Thinking back on the whole episode—the way he’d just dashed off the text at Kinko’s, the way he’d printed the flyers without a single moment’s hesitation—made him cringe. He’d been so confident. So convinced that this would work.
Granted, he’d been aided and abetted by several glasses of juniper-flavored courage. He’d spent the better part of the morning curled up on the couch with a bottle of Hendrick’s, thinking about Saveur, and his dad, and how that hot, mean psychic had probably been right about him. He had been a coward, entrapped by his own hesitations. Unfit to handle the Dead.
“Maybe you should switch to decaf,” Frankie suggested.
He’d walked out of the bathroom to find Konstantin becoming one with the couch cushions, in the exact same position as the day before, wearing the same clothes and the same indelible look of dumb disbelief on his increasingly plastered face.
“Or,” Frankie reconsidered, “phew! At least change the bandages. Your arm smells like the Sunday special.”
The doctors in the burn unit had talked him into a xenograft of tilapia skin, which meant that they’d applied the parts Kostya used to trash at Saveur Fare to the painful, searing open wound on his arm, and wrapped the whole thing in gauze. Just twelve to fourteen days smelling like fish sticks and he’d have a jump start on a new epidermis, they promised.
Kostya took another sip straight from the bottle.
He kept replaying it in his mind’s eye, the scene with Michel. It scalded every time. His meekness, his spinelessness, his irrational fear. And of what, in the end? Michel Beauchêne’s fury? His disappointment? Whatever awful lapdog instinct he had brought out in Kostya’s subconscious, it had cost him his shot at seeing his dad again. Maybe his only shot.
Kostya had tried making the liver again—and he’d succeeded, over and over, the flavor precisely what he had eaten before Michel yanked the plate away. But his father hadn’t shown. The aftertaste, it seemed, had to be fresh for it to work. The spirit had to still be there. All Kostya could do now was wait and pray that the aftertaste would reappear, that his dad would return on his own.
Frankie wrenched open their living room window.
“Alright, my guy. Enough. Outta the house.” He snatched the bottle out of Kostya’s slackening fist. “First, shower. Then go.”
“Where’m I s’posed to go?” Kostya slurred back.
“Anywhere. Nowhere. Till you find some meaning, or a restaurant concept hits you. Maybe you’ll figure out your next career move. At least till the room airs out.”
Kostya shrugged and didn’t move.
“Okay.” Frankie tried again. “How ’bout this? Do me a solid—go by the FedEx on 9th and print me out a couple more copies of my résumé. Keller called back.”
“Shit.” Kostya sat up straighter. “You steppin’ out on Rio?”
“I’m just taking a meeting,” Frankie said, in a voice he usually reserved for conversations about commitment. “Anyway, you scratch my back, and how’s kadhi and garlic naan sound? I’ll hit Kalustyan’s for asafetida.”
A drunken smile curled over Kostya’s mouth.
“Stop tryna get in my pants.”
“You’re a cheap date, Bones. Don’t ever change.”
IT WAS HALFWAY to FedEx, pressing the button for a walk signal, that the thought occurred to him. If there was still a chance to see his dad, however slim, he couldn’t just wait around for his aftertaste to appear. While Kostya felt fairly confident about his ability to make the dish again, he couldn’t risk tasting pechonka in a cab, or on the subway, or anywhere else he wouldn’t have access to ingredients, to a kitchen. He had to learn to trigger the aftertastes for himself. To make them come when called. Like pushing a button.
And to do that, he needed practice.
By the time he got to 9th Avenue, the vague, inebriated plan had taken shape.
Flyers. A ghost test kitchen. One diner at a time.
Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club.
KOSTYA HADN’T EXPECTED to receive any inquiries, not really, not based on his garbage ad, but barely a day later his phone exploded, firing off messages from several strangers all requesting reservations, the first of whom (Louise) he’d given his home address and a date (February 1) along with instructions to spend the day of her dinner stewing in thoughts of her dearly departed.
Louise was the music director at Our Lady of Sorrows on the LES and saw the flyer outside of Trinity Church after a workshop on organ maintenance. She seemed quaint, he thought, in her text messages. Mild. No-nonsense. Then again, she could easily have been an axe murderer, a religious zealot, or—heaven forbid—a social media influencer.
With Frankie’s help, Kostya transformed their pocket-sized apartment into a workable restaurant. They hauled their stained couch, broken television, and cheap, particleboard console to the curb, and arranged a Craigslist dining set— PLANT YOUR ASS-CHEEKS IN JUDE LAW’S OLD CHAIRS!!! MANHATTAN PICKUP ONLY! —in the space to create a dining room. They strung up a shower curtain (a Keanu Reeves Jesus with Dog print, the last option left at their bodega) to separate the kitchen from the eating space. They scoured every visible inch of the apartment with bleach, and as they scrubbed some thirty years of grime from the ancient kitchen laminate and the crumbling brick of the exposed wall, Kostya—his melted arm still covered in a patchwork of fish-flavored bandages—made plans to pinball all over Manhattan to gather ingredients.
He’d asked Louise several questions about her ghost, trying to discern a category of food to focus on. She was maddeningly cryptic— sister ate ascetic for years— which, after more prodding, and answers like oh, no, she couldn’t have sugar and she liked meat, but had it very rarely , Konstantin finally interpreted to mean that the poor woman had probably lived vegan or Paleo or some other equally Hellish half-life.
In the end, he decided that it was better to be overprepared than understocked. After all, maybe Louise’s sister, Stacy, half-starved on bone marrow soup and rice crackers, had once stumbled into a Moroccan hole-in-the-wall to scarf down a secret helping of real food, and so it was prune-laced lamb—and not boiled tofu curd—that she’d need to find her way back.
For this to work, Kostya had to be ready for anything. He made a list of spices—from fenugreek to furikake —utilized in the myriad culinary traditions that someone living in New York City might encounter, and went shopping. By the end of his spice-gathering expedition, he felt like Vasco da Gama, unearthing new trade routes.
He’d wandered around Chinatown for a half hour before he found a place on Elizabeth without a single English character in the window. He bought star anise and red chili powder and Five Spice in there, plus a whole array of flavor enhancers that had no names, that he’d purchased on taste alone, dipping his pinky into tinctures and herbs and following his tongue. A few blocks uptown, on Broome, he snagged floral yuzu koshō , sinus-clearing karashi powder, shichimi tōgarashi , and Moshio salt from a Japanese standby. He bypassed Murray Hill and went instead to Jackson Heights in Queens, to a tiny Indian grocery that a Bengali busboy from Wolfpup had recommended, to get turmeric and garam masala, wild mushroom powder, plastic baggies full of curries ground to the most brilliant colors, gold and red and green. He took an Uber to the Bronx for Senegalese and Moroccan, West African and Northern, for gejj and palm oil, harissa and smen, fufu flour and suya and berbere and black cardamom, plus scores of base ingredients for dukkah and bahārāt , the blends so unique to each family that, if he needed them, he’d need the ghost to tip his hand. He hit up Ninth Avenue International for handfuls of Mediterranean manna—tarragon, sumac, oregano, thyme. He scored truffle powder and herbes de Provence and bright strands of saffron from a small European market on Broadway.
And so on for seasonings.
The day before Louise’s dinner he gathered the groceries.
Kostya got up in the dark to Citi Bike to the meat market on Bowery for the first pick of beef and pork and poultry and lamb. He got some more exotic stuff, too—venison and ostrich and rabbit and quail, even squab, which always tasted much more delicious than you’d think, considering most pigeons you saw squawking around the city were barely more than rats with wings.
He’d had to lie and say he was shopping for Saveur to get the suppliers to agree to sell him such infinitesimal portions—just one or two pieces of each protein, since he was quickly running out of fridge space—but he figured Michel still owed him one or a hundred, so whatever.
For good measure, he threw in chicken feet and pig hoofs and tongue and liver and heart, offal and marrow bones; someone could totally be jonesing for ramen in gooey, jelly-rich stock, and it was always possible the ghost hailed from green Scottish pastures and was craving haggis.
Frankie, with some prodding and more than a little groveling, had agreed to hit South Street on his day off for fresh fish— You’re the only guy in the world I’d sacrifice my beauty sleep for. You know how hard it is to stay this fresh all the damn time?— while Kostya headed to the Manhattan Fruit Market in Chelsea for a truly staggering variety of produce.
Once that was deposited back in their apartment, Kostya caught the R train to Little Italy for canned Cuoco Milanese and San Marzano tomatoes in pretty glass jars, Nutella fatto in Italia (which put the American version to chocolatey shame), imported prosciutto and speck and ham sliced to translucent thinness. He scooped French bread straight from the oven at Balthazar. He picked up seven different kinds of rice, plus kasha, quinoa, farrow, and barley. And on his way home, he swung by the Food Emporium for dairy, tofu, tempeh, and seitan, as well as one of everything in the condiment aisle.
In the end, he’d spent a not-so-small fortune, but he’d grown increasingly okay with that. He felt empowered for the first time since he’d left Saveur Fare. He thought about his dad in his childhood kitchen, the way his whole face illuminated whenever Kostya guessed a mystery food, the way his mouth spread open, unable to contain his delight.
He was going to see him again, he swore, pushing a straining grocery cart forward on its broken wheel. He would find a way.
He’d do as many seatings at Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club as it took for him to understand every rule, every nuance of the tethers he commanded—what triggered the ghosts, what stopped the connections, what might prolong them, what might entice them to be summoned in the first place—so that he could bring his dad back, and make him stay, and learn how to do it over and over. He’d never lose another chance because he was afraid, or intimidated, or trying to please. He’d never lose sight of what mattered again.
When his spirited guests showed up, he’d be their gracious host, their fearless leader. Their P. T. Barnum, full coat and tails and freaky pyrotechnics. Their Virgil, a voice of calm as they navigated the unknowable. Their Pac-Man, drawing them stealthily out of the maze with delicious fruits and no whammies. He’d be the maker of their dreams, the miner of their memories, the mouthpiece for their taste buds and tongues and every gut feeling.
Their Chef d’Esprit.
THE NIGHT OF the first dinner, that swagger was nowhere to be found. Kostya’s intestines formed a queasy knot.
“You look like you’re about to see a ghost.” Frankie grinned as he pulled a coat over his chef’s whites.
“You’re funny, man, anyone ever tell you?” Kostya said sourly.
“Oh c’mon. You got this. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I dunno. Louise dies of food poisoning? Nuclear blast during dessert? Zombie apocalypse over apps?”
“Glad you thought this through.” He punched Kostya’s shoulder. “It’ll work out. Just close your eyes, deep breath, picture yourself doing it. You’ll be good, Bones.”
“What if I can’t be good?”
“Then be careful.”
AN HOUR BEFORE showtime, Kostya positioned himself at the living room window. The street was deserted, already dark, the streetlamps casting ghostly halos in the night air. It smelled apple crisp and cold, like it was going to snow.
Kostya practiced his little opening speech under his breath, the words fogging the glass.
“Um, hi. Hello. Hey there. Welcome to the Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club. My name’s Konstantin, and I’ll be your chef this evening.”
Woof.
“Welcome, welcome!” he tried again, voice booming, “To a night of mystery, of enchantment, of otherworldly delights that will stun your senses and dazzle your…”
Jesus.
“Are you ready for some closure, because I’m about to serve it up—piping hot!”
What was wrong with him?
He’d just launched into another unfortunate monologue—“You ever ask yourself, what’s the deal with ghosts?”—when the buzzer rang.
He pressed himself forward to catch a glimpse of Louise, but she was standing too close to the entry door, angled out of view. All he caught was a swish of long, black fabric, like a cloak. The buzzer again. Great , he thought as he dinged her inside, dressed for Ren Faire and she’s got an itchy trigger finger.
A moment later, there was a timid knock on the door. Kostya pulled it open and had to pick his jaw up off the scuffed hardwood. Like the start of some bad joke, there stood a real, live, actual nun. In full habit.
She had an easy smile, lined by wrinkles that betrayed her age. Small, powdery hands. Eyes so watery it made him blink.
She blinked back.
He remembered, suddenly, what she’d said in her text, about eating ascetic. Somewhere, he was certain, God was laughing. So much for all that meat in his fridge. Maybe he could make wafers out of rice flour? Did nuns eat wafers, or was that just a communion thing—
“I’m here about the dinner? Louise?” she offered. “The ad said dine with ghosts .”
She whispered the last word, like she was afraid it might escape.
“Yes! Louise! Uh, Sister. Hello. Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen Supper Club. Please come in. May I offer you a seat in Jude Law’s old chair?”
She stayed in the vestibule and frowned at his whites and checks, weighing his uniform against her own. “Is that supposed to be a Young Pope joke?”
“Oh, no! God, no!” Kostya fumbled. Louise winced at the Lord’s name in vain. “I just bought this, um, this dining set”—he gestured absently to the table behind him—“that was rumored to once have… You know what, never mind.”
Her frown was joined by an incredulous eyebrow.
“Is this some sort of scam? Because the ad said ‘pay what you can,’ so I thought you might be trying to do something charitable”—she eyed him suspiciously—“albeit unorthodox.”
“Please,” Kostya said, “it’s not a scam. I just—look, it’s sort of hard to explain, and I’d rather not do it in the hallway, if you don’t mind?” He stepped back. “Just—come in, okay? Let me help you find Stacy. I’m not looking for any money.”
At the mention of her sister—which Kostya now understood to mean “Sister”—Louise softened.
“All right,” she said slowly, and crossed the threshold to his dim apartment. “But be warned. There’s mace in my wimple.”
THEY SAT AWKWARDLY across from each other, Sister Louise staring daggers at the Keanu Christ on the kitchen divider, her arms pretzeled over her chest, the glass of water he’d poured her untouched. After a few moments of this painful, judgy quiet, and without anything intelligible prepared, Kostya humbly slid off his toque, and started talking.
He introduced himself. Explained about his aftertastes. About the way his food brought spirits, briefly, back to life. Here, Sister Louise uncrossed her arms.
“How many times have you done this?” she asked. “Brought a ghost back.”
“One,” he answered slowly. “And a half.”
“One and a half ?”
He nodded. “Honestly? I don’t know exactly how it works yet. Part of what I’m doing here is trying to find out. But in the meantime, I want to help people, if I can. Give them an opportunity to say what I—what they—didn’t have the chance to.”
She nodded slowly, studying him.
“Who did you lose?” she asked at last.
He hesitated. “My father.”
“You bring him back?”
Kostya looked at his hands. “He was the half.”
She nodded again. “Okay. What do I have to do?”
Kostya blinked at her, surprised she’d come around. He’d thought long and hard about this part, about what had made the spirits—Anna, and his dad—return. About what might have summoned them.
“Well, uh. Okay. You have to think about her. To… to reach for her. With your thoughts. You have to want her to come back. To miss her so hard it casts out a line.”
Sister Louise rubbed her chest, right in the center. A tear slid down her face and vanished into her collar.
“I do.”
“Then we’ll wait. If she’s around, I’ll get a taste of what she wants to eat. Then I’ll cook it, and you’ll eat. And if I got it right, she’ll appear.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Sister Louise picked up the water and brought it to her lips. Took a sip. Set it back down. Looked hard at Kostya, gauging something.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said then. “I told the other Sisters I had a headache. I’m supposed to be in my quarters, resting. If Father Mackenzie knew I was here, I’m sure he’d disapprove. He wouldn’t support”—she gestured to the space between them, the flatware he’d set in front of her, the Keanu Jesus—“the occult. To say nothing of my Superior; she’d have my head just for tearing that slip off your flyer.”
“So you’re—sorry, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying”—she lifted the glass of water again—“do you have anything stronger?”
OVER SCOTCH, WHICH she drank like someone with a very different kind of habit, Sister Louise told Kostya about Sister Stacy. They met at the convent, both feeling the call in their twenties, Sister Louise after a stretch of horrible decisions that led her to seek the Lord and Sister Stacy after a string of good fortunes that renewed her faith in Him. They were fast friends, and though each entered into their sacred covenant with the deepest commitment to their Lord and Savior, they couldn’t help feeling, too, that part of what drew them to the Church at the very same time was a divine wish for their two souls to meet.
“We were peas in a pod. And with our order being a closed one, we clung to one another for support. Each time I thought I wasn’t good enough for this life, Stacy reassured me. Each time I had doubts—and I had many—she’d pray with me. I was so grateful for her. She had the wisdom of ages.”
“How did she pass?” Kostya asked gently, and a dark look crossed Sister Louise, who drained her glass.
“That’s just it,” she said in a hushed voice. “I don’t truly know. She was in the prime of her life. The picture of health. She’d run around the grounds for exercise, and one day, during her run, she just dropped dead.”
“Jeez,” Kostya exhaled, and she crossed herself. “Sorry. Did they autopsy?”
Sister Louise shook her head. “Doing so would imply that someone on the grounds at the time had harmed her. Which… we’ve all taken vows. We are women and men of God. It’s inconceivable.”
“So then…?”
“Inconceivable,” she repeated. “Not impossible. The thought bothered me so much that I requested a transfer. But even from a distance, it wore at me. I prayed and prayed on it. I asked the Lord to help me make peace with her demise, to forgive whoever had done it, but He never granted me respite. Which is why I’m here.”
“To find out who killed her?”
Sister Louise nodded. “And to tell her how sorry I am, for not being there when it happened. She’d—she’d asked me to join her that morning. But I couldn’t; I’d promised to help receive visitors from another parish, so she went without me. I can’t tell you how much I regret that decision.” She gave a small sob. “How many times I’ve wondered what might have been if her life hadn’t been cut short. It’s been almost thirty years, but I never stopped thinking about her. Wondering how. And why.”
Kostya felt the sudden puff of air on the back of his neck, like somebody’s last gasp.
“I—I think I got her.”
He jumped up and barreled through Keanu Reeves and into the kitchen, Sister Louise’s bewildered face vanishing behind him.
Flavors were blossoming in his mouth. Not the thin broth or stale bread or moldy old cheese he’d expected of a nun, but heat .
Hot cayenne. Smoky paprika. Tabasco. Lots and lots of Tabasco. The perfect, crispy crackle of golden fried chicken skin falling away from juicy morsels of dark meat. The characteristic tang of sour cream and the funk of Gorgonzola, but it wasn’t… hm! Not a dip, but… soup? Hot and thick, creamy, rue-rich mouthfuls of baked potato chowder laced with lumps of blue cheese, and—yes! there it was, in the back of his throat—Guinness.
Kostya smiled to himself. There was some moldy old cheese in there, after all. And broth, he supposed. Plus a couple cardinal sins, like floating fryer-crisped goodness in anything that would make it go soft and soggy. Unorthodox and unexpected, the combination of heat and cream and crunch its own Holy Trinity.
He liked Sister Stacy already.
When he set the dish in front of Sister Louise, her eyes went wide.
SISTER LOUISE—NéE Louise Mary-Ellen Fitzpatrick—stared down at the bowl in front of her. She knew this dish. It was the only outside meal she and Sister Stacy had ever shared, an ill-advised concoction Stacy’s brother, Fred, had brought with him on a visit to the convent. They’d been too polite to refuse it, and had suffered mightily as a result, their bowels churning and cramping and threatening to vacate the whole night through. Unable to sleep, they’d stayed up talking, misery inspiring their love of one another’s company. But there was no way this chef could have known that.
The soup’s mere presence was a miracle.
Her hands trembled as she dipped the spoon into the bowl. Everything she was about to do—raise a spirit; defy God’s will; consume this rich, decadent meal—reeked of wickedness. She might be struck down for this. Excommunicated. If not by the Heavenly Father Himself, then by the righteous women and men responsible for her actions. But she hardly cared. She had to see Stacy; she had to know.
Sister Louise tipped the soup into her mouth, the taste of it so potent it brought tears to her eyes.
The spoonful contained multitudes.
The lumps of potato with their skin, rough and brown and starched, were the tunics and stockings they were handed on their first day— Cleanliness is godliness, Sisters!— and the smiles they exchanged, she and the other novitiate, Sister Stacy Ann Robbins, as they donned them for the first time, their itchy, modest, new clothes. The tang and burn of hot sauce—Tabasco, heightened by cayenne—tore through Louise’s throat just like her cough that winter, the only silver lining Sister Stacy’s sweet concern, and the heat of the mustard patches from the medical ward, and the way she had applied them, hot and wet, to Louise’s chest and back— Breathe in now, deeply— and how she kept applying them, long after Louise’s cough had cleared. The chicken cracklings flaked with salt were the translucent pages of their Bibles, their heads bent low over their theology coursework, the crisp, righteous words that consumed their waking days and melted into dark meat, succulent conversation after lights out— What do I miss? Romance novels. French fries. Being seen —and a pause before Louise whispered back, Nuns are supposed to be invisible. But I still see you. And the chowder, smooth and creamy, sweet, the pale flesh of a wrist, a brow, a cheek, until the blue cheese crept in, ruining everything, like that afternoon in the gallery over the narthex, Sister Louise playing a hymn, the organ’s rich, warm, brassy tone stirring life into stale air, Sister Stacy beside her on the bench, listening, humming, leaning close to watch, closer, until there it suddenly was, all those months of pious worship undone by this tacit meeting of their lips, and Louise could feel it again now, risen in this spoon, holy kiss! sacred! divine! a flush of heat in her face, a warm, ecstatic feeling coiling inside of her, cut suddenly short by a sharp, bitter sound that startled them apart, the click of the gallery door, the swift withdrawal of steps, the damning knowledge someone else had seen—penicillium, mold, bitter blue cheese—and a fortnight later, whoever it was taking justice into their own hands, agony rising in Louise like bile—Guinness, bitter and black.
The first firefly lights—blinding, electric blue—arrived as Louise swallowed. She saw them, streaky through her tears, and her mouth parted in surprise, her tongue still tingling with Tabasco as the sparks expanded around her, multiplying, pulling themselves into shape.
“Sweet Lord in Heaven,” she whispered as Sister Stacy’s dimpled face appeared, her smile enough to light cathedrals.
KOSTYA WATCHED THEIR reunion through the gap between worlds, his shower curtain severing the kitchen from the dining room, spaces special and distinct as altar and nave. These meetings were sacred. He wouldn’t intrude. He would only observe, try to learn what he could, hone the tools of his craft. Hope that what he picked up would be enough.
Sister Louise ate slowly, and the nuns spoke for a long time.
There was more between them than she had let on. The way they looked at each other, how they laughed, what they said—it was obvious. They’d been in love. A quiet kind. New. A love that never quite got off the ground.
It was a love at odds with the Church, with the vows they’d taken.
“There is no penance I could do,” Sister Louise said, wringing the skirt of her habit in her hands, “to atone for how you died. For my role in it. I’ve tried every prayer. Devoted myself every way I know how. It will never be enough. I—oh, Stacy! Can you ever forgive me? I should have been content to just sit beside you. To focus on my lessons and do God’s work and live a humble, obedient life. If I wasn’t tempted—if I hadn’t deviated—you’d still be here.”
Sister Stacy shook her head. She slid a glittering hand across the table.
“That is just absolute garbage, Louise. Catholic guilt! Listen to me, my darling: I made my choices, same as you. God knows there’s nothing to forgive. Love has never been a sin. At least”—she gave a little eye roll—“not in my eyes.”
Relief melted over Sister Louise’s face. “Nor in mine.”
“Murder, on the other hand,” Sister Stacy continued, her light flickering in warning, “?‘ Thou shalt not kill.’ Exodus. Deuteronomy. Genesis. It’s all right there. It’s Sister Agnes who should have paid attention to her lessons, not you.”
“ Sister Agnes? ” Louise gasped, choking on her soup. “But she was next in line for Superior!”
Sister Stacy nodded. “And a scandal—two novices under her charge quitting the Church, running away together—would have ruined her. She couldn’t have it. So she put poison in my water bottle.”
Sister Louise sat shellshocked for a moment, before uttering some choice phrases Kostya was sure didn’t come from the Bible.
“And she’s a Reverend Mother now! Thirty Sisters under her charge!”
“Which is why you should bring her to justice,” Sister Stacy agreed. “If only to protect her order. But then—Louise, you have to let it go! Leave the burden of her judgment to the Afterward. It isn’t yours to carry.”
Sister Louise hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“Can I ask you something?” Sister Stacy studied her. “Why did you stay in? Why not refuse the vows and leave? Just start over, after everything? We were so young. You had your whole life.”
Sister Louise swallowed more soup, then examined her reflection, inverted, in the spoon.
“The Church—the Sisterhood—it was the only thing I had left of you. Leaving it would have meant… putting you away. You were brief, in my life. But you were the truth. Maybe the most honest thing about me.”
“I wish we’d had more time.”
“So do I.” Sister Louise scraped chowder from the bottom of her bowl. “It was difficult, holding two truths inside me all these years. What the faith teaches, and what I know in my own heart—they don’t always reconcile. But I found peace, eventually. Not in religion so much as in God. It’s a different kind of love, but it sustained me when you couldn’t anymore.” She reached across the table for Sister Stacy’s light-beam hand, their fingers occupying the same space, spirit layering through flesh. Then she smirked. “Can you at least level with me? What happened on the other side? Did you find peace? Did you meet God?”
“Oh, Louise!” Sister Stacy’s eyes twinkled as she spoke. “There’s so much I wish I could tell you! So much that surprised me! I always believed that if there were a Heaven, I’d be a shoo-in. But it wasn’t that simple. Peace requires closure, not only faith or love.” She hesitated. “I trust you’ll do what it takes now, to let me rest?”
Sister Louise looked down at her plate, at the last buffalo wing there, coated in soup.
“I will. Of course I will. I just—will I see you again? After this?”
There was a long pause between them.
“I don’t know,” Sister Stacy said at last. “But I have faith. Love is patient.”
Sister Louise nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “?‘It always protects,’?” she quoted.
“?‘Always hopes. Always trusts,’?” Sister Stacy supplied.
“?‘Always survives.’?”
Sister Louise lifted the last wing to her mouth.
“Love.” Sister Stacy gave a small, decisive nod. “The closest thing to godliness we’ll ever know. The chef who prepared this meal, for instance.” She glanced back toward the kitchen, straight into Kostya’s prying eyes. “He did a selfless thing, reuniting us. An act of love.”
“It really was.” Sister Louise chewed, nodding. “I feel a burden lifted from my soul.”
“Me too.” Sister Stacy turned slowly back to face Louise. “Tell him it’s important. This work he’s doing. There are so many here, suffering. Seeking just this kind of aid.”
“Suffering?” Kostya breathed from behind the curtain, his chest going tight.
“All right,” Sister Louise agreed, absently biting the wing again, tearing the last morsel of chicken from its bone. “But why,” she asked with her mouth full, “is there suffering in Heaven?”
She swallowed.
And before Sister Stacy could answer, before she could, in fact, say another word, her spirit scattered like a sparkler, her final flickers dying blue in the dark, dotting Kostya’s ceiling like so many stars.