Page 1

Calisto

The house in front of me always triggered conflicting emotions―today being no exception. Happiness, because I’d grown up here in the bosom of a loving family as one of five children, and anxiety because those four siblings were a tiny percentage of the zoo that made up the Dominguez family, my mother one of five herself, and my father one of six. And that was before you got to my grandparents, all four of them still kicking.

If there was one thing the Dominguez family were experts at, it was sticking around and refusing to go anywhere before their time. Not that I wished ill of my relatives. I just sometimes wished they were less present. And quieter. And less determined to stick their nose into everything, and rehash the past.

I took a deep breath before opening the gate and stepping onto the drive. If I was lucky, less than half of them would make it tonight. And if I wasn’t so lucky, then absolute pandemonium awaited me and I’d be going home with a headache. I’d only taken a few steps when the front door flew open and Lola stepped out. Lola was my baby sister, the only one of my siblings younger than me. Like the rest, she was married, Henry, her long-suffering husband, following her out of the door, the two of them apparently engaged in a domestic they had no intention of stopping just because I was there.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” Lola said, her hands on her hips as she narrowed her eyes at her husband. “Yet, you still do it.” She tilted her head to maintain her glare at Henry as I obstructed her view by kissing her on the cheek. “Yeah, hi Calisto.” I shook Henry’s hand, Lola’s ire intensifying. “Don’t shake his hand. He’s in trouble.”

I backed away with my hands in the air in a defensive gesture. “Just saying hello. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wise decision,” Henry said. “Never get married, Calisto.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lola asked, her tone indignant. “I didn’t want to get married! You were the one who insisted on it. ‘Please marry me, Lola. My life isn’t complete without you in it. Marry me and make me the happiest man alive.’”

I left them to it, knowing from past experience that whatever had upset Lola would be out of her system in less time than it took for me to greet whichever members of my family lurked on the other side of the door for the weekly get-together.

Felipe and Vicente, two of my brothers, were just inside the door, both of them welcoming me with a one-shouldered hug. If they were here, their wives would be too. The living room offered up one set of grandparents, two aunties, an uncle, and my father, all of them acting like it had been years since I’d last seen them rather than a few weeks. My mother I found in the kitchen, along with another aunt and a cousin, my mother pausing from cooking duties so I could kiss her on both cheeks. “What’s up with Lola and Henry?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Something he did. Or something he didn’t do. One or the other. Possibly both. I’m not rightly sure, to be honest. You know what they’re like. They’re passionate. I told them to go outside and have it out, and to not come in for dinner until they’d put a smile on their faces. I won’t have them putting people off their food. Not when I’ve spent hours cooking it.”

I gave her another kiss on the cheek. “Nothing short of a nuclear apocalypse could put people off your food. It’s too good.”

“Oh, shush,” my mother said, her wide smile saying the opposite. “Speaking of which, you’ve arrived so fashionably late that we’re about to sit down and eat, so…” She gave me a little push toward the door.

“Traffic,” I said feebly, my ability to lie, especially to my mother, never the best.

Aunt Margarita snorted from her vantage point at the breakfast bar. “Always with the excuses, Calisto. Anyone would think you don’t want to see your mother.”

The accusation had heat rushing to my cheeks. “That’s not—”

My mother flicked a tea towel in her sister’s direction. “Stop that! Calisto’s a busy man with an important job. You know he works strange hours.”

Margarita made a face like she’d just bitten into a lemon. “Out all hours raising the dead, even if they don’t want to be raised.”

I frowned. “I don’t think—”

This time, I got the tea towel treatment from my mother, albeit a much gentler version. “Go and sit down, darling. Grab one of the best seats before I tell the rest of them to drag their carcasses to the table. And don’t listen to your aunt. You know she’s a wind-up merchant. It’s what we all love about her.”

I took the opportunity to escape, avoiding the living room as I made my way to the dining room where we always ate. The usual assortment of mismatched tables and chairs awaited me, set up for however many turned up tonight. While enjoying the peace and quiet of a room that wouldn’t last, I did a quick count, relieved to find that apart from Felipe and Vicente’s wives who were probably in the back garden, there were no other family members lurking in the house. Or if they were, they’d have to stand to eat. It could be worse. It had been worse on many occasions.

Deciding where to sit meant balancing up all the pros and cons. Sitting in the middle opened you up to questions from everybody. Too far from the door and even going to the bathroom proved impossible, never mind making an early exit. The mismatch of chairs and tables was also a problem; some chairs were too tall, others too short. It had been suggested on more than one occasion that perhaps my parents could invest in a new dining table and chairs, my mum and dad frowning like it was an outlandish suggestion. So this was how it was and probably would always be. A family tradition that made life more difficult, but that they refused to let go of.

I’d just made my decision, sacrificing the chance of an escape route for a comfortable seat at the far end of the table, when the rest of the family filed in. We started eating without Henry and Lola, my mother shrugging when questioned on it. It soon became clear that my strategic planning of ensuring I wasn’t in the middle had been a waste of time, my absence from the previous two family dinners rendering me the man of the moment, no matter how far away I might be.

My grandmother kicked it off. “Are you courting, Calisto?”

“Not currently.”

Before I could say more, my father made a tsking sound. “You know it’s not like that for Calisto. He has to find the one.”

Margarita took a large swallow of something that could have been neat vodka. “To find something, you have to look for it first.”

“Very profound,” Felipe muttered, me and my brother exchanging a smile.

“I’m just pointing out,” Margarita said, “that you can’t let fate do all the heavy lifting, that you have to play a part in it. If you sit back and wait for a man to fall in your lap, you could wait forever. It stands to reason that if you never get out and meet people, that the likelihood of meeting your future husband is extremely slim.”

My mother, always the peacemaker, interjected. “He’s not the only necromancer in the PPB waiting, you know. And aren’t both your work colleagues older? They should get their turn first.”

“Actually,” I admitted, my cheeks flaming slightly. “Both John and Griffin have found their fated mates. Griffin even got married recently.”

My grandmother nodded sagely. “So it’s your turn. I’ll read your tea leaves later. We’ll see if there’s any sign of a tall, dark, and handsome stranger on the horizon.”

“We use tea bags,” my father pointed out.

Never one to be put off that easily, my grandma shrugged. “So we’ll rip one open and improvise. What’s in a tea bag?” She didn’t wait for my father to answer. “Tea leaves.”

My grandfather patted her on the hand. “You’ve always been resourceful. It’s why I married you. That and your impressive pair of—”

I stood, the movement so sudden the table rattled. “Could someone pass me the potatoes, please?”

“How’s work?” Vicente asked to change the subject.

Weird, and getting weirder by the day. With tales of masks bringing people back to life permanently, serial killers trying to raise demons, and a vengeful woman apparently out to get all of us who work there, including me, even though I’ve never met her. “Good,” I said. “Uneventful. You know, work is… work.”

Vicente, who sold insurance, rather than bringing the dead back to life, quirked an eyebrow.

“Do you remember,” Aunt Gabriela said from the other side of the table, “how Calisto used to have an imaginary friend growing up?”

I stiffened, the food in my mouth transforming into a rock as I attempted to swallow. “No one wants to talk about that.”

“Lots of children have imaginary friends,” my mother said. “It’s not that unusual.”

Gabriela snorted. “Not the way Calisto had one.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself for the conversation gathering momentum like a runaway boulder rolling down a hill. This was why I swerved as many of these family get-togethers as I could.

“He had a funny name, didn’t he?” Uncle Thiago asked. “It was cute. What was it, Calisto?”

“I don’t remember,” I lied. “It was a long time ago.”

“He grew out of it,” my mum said. “All kids do.”

“I grew out of it,” I parroted.

“Baxter Stuart Canmore!” Margarita announced proudly, like she expected some sort of prize coming her way for remembering it.

“That’s right,” Gabriela said with a nod to her sister. “He had a middle name and everything. Calisto used to talk to him all the time.” She turned to my father. “Do you remember when you had to go into school and meet with his teacher? She was worried because Calisto refused to talk to the other children. He said Baxter would get lonely if he didn’t talk to him.”

I leaned back in my seat. “I’m a necromancer and you’re surprised I was a weird kid.”

“He raises a good point,” my grandfather said.

Gabriela’s brow furrowed. “There was a lot of bizarre stuff going on around that time, wasn’t there?”

“Like what?” Jayne, Vicente’s wife, asked, seeming genuinely intrigued, like twenty-year-old gossip was precisely what she’d come here for.

“Edmund Wainwright,” Margarita announced.

Gabriela nodded. “Exactly.”

I forced a forkful of something into my mouth. Could have been potato. Could have been carrot. Could have been something else entirely. It was impossible to tell when it tasted of nothing. Whatever it was, it took an age to chew. I should have come up with an excuse not to be here again. Had I known the subject of Edmund would come up, I would have done.

“Who’s Edmund Wainwright?” Jayne asked, picking up on the expectant tension now shrouding the table. Which was ridiculous when everyone already knew the story, save for Jayne, and maybe Felipe’s wife, too, unless their pillow talk got really weird occasionally.

“Edmund Wainwright was a man in his sixties who lived just around the corner from us in the old house,” my mother provided. “Lovely man. If I was late home from work and Agustin was working, he would look after the children for me. Do you remember?”

Despite the question being aimed at me and my brothers, it felt like it was for me and me alone. “Vaguely,” I said, while Felipe muttered something I couldn’t make out. Vicente didn’t share his wife’s interest, more concerned with piling his plate high while no one else seemed interested in eating.

“He used to help you with your times tables,” my mother offered helpfully. “You were so good at them, you even won a prize at school. Do you remember that?”

Thankfully, I didn’t have time to answer before Gabriela took up the story. “Anyway, he died. Fell down the stairs, the poor man. Banged his head on the banister.”

Jayne’s nose scrunched up. “Oh, that’s sad.”

“It was,” my mother agreed.

“They took him to the funeral home,” Gabriela continued. “They set the funeral for the following Thursday afternoon and I bought a new hat for it. An expensive one. I looked good in it.”

“Anyway,” Margarita cut in.

Gabriela glared at her sister. “Who’s telling this story? Did you bring the subject up? No, you didn’t. I did. So let me tell it.”

Margarita sat back with a face like thunder and I steeled myself for the end of the story I knew only too well.

“Anyway,” Gabriela said with one last glare at her sister. “The funeral never happened. Because he came back to life. It’s hard to bury someone if they’ve resumed breathing and walking around.”

Jayne blinked. “You mean, he was never dead?”

“No, he was dead,” Gabriela said. “It just didn’t stick.”

Jayne was understandably confused. “How is that possible?”

Gabriela shrugged. “I told you weird things were happening around that time. Calisto was having full-blown conversations with someone who didn’t exist… arguments sometimes… he was always an inventive child, and Edmund decided not to be dead, after all. I haven’t told you the best bit, though.” She leaned forward, inviting Jayne to do the same.

Jayne obliged, the rest of the table quiet. “Go on.”

“Edmund wasn’t Edmund anymore when he came back.”

I concentrated on the pattern on my plate, determined not to react to this revelation should anyone be looking my way.

Jayne frowned. “I mean… I guess an awful experience like everyone thinking you were dead would change a person. It must have been horribly traumatic for him, particularly if he woke up in a coffin in a funeral home. I can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like.”

Gabriela shook her head with a glint in her eye. “Oh no, you misunderstand me. I don’t mean he’d been through it and was subdued. I mean, he was a completely different person. He looked like Edmund Wainwright, but everything else was wrong. The pattern of speaking. The mannerisms. The personality. I don’t know who came back, but it wasn’t Edmund and he was far from lovely.”

Seemingly over being relegated to the role of the audience, Margarita piped up once more. “It was like invasion of the body snatchers, only without the pods.”

“I didn’t let him watch the children anymore,” my mother offered, her expression sad. “Not that he wanted to after the…” At a loss to know what word she should use, she left the sentence hanging.

A spiky silence hung over the table. I wiped sweaty palms on my trousers, making the movement as inconspicuous as I could.

“See! Weird stuff,” Gabriela said.

“Never a dull moment in this family,” Felipe said drily. “I dream of the day when we make it through dinner without discussing death.” He threw a pointed look my way to make it clear he thought I should shoulder most of the blame, which seemed a little unfair, given I’d had nothing to do with bringing the subject up. In fact, out of everyone at this table, I had a vested interest in it not being discussed. “But… I guess I’ll just have to keep dreaming.”

“Do you know what the worst thing was?” Gabriela asked.

Anticipating the punchline, my father let out a groan. Jayne, who hadn’t already heard it a thousand times, shook her head. “I didn’t keep the receipt for the hat,” Gabriela said. “I had a brand new hat and no funeral to wear it to. Damn inconsiderate of Edmund Wainwright, if you ask me.”

I gave up on any pretense of eating. Spotting the intent in my body language, my grandfather pointed his fork at my barely touched plate. “Are you going to eat that?”

I shook my head and passed my plate across, my grandad wasting no time in scraping my food off and adding it to his own already stacked to the rafters plate. God only knew where he put it, my grandad never seeming to put on a single pound. My mother frowned at me. “You’re already too skinny.”

“I’m fine.”

She shook her head. “I hope when you meet this man that you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, he turns out to be a chef.”

“A dessert chef,” Margarita mused with the first glimpse of pleasure I’d seen from her all night. “One who understands that life is far too short to worry about how much sugar… or butter… or chocolate you put in something. He can come to my house and practice.”

“I think Calisto will want him to stay home. They’ll have a lot of missed time to make up for,” Jayne offered.

“No one can have sex all the time,” my grandma stated. “Your grandfather and I tried for an entire weekend once, and by the end, all we wanted was a cocoa and an early night.”

As if on cue, a very flushed and tousled Lola and Henry entered the room. They’d apparently gone straight from having a domestic to make up sex, neither of them caring they weren’t at home. My family was a lot and always had been. I loved them, but there were definitely times I wished for a little more self awareness, especially when I got treated like the weird one.