The House Above the Sea

28.

"Are you alive?"

The fish market's back room is a dim, overcast gray, as if the rain clouds stirring just beyond the window somehow permeate the walls. Neo's slumped over a fat binder that's brimming with invoices and weekly schedules, his hair a spill of dark, coiling ink upon the white pages. He turns his head, squinting up at Bernie's wrinkled face. He mumbles, "No."

"Weird. Dead people usually don't talk."

"You see, I'm a very intelligent zombie."

Bernie lets out a humored scoff. "You certainly look like one."

"Even the 'very intelligent' part?" Neo smiles crookedly at her. "Thank you."

"Alright, troublemaker," says Bernie with a roll of her eyes, knocking a gentle fist against his head. "We've got ten minutes till the shop opens. Do you want to tell me why you look like a very intelligent zombie, now?"

Neo winces—the impact of Bernie's hand, along with every noise and splinter of light this morning, is inexplicably painful, like a speck of shattered glass in the bottom of his foot. That, along with the headache stretching from temple to temple like an elastic band tied around his head, has made the day quite difficult thus far.

Not that he regrets even a second of the night before—Kit's drunken dancing, Kit's drunken laugh, Kit's drunken lips. If all Neo's life was only a night, he would hope it would be that one.

It takes all of Neo's energy—which isn't much in the first place—to drag himself upright, every vertebrae cracking as he does. He lets out a sigh. "Bernie?"

Bernie, reaching to pull on a pair of bright yellow gloves, eyes him from underneath a risen eyebrow. "Wait. Don't tell me. I know that look."

Neo blinks. "You do?"

"Yes," she stammers. "No. I don't know. I just think—you're about to tell me you're in love, aren't you?"

The word should bring a flush to his cheeks. It would have if he were younger, maybe, if last night and every moment spent with Kit before that hadn't made him so sure. "Damn," Neo says. "You're good."

Bernie scowls. "I'm not good. I'm just old. So, who's the lucky lady? It's not Elsie, is it?"

"What? No. Actually, it's not a lady at all."

"Ah. Forgive me for assuming," Bernie says. She slides on the gloves with a flourish, then rests an ample hip against the table. "So, who's the fortunate fellow?"

Neo tries to stifle a laugh, and fails. "'Fortunate fellow?'"

"What? It doesn't sound the same if it's not alliterative."

"Okay, okay. Fine. He's...." Neo says, and now he hesitates, because though he's gotten to this point without thinking of it, now it strikes him again like a bitter nostalgic scent. It doesn't really matter how he feels about Kit. It doesn't matter if meeting him was like walking again after years confined to a bed; it doesn't matter if every time he smiles Neo is torn apart and rebuilt again, an earthbound phoenix. None of it matters if they don't break the curse. None of it matters if Kit dies.

Neo's eyes lower to his backpack where it rests, half-open, underneath the break room table. In the desk's shadow he can just make out the ragged leather corner of the book Maeve gave them. He remembers the look on Elsie's face, all her features drawn into a taut scowl, as if she was on the brink of explosion. He knows how she feels, though he could pretend not to, for a while. But now the futility of it all comes rushing at him again in a sickening wave.

"Hey. Neo?"

His gaze shoots up. "Oh. Sorry, I—"

Bernie clicks her teeth. "I see."