Tuesday Mooney Wore Black. Kate Racculia

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СКАЧАТЬ windows looking out on the little park in front, the Verizon building next door, the entrance to the Bowdoin T station, and the parade of tourists and students and homeless and smokers and the occasional period-costumed Betsy Ross or Ben Franklin on their way to nearby Faneuil Hall. The office had a propensity to flood in the winter when the pipes froze. It definitely hadn’t been designed for its current purpose, but it was snug and functional enough, and best of all, nobody came to visit. Ever.

      She kicked her slippers free from the jumble of shoes under her desk and stepped into them. They were plush, fuzzy, and leopard-print, her spoils from last year’s research team Yankee swap; wearing them felt like nestling her feet inside stuffed animals. She shuffled over to the kitchenette and filled the electric kettle.

      She dumped a packet of cocoa mix in a paper cup.

      It took only two minutes for the kettle to boil.

      But by the time she padded back to her desk, she had five new Outlook emails, three more in her Gmail inbox, and her Facebook wall appeared to be one post, the same, shared about ten times. Her bag was buzzing like a pissed-off bee, her phone one long, continuous thrum.

      Dex was calling, wanting her attention in the middle of the day.

      A cool thump filled her throat where her pulse usually sat.

      “Dex!” she said, her voice a cough. “What’s wrong? Why are you calling me?”

      “Read your email,” he said. There was a long pause. “I was planning to say that and hang up,” he said.

      “But you didn’t.”

      “I couldn’t. Even for the sake of drama. Because did you see it? Did you see it yet? Like, how can it be real? Is it really a real thing? Do you think? It’s wild. It’s wild. It’s some Indiana Jones bullshit and I LOVE IT.”

      “I have – no idea what you’re talking about.”

      “Oh my God, READ YOUR EMAIL.”

      She sat down and clicked open Dex’s contribution to her personal inbox.

      “You’re still there, aren’t you,” she murmured.

      “Read faster,” he said. Then he dropped his voice. “This call is coming from inside the internet,” he growled.

      “Stop distracting me.” Dex’s email – subject line: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK – consisted of about fifty exclamation points and a link to an article from the Boston Globe. Tuesday clicked.

      “Oh – it’s his obituary. Pryce’s obituary.”

      “READ. IT.” Dex coughed again. “You’re not reading fast en—”

      Tuesday hung up on him.

      She loved obituaries. Even before she’d taken a professional interest – she consulted obituaries for research all the time – she had loved them. They reminded her of Abby Hobbes. The two of them used to read the obits every weekend, until their fingers were black with newspaper ink. It was Abby’s habit originally, and she’d shared it with Tuesday as easily as passing her the Sunday comics. “New ghosts this week,” she’d say. They’d each pick a favorite, someone they’d try, later with Abby’s Ouija board, to contact. Tuesday made her selections based on the kindred-tingle she’d get reading some small detail – how much they loved the movies, a strange hobby they had, a meandering career path – that triggered a realization of regret: she’d just missed her chance to know them. And she had; no matter how many new ghosts she and Abby tried to talk to, none of them ever talked back.

      Abby never got her own obituary. Plenty of other articles in the paper, but no obit.

      Vincent Pryce’s was in a class all by itself.

      It was preceded by a headline – VINCENT A. PRYCE, BILLIONAIRE ECCENTRIC, PENS OWN OBITUARY – and a brief explanatory lede:

      Larger-than-life Bostonian Vincent A. Pryce died on Tuesday night at the Four Seasons Hotel, during a fundraising event for Boston General Hospital. His death is not being treated as suspicious. On Wednesday, the Boston Globe received a request to print the following death notice. Pryce was a frequent contributor to the Globe’s public opinion pages, always by mail and always manually typed. Around the Globe, he was known for his passion for the arts, his wild fancies, and his fastidious attention to AP Style.

      Given the unprecedented nature of his death and the spirit of his life, the editorial board has decided to honor Mr. Pryce’s final request.

      And honor Pryce’s executors, Tuesday thought, and the possibility that Pryce left the paper a little something in his estate. She knew Pryce had a history of underwriting Boston institutions with financial woes, and the Globe had been teetering for years. She scrolled down past a photo of Pryce. He was wearing a respectable black suit and tie, but something about the way he held his shoulders, the gleam in his eye, the cackle that was surely at the back of his throat, made Tuesday think he was always wearing an opera cape, even when he wasn’t.

      It seemed an exhausting way to perform one’s life.

      The obit was a scanned image of two typewritten columns.

       I AM DEAD.

       You may think me mad to say such a thing. And you are most likely right, or at least not intractably wrong. I was mad when I was alive, so why should I expect death to grant me sanity?

       My name was Vincent A. Pryce. I was born. I lived. I traveled the world, seeking and collecting rare and fantastic objects, strange treasures with powers I daren’t describe for fear of being thought even madder. Now I have arrived at death’s doormat with a full heart and full pockets. I regret the latter. Work remains to be done. Death prevents me from doing it myself.

       And so I turn to you.

       Yes, you: you human, reading this obituary. You are cordially invited to attend my funeral masque, to be held on Boston Common at six o’clock in the evening on the third Friday of October. Costumes are required. Save the date; formal invitation to follow.

       You are also cordially invited to play a game. I have devised a quest. An adventure of intellect, intuition and imagination that begins now and will culminate on the night of my funeral. You and everyone you know are invited to play.

       Is it mad to bestow my legacy on a stranger? On someone I have never met, in this life or presumably the next – though having not yet gone to that other life, at the time of this writing, I cannot say for sure whether my heirs will possess the ability to travel betwixt both. If it be madness, then indeed I am mad, for to the worthy players who dare and who dream, I shall share a portion of my great fortune.

       For my fortune is great. No one person can possibly possess it all, and to the degree that I have attempted to do so over my finite years, I regret the time wasted. Of this game there will be no prize won if many do not succeed.

       I have already told you where to begin. Listen for the beating of the city’s hideous heart.

       I am survived by dearest Lila and by all of you. Live as well and as long as you СКАЧАТЬ