Free The Messengers by Edward Hogan

what was coming. Peter studied the drawing some more. “You’re good,” he said. “The drawings don’t have absolute clarity yet, but that will come. You’ll learn to make the images clearer.”
    “Dead is dead,” I said. “What does it matter if the picture looks pretty? Most people only see the shapes anyway.”
    Peter shrugged. “A sharper image gives you clues as to who the person is. Makes them easier to find. Remember, I tracked Samuel Newman from his number plate.”
    I thought about that for a while, and then something occurred to me. Something Max had said.
Death is a place. Remove all hazards and obstacles
. I stored that thought for later.
    “Shall we go to the retirement home?” Peter said.
    “Can’t we wait awhile? Why don’t we do something else for a bit, to pass the time?”
    “Like what?” Peter said.
    “Like something that hasn’t got to do with anyone dying. You know Helmstown pretty well. What can you do here to relax?”
    “You can go mackerel fishing. They take you out into the middle of the sea, and you get to keep what you catch.” He sounded excited.
    “Peter.”
    “Yes?”
    “That’s killing fish.”
    “Oh. You’re right. Well, I know where we can see some living fish.”
    “Better,” I said. “Better.”
    The Ocean Life Centre was a hundred years old and built under street level. It was like a cave, and they played soft music, which was probably from a CD called
Whale Heaven
, but it got to me. There were eels as long your arm, with skin like a leopard’s. Rocks in the tank suddenly opened their eyes; sea horses fell, seemingly helpless, through the water; and tiny neon fish flashed by like sparks from a bad plug. It was like another world. Just what I needed right then.
    Peter had wandered off. I found his silhouette against the bright-green light of a tank. “Look,” he said.
    There was an ugly brown fish lying flat on a rock, with fins on either side that looked like basic arms. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “This is the kind of fish they always show in prehistoric books.”
    Peter nodded. “The ones that crawl out of the sea and become humans, or whatever. I wonder how long you have to leave them in here before they change.”
    We laughed.
    “The beginnings of life,” Peter said.
    He disappeared through a curtain and I followed him. It was the jellyfish room. The tanks were glass columns, the darkness broken by a square of light that changed from green to purple to red to blue, making the jellyfish appear to change color, too, as they rose with the slow swish of their skirts. It was magical.
    Peter’s face went from red to blue, and I admit that I wanted to kiss him. It was as though I could feel the water all around us — in the tanks and in the sea outside — lifting us upward. I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together, tried to imagine the conversation I might have with Keisha back home:
    He’s quite soulful, you know. He’s had a difficult life, but he’s caring underneath it all.
    He sounds nice, Fran. How old is he?
    He’s in his late twenties.
    Bit old. What does he do?
    Oh, you know. He’s a messenger of death.
    Ridiculous. I could feel the light changing through my eyelids.
    “You OK, Frances?” he asked.
    “Yeah, fine,” I said, opening my eyes. “Fine. I bet your boy would like this place.”
    Peter turned away. “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Aren’t you curious about him?”
    “Of course I am. But it’s too dangerous.”
    “But what if you could — ?”
    “I think we’ve had this conversation.”
    “Yes, but you had your fingers in your ears,” I said.
    Peter ignored me, and I decided not to push too hard. We looked at the swaying tentacles of the jellyfish. “They’re making me want noodles,” I said.
    Peter laughed. “Yes, chicken ramen. Let’s eat!”
    We emerged, squinting, into the sun. We took a shortcut through the museum on our way to the noodle place. There was an exhibition, Cubism to Futurism. That was
all
I