Lesson 16: A sense of humor is important, but not everything should be turned into a joke.
They order pizza from Tick Tock's; in the twenty minutes it takes for the pizza to arrive at Black Star and Kid's apartment, Soul scrubs his fingernails clean in the bathroom, and attempts to clean off the dirt smearing his sleeves and the pant leg that got caught in Joe's coffin. There's a dull pain in his ankle emanating from underneath, but he doesn't care to check how badly he's cut.
As he turns away from the sink, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror-there's a pallor in his face that reflects the exhaustion seeping through his body. It mixes badly with the jittery tension sitting in his stomach, making him feel like he's standing on a great precipice, but instead of walking away from it, he's walking towards the ledge.
It's worse than how he was before he lost his mind three years ago. At least then, he hadn't known he was walking off the cliff.
He jerks the bathroom door open before he can think any more, the scent of pizza hitting him as soon as he steps into the kitchen.
"There you are," says Black Star thickly through a bite of pizza. "Come and sit."
"Have you left any pizza at all?" Soul asks as he takes a seat between Kid and Maka, eyeing Black Star's overflowing plate. He hadn't realize how hungry he was until the pizza was in front of him, though his appetite is thoroughly demolished.
Even with the hunger, he's only able to force down one slice, picking the toppings off of the other slice on his plate. He waits for someone to start the conversation as they eat, but no one speaks, more interested in eating than talking.
He tries not to sound annoyed when he asks, "Are we going to talk about we found out or not?"
"I think we were all just hungry." Black Star takes a bite of his crust. "And it's hard to talk about something as complicated as what we're investigating on an empty stomach."
"I don't think it's that complicated." He's not in the mood to be gracious.
"We know," Maka says quickly, though she shoots a warning glance at Soul. "But it's only been hours since you told us about everything, and it's a lot to process."
"I know." His bad mood relents as suddenly as it appeared. He wants to shake himself until his head gets back in order. "I'm tired."
"How could you not be when you slept in the same room as the snoring monster?" Black Star says, jerking a thumb in Maka's direction. "I think I got like three hours of sleep, max."
She glares at him, face flushing. "I do not snore."
"Well, you wouldn't be aware of it, would you?"
"Perhaps now is the time to talk about what we discovered in the graveyard and historical society," Kid interjects delicately. "I don't think I can eat more anyways."
"The society was a bust." Black Star finishes off his crust, pushing back his plate. "No ghosts there, except for maybe me, because I swear I died of boredom in there."
"It was not that boring," retorts Maka. She pauses before admitting, "But there wasn't much on Joe, except a mention in an exhibit on Shibunsen's history. He died around the same time as the last mining strike.
"That explains why he would have something against the town, and why you're hearing the voice from the mines," she continues. "But it doesn't give us anything more specific to go on."
She looks at Soul and Kid. "What did you two find?"
"Well, we found the grave easily enough. It appeared to be undisturbed," Kid replies, sparing a glance at Soul as he adds, "However, upon further investigation, we found that the coffin was empty."
"You dug up an old dude's corpse?" exclaims Black Star at the same time Maka firmly says, "I don't want to know how you found that out."
"To be fair, it was an accident," Soul says, leveling a look at Kid. "Though it does prove that it is Joe behind everything."
Kid frowns. "I think it's a bit of a leap to say that."
"And what about the thing that chased us right after we found out his grave was empty?" shoots back Soul. "That wasn't a coincidence."
An alarmed tone enters Black Star's voice. "You were chased?"
"It was probably one of the groundskeepers," Kid replies, shrugging away his concern. "They probably keep an eye on Joe's grave because of all the foot traffic it gets."
"That wasn't what you were saying when you were sprinting across the cemetery."
Maka interrupts. "That is definitely weird," she admits. Her brows furrow. "But I don't see how the pieces fit."
There's silence as they retreat into their own thoughts. Soul's head starts to pound with the same intensity it did this morning. Even with everything they've learned, they're no closer to figuring out why the figure, whether it's the ghost of Joe Shade or something else, has been following him, or what they want, or who the voice that's been calling him belongs to, although he's been the only to ever actually hear it, so that could just mean-
He forces his mind away from that path. His thoughts are rambling, borderline erratic, and he can't focus on any one thought for very long, except the fear that he's losing his mind again, and everything else, too.
A wave of nausea sweeps through his stomach as the sick feeling he woke up with intensifies. There's nothing more he wants to do than close his eyes, but he knows if he does that, his dreams won't leave him alone.
When the phone goes off, they all jump. Maka reaches down to pick up her bag from the floor, where the ringing is coming from. "Sorry."
She glances at the phone screen before answering. "Hello."
Her face turns resigned, tinged with a forced kind of resolve, as she listens to the person on the other line. "I'm not at the shop today, but I could probably drop by tomorrow."
This answer apparently doesn't please the person, because there is another pause as the tinny hum of their voice on the phone grows louder.
Maka is clearly holding back a sigh as she interrupts. "Listen, I'll head out there right now, but if it's a big fix, I won't be able to do much," she says. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The resigned look on her face is tinged with annoyance as she drops her phone back in her bag. "That was Tezca," she says with a sigh. "Apparently, his boiler went out again."
"Why can't he just burn a few of his paintings?" asks Black Star, ignoring the poke Kid gives his shoulder. "He's got plenty enough to keep warm."
"Yes, I'm sure it would have gone over very well if I suggested that," she says as she stands. "His joints are all messed up from the accident and the heat is the only thing that helps, according to him, so I have to go check it out."
"Wait, you're going?" Soul says, shock keeping him from thinking twice. "But we haven't gotten to the bottom of anything."
"We've made a lot of progress for one day," she replies, pulling on her jacket. "We can revisit things later."
Frowning, he opens his mouth to argue when Black Star speaks. "Don't forget about the post-HarvFest party," he says, pointing out to the living room window, where the sun is slowly beginning to make its descent. "It's starting in less than two hours."
"You can't be serious," blurts out Soul. He gets to his feet, gesturing to outside as he says, "We still have no idea if it's Joe that's haunting the town, or what he wants, or why he's been following me!"
"I mean no offense by this," Kid says after a brief silence, eyes unblinking as he looks at Soul and the rest. "But I think we all need a break from ghost hunting."
"And a nap," adds Black Star.
Soul immediately takes offense. "Well, you haven't-"
"And I think you need a break too," Maka says, grabbing his hand and tugging. "Come with me to the job. It'll distract you, it'll spare me from listening to him talk about himself, and then we can go to the party."
Even in the midst of one of his biggest internal break-downs, he is not immune to the warmth of her touch, although it doesn't comfort him nearly as much as he wished it would.
"Do I have a choice in this?" he asks, relenting only because he might actually go completely crazy if he has to stay in Black Star and Kid's apartment and do nothing.
"Nope," she answers, throwing a wave to Black Star and Kid as she leads them into the hallway and to the door. "We'll see you at the party."
"Have fun," calls Black Star.
They stop at the Scythe'n'Saw to pick up Maka's toolkit before heading to Tezca's. The entirety of Market Street is mostly deserted, like it always is the day after HarvFest, debris scattered in the street and lantern lights still dangling from the street posts.
"I'll be back in a few minutes," Maka says, unsnapping her seat belt. "Might as well check on a few things since I'm here."
"Hurry back." Soul closes his eyes as she leaves the car, exhaustion coming back to him in a rush now that he's alone for the first time since yesterday.
Keeping himself awkwardly angled in his seat so he doesn't completely fall asleep, he allows himself to hover somewhere between consciousness and drifting off, admitting to himself reluctantly that Kid may have had a point when he said they needed a break.
It creeps up on him, like a spider crawling up his body, and similarly, once he becomes aware of the voice, he's unable to ignore it.
Soul's eyes snap open. "What do you want?" he asks irritably, staring out of the windshield and into the dimming sky. The voice continues to echo wordlessly in his ears. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
The slam of the trunk makes him jump in his seat, and he catches a glimpse of Maka in the rearview mirror as she walks from behind the car. She opens the driver's door a moment later, ducking her head as she slides into her seat.
"All set," she says, looking over at him, a frown replacing the steady look on her face. "Are you okay?"
"You're really asking that question?" He doesn't mean to snap, but his instincts move far faster than his mind.
"Yes, I am," she shoots back, glaring at him now. "People care about you, and you don't have to act like a jerk when they do!"
She's right, but he still searches for something to retort, biting his tongue when he finds nothing.
After a moment of stony silence, she says, "I know you're stressed out with everything that's been happening, and you want to figure out why it's happening, and we're trying to help, but we still have our own stuff to deal with."
Guilt washes over him like a wave. He doesn't deserve any of their help, least of all hers. "I know."
"It's not like I'm saying that I'm not going to help or that I don't believe you anymore," she continues, glancing at him as she drives. "But we should have some fun, too, right?"
"I guess fun is acceptable," he says grudgingly. "But only if you don't try to make me dance."
"No promises," she says, a smile twitching on her lips.
He's trying to find a better way to say sorry than just saying so when he remembers the cemetery. "I saw your mom," he says, looking at her as he speaks. "I told her what you told me."
"Oh." The expression on Maka's face freezes, becoming tightly wound. "Thank you for doing that."
"I made sure she was clean, too," he says, unsure how she'd react to him saying "grave". "I don't mind doing that in the future, if you want."
Shock ripples across her face, like it's been a long time since anyone offered her help that wasn't related to work, and he supposes that that might be true, with maintaining the shop taking up all her time and Spirit's withdrawal from everything.
"I appreciate that, but I think might want to leave her some flowers," she answers. The weight of her gaze rests on him briefly, then shifts back to the road. "Though I don't think I can do it alone."
Like last night, he answers her unspoken question. "You don't have to."
Tezca's house, like the man, is a mixture of eccentric and eclectic. The broken down mini-carousel that his neighbors have futilely attempted to force him to get rid of for years is still sitting in the middle of his front yard, weeds and plants sticking up nearly as tall as the ride.
Soul spies Tezca sitting on a carousel horse that he painted to resemble a dragon as Maka pulls into the driveway, wearing the teddy bear head that no one has ever seen him without, even before his accident. Like the rest of town, Soul has no idea how old the man truly is, but since he's been around for as long as nearly anyone in Shibunsen Springs can remember, he's known as Old Man Tezca.
"About time you showed up," he says, hopping down from the dragon horse with a limber nimbleness that's impressive for someone who was nearly crushed to death by a tractor. He doesn't comment on Soul's presence or bring up his three year long absence, although he supposes that he has no room to, considering Tezca was also known as the crazy person of the town before Soul stole his title.
"I already know the way to the boiler." Maka carries her toolkit with one hand. "I hope you don't mind that I brought company," she says as she nods to Soul, not sounding like she cares at all.
"I always welcome a new reflection on my art." Somehow, Tezca is smoking, cigarette smoke escaping from the small gap where the bear's mouth should be. The flat, painted on eyes of the bear head stare unblinkingly at Soul before he spins around and strolls up the porch.
"Don't you mean perspective?" Soul asks as Tezca lets them into the house, wondering how he is able to see anything.
A wild laugh comes from underneath the mask, which was not the reaction he was expecting in the slightest. Soul pauses in the tiny foyer the front door has opened up to, glancing at Maka, who only gives him a look that clearly says she understands his bewilderment, before addressing Tezca. "I'll be in the basement."
Soul makes to follow her, but an arm yanks him back.
"Weren't you listening?" Tezca's tone is scolding. "I need your reflection."
He protests as Tezca leads them away from the hallway Maka disappeared down, and into a much longer one. "I only took one art class in college, and I failed that."
Again, Tezca only laughs, letting go of Soul's arm as they enter what he assumes is his studio.
There's a couch in one corner of the room, angled at a weird slant, and patched so many times it resembles an oversized quilt rather than a couch while the floor is cluttered with easels. The walls are covered in mirrors of different shapes and sizes, with paintings squeezed into the gaps between them. Thankfully, his more risque paintings are nowhere to be seen, though the sight of himself reflected from so many different angles is no less discomforting.
"After my accident, I saw that the only things bestowed equally upon everyone are life and death," Tezca says, smoke wafting through his mask. He goes to stand in front of a full-length mirror while Soul stays in front of the patchwork couch, head tilted like he's puzzled at what he sees in it. "I look for it everywhere now."
Tezca doesn't say anything else, and Soul is forced to ask, "What do you mean by it?"
"You should know," He whirls around suddenly, surging up to him so that Soul has no choice but to sit down on the couch, hands waving wildly. "You've seen it!"
Leaning back into the couch, he answers, "I've seen a lot of things."
A small giggle tumbles out from Tezca. "Fair enough, man. You'll get it eventually."
Soul has no idea if Tezca is referring to anything that matters, or if it's just words, but the man doesn't give him room to speak.
"Tea," he declares. "Maybe that'll help."
Before Soul can react, Tezca leaps over a painting that still appears wet, heading down a short hallway that he assumes leads to the kitchen.
As soon as Tezca's footsteps fade, Soul gets up, not sure where he's going, but very sure he won't be drinking anything Tezca offers him. He goes back down the hallway and into the foyer, vacillating between going back out to the car and looking for Maka.
He chooses the latter, if only because the last time he was in the car alone, the voice resurfaced. Unlike the rest of the house, the hallway to the basement is dark, and he stumbles when he walks into the door, slightly ajar.
Annoyed, he yanks it open and enters the landing, pulling it closed so Tezca doesn't hear him talking to Maka. He picks his way down the stairs, looking around the room-which is mostly filled with more mirrors and painting supplies-before he spots the boiler at the far side of the room, perched on spindly legs.
Maka is heavily concentrated on whatever she's working on with the boiler, not noticing Soul until he's right next to her. "Hey there."
She lets out a gasp, whirling around. When she spots him, she scowls. "I was about to punch you in the face."
"You could still do that."
Rolling her eyes, she turns back to the boiler. "So, you only lasted five minutes with Tezca, huh?"
"It's hard holding a conversation with someone you can't even make eye contact with," he says, peering at the part of the boiler she is tinkering with. "What's wrong with the boiler?"
"Only a couple loose bolts, which caused the circulator pump to stop working. I fixed it and now I'm just checking to make sure everything else is working." She replaces the metal panel she removed from the boiler, screwing it back in place. "But you should know Tezca doesn't like being left behind or ignored, so prepare yourself."
"That's why I closed the door," he answers. "He shouldn't be able to find me for a while."
A horrified edge enters Maka's voice. "But that door locks automatically!"
"Oh," is all Soul can say. He watches as she drops her screwdriver back into her toolkit, and strides past him. "But won't he hear us calling?"
"Nope." Maka takes the stairs two at a time. "He didn't answer for two hours the first time I was called out here. I was banging on the door the entire time."
"Shit." There's only a narrow window in the basement, not even big enough for him to stretch his arm out of. He starts to follow her up the stairs, but she turns around, stopping him.
"Try banging on the ceiling by the boiler," she orders. "He might hear that since it's closer to the rest of the house." A stern look enters her eyes. "But don't do anything else to get his attention."
Soul examines the basement as he goes back down the stairs: there's a few painter's stools that look long enough to reach the ceiling, though they prove far too heavy for him to lift for more than a few seconds. The brushes are no good either, and there is nothing in Maka's toolkit long enough to reach the ceiling.
Moving aside a couple pieces of cardboard covered in paint splatter, Soul spies the end of a bat underneath a canvas, recognizing it for what it is before he can even get a better look.
It's made out of aluminum instead of wood, which will make a louder sound. He takes a spot next to the boiler, lifting the bat high and tapping the ceiling with a tentative poke.
It barely makes a sound.
He's trying to work up the courage to hit the ceiling harder when the knocking from Maka's end stops. "Have you found anything yet?" she calls from the stop of the stairs.
"Yeah," he calls back, staring at the bat.
"Then start banging unless you want to be stuck here for the rest of the night." Her knocking resumes after that.
He swallows, hesitating for another second, before smacking the ceiling harder than before. It resounds dully with a thud, and he hits the ceiling again.
When that thud comes out too soft as well, he blocks out the voice coming from his better side, and swings upward like he's aiming for a home run. The sound reverberates off the ceiling much louder this time. The ceiling is made out of wood, so he has no fear of paint or drywall coming down on him, though dust still sprinkles on his hair.
For a few minutes, he continues to swing at the ceiling, moving around to hit it in different places, but it's to no avail, and he stops after a particularly loud thud, breathing heavily. Meanwhile, Maka continues to call and knock at the door.
Soul stares at the ceiling. If Tezca had heard them, he would have come long before now, which means he hasn't heard them, or he's ignoring the knocking, which Soul can't completely rule out.
But if he hasn't. His eyes trail to the boiler, going up to the place where it connects with the pipes running through the rest of the house. If he hit the boiler hard enough, just once, the sound might echo to wherever Tezca is.
Only one time, a voice says from the part of himself he shouldn't listen to. One time won't hurt.
Rolling the bat between his hands, Soul faces the boiler. It's old and made out of iron, looking more like a tank than a boiler, and is therefore more durable, he reasons. He tries to estimate the place where it would make the most sound, but even after he finds it, he doesn't swing immediately, instead glancing behind his shoulder.
But they won't be getting out of the basement if they keep doing what they're doing, he tells himself. His grip on the bat tightens.
Something under his skin buzzes. Just once.
Soul swings before he can think better.
The sound is ear-splitting. The boiler rocks back with a groan, one of its legs now angled at a bad slant, and he sees far too late that he overestimated the force it could take.
Maka's voice rings out, sharp and alarmed. "What was that?"
"I tripped into some shelves," he lies as he eyes the distinct dent at the top of the boiler.
"Those weren't shelves." The landing creaks as she starts to head down the stairs. "What did you do?"
Before he can invent a lie, Tezca's voice sounds from the top of the stairs. "Did you lock yourself in here again?"
"I-" Maka goes silent as Tezca's footsteps tread down the stairs. Her voice has a guilty edge to it when she speaks again. "Couldn't you hear us from up there?"
"It's hard to hear anything when I get caught up in my art," Tezca replies. "The house did feel like it was shaking a second ago, so I thought I should check on things."
Maka starts to respond, but whatever she's about to reply dies on her lips as she and Tezca round the bend in the stairs and her eyes fall on the dented boiler leaning heavily to the right, before going to Soul and the bat.
He drops the bat. "Hi."
Maka doesn't speak to Soul until long after they've left Tezca's house. "Why did you do it?" she asks, looking at the road.
He could argue it was out of necessity, but that wasn't completely true. "I don't know," he says finally. His mind has been stretched too thin today, and he can't force himself to think anymore, or try to be better than the rut he always sinks back into. "I guess I thought it was a good idea."
"Well, it wasn't," she answers hotly. There's a weariness in her eyes that seems to stand out more in the dying light. "And I had just asked you not to do anything like that."
"Yeah, I know." Her words sting more than he will admit, and his apology sticks in his throat. "I was just trying to help," he says, trying not to think of how often she's heard something similar from her father.
The brunt of the anger in her voice abruptly vanishes, leaving behind irritation and a resigned exhaustion. "I know."
He can't stand the silence that follows. "At least you got another job out of Tezca."
"Right," she snorts. "Because spending an afternoon in Tezca's basement fixing his boiler is exactly what I envisioned for my Monday. It's a miracle it still functions."
Becoming irritated himself, he offers in a not very gracious tone, "I can help."
"I'm not sure Tezca's going to be very willing to let you back in his house."
"Probably not." He looks out of the window instead of looking at her, and is surprised to see they're heading in the opposite direction of his house, which was where he assumed they were heading. "Where are we going?"
"The party, remember?" Her fingers drum against the steering wheel. "I said we would go after Tezca's, and I would like to forget everything for a while."
He bites back his laugh. "I'm not sure that partying in the dead carcass of a town is going to help you with forgetting much of anything."
"Big words from someone who just moved back," she points out with a roll of her eyes. Her lips purse together like they do when she's thinking hard. "I just need to figure out how to use the momentum from HarvFest to bring more people into the shop. There's always an uptick in business the week after, but it never lasts."
"Kinda hard for that to happen in a dead town, isn't it?" he asks, shrugging. Sarcasm probably isn't the best way to lighten the mood, but it's all he's got. "You can't reanimate a corpse."
There's a slight pop from one of the stitches in her jacket as Maka waves his words away. "The town isn't dead, it's been years since the mines shut down and there are still a lot of people here."
"A lot of dinosaurs survived after the asteroid hit sixty five million years ago, and look where they are now."
"We aren't dinosaurs, Soul." There's a warning tone in her tone, but he ignores it.
"It's still the same thing." He's not sure why he's being so persistent about this, but inner reflection has never been his strong suit. He feels like he's back in the field with the truck again, except this time, he doesn't know what he's destroying. "I took an ecology class once, and the professor talked about ecological collapse."
Maka's pigtails swing as she looks at him, like a scythe hanging from a chain. "You mean one of those basic, prerequisite classes that is one hundred percent Googable information?"
"Yes, exactly." Her sarcasm flips the switch in him, and he abandons whatever restraint he had been holding onto. "When something essential to an ecosystem disappears, its carrying capacity gets reduced by a lot. Carrying capacity is-"
Her eyes flash in the last of the sunlight as she looks at him. "I took AP Environmental Science in high school, Soul."
"So, you know then," he says. "When the mines closed-"
She cuts him off. "The mines were important, but not essential," she says, throwing another glance to him. Ahead of them, the road narrows into a single lane in both directions, the beginning of the long stretch of road leading to the base of the mines. "The people are what is needed for a town to survive."
"How many houses have we passed by?" he asks. "Gorgon Mart is the only store that's thriving, and that's because they have enough money to bleed the town dry."
"So?" It's dangerous when her answers become one-worded, but there is no digging out of this ditch even if he had a shovel.
"Extinction by capitalism." The moment the words come out of his mouth, he knows it's a mistake, but he has no choice but to follow through with it. "It's unpleasant, but at least it has a ring to it."
Several beats of silence pass between them. Soul shifts his weight when Maka doesn't come back with a retort, finally opening his mouth, but she beats him to the punch.
"Do you really think it's that funny to watch everything around you disappear?" she asks, without looking at him. "To see all you know crumbling away and know that one day, there is going to be nothing left-not you, or me, or the mines, or even Gorgon Mart's corporate husk, because that'll shut down the moment the town is gone.
"It isn't terrifying to you that there's nothing you can do about it?" Now she looks at him, and he wishes she hadn't. Her face is scrunched up, and her voice is shaking like it does when she's angry, but there's something in her eyes that's almost pleading, and it carves into his chest like a knife. "That you realize you mean nothing."
Her chest is heaving when she's done, hands clenched around the steering wheel, as Soul stares at Maka. He's aware of how hard his own heart is pounding, and lightheadedness pours over him; there are many things he wants to say in response, and many more things he should say, but in the end, he goes with what's easiest.
"Not really." He shrugs. "Like you said, it's not like there is anything anyone can do about it."
For a second, Maka's eyes rest on his, then her expression closes as she looks away. She does not talk or look at him for the rest of the car ride.
They arrive at the mining station fifteen minutes later, rows of cars already lined up in the old parking lot outside. Maka turns off the car and exits, although she stops at the front.
A moment passes before Soul follows, hovering a few feet from her so he doesn't have to see how badly he's hurt and disappointed her.
"But even if it doesn't scare you, don't you care about it?" she asks after a minute, staring at the ground. "Or how your brother or your parents feel about it, or how I feel about it?
"Or me?" She lifts her chin, gaze meeting his. "Do you care about me at all?"
Somewhere in his head, a voice is screaming at him to answer, but he can't move, can't talk, can't do anything but stare back at her and wish he could be better.
There's a sad smile on her lips as she turns away. "You don't have to answer," she says. "I already know."