Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles Read online

  The door to the waiting room at the end of the hall opened. Nathaniel turned to the conference room doorway to find Fiona as she stepped through. She was followed by seven other faces of the predetermined exemplary muses.

  Fiona smiled warmly at the sight of her department. She said to Nathaniel: “You have certainly outdone yourself, Mr. Cauliflower. The place looks superlative!”

  Nathaniel couldn’t help but to blush. Feeling proud of his work, pleased to no end that his efforts did not go unnoticed, he shook hands with each muse, offering a warm smile and a hearty greeting as they filed in the hall. The last muse he came in contact with was a woman at the back of the crowd. She wore a strapless Chiffon wedding dress around her slender figure. Her flowing locks of red hair glowed effervescently under the lights. Her green eyes sparkled. Her tan face and shoulders were spotted with freckles.

  The bride, a woman named Annette Redmond, looked at Nathaniel and, not knowing quite why, said “Hello. My name is Annette.”

  “Hello, my name is Nathaniel J. Cauliflower.”

  Annette’s face looked askance. “Cauliflower? As in the vegetable?”

  Nathaniel’s natural fondness for Annette quickly dissolved. “Better that than Broccoli,” he responded with a hint of derision. If only Annette knew how he was given the name Cauliflower, she wouldn’t be so quick to judge! But that was another memory for another time, and there were many more things to worry about in the present than genealogy lessons.

  “Dinner is served in the conference room.” He gestured to the conference room where the inviting feast’s aroma was waiting for them. “After supper, Management has gifts for each of you which you’ll hopefully find helpful and enlightening. We have a lot to accomplish before we send you back on your ways.”

  The guests followed Fiona through the hallway to the conference room with Annette Redmond close behind. Nathaniel watched her as she went, remembering the days when she lived a different life as a housewife named Annette Slocum. Upon seeing her again, Nathaniel’s memories of her ruined library books resurfaced. He recalled the resounding echo of having rescuing young Annette’s library books in her prior life. But those memories were from a concluded timeline, from a different history overall.

  Annette turned to Nathaniel. She nodded for him to follow her as if to say “are you coming?”

  For a brief second, Nathaniel was almost shaken. The look that Annette gave him was once the same kind of look that twenty-year-old Evangeline had given him so long ago. He frowned, trying to stuff the thoughts of Evangeline away, keeping the story from unpicking itself further. Little did Nathaniel know that the effort in keeping his story hidden would be in vain! It was Annette Redmond’s second arrival, along with her unending inquisitiveness in pulling loose threads, which would trigger the vicious unsnarling of Nathaniel’s private woes.

  CHAPTER 2: NEFARIOUS NOISES AND OTHER NUISANCES

  Nathaniel suffered from an affliction known as Misophonia: a hatred or sensitivity toward certain sounds. It developed in his many lives as an annoyance to the following: creaking floorboards, women’s and men’s heels of their dress shoes clipping the pavement, the scraping of silverware against plates while attempting to collect the remaining morsels, the timbre of some human voices, cawing of ravens, the flickering flame on a candle in a quiet space, pages turning in a book while in a reading room, celery snapping, chair legs grating against the floor, even to the sound of the brittle current of air as it whistled in his ears on chilly winter mornings. It was a wonder that he was able to enjoy any day of his seven lives with the intense anxiety, but survived each day Nathaniel did, and for one specific reason (whether he had been acutely aware of it or not): to find Evangeline again.

  It was a hardship that he brought with him even into the afterlife and currently endured as he listened to Annette scour her plate of its lingering noodles. The others had politely finished their meals in respective silence, tucking their cloth napkins beside their plates. Annette, though, was determined to savor her meal to its last miniscule bite. Nathaniel raised an eyebrow, wondering if she had eaten anything prior to her wedding. She still sat in her wedding dress, which she seemed overly protective of, stuffing one of the corners of her cloth napkin into the cleavage, and with good reason. As Nathaniel stood listening to her efforts, he spotted several dots of olive oil that speckled the napkin’s fabric.

  Annette set her empty plate and fork on the table, took one final swig of her wine and wrested the napkin, wiping her mouth. Her eyes then caught sight of the guests. Clearly she was so invested in her meal she did not realize that the others were waiting for her to finish. At last, Nathaniel spoke, taking Annette’s plate: “If you are done . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry,” Annette said to Nathaniel with a smile of satisfaction of a full belly. “The only thing I managed to eat before the wedding was a bit of granola.”

  “Well, thankfully you’ve had your fill,” Nathaniel said as he collected Annette’s remaining cutlery and moved to another guest’s setting. “I hope everyone else had the same luxury. Somehow you managed to clean out every bread basket and pasta bowl from around the table.”

  Annette, though aware of his snide remark, raised her glass as a toast anyway. “Thank you for the meal, Mr. Cauliflower. My compliments to the chef, as we can all agree.”

  The muses raised a glass in honor of Nathaniel’s delicacy. Nathaniel was slightly stunned as he stood holding their plates. He had cooked for the muses before, but he swept out of the room strictly to avoid moments like these. Humbly, but begrudgingly giving in to the salute, Nathaniel gave a slight bow. He sat the dishes on a brass serving cart and headed for the conference room door.

  “I hope you’ve saved room for dessert,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve prepared homemade Chocolate Ganache cakes with fresh-picked strawberries. While I fetch them, Fiona will begin orientation.”

  “Thank you again, Mr. Cauliflower,” Fiona said, standing managerially from her swivel chair. “Now, I’m sure all of you are anxious to hear why we’ve summoned you and, most importantly, how we intend to get you back to where, and when, you need to be.”

  With Fiona’s opening words, Nathaniel was out the door. Behind him he could hear Fiona handing out the party favors.

  “Each of you sitting here - except for Harriet, myself and Mr. Cauliflower - have retired. As is customary at the time of every muse’s departure from our department, the soul’s memories are cleared from the mind. But memories, even as they are in life, are never truly discarded. Sometimes memories find themselves in attendance around bedtime; others dance about as wolves, disguised as sheep-clad daydreams; and then there are those memories which are handed back to us from the original source that took them. In each of these ivory Greek boxes, you will each find an object that will re-gift the old memories of your previous lives – more specifically the knowledge gained from the colored pegs and clients you inspired.”

  Nathaniel knew this orientation well. Fiona offered it to him directly each time he died in his seven lives and brought here to the department. Nathaniel recollected on the many times he held his own Grecian box and how his fingers stroked the engraved message on the stone which read “γνῶθι σεαυτόν.”

  Fiona patiently told him the meaning on each visit: “It means ‘Know Thyself’ in Greek.”

  He recalled opening his own stone box each time and finding the same mason jar of dandelions. On Nathaniel’s arrival to the office after his first life, there were only three dandelions inside, but steadily the numbers grew so that, by the end of his seventh life, he found twenty-one in total. It was not the jar itself that brought back his memories. No, instead it was the dandelions themselves which held the most significance. The unscrewing of the glass jar’s lid, as he opened it each time, became another sound that grew to disturb him.

  No doubt the other muses were opening their boxes, holding their own personal artifacts and taking the time to remember the little things that had been e
rased.

  Nathaniel found the entrance to his own office two doors down and to the right of the conference room. The door to his office was constructed of red oak and a plate of frosted glass which showed the words:

  Nathaniel J. Cauliflower

  Postmaster, Gourmet Chef

  Envelope Auditor, Colored Peg Aficionado

  He opened the door, wheeled the cart inside, and quickly closed himself into his silent, classified retreat. The “retreat” was an immense white marble-floored rotunda, supported by ten towering Corinthian columns which were topped with a dome. A perfectly centered oculus ushered in a ray of pure white sunlight, which shone directly down to the center of his empire. There were deep alcoves with shelves between each column. Every niche held unique facets of Nathaniel’s seven lives: his greatest obsessions, all hidden at this time by formidable shadows. There were eight tiered display tables, acting as improvised gates to the alcoves, which circled the ground floor. On the tables, hoisted breathtakingly high, were thousands of kerosene lamps aglow with a humble orange-colored blaze. There were four of these tables to Nathaniel’s right and four to his left, allowing a direct path to the room’s epicenter. It was here that his simple office desk, swivel chair and water cooler sat. On the desk were three Lite-Brite boards sitting side by side, facing inward.

  Nathaniel wheeled the cart counter-clockwise around the desk down the same path until he reached the columns at the far end. Between them was a tall, heavy violet velvet drape which he motioned aside to allow access to his kitchen. Nathaniel flipped a switch. Lights flickered on as if invisible apparitions raced through, fiercely yanking open shutters as they went. The kitchen was lit up by energy efficient bulbs which reflected off the elegant black marble countertops and gleaming white cabinetry. The cabinets themselves were adorned with glass windows showing hundreds of varying china patterns, an assortment of glass wine goblets, along with coffee mugs and drinking glasses of nearly every shape, size and texture. The cabinets and countertops stretched a ridiculously fifty yards wide, allowing for plenty of storage and room for preparation. There were countless meticulously sterilized stainless steel ovens, refrigerators, exhaust fans, fryers and stove tops.

  Nathaniel pushed his cart to the nearest sink and turned the knob. As the water cascaded from the faucet, Nathaniel found a bottle of dish soap and, turning it upside down, poured the soap into the water. Frothy yellow swirls gathered in the water. As they did, Nathaniel couldn’t help but to let his mind wander astray from the present activity.

  *

  The year was 1807. Nathaniel was twenty-three years into his first life. His brown, curly hair fell in abundant wisps around his shoulders, which he combed behind his ears. His eyes were blue; his face was as smooth as a cherub. He was a lanky lad who wore hand-me-down clothes too big for him, and the clothing was always spotted with various colors of paint. It was on that evening when a kindly puff of air passed through the window of his attic flat. He was a young apprentice to a painter who had given him lodging.

  The painter, while in a drunken state, had fallen asleep long before. Nathaniel was all alone. In the candlelight, Nathaniel set up a blank canvas and an easel. He carried with him a glass jar filled with water, which he utilized while dipping his paint-coated brush into the water, creating yellow swirls.

  It was during the night when he had painted by himself, when his inexplicable craft proved most prevalent. After his painter collapsed in bed, Nathaniel felt a tingling sensation in his fingertips. It was a feeling he could not comprehend until he felt compelled to pick up a brush. Only then did the secret expose itself: during the day his technique was faulty at best, but during the late night hours it was oddly transformed, for he painted portraits so flawless they would be considered better than that of his master. He painted faces of ghosts, eerie eyes that seemed to stare at him after he later hid the works of art in the rafters. He dared not tell his painter of these incidences, firstly because he wasn’t able to understand them himself and, secondly, because young Nathaniel had thought of himself as possessed during the creations. Thirdly, he kept it secret as he had been previously warned.

  On this night, Nathaniel painted the face of a forty year old woman with luxuriously flowing hair. The woman staring back at him wore pearl earrings and a cream-colored pants suit. Nathaniel named the stranger “Fiona.”

  As the candle wick burned low and the flickering flame threatened to extinguish, Nathaniel climbed to the rafters of his loft, bidding goodnight to yet another painting. There were many phantom faces he had said goodnight to over the past few months. As he found footing on the French oak wood of his roof space, he questioned to himself how many he would construct before the painter discovered his secret.

  Nathaniel sat at the open windows of his loft surveying the billowing embers of Paris’ night life. A beautiful young woman, in her late teens, appeared and walked down the street in the company of her elderly female chaperone. She wore a flowing blue Victorian petticoat with opera gloves. Nathaniel could not help but to stare at her as she passed. The young woman, though bathed in shimmering candlelight, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. As the young woman passed by his window, she happened to look up and smile at him. And Nathaniel, having been instantly and uncontrollably taken by her, smiled back. He did not discover until the following day the young woman’s name: Evangeline.

  *

  “Mr. Cauliflower?” The now muse Nathaniel was suddenly torn from the memory that he had allowed himself to be engrossed in. He turned to find Annette standing in his kitchen, holding a plate. “You missed one. I thought that I’d bring it to you, see if you needed any help.”

  Nathaniel took the dish from Annette and placed it in the sink. During his memory he had emptied the cart, save for a single fork, which he promptly added to the mix.

  Annette went on. “It’s such a shame that we got to enjoy the meal and you didn’t eat any of it yourself.”

  Nathaniel told her, very matter-of-factly “I don’t need to eat the meals to know how good they taste.”

  “But you do eat, don’t you? Surely you nibble during the preparation to test it.”

  “I don’t eat, Miss Redmond.”

  “Why not?”

  “I lost the desire to eat a long time ago. It happens when you’ve been dead for as long as I have. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, you being alive. I utilize the culinary gifts that Management bestowed on me and share it with others.” Nathaniel frowned, changing the subject. “One should not burst into other people’s offices uninvited, Miss Redmond,” Nathaniel spat. “I’m a very private person and I like to keep it that way.”

  Annette was too busy staring over Nathaniel’s right shoulder to the kitchen’s breadth to pay any attention.

  “Wow. So this is where all the magic happens. Adam, he’s my fiancé, and I live in a studio apartment downtown. Oh, we’re not married yet. When we moved and saw the kitchen there I said to myself, ‘now this is a kitchen!’ but now, looking at yours, I feel a bit humbled. I’ve never seen a kitchen so spacious. How many meals can you comfortably make in here at one time?”

  “On the days the kitchen is really hopping, up to twenty meals. Miss Redmond, if you please . . .”

  Annette stated plainly “You don’t like me very much.”

  “I like you just fine,” Nathaniel lied, holding the velvet drape open to the rest of his office.

  “It’s because of what I said about your last name, isn’t it?”

  Nathaniel said nothing, continuing to hold open the drape.

  “Well, what can I say? It’s an unusual last name. I’ve personally met some people with some pretty odd last names, but in all of my years I’ve never met a ‘Cauliflower.’ Where does a last name like that originate from?”

  “From produce,” Cauliflower replied dryly.

  “Oh, I see. Of course.”

  “It actually derives from the Latin word ‘Caulis’, which means ‘cabbage’ and ‘flower.
’ It’s a species of vegetable from ‘Brassica Oleracea’ which includes Brussels, cabbage, broccoli, kale, collard greens and sprouts.”

  Annette nodded as if understanding him, but in the end all she wanted to know was “and how does one get the last name of ‘Cauliflower’? From your father or mother’s side?”

  “Why the interest?” he asked.

  Annette shrugged. “Just making conversation. Anyone who names themselves Cauliflower seems like an interesting person to get to know.”

  Annette was once again distracted by the platters of Chocolate Ganache cake with fresh-picked strawberries, which had yet to be transferred to Nathaniel’s cart.

  “I am in awe of you, Mr. Cauliflower. Absolute awe. I feel like I’m standing in the kitchen with the world’s most celebrated cook. And yet here you are, hiding away, as if you’re almost ashamed of the talent.”

  “Really, Miss Redmond, it’s a simple recipe with a few strawberries as garnish.” He abandoned the curtain letting it close. Nathaniel began putting the dessert plates neatly on the tray. Annette reached out to help him, but Nathaniel swatted at her hand. “What you should be doing is opening your Grecian box and rediscovering your old memories of being Annette Slocum.”

  “Oh,” Annette shrugged her shoulders. “I was given a box alright; a really neat ivory box that had this odd phrase on the side in another language.” Annette reached for a plate again, but Nathaniel insisted he had it.