The road they drove on was in bad repair. Xavier could feel every pothole and crack in the pavement. The bayside view ended, replaced by undeveloped, overgrown land. The Shimmer Marsh seemed to go on forever. A flock of long-necked, black-winged geese fluttered down into the marsh waters. Most of the plants were brown and dying, in preparation for winter. Xavier could have sworn that he saw a flash of bright purple among all the brown and grey.
“A gentleman by the name of Hosea Quarles was charged with arson and vandalism in 1959. At first, he said it was a mistake—a misplaced cigarette. But forensics found empty cans of gasoline nearby. He said that the place was cursed.”
“Interesting.” Of course, Xavier immediately thought about yesterday’s weirdness. There was nothing demonic or sinister about it at all. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It was miraculous, even angelic. Xavier hadn’t been raised religious. His folks were agnostic at best, and their decision not raise him in faith was a minor controversy with his grandparents. “Any particular reason why Hosea thought the Whitby house was cursed?”
“Well, he was a bit of an odd duck,” Dr. Lenski continued. (Xavier thought, Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.) “Mr. Quarles, it turns out, was one of the artists in the loose collective that used the Whitby mansion as a makeshift studio. A group of artists—of all disciplines—had even rigged up a generator and installed a few electric lights in what used to be the dining room.”
“What was his work like?”
“I’ve seen it. His daughter showed it to me when I took the position at the museum. She wanted to donate some of the artwork. The board, however, nixed the idea. They felt that given Quarles’s history, it would be in poor taste. Anyway, he did a sort of calligraphy, using an imaginary script, mostly on pieces of butcher paper. He’d use anything he could get his hands on—watercolor, ink, even crayon. It’s quite extraordinary, really. Paragraphs of the script, all, of course, in that spectrum between purple and pink. The script itself reminds me, a little, of Amharic. The geometry of the letters. But of course, it was just gobbledygook. Or, to be more academic about it, Asemtic Writing.”
Xavier wanted to see the artwork. He needed to see the strange letters spill across the page. He knew that it was linked to all of the other artwork. And to the shimmering effulgences he’d seen yesterday.
“There must be more to the story.”
The marsh finally ended in a small copse of trees in their autumn finery—russet, gold and crisped brown.
“Not really,” said Dr. Lenski. “The house was technically a ruin anyway and had been considered an eyesore for years. No one was hurt. Shimmer at the time had a mostly African-American police force, so Hosea was only given a fine.”
They turned onto a dirt road, at the end of which stood the quintessential haunted house. The sky was clear, the sunlight bright but the house itself exuded desolation. It was a three-story brick structure, a shell that had been scorched and partially reclaimed by the marsh. The windows were misshapen, no longer rectangular. The brick was no longer red. It was darkened and crumbling. Through the glassless windows, Xavier saw the rotted floors, where plants erupted. A mess of ferns and vines silently writhed in the interior. There were puddles of standing water, dark and still as voids.
“Jesus,” said Xavier. “It’s a little Texas Chainsaw Massacre, no?”
Dr. Lenski laughed, then said, “It’s a mess. Just try to see past this ruin. Hazel Whitby made most of her work here.”
Xavier took several pictures of the house with his camera phone. He thought about sending some shots to his professors, but decided against it. That would have been way too informal for them, especially Dr. Devine. He could see Dr. Giordano writing back with some deliciously arch caption, like ‘Decrepit Homes and Gardens.’ When he went to go inside, Dr. Lenski warned him to be careful.
“I’ll just stay on the steps,” Xavier replied. Though the steps were crumbling and not particularly safe. In fact, the whole structure should have been condemned.
The interior of the house was dark enough that he had to activate the flash option on his camera. He had a vague idea of what the images he captured were, but he would have to fix them in editing. The floor was alive, crawling with vegetation and, possibly, animals. The earthy smell of fungus and mold drifted up to tickle his nose. It was a good thing that he didn’t go in. Xavier had a sudden feeling of vertigo, staring into that coiled darkness. He could see his body falling in, being ensnared by the vines, brushed by the tiny feet of insects, left to rot and enrich the soil. For one moment not longer than a blink, he wanted to be smothered by leaves and become one with the soil. The marsh would love him, as it had all of the others. Maybe its murky waters would flow in his veins, and he’d start painting again.
“Everything okay?” asked Dr. Lenski.
Xavier stepped away from the ruins, slightly dazed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m done.”
15: Fuchsia (1863)
Fuchsia stayed entwined with Hazel as she aged, until her fingers were sticks warped by arthritic pain. She was a vine that sprouted bright blossoms of color. She crawled and crept through the woman’s soul like a snake. During that time, Hazel had children with Jethro; only three of them survived and each of the surviving ones was sold to settle some of the Whitbys’ debts. For the most part, Fuchsia stayed out of Hazel’s affairs. The work was what was important. The woman’s life was just background chatter. Her pains, or for that matter, her joys meant little to Fuchsia. She felt, in an objectively distant way, the mix of terror and exhilaration when Jethro first fucked her. The blinding white pain of childbirth was nothing to the abyss Hazel descended into each time she lost a child to either death or the auction block. Each time, Fuchsia was banished to some dark cavern that sorrow hollowed out. Nothing could grow on that rocky ground, and the darkness swallowed all light, all color.
When her fifth child was sold at the age of three, and Hazel descended into a darkness that lasted months, Fuchsia knew that she had to do something. While she was in that darkness, bits and pieces of memory flashed. She remembered the chafing of shackles, the smallness of confinement, and yes, the yawning endlessness. Fuchsia never wanted to feel that way again.
***
“Can you put that down for a spell?” Jethro stood in the doorway of the attic.
Hazel stopped her needle, and glanced at him, avoiding his eyes.
When it was clear that she wasn’t going to speak, Jethro said, “You been up here for three weeks. They understand that it’s hard to lose a child. But that sympathy is running out.”
“Do they,” Hazel replied. “Do they really know what it’s like to have their children sold like cotton, or a barrel of sorghum?”
“I suppose not,” he said, not unkindly. “Still. They own you. You’re their servant. They’re talking. Master thinks that you’ve gone mad, even says that he shoulda sold you along with Linus.”
“Let them,” she said, turning back to the quilt she was working on.
“You shouldn’t say that,” Jethro whispered. “They might sell you to someone who will work you to death.”
What was death, compared to living in a world where your own flesh and blood could be taken away from you at a moment’s notice? The other slaves constantly told her how nice the Whitbys were, that they were saints compared to the Buchanans down the road who chopped off fingers and toes of disobedient slaves, or the Millers, who had an abnormally large number of mulattoes working their tobacco fields. Working for the Whitbys was a cakewalk, compared to working in the fields. Hazel no longer believed that was true, if she ever did. She realized that she could work her fingers to bloody stumps and still be considered no more important than a mule.
She went back to sewing, ended the conversation.
A few days later, she was called down to meet with Helena Whitby in the parlor. The Missus had a stern look on her face.
“Hazel,” she began, crossing her arms, “I remember when you were an industrious, faithfu
l worker.”
Hazel glanced down, a suitable posture for chastisement.
“Can you be that girl again?” said the Missus.
It was that word. Girl. She’d been with child more than Helena Whitby had, and had those kids taken away. But she was still a girl. She was almost thirty years of age, but she was still a girl. Less than a girl. But she was a Negro, and her lot in life was to suffer. Still, the word Girl bothered her, like sand grit in her shoe, or a canker sore. She knew that she should take the admonishment with servile, Christian humility. But she hated Helena Whitby, with her sour milk complexion and her pettiness. She, and her dour, drunken husband had made Jethro her husband, had taken Sally, Myrtle and Linus away from her. Master Whitby spent all of his money on liquor. She’d seen his cold rages first hand. And his wife, beribboned and corseted like a fat doll, loved her laudanum. Those two were the reason Hazel heard her children’s voices, disturbing her sleep. Why she could no longer bear to lay beneath Jethro.
“You done took my children away,” Hazel found herself saying, “and you just worried about dust in your bedroom.”
Mrs. Whitby scowled at her. “I will not tolerate such insolent sassing from a servant. I demand an apology.”
“I am sorry,” Hazel said, “that you took my babies.”
Helena Whitby’s face quivered like a jelly. Her cheeks reddened to the color of cranberries. Her already thin lips became a tight line. It was almost comic, watching her eyes glaze over with rage.
“You black devil!” she sputtered out. Then she boxed Hazel’s ears.
Her ears rang and rang and rang. Her brain was jostled, blood and bone vibrated. It was a wrong sort of feeling, that something vital had shattered. It was worse than hitting a funny bone, slightly better than a bitten tongue. Hazel’s balance shifted—
(And Fuchsia woke. In between the tintinnabulation in Hazel’s head. Between the waves and pain. Fuchsia did not just wake. She reacted. She darted, like a bird, right out of Hazel, and into Helena.
Helena’s soul was an alien place, full of jarring, laudanum-tinged whispers. It was porridge-bland, grey and beige and as ordered as a linen closet. There was no warmth in there, no color. And she, Fuchsia, was color itself. A wave of light, between purple and pink. Vibrant and vivid. She hated this place, the pasty pale glob of malice and uniformity. And it hated her back, her blackness, her pinkness, her purpleness. Fuchsia screamed in that airless, loveless, colorless place. A scream of rage, a scream that stained the pristine starched whiteness.
Then Fuchsia fled, back into the bustling familiarity of Hazel.)
Helena Whitby had a stunned look on her face, as if her ears had been boxed. The pink drained out of her face as she stepped away from Hazel.
“What did you do to me?” she asked.
“You’re the one who hit me,” Hazel replied.
“There’s something in my head,” Mrs. Whitby continued as if she didn’t hear Hazel. “Help me lay down.”
Hazel led the woman to the powder blue fainting couch. Mrs. Whitby rested her head against the raised edge. She lay still for a while.
“You’ll have to fetch my medicine,” she said.
Hazel got the tincture, along with a tiny silver teaspoon. Mrs. Whitby raised her beribboned head and opened her eyes in order to take the medicine.
She screeched. “I still see it, in front of me!” Mrs. Whitby shut her eyes.
“See what?” Hazel asked.
“Shapes. Lines. Wavy lines that glow. The lines are the same horrid color as your quilts.”
Hazel set the tincture bottle and spoon on a side table. She sat on the couch next to her mistress, not knowing why. Her movements weren’t her own, like when worked on the quilts. When this happened, Hazel felt a gentle bliss. Bliss as soft as silk, as beautiful as a storm of petals. She placed her hands on Mrs. Whitby’s sweating forehead.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh,” said Fuchsia.
She rubbed Helena Whitby’s temples, in a circular pattern. The woman moaned beneath her ministrations, feeling the bolt of pain as it moved through her head, through her skin. Hazel stopped rubbing. There it was, a thin thread of fuchsia. She slowly pulled it out of the woman’s head, winding it around her finger. When she finished, Mrs. Whitby was asleep.
“Remember,” she whispered to the resting white woman, “I can always put it back.”
16: Lincoln
The soul is soil, she said.
She told him in last night’s dream. Had spoken the words, even pointed to the ground beneath her feet. When Linc looked down, he saw that she had no feet. Two legs just grew up from the muddy earth. At the time, it made sense. Of course. She was the marsh-bell, or the spirit of the marsh-bell. Her filmy gown had once been petals, probably still were petals in some sense. He remembered her words, the urgency and the wisdom of them, but he could not recall her voice. Had she even moved her lips?
Soil is the soul. Was his soul like the earth, dark and seething with roots and worms? No. His soul was tainted, littered with broken glass and chemical poison. Things died in him. He was a freak with rotting teeth, heroin-thin and a rootless drifter. If he was earth, he was salted earth, incapable of harboring life.
Then she handed him something. It was a pod of some kind, about the size of an egg. It was green, bifurcated with brownish seams.
He held it in his cupped palm. It burst open, and maybe one hundred seeds fell out. The seeds looked like feathers, like dandelion fluff. Like mist given shape and form.
“You’re not real,” he said. His voice was loud and out of place in this place of blue skies, rippling grass and marbled waters.
She laughed, in that soundless way. Her face was plain. She was even a little chubby and her skin tone was uneven, darker brown around her eyes, and her neck. Her hair was styled in plaits that spidered out from her head. She could have been some distant cousin, or a girl seen on the streets of DC.
“Are you Hazel?” he said, in his too-loud boombox of a voice.
She shook her head. No.
“Then who are you?”
She didn’t reply. She just pointed to the seed pod. Even now, they were scattering across the marsh, settling on the water and the few spots of dry land.
The soul is the soil!
***
Every night was like that, the day after the artwork came alive. His dreams were technicolor and psychedelic, full of purple flowers that became people, all in the same shimmering marsh. He would walk in the marsh, come across a flowering marsh-bell. He might pluck one of them, and they would become a person, dressed in fuchsia clothing. The men might wear trousers or overalls or sometimes, robes. One man wore a full three-piece suit. The women sometimes wore pants, but for the most part were garbed in flowing gowns. One woman wore an ornate church hat. There were at least two of the flower people whose genders he couldn’t determine. It didn’t matter, though. Only their art. Each one of the marsh-bell people started painting, or sewing or illustrating. One person made tarot cards, all of them with a marsh-themed background. All of the Major Arcana wore purple raiments. Another person dressed porcelain dolls in glowing outfits.
Linc knew that these were the acolytes of the marsh spirit. She was their muse. And now, he was invited to join them.
As he learned the stories of the acolytes, Linc noticed certain patterns, ones besides the obvious flower/woman/color motif. Mainly, that each acolyte created their icons alone. The art was private, an esoteric mystery, just made for her and her acolytes. It did not belong in a gallery, for public consumption, because it was sacred. The art was a portal to her, and her realm. The museum did not need to exist, but now that it did, it was a kind of temple. It was a hidden temple, though. Hidden in plain sight, because she only revealed herself to certain people. Blessed ones.
For the first time in his life, Linc was chosen, was blessed. The freakishly tall one who wasn’t good at basketball like he should have been. The son who wasn’t as talented as his
older sister. The one too bougie to fit in with Violet Rage. The one time he tried to fit in, he’d gotten addicted and thrown out of his house. But now, he belonged to a secret society. He had never been religious, never understood that kind of connection. But now, he was connected to her.
Her. What was her name? Maybe she didn’t have a name. She just was. Maybe she would reveal her name eventually. In the meantime, he had to make his own portal to her, somehow.
***
It was one in the morning when he left his motel room. He had seen the light, spilling between the seam in the blackout curtains. At first, he thought it was light from the motel’s neon sign. A couple of weeks ago, the A in Bayside sputtered and strobed before it gave up the ghost. But the sign’s light was as red as an apple. This light was different. When he parted the curtain, he saw a ball of light, the color of a marsh-bell, hovering outside of his window. It was like one of Shadrach Grayson’s orbs had become detached from its painting.
There was a chill in the air, but that just invigorated him. He walked along a path on the side of the road that closely followed the salt marsh. Linc had no destination in mind. The orb was roughly circular, full of movement, pellucid filmy veils of pink-purple flames, like a tiny sun. Linc knew that this was no hallucination or trick of the light. It was an invitation. A calling.
He dressed quickly, taking up his backpack, and left the room. The will-o’-the-wisp was already across the parking lot, patiently waiting for him.
He followed it. It moved down the empty road, pausing every now and then, waiting for him to catch up.
The first time Lincoln did meth, it felt like his nerves had been plucked like the strings of a harp. A wave of glorious sound washed down his body from his brain down to his toes. The world slowed down to a crawl and he was moving at the speed of sound. His nerves were made of diamond and every thought, every motion vibrated with crystallized energy. He understood why it was called crystal meth. When he was on it, he was a being created of strands of some impervious substance.
A Spectral Hue Page 13
