These Nameless Things

by Shawn Smucker

  “What should we do?” Miho asked.

  “I don’t know,” Abe said, looking away from us. “If someone’s coming, we don’t have any reason to fear them. But it doesn’t make any sense.”

  The three of us took in the darkening eastern horizon. The first tree faded as evening approached. We certainly couldn’t see the second tree, or the third tree, where we had first spotted the person walking. How far could she have gone since we saw her? Was she still able to walk? She had looked like she was nearly collapsing.

  “Should we tell everyone?” Miho asked.

  “No, not until we’re sure,” Abe replied.

  “We are sure,” I said.

  “Not until we know more,” Abe said.

  “Is it right, sending Mary out there,” I asked, “if we don’t know who or what is coming?”

  “I think it was a girl, Dan,” Miho said hesitantly. “I don’t know that there’s anything to be afraid of.”

  “When someone’s ready to leave, to make the long trek east, it’s time,” Abe said. “No matter what. I don’t think we should say anything. Mary’s time to leave has come. We should celebrate that.”

  I didn’t know what to say. They knew I didn’t want Mary to leave, even before this stranger appeared, so any objections I raised would feel loaded with ulterior motives. I wished Miho would speak up.

  “It doesn’t seem right, Abe,” she said. “If this person is coming from the east, wouldn’t it be better to find out what she knows before sending Mary out there?”

  “If it’s time, it’s time,” he reiterated. But there was something in his voice that told me he wasn’t completely sure.

  “Okay, then let’s go out and see what this girl is doing, see what she wants,” Miho said quietly. “At least then we’ll know what Mary is up against.”

  “Up against?” Abe asked. “How do we know she’s up against anything?” He was thinking again, weighing everything. “Okay,” he said to Miho. “Let’s go. Dan, keep the preparations going for Mary’s departure.”

  “Did I miss something?” a deep voice called over.

  It was John, who lumbered to where we stood.

  “The meeting of the minds?” he declared when we didn’t reply, his voice bounding out over the plains like a mastiff.

  “Just getting ready for tonight,” Abe said, the tone of his voice telling Miho and me that now wasn’t the time to talk about the stranger approaching. “Would you help Dan get the fire started? Miho and I need to run a quick errand.”

  “’Course,” John said, grabbing the rope and practically lifting the tarp off the ground.

  I stared at Abe and Miho, and they both looked at me as if to ask, What else is there to do? I turned away because I had no answer for them.

  I followed John over to the large outdoor stone patio where we held our community meetings. We piled up the wood, broke off some of the smaller twigs and slices of bark, and stacked it in the iron ring in the middle of the patio.

  “Do you have matches?” John asked me.

  “No, but I can grab some from Miho’s place.”

  He dusted his hands together, coughed loudly, and watched Miho and Abe as they walked away. “What are they up to?”

  “You’ll have to ask Abe.”

  The air grew cooler even though the breeze was gone, and everything stood still. I waved up the greenway when I saw Misha walking leisurely toward us. I noticed Miss B was with her, and even from that distance, I could feel a kind of coldness coming from her, a hesitance, as if she wanted to walk in the other direction. The story she had told me surged back to the front of my mind.

  I ducked into Miho’s house. It was dark and tidy. I walked straight to one of the drawers in her kitchen and pulled it open, grabbed the matches. I turned to go, but curiosity got the better of me, so I slipped over to the large picture window that faced the plains. The light in the sky had faded, and even the first tree was nothing more than a dark silhouette against a darkening backdrop. I couldn’t see Miho or Abe.

  A chill shot down my spine as I thought again of the other stranger in the village, the one no one else knew about: the woman in my house. I had this feeling that I should go check on her, see if she was still resting, still there. I couldn’t explain the deep desire I had to keep her presence a secret from everyone else. Why didn’t I tell them? I squeezed the small box of matches in my hand. The dim gray light that remained fell through the large window and down onto the table where Miho, Abe, and Mary had met the day before.

  Unlike the rest of the house, the table was cluttered, covered with papers and pens and pencils and even some paint and brushes. I pushed the papers around a little bit to see what Miho had been up to. Even though we were close, snooping through her stuff seemed inappropriate. I pushed past the discomfort and saw my name peeking out from one of the pages, so I pulled it into the dusky square of light. It was part of a question written in Miho’s familiar handwriting, and as I read it, my curiosity and guilt welled up into tangible things.

  Am I waiting for Dan’s brother?

  That was it. A question. But a strange one. Why would Miho be waiting for my brother? She hadn’t known him before all of this.

  Had she?

  The house grew dark, but I was curious. I struck one of the matches and it hissed to life, creating an orb of light right there in my hand, like magic. I pushed a few more of the pages around. There were some beautiful pencil sketches. One of Abe, charcoal dark and shaded perfectly, his eyes looking up into mine, nearly alive and asking me what I was doing looking through my friend’s things. Even a drawing of him made me feel guilty, and I flipped the paper upside down so he couldn’t watch, so he couldn’t ask me questions with his drawn eyes.

  There was another pencil sketch under that one. It was less developed than the one of Abe. I didn’t recognize the person, a woman about the same age as Abe. I looked closer. I didn’t think I knew her, but she had the same almond eyes as Miho and there was something similar in the shape of her mouth. A relative perhaps? Was this the memory she’d referred to when I saw her in the garden that morning? Something about her mother?

  The match diminished down toward my fingers, but I didn’t notice until it burned me, and I dropped it on the table where it landed in darkness. I told myself I had time for one more. I struck a new one and held it straight up so it burned slower.

  I saw the edge of a third sketch, and I pulled it forward. Complete and utter shock left me breathless. The chin and cheek lines were perfect, and the ears were fine in their subtlety. The wiry hair stood in a very specifically unkempt way, the way I suddenly remembered it. The eyes were clear enough to bring tears to my own. It was almost like looking in a mirror, but it wasn’t quite me.

  It was Adam.

  Miho had drawn my brother. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I leaned on the table with one hand and squeezed my eyes tight. A light-headedness threatened to drop me to the floor.

  Another memory came to me, precise and unbidden and sharp. I remembered standing beside him, telling him he’d better get out of bed and do what he needed to do. Did I tell him to go? It felt like it. But I was earnest in my appeal. Go. You have to. If you don’t, we’re ruined. I remembered very specifically saying those words.

  If you don’t, we’re ruined.

  Miho’s drawing was familiar: those same eyes, that same unkempt hair.

  He’d shaken his head, and I’d grabbed him by his collar and lifted him and forced him to do what I wanted him to do.

  I stepped back from the table. The match burned out, once again on my finger, and I dropped it, cursing. I got down on my knees and searched the floor for the charred end, but I couldn’t find it. So many lost things.

  What had I made my brother do?

  “Yo!” a voice shouted from outside. John’s voice. “Yo, Dan, what is taking you so long, my man?”

  I left Miho’s house, and suddenly I felt like a stranger in the village, like I didn’t truly kno
w anyone. Abe had said everyone was having new memories. And Miho, the person I was closest to, wasn’t willing to tell me anything, not even when it obviously involved my own brother. What about John or Misha, Circe or Po? What did they know? What had they remembered?

  “Found them,” I shouted up to John, trying to sound light and carefree but barely succeeding. “I’m coming.”

  I didn’t look up until I got to the stone patio. Everyone was sitting around the edge facing the plains, as they always did whenever we met there, the mountain in the distance behind them. There were houses close to the patio, huddled all around us, fencing us in. Miss B sat on an old chair that John had dragged over for her. Misha and Circe whispered to each other, both giving me a smile when I arrived. Was something else there, in their smiles? Were they hiding something too? Po sat at the end, carving something in one of the sticks meant for firewood. He didn’t look up.

  “Po,” I said, motioning toward the stick we were supposed to be using for firewood. “I walked a long way for that.”

  He finally made eye contact with me, smiled, and held the wood up to me as if in a toast. “Thank you,” he said in his curling accent, his bright red hair seeming to have its own light source in the near dark.

  “Is Mary ready?” I asked no one in particular.

  “I saw her by her house,” Circe said. “She was waiting for the fire.”

  That’s when I noticed Miho and Abe still hadn’t returned.

  “And Miho and Abe?” I asked.

  “They’re not back yet,” John said, scratching one of the matches against the stone floor. It sputtered to life.

  “Back from where?” Po asked without looking up from his carving.

  “The plains,” John said without fanfare.

  “The plains?” Circe and Misha asked simultaneously.

  “What are they doing out on the plains? At this time of day?” Miss B asked.

  “Don’t ask me,” I said, trying to deflect all the unwanted attention. “Ask John.”

  Everyone looked at John.

  “What? I don’t know.”

  I wondered if it was possible that even John could be hiding something. I doubted it. I didn’t think he had it in him.

  Meanwhile, the fire grew, moved up the larger sticks, laid down a foundation of glowing embers, and cast dancing shadows behind the group, shadows that stretched toward the mountain. Under the shadow of the mountain, I thought. The early evening seemed even darker once the fire rose up.

  I glanced around one more time. “Well, what do you want to do?” I asked. “Should we wait for Miho and Abe or get on with it?”

  “Get on with it,” a firm voice said from the darkness between two of the nearby houses. It was Mary. “They know I’m leaving,” she said. “It’s time.”

  “Okay,” I said, uncertain. “I can try to fill in for Abe if you don’t mind, although I’m not sure I know all the words.” Po grunted, his eyes still on his carving. I took a deep breath. “You sure that’s okay with you, Mary?” I asked again, hoping she’d change her mind.

  “Yes,” came Mary’s clear reply. “I’m ready.”

  “Okay, well, in that case,” I said, holding out my arms as if I were going to embrace the entire world, “please stand with me, friends.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling nervous and unsure of myself. It had been a long time since anyone had left. I wasn’t sure if I could remember the correct order of everything. And while I considered each of them friends, I was also still feeling the uncertainty I had experienced in Miho’s house—what memories had they all had? What nameless things were in that circle around the fire?

  I could feel the heat from the fire, and the light flickered against my closed eyelids. What was taking Abe and Miho so long? I opened my eyes and began with what I thought were the right words. “Friends! Today we celebrate the leaving of Mary! Today we light the fire of friendship and send her on to the east, where we all will someday go. Do not mourn her passing. Do not weep.”

  But even as I said those words, I could feel the tears rising in my eyes. Mary entered the circle of firelight, dressed in a plain white dress with a circle of white flowers on her head, flowers that only grew up close to the mountain, hidden among the boulders. I had forgotten—usually anything involving the mountain was my job.

  I walked over to Mary while Circe placed a large bowl of warm water on the ground between us. I looked at Mary, our eyes met, and she smiled a kind, sad smile. I wiped my eyes and smiled back, and in that moment, I was overwhelmed with the desire to go with her, to finally leave this village at the edge of the mountain, get out from under its shadow and move on.

  But . . . my brother.

  I got down in front of Mary, and the stone patio was hard and uneven against my knees. She put one hand on my shoulder for balance, then raised one of her feet over the bowl. I washed her small, very white, dainty foot. Tiny indigo veins wound their way up her ankles. She put the other foot over the bowl, and I washed it as well. The water cooled quickly, as did the day fading into evening, and I could feel the collective gaze of those sitting at the edge of the patio.

  “Do not weep!” I said again, my voice cracking. I stood, drying my hands on a towel. “She travels a path we all must travel. Where her washed feet go, so must ours.”

  I leaned toward Mary. The others were at the other side of the fire. “How am I doing?” I asked with a smile, trying to cut the sadness. I hated feeling sad. I hated feeling like this was the end.

  “Wonderfully,” she whispered, reaching up and pushing back a strand of her hair. “Dan? Can I tell you something?”

  I leaned closer. Her hair smelled like flowers and her skin smelled like spring. She talked so quietly that I was the only one who could hear her.

  “I remembered something about your brother. I had a memory.”

  “My brother?” I tried hard to pretend I hadn’t already heard this while eavesdropping outside of Abe’s house.

  “Yes.” She paused and held on to my elbow. Her touch was cool, her fingertips electric. “I’ve been waiting for your brother too.”

  “Why?” I asked. If she didn’t tell me now, she would leave, and I would never know.

  “I didn’t realize it until recently. I told only Abe. Your brother . . .” She paused again. “Your brother brought me great pain, Dan, once upon a time. A long time ago.”

  “You mean in the mountain?”

  “Before that. He did something horrible, and I didn’t think I could leave this place until I confronted him. I wanted to kill him for what he had done.”

  “I’m sorry, Mary.” I found it hard to breathe. “I don’t know what he did, but I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, clearing away the past. “It doesn’t matter anymore, not to me. I forgave him. I wanted to tell you so that if you ever see him again, and he remembers what happened, you can tell him for me. I forgive him. That’s why I’m leaving now. I’m free to go. I can feel it.”

  I could feel everyone staring at us, their curiosity building.

  “Is this going to take all night?” John asked with a loud chuckle. I held up one finger, asking him to wait.

  “Care to share with everyone?” Po said, his voice cynical.

  But I continued, whispering only to Mary. “You knew my brother back before the mountain?”

  She gave me a solemn look. “Our paths crossed.”

  I waited for a moment, trying to think of what to say, what to do. “Can you tell me what happened, Mary?”

  “No,” she whispered. “Maybe someday, Dan, if we meet again, but not today. Today, I am leaving.”

  “Nothing?”

  She shook her head in quick jerks, tears filling her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She let go of my elbow and took a few steps back. “Today, I leave,” she said in a loud, firm voice.

  I wanted to stop the ceremony. I wanted to hear how she knew my brother, demand to know what he had done, take this story from her by force if necessa
ry. But I also had a feeling that the memory was coming to me too, that it was on the edge of my mind.

  “Tomorrow, we follow,” all of us said in response.

  Mary left the circle for a moment, and when she returned, she was holding a large sack. I knew that in it was everything she held dear. She put it down at her feet. Everyone walked over to her and gave her a gift, something of their own that was precious, something she would appreciate. I gave her the small book I had brought with me, the one I had put in my pocket that morning. When she saw it, she cried even harder.

  Mary picked up the sack and put it in the fire, and the flames grew steadily until they were roaring. She reached down and took each of the gifts one at a time, appreciating them, then looking at the person who gave it to her. Her eyes were full of such thankfulness, and it was with great tenderness that she also put each of the gifts into the fire. It hurt me to see that book burn, I won’t lie. I made myself watch it, though. I watched the pages turn brown and swell, the thin cover curling and blackening and rising in smoke. I watched the flames catch.

  “You have given up anything that might keep you here,” I said, still staring at the book I had given her. I felt certain that I hadn’t quite gotten the wording right on that one, but I was somewhere else, my mind circling back again and again to the realization that she had known my brother, that he had done something to her. She had been waiting for him, just like me. Just like Miho too, apparently.

  I tried to keep the ceremony moving forward. “Does anyone have the rocks?”

  Circe walked over and handed me two rocks, both the size of a small fist. “Where do you think Miho and Abe are?” she asked me quietly, deliberately facing away from the others.

  “They’ll be here soon, any minute.” I nodded with what I hoped was assurance, taking the rocks from her, but I didn’t believe my own words. They should have been back by now. Fear for Abe and Miho fluttered inside of me. But I reasoned with myself—she was a small girl. Barely able to walk. What trouble could she have caused?

  One of the rocks Circe gave me was white with dark gray veins. The other was black like coal. I handed the two rocks to Mary, and she stared at both of them for a moment. She walked up the hill a short distance, as close to the mountain as she needed to get. I watched her, but the rest of the group didn’t face the mountain. Even then, they chose not to look.