Under the Light

by Laura Whitcomb

  “Why were you crying?” I asked.

  Then the faintest sound of regret from deep in her dream. And four words, “I used to fly.”

  I wanted so for her to say it again so I could be sure I’d heard correctly—she used to fly, and that was sad.

  I sat on the edge of her bed all night long, but she didn’t speak again. After watching her in silence for a time, I decided to slip back to heaven and tell James that I had finally spoken with Jenny. To tell him that from now on I was sure it would be easy to talk to her. I was certain I could visit James and be back before Jenny woke up in the morning.

  I thought about the last place I’d seen James, in a shaded wood beside a clover-covered tree trunk. I pictured the quality of light, the scent of damp earth, the piano music, a lilting melody, a folk song I couldn’t place, sweet even in its minor keys.

  And in the same way it happened when I neared Jenny, as I closed in on heaven everything in front of me thinned into converging lines. Jenny’s bedroom and the garden outside her window and the hills beyond her neighborhood flattened like a sketch of themselves drawn on a sheet of paper and contracted into black and white, ink on a blank page, but then it stopped. I couldn’t stretch it any further, and try as I might I couldn’t slide into it between the shadow and the light.

  I was frightened for a moment, but fear had not helped me find heaven the first time. Then I was angry—how could God deny me entry when I’d had such a charitable motive for leaving? The truth was, I realized, that I had made a promise to come back to Jenny and be her guardian until the troubles I brought her had been calmed. If I broke my word, it seemed I would not be traveling back to James.

  I was trapped in the land of the Quick until I fulfilled my promise to Jenny.

  Because I had borrowed Jenny’s body for only six days, and since I had claimed her on a Sunday afternoon, I had never been to church with her family. Now I trailed after mother and daughter into a back pew. Cathy didn’t admit to it, but I believe she made sure we arrived a little late to the church service so that she would not be stopped on the way in and have to answer questions about Jenny’s father leaving.

  The sanctuary appeared to make Jenny uncomfortable. Her bones seemed to stiffen, her muscles to contract in a subtle way, as if she were preparing to be struck. Tolerantly she adjusted herself to Cathy’s nagging—pulled her skirt down closer to her knee, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

  There were things about Jenny’s church that I found familiar—the iron chandeliers were so like the ones from my childhood church, only these were fitted with artificial candles and electric bulbs. The dark wooden pews, worn smooth where a thousand hands had rested, seemed familiar, as well. And the carpets and pew cushions, a maroon brocade made murky with years of wear, bothered me most. Even the most mundane memories, if drawn from a deep-enough well, can chill the heart. The baskets of flowers on either side of the altar in Jenny’s church were almost identical to those at my mother’s funeral—lilies in white wicker. And the carvings on the wooden gate leading up to the altar, they were exactly like ones from my youth. I was unprepared for recollections from my girlhood: candlelit Christmas services, sunny Easters, brooding autumn Sundays when thunder could be heard over the groan of the pump organ. The scents and emotions made me ache, but I cherished them too. I could almost taste the metal cup and feel the icy water of the well in the churchyard, smell the mint that grew below the well stones.

  I moved closer to Jenny on the pew. I wanted to cover her like a blanket.

  She looked pale, as if she’d been bleached into a faded version of herself. The organist was playing a prelude, a chain of old hymns slowed to a merciless dirge meant to stretch until the Judgment Day, it seemed. As the hymn “This Is My Father’s World” changed into “Leaning on the Everlasting Arm,” I began to see glimpses from my childhood acquaintances scattered through the congregation—a head of ash-colored hair to our left, broad shoulders in a black suit a few rows in front of us, a sharp jaw turning halfway toward me. But these were not my people. My people had been gone for decades, even the babies, grown, withered and cold, dead and in the ground fifty years back or more.

  But I am still here, I thought. And Jenny is here.

  The prelude had finally ceased and the pastor was greeting the congregation and making announcements. The pews were set with paper bulletins every few feet—Jenny took one and stared at the cover, a photograph of a field of gold wheat under a blue sky. Across the curved stalks of grain a line of Scripture was printed in slanted cursive:The fruit of the Spirit is love—Galatians 5:22.

  As Jenny studied the picture, the pink began to return to her cheeks. Cathy was reading ahead in the order of service and must have expected the same of her daughter. “Jen,” she whispered.

  But Jenny was rubbing the picture of a field with her thumb, tilting it toward the light as if she could not decipher its meaning.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jenny

  MY MOTHER REACHED OVER AND FLIPPED my bulletin open for me. The organ started up again: “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing.”

  I had the feeling that someone was standing in the aisle watching and waiting for me to move over and make room for him or her to sit, but when I looked, there was no one there.

  I sat frozen, trying to hold the bulletin still, but it was vibrating. The picture of the empty field meant something—I just hadn’t figured out what it was yet. The picture was vibrating to the rhythm of my heart pounding. It was stupid to feel like someone watching me was unusual—I was in church, so of course people would look at me.

  Then the page I held stopped shaking as if an invisible hand had gripped it. The tension pulling gently on the paper from the top was unmistakable. When my mother handed me the hymnal, it ruined the moment. Whatever was holding my bulletin let go.

  “Wake up,” my mother whispered, and slipped the order of worship out of my fingers, setting it on the pew as the congregation stood up to sing. I got to my feet and sang along, but I was spooked by the sensation of someone’s breath right beside my shoulder where there was no one standing. If it was a draft, why did it come and go? And it couldn’t really be someone singing—the breath would be hot, and this air was cool.

  Then came a pressure on my hand, the one that held up the hymnal. I switched the book to my other hand and flexed those fingers. It was as if static electricity were running through my veins instead of blood. And for no good reason, the skin of that hand smelled like flowers, not lotion or perfume, but fresh flowers.

  I wasn’t paying attention to the pastor when he invited the congregation to sit. My mother snapped her fingers and I dropped to the pew, the last one in the room to take a seat. She handed me my bulletin again and tapped the page—we were supposed to be reading along with the prayer, but I couldn’t act like everything was normal. Something unnatural was happening here even if I was the only one who recognized it.

  I could see, from the corner of my eye, that there was someone sitting beside me just far back enough so that I couldn’t make out the face. I knew if I turned it would be gone.

  Whatever it was, it was communicating without making sound. Maybe I was going crazy, but I was in church—people have had impossible things happen to them in churches for centuries. Maybe this was a miracle, an angel.

  Or maybe there was something wrong with my brain—I had amnesia. Maybe now I was having hallucinations.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother whispered.

  I couldn’t say, “I’m delusional.” I glanced at her and smiled.

  As I faced the front of the sanctuary, sure enough, I felt the visitor was still there. I took up the hymnal again, slowly, making sure I didn’t move too quickly. I didn’t want to scare it away. I found the song that the organ was playing in my hymnal. I ran my finger along the line of text I’d heard in my head. Then my eyes wandered to the upper corner of the page where the topics were listed.

  Ghost, it said.

  Actually the topic was
Holy Ghost, but I felt as if someone was running an invisible finger under the second word.

  I had the most bizarre sensations fighting in my chest. What if this wasn’t an angel but a ghost? My heart was going crazy and my stomach was cramping with fear. At the same time, I felt special for being chosen and clever to have figured out how to communicate with this whatever-it-was.

  I flipped to the back of the hymnal where the topics were listed. If this was how we could talk, I had questions.

  There were dozens of key words to choose from: comfort, praise, advent, forgiveness, heaven, grace, and (among others) the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit. I felt my gaze pulled to one of the hymns listed and started turning pages.

  My mother frowned at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Reading hymns,” I told her. How could she find fault in that?

  I found the right page and ran my finger along the lines following that odd little static electricity buzz I’d felt before: Come, Holy Ghost, for moved by thee the prophets wrote and spoke; Unlock the truth, Thyself the key; unseal the sacred book.

  Be moved by me, someone was saying. I unseal myself for you.

  I was so excited, my face prickled, and my pulse was turning into a trill. On the topics page I chose another hymn that felt like it was chosen for me. I found the page and read the lines that buzzed: Word of God and inward light, wake my spirit, clear my sight . . . Kindle every high desire; perish self in thy pure fire.

  Wake to me, it was saying. It almost seemed as if the word desire was being lit by a penlight. I could hardly sit still.

  “Jennifer,” my mother hissed at me. “Where’s your bulletin?” The congregation read along with a Scripture lesson in the order of service. My mother lifted the hymnal right out of my hands and flipped it shut, setting it on the pew on the other side of her where I could not reach it.

  How humiliating to be treated like a five-year-old, I thought, but as soon as she looked away, I gently slipped the Bible from the back of the pew in front of me and set it in my lap.

  Part of my brain knew everyone had stood up for singing the Doxology, but it was a world away from what was happening to me. I turned to the back of the Bible and found the subject lists. Holding my breath I searched, waiting to be guided.

  “What are you doing?” my mother snapped at me.

  I didn’t mean to lie, exactly—I just said what I thought she wanted to hear. “I’m reveling in the word of God.”

  The offering plates were being passed now, but I had plenty of time before I would have to hand a plate to anyone. This was more important. I was creating a new language with someone or something otherworldly.

  I began by running her finger down the subject list, feeling for passages that vibrated—but all I felt was a pressure around my head. I stopped, shut the Bible. Still I felt squeezed. I let go of the Bible and it fell open naturally (or so it seemed) across my lap. The pressure was gone, so I looked into the two pages that had come to me by accident.

  Hebrews. I dropped my hand on the page and read the line above my fingertips: Don’t forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.

  I didn’t know I’d made a sound, but my mother shot me a look. I passed the offering plate she handed me to the waiting usher.

  I paused until my mother stopped glaring at me. So weird to be watching both her from the corner of my eye on the right while I still had that vague shadow on my left back in the edge of my vision. When it seemed safe, I slowly pressed the Bible closed between my palms and meant to let it open randomly, but it landed at my feet with a clunk.

  “What’s got into you?” my mother whispered.

  As I reached down to pick up the Bible, I noticed Mrs. Caine in a pew across the aisle watching me. I spread the Bible out on my lap just as it had fallen, open to the book of Ruth. My finger dropped onto the page:

  Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

  I could hear the drone of the pastor beginning his sermon but not the words. My head was full of loud silence, like the running of a stream. My heart was full too—I was happy in a way that didn’t make sense. Like how the day before it made no sense that I felt more at home lying in the grass outside my house than I did in my own bedroom. Like how I fell apart during a stupid credit card commercial on TV. The night before I felt like I was missing someone I’d left behind, and now someone had come to see me.

  CHAPTER 15

  Helen

  JENNY SMILED TO HERSELF, glanced around again, searching for me, I was sure. You would think I would be the one to explain how this language worked, but it was a mystery. Whether my desire to speak with her had bent the binding of the book and forced a certain page to fall open and then guided her hand to find words that made sense to her or whether we were only imagining it, I had no idea. This had not been in my plan—I’d never done such a thing with any of my other hosts. But Jenny dropped the Bible on the floor again, intentionally this time. The thud reverberated through the sanctuary. The woman across the aisle who had been watching made an audible gasp. She was one of the ladies from Cathy’s women’s group. She stared at Jenny as if the girl had shouted out a blasphemy. Cathy swooped down and snatched the Bible away, stuffed it under her purse where Jenny could not reach it.

  Did she think she could keep me from talking to my girl that easily? I tapped the bulletin lying on the pew. It didn’t move, but Jenny picked it up and opened it all the same. I pointed to one word after another, jumping around from this line to that. Jenny ran her finger along the print, through prayers and Scripture quotes and hymn titles, following my lead, and we shared (I hoped) a poem of my constructing: I – will – protect – thee – let – not – your – heart – be – sorrow.

  When I couldn’t find the phrases I needed, I placed my finger on the white space in the middle fold of the bulletin. Jenny’s finger glided into the blank place between my finger and a staple and stopped. She stared at the page, her breaths coming in shallow puffs.

  Leaning toward her ear, I whispered, “Please forgive me for leaving you alone in such a dark place. I’m here now, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  Her whisper was so soft, Cathy couldn’t have heard her unless she’d pressed her ear to the girl’s lips. “Is it you?” Jenny asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered. I couldn’t find the word in the bulletin. I wrote the letters gently on her arm. Yes.

  Jenny nodded ever so slightly.

  “Ghost,” she whispered.

  Again I wrote with my finger on the back of her hand a Y for Yes.

  She shuddered, I thought, with equal parts fear and joy. My spirit answered in kind, flickering with nervous excitement.

  I thought I felt someone watching me, which is an uncommon sensation for a spirit, but when I turned I saw that the woman across the aisle was studying Jenny. Her gaze went right through me. Behind this woman’s eyes I saw an unsettling mix of concern and pleasure. And under her eyes, a shadow.

  At the end of the service Cathy took Jenny’s hand and tried to hurry out the back way before anyone spoke to them. A plump woman with a Noah’s ark sweater blocked the side door and began smothering Cathy with sympathy. I paced around them, impatient to be alone with Jenny. The woman asked Jenny to volunteer in the babies’ room so she could take Cathy to the ladies’ lounge for a talk.

  “Oh, here’s Brad,” said the woman. “Honey, why don’t you walk Jennifer to the nursery?”

  I stayed between this boy and Jenny, though he seemed perfectly harmless. He was thin and dressed as neat as a missionary. He chatted, oblivious that Jenny was not listening.

  “If you ever need anyone to talk to,” he said. “Or pray with.” Jenny didn’t seem to have heard him. “Do you think you’ll want to go to the Harvest Dance?” he ask
ed.

  “What?” She didn’t appear to comprehend.

  “I should ask your father if I can invite you.” Brad realized his faux pas. “I mean your mother, I guess. I think my mom already talked to her.”

  How I wanted to swat him away as I would a horsefly. Jenny swung open the half door under the sign CHERUBS’ NEST and slammed it shut without inviting him in.

  “I could come by your house,” he told her, leaning on the door shelf, but Jenny only smiled at him weakly and turned away. “I’ll just call.”

  The nursery was full and loud. A dozen babies under the age of two sat, crawled, rolled, and toddled around the rainbow carpet. Half were laughing, half were fussing. No one napping. My heart clutched at the sight—every round face reminded me of my own child.

  A tiny woman with thick spectacles was taping a torn page in a picture book. “Are you helping with second service?” she asked Jenny. “You’re a lifesaver.” She came over and put an arm around Jenny’s waist, gave her a squeeze, and whispered, “I’m so sorry about your father.”

  News travels swiftly among the church ladies—some things never change.

  The woman adjusted her glasses. “The usual sunbeams are here. Russell’s got a runny nose, but everyone else is full of spunk. Darryl Ann needs changing. Would you be a dear?”

  A dimpled one-year-old waddled over to us, glanced at me without interest, and wrapped her arms around Jenny’s legs, grinning with four tiny teeth.

  Jenny sighed. “Come on, you.” She swung the baby onto her hip and headed to the next door in the hallway. A utility closet had been remade into a diapering station with paper diapers in three sizes, boxes of wipes, powders, lotions, and a large lidded trash can.

  It might have been the way the child held the back of Jenny’s dress in her fist, or the way her leg swung as it dangled, or the size of the closet, but I imagined I could smell the baby’s sweaty hair and milk-sweet breath. I felt the weight of her, the warmth of her on my side, though she was not in my own arms. Impossible.