by Micah Nathan
She smiled politely. A massive diamond ring shone brilliant in the firelight, encircling her third finger. She rubbed it with her thumb.
Dr. Cade sat on the other end of her couch. “Liz is an accomplished philologist,” he said, looking in her direction. “She’s taught seminars at nearly every prestigious institution in the country, except for Aberdeen, of course.”
She hmmed and reached for her wine glass. “This college isn’t quite big enough for the two of us,” she said. “I’m afraid your ego would smother me.”
Dr. Cade laughed, the first time I’d ever seen him do so. “When everything is resolved, perhaps I should have you conduct a seminar here. I don’t know why we’ve waited so long. I saw you speak last at Princeton, correct? That series on Juvenal.”
She said nothing, only stared at the fire, hands interlocked again and knees touching one another, her form a slender, dark straw. I could see Dan in her face, in the shape and delicateness, but there was a hardness that Dan didn’t share, a graceful stiffness to her expressions that seemed much older than her current worries. She blinked and turned to us, her eyes watering.
“Goodness,” she said, unclicking her purse and pulling out a small square of tissue. “The heat is irritating my eyes…what are you burning in there, William?”
Dr. Cade rose quickly and walked to the fireplace. I watched a moment longer as Mrs. Higgins dabbed her cheeks, and then I awkwardly excused myself and left, hearing Dr. Cade’s voice: Please don’t worry…Another day and he’ll be found…Dan is a responsible boy.
I waited at the bottom of the stairs for Nilus to follow, and then I went to my room, warily keeping my hand upon Nilus’s head the entire time. The Romans believed dogs can sense the dead, and warn of them by barking.
Sunday—cold, clear, and windy—I remained in my room, ignoring the phone, sleeping on and off, and I emerged, after dark, once Art and Howie returned home. They were both red-faced and exhausted from hours first spent searching Wiktor’s Orchard and then the deep forests surrounding Aberdeen, joining a search party made up of undergraduate ski bums (They used it as an excuse to cross-country ski, Howie told me, unwrapping his black scarf from around his neck; I called them a bunch of shameless pricks). Then, when conditions turned from sunny and clear to dark and blustery, they switched to a smaller group of more serious volunteers—hunters and fishermen from Stanton Valley who’d heard about the disappearance on the local news, grizzled old veterans of local tragedies like the great flood of ’64, when the Quinnipiac absorbed five feet of melting snow and washed away eight homes, killing a family of six. Some of the older members brought along their dogs, hounds, and retrievers trotting through knee-deep snow. Howie said it reminded him of old horror movies where grim-faced villagers set out to trap the werewolf or vampire or what have you, treading through misty forests with hunting dogs in tow.
“I’m surprised we didn’t see you out there,” Howie said to me. He unlaced his boots and rubbed his feet. “What did you do all day?”
I coughed into my fist. “I stayed in. I think I’m getting sick.”
Art shot me a reproachful look.
“Well, it’s probably for the best,” said Howie. “It was a waste of time. A little drama to cure the boredom, you know? First time I’ve seen townies on campus, though. That alone was almost worth the price of admission.”
Art hung up his coat and collapsed onto the living room couch. “These kind of things bring small towns together,” he said, covering his eyes with his forearm. “Edna’s Coffee Shop donated ten gallons of hot chocolate and a huge crate of doughnuts. Father Reynold led prayer groups in Garringer all afternoon.”
“Which I was totally against,” Howie said. He sat on the couch opposite Art and yawned. “Any excuse to ply their wares and the Church’ll rise to the occasion. Opportunistic, that’s what I say, always riding on the tails of crisis. And you know what else? Wait, hold that thought…”
Howie walked out and returned moments later with a bottle of brandy in one hand and a snifter in the other. “Here’s what I think.” He uncorked and poured. “I think Dan decided he needed to get away for whatever reason, checked himself into a hotel under a fake name, and then went for a stroll a few days ago and got lost. Remember last year when he went on that hike near Horsehead Falls? We searched three hours for him, wandering around the forest, shouting his name, and it started raining…And then we finally took a break and went to that little diner, what’s-it-called—”
“The Whistle Stop,” Art said, his eyes still covered.
Howie nodded. “Yeah, so we stroll in and sure enough, there’s Dan sitting on a stool, dry as a bone, reading the paper and drinking coffee.”
“You let him have it,” Art said. “You guys had it out right in front of everyone.”
Howie paused in mid-drink and looked away. A troubled look passed across his face, and then he shrugged and drained the snifter in one gulp. “Yeah, well, he deserved it,” he said, and he refilled the glass and sank back into the couch.
We decided to watch the six o’clock news, so Howie retrieved the small black-and-white stored in the basement. We set it on the floor in front of the fireplace and huddled around, our faces lit by the fire and the flash of commercials for laundry detergent and beer and Jim Blakely’s Used Cars (You’ve never seen lower prices for cars this amazing, and after this week, you never will again!). The Channel 7 news came back on with my old girlfriend, Cynthia Andrews, staring out at us, her face framed in a new, shorter haircut.
“The search continued today,” she said solemnly, “for a local Aberdeen student—”
“How’s that for a lousy photo,” said Howie. “Dan looks eleven years old.”
“Shush,” Art said.
“—in this new development, which police say may shed some light onto the whereabouts of Boston native Daniel Higgins. With more on that, we turn to Harris Gavin, who’s reporting live from Aberdeen College.”
Cut to Harris Gavin, wearing a ski jacket and black earmuffs, standing on the steps of Garringer, a small throng of students behind him pointing and chuckling at the camera. He had a piece of paper in his hand, and his hair flipped up in the wind.
“I’m standing on the steps of Garringer Hall, in the heart of Aberdeen College, where the search for Daniel Higgins has completed its second day—”
“Oh man, is this moronic,” said Howie, to which Art responded Will you shut up and let me hear this?
“—and, in this breaking story exclusive to Channel 7 news, an anonymous source has informed us Daniel Higgins was spotted early this morning, at approximately 6 A.M., driving a white sedan on Route 128 in the town of Brant, with, and I quote, ‘a large man of African-American descent.’ Local officials have refused to speculate, but have released this composite sketch of Daniel Higgins’s passenger—”
(At that point the camera cut to a charcoal etching.)
“—and ask that anyone with information on this case should please contact the Fairwich Police Department at area code…”
“Whoah,” said Howie, and he gulped from his snifter.
Art sat back. I looked at him and our eyes met, for a moment, a rush of confusion passing between us.
Harris Gavin was interviewing a student, a kid dressed in an Aberdeen sweatshirt, splotchy blemishes shining angrily under the flat camera lights. Yeah, I knew Dan. He was in my freshman comp class last year…
Howie stood up, towering over me, snifter in hand, one of his white socks with a hole in it and his big toe poking through.
“A black guy?” Howie said. He guzzled his brandy. “I don’t think Dan’s ever even talked to a black guy.”
Art shot up from the floor and ran both his hands through his hair.
“What is it?” I said.
“He’s still alive,” Art said, staring at me but not seeing.
I was speechless. Art walked out of the living room, slowly, and went upstairs. His door slammed shut and Nilus sat up and barked.
Howie and I stayed up for another hour, sharing the bottle of brandy until it ran out, while I listened to Howie ruminate about how confused Dan must be, how his decision to “run off with some black guy” was really a direct refutation of the Waspy lifestyle he obviously wanted no part of. I didn’t know what to think—so much had happened that anything seemed possible. Dan being alive, however remote a possibility, was certainly more reasonable than him having joined an African-American man on some cross-state road trip. Rasputin had been poisoned and shot and finally drowned; perhaps Dan had proved just as resilient. Or had the witness been mistaken? There were a lot of everyday people who resembled Dan, so nondescript was he that I often find myself forgetting how he looked.
It was much easier to pretend I was just as confounded as everyone else, that I went to bed wondering where Dan was (which, in a sense, I did), and woke up hoping he’d come home safely (which, in another sense, I also did). Self-preservation had muted the pangs of guilt, and I’d developed an emotional callous that protected me from the numerous breakdowns I’d suffered through the past week. Now I was content to close my conscience and view every event like fiction, like a book or a movie, disassociating myself as much as possible so that I no longer felt everyday emotions but rather a dead calm. The life of a junkie must feel like this, I thought, wandering from one fix to the next. Feeling nothing, tasting nothing, hearing nothing, wanting nothing save that rush of nullity so often mistaken for bliss, when in fact it’s only blissful because the pain stops. I craved the absence of existence. Nothing more.
His speech on Dan’s rebellion now completed, Howie told me about the day’s events—police buzzing around campus like hornets at a picnic, darting into buildings, accosting students and professors alike who had come to either help in the search or gawk at the unfolding drama. The administration, Howie said, was very nervous, viewing the police as a necessary annoyance and little else; they were still convinced Dan was part of some elaborate prank that had gone too far. If this was a prank, Dean Richardson assured everyone, in as poor a display of timing as anyone could remember, suspensions and perhaps even expulsions would be meted out. Professor Cade was seen gliding across campus, Mrs. Higgins at his side, the two of them like phantoms dressed in gray and black. Howie had seen them several times throughout the day—standing at the edge of the woods behind Kellner Hall, apart from a knot of noisy students; in the Thorren lobby, reading the various announcements tacked to the corkboard; even at Campus Bean, sitting in the corner sipping from Styrofoam cups, which, Howie had said, Mrs. Higgins held primly between her gloved hands as if she’d never touched Styrofoam before.
We talked until we both passed out from exhaustion and alcohol. I fell asleep on the couch, Nilus nearby, and Howie slept across from me on the other couch. I think I heard him mumble something to himself before fading into drunken oblivion.
Art awakened me in the middle of the night. I started to say something but he put his finger to his lips and dissolved back into the darkness.
I sat up and looked around, momentarily disoriented. The living room was bathed in pale blue moonlight, running across the floor, washing over Howie’s face. He’d fallen asleep with his head back and his mouth open, one foot dangling over the end of the couch and the other resting on the floor. On the coffee table was an empty bottle of brandy. I was still drunk, as I recall, because my mouth had a strong medicinal taste and I had difficulty remembering how I’d ended up on the couch.
My watch read 12:30. The fireplace held a few crumbled, glowing embers. Art straightened up slowly and walked away, and I followed him, up the stairs, unsure if I was awake or dreaming.
Once in his room—he kept the lights off—Art moved to his window, swift and silent, a silhouette gliding across the room, and beckoned me with an outstretched hand.
“There,” he whispered, pointing toward the backyard. Black trees cast long shadows across the snow like the legs of a giant. “Do you see him?”
I looked, but saw nothing.
Art breathed heavily. “He’s down there…” he said. “I saw someone run from the woods, across the lawn.”
“Who?” I whispered back.
Art craned his head and stared toward the pond. “Dan,” he said.
Something moved at the edge of the forest, a dark shape, barely noticeable. It was too far away for me to get any kind of perspective, but whatever it was dashed back into the woods.
“Oh my God,” I said.
Art remained at the window a moment longer, then pulled down the shade and turned on his desk lamp. I squinted from the harsh light.
Art was shockingly well-dressed for such a late hour. His blue shirt was pressed and clean, and he wore a simple dark blue tie held tight by a silver bar.
I had too many questions. I started with the most pressing:
“How do you know that was Dan?”
Art sat at his desk and faced me, leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees. He had on his leather boots, the pair he’d bought in London. “I can’t be certain,” he said, looking down. “But I’m pretty sure whoever it was followed me home from Ellen’s.”
That explained his clothes. A pang of jealousy struck.
“I thought I was going to lose my mind tonight,” Art said. “After that piece on the news. I told myself there was no way he could be alive. I mean, you were there…you saw.”
I didn’t need to be reminded. Dan’s head lolling on a limp neck as we hefted him from the bottom of the canoe, one eyelid fluttering open, flashing a sickening white…I’d already seen too much.
“But tonight, after I dropped Ellen off…we ate at Orezi’s, you know, that new Neapolitan place.” He raised his finger and cocked his head to one side. “Did you hear that?”
“No,” I said.
“Hmm. Anyway, I dropped Ellen off and was about to turn onto Main when I saw a white sedan pull out from a parking lot. I wouldn’t have paid attention, normally, but after that news piece…I drove up Route 80 and back down to school, just to see if this sedan was really following me. I’d think I lost it and then at a traffic light I’d look behind me and there it would be, headlights in the distance. It was like something out of a horror film.”
“You should’ve gone to the police,” I said, but Art shook his head.
“You know they brought me and Howie down to the station this afternoon. Asked us a bunch of questions.”
I was shocked.
“Don’t worry,” Art said, getting up off his chair and loosening his tie. “They didn’t mention your name.” Despite the current situation, Art was remarkably relaxed—it was a change I’d soon become accustomed to; Art distant and nervous in crowds, and then back to his old self when with me, despite the memories we now shared. I think it may have been the guilt, since guilt can make one feel torturously alone, except when there’s someone else to share it with.
Art folded his tie and walked over to his dresser. “Like I said, I’m not one hundred percent certain it’s him, but that white car followed me all the way home, and then drove past once I pulled in the driveway. So I came in, found you two passed out on the couch, and ran upstairs with a pair of binoculars. And I waited. Two hours went by and I finally saw something—some one—run across the backyard and into the woods.”
There was too much to think about. The police questioning Art, the figure in the woods, and incredibly, in the back of my memory, like a splinter in my palm, was Ellen. Had she told Art anything about my confession? I wondered. Did Art care even if she had?
“What if it is Dan?” I asked. Art was now unlacing his boots. “What then?”
“We leave,” Art said. “We get out of the country.”
“Pardon me?”
He looked up. “If it’s Dan, that means the formula works.”
“But I thought that’s what you want
ed.”
“It is. It’s just…” Art kicked off his boots and sat on the edge of his bed, stretching his toes out. “I don’t know,” he said, and he fell back and slapped his palm over his eyes. “We got lazy. We skipped the purification rites.”
“So?”
“So, they’re the most important part. The body—actually, the soul, or the spirit, or whatever you want to call it—has to be ready for immortality.” He rolled onto his side and stared at the headboard. “I have a hard time accepting all the ritual, even though I know it’s the most important element.”
“What are you getting at?”
Art looked at me. “Dan hadn’t been cleansed. If he’s still alive, then he may have…changed. I don’t know how else to say it.”
“What, like into a monster?” In spite of myself I laughed.
“Not in the corporeal sense,” said Art. He was being surprisingly patient. “Jung said alchemy is the bridge between the subconscious and the conscious. The cleansing rites are meant to lengthen the bridge. To make sure nothing dangerous bubbles up. Some of the drugs Dan took were very psychoactive, and under certain conditions there is a danger of the subject losing his mind, quite literally. Reverting back to a primal state.”
I glanced at the window shade.
“Transmutation goes both ways,” Art said. “And not always for the better.”
Something wasn’t adding up. We were talking like madmen. I’d seen Dan disappear under the water, seen his face fade into inky nothingness. Even if there were a formula for increasing longevity, how could it possibly apply to someone already dead? And, assuming he was now alive (the most insane notion I’ve ever come close to believing), why would he be slinking around the woods at night? Why wouldn’t he just come forward and proclaim the entire thing to be one giant misunderstanding? And why was Art afraid? It wasn’t the police he seemed afraid of—in fact, Art approached them with almost dangerous confidence, as if believing his superior intelligence was the ultimate protection, an attitude which rubbed off a bit onto me—but there was something else. It was Dan, Dan who scared him. But why, I asked myself.
