A Gathering Light

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “Damn it, Mattie, this is algebra, not composition!” Weaver said, glaring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, feeling like a hopeless case.

  Weaver looked up at the sky. He sighed and shook his head. Then, all of a sudden, he snapped his fingers and smiled. “Remember your word of the day?” he asked me, writing monochromatic in the dirt.

  “Yes,” I said. “It means of one color. Or it can describe a person who’s color-blind. But what does that have to do with algebra?”

  “Say you didn’t have a dictionary, but you knew prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Same way you know the value of numbers. How would you get at the meaning of a word?”

  “Well, you’d look at the pieces. Mono, a prefix for ‘single’ from the Greek word monos. And chroma, for ‘color,’ also from the Greek. The ic at the end would tell you it’s an adjective. Then you’d blend all the pieces into one to get the meaning.”

  “Exactly! Algebra’s the same, Matt. You blend all the pieces into one to get the meaning, which in this case is a number, not a word. You combine your knowns with your unknowns, your numbers with your Xs and Ys, one by one, until you have all your values. Then you add them or subtract them or whatever the equation tells you to do, and then you have your final value, the meaning.”

  He wrote out another equation, and I began to see what he was talking about. “Solve it,” he said, handing me the stick. I stumbled a bit with the first one and he had to help me, but by the time he’d written out three more, I’d gotten the idea well enough so that I wouldn’t be completely lost when I sat down to do my lessons that night.

  “Just keep at it. You’ll get it,” he told me. “I know you will.”

  I shook my head, thinking about Barnard and how badly I wanted to go there. “I don’t know why I should,” I said. “There’s no point.”

  “Don’t say that, Matt. Did you ask your aunt? She give you anything?”

  “A lecture.”

  “Did you tell your pa yet?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you tell him? Maybe he’d let you go. Maybe he’d even help you.”

  “Not a chance, Weaver,” I said.

  “Maybe you can earn the money picking berries over the summer.”

  I thought of all the buckets of berries I would need to pick and sighed.

  We started walking again. We were halfway to Eagle Bay on our way home from school. My sisters were a good ways ahead of us, walking with the Higby girls. The Loomises were a little farther up, playing kick the can with Ralph Simms and Mike Bouchard. The Hubbard kids were behind us. Miss Wilcox kept them after sometimes. “For remedial work,” she always said. But Weaver and I often stayed after to study with her, and we knew that she gave them sandwiches. Jim and Will didn’t know it, though, since they never stayed after, so that was one less thing they could torment them over.

  As we rounded the last bend in the road before Eagle Bay, we saw the afternoon train pull into the station. It was bound for Raquette Lake, but it wouldn’t depart for another thirty minutes or so. It was still only April, but some tourists and camp owners were already coming and it took a little while to unload them and their belongings—as well as the mail, any stray lumberjacks on their way back into the woods, and groceries and coal for the hotels.

  “There’s Lincoln and my mamma,” Weaver said, before the massive locomotive pulled in, blocking out most of the station and the people near it. “Let’s see if she’s finished up, Matt. Maybe we can get a ride.”

  We crossed the tracks and walked to the station, a plain plank affair. It was nowhere near as grand as the ones in Raquette Lake or Old Forge, which have restaurants in them, but it had its own stationmaster and a stove for the colder months and benches and a proper window with bars, where travelers bought their tickets. We threaded our way among the tourists and the conductors and Mr. Pulling, the stationmaster, and some workmen bound for one of the hotels.

  Weaver’s mamma was next to the station, selling chicken and biscuits and pie. Lincoln, her hinny, was hitched to the Smiths’ cart, facing away from the train, so that Weaver’s mamma could more easily get at her wares. Lincoln was a patient animal. Pleasant would never have stood so quietly. But hinnies, which are bred from a female donkey and a male horse, are more tractable than mules, which are bred from a male donkey and a female horse.

  “Need some help, Mamma?” Weaver asked.

  “Oh yes, honey!” she said. Her face lit up like a lamp at the sight of her son. It always did, even if she’d just seen him ten minutes ago. Weaver’s mamma has a first name, of course. It is Aleeta. And strangers call her Mrs. Smith. But everyone around Eagle Bay calls her Weaver’s mamma, for that’s what she is. More than anything else.

  “Hello, Mattie, darlin’,” she said to me in her soft drawl.

  I greeted her and she handed me a biscuit. She wore a blue calico dress and an apron she’d made from a flour sack. A bit of calico, the same as her dress, was wrapped around her braids and knotted at the back of her head. She was handsome like her son. Her face was strong and her skin was smooth, with hardly a line in it. Her eyes were kind, but they didn’t match her young face. They had an ancient look to them, as if she’d seen most everything there was to see in this world and would be surprised by nothing.

  “See that lady waving from the window, Weaver? Take this to her,” she said, handing him a bundle wrapped in a sheet of newspaper. She made another bundle. “That’s for the engineer, Mattie. Hand it up to him, honey.” I shoved the rest of my biscuit into my mouth, put my books down in her cart, and took the bundle. I walked to the front of the train, not liking the chumpf chumpf noises it made or its sharp coal smell or the big whuffs of steam that came billowing out from under it.

  “That you, Mattie Gokey?” a big voice boomed down at me.

  “Yes, it is, Mr. Myers. I brought your supper.”

  Hank Myers, his face red and sweaty, leaned down and scooped up his bundle. He lived in Inlet. Everyone knew him. He threw candy out of the window for the children on the stretches between towns. Sour balls and bull’s-eyes and pieces of chewing gum.

  “Here’s the money, Mattie. Tell Weaver’s mamma thank you for me.” He tossed me some coins and a bull’s-eye. The candy went in my pocket for Beth. I would put the coins in Weaver’s mamma’s change can. I knew that when she got home, she would empty it into the cigar box she kept under her bed—Weaver’s college fund.

  As I walked back to the Smiths’ cart, I passed a couple from the city standing by their luggage. “Gee whiz, Trudy, hold on, will you?” I heard the man say impatiently. “I don’t see a porter anywhere. Ah! There’s a darky. You, boy! I need some help over here!”

  Weaver was farther down the platform, but he heard the man. He turned around and I saw a bad look in his eyes. One I knew too well. It was the kind of look horses will get when they are young and saddle shy and would rather dash themselves to pieces than be broken by a rider.

  I skirted around the man, caught up with Weaver, and took his sleeve. “Don’t pay him any mind,” I said, pulling him along. “Let him stand there and bellow, the ignorant fool—”

  “You! Sam! I said I need help over here!”

  Weaver shook me off. He turned around and smiled. A huge, horrible smile. “Why, sure, Mistuh Boss, suh!” he hollered. “I be right along, suh, right along! On de double!”

  “Weaver!” his mother called. Her voice sounded frightened.

  “Weaver, don’t!” I hissed, not knowing what he was going to do but knowing from experience that it wouldn’t be smart or good.

  “Here I is, suh!” he said, bowing to the couple.

  “Take my bags to that wagon,” the man said, pointing at a waiting buckboard.

  “Right away, boss!”

  Weaver picked up the largest one, a sleek leather suitcase with shiny brass clasps, lifted it over his head, and threw it on the ground.

  “Hey!” the man yelled.

  “Lan’ sakes! I sure is sorry, s
uh! I’se one clumsy darky, all right. Don’t worry, Mistuh Suh, I’ll fix it. Yessuh!” Weaver said. And then he hauled off and kicked the suitcase. So hard that it whizzed across the platform, hit the front of the station, and sprang open. Clothes flew everywhere. He kicked it again. “Yes, suh! Right away, suh! I’se coming, suh! Sho nuff!” he shouted.

  The man shouted, too. So did his wife. And Weaver’s mamma. Everyone else cleared out of the way. And still Weaver kicked the bag. Over and over again. Across the platform and back. And then the conductors were hurrying out of the station, where they’d gone for a cup of coffee, and Mr. Pulling, too, and Mr. Myers was jumping down from the train, yelling and waving, and in my panic I thought about Weaver’s father. And I imagined what Weaver must have seen. White hands on black skin. So many white hands. And I knew that the men running toward us would only make things worse. So I jumped between Weaver and the suitcase just as he was winding up another kick.

  “Please, Weaver,” I said, flinching. “Stop.”

  And he did. He turned away at the last possible second and kicked a mailbag instead of me. I swallowed. Hard. Weaver is slender but he is strong, and that kick might have shattered my ankle. I took him by his wrists very gently and pushed him backward, one step at a time. His arms were stiff and trembly. The breath was rasping from his throat. I could smell anger coming off him. And grief. I pushed him over to his mamma’s cart, then I gathered the man’s clothing and tried my best to shake the dirt out of it. I folded it all neatly and put it back in the suitcase. The case was badly dented, but the clasps still worked. I closed it and placed it with the rest of the man’s luggage.

  “Now, see here! This won’t do at all! He damaged my things!” the man sputtered.

  “He’s sorry, sir. He didn’t mean to.”

  “He certainly did mean to! He ought to at least pay to have my clothing laundered. And for a new suitcase, too. Do you have a cop in this place? A sheriff or something? I don’t want to make trouble, but he really ought to—”

  “No, please!” It was Weaver’s mamma. Her eyes were frantic. She was clutching her chicken money. “I’ll pay you—”

  But she didn’t get to finish her sentence, because another voice cut in. “No, mister, you surely don’t want to make trouble. Best be on your way before his pa shows up. Or his brothers. He’s got five. And each one of ’em’s meaner than the next.”

  It was Royal. He was standing on the platform, arms crossed over his chest. He stood tall. His shoulders were broad under his shirt, his arms were thick and powerful. Jim and Will were right behind him. I didn’t know where he’d come from. I looked past him and saw his father’s buckboard with milk cans in it. He must have been delivering.

  The man looked Royal up and down. He looked at Mr. Pulling and Mr. Myers, whose faces betrayed nothing, and then he looked up the tracks as if expecting to see Weaver’s father and his five ornery brothers bearing down on him. He shot his cuffs. “Well!” he said. “Well.” Then he picked up his suitcase, took his wife by the elbow, and stalked off to the waiting buckboard. I saw him put coins into the driver’s hand and point at his remaining bags.

  “That boy’s going to bring a world of trouble on his head one day,” Mr. Pulling said. “Everything all right now?”

  “Sure is,” Royal said. Then, after Mr. Pulling left, he said, “You like a ride home, Matt?”

  “Thank you, Royal, but I’d better see to Weaver.”

  He shrugged.

  I ran back over to the Smiths’ cart. Weaver’s mamma had Weaver off to one side and was giving him the tongue-lashing of the century. She was furious. Was she ever! Her eyes were blazing and she was shaking her finger at him and slapping her palm against his chest. I couldn’t hear it all, but I did hear that “damn fools who get themselves locked up in jail can’t go to college.” Weaver’s eyes were on the ground, his head was hanging. He raised it for a few seconds, long enough to say something to her, and then in an instant all the rage left her and she went limp like a popped tire and started crying and Weaver put his arms around her.

  I didn’t think I should intrude, so I dropped the money from Mr. Myers’s supper into the change can, took my schoolbooks out of the cart, and ran to catch up with Royal. He was just crossing the tracks in the buckboard. Jim and Will were in the back, sitting on milk cans. I figured I was safe. Royal wouldn’t try to kiss me or touch what he wasn’t supposed to with the two of them there. I felt relieved. And disappointed.

  “Can I still have that ride?” I called to him.

  “Sure.”

  “You won’t go too fast?”

  “Get in, will you, Matt? Train’s ready to pull out and I’m right in the way.”

  I ran around to the other side of the buckboard and climbed in. I was glad to sit down next to him. Glad to have his company on the way home. I was upset by what had happened and in need of someone to talk it over with. “Thank you, Royal,” I said.

  “For what? I’m on my way home anyway.”

  “For getting Weaver out of trouble.”

  “Looks like he’s still got plenty,” he said, glancing back at Weaver and his mother.

  “I think his mamma’s upset because of what happened to his pa,” I said. Royal knew what had happened to Weaver’s father; everyone did.

  “Might well be,” Royal said, urging his team across the tracks.

  “Maybe that started off just like this suitcase thing did,” I said, my emotions still churning.

  “Maybe.”

  “With just a few words. And then a few more. And then the words turned into insults and threats and worse, and then a man was dead. Just because of words.”

  Royal was silent, chewing on all I’d said, I imagined.

  “I know you told me words are just words, Royal, but words are powerful things—”

  I felt a poke in my back. “Hey, Mattie . . .”

  I turned around. “What, Jim? What do you want?” I asked, irritated.

  “There goes Seymour! Ain’t you going to wave?”

  “Who?”

  “Seymour, Mattie! Seymour Butts!”

  Jim and Will howled with laughter. Royal didn’t actually laugh, but he grinned. And I was silent the rest of the way home.

  Dead. That’s what I’ll be if Cook catches me. In Ada’s threadbare robe, my hair loose, walking down the hotel’s main staircase as if I were a paying guest. We are only supposed to use the back stairs, but I’d have to walk right by Cook’s bedroom to get to them and she’s a light sleeper.

  It’s midnight. I hear the huge grandfather clock in the entry strike the hour. It’s dark, but I don’t dare light a lamp. There’s a big summer moon, though, and the Glenmore has lots of windows, so I can see well enough to not fall down the stairs and break my neck.

  The main house has four stories plus an attic. Forty rooms in all. When the hotel is fully booked, as it is this week, there are over a hundred people in the building. All strangers to one another, coming and going. Eating and laughing and breathing and sleeping and dreaming under the same roof.

  They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can’t see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can’t get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.

  I get to the bottom of the staircase and listen. The only sound is the ticking of the clock. To my right is the dining room. It’s dark and empty. Straight ahead, through the porch windows, I can see the boathouse and the lake, calm and still, its black surface silvered by the moon. I pray I don’t run into anyone. Not Mrs. Morrison waiting up for her husband. Or Mr. Sperry doing the accounts as he does when he can’t sleep. Or, God forbid, table six lurking in a corner like some horrible spider.

  I walk under the antler chandelier in the foyer, and by the co
at tree made of branches and deer hooves. I pass the hallway that leads to the parlor and get a fright when I see light spilling out of the room onto the hall carpet, but then I remember: That’s where Grace Brown is laid out. Mrs. Morrison left a lamp burning because it’s unkind to leave the dead all alone in the dark. They have darkness enough ahead of them.

  I creep through the dining room toward the kitchen doors. The kitchen does not have many windows, and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the heavier darkness inside it. Slowly, Cook’s worktable and her big, looming range come into focus. The cellar door is just to the left of them. I’m almost there when my foot catches on something and there’s an earsplitting crash and then I’m under the worktable, quivering like one of Cook’s aspics.

  I wait for lights to come on and the sound of feet and angry voices, quickly rehearsing a story in my head, but no one comes. Cook is all the way upstairs and Mrs. Morrison’s room is on the other side of the hotel and Mr. Morrison and Henry and Mr. Sperry must still be out searching in the woods and I am very lucky.

  I crawl out from under the table and see that it is the rotten ice-cream churn that tripped me. I run the rest of the way to the cellar door, twist the knob, and . . . it’s locked.

  Now what? Grace Brown is gone and her letters should be, too. They’re her love letters, they must be. They’re private and no one should ever see them. I think about lighting the big gas range and holding them over a burner. I know if Cook caught me doing it, she would fire me on the spot, for the range is temperamental and the Glenmore is built of wood. There’s always the lake, and for a moment I consider sneaking out to it and pitching the letters off the dock as I’d planned to do earlier, but it’s not decent to run around outside in your nightclothes, and the search party could come back at any time. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow when it will be busy and Cook will be distracted.

  I leave the kitchen and head back to the attic. I tell my feet to keep going, to take me directly upstairs, but they have their own ideas. They take me into the parlor instead, and then to the little bedroom off of it. The bruises on Grace Brown’s lips look darker in the lamplight, and the cut on her forehead looks meaner.