by Ari Berk
“Wait,” she said, her voice high and stitched with worry. She went back behind the counter and rummaged in a box below it. “Here,” she said, testing and then handing him an old but working flashlight. “You’ll need this, I think. It’ll be dark soon. Oh, be careful, Silas! Take bread!” She took a fresh loaf from a large basket on the counter and thrust it into his hands. “And take a bottle of milk from the case. I don’t know what’s best down there. I’ll send all requirements to your mother’s house directly. Don’t fret about that. I’ll take care of it all. You come fetch me if there be trouble, or if there’s ought else you need.”
Without another word, Silas stepped into the street. Behind him, he heard Mother Peale calling for her daughter Joan and delivering a rapid list of instructions as he walked away. “Joanie, get the truck and have them strappin’ boys bring around some rope and the big blankets for the beast . . . aye, to Mennever’s . . . to the farm . . . No, they’ll have the trailer and we’ll take it back when all’s been done . . . Yes, tonight . . . Take some blinders to cover its eyes . . . must be kept calm . . . I don’t care about that . . . you keep that creature serene! Tell them lads . . . shift their arses! This is old-time business, and we’ll do things right or not at all! Tell them who it’s for!”
As he turned down Coach Street, Silas put the flashlight in his jacket pocket, and the bread and milk into his satchel. Some kind of offerings, he guessed. Just like people used to leave on the porches of the houses on Fort Street. As his hand came out of the satchel, it brushed the death watch. He clutched it out of habit, and the silver case warmed in his grasp. The watch’s quick ticking mimicked his own fast-beating heart, which pounded now at the thought of going alone to the derelict lanes of Newfield Cemetery. He had once walked there with Bea, and he remembered nervously how, as evening fell, the dim lamps of the night market, as she had called it, began to glow among the tombs. He could almost hear Bea’s words and how they unsettled him then and now. Haven’t you ever lost something? C’mon! Maybe we’ll find it. What are you looking for, Silas?
Looking up, he saw that the sky would soon shift from gray to black. The high wall of Newfield was ahead. Silas shuddered but kept walking as he passed into the long shadows of its gates.
LEDGER
We must, each in our time, master the Lych Way, become lords of two lands, as once it was called. Such is our birthright. It is not enough to open or close the doors for the dead. We are no mere porters. We are emanations—shadows and reflections of the gods. They are mimed in us, in our deeds and in the obligations of our undertaking. The Peller’s soul is puissant, for what god’s power is not conjurable by us, should our work require? Yet it is more than vocation: discovery of the mysteries of the gods and the inner summoning of our presiding geniuses—Janus, Jove, Osiris, Hades, Anubis, Hermes, who you will—what are these but an Undertaker’s initiation through his own life, from birth unto his waiting grave, should it come?
—MARGINALIA OF JONAS UMBER
THE SUN WAS BEGINNING TO set, but clouds hid the gold of twilight. At the statue of the bronze lion that kept watch over Newfield Cemetery, Silas paused and read out of habit the raised letters of the plaque set into its side.
Who can stand before the arrows of the sun?
Or the bright flame of the stalker of the plains?
Rest in my shadow, Oh, Innocence!
While the guilty perish by tooth and claw.
For mine is the undiminished heart of carnelian.
Despite the chill, the bronze was not cold to the touch. Silas put his palm onto the statue, remembering the lion’s preserved corpse inside and how, just there between its massive paws, he once sat with Beatrice as she sang to him. He drew back his hand and pressed on, only allowing the memory of Bea to flutter at the margins of his mind, but no closer, not yet. He shouldn’t linger. His mother was waiting.
In front of him, Newfield widened out into a vast expanse of fenced plots, mausoleums, and avenues, planted all around with the less auspicious graves of the more common folk. Far in the distance, where some of the older burials ran closer to the cliffs overlooking the sea, Silas could hear dogs barking. He’d heard their howling before, when he’d lived at Temple House and the wild packs would course along the wall in Newfield’s northwestern side. He began to walk faster, trying to keep close to the open tombs in case he had to get away from the dogs should they come closer.
In the eastern quarter of Newfield stood the once-fashionable Egyptian tombs. These were separated from the rest of the cemetery by a large wall decorated along its length in the Egyptian revival style, with tall fluted columns and carved capitals in the shape of lotus flowers. Ivy covered most of the walls and hung like a curtain over much of the open archway leading into the avenues.
There was still a little light in the sky as Silas parted the ivy and walked down the path between the mausoleums. Ahead was the pylon-shaped tomb where his great-grandfather told him he would find the Book of the Dead. He was cold and nervous now. He had never been in this part of the cemetery, but had once, with Bea, seen strange lights here as darkness fell.
All around him stood sentinel sphinxes and tall statues of Anubis, the jackal-headed funeral god of ancient Egypt. As he passed by, Silas glanced at the ornamental faux-hieroglyphic plaques adorning the doors and walls of the tombs. They bore familiar names—many Howesmans, and other ancestors from his mother’s side of the family, and people from the other wealthy families of Lichport with whom the Howesmans generally married. Many of the ornate inscriptions concluded with unsettlingly similar additional dates.
Juliette Howesman-Ellis
Beloved Wife, Mother, and Grandmother
Born Died Laid To Rest
1846 1926 1942
Silas saw that as the death dates got later, the “laid to rest” dates began to cluster, as though many of the corpses were finally interred during that more recent period when the bigger families began leaving Lichport. As he peered into some of the tombs, he saw tenantless stone sarcophagi standing upright, others on their sides, their lids askew or broken, the occupants apparently missing. But at the back of many tombs, he could see stairs leading down to chambers below the earth, and it was possible the Restless occupants resided somewhere below.
At the end of the avenue stood the tomb Silas was looking for. Its outer walls were made from carefully dressed stone, and massive columns held up the lintel of the doorway. The entrance stood open, and between the columns, a rectangle of impenetrable black hung like a moonless night.
Silas leaned his head closer to the entrance. He could smell the stale perfume of stone, damp, and mold within.
“Hello?” he whispered to the darkness.
The darkness didn’t answer.
Remembering the flashlight Mother Peale had given him, Silas turned it on and pointed it inside, then followed the beam through the doorway.
Within were wonderful things. A large chariot clad in thin sheets of gold stood against the wall nearest the door. There was also a carved wooden bed adorned with finials in the shapes of leopards with eyes of inset lapis lazuli. Numerous sconces stood unlit about the antechamber, but the beam of the flashlight revealed walls painted with detailed murals in the Egyptian style, perhaps copied out of some excavation reports of the last century from sites such as Abydos or Dendereh.
Silas gazed closely at the walls, wondering if their hieroglyphic texts and images held clues to the rites awaiting his mother. The hieroglyphs were indecipherable to him. Yet the carved and painted images were plain enough: The panel scenes depicted the deceased—shown in anachronistic American attire from the turn of the century—being led by Anubis toward a green-skinned god seated upon a dais. That was Osiris, the judge of the dead. At his feet was seated Ammit, the eater of souls, made from the body parts of a lion, hippo, and crocodile, just like the queer trophy-statue in his uncle’s house. In the next scene, the deceased had been laid upon a table and was being prepared for interment: wrapped in line
ns up to his cravat, covered with fragrant oils, a scarab set upon his chest. Then, in the following panel, the corpse was standing, eyes closed, while Anubis inserted a small—was it a sort of little stone crowbar?—into the corpse’s mouth. In the final scene, the bandages had been removed from the corpse, who was now departing the naos, the funerary sanctuary, on its way back to town, clearly walking up Fairwell Street. Were these the funeral rites of the wealthiest of Lichport’s families? Of his mother’s people?
As Silas crossed the floor, he saw there were numerous jars and urns as well as many small ivy plants in decorative pots, like those left on the porches of the houses on Fort Street. Most of these were, ironically, dead. There were dusty bottles of wine, pots of perfume, and in the corner, several badly preserved stuffed cranes or ibises wrapped in stained linens. There was also the small, thin corpse of a cat that appeared to have simply curled up in the tomb and died without knowing it was now part of a bizarre funereal tableau.
Against the other walls of the chamber were stacked more pieces of carved furniture, more statuary, and many chests and coffers. Strangely, though, none of its contents had been stolen. Everything was covered with layers of undisturbed dust. Many offerings had once been left, gifts for the dead, but no one had entered this place for some time. As Silas looked at the contents of the tomb, he could not help but wonder what it would feel like to be left here, for family to bring him, at his death, into a chamber like this one, and then to endure beyond death that way: a silent watcher, left behind, surrounded by cut stones and bricks; dust sifting down over his face, his lips becoming tight and dry, eyes closed, dreaming of the world outside that had forgotten him.
A noise drew his attention to the stone steps leading down into the earth. Over the doorway was a carved scarab, much like the gemstone of his ring, set into the keystone. Peering into the passage, Silas could just see a pale light emanating from a chamber far below, and he heard a faint crackling sound.
“Hello?”
Still air closed in behind his words.
He made his way down.
The roof of the passage overhead was painted with ivy vines. Figures on the walls on either side were carrying offering vessels. The air warmed as he descended, and it was scented with smells familiar from his great-grandfather’s room in the house on Fort Street: pitch, honey, fragrant preserving oils, and mold.
The stairs ended in a small antechamber perhaps only ten feet long. Carved chairs flanked both sides, giving it the appearance of a waiting room. At its far side, another doorway glowed with a flickering, inconstant light from beyond its threshold. Slowly Silas approached and then walked through.
He entered a deep chamber with rich offerings stacked by both sides of the doorway. There were also numerous large cans of Crisco, some unopened, others empty. He wondered what they could possibly be for. The cans brought back a memory of how his mother would sometimes rub a bit of Crisco into her hands if the skin was dry. She had said her family’s kitchen maid had taught her that “ever so long ago.”
To his surprise, several electric lamps with tasseled shades diffused a low light about the front of the room. The tomb had been wired for electricity. Their light pulsed, and the crackling sound Silas had heard before came from the old bulbs that hissed and popped, warning that their filaments had nearly expired. An old radio stood in the corner. The far side of the room was cast in shadow.
Along the wall closest to him was a long table covered in games of different kinds: old dice made from jet and ivory, decks of cards, antique backgammon and chess sets, mahjong tiles, a rusted mechanical horse race set. Stacked along the table’s side were colorful, worn boxes of board games. Some of the boxes were at least a hundred years old, maybe older. The games had curious names like “The Mansion of Happiness,” “Round the World with Nellie Bly,” “Advance and Retreat,” “Grandmama’s Improved Game of Useful Knowledge,” and “Mixed Pickles.” The box on top of the stack was called “Totem” and bore on its lid a drawing of a bear and a faded quote from Longfellow:
And they painted on the grave posts
Of the graves yet unforgotten.
Each his own ancestral Totem;
Figures of the Bear and Reindeer,
Of the Turtle, Crane and Beaver.
The box’s side was split open and some small cards with images of animals had fallen out onto the floor.
At the center of the chamber was an enormous stone sarcophagus, deeply engraved with hieroglyphs on all of its exterior surfaces. Silas walked around it warily. Drawing closer, he put his hands on the edge and looked over. It was empty, but he could see that the inside was also richly inscribed. In Egypt, Silas knew, the oldest books of the dead had been inscribed within and upon the sarcophagi. If that was the case, there was no way to bring this “text” back with him, unless he made rubbings, and his great-grandfather had said nothing about that. The book he was supposed to find must be elsewhere. He walked toward the back of the tomb.
Against the far wall, hidden in shadow that yielded to his light, two well-preserved corpses leaned against each other as though drunkenly passed out. Next to them, so still Silas thought at first she might be a statue, was another corpse sitting in a chair covered with burnished metal. She was much older-looking than the other two. Her black hair was plaited and adorned with small beads of hammered gold, and she wore a pectoral of faience beads worked into the shape of a vulture. Her lips were tightly drawn. Her skin, yellowed but translucent, glowed in the light like citrine. Were they Restless, or merely the tomb’s more conventionally deceased occupants?
“Hello?” Silas said softly. “Good evening?”
One the bulbs made a popping sound behind him and went out momentarily. It crackled back to life, but dimmer, its light flashing and intermittent.
Before the corpse of the old lady was a pedestal holding a collection of extremely ancient scrolls. Silas hoped one of these was the Book of the Dead. Walking closer to the corpses, watching them out of one eye, Silas reached for the scroll on the top of the stack.
The corpse in the chair shifted and, more quickly than Silas would have thought possible, raised her arm and grasped his wrist.
“Wait!” he said, startled. “Be still! I mean no harm! I have come to—” But as the corpse tightened her grip on his arm, he couldn’t finish the sentence. The pain dismembered his thoughts, and his knees began to buckle under him. Jonas Umber’s face flashed across his memory. There were ways to stop the Restless. What had Jonas told him? But he couldn’t use such terrible words. How could he hurt one of these people? How his Umber ancestor would have been sickened to see him like this, on his knees before one of the living dead that Jonas had so despised.
“Who comes . . . ?” rasped the corpse as she continued to tighten her grip. Silas could smell her breath, thick with the fragrance of desiccating minerals: salt and natron, and the faded essence of flowers and rare oils that still gave off a stale semblance of their former perfumes. The corpse’s face held no expression, but her eyes, now open, exerted a terrible compelling force, and he found, trying to pull back, that he couldn’t look away from her. Desperately he closed his eyes and tried once more to get away, but her grip was unshakable. With his free hand, he tried to pry hers off, but her fingers, thin and dry as they were, were like the teeth of a trap.
“Please,” he said, begging her, “you’re breaking my wrist. . . . I am the Janus. . . . I command you to release me.” His words sounded hollow and small on the air, and the corpse ignored him. But as he continued to pry at her hand, something caught the corpse’s attention and she looked down. She slowly grabbed his clutching hand. She brought it close to her face and stared at the sapphire scarab in his ring. She closed her eyes and spoke.
“Hail to thee, O heart. Hail to thee! O heart which I bore within me upon the earth, do not stand and speak against me in the presence of the Lord of the West . . . Osiris, Lord of the Dead.”
Be polite, he remembered his great-grandfather s
aying. Be polite to them!
“Do you . . . like it?” Silas stammered. “My great-grandfather gave me that ring—” Silas said, trying to sound calm.
“What is this? Indeed?” said the corpse, her voice rising as curiosity enlivened her speech.
“Yes. My dad gave it to him. My dad was Amos Umber.” And then, thinking fast, he added, “Augustus Howesman is my great-grandfather. He’s the one who sent me here to you. But you’re hurting me!”
The corpse released his wrist and Silas quickly stepped back beyond her reach.
One of the other corpses leaning against the painted wall flexed his legs and slowly stood upright. The layer of dust covering him slid off his body and onto the floor, making little clouds. He was dressed in a moldy long coat in the style of the last century. The cravat around his neck was loose and stained nearly black with dirt. The corpse drew in a long breath, then seemed to smile, and exhaled a little more quickly, as though he was remembering how to do it. The standing corpse looked at the ring, then at the seated elder, and said, “He is of the blood of the Howe. He walks the paths of the dead.”
“Perhaps, but not all the Undertakers have been kind to us,” said another corpse, who held an ax of bronze and slowly raised it.
“No,” said the eldest, gesturing for the ax-holder to stop. “I have seen. He has brought our kind out of the house of dissolution. He is with us and for us and one of us.”
The other corpse dropped the ax, and the bronze blade rang as it struck the stone floor.
“Why has he come? I have not looked, so this I have not seen,” said the eldest. Her soft words lilted with an accent shaped by the South.
“Why do they always come?” mused one of the standing corpses.
