by Ari Berk
Mother Peale groaned and thrashed among the bedclothes.
Silas put his hand on hers. Her skin was hot to the touch. She was burning with fever. Next to her bed was a basin with water. Small pieces of ice floated in it and a cloth hung over its edge. He dipped the cloth in the cool water, wrung it out, and placed it across her brow.
“Ah . . . that is comfortable.”
The stillness of the room was almost unbearable. He looked around. The dark wood walls closed in. Everywhere he went, it felt like he was moving from box to box, coffin to coffin. Hadn’t his uncle once told him the world was a hospital and everyone in it waiting only to die? The window was open, but no air moved. Silas could hardly bear to breathe in that place. He took small breaths, not wanting too much of the room in him at once. He could feel the particles of sickness swarming about him. He lifted his arm in front of his mouth to breathe through the fabric of his coat. He looked upon his ring. The scarab was the only bright thing in the close room. He saw only blue. His own blood stirred. He held out his hand toward the bed, the sapphire scarab holding the air, and he remembered that the Book of the Dead was also a book of life and the words to help the dead might also bring comfort to the living, or to those close to death. He closed his eyes and said,
“Fly now and come into this place:
winds that move above the waters.
From the sea, wind comes.
From the river, wind comes.
From about the trees, wind comes.
From the sky and the arms of the mother of stars, wind comes,
bringing comfort to the afflicted soul.
The way is open.
It is the Lord of the West
and he who greets the bark of the sun
when it is below the earth
who speaks these words.”
Silas put his hand to her brow, letting the scarab in his ring touch her skin, and said,
“You are the firstborn of the resplendent sun.
You shall rise up with the morning.
You shall open your mouth.
You shall eat.
You shall rise up like the sun each day.”
As he finished the spell, Silas broke out in a sweat and felt dizzy. Outside, the wind picked up, rushing against the house, blowing across the chimney. From the window and from the gaps below the door, a breeze stirred the air. Dust danced on the floor and the stale smell dissolved before the scent of the salt sea and the pines beyond the river. Mother Peale lifted her head. The deep blue stone of his ring warmed, and he felt the skin of her brow cool beneath his hand. She closed her eyes and smiled.
“Silas Umber, bless you, child.” The heat had gone out of her face.
Some of his frustration had faded too, but his head was throbbing.
“Don’t sit up. Rest,” he said to her.
“Yes . . . yes. I have been ill with an ague. It’s kind of you to come—”
“I am sure that’s all it is,” he said, wanting to comfort her. But as he spoke, the strength went out of his legs and he had to grab the side of her bed to steady himself.
“What’s this?” Mother Peale said. “Don’t tell me you’ve a fever too?”
“No, no,” replied Silas, reaching behind him for a chair and sitting down. “Just a little tired. Nothing more.” But the spell had taken the wind out of him. He was glad to have helped her, but it was clear now that his strength came from helping the dead, not the living.
Mother Peale looked at him sharply. “So be it. If you say. I do hope you’ve not come down with it! Lordy, how it burned. It felt as though I’d been days in the sun with no clothes on at all!”
Silas looked at the cold hearth across the room.
“Tell me how it goes with you,” she asked.
“Not well.”
“I have heard some of what’s come to pass of late.” She gestured to the door. “I am sorry I’m not more fit, or I would help you.”
Silas looked down. He felt ashamed, undeserving of anyone’s help.
“If your father was here, lad, he would know—”
“But he is not here. So I’ll have to make do on my own.”
Mother Peale stared at him for moment, then said, “You know, I don’t think I properly thanked you after my man’s funeral. You did a fine job, Silas. A fine job.”
She leaned over and opened a drawer in the nightstand. She took out a small leather pouch and put it in Silas’s hand. “My John would have wanted you to have this, Silas. I’ve only kept from giving it to you because I know you are so fond of wearing the pendant your father gave you and I didn’t want you to feel obliged.”
“I’ve lost that,” Silas said wretchedly. “In the millpond.”
Concern crossed her brow.
“Well, well, perhaps this is timely and all. You just take it, a gift from loving friends. You remember that,” she said, putting her head back on the pillow. “You are not alone, child.”
Silas opened the pouch and took out a small carved green stone in the shape of a sort of bird’s head. It was attached to a woven cord. Silas held it up to the candle and the carving glowed bright green, even in the low light. Touched by Mother Peale’s generosity, he put it on over his head. The bird’s head lay over his heart.
Mother Peale closed her eyes. “That’s come from the South Seas, Silas Umber. Made by those folk there. My John brought it back from his traveling days. He sailed on the Mary Farrell, out of Kingsport, under Captain Ruskin. More than a year he was away, but when he come back, well, he had a tale or two to tell. This he had from the Mayorhee folk. Right clever with stone were some of them, he told me. That carving you hold, they wore that and ones like them to keep them safe on their long voyages.
“You mean the Maori?”
“That’s what I said. Who’s got the head cold now?”
“What kind of bird is it?”
“Hard to say. My John said they called it a Manaeeah, or some such. That’s a spirit thing. Part bird. Part summat else. I thought, by its beak, it might be an albatross. But what do I know? That’s a fine bird though, the albatross, a great traveler, and it can always find its way home, even from far and distant places. You wear it now, if you like.”
“I do. I will. Thank you, Mother Peale.” Silas looked at the stone, bright and green, a kind of jade, he guessed. The eyes were set with mother of pearl and they flashed in the candlelight. John Peale was a good and sensible man. A beloved father. Silas liked wearing something of his.
“Keep it close. . . .” Her words trailed off. He could see the weariness in her face. She needed rest.
“Ma’am?”
“I tell you, Silas Umber. These are talismanic times we live in, perilous days. Best to keep your needful baubles about, but not too close.” She turned her head to look at the carved clock on the wall. As she did this, Silas could feel the death watch ticking in his pocket. Mother Peale looked back at Silas as though she could hear its ticking also.
“Some are not worth keeping, Silas. Some are no longer in keeping with the time. But that stone of my John will serve you well . . . mark me, child, it will that. Bring you home safe, as it brought my John home . . .”
There was loud talk in the other rooms. Mother Peale began coughing and tried to sit up.
“No, no,” said Silas. “You need your rest.”
“I won’t have cross words spoken in my house.”
Silas pulled the covers up over her. “Just lie still and make yourself better. Sleep. That’s best.”
“All right, doctor’s orders, eh? But you come back soon, won’t you?” Mother Peale reached out and grasped Silas’s hand.
Silas waited a moment, then came away from the bed.
“You take care, Silas Umber. You hear? Take good care.”
Silas left the room and closed the door behind him. He tucked the pendant under his shirt and the stone warmed quickly against his skin. As he passed back into the main room, silence fell. He felt their eyes on him and knew that th
is was the pain his father must have also endured throughout his life: to be loved and revered, but also feared and sometimes hated. He nodded to Joan Peale, asking her over. Silas took a leather wallet from his jacket and wrote on a piece of paper, then pressed it into Joan’s hand.
She unfolded the check and stared at Silas.
“My God! What’s this?”
“For the people who lost their homes, and the others that were burned. May I leave it with you to use this to help them? If you need more, my great-grandfather will settle it. He’d be glad of your visit, in any event.”
“Silas, are you leaving?”
He said nothing, but held her hand briefly, then he let it go and turned away.
The moment he stepped outside and closed the door, the night drew in about him. Silas made his way at first toward his mother’s house, walking along the docks close to the surging sea, but then something tugged at his mind. He turned around and walked to the path leading up to the Beacon. Down below, the sea made mad rushes at the breakwater, and the boats in the harbor were pushed back and forth, groaning and straining against their anchor ties.
Above, the stars turned in wide arcs about the Beacon as though it was the very center of the world. Somewhere along the base of the burial hill, despite the time of year, crickets were chirping. Silas felt the stone bird at his neck and the heaviness in his heart, and he knew it was almost time for him to fly.
SILAS KNELT AT HIS FATHER’S grave.
The earth was cold. No warmth from the world within rose to his hand as it had before.
On the stone were the letters of his father’s name. Black marks carved deep into the rock. An attempt to make immortal that thing which would otherwise most swiftly pass out of the world. Yet Silas knew his father was somewhere.
Not missing like before.
Hiding.
“All this you left to me with barely a word,” Silas said quietly. “Fathers are supposed to bless their sons. Not you. Some fathers leave land, money, advice. You left me this.” He took the death watch from his pocket and let it dangle from its chain. “You knew . . . you knew what was coming, and still, you left it for me to find, along with everything else that comes with it. You knew Bea would find me if I came here. You knew. All the fear. Yours. Theirs. Mine. Well, I’m not afraid like you. You’re a coward. I know you’re a coward because if you weren’t, you’d be here, right now, helping me. There are ghosts all over this town clinging to their living kin. But you . . . you’re out of here like a shot. One farewell in the clock tower and then, ‘You’re on your own, son.’ ”
Silas stood and looked around the hill. Beyond, a gray light came over the sea. The wind had fallen away and nothing stirred, nothing appeared. All was as it had been a moment ago. His father was not there.
“Mom wasn’t all wrong about you, you know, but I couldn’t see it before. You hid in this town. Hid from me. Just like you’re hiding now. Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”
Silas reached down and scraped a handful of frozen leaves and a bit of earth from the grave. He looked at the dirt in his hand, and began to open his fingers to let it fall, but instead he flung it at the tombstone. The dirt and leaf mold stuck in patches to the stone, covering parts of his dad’s name.
Silas turned from the grave and descended the hill the way he’d come.
In the long shadow of the hollow oak where his spade was hidden, the ghost of Amos Umber stood and wept, unable to move or speak aloud, and watched his son walk away.
LEDGER
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
—FROM THE PAMPHLET USEFUL TIDINGS FROM THE WIZARD FRANKLIN. PRINTED IN KINGSPORT, 1791. TRANSCRIBED BY AMOS UMBER
For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, neither hid, that shall not be knowen. Therefore, whatsoever yee have spoken in darkenesse, shall bee heard . . .
—LUKE, 12: 2–3. MARGINALIA OF JONAS UMBER
THE INSIDE OF TEMPLE HOUSE smelled like a hive. The rich scent of honey was clinging everywhere. A preservative, it must have been pleasing to his mother. Silas had mixed feelings about the smell, remembering Uncle’s Camera. It had been a preservative there, too. He had come to consult his uncle’s library once more, to see if somewhere among the books of necromancy and dark magics, there might be a way to banish a ghost to whom you’d broken a vow.
When Silas came into the parlor, there was a freezing draft. Bowls of honey sat open to the air by his mother’s chair, and there were many unopened bottles lining the bookshelves.
“From Mrs. Bowe. I take the gift of honey very kindly,” said Dolores. “I know she doesn’t approve of the changes around here, and to send such a gift . . . well, it’s very big of her.”
Dolores sat in a carved chair near the parlor fireplace where a small fire burned. The statue of the Ammit sat by her right hand.
“Watch your step,” said Dolores.
Silas looked down. There were fragments of glass on the floor. A pane of the window had been shattered. A brick sat on the coffee table on top of a stack of old papers.
“See how they fear us now? These are such little people, the ones left in this town. Once, they would have covered the porch with gifts and come for oracles. But, well, look at what the world’s become. A town of fear.”
“It wasn’t very long ago you would have picked up a pitchfork and joined the mob yourself.”
“How can you say that, Si? I may have gone through a period of . . . uncertainty about the charms of our old town, but I never lost respect.” She paused a moment, looked at the broken glass still on the floor, and then said, “Perhaps fear is a kind of respect too, in its queer, messy way.”
“I don’t think so,” said Silas. “Respect requires some understanding. Fear is what happens when ignorance gets sharpened to a point. What does any of it matter anyway? People will believe what they want.”
She rose, walked over to Silas, and kissed the top of his head. “My wise son,” she said, then pointed to the top of the mantel where dark green vines hung down from decorative pots. “But look, another of your friends brought gifts. Joan Peale came with the ivy plants and an excuse about her mother taking ill and not being able to pay her respects. Still, the plants were thoughtful.”
Dolores stared at the weariness on Silas’s face and said, “You haven’t come to see me, have you?”
Silas looked at her, confused.
“Go on, if you like. They’re somewhere upstairs. I believe they’ve settled themselves somewhere in the north wing, where your uncle used to store the darkness.”
“They?” Silas didn’t like the idea of anyone messing around in the north wing. Too many of his uncle’s things were still housed there, things he needed, and he thought of it as a private place.
Without another word to his mom, Silas went upstairs and through his uncle’s old bedroom, still hung with paintings of grimly rendered mythological abductions. The heavy-browed eyes of Hades glowered at him from the canvas. The furniture was undisturbed, all still under dust cloths as they had been since soon after his uncle had died.
The doors to the anteroom and the Camera Obscura both stood open.
Three familiar, mocking voices said, “Be welcome, Silas Umber, author of our troubles.”
As he crossed the threshold of the Camera, he didn’t understand what he saw at first.
The three women of the Sewing Circle stood before their massive tapestry. The proportions of the room had swollen considerably. It was hard to imagine this was the same Camera where his uncle had hidden his cousin’s corpse in honey, that chamber where the walls closed in and the air was heavy and barely stirred. The room was now vast. Great darkened beams held the warp threads high above. Hundreds of scenes spread out over the wide tapestry.
“What are you doing here?” Silas said. His tone was more accusatory than he’d intended.
“That does not sound like either the thanks or the apology we deserve.”
“Thanks? You m
ust be kidding me. Thanks for what?”
“For not seeking retribution against your mother when she tricked us out of a debt owed to us. Rest assured, she will pay that debt in time regardless, one way or another. But, because she came to us only to help you, we were prepared to be flexible in our terms. You know how we dote on you.”
“Ladies, I am very nearly at the end of my patience with you and much else.”
“And what would that look like, we wonder?”
“I might send you from this house.”
“Ah. That is not entirely in your power. Your mother invited us here. And we like it. We wish to stay.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because we did her a good turn.”
“What?”
“Let us say we helped her achieve her potential. Besides, it’s not safe out there for extraordinary people, is it?”
“They’re just scared, that’s all. Everyone’s scared. So they threw a few rocks. So what? It’s not the end of the world.”
“You want to cast your lot in with the common folk, eh? But you’re not very common, are you, Silas Umber? By definition, the extraordinary can’t exist easily next to the common.”
“You’re saying I’ll never fit in? Thanks. I already know that.”
“You are only just beginning to know it. Each day you work at the Undertaking, you offer your life for theirs, and each time you do so, you’ll feel the separation more keenly.”
“I’m only doing what anyone would do. I am trying to help my neighbors.”
“Don’t be absurd. You started out very unlike most folks, and that’s why you are where you find yourself. We are sure that there has barely been a single accident . . . no, not in your entire life.”
It was the usual game. Now Silas worried that every time he came to see his mother, there would be round after round of this. Annoyance reddened his face.
The three adopted a less accusatory tone. “We shall not say you are unique, but understand, Silas Umber, you are a very rare bird indeed. Death follows fast on your heels, and we won’t say that is without its uses.”
