by Ari Berk
“I want you to show me what’s missing from my father’s diary. I want you to show me what he could not tell me. What you can’t tell me. I want to know what happened when I was born.”
Dolores rose from her chair and lifted the brick that had broken her window from some sheets of papers covered in Amos’s handwriting. She turned her head away as she handed them to Silas.
He looked at the pages. “Is this all of it?”
“Trust me,” Dolores said, “this is what you’re looking for. What did you do with the rest, the pages I gave you before?”
“I threw them in the fire.”
“Really?” She looked relieved.
“Yes. I watched them burn.”
“You should do the same with these. Really you should.”
“Why didn’t you burn them?”
“Because they’re true and because your name is on them, and I couldn’t, Si. I just couldn’t. Whatever is meant for you,” she said, closing her eyes, “you must face it without ignorance of how you began. I won’t keep that from you any longer.”
Silas didn’t answer. He went across the foyer to his uncle’s old exhibit rooms, found a chair near a lamp, sat down, and began to read. And as Silas read the torn pages back to front, one after another, his hands shook so that the paper trembled. And the more he read, the more he wept, at first because he didn’t understand, but then because he did.
What would I not give for him? Silas. My child. My life is his. Only sacrifice can end suffering, so I know my days will be short. One way or another, he will come for me. My life for Silas’s, so he might have even a few more years beneath the sun. I will drown my cares in my love for him. And I will watch over him as best I can. And I will wait for him at the thresholds if I may, but I fear that power has now been taken from me. I am cursed by my all-too-perfect recollection of that day when he was born.
These pages I will most likely burn. Either way, I will never look on them again. I had sworn never to write these words. That was years ago, and my son is still with us. But I feel that not to record what happened would be the greater sin. There is no fading of these events from time. They are as fresh in my eyes as the day they happened. I cannot, even now, look upon my son and not see some lingering vision of him as an infant, lying among the flowers of the field, and that shadow risen at his side. . . .
How could any child know the madness of his father? We give ourselves to our children. Our lives for theirs, but then we must give them up, sacrifice them to the world, offerings made to their unknown futures. We are all Abrahams and we offer up our children to Death and say nothing. They are born, they live, they die. And sometimes they don’t live long. Still, we carry them to the altar and it shall all end in tears. I never should have had a child. Never. The gods that live in the Umber line, the old gods of death and loss and judgment, might have faded out of the world. Then we could have stumbled on, mere mortals, mostly blind to the terrible worlds hiding just behind our own. The joys of such ignorance . . . I will never know them. Neither will my son.
We each must meet the mysteries in our own ways. I cannot bring myself to write the words of what shall become of my son. What I sought to flee, he shall be subjected to. Oh, my son. In my ignorance I have wrought your fate. Forgive me.
Nascentes Morimur.
Dolores had a brief labor. The midwife was pleased. The baby’s head had crowned. A few more moments, we thought, and we would be parents to a child.
The midwife spoke calmly to Dolores. I remember her saying, “Push again and the hardest part’s over.”
How could she know it to be a lie? Then the baby came. I did not hear it cry, but the midwife said, “Your son is breathing.”
Dolores was exhausted, but she sat up slightly in the bed and the midwife handed her our son. The midwife busied herself as Dolores called me to the bed. The child was still and quiet.
He’s not breathing, I said.
Amos, he’s sleeping.
Dolores, I said, my panic rising, he is not breathing!
The midwife looked at the baby and fear engulfed her face. She turned the baby over and swatted its bottom. No cry came. She said, I will go to get help.
Amos? Dolores cried.
Wait, I said. Wait. I ran to my desk, got the death watch, held the dial. A bird circled the bed and no sooner had I seen it than it flew from the room, out of the house.
Sensing the now real absence of her son, Dolores began to scream. She cried, Amos, bring home the child! Bring home the child!
Dolores, he’s gone, I said. Our boy is gone.
But she was adamant. Go now! she screamed. Find him and bring him home. Bring home the child!
And I ran and the mist parted before me. The presence of the small enlivened corpse in the house drew spirits toward it. I raised the ring of Anubis and it burned and shone with blue fire and scattered the mindless spirits before me. I could see the bird as it flew over the marshes and followed it out upon the mist paths, but then it vanished.
Frantic, I parted the mists once more and cast my mind toward the Gates of Moloch, that threshold through which pass the spirits of the firstborn. A risk, I knew, but as I ran, the bullheaded idol rose up before me, and through its flames, I saw once again the small bird flying ahead.
I followed the bird through the fire and over lands I’ve never known until I saw broad fields spreading out, then a meadow flowing away to the hills. There, clustered stalks of asphodels were crowned in white star flowers.
It was then I knew where I was.
And there was my baby. An infant-corpse in the field of asphodel, wrapped in his swaddling cloth, staring up at the blooms with open, unblinking eyes. And by his side, Death stood as a child, and on his arm sat the little bird I’d followed along the lych way. The baby did not move, but the little bird was lively, and Death lifted the little bird to his face, where it pecked lightly at his lips.
I said, “My life for his.”
Death shook his head.
“What, then?”
Idly, Death pointed at the baby’s corpse, and said, “You should be pleased. What I propose is an honor to your house. Your son shall be my son. He shall follow in my footsteps and hold the key to the land of the dead.”
I pleaded again, “My life for his. Let me serve you.”
“You? Who have so deliberately shunned the greater public service? No.”
“Let me serve you. Then, later, he can be yours. But not yet. Please. Not yet.”
The child plucked one of the asphodel stalks, then looked at me and nodded.
I wept. “Just a little more time. Thank you. Thank you.”
“But then he must come to me of his own free will.”
“Yes.” I would have said anything.
“One last thing,” said the child.
“Isn’t my life enough? And my son’s life later?”
“One life? Two lives? What are those? No great things in the larger reckoning, I think.”
“What else?”
“I will have this place as my own.”
“This field?” I asked, knowing it was not what Death meant.
“That place.” The child pointed over the river toward town. “I am tired of wandering, weary of exile. I will have that place for my own, and I shall be Death to those who reside there. That shall be my place. My home. Lichport shall be Death’s seat.”
“How could that be? I can’t give you a town; it’s not mine to give.”
“If you give me your son, it will be enough. The town lives in him. So shall I. If you like, you may consider this inevitable. Either I take him now, or later. One way or another he shall come to me.”
“I will not give him to you. I will not give you my son. Not yet.”
“That is not for you to say.”
“He could take the waters, leave this world. I could give him the waters. He would leave you behind and forget.”
“That is true. But then he would still be gone and unable to return
in any form. I think we both want something more for him. Indeed, always, he was meant to be with me. I came to these shores to wait for him, to help him onto that dark throne that is mine alone to bestow. But so be it. Let him come to me by his own will. And sooner, not later. And if he does . . . well, then your child shall carry Death within him and all shall be well and he will abide in a place of honor. So take him now, Amos Umber. For just a little while more, he is yours.”
But the thought of Death eventually enticing Silas away from life . . . and when would it be? When he was five and ran to him, just another child appearing on the playground? I was still mad with fear.
Death walked to my side. The little bird plucked a flower from the stalk of asphodel he held. Then Death let the bird hop onto my wrist. I could barely feel its weight.
“Now go home, Amos Umber. But know that soon we shall meet again, and certainly, it will be too soon for your liking.”
I turned and pretended to go, but I took the death watch from my pocket and pried off the very top of the skull, which I had never before opened. The spirit contained within swiftly fled, leaving the mechanism incomplete.
I turned then to Death, who still played with the stalk of asphodel, and uttering certain ancient words I will not here record, I consigned him to the death watch. The moment he was trapped within, I released the dial and the mechanism returned to life. I wrapped the cord all around the watch, so that the seal on the lid could not be breached before I could better seal it later with lead or silver.
The death watch ticked in my hand and the field of asphodel was gone. I stood knee-deep in the marshes, but the little bird, my son’s quickening soul, I clutched like my own life.
I ran, through the marshes and past the millpond, on to the streets of Lichport and finally home. But as I ran, I heard a voice. Whether it was Death or my own shame speaking in my mind I do not know: Always it will be thus, for you. To never take hands with another. To win by guile what you might have had for love. And when your last day comes, go to that prison you have prepared for yourself during your life. Or, if you can, say farewell to those you love. And only if the soul bell be rung for you shall you make farewell. Only so long as the bell rope swings may you speak your peace to the living and not a moment longer. Once it stops, you shall not return to them, nor speak to them from the shadows. We shall share a fate, you and I, by your hand, by your broken vow. So long as we are kept from our inheritor: for you, Amos Umber, the door shall be closed.
I turned my mind away from those words. I buried them inside myself. There was only the moment and the hope of life for my son.
Dolores called out, even as I approached the house.
I entered our home, the little bird hidden in my hand. She sat by the bed. No doctor had yet come, nor had the midwife returned. I took the baby from her. I took the small bird into my mouth and, leaning over the baby’s cold body, breathed the bird into him. I closed my eyes. The baby gasped. The blanket covering his body began to squirm with the movement of his legs and arms. Petals of asphodel fell from where they clung to my jacket onto the baby’s head.
Dolores began to cry and said, Jesus Christ, Amos, what have you done?
Take him, Dolores, now, I told her.
Without thinking, she reached out and I placed the baby in her arms. She held the child slightly away from her body. The baby began to cry.
Amos, she moaned, come and take your son.
I held my child then. His eyes looked wild, like a hunted thing, but slowly he calmed and slept and breathed easily, and was, in semblance, a child like any other.
When the midwife returned with the doctor, all was well. The doctor explained away the midwife’s account.
The baby could have been cold, he said. These newborns can give every suggestion of trouble, but all usually comes right in a moment or two, he said, as I thanked them and showed them from the house.
But the next day, when Mrs. Bowe came to give her blessing to the child, she looked at the baby, and saw the shadow on him, or rather, the shadow he lacked, and she wept.
Morimur Nascentes, I say now, changing the edict. To die is to be born.
I set the following translation at the end of this account. I will inscribe it within the ledger with my other notes, but here may it serve as a fervent prayer. May we have life. May my son have life. May he find another way. A simpler way than the path of judgment trod out by his kin. But not yet. Let that day take its time in arriving. When the shadow comes over me, may I remember these words. No more than this, no harder, nor more terrible. May it end this way for me and mine. Yet I fear, for me, darkness waits to pay back the gifts I’ve given it.
A man dieth not gladly that hath not learned it,
therefore learn to die so that thou shalt live.
For there shall be no man who lives well
but he who hath learned to die well . . .
This life is but a passing time . . .
and when thou beginnest to live,
thou beginnest to die.
Now hearken and understand.
Death is but a parting between the body
and the soul and every man
knows that is well.
—FROM “LERNE TO DYE” BY THOMAS HOCCLEVE (c.1421–26)
SILAS SAT IN THE COLD exhibit rooms of Temple House. The glass doors of the artifact cases held a hundred reflections of him clutching the papers in his hand. As he finished reading his father’s account of his birth, Silas could barely draw breath.
When he looked up, he saw his mother had come in at some point and had taken the chair opposite his. She sat, unblinking, watching him.
“I had already begun to grieve for you, Si. You cannot understand what that means, when a mother begins to mourn her dead child. My hopes had died too, and I had accepted in those few moments that I would never be happy again.
“Then you came back.
“When I saw your father come into the house, the room went dark. I could see something moving, some small thing stirring the air with its presence. Then that dead child . . . Lord . . . and you began to cry. Silas, I thought my heart had stopped. You’d think I would have leapt for joy, but it was fear that held me. I looked at your father’s face and could see that whatever he’d seen, it was not of this world. Whatever it was he had done to bring you back, it was no natural thing, somehow more terrible than the terrors that were his daily bread. And he looked scared. Your father looked scared. He picked you up and tried to hand you to me. I couldn’t take you. Even though you were crying so loud. Amos held you tight in his arms and sat down. Slowly, you quieted, and then you slept, your father holding you. Your eyes were closed, but I saw your nose twitch a bit and you gently breathed the air as though nothing at all had happened. Neither one of us could speak. I think we were afraid to. Afraid that if we made any noise at all, the fragile spell that held the life in you would shatter.
“Silas, you’re my son and I love you, but then, as things were, I could barely look at you. You scared me. I remember there was a flower caught in the little bit of hair you had, the same as the flowers stuck to your father’s jacket. I reached out, plucked it from a curl, and threw it on the fire. I had never seen that flower in Lichport before. God knows where you’d been or where your father had found you, let alone how it was he brought you back.”
“Were you scared of . . . are you scared of me now?” Silas said.
“No. Silas, look at me. How could I be? Now we are mother and son. And two creatures who have escaped death. However it happened, here we both are. We have to look out for each other.”
Dolores looked down, fixing her gaze upon at the preternatural skin of her hand. She said absently, perhaps not wanting to know the answer, “Are you frightened of me, Si?”
Silas walked over and took his mother’s hand. “I’m not. Mom, I’m not scared of you. I am not scared of death, either.”
“Would you . . . do you think, you’d prefer to take after my side of the family—later,
I mean?”
He understood the question. “I don’t want that, although I’m not sure anyone has a choice in the matter. I’m not frightened of what you’ve become. You’re still my mom. But I don’t want to live on that way. I don’t know. Now, I guess, I don’t care when Death comes for me. I’ve been living on borrowed time all along anyway. We both know I shouldn’t even be alive. My father cheated. Whenever my death comes, I’m not going to fight it. Every problem I’ve seen or faced as Undertaker has been caused by people refusing to give death its due. I’d like to think I’ve learned something.”
“How can you say that, Silas? How can you not care about living as long as possible? I would have fought off death with both hands, bitten and scratched, had I seen it coming for me.”
“Only if you were fighting for your own life. When mine was being threatened by a curse, you took that curse upon yourself and went to your own death willingly. You sacrificed yourself for me. I know.”
“I would do anything for you, Silas. I had lost you once. I couldn’t lose you again, even if it meant your losing me. But we’re both here now. That’s all that matters.”
“I don’t think now, as you are, you can understand me. Maybe, as I am, after the last year, I just don’t see that much difference between life and death anymore.”
“I couldn’t disagree more,” said Dolores.
“I know. But we each have our own roads now. You’re all set. I still have things I need to do. The sooner I do them, the sooner I can come back and we can keep arguing about this.” He tried to smile at her, but then his smiled faded. “Why couldn’t you tell me?”
“Silas—”
“Later, I mean. All those years together. Dad coming and going. You could have filled in some gaps. It might have helped. Part of what happened, losing a child, is common enough.”
“You’re asking me why I didn’t talk about my stillborn son who came back from the dead? Silas, really. Even if it had all ended on the day of your birth-death, who would speak of it openly? Silas, women don’t talk about these things with the rest of their families. Even miscarriages, very common, are only whispered about, and then only by the women. These are ‘women’s mysteries,’ things men do not deign to hear. If a woman started talking, really talking frankly about the blood, the clots, the things that come out of us . . . the miscarriages, the babies, the parts of babies . . . all the things we create and discharge, if we gave voice to all that, men would drop dead on the spot. You ask me why I didn’t talk about it—the answer is because your sex is weak. Men have an awful fear of death, and our bleeding reminds them of it. But women live on, and men are terrified of our . . . changes. And we are always changing.
