A Sudden Light: A Novel

by Garth Stein

  But things were not as expected at Riddell House. Grandpa Samuel spoke of dancing footsteps, and my father heard them, too. So he went to the ballroom to look for his mother. He came back to Riddell House because he thought she might be here. Of course he did.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Not the bad feeling I sometimes got when I knew I’d done something wrong, which would have made sense and which I would have accepted. I felt an intense nausea, like I had been poisoned. I didn’t have to vomit, but I wished I did. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, almost staggering from my queasiness; I paused a couple of times to brace myself against the wall as I swooned with vertigo. Was it the leftover pizza I’d eaten for breakfast? Did I have food poisoning? Or was I being punished for having betrayed Ben?

  I reached the bathroom and turned on the faucet. I splashed cold water on my face several times, then glanced in the mirror and was so startled I gasped: Ben stood behind me—only for a moment; then he was gone.

  I whipped around, wrenching my neck and feeling a stabbing pain. No one was there. I turned back to the sink and felt my forehead. Did I have a fever? Was I seeing things?

  Another wave of nausea swept over me, more intense than before. I closed the toilet seat and sat down until it passed. It must have been the pizza. I would never trust a sausage again. Another wave brought with it terrible cramping in my stomach. I doubled over and moaned. And that’s when the lights went out. Not metaphorically. The lights actually went out, plunging me into darkness in the bathroom. A cool breeze brushed the back of my neck.

  I stood and opened the bathroom door. The hallway was dark as well. The entire house was dark. It wasn’t a blown fuse; it was a power outage. I laughed ruefully. People with their air conditioners; the power grid can only take so much. I made my way to the end of the hall and opened my father’s door. The room was empty. I listened carefully and heard talking from downstairs. I descended the front staircase, hoping Serena had an Alka-Seltzer or Pepto-Bismol. As I reached the foyer, I noticed flickering lights. My father and Serena must have lit candles because of the blackout.

  But there were too many of them. They were everywhere. And they weren’t candles. I surveyed the room; the wall sconces—which I remembered as electric—were alit with flame. They had been transformed into old-fashioned kerosene lamps. I looked up to the atrium. The chandelier in the foyer, a beautiful and intricate tangle of vines and crystal, with leaves and berries cast of bronze, was glowing a golden yellow; it, too, was burning kerosene, not electricity, as I remembered, making me think I was in an elaborate dream, or maybe a re-creation of Riddell House from long ago, or a wax museum, or— And the voices. Not just two. Not my father and Serena. But many. I peered into the ladies’ parlor; it was filled with women, at least a dozen of them, in long stylish dresses, sitting in clusters, holding cups of coffee or tea, and chatting, laughing, with several servants hovering at the ready. Who on earth were these people? The women were wearing elaborate jewels and their hair was piled high on their heads and they seemed so elegant. They were from a different time altogether.

  I continued down the hallway and paused before the billiard room, inside of which I heard men’s voices. I looked in and saw eight or nine men in black tuxedos. Their ties were undone and their collars unclasped or removed entirely. They were holding snifters of brandy and smoking cigars, joking and laughing boisterously. They were mostly older and heavyset and unhealthy looking. I leaned in to see who these people were and was amazed to see Elijah Riddell sitting on the sofa talking to another man! My great-great-grandfather. Alive and well. I wanted to go in and talk to him. Introduce myself. Meet the others, whoever they were. But then one of the men walked over to me. I thought he would say something, but he didn’t. He simply closed the parlor doors in my face as if I weren’t there.

  I worked my way down to the dining room, which was a mess. Food still on the table; dirty place settings and half-filled wineglasses and half-empty platters. A pig carcass sat on a cart next to the table, an apple wedged in its mouth, but most of its flesh having been carved away. Glasses and glasses and glasses. Remnants of every kind of food one could imagine smeared across plates in a decadent display of gastro-snobbery. It would have turned my stomach if my stomach hadn’t already been turned, and then I realized my nausea had passed and I felt better. I continued to the kitchen, which was busy with servants cleaning up after the dinner party while a strict-looking man in a tuxedo supervised their work. The staff was quite large, and all in uniform, working so diligently.

  I slipped through the work area unnoticed and out the back door. I walked around the house to the formal garden. It was dark in the night, for while there was a half moon and stars, puffy clouds blew across the sky, periodically obscuring the celestial light. The only other light came from torches lining the garden path. In the darkness, I noticed a man standing before the fountain—which was flowing and not stagnant. The man’s back was to me, but he seemed to sense my presence, for his shoulders relaxed as if he were expecting someone. The man was outfitted in a natty tuxedo, and he sipped a dark liquid from a snifter. But this man was obviously not one of them; he was young and trim and athletic. He turned to reveal his face. It was Ben.

  “Did you introduce yourself to my father?” he asked me.

  “I didn’t want to disturb him,” I replied, feeling more bewildered than afraid. “He was with company.”

  “A pity. I’m sure he would have been charmed to meet you. I wonder what he would have said upon meeting his progeny, generations removed. I wonder if it would have made him feel nostalgic.”

  “Who are those people inside?” I asked.

  “Did you introduce yourself to Alice?”

  “No—”

  “I would have wagered you’d have taken the opportunity. She is an enchanting young woman, Alice Jordan.”

  “Am I dreaming?” I asked. “Are you really Ben?”

  “I am Ben. And as for those people? Among them you will find our good friend James Moore. C. D. Stimson is there as well, along with his wife, the two of them ushering high culture into this primitive land. And their architect-friend, a Mr. Kirtland Cutter hailing from Spokane, who follows them around always clucking like a chicken. I’m sure the judge is still with them, drinking away; he never misses a free meal. And Mr. James Jerome Jordan himself. These are the controllers, Trevor. They don’t actually create anything themselves, but they control the people who create things, and so they control the dissemination of those things. One does not make money by creating things, you know. One only makes money by exploitation. You’ve heard these ideas before, I’m sure.

  “The people you saw in the house are forming Seattle into something that suits their vision. For them, the city sits like a mound of wet clay, and they have their hands stuffed inside up to their elbows. Did you hear some of their conversation? You must have listened in. I’m sure there was talk of the regrade project. Always a source of controversy. Let’s cut the trees and level the hills and call it progress! And likely there was talk of water mains and sewers to carry their shit and piss into the sound. Pontifications on the merits of seawalls and infill. And Moore, gloating over that shell of a hotel which he fleeced from Denny after the Panic; Denny deserved better, for what he’s done for this town. I’ve heard their discussion a thousand times: tedious at best. But I suppose you agree, for you have left them to join me outside. Would you like a brandy? I’ll send for one straightaway; you look like you need a bracer. I’m afraid my glass is empty or I would offer it to you.”

  I felt flustered by Ben’s rant, and I was sure I looked flustered as well.

  “I’m dreaming this, right?” I asked again. “You’re here because I ate a piece of sausage pizza before I went to bed?”

  Ben smiled patiently at me and set his glass down on the rim of the fountain.

  “Do I look like indigestion, Trevor?”

  “But you’re not real.”

  “I’m not substantial.”

&n
bsp; “I don’t understand—”

  “I think you do understand, Trevor, for you seem to have understood everything to this point. You’ve seen the signs; you’ve read the clues. And yet you struggle.”

  “Maybe I don’t have the life experience to understand,” I said.

  Ben laughed, put his arm around my shoulder, and led me away from the fountain.

  “You’re fond of owning the narrative, aren’t you?” he said. “An interesting personality trait. You like to think of yourself as an observer, but you crave to be in the thick of it, don’t you?”

  “How did you do it, then? Appear like this and have the others in the house appear? And if you can just do something like that, why didn’t you do it sooner?”

  “Would you have believed it sooner? No. You would have run and hidden under your bed. Perhaps you’d have gone mad. Perhaps you would have medicated yourself into a stupor. You would have fallen into line with convention: madmen and substance abusers see what you are seeing; ‘normal’ people do not. Isn’t that right?”

  “I guess,” I replied with a shrug as we continued walking down the path.

  “You guess?”

  “I know. Yes. I know.”

  “So, then. I had to wait until you were ready.”

  I stopped and looked at Ben.

  “I gave away your house,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I put you in a difficult situation,” he said, “as I did with my father, long ago. It was unfair of me to put him in that position. He was double-bound, feeling an obligation to me and to my brother, equally. And to my brother’s heirs, as well. My father did what he thought was best. To satisfy his conflicting promises, he devised a plan, the history of which you know.”

  “Serena told me.”

  “She’s told you things that are true, as well as things that are not true,” he said. “My father was very generous with Abraham; Abraham was neither appreciative nor sound with his inheritance. Yes, Elijah donated much of his fortune, but he did not abandon his heirs, as Serena would have you believe. But why hear it from me, when you can know it for yourself?”

  He handed me a letter, which I turned over in my hands. It was addressed: To My Future Heir. I began to open it, but he stopped me.

  “Not now,” he said.

  I respected his request, so I folded the letter and slipped it into my pocket.

  “I thought you were the one,” Ben said as we walked further up the path. “Perhaps you’re not. Either way. I will see this through.”

  “I don’t understand. Do you choose to stay here, or are you stuck here?”

  “Good question,” he replied with a laugh. “Perhaps I have chosen to be stuck here. Because we all choose our fate, whether or not we admit it. Do you see?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’s not so much how we act, but how we judge ourselves for our actions. I am responsible for Harry’s death—”

  “But it was an accident. At least what I saw.”

  “But not what I saw,” he said. “I saw it differently. And until I can absolve myself, I can’t move on—I will not move on. When this area has returned to the wild forest, it will be the symbol that I have done so.”

  “And then you and Harry can come back to visit together?”

  Ben glanced quickly at me and smiled again, but this time it was with sadness at the corners of his eyes.

  “You’ve been reading his journals,” he said. “You know him well. Would that one day you feel the love for someone that I still feel for Harry, and will feel for eternity.”

  “I got Grandpa Samuel to sign his name on a piece of paper,” I said, “and because of that, you’ll be stuck here for hundreds of years. I’m so stupid. It’ll be the end of the world before this place is a forest again.”

  “Harry will wait for me. He understands. He knew intuitively that climbing a tree—and he and I climbed some of the tallest trees that ever existed, taller than trees are allowed to grow anymore—climbing a tree isn’t about getting somewhere; it’s about being somewhere. And if we’re comfortable with that notion, then I suppose we have all the time in the world, don’t we?”

  We continued walking up the hill.

  “Maybe it’s not too late,” I said hopefully. “Maybe I can still do it. I can still release you.”

  “Can you?”

  “I think so. But if I make it work, I’ll need a quid pro quo.”

  Ben laughed outright. “What is your quid pro quo, my great-grand-nephew?”

  “I want the truth,” I said firmly, though a bit unsteadily, because sometimes the idea of truth frightened me. “I want all of the truth. You’ve shown me so many things; I know you can do it. My father came back here to see Isobel. Will he ever see her? Why does he want to see her so badly? And why did Grandpa Samuel send him away?”

  Ben sighed. He spoke to himself and ticked off something on his fingers. Maybe my information requests? I don’t know. But soon, he faced me.

  “I believed Samuel would be the one,” he said. “He turned away from me. Then I believed it would be your father, but he loved his mother too much to see anything else. Then I believed it would be you. But you listened to Serena. You believed her. And she manipulated you. You know that, don’t you?”

  I did feel manipulated; I nodded.

  “Money won’t solve your problems, Trevor. You will be disappointed if you expect it to.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  He laughed.

  “Your mother understands certain things, but she doesn’t understand everything. She doesn’t understand what you and I understand, does she? That takes a certain amount of belief.”

  “How can I make her believe?”

  “There’s no answer to that question,” he replied. “At least to nonbelievers. Belief has to come from within, not from without. If it’s forced upon you by tradition, it never really means anything.”

  “So how does a person believe?” I asked.

  “By seeing the beauty in everything. By seeing the potential in every moment. God created all things, Trevor. God loves all things. When you love all things as well, you will find your happiness.”

  I thought about his words as we walked further into the night, the gravel crunching under our footsteps as the clouds bounced off the moon.

  “I found this place when I was scouting yards to harvest,” he said. “It was unbearably beautiful, really. To stand on the bluff here, with nothing but the forest behind me, and the sound before me, and the mountains. When the sun was right, it was a shock to the senses. We were going to clear-cut the entire area, because it was the most efficient method. But my father had spoken of having an estate, and when I saw this place, I told him I would build him an estate here that would put his society friends to shame. However, I would do it only if he spared these trees. And I would do it under one condition: I required full control of all aspects of the estate. He agreed, because he wanted me near him so I would be close to Alice. Early on, I brought Harry up from the coast to be with me, and to help me manage the construction as well. The two of us rode our horses along the road through the city of Fremont and up through Phinney’s place and past his zoo, and we came to the point over there. Much of the area had already been cut, but not The North Estate.

  “We stopped our horses on the ridge, just where it crests when you enter the property. We surveyed the acreage from afar, and we admired the land for such a long time. I looked over at Harry, and saw tears in his eyes.

  “ ‘I’ve never seen a place so special,’ he said.

  “ ‘It’s for you, Harry,’ I told him. ‘It’s for you and me. This is a place we will always have.’

  “ ‘Promise me we will have it forever,’ he said.”

  Benjamin stopped speaking, and we continued walking along the path for a time.

  “Did you promise him?” I asked, wanting him to continue the story.

  “I did,” Ben said. “I promised him that this would be our pl
ace for eternity, and I would not rest until it were so. I promised him it would forever be the jewel he and I first saw together. So we built a house for my father that I knew would crumble with time. The house itself would feed the forest around it. And somehow—I’m not even sure I knew how—I felt my love for Harry would always be here.”

  We stopped walking, and I realized he had led me all the way to the top of Observatory Hill.

  “I believe they’ve all gone home,” Ben said, gesturing down the hill toward the house. “You can go back to bed now, if you like.”

  He had led me to his grave; we were standing at his tombstone.

  “I want the truth about my father,” I blurted out, afraid Ben might vanish.

  “It’s not for me to give,” he said. “It’s for your father to give.”

  “But he won’t tell me. Why won’t he tell me?”

  “Some things are so painful, they tear a person’s soul. It’s too difficult to see.”

  “The tear is difficult to see?”

  “No. The act of tearing is difficult to see. It’s difficult to watch a soul being torn.”

  “I can handle it,” I said with great resolve. “Show me what happened to my father. And then I’ll deliver you the house so you can fulfill your promise to Harry.”

  Ben sighed with half a laugh.

  “So we have a deal?” I pushed.

  “I’ll give you what you ask, because I can.”

  “And I’ll return your land to the forest.”

  “I don’t require a quid pro quo,” Ben said. “Serena needs such things; I don’t. You’ve allowed me to feel things I haven’t felt in a very long time. The earth and the breeze and the smell of blossoms. I shield my eyes from the glow of the sun.”

  “I did that?”

  “You won’t see me anymore, Trevor. Nor will you hear from me. I’ll give you what you have asked, and then I’ll leave you alone to make your way in Riddell House. It’s time for you to make your own decisions.”

  He held his hand to his brow as if to shade his eyes. I looked in the direction he looked and saw a bright star in the sky. When I turned back, Ben was gone.