Death Watch

by Berk, Ari

  “Your father came here on several occasions, you know. He would sometimes stop here on those rare occasions when he’d be called up to the great house at the end of the street, the old Umber place, though he wouldn’t say much about his business there, and I’ve never been farther than Arvale’s front gate. Amos always had the most interesting questions, and he was extremely polite and gracious. Most of those flowers on the porches of this street were put there by your father. I think I was a help to him, but again, that was long ago.”

  “Have you seen my dad recently? He disappeared last year and no one’s seen him. Maybe you have, or know something about where I might find him?”

  “In that time he has not come here, Silas. At least I don’t think I’ve seen him. Hard to say anymore because minutes, hours, and days don’t mean the same to me as they used to. I can see some things far off, but it’s mostly my own kin I watch, coming and going about their business. When I see them, it’s a long way away and always through a mist. But if you like, I can try to catch sight of him, though I can’t promise anything will come of it. I can’t see things just because I want to, and sometimes it’s like staring into a sky without stars. If you want me to look away, to look for your dad, you’ll have to help me, because he’s not a blood relation to me. Would you like me to try?”

  “Yes, sir. Please. I’d be very grateful.”

  “Then why don’t you sit down next to me. It may be easier if I hold your hand, since your father’s blood is in you and not me …” His great-grandfather paused and looked down at Silas. “May I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” Silas replied.

  “You are kin, my great-grandson, and I am glad to try and help you, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be too much to ask for something in return?”

  “If I can do something for you, I will.”

  “No one comes here anymore, Silas. Everyone is gone, and no one comes back. I understand. They want to get on with their lives. And no one wants to be reminded of the inevitability of death every day by a corpse sitting with them at the dinner table. Still, a visit every now and then would please me very much. Every now and again, I would like a little news of the world. Some gossip.”

  Silas smiled at his great-grandfather, and the corpse’s face became just slightly more taut and seemed to be smiling back. A bargain had been struck.

  Silas extended his arm, and his great-grandfather slowly took his hand.

  It was a very strange sensation, Silas found, holding hands with a corpse. His great-grandfather’s skin was very dry, but a little waxy on the surface, like a candle. It still had just a bit of suppleness left in it, which explained how he could still move. Silas felt the nails right away. They were long and sharp at the end because some had broken off, or had been broken off, when they got too long. On his middle finger, his great-grandfather wore an ancient-looking gold ring, set with an enormous blue sapphire. Silas’s eyes were captured by the stone’s pale light until he felt the corpse’s grip close in on his own hand. It was not painful, but it was very strong, and Silas knew that if he had wanted to pull away, he very likely would not have been able to do it. Already, even as he continued to speak, a change was coming over his ancestor: The color of his eyes had dissolved, turning first to spheres like clear quartz, then becoming milk-white. His mouth stretched open, and the words seemed to come from deep within his torso, like they were spoken at the bottom of a well, no longer formed by his dry lips, tongue, and whatever was left of his vocal cords. His voice came up in a low, hollow rasp and yet seemed to fill the whole of Silas’s hearing.

  “Silas, you may ask me questions. I’ll try to answer. I don’t know what I’ll say when this starts, so prepare yourself. This is just the damnedest thing,” said his great-grandfather, and with that, the corpse went completely rigid, as though he had been poured full of cement. Silas looked down at his hand, held firmly in the corpse’s stonelike grip, and then up at the corpse’s face, and when he began to speak, it was not in the voice of a moment ago—familiar, familial—but something else, far older, far stranger, the combined voices of every ancestor with whom Silas shared blood speaking in chorus.

  “You stand in the house of the long line, the full glass, and the word of welcome. Yet the ebony chair is empty. The chair of the Janus … who shall take this perilous seat? Where is the wanderer? Where is the lost one? Who—”

  “Yes!” Silas cried out, interrupting. “That was in my dream!”

  “—shall sit in the accustomed place of his kin? The hall is full, yet one is absent. The chair of ebony is empty still. Bestir! Bestir! Why do you wait? The Road of Virgil stands open! The Orphic strain pulls at the soul’s strings and draws the listener toward the abyss! You ask for words, but I shall say no more!”

  “Wait, please, I—I don’t understand….”

  “In the hall are those bound by blood, bound by the pact. You seek your father but cannot see him. And all the while, the ebony chair is empty! Who shall hold the threshold when the Door Doom comes? I have given you words, but I shall say no more.”

  “Do you mean my father is there in the hall? Why can’t I see him? Is the hall this town? Lichport? Why isn’t he there, in the empty black chair, in the place across from me? Is he still here in Lichport?”

  “He is where he has always been. The ebony chair waits for another in the hall of Arvale, though you cannot see the matter aright. Enough, I shall sink down!”

  “Wait! Please! Can you just tell me where to find him?”

  “Long is the son’s way, and it is fraught with darkness. Those who see absence know only longing. The sun sinks down into the sea. The dog howls from the cave of bones. The earth roars at the sin of Cain. The ship of souls lies at anchor, waiting. Those who are lost shall be doomed to wander. Only those who know their own place may seek the place of another. The ebony chair awaits its owner. Look behind you to find what you seek. Take up the mask of Janus and your work begins! You must look behind to see ahead. Before you stands the ebony chair and the dark hall. Seek not to see your father in that hallowed seat, for it is thine own…. Now I sink down….”

  And with those words the corpse closed its eyes, and its head rolled to one side and did not move for many moments.

  Softly, Silas leaned over closer to his great-grandfather and said. “Are you okay?”

  The mouth of the corpse began to move, opening and closing again like an automaton, before speaking.

  “I am all right, just not entirely myself for a moment. Was I able to help you?”

  Silas felt embarrassed, because he was sure there was something his ancestor had said that would be helpful, but he would have to think about it and try to untangle the threads of what he’d heard.

  “Yes, I think so,” Silas said.

  Perhaps sensing Silas’s confusion, the corpse said, “Give it some thought. An oracle can be a damned obscure thing. I am sorry I couldn’t be clearer, but this kind of thing goes its own way, and I have no power over it once it starts.”

  “I’ll try to see what I can make of it.”

  “I will think about it too. There may be some other folk here in Lichport, or close to Lichport … I’ll try to remember. There are three women who I think knew your father. By rights, you may inquire of them, though they may not be easy to find. I expect their old house still stands at Coach and Silk, but wait a bit. Be here more. Maybe you know someone who can show you around. See more of the town, and you will have an easier time finding folk who may help you. I suspect when the ladies who dwell in that mansion are ready to see you, that’s when you’ll be able to see them. Wait for the light. …” But his great-grandfather’s voice was getting thin, and he said, “I don’t think I have it in me to say much more just at present. Perhaps we could talk about that another time? I will have to rest now for several days.”

  Silas thought maybe his great-grandfather was holding something back, maybe just trying to ensure that Silas would come back and visit again, although he could see
his ancestor did indeed look tired: His head hung forward, shoulders slumped, and his arms hung limply from his shoulders. Whatever force it was that animated his body, it had clearly been exhausted.

  Before Silas turned to go, he said “Great-grandfather, thank you so much for your help. I have very much enjoyed my time with you.”

  “That is very kind of you to say, Silas.”

  Silas began to turn away, but then looked back at his great-grandfather.

  “Sir, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but wouldn’t you like to rest … finally? Be done with it all?”

  His great-grandfather turned his head in a slow, graceful, tired are toward the window, and the light played across the stretched skin of his face, showing its translucence.

  “Child, if I wanted to go to bed, I’d have been set under the dirt a long time ago. I am waiting.”

  “May I ask, for what?”

  “To see what happens!”

  “What happens? To what?”

  “Any old damn thing. To the town. To me. For the stars to fall. Who knows how long this trick might last? So, my wise great-grandson, to the offer of sympathetic immolation—or whatever you may have had in mind—may I gratefully decline?” The corpse paused. “But Silas? You come back and visit me, won’t you? Besides, this is your house now.”

  “My house?”

  The corpse’s hand was rising slowly, pointing at a table covered in documents near the wall.

  “Well, I know your mother doesn’t want this house—couldn’t even bring herself to come inside, aye, I know she was here—so that makes it yours. If you hand me that stack of papers over there, and a pen, I’ll change the will.”

  Silas watched as his great-grandfather slowly turned the pages of his many-paged will, struck through several lines, and carefully wrote in Silas’s name.

  “There now, it’s all yours, Silas. What’s left of it. And all you have to do is pay the occasional visit.”

  “I would have come anyway,” Silas said sincerely.

  “I know. And that makes it especially nice to give you a little something.”

  His great-grandfather was still writing, now on a small, stained piece of paper he had removed from a pocket inside his jacket. At the bottom of some barely legible lines, he made his signature. Folding the paper up, he handed it to Silas and said, “Is your father’s friend Mrs. Bowe still residing in Lichport? Yes? Then please deliver this to her. She’ll know what to do with it.”

  Silas took the paper and put it in his pocket, resting his other hand on the corpse’s shoulder. He was eager to come back and hear more, and in the meantime, maybe his great-grandfather would think of something or see something that might help him find his dad.

  The visit to his convivial ancestor’s house left him feeling unsettled now about when it was that life actually ended and death began. Before meeting his great-grandfather, it had all seemed more cut-and-dried. Death might be a sort of memory loss, when people or spirits forget who they were in life. Silas was also not especially comforted by his relative’s version of life everlasting. As he closed the door behind him and took the wooden steps two at a time down into the overgrown front garden, he could not quite decide whether the Restless had conquered time or been trapped by it, making limbos of their own undying flesh. As he closed the gate behind him, he caught his finger on a thorn. He stood looking at the drop of blood on his fingertip for several moments before briefly putting it in his mouth and making his way home. At least he knew he might investigate a little farther afield about his dad, and he even had an address, a place to begin. And as for someone to show him something more of the town, as his great-grandfather had suggested, Silas was hoping Bea might oblige.

  He went to see Mrs. Bowe. He had the paper to deliver to her from his great-grandfather, and he wanted a little more time to think before going back to Temple Street. As he entered his house, with his own key, Mrs. Bowe called from the other side, inviting him over.

  “And where have we been today?” She asked from the dining room, as she set a sphere of crystal back on a shelf.

  “Fort Street.”

  “Really? Well, I trust you saw to your obligations?” she said with a small smile.

  “You seem to know a lot about my family, Mrs. Bowe.”

  “Yes—” But then the smile left her face. “Formally, professionally, Silas, I don’t approve of that sort of thing. The dead should not be encouraged to linger. But the Restless here in Lichport keep to themselves, and those are their houses, so they can go on living in them if they like, I suppose.”

  Silas was still having trouble accepting that everyone in town knew about these matters, about living corpses in the houses. He meant no disrespect to his great-grandfather, but what kind of a town was this?

  Remembering the note, Silas handed Mrs. Bowe the paper his great-grandfather had asked him to deliver.

  “He wanted me to give you this,” said Silas.

  Mrs. Bowe paused before extending her hand to take the note from him. Her eyes became small as she opened the paper and read its contents. “I see … I see. All right. I will make arrangements. Silas, you are about to become a man of means…. Your great-grandfather has made you a very generous gift.”

  Not wanting to press her about the note’s particulars, and not sure how he felt about taking money from someone he’d only just met, even family, Silas changed the subject. “My great-grandfather told me that there might be some other people in town I could ask about my dad, but he was too tired to go into much detail. Do you have any idea whom he might have meant? He mentioned three women and described the house where they might be found … maybe that tall house on Coach and Silk, is that the place he meant?”

  Mrs. Bowe’s face tightened, but then she raised an eyebrow as a shadow of fear crossed her face.

  “The three …,” she said under her breath.

  “Who?”

  “No one,” replied Mrs. Bowe, sitting down. “That house is mostly empty, though it is true that your father has certainly visited it. It’s a very old house with some remarkable architectural features. Your father used to say that in some houses, and I’m sure he meant in the features of some houses, there are things much older than the town. Elements brought from elsewhere, other lands. Antiques and architectural ornaments, that’s all. We have some very remarkable homes here,” she said, her back straight, her face now expressionless.

  “But Silas, surely this will keep? I can’t imagine why your great-grandfather thought this was important just now. It’s not safe to go wandering through these old abandoned houses. Here,” she said, walking toward the bookshelf, “if you’re so interested in that old house, I am sure we can find you a book or two about the architectural history of Lichport. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

  SILAS AWOKE BARELY AN HOUR AFTER GOING TO BED. Despite Uncle’s lecture on the virtues of hard mattresses and how they induce “light, healthful sleep,” Silas was finding it more and more difficult to rest in the house on Temple Street.

  The hard mattress wasn’t helped by the fact that the house did nothing but make noise. Like its master, the house itself was restless. Branches scratched against the windows. Heating pipes banged suddenly and the floorboards creaked, even when no one was walking on them. And the knocking. It could begin at any time and might continue for up to a half hour before it stopped. The first time Silas heard it he thought something upstairs was being struck repeatedly, the sound of something hard hitting something soft. Sometimes it sounded like stomping, over and over and over, on the walls and floor. Uncle always explained away the noise: the pipes, or rodents in the walls, but Silas didn’t believe him. He hadn’t lived there very long, but he already knew most of Uncle’s tells. When Uncle laughed, he was lying. When Uncle changed the subject, he was lying. When Uncle tried to sound like he was siding with Silas instead of Dolores, he was lying. So where was all the noise coming from, and why did Uncle keep lying about it?

  Since following his mot
her down Fort Street, Silas felt differently about the large houses he saw and the large house he was currently occupying. Now there were too many closed doors for his liking. Too many unexplained noises.

  So when Silas awoke in the dark of his room and heard the sounds coming from the north wing, he tensed. Uncle was awake too. The thought of Uncle wandering around the house while he and his mother slept made Silas feel nauseated. He imagined Uncle standing outside the door to his room, or his mother’s, while they slept … listening, maybe even opening the door a bit, staring as the hall light sliced across closed eyes. Looking at their bodies like the subjects of his photographs. Just the thought of it threw a chill up and down Silas’s back.

  He sat silently in the dark, barely breathing, hardly moving. But then he thought of the town waiting just beyond the porch: I am not a prisoner in this house. If I want to take a walk in the middle of the night, what are they going to do? Lock me in my room?

  He got up and dressed himself normally, as though it were morning, with no attempt to be quiet anymore. Again, his great-grandfather’s words were close to him: “See something more of the town.” He pulled on his jacket and shoes, and before leaving the room, he got a flashlight from his backpack, because although most of the streetlights seemed to be lit, he knew some certain of the lanes were darker than others. He turned on the hall light and walked confidently down the stairs, across the entrance hall, out of the house, and into the street. See? he told himself. Not a prisoner. And as he walked, he began to hum to himself.

  At dusk Lichport held its breath, but by midnight, the town had begun to talk to itself.

  Silas could hear faint voices way down by the docks where a ship might have arrived, the sound of night birds calling out their sharp evening laments away over the marshes, and music, the high, long whine of a violin, from somewhere down toward the sea. From the south, perhaps from within the wide expanse of Newfield Cemetery, dogs were barking. Now, at midnight, Lichport was awake and almost lively. He walked north.