Death Watch

by Berk, Ari

The bell was silent as Mrs. Bowe and Silas passed the chapel, for death had come and settled in and didn’t like to be too much disturbed.

  They approached the Peale house, and Silas could hear the wind groaning up from the harbor. Suddenly thoughts of that terrible ship coming to anchor there rekindled his fears, but then the front door of the Peale house was thrown open for them by one of the men of the Narrows, and Silas drew his mind back to what might be waiting for him inside. Though he had met this man before, perhaps on that first night he’d come to the Peale house, the man looked down as Silas and Mrs. Bowe approached, unwilling to meet their eyes.

  The corpse of Mr. Peale was wrapped in linen, and a bowl of salt sat atop his chest. Set into the salt, a small beeswax candle burned brightly. Mr. Peale’s face was clearly visible, and more peaceful than the last time Silas had seen him. The corpse was lying on a wooden table and below it, flowers stood in numerous vases, their perfume filling the room along with the smell of wax from the many candles on the side tables. The whole room stood in anticipation, waiting for Silas to take his place.

  “Stand at the head,” Mrs. Bowe whispered to Silas, and went with him.

  Despite all the candles, the light in the room seemed dim. All the mirrors had been covered, and black drapes had been put across all the windows, though every window in the house was open.

  As Silas stood over the corpse, he could think of nothing but his own father. He knew he should keep his mind on Mr. Peale and his family, but every time he looked at the body stretched out and pale, he saw his dad’s face on it, and everything but his own fears flew from his mind. And being close to the harbor added another fear to the others. Out there was the mist ship, waiting. But for whom, he could only guess.

  Mrs. Bowe sensed his distraction and grabbed the back of his arm. Her hand was like a vise. “Enough!” she hissed at him. “You are not here for yourself! When you are home you can return to hovering over your own losses, but now turn your mind back to what is before you. Hold the name of the dead in your mind, and do what must be done!”

  In the corner of the room stood a man, shifting from foot to foot anxiously. Silas had seen him several times, but always at the edge of his vision—leaning against the wall of a crumbling cottage in the Narrows, or wandering back and forth in front of the Fretful Porpentine Tavern, looking for a handout. “George Bowditch,” Mrs. Bowe whispered in Silas’s ear, “Sin Eater.” George looked at Silas, waiting. At a nudge from Mrs. Bowe, Silas nodded for him to approach the corpse. Someone handed George a loaf of bread, and he passed it over Mr. Peale’s body. Over and back, over and back. He was then handed a bowl of beer, and from Mother Peale, a coin. Then, hanging his head, he walked slowly back across the room, his back bent as though he was carrying a great burden. He went out into the street, and as he walked, he ate and drank and made his way home, his stomach filling with the losses and regrets of another man.

  Mrs. Bowe looked at Silas expectantly. He knew from The Book of Cerements that it was time to call the ghost, to wake the dead. Nervous he’d say something wrong, fearful of what was coming next, and sweating terribly in the warm closeness of the room, Silas bent down to the corpse and whispered into its ear. He could not remember the elaborate Latin formula from the book, and though he held the book tightly in his hand, he didn’t want to read something he didn’t understand. Instead he spoke plainly and said very quietly into Mr. Peale’s pale ear the words that rose up from his mind and heart:

  “Mr. Peale, sir? Your kin are all about you. Rouse yourself once more and waken. It is Silas Umber, your friend, who calls you. Fear nothing and come again into the company of your family and friends. You stand at the threshold, and love is before you and behind you. Be with us once more before you take to your road, if that is your wish.”

  The light in the room began to alter, not brighten or dim, but become more intense, and every object stood in stark contrast against another. Silas looked up, and the ghost of Mr. Peale was rising to stand beside his corpse. A shadow was falling across the body even as the ghost became brighter and more discernible. It was clearly Mr. Peale who stood before Silas, but much altered from the man Silas had known only at the end of his life. The vision of the ghost was charged with vigor. The air around the ghost and throughout the room was warming, and below the kindly aged face, a younger Mr. Peale flushed, rose through the wrinkles, as if all the years of his life were now present within the ghost’s handsome transparency. The ghost stood up straight in front of all his family and friends, and seemed to become more solid. In the lines of his body—his straight, proud jaw, his strong arms, his work-hardened hands, the orbs of his eyes, which shone with youth and wisdom both—an entire life could be read.

  As if on cue, the members of the Peale family stepped forward toward the ghost. Each gave a brief oration, words filled with love and respect for a father, a husband, a friend. Mother Peale gave no words, but she looked long at her husband’s face and he was smiling, and it was enough. She nodded to him and stepped away into the arms of her daughter Joan.

  In the presence of his family, the ghost grew brighter until his light filled the room. Then he stepped away from his corpse and wandered forth among the guests, here and there stopping to speak to some particular person, words of parting and affection heard only by the person the ghost was addressing. The ghost made a circuit of the room and then came back to stand in front of his corpse. He looked at Silas, and began to speak, and at once Silas heard such a difference in his voice from the last time he’d chatted with Mr. Peale at the store; it was as if the body’s weight and age and sickness had somehow pressed down on the vocal cords. But now, as the ghost spoke to him, it sounded like music, light and moving easily on the air and in his head and heart, the sound of strings and flutes.

  “I know you would like to ask me something, Silas Umber. Go on, son.”

  “It wouldn’t be right. This is your time to speak and be with your family.”

  Then, even more softly and with such care Silas thought his heart would break at hearing the ghost’s words, Mr. Peale said, “You want to ask if your father is dead. And I feel you are fretful too about that ship out there that is even now coming into harbor. Perhaps, son, you fear these two things are somehow joined?”

  Silas nodded.

  “I am sorry, Silas. I don’t know who it’s come for. But I can tell you this, anyone with a son who loves him as much as you love your dad has no place on a ship like that one out there. About Amos, I fear I can be of little help, though I know in my gut that your father is in some trouble. His was a hard life and no mistake, pulled as he was between this and that. But wherever he is, I know that if anyone can find him and help him, it will be you, son.”

  Silas began to cry but quickly wiped his face with his sleeve. He nodded at the ghost in wordless thanks. Pulling his coat back into place on his shoulders, he said, “Mr. Peale, I must ask, will you take the water I carry with me?”

  “Silas, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll go my own way and keep my wits about me.”

  Again, Silas nodded.

  The ghost looked once more upon his wife, and then at Silas, and finally at Mrs. Bowe, who instantly opened her mouth and began a cry that clutched at the heart of everyone in the room. As the mourners listened to the wail, it became a song, and the words rose slowly on the air, and the ghost grew brighter and brighter with each word until some of the people in the room cast down their eyes. And between the lines of the dirge, her wordless wail would come again and again, …

  No more, no more, John Peale

  Shall sit before our eyes

  No more, no more, John Peale

  Now is the hour of our good-byes.

  No more, no more, John Peale

  The wind is on the sea

  No more, no more, John Peale

  Let the peace upon you be.

  No more, no more, John Peale

  shall walk the Narrows turning;

  No more, no more, no morer />
  Our John is gone, no more returning.

  Other voices, some quiet, some loud, joined in with verses of their own, all testaments to the life of a man who had lived well and was well loved. As Silas heard those good words, he prayed that he might live a life worthy of such memorials. He couldn’t help but wonder what people might say at his funeral, or at his father’s, should it come to pass. He thought that heaven might be no further afield than the hearts of those people who remember us with love. This was what he would strive for. To be remembered well. In the hearts of others is where we should strive to make our afterlives, he thought.

  Then the company broke apart, people moving quickly and getting food for the tables, bringing barrels of good beer and casks of liquor from where they waited beside the door. Some began singing more riotous songs. By the hearth, some of the men took out dice and began playing, and before Silas knew what was happening, the wake proper was underway.

  Although the wake revels went on for two nights and two days—glasses lifted again and again—after a short while, Silas couldn’t tell how much time had passed. In one corner of the room, Mrs. Bowe perched on a chair, waiting, speaking to no one. People were sleeping on floors and tables, rising only to begin drinking or carousing again. Occasionally, some portion of the room would brighten, and Silas could see Mr. Peale’s ghost smiling over a small crowd of people before fading again into the blur of revelry.

  When the appointed hour came, again Mrs. Bowe stood forth.

  She stood up from her chair. Men went outside and a few moments later returned with a casket. They put the corpse within it and then stood at the ready around the coffin.

  Once again, Mrs. Bowe began wailing and crying. The sound was nearly deafening. Mother Peale drew her hair over her face, stepped in next to Mrs. Bowe, and began wailing too, her mouth wide and the cry coming up from the bottom of her soul. The other women in the room wailed as well. All their voices wound together, and as their conjoined cry went up, everything began vibrating—through all the walls and beams of the house—and the very fabric of the air began to shudder and hum.

  Silas closed his eyes. He did not know how much time had passed since the wailing began, for indeed so long as that sound filled the room, time seemed entirely absent. The wail was like nothing else Silas had ever heard, like listening to the first cry of the world at its birth and the turning back of the great darkness. Beginning and ending, all at once. It was the first shrill cry of the babe and the last high-pitched gasp of the dying in one note.

  Then the wail subsided in the throats of all the women, and by the door, a boy—the child who’d delivered the funeral announcements—began to play the hornpipe.

  Suddenly Mother Peale began to move, shuffling her feet to that queer and ancient tune. She made a dance about her husband’s body, jumping after tracing certain of the elder steps, crying, or laughing, tears aplenty. And dancing still, she spoke:

  “You came into the world with joy, my love, and I’ll send you out the same way.” And then she threw her head back and near shrieked with laughter, her knees almost hitting her chin as she leapt about her husband’s body, and dancing still, she led the company from the house as the men lifted the coffin from the table. They paused before the door, waiting for Silas to first pass over the threshold before bringing the coffin out into the street to begin the procession to the graveyard on the Beacon, their high burial hill that daily cast its shadow over the Narrows.

  Mrs. Bowe followed Silas, wailing again, her veil billowing out in front of her as if smoke was pouring from her mouth into the evening air. Outside, the company was joined by many more of the Narrows folk and other mourners, all in black, long veils, long coats. Many of the mourners carried candles, and the boy with the hornpipe was joined by a group of four mutes—perhaps the family Mrs. Bowe had mentioned to Silas long ago. The four pulled their faces down into contorted masks of sorrow, their eyes flowing with tears, mouthing silent cries.

  The procession, with moans and shrieks and every expression of mourning, wound its way up the Beacon. At they approached the grave, Silas saw many of the oldest women of Lichport already there, waiting, perched on the gravestones in some ancient ritual, their veils trailing down onto the upturned soil, their hands dark with earth, torches burning beside them. The pallbearers looked at Silas, who nodded (for it seemed everyone knew very well exactly what was supposed to happen), and without another word, they lowered the coffin into the hungry ground.

  The company stood silently about the grave, and all eyes were suddenly on Silas. He reached down and picked up a handful of earth. He held it in his hand for a moment, and then, leaning over, let it fall into the grave on top of the coffin. All the members of Mr. Peale’s family did the same, and then everyone in the procession pressed forward, casting handfuls of earth, circling the plot, one after another, until the grave was nearly full. Then suddenly and without warning Silas straightened his back, opened his mouth, and began to sing:

  Give me my scallop shell of quiet,

  My staff of faith to walk upon.

  My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

  My bottle of salvation

  My gown of glory

  Hope’s true gauge

  And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

  As he ended his song, the company looked up and spoke again the name of the dead. “John Peale,” they cried as one. And in that moment, as they heard their joined voices, as they gazed on the ever-living stars, the darkness in their hearts fell away from them. They knew they would always be together, as neighbors and kin, in this world, and the worlds that followed.

  Wind stirred the trees as the mourners began to fall away from the hill toward their homes. Mother Peale came up to Silas and clutched him to her breast, hugging him so hard it pressed the breath right out of him. Then Mrs. Bowe drew back her veil. Silas could see she was exhausted and, taking her hand in his, led her from the Beacon.

  The final portion of the funeral proceeded, as was customary, unseen by the living.

  Mr. Peale followed at the end of the line of mourners and watched his burial from a distance. Then, for a time, he wandered about the town, making a pilgrim’s road of his living memories. At one house in the Narrows, he looked in to see friends sitting about the table, still in their black mourning weeds. Come morning, he was looking out toward the sea from the top of the Beacon. Dark again, he stood by the bedsides of his sleeping children and grandchildren, placing his now insubstantial hand, soft as a breath, on their cheeks.

  The next midnight found him standing by the spent fire of his own hearth, and there, by the door, was his little girl lost so long ago, waiting for him. His family was asleep upstairs and in their various houses, and he was now eager to be on his way. His little girl waited to walk him to the street outside, where already the mist was rising. She would not go with him, Mr. Peale under-stood—she was waiting for her mama. He walked toward the door, and his child opened it for him. Beyond the door, it was morning again, and in its light, he could see the path that would lead him away, out of Lichport. As Mr. Peale walked down that road, he took his time, thinking he might just take in a few more sights before calling it a day.

  LEDGER

  THE ADVENTUROUS TRAVELER will find that once proud Lichport is no longer a town you may travel through. You may only go to it or leave from it (which has long been the more usual). In 1924 the Salt Marsh Bridge, part of an ancient highway connecting many of the coastal ports with the north and west, collapsed, killing six people. Six people who, if such accounts are to be believed, still haunt the site of the collapse. Then, in 1931, a large wedge of the cliff above the highway came crashing down, perhaps due to erosion, and destroyed a great portion of the road, tumbling all down into the sea. No plans to restore either the bridge or that fallen portion of the highway were ever even discussed. By that time, most sensible folk considered the town beyond saving. Its shipping has all but collapsed, most of the shops that might appeal to outsiders have lo
ng been closed, and if the bereaved or the memorially inclined wish to visit their dead in one of Lichport’s numerous cemeteries, well, they shall need to make a pilgrim’s progress of it, coming around the long way on the inland road. In and out, both on the same path: long, featureless road running next to the wide, quiet marshes. On that byway, you’ll have plenty of time to think about your deeply planted kin and how long it has been since the last time you visited them—the time when you left those cheap silk flowers on their grave. Don’t worry. They’ll still be there, right where you left them.

  —torn from Gormlette’s Guide to Fallen Places, 2nd edition, 1943

  ONE WEEK TO THE DAY AFTER THE FUNERAL of John Peale, Silas was sitting on the porch, reading in the sun, when he saw his uncle coming down the street. Although the sight brought him no pleasure, it didn’t surprise him either. Since his last visit to the house on Temple Street, Silas knew it would only be a matter of time before Uncle came calling.

  Uncle kept looking over his shoulder and occasionally ducked his head nervously this way or that, as if birds were swooping down on him. How small he looked in the sunshine. Pale, frightened, and exposed. And yet, seeing him like this only worried Silas more: Weak or frightened animals are the most dangerous, the most likely to bite even those who might help them.

  As Uncle approached the house, Silas came down to the sidewalk to meet him, determined that his uncle should not even get so far as the porch.

  “What excellent timing,” Silas lied. “I was just about to stretch my legs. Shall we walk together, Uncle?”

  Uncle looked tired from his short walk from home. “Of course, of course,” he said, and added, “I am in a bit of a hurry, errands and such. Perhaps we might just stand here for a moment and I’ll give you my news?”

  “Of course, of course,” mimicked Silas, smiling. “Let me guess, you’ve found my father?”