The Boys in the Trees

by Mary Swan

  My mother never asks about the children but there is a waiting in her shoulders, the way she bows her head, that eases when I tell her things. Sometimes, in an evil way, I fold my lips and say nothing; I don’t know why. But not often. I watch her bend to the stove, watch her straighten up and rub at her sore hip, and everything lightens when I start to speak. She sinks into the chair across from me, the towel still in her hand, her eyes on my face. So many years we have done this, my hair growing longer, my mother’s turning gray, but the children always the same.

  It was Miss Alice who opened the door, as neat and gentle as always, and she had me come in while she searched out the music. The hallway was dark after the blue day but I saw a flicker of white, maybe the laughing girl flitting in and out of rooms. Through an open doorway on my left side I saw the pupils at the long school table, heads bent over their work. I saw Rachel’s bent head, the parting I had made in her hair that morning, and then she looked up and smiled at me, we smiled at each other.

  Years ago my mother told Mr. Envers that I was very good with a needle, and some days that is true. Other days my mind is a jumble and even her voice comes to me from far away. After the terrible days in Toronto my father brought my mother a posy of white flowers, and she put them in the mug with the picture of the woman in a boat and set them on the windowsill. On each stem there were small green buds, and day by day they changed. Lighter strips showing, growing wider, the green folds pushing apart so slowly. Two were like that, maybe three, though the others stayed tightly closed. We had to leave before I could see them completely open, but I suppose it might not have happened at all. The first flowers turning brown and limp around the edge of their petals. We took the mug but left the posy lying in a little puddle on the sill.

  The package was gone from the outside chair and when I opened the door the house was silent, no sound of my mother’s humming, not even the ticking clock. She had been mixing her cake when I left and there was a smell in the air, as if it had burned in the stove, and I wondered how I could have been gone so long. I started down the hall to find her, but my father called me from the top of the stair. I had the music in my hand, black notes dancing, and I held it out but he kept his hands behind his back, asked me to bring it up to him. The third stair cracked, like it always did, as I climbed toward my father. He stood very still, his hands behind his back, and I thought of the game he used to play with Rachel, wondered if it was finally my turn to guess which hand held the surprise.

  Gun

  S & W 32 D.A. 3½ INCH BARREL

  New Model. Nickeled and Rubber stock. 5 Shot.

  Weighs 13 oz., of elegant design and finest workmanship throughout.

  Extra plating and Engraved handle, gives very fine “grip.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8.00

  DIRECTIONS FOR USE. Half cock the arm; raise the barrel catch to its full height and tip the barrel forward as far as it will go. Place the charges in the chambers and return the barrel to its place, being sure to have the barrel catch down, when the arm is ready for use.

  While Carrying the Pistol Fully Charged, allow the hammer to rest in the safety catch. After the first discharge, allow the hammer to rest on the exploded cartridge until the next discharge, and so on until all are fired. Do not let your thumb slip off the hammer.

  Forgiveness—1889

  So here hath been dawning

  Another blue day;

  Think, wilt thou let it

  Slip useless away?

  —Thomas Carlyle

  THE PAIN NUDGES her awake, boring into her right eye, and in the dark she reaches for the drops, the bottle rocking on the nightstand, and lies back, thinking, There now. There now. Thinking that perhaps her mother will have to take the school again, and that will mean another wasted day, long tales about her courtship, her slender ankles. The children will twitch in their chairs, waiting. Waiting until she comes to the part about the storm at sea and the sailor who was washed overboard, the look on his face. On this day, Alice thinks, as the warmth moves through her, on this day there should be no more dwelling on death.

  She slides back into sleep and dreams a memory, as she often has these past long months. The tap on the front door and Mr. Heath on the step, the bright autumn day behind him. She asks if there is a problem with the music Lilian collected and he says no, says that everything is fine. Nothing unusual in his face, nothing in his voice gives any hint. He says that he’s sorry to interrupt, that he needs Rachel at home, just for a little while. Down the hall the children’s clear voices are chanting: Seven eights are fifty-six, eight eights are …

  She asks him in but Mr. Heath says that he will wait where he is, says something about the clear sky. In the dream her feet are slow and heavy as she moves down the hall to the schoolroom, tells Rachel that her father has come for her, that it’s just for a moment, and she can leave her things where they are. The dream Rachel wears a white dress, although in life Alice knows it was a faded blue. She moves down the hall toward the dark shape in the doorway and Alice turns back to the others. Through the schoolroom window she sees them crossing the street, hand in hand.

  • • •

  Sarah also dreams, dreams a child with blond curls, hugging her around the neck. The chubby arms squeezing tighter and tighter until she is gasping for breath, a long scratch on her neck where she scrabbles to pry them loose. She lies back on the pillow, feeling her pounding heart, and hears the downstairs clock chime. It isn’t until she’s used the pot, poured water from the pitcher and splashed her face, that she remembers what day it is. She kneels by the side of the bed and gives thanks.

  • • •

  Alice wakes again with a start, as if at a sudden sound. The back stairs creak and that will be her sister, Sarah, and it will be exactly eight minutes before six. Hours before she needs to be behind her counter at Becks’ store, but Alice has never asked why she rises, leaves the house so early. It will be something to do with the cause Mrs. Beck has drawn her in to, leaflets to post or a meeting. She may even go creeping down back lanes, may peer into dawn windows looking for empty bottles, for signs of dissipation. There is nothing wrong, of course not, with wanting to live a pure life. Nothing wrong with the Union, the meetings and speeches. But the thought of her sister standing grim-faced by the tavern door fills Alice with a familiar, helpless fury, and she rolls in her bed and closes her eyes, hoping for just a little more sleep. Finds herself thinking of Mr. Heath, who is surely awake, behind his cell door, tries to imagine what it can possibly be like. Knowing that your life is now measured in hours, in minutes, less time than it takes to ride the train to the city, to read a book from beginning to end. She knows from the newspaper that Reverend Toller will attend the execution, that he has visited a number of times in the months since the trial, and she wonders if his intention was to bring comfort. A man who sat without a flicker of emotion through his own wife’s funeral, who turned away when his son began to sob. But what comfort could even a kindlier man bring, what comfort could there be, even in forgiveness, knowing that you wouldn’t meet them again in Heaven. That even if you could, they would surely run and hide.

  It’s more likely, Alice supposes, that Reverend Toller simply kneels and prays, that perhaps they pray together. The same newspaper that called Heath a fiend, a monster, now reports that he spends most of his time sitting silently on the edge of his cot, staring at a spot on the floor. In fact, he has barely spoken since they found him that day, slumped on a cushion of crimson leaves at the base of an oak tree in the heart of Jackson’s wood. The gun, with one bullet left, held loosely in his hand.

  • • •

  Her feet are tangled in her nightdress and the bedclothes are a terrible weight. She kicks them off and feels the cool air on her skin. It is May, late May, and in the time since her first waking the room has appeared, the heavy, dark dressing table, the chair by the window. She closes her eyes again and tests the pain in her head. Still there, but muffled, and the bottle is half full, so maybe it
will be all right. The pattern is familiar to her now, although that doesn’t make it any easier. Just not as frightening; the first time she thought she must be dying, right there at the dinner table, on her fourteenth birthday. A shimmering in the air as her mother raised the silver knife to cut another slice of cake, the pain suddenly there, where all had been sweet and normal, building and building. As her parents helped her from the room she saw Sarah reach with her fork, spear the crumbling piece left on Alice’s plate. Upstairs, it was her father who measured out the liquid from the medicine chest, mixed it with a little sweet red syrup. Alice’s stomach heaved when it touched her lips, but there was his cool hand on her forehead, his voice speaking softly, and she held on to that. Sleep now, he said, and all will be well. And it was.

  • • •

  Alice’s father was a tall man with a trimmed beard, a teller of jokes, an elder of the church, an educated man with a prosperous business. But he died in an upstairs room on Neeve Street, something that was blurted out in those first terrible hours and never referred to again. Their mother took to her bed, the heavy wine-colored drapes pulled tight. Leaving Sarah to talk with the lawyer, to write to the relatives in England, to sit night after night at the kitchen table, her spectacles glinting, working out figures on long sheets of paper. Alice was sixteen then; she’d never given a thought to money, although she knew that the expansion of the shop had meant only one dress that winter and a delay in the new furniture. She sat by the fire through those winter evenings, a book in her lap, the distant scratching of Sarah’s pen.

  The way they live now is all Sarah’s doing, Sarah’s plan, but Alice tells herself to be fair, to think about what might have happened, otherwise. It was Sarah’s idea to open the school, the real school, to have Alice help, and maybe their mother if she ever opened the drapes. What else do you have to do? she said. What else do you do but sit in your chair by the window, reading poetry all day.

  Sarah organized everything for the school, found a few texts and primers, ordered supplies from the catalog and placed notices, spoke to parents at church. Mrs. Beck came to call and said that although she had no children to send, she would like to donate several Temperance Readers. She said that she was impressed by Sarah’s discipline, her organization, that she would like to offer her a position in the store, if Alice and her mother were able to run the school on their own. Of course we can, Alice said, although before that moment she wouldn’t have thought it. It’s clear to her now that otherwise it wouldn’t have worked, that Sarah would never have had the patience. At first, parents like the Robinsons sent their children as a kindness, but most have stayed and new ones have come and Alice knows that must mean that she is doing something right. It’s been five years and now there’s not really enough room around the long oak dining table, sent from England before she was born. Even with the empty place.

  • • •

  From downstairs comes the slam of the stove door, the crash of the heavy kettle. Alice thinks of the Orton sisters, who sing so sweetly together, of Lilian and Rachel side by side on their battered porch swing, arms linked. She tries to find one warm memory of her own sister, one time they might have laughed together, been easy in each other’s company. Chalk and cheese is what their mother used to say, and they couldn’t even share a room, let alone a bed, from the time they were small.

  When she was a child, Alice thought that her father was a wizard, and his shop was a magic cave, full of potions. Sometimes she sat on the floor in the room behind the counter, lifting the different colored bottles out of their boxes while he pounded and mixed and measured. Sarah sat on a high stool at the corner of his workbench, writing neat labels and spreading them out to dry. Aconite, Senna, Chloral Hydrate. When Alice was older she joined her at the bench, but when their father left the room Sarah shook her pen, flinging black drops all over her own careful writing. I didn’t, she said loudly, I did not. Alice made the mess, she did. Their father raised his voice and sent them home, and once outside Alice gave her sister a quick kick in the shins and then ran, Sarah’s fingers reaching for her flying hair.

  That night their father brought home two large bottles, Alice’s blue and Sarah’s amber. He had labeled them Forgiveness Potion in flowing black letters, and he told them they were to take a spoonful in the morning and at bedtime, until the bottles were empty. The liquid was pale green and sweet, but with something sharper that lingered at the back of the throat. It took weeks to finish, and Alice kept her empty bottle standing up beside her brush and comb. When it disappeared, Sarah said she didn’t know anything about it.

  • • •

  In the kitchen Sarah stands by the window, waiting for the tea to steep. The peonies Alice planted are covered with tight, round buds and Sarah knows that it’s only a matter of time before ants appear inside the house, crawling and sneaking into every space. So like her sister, not thinking of anything beyond the scent through the open window.

  Looking past the bushes she sees the Robinsons’ back door open, close, but without her glasses everything is a soft blur and she can’t tell who comes out. They are not known as early risers. She asked Dr. Robinson to speak at a meeting once, but he shook his head and said he didn’t think he’d say what they wanted to hear. When she told Mrs. Beck, she said it was clear there was a great deal of work to do in the town.

  There is a great deal of work to do, and Sarah can hardly remember what life was like before. The ticking of the clock, the chiming; another hour over. Now there are never enough of them in the day. Leaflets to print and distribute, schemes for raising money, always reports to write and meetings to organize. On her counter at Becks’, beside the stylish hats, there is a special wooden rack for their literature, and although it is frequently emptied, the taverns remain open and half the churches still use fermented wine. Her father used to like a glass with dinner, her mother too, and at Christmas he would pour for Sarah and Alice, a mixture that was mostly water. She shudders now to think of it. How those could have been the first steps on the road to ruin. She sees her father’s smiling face, thinks of the hours they spent at this kitchen table, going over plans for the shop, adding up columns of figures, and feels nothing but scorn for that foolish girl.

  • • •

  Alice hears Sarah moving about in her room and knows that she will soon be gone, making her brisk way down the street, the satchel stuffed with pamphlets banging at her leg. She slides her hand under the pillow and it closes around her father’s pocket watch, cool against her palm. Sarah had wanted to sell it; she said they needed every cent, that they had to sell everything that had been his, even the shirts and jackets still holding the shape of his arms. She reached into the wardrobe and their mother began to wail, a piercing sound that grew steadily higher, louder. Pulling at Sarah’s arm and Sarah shook her off and then somehow their mother was on the floor, rolling back and forth, her hair falling over her face and her skirts all twisted. Howling and batting at the girls when they tried to help her up. They stared at each other, wide-eyed. Mother, they said. Mother. But she didn’t hear. Only calming, slowly, when Sarah said over and over, I’ve put them back, I won’t touch them again, everything is just as it was. Just as it was.

  Later, in the kitchen, she said, I can’t find his watch; have you seen his watch? She won’t notice that, and I could get a good price. Alice shook her head, and Sarah said then it must have been stolen, it must have been Lucy that stole it. Another reason to let her go.

  Alice was never allowed to touch the watch, when she was small and captivated by it, but her father would show her each time she asked. How to press down on the stem to pop open the case, the black hand ticking around, his initials engraved, and a date. His mother gave it to him the night before he sailed, along with a brand-new Bible. One of the grandmothers Alice never met. After she had looked at the face, puzzled out the swirling letters on the case, her father would press another spot to open the back, the tiny wheels and gears moving. He told her it must be kept
wound, but she’s afraid to wind it now, in case someone hears the ticking.

  • • •

  When she hears the front door click, Alice swings her feet to the floor. Her head pounds with the movement and she closes her eyes, waiting for it to subside. Remembers her father’s cool hand, his voice saying, It will pass, Alice, and all will be well. She thinks of all the things she heard her father say, through her life, all the words. And she knows that it is a strange and wonderful thing that from all those days and years of words, these are the only ones that bring with them the sound of his voice. All will be well, Alice; she can hear him. All manner of things will be well.

  If she hurried to the front window she would see Sarah, already a small figure, leaning to the right a little with the weight of her scuffed brown satchel. Instead she goes to her own window, looks down at the grass, so green after all the rain, rolling away to the river where threads of white mist still hover. Season of mists, she thinks, but that’s another season entirely.

  If she went to the front window she would also see the little white house, the House of Horror, the newspapers called it. Alice’s mother brought home a story the week after the murders. People in town saying there was something evil in the house itself, old Mrs. Hatch saying, in her rustling voice, that she had always known, could have told them, if anyone ever listened. But many people have lived in that house, Alice said, other families. Her mother stopped, with a hat pin in her hand, said, And didn’t we wonder why they never stayed long?