Crackpot Palace

by Jeffrey Ford

  One evening, he went to her shack to fetch the second bottle of her whiskey and fell asleep on her bed. In the morning there was a visitor in the church when he went in to shovel. A young man sat in the first pew. He wore a bow tie and white shirt, and even though it was in the heart of the summer season, a jacket as well. His hair was perfectly combed. Father Walter showed him behind the altar and they sat sipping whiskey well into the afternoon as the young man spoke his sermon. The father had heard it all before, but one thing caught his interest. In the midst of a tale of sorrows, the boy spoke about a place he’d visited in the north where one of the attractions was a fish with a human face.

  Father Walter halted the sermon and asked, “Lord Jon?”

  “The same,” said the young man. “An enormous Plum fish.”

  “I’d heard he’d been killed, shot by the father of the girl whose leg he’d severed.”

  “Nonsense. There are so many fanciful stories told of this remarkable fish. What is true, something I witnessed, the scientists are training Lord Jon to speak. I tipped my hat to him at the Aquarium and he said, in a voice as clear as day, ‘How do you do?’ ”

  “You’ve never heard of a connection between Saint Ifritia and the fish?” asked Father Walter.

  The young man took a sip, cocked his head, and thought. “Well, if I may speak frankly . . .”

  “You must, we’re in a church,” said the father.

  “What I remember of Saint Ifritia from Monday Afternoon Club is that she was a prostitute who was impregnated by the Lord. As her time came to give birth, her foot darkened and fell off just above the ankle and the child came out through her leg, the head appearing where the foot had been. The miracle was recorded by Charles the Bald. The boy grew up to be some war hero, a colonel in the war for the country of rain.”

  The young man left as the sun was going down and the sky was red. Father Walter had enjoyed talking to him, learning of the exploits of the real Lord Jon, but some hint of fear in the young man’s expression said the poor fellow was headed all the way to the end, and then one more step into oblivion. That night the father sat in the churchyard near the bell and didn’t drink, but pictured Sister North, struggling upward through the clouds to the beginning of the world. He wished they were in his bed, listening to the wind and the cries of the beach owl. He’d tell her the young man’s version of the life of Saint Ifritia. They’d talk about it till dawn.

  For the longest time, Father Walter gave up writing sermons. With the way everything had transpired, the theft of the toe, the absence of Sister North, he felt it would be better for the world if he held his tongue and simply listened. Then deep in one autumn season when snow had already fallen, he decided to leave the sand dune valley and go to see the ocean. He feared the ghost of the driver every step beyond the rim but slowly continued forward. Eventually he made his way over the dunes to the beach and sat at the water’s edge. Watching the waves roll in, he gave himself up to his plans to finally set forth in search of Sister North. He thought for a long time until his attention was diverted by a fish brought before him in the surf. He looked up, startled by it. When he saw its violet color, he knew immediately what it was.

  The fish opened its mouth and spoke. “A message from my liege, Lord Jon. He’s told me to tell you he’d overheard a wonderful conversation with your Sister North at the Aquarium restaurant one evening a few years ago, and she wanted to relay the message to you that you should write a new sermon for her.”

  Father Walter was stunned at first by the talking fish, but after hearing what it had to say, he laughed. “Very well,” he said and lifted the fish and helped it back into the waves. When he turned to head toward the church, the driver stood before him, a vague phantom, bowing slightly and proffering with both hands a ghostly foot. “Miracles . . .” said a voice in the wind. The father was determined to walk right through the spirit if need be. He set off at a quick pace toward the sand dune valley. Just as he thought he would collide with the ethereal driver, the fellow turned and walked, only a few feet ahead of him, just as they had walked through the dark forest in rain country. In the wind, the holy man heard the words, “I get ten yards, do I not?” repeated again and again, and he knew that if he’d had the pistol in his hand, he’d have fired it again and again.

  With a sudden shiver, he finally passed through the halted ghost of the driver and descended the tall dune toward the church. The words in the wind grew fainter. By the time he reached the church door and looked back the driver was nowhere to be seen along the rim of the valley. He went immediately to his room, took off his coat, poured a glass of whiskey, and sat at his desk. Lifting his pen, he scratched across the top of a sheet of paper the title, “Every Grain of Sand, a Minute.”

  When he finished writing the sermon it was late in the night, and well in his cups, he decided on the spot to deliver it. Stumbling and mumbling, he went around the church and lit candles, fired up the pots of wisteria incense. As he moved through the shadows, the thought came to him that with the harsh cold of recent days, even the sand fleas, fast asleep in hibernation, would not be listening. He gathered up the pages of the sermon and went to the altar. He cleared his throat, adjusted the height of the pages to catch the candlelight, and began.

  “Every grain of sand a minute,” he said in a weary voice. With that phrase out, there immediately came a rapping at the church door. He looked up and froze. His first thought was of the driver. The rapping came again and he yelled out, “Who’s there?”

  “A traveler with news from Sister North,” called a male voice. Father Walter left the altar and ran down the aisle to the door. He pushed it open and said, “Come in, come in.” A tall man stepped out of the darkness and into the church’s glow. Seeing the stranger’s height, he remembered the driver’s, and took a sudden step backward. It wasn’t the ghost, though, it was a real man with thick sideburns, a serious gaze, a top hat. He carried a small black bag. “Thank you,” he said and removed his overcoat and gloves, handing them to Father Walter. “I was lost among the dunes and then I saw a faint light issuing up from what appeared in the dark to be a small crater. I thought a falling star had struck the earth.”

  “It’s just the church of Saint Ifritia,” said the father. “You have news of Sister North?”

  “Yes, Father, I have a confession to make.”

  Father Walter led the pilgrim to the front pew and motioned for the gentleman to sit while he took a seat on the steps of the altar. “Okay,” he said, “out with it.”

  “My name is Ironton,” said the gentleman, removing his hat and setting it and his black bag on the seat next to him. “I’m a traveling businessman,” he said. “My work takes me everywhere in the world.”

  “What is your business?” asked the father.

  “Trade,” said Ironton. “And that’s what I was engaged in at Hotel Lacrimose, up in the north country. I was telling an associate at breakfast one morning that I had plans to travel next to the end of the world. The waitress, who’d just then brought our coffee, introduced herself and begged me, since I was traveling to the end of the world, to bring you a message.”

  “Sister North is a waitress?”

  “She’d sadly run out of funds, but intended to continue on to the beginning of the world once she’d saved enough money. In any event, I was busy at the moment, having to run off to close a deal, and I couldn’t hear her out. I could, though, sense her desperation, and so I suggested we meet that night for dinner at the Aquarium.

  “We met in that fantastic dining hall, surrounded by hundred-foot-high glass tanks populated by fierce leviathans and brightly colored swarms of lesser fish. There was a waterfall at one end of the enormous room and a man-made river that ran nearly its entire length with a small wooden bridge arching up over the flow in one spot to offer egress to either side of the dining area. We dined on fez-menuth flambé and consumed any number of bottles of sparkling lilac water. She told me her tale, your tale, about the sacred foot in y
our possession.

  “Allow me to correct for you your impressions of Saint Ifritia. This may be difficult, but being a rationalist, I’m afraid I can only offer you what I perceive to be the facts. This Saint Ifritia, whose foot you apparently have, was more a folk hero than a religious saint. To be frank, she went to the grave with both feet. She never lost a foot by any means. She was considered miraculous for no better reason or no lesser than because she was known to frequently practice small acts of human kindness for friends and often strangers. Her life was quiet, small, but I suppose, no less heroic in a sense. Her neighbors missed her when she passed on and took to referring to her as Saint Ifritia. It caught on and legends attached themselves to her memory like bright streamers on a humble hay wagon.”

  “The foot is nothing?” asked Father Walter.

  “It’s an old rotten foot,” said Ironton.

  “What did Sister North say to your news?”

  Ironton looked down and clasped his hands in his lap. “This is where I must offer my confession,” he said.

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “The story of her search for the missing toe was so pathetic, I didn’t have the heart to tell her the facts. And yet, still, I was going to. But just as I was about to speak, beside our table, from out of the man-made river, their surfaced an enormous purple fish with a human face. It bobbed on the surface, remaining stationary in the flow, and its large eyes filled with tears. Its gaze pierced my flesh and burrowed into my heart to turn off my ability to tell Sister North her arduous search had been pointless.”

  Father Walter shook his head in disgust. “What is it she wanted you to tell me?”

  “She wants you to write a sermon for her,” said Ironton.

  “Yes,” said the father, “the news preceded you. I finished it this evening just before your arrival.”

  “Well,” said the businessman, “I do promise, should I see her on my return trip, I will tell her the truth, and give her train fare home.”

  For the remaining hours of the night, Father Walter and his visitor sat in the church and drank whiskey. In their far-flung conversation, Ironton admitted to being a great collector of curios and oddities. In the morning, when the businessman was taking his leave, the father wrapped up the foot of Saint Ifritia in its original soiled towel and bestowed it upon his guest. “For your collection,” he said. “Miracles.”

  They laughed and Ironton received the gift warmly. Then, touching his index finger and thumb to the brim of his hat, he bowed slightly, and disappeared up over the rim of the dune.

  More time passed. Every grain of sand, a minute. Days, weeks, seasons. Eventually, one night, Father Walter woke from troubling dreams to find Sister North in bed beside him. At first, he thought he was still dreaming. She was smiling, though, and her cat eyes caught what little light pervaded his room and glowed softly. “Is it you?” he asked.

  “Almost,” she said, “but I’ve left parts of me between here and the beginning of the world.”

  “A toe?”

  Sister North’s Sermon

  No, only pieces of my spirit, torn out by pity, shame, guilt, and fear. I tracked Mina GilCragson. She’s no scholar, but an agent from a ring of female thieves who specialize in religious relics. The toe was sent along the secret Contraband Road, north to the beginning of the world. I traveled that road, packing a pistol and cutlass. And I let the life out of certain men and women who thought they had some claim on me. I slept at the side of the road in the rain and snow. I climbed the rugged path into the cloud country.

  In the thin atmosphere of the Haunted Mountains, I’d run out of food and was starving. Unfortunately for him, an old man, heading north, leading a donkey with a heavy load, was the first to pass my ambush. I told him I wanted something to eat, but he went for his throwing dagger, and I was forced to shoot him in the face. I freed the donkey of its burden and went through the old man’s wares. I found food, some smoked meat, leg bones of cattle, and pickled Plum fish. While I ate I inspected the rest of the goods, and among them I discovered a small silver box. I held it up, pressed a hidden latch on the bottom, and the top flipped back. A mechanical plinking music, the harmony of Duesgruel’s Last Movement, played, and I beheld the severed toe.

  I had it in my possession and I felt the spirit move through me. All I wanted was to get back to the church. Taking as much of the booty from the donkey’s pack as I could carry, I traveled to the closest city. There I sold my twice-stolen treasures and was paid well for them. I bought new clothes and took a room in a fine place, the Hotel Lacrimose.

  I spent a few days and nights at the amazing hotel, trying to relax before beginning the long journey home. One afternoon while sitting on the main veranda, watching the clouds twirl, contemplating the glory of Saint Ifritia, I made the acquaintance of an interesting gentleman. Mr. Ironton was his name and he had an incredible memory for historical facts and interesting opinions on the news of the day. Having traveled for years among paupers and thieves, I was unused to speaking with someone as intelligent as Ironton. We had a delightful conversation. Somewhere in his talk, he mentioned that he was traveling to the end of the world. At our parting, he requested that I join him for dinner at the Aquarium that evening.

  That night at dinner, I told Ironton our story. I showed him the toe in its small silver case. He lifted the thing to his nose and announced that he smelled wild violets. But then he put the toe on the table between us and said, “This Saint Ifritia you speak of. It has recently been discovered by the Holy of the Holy See that she is in fact a demon, not a saint. She’s a powerful demon. I propose you allow me to dispose of that toe for you. Every minute you have it with you you’re in terrible danger.” He nodded after speaking.

  I told him, “No, thank you. I’ll take my chances with it.”

  “You’re a brave woman, Ms. North,” he said. “Now what was the message you had for your Father Walter?”

  As I told him that I wanted you to know I was on my way and to write a sermon for me, an enormous violet fish with a human face rose out of the water of the decorative river next to our table that ran through the restaurant. It startled me. Its face was repulsive. I recalled your telling me something about a giant Plum fish, Lord Jon, and I spoke the name aloud. “At your service,” the fish said and then dove into the flow. When I managed to overcome my shock at the fish’s voice, I looked back to the table and discovered both Ironton and the toe had vanished.

  I had it and I lost it. I felt the grace of Saint Ifritia for a brief few days at the Hotel Lacrimose and then it was stolen away. I’ve wondered all along my journey home if that’s the best life offers.

  Sister North yawned and turned on her side. “And what of the foot? Is it safe?” she asked.

  He put his arm around her. “No,” he said. “Some seasons back I was robbed at gunpoint. A whole troop of bandits on horses. They took everything. I begged them to leave the foot. I explained it was a holy relic, but they laughed and told me they would cook it and eat it on the beach that night. It’s gone.”

  “I’m so tired,” she said. “I could sleep forever.”

  Father Walter drew close to her, closed his eyes, and listened to the sand sifting in through the walls.

  A Note About “Relic”

  Although this story may, like the previous one, seem to have something to do with religion, it’s really more a story about faith. It appeared in The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists, edited by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer. What’s nice about writing fiction for the VanderMeers is that it goes without saying that the weird, the idiosyncratic, is always warmly welcome. In this particular instance, Jeff told me not to worry about the length of the story but to “go long” if I liked, and I did. “Relic” was inspired by my reading of the book Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World’s Holy Dead by Peter Manseau, a fascinating study that details the myths, legends, and crazy true-life stories beh
ind the remains of saints and the sacred from many religions. Besides Manseau’s work, I have to admit, I also lifted the idea of a scene from Richard Bausch’s great World War II novel, Peace, a book I highly recommend. “Relic” is one of two or maybe more stories in my collection that deals with an errant foot, but then Crackpot Palace has many secret passageways that connect its rooms, so that two tales told in different styles and seeming to have different concerns might actually be secretly linked through image or idea.

  Glass Eels

  Between a spreading magnolia and a forest of cattails that ran all the way to the estuary stood Marty’s dilapidated studio. The walls were damp, and low-tide stink mixed with turpentine and oils. It was late on a Saturday night in early March. They drank beer and passed a joint. Len spoke of insomnia, a recent murder out on Money Island, and a buck he’d seen with pitch-black antlers. Marty told about a huge snake on the outside of the studio window and then showed Len his most recent paintings—local landscapes and a series of figures called Haunted High School.

  “That chick looks dead,” said Len, pointing at a canvas with a pale girl in a cheerleading outfit, smoking a cigarette. In the background loomed an abandoned factory, busted glass and crumbling brick. A smokestack.

  “She’s haunted,” said Marty. “I gotta sell a couple of these in the next gallery show in Milville on Third Friday. I need enough to fix the roof. We’re fuckin’ broke.”