One Night in Salem

by Amber Newberry

  My meanderings led me through wood and shrub, and along the banks of a small bridged pond. From there I veered abruptly right, dodging a trio of black-clad mourners, for Greenlawn, first and foremost, was a cemetery, though I passed not a single grave. Instead there sprawled, on either side, row upon row of flowerbeds, and from these abounded a riot of many-colored blooms. Never had I seen such resplendence in fall! There were white and purple dahlias, tulips of scarlet and canary yellow, pale blue irises, pink rhododendrons, and still others whose names I had never learned. The ground was soft with poly prim and clusters of sprightly daisies—nature’s velvet pillow upon which I longed to sleep.

  At the far edge of a clearing, I came upon a luxuriant stand of oriental poppies—orange and crimson, with eyes of black silk—and it was beneath their fire-hued heads that I lay my own. I’d close my eyes for a minute—no longer—then hurry directly back to the chapel. But for the creeping embrace of pharmacological bliss, my resolve proved no match. The sun imparted its soporific warmth; the poppies gleamed like fine stained glass beneath a windless sky; somewhere nearby a bumblebee hummed; and I fell with embarrassing swiftness into a childlike slumber.

  When I awoke it was with a start, and it was impossible to tell how much time had elapsed, for upon patting my breast pocket, I discovered my timepiece absent; I had left it in my other waistcoat! Had minutes passed?—hours? The sun’s position hadn’t much shifted; perhaps Polymnia had not yet arrived! The chance was slim, but I must rise and I must try. I was, however, still wobbly and weak as can be, and I’d succeeded only in gaining the height of my knees when a peculiarity drew my eye. The patch of ground to my immediate right was no longer carpeted by soft growing things, as it had certainly been when just moments before I had dosed upon it. In place of the welcoming plant life lay a barren circle of loose grey soil, which even as I stared, spread slowly outward, engulfing the poly prim and the quivering faces of daisies.

  My stupor was pierced by a rousing jolt of terror, but no sooner had I lurched to my feet than the earth beneath them grew soft, and—Lord help me!—it began to sink! Suddenly, I was plunging downward, for a hole had opened to swallow me!—a narrow bottomless maw into which I fell without a sound. I fought wildly as I slipped and slid, down down down!, quickly picking up speed as I went. I kicked and I clawed at the cold earthen walls, desperate to find purchase—a crack or jutting root that might arrest my fall—but the sides of the tunnel were slick as polished stone, and as I plummeted onward, away from sky and warmth and life-giving sun, a desperate panic rose to choke me. I’d slid so far, so deep—however would I find a way to climb back out? The speck of sunlight high above was rapidly shrinking from view, and soon I was blind, hurtling through the frigid dark, the only sounds the constant sough of shifting loam and pebbles, and the frenzied pounding of my own frightened heart.

  After what, to my muddled senses, seemed hours, the tunnel ended abruptly, as does a coal or laundry chute. I sailed briefly through open space, then collided with some surface—flat and unforgiving. Upon attempting to raise myself, I discovered that I could not. My body was impossibly heavy, and the air had grown thin—so devoid of oxygen that, what breaths I managed came in short, wrenching gasps. I would die there, I thought, with a sinking horror—alone amid the grime and the murk and the reek of age-old soil, hundreds of feet below all I knew!

  But…was that not a light seeping in? For, though vague, I could just discern the edges of my surroundings: four square-cut walls and a high arched doorway to my right. It was from this latter portal that the faint glow emanated, and it was with the profoundest surprise that I caught sight of its origin; at the end of the short hallway to which my chamber was adjoined stood a small, flickering gas lamp—the sort that, only ten years prior, had appeared on the corner of every street. Its rays were feeble and tinted an unwholesome subterranean green—and I thought it magnificent to behold! I’d scarcely begun to ponder how and why this beacon of hope had come to be in so unlikely a place, when from a staircase at the end of the hall there emerged a small company of soldiers, their feet stamping time in a slow march toward me.

  Limp as a stunned rabbit I lay, watching their advance, unable to summon the strength to stand nor a sound to attract their notice. They were a troupe of ten or twelve, perhaps, stepping two-by-two, and as they drew nearer, relief gave way to bewilderment and just as quickly to fear; these weren’t like any soldiers I had ever seen! Their uniforms were decades old—the light and dark blues of the Civil War—and their rusted bayonets of a similar antiquity. Nonetheless, I might merely have thought them an uncommonly impoverished unit were it not for the dust—a chalky grey film that cloaked both hair and garments, and their eyes—pale, opaque orbs that stared without seeing—the eyes of the dead! Though my heart thudded wildly at the sight, I kept utterly still, hoping that, oblivious to my presence, they might continue on their way—but this was not to be my luck.

  They filed into the small chamber, surrounding me on all sides. Without a word, cold hands reached down to seize me, grasping at my shoulders, my feet, the wool of my trousers, and I was lifted high and carried off down the hall like a side of lean beef.

  “Don’t touch me!” I managed to shout. “Let me go this instant!” And as we neared the stairs, I was gripped by fresh terror, for they appeared to lead nowhere but down!

  “Worry not, my boy,” said the figure in front, who bore the epaulettes of a colonel. “You’re ill but shall soon be made right.”

  “Please, take me up,” I begged. “I can’t breathe…I can’t breathe!”

  “Poisoned you’ve been, by that pest, oxygen; there’s so much here on twenty-one. We’ll bring you with us down to floor twenty-two, where the purer air will restore you to your proper state.”

  The voice, as it pronounced the words, was hollow—soulless—untouched by any semblance of human feeling, and my pleas were paid no heed.

  At the end of the spiral stair was a lamp-lit tunnel, wider than the first, and at the end of this, my abductors paused. A lock was turned, a door ground open, and I was deposited roughly onto a hard, bare floor. And it was there, on a carpet of niveous grey dust, that I remained—wheezing, for the air had, indeed, grown thinner—and gawping in fright and wonder at that which lay before me.

  I’d been left at the edge of an immense rectangular chamber, cavernous as any opera house, its walls, floor, and vaulted ceiling carved of naught but hard-packed earth. It was lit by the glitter of numerous chandeliers and a veritable forest of tall candelabra, yet the profusion of flickering flame served only to increase the gloom and ghastliness of the place; the faces of the dead are not flattered by candlelight, and of these there were many!

  They lounged; they read; they whispered in pairs and ambled to and fro as the living do. Yet, in the interest of truth, I cannot say that they lived—for their steps were slow and ponderous, their skin a viridescent white, and the low susurrus of their voices as toneless and flat as the monotonous hum of cicadas or bees. Their garb was that of epochs passed; ladies wore bustles or wide hoop skirts, and lace-lined bodices of scandalous decline; gentlemen sported cravats and tailored dress coats, and worn felt hats of every shape and size.

  The left half of the hall was lined with mismatched bookcases of varying heights, their sagging shelves packed with yellowed newspapers and antique tomes. In the center of the makeshift library stood a cluster of rough wooden tables at which rested a handful of dust-bleached scholars—expressionless young men and bespectacled matrons—reading words they must have read a hundred times before.

  Along the wall at the veriest back, was a long copper-topped bar, and it was there that my regiment of soldiers had gone. I could just discern the outline of the Colonel with his feathered Hardee hat and drooping mustaches—and behind him the aproned barkeep—but there was not a single bottle in sight—no glasses!—no mugs!—for the dead do not drink.

  The right side of the hall had been arranged into a sort of salon—a sprawling many-t
oned maze of sofas, armchairs, and hassocks. These were divided by shelves and short tables bearing not books, but dishes and china ornaments and other such trumpery. Young men and women reclined on divans or slumped against plush pillows, their gaunt forms bedecked in velvets, fine silks, and brocades. Dust clung to their artfully sculpted coiffures, to the furniture, to their lace and kid gloved hands—a dust that enveloped all—all but the jewels at the ladies’ throats and the glaucous pallor of countless unblinking eyes.

  The door through which I’d been brought had been locked, and I lay motionless as a rug before it. Should it eventually reopen, I hoped to slip through, and to seek out the upward stair I was sure existed. I wondered if this were Hell, and if indeed it were, for what sin I had been cast below. It was certainly colder than I’d been told, and far quieter—hardly the roiling inferno of scriptural hearsay. I saw no demons, only the spiritless denizens of this living tomb, to whom I remained largely unobserved. Unobserved, that is, until she arrived.

  She loomed like a shadow above me, a slender white-haired lady, tall and noble of feature, in a prim lace gown of indeterminate color. Beneath the mask of dust and age, there was something of the familiar in her countenance—the stubborn lines of the chin, perhaps, or the bellicose arcs of the brows—but I hadn’t time to consider what, for she had found a use for me.

  “Stand,” she commanded. When I could not she seized me by the shirtfront and hauled me upright, her bruise-hued nails grazing my chest. I quailed at her touch, at its abject lack of warmth.

  “Walk,” she said, and I walked. I staggered after her across the salon, toward an unlit archway set into the far wall—an opening that had previously escaped my notice.

  “Come,” she said.

  As I couldn’t make out what lay within, I balked at the order. But when she reached once more to grasp me, I rallied my nerve and stepped through the portal; whatever new horror awaited me, it could not surpass my goose-fleshed loathing for those hands against my skin.

  The chamber we entered was far smaller than the main hall, and to my relief, empty—all but for the walls. These were hung from floor to ceiling with a crowded array of what appeared to be portraits—paintings and photographs, large and small, their origins likely spanning a century. Among them, in silver sconces, tapers burned, casting their guttering glow onto ornate gilt frames. It appeared that the candles, like those in a chapel, were seldom left unlit, for rising beneath each sconce stood grotesque stalagmites of knotty white wax.

  The pale lady stepped nearer the pictures and beckoned me to her side. From a pocket in the folds of her capacious skirt, she drew a dainty feather duster, and, thrusting it toward me, said:

  “Dust them.”

  “No,” I said, for while I dreaded to defy her, and thus provoke her wrath, I was feeling very faint. My chest burned, my head spun, and my knees seemed to have lost their bones; I could not, would not hasten my own demise in the pursuit of idle chores. And idle this would assuredly be, for nowhere on any of the gleaming images did I detect a speck of dust.

  “Dust them,” she repeated, and when I made no move to obey, she took my hand in hers and closed it about the duster’s handle. I drew back in revulsion, every hair on my hide mounting vertical protest, and a realization dawning that, should I continue to refuse, there would certainly be consequences. The lady’s voice had remained constant, betraying no hint of emotion, but for an instant there had shown an earnestness in her movements, and a crease of affront in her brow. This room, I sensed, was held in reverence, and in regarding the faces of the subjects, I soon perceived the reason. Those immortalized in paint and print were none other than the dust dwellers themselves, alive as they once had been!

  Some sat demurely in their Sunday best, while others bore props of their worldly pursuits— of the journey and the hunt, of games to be played and battles to be won. Here was a haughty young gentleman atop a sleek brown horse, and a bearded squire with a wine glass in hand, his desk strewn with gadgets and maps. And there, a young lady with a violin, and nearby a girl cradling her pup. There were socialites and scholars and sailors with whaling hooks and couples seated in affectionate closeness, proud parents surrounded by children and soldiers in sharp new uniforms—and there!—there was the Colonel with his drooping mustaches, carefully rendered in oils! His cheeks had been flush with ruddy good health, and his eyes had burned a cloudless green.

  A poignant sadness filled my breast as I stood before the portraits; once they’d been as I was, these pitiable creatures at whose very sight I shuddered! They’d loved and laughed, hoped and planned; they’d wept; they’d fought; they’d sailed the high seas and courted intrigue and danger. Now in the stifling dust they languished, twenty-two floors below, with naught but repetition to occupy their days—but in this room from which Time had been banished, the memory of what was endured. This was no mere gallery. It was a shrine to the remnants of their former selves—a holy temple, built by the dead to the honor of the glorious living! I stepped forward and began to dust.

  The Pale Lady stood silently by, observing my work like a stern schoolmarm, and I wondered what her lot had been, her name, and whom she’d loved. If there remained a free thought behind that vacuous stare, I detected no evidence of it.

  My progress was slow, interrupted often by fits of acute dizziness and wheezing. I would soon join the ranks of the dust folk, I feared, expecting each shallow breathe to be my last. I had all but finished the first of the four walls—a task which seemed to occupy the better part of an hour—when I came upon the thing that turned my blood to ice. It was the final image on the right—a large, gaudily framed photograph of a young couple in the stiff-backed pose and formal attire of the newly wedded. She was a fair-haired beauty, with brows upraised in perpetual disapproval, and a chin that did not compromise; he was little more than a gawky long-limbed boy, with lazy blue eyes and a careless tangle of mouse-brown curls. He was I—and his bride my own Polymnia!

  Aghast, I turned away—and received a second shock. Between the features of the ever-watchful Pale Lady, and those of my betrothed I now beheld an eerie similarity; and though they were not—could not be!—one and the same, I was nonetheless unsettled profoundly. It seemed a premonition of sorts, a harbinger of what was to come, and I could not help but envision Polymnia—beautiful passionless Polymnia, who stood many years from death, but just as far from life.

  “Dust the portraits,” said the Pale Lady, pointing toward the wall behind me.

  “No!” I cried, and I flung the duster at her feet.

  “Dust the portraits!” she hissed, her eyes narrowing with malice—and, as I held my ground, firm in my rebellion, the refrain became a chant: “Dust…the…portraits, dust…the…portraits, dust…the…portraits!”

  Soon, from the hall outside, another sound arose—the ghostly murmur of countless voices, droning along in unison. Nearer and nearer they drew, until the very air buzzed with their words: “Dust…the…portraits! Dust…the…portraits!” Shadows darkened the entrance, and with slow mechanical steps, the dead poured through. They filled the room, a ceaseless stream of dust-clad bodies—each bloodless face and milk-white eye turned toward me in accusation!

  The Pale Lady knelt and retrieved the duster, extending it forward in an offer of truce—one final invitation to conform, to submit to the will of the outraged mass—or else.

  “Dust the portraits.”

  “No!” I shouted, my own anger rising. “No, no, no, no!” And without hope or reason, I tore the offending portrait from the wall and held it high. Their chant ceased; for a moment a baleful quiet reigned; and, in one last remaining burst of strength, I threw the image down onto the hard earth floor, and the shatter of glass resounded throughout. I saw the crowd surge forward, incensed at my brazen sacrilege—saw a sea of hands outstretch to seize me, pale and writhing, like the innumerable appendages of some aquatic beast. Then, without warning, I saw nothing at all.

  I awoke in partial darkness, stiff fro
m cold and inertia, but as far as I could tell, alive. As conscious thought returned, my first assumption was that I had fainted, and that, rather than simply ending me, my captors had locked me away in some little-used corner of their compound. But no, that wasn’t quite right, for this darkness was different. A cool breeze ruffled my hair and I breathed deeply of the brisk fresh air, scented not of dust and ancient soil, but of leaves and damp green grass; it was the darkness of terrestrial night!

  A heady relief swept over me, sweet as the balm of the angels, for there overhead hung the plump shining face of the harvest moon! The hour could not be very late; along the horizon there remained a warm pink glow as when the sun has only just sunk behind it. Yet…when I’d wandered forth that morning and lain down among the flowerbeds, it had been not quite 11 o’clock! Why, I’d slept the day away!—slept and dreamed. Had they truly been the crop of a drugged imagination, those beings beneath the earth?

  Clumsily, I stood, squinting through the lingering haze of nightmare. In the gathering gloom, I could just make out the lines of my surroundings; gone were the dahlias and the tulips, the irises and rhododendrons! In their place stood row upon row of slim crooked gravestones, rising like teeth from an expanse of bare lawn! Beneath the narcotic thrall of Dr. Badger’s brew, my eyes had shown me false—and I had fallen asleep in the cemetery!

  I made directly for the road, which I was sure lay somewhere to my left, and it wasn’t long before a voice reached my ears—the hoarse, throaty shouts of a woman.

  “Edwin!…Edwin!…”

  It was the voice of my jilted bride. Through the trees, I spied her shapely form, marching up the track toward the chapel.

  “Polymnia!” I cried, crashing forth from the shrubbery.

  “Edwin?” She was holding an ungainly antique lantern, and this she raised toward me suspiciously. Her hair was pinned high in a heavy knot of palest gold, and while she’d thrown a dark woolen wrap about her shoulders, from beneath still peeked her bridal whites. She was so good, I thought—so pretty and devoted! For me, she’d trekked by night through Greenlawn’s grounds—alone no less, and very probably in secret. I believed, for a moment, that I loved her, and that a life passed in the company of such a woman might not be a wasted one after all.