—
Decisions had to be made. Where would Martha be buried? We were only in our forties, we’d never discussed the particulars of our deaths. I knew Martha would not want a religious service and she’d want to be buried somewhere beautiful. I chose the meadow that abutted our backyard. In the spring it would be full of poppies.
At first I was remarkably clear-headed. Driven by tasks. Fancy and Eleanor washed and dressed her body. Magnusson made a beautiful coffin out of walnut.
There was a service. People wept. People paid tribute. I did not. My sorrow was a private thing. Each night I grieved behind the closed bedroom door. I allowed myself one week of this emotional indulgence, then I packed Martha’s things away: her clothes, her lotions, her knickknacks. I left virtually nothing in the bedroom but the bed, a side table, and the washstand.
The weeks crept by. The moon waned and waxed. Lux did not come. I was disappointed, but not surprised. She’d accidentally stayed through the Greengage full moon, and while she’d done so, time had most likely accelerated on the other side of the fog. She would have had no idea what she was walking into, how much time would have passed. Even if it was only a month she’d been gone, she’d have to account for where she’d been. Had she told her family about us? Had she given away our secret? I found myself not caring either way.
A second month went by; it passed even more slowly than the first. I’d thought I’d have acclimated to Martha’s death by now, but grief was a tapeworm, relentlessly burrowing its way inside me. Every night, when I finally drifted off to sleep, I’d forget she’d died. In my dreams we’d meet and have ordinary conversations that felt utterly real. The calendula was late to flower. What a lovely, surprising August rain. Would I like a biscuit, some jam for my toast, some peppermint tea? And when I woke in the morning, I would have to remember that she was gone.
Greengage had slipped out of time; now I slipped out of time, too, incapable of anchoring myself to anything.
—
Nine months. Nine full moons. No sign of Lux. I was desperate to see her now, convinced she was the only one who might be able to bring me back, to fasten me again to the hours. The night Martha died was a bullet, lodged in my chest. I hadn’t spoken of it to anybody, not to Friar, who’d been there, not to Magnusson, my closest friend, not even to Fancy, who was now eight months pregnant. I knew the bullet needed to be excised, but the only person I felt safe excising it with was Lux. I had to go back to that night, relive it in order to put distance between myself and the experience. Until I did, I’d be stuck in that moment, watching her die over and over again.
A storm’s coming.
I was haunted by Martha’s last words.
—
On the morning after the tenth full moon, Lux walked into the dining hall with a boy. His skin was a few shades darker than hers, his hair a mass of black curls. He wore a puzzled look on his face. I knew immediately it was Benno.
I felt both happiness and fury at the sight of her. I’d thought I might never see her again. I thought she might have abandoned us, abandoned me. I would not have been able to withstand that. Where had she been? Why had she taken so long to come back?
“How long has it been?” asked Lux.
Our positions had been reversed. Normally I was the one asking her how much time had gone by in the outside world.
“Ten months,” I said.
Lux winced. “Jesus. Joseph, I’m sorry.” She gave me a beseeching look, letting me know there was much to be said but our conversation would have to wait. First things first. This startled young man.
She put her hand on the child’s back. “This is Benno. Benno, this is my good friend Joseph.”
“Why are you dressed like that?” asked the boy. He looked around the dining hall. “Why are you all dressed like that? What is this place?”
Lux smiled at him. “Welcome to Greengage, sweetheart.”
His mouth fell open.
“You didn’t tell him where you were bringing him?” I asked.
“Not exactly.”
“This is where you were, Mom? This place? For a year?”
So a year had passed when she’d stayed through the full moon. Her life must have been in complete and utter disarray when she got home. Now I understood why this boy was standing in front of me. There would have been no way to explain where she’d been other than bringing him here.
“What do you know about us?” I asked him.
“That you’re a commune.”
“We are not a commune. We’re a working farm—”
Lux sighed. “Okay, Benno. I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but you know how in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lucy goes through the wardrobe and it’s not an ordinary wardrobe, it leads to Narnia? To another world? Well, this is the same. Only the fog is like the wardrobe and Greengage is what’s on the other side. Only Greengage isn’t really another world. It’s our world, just—”
Brevity had never been Lux’s strong suit. “Young man, it’s 1908 here. Nineteen seventy-nine—”
“It’s 1981 back home, Joseph,” Lux said, shrugging, as if to soften the blow.
Nineteen eighty-one? Another two years had passed? Was there anything that I could count on?
Benno looked from me to his mother and back to me again. “Why is it only 1908?”
“Because we got stuck here,” I said.
“Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, do you like being stuck?”
“No, we don’t like being stuck.”
“Then why don’t you leave?” he asked.
My head pulsed, the beginning of a migraine. The sun was far too bright.
“You’ll have to pardon me. I’m not feeling well at the moment.” I could barely converse about normal things like crops and weather, never mind be expected to indoctrinate another stranger into our situation in Greengage.
“Ask Fancy. She’ll explain everything,” I said.
I caught my sister’s eye; she nodded, got up from the table, and approached us.
“She’s pregnant!” gasped Lux. “Fancy’s pregnant?”
I left the dining hall. A few minutes later Lux came running after me.
“I had no choice. I knew he wouldn’t believe it until he saw it,” she said.
All I wanted was to retreat back to the house. I’d been waiting for months. I needed her to attend to me. I’d forgotten she’d have needs as well.
“Joseph, please. I never stopped thinking about you, about Greengage, but I couldn’t return. Benno was living with my parents in Newport. It was so terrible. It took me a year to get him back. He’s just come home and we came straight here. You can trust him. He won’t tell anybody about you, I swear.”
“This is not some sideshow. We are not animals in a zoo.”
Her face collapsed, and even though I felt guilty—Lux was the last person in the world who would exploit us—I couldn’t control my emotions.
“I would never—you’ve never…,” she stammered.
“Go back to your son,” I said harshly.
But she didn’t have to go back. Fancy brought him to us. So I was forced to listen as Lux told Benno our story.
She began on April 18, 1906, the morning of the earthquake. She told him how the wall of fog had encircled us. She explained in detail about the full moon nights. How time sped up. And she ended with her fatal mistake, accidentally staying through the full moon.
“I was on my way back to you. I was leaving the night before the full moon. I thought I had plenty of time,” she said to Benno. “But I didn’t.”
I registered Lux’s omission. She hadn’t used Martha’s death as an excuse. Once again, I was overcome with guilt. I wasn’t fit to be in public.
“I’m very glad you’re finally here,” said Fancy, holding out a hand to Benno. “We’ve been waiting for you a long time.”
“You have?” The boy’s cheeks grew pink with pleasure.
&nb
sp; Thank God for my sister, doing my job, taking over for me, making the boy feel welcome.
“Certainly. We knew your mother was bringing you, we just didn’t know when. We’ve got your bedroom all set up,” she said.
Lux flashed Fancy a grateful smile.
“I have a bedroom?” Benno asked.
“Of course. But I imagine you’re hungry. Shall we get a bite at the dining hall before I take you to the house?”
“What kind of food do you have at the dining hall?”
“Pancakes. Bacon. Cornbread. If you’re lucky, some of yesterday’s leftover rhubarb pie.”
Fancy led Benno back across the meadow.
I was torn. Should I go with Joseph or should I stay with Benno? Benno was putting on a good face as Fancy brought him from table to table, introducing him, but I knew he must be stunned. I’d just told him he’d traveled back to 1908. What must he be thinking?
“Go,” said Joseph, making the decision for me.
“Are you sure? You’re okay?”
“It didn’t happen yesterday. It’s been ten months, Lux,” he snapped. “How long are you here for?”
Oh God, he was furious. In the years that I’d known him, I’d seen him worried, anxious, despairing, but never enraged. Was I responsible for this? Had I failed him?
“How long?” he repeated.
“Just the afternoon.”
Should I have tried to make it back to Greengage? For a brief check-in, just to let him know I was there, I was thinking about him, I hadn’t forgotten about him?
He gave me a clipped nod.
“Can we talk later?” I asked. “After Benno’s settled?”
He shrugged. And that shrug—his attempt to look as if he couldn’t care less—told me everything. How bottomless his grief. How broken he still was.
“I stayed away too long,” I said.
He looked at me, his eyes pooling. “I am—” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I know,” I whispered. “I know. Me too.”
—
I trailed Fancy as she showed Benno around the kitchen and got him a plate piled high with his favorite breakfast foods. The dining hall quickly emptied out.
“Where are they all going?” asked Benno.
“To work,” said Fancy.
“What kind of work?”
“They have all sorts of different crews, Benno,” I explained. “Kitchen, garden, animals, building, fields. That’s just some of them. You can choose wherever you want to work.”
“Come be on my crew,” said Fancy. “Entertainment.” She winked at him. “It’s the best crew. You don’t have to get all mucky. I’m thinking about mounting a play. Much Ado About Nothing. Yes, I know Shakespeare is ambitious, but I’m certain we will rise to the occasion. You would make a lovely Don Pedro, Benno, by the way. You’re a little young, but I think you could pull it off. With the proper costume you’d be rather dashing.”
“How far along are you?” I asked Fancy.
“Eight months.”
“And how are you feeling?”
She beamed. “Good. Better than good, actually.” Her hands drifted down to her belly.
“I’m so happy for you!” I cried.
Fancy nodded at me and swayed back and forth, as if listening to some internal music.
She smiled at Benno. “My, you are a handsome young man. Look at that face. So expressive. Tailor made for the stage. So. Will you join my crew?”
“I don’t think we’ll be here that long,” I said.
Fancy pouted.
“Please, Mom. Can we stay? Just for a while,” Benno pleaded.
If I had any misgivings about him being able to handle the reality of Greengage, they were rapidly diminishing. He looked positively gleeful as he shoveled a big piece of pancake into his mouth. I remembered what it was like to be his age. How I courted impossibility, as if it were only a matter of seducing it, convincing it to come out of hiding and reveal itself to me. It was the same for Benno. He had a satisfied, almost smug look on his face, as if something had been resolved.
“Benno, do you have any questions?” I asked.
Déjà vu. That long-ago day at the airport. Mama, I’m busy. Doing what? Leaving.
He shook his head.
“Let the poor boy eat,” said Fancy.
—
After breakfast, Fancy and I brought Benno back to the house and gave him a quick tour. Then Fancy passed him off to Magnusson, who immediately put him on a horse. We sat on the porch while they trotted by, Benno’s expression shifting between terror and joy as he struggled to keep his seat.
“Isn’t that horse too big for him?”
“A baby could ride Apollo,” said Fancy.
“Where are they going?”
“Who knows? Up to the springhouse? Lars has been doing maintenance up there all week.”
“Should I go with them?”
“Whatever for?”
“I’m just—shouldn’t I be there when Benno experiences all this for the first time? See what he sees? See how he reacts?”
“How do you think he’ll react?”
“I don’t know. I hope it’s a positive experience for him.”
“What was it like for you?”
“Good. Centering.”
“Do you feel that way at home?”
“Sometimes.”
I gazed out at the lawn. Martha’s flower clock was completed—every section planted.
“You finished. You found the flower for the eleventh section,” I said.
“Joseph found it. It’s sweet alyssum,” she said.
I could smell it even from the porch. Its scent was like newly mown hay mixed with honey.
“And it works? Each flower opens on the hour?”
“I guess. To be honest, I don’t spend a lot of time watching it. It reminds me too much of Martha.”
“So how have these months been for you?” I asked gently.
“Oh, Lux. It’s still impossible to believe that Martha’s not coming back. I keep expecting to come round a corner and hear her voice.” Fancy flinched and grabbed my hand. “Golly, she just kicked. Feel.” She pressed my palm to her belly, which rippled beneath my fingers.
She groaned. “I’m scared to death of giving birth. I told Friar he should knock me out. I just want to wake up when it’s over. Is that terrible? Does that make me a terrible mother?”
“No. I had anesthesia when Benno was born.”
“You did?”
“Yep. And he turned out just fine.”
Fancy turned to me. “I don’t know if Joseph’s going to get past this, Lux. He won’t speak about it. About Martha. I can barely get him out of the house. It’s like he’s just given up. And we need him. I need him. I need my brother.”
“I think you just have to give him some time,” I said.
“I know. I know I do.”
“But you’re afraid.”
“Yes.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That I’ve lost him—that we’ve lost him for good. Maybe you being here will help,” she said.
—
Everything about Greengage fascinated Benno: the lanterns, the outhouses, Magnusson’s workshop, the one-room schoolhouse with the Walt Whitman quote painted on the wall. I was shocked at how nonchalantly he took it all in.
“Benno, isn’t this weird for you?”
“Nah.”
“You just believe all this? The fog? That it’s 1908 here? Just like that?”
I expected him to test things. Demand proof, as I had when I first came.
“I thought you’d be happy,” he said to me. “Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to see where you’d disappeared to for a year?”
That stung. “A night, Benno. I stayed one extra night here in Greengage.”
His eyes narrowed. “But that one night was a year in San Francisco.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Benno. It was so hideous, not being able to explain. H
aving you think I’d just abandoned you.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
I sighed. “I wanted to. I tried, sort of. When I came to Newport.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t try very hard.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I guess—I was afraid.”
“To share this with me?” He looked wounded.
“No, sweetheart. I was afraid of what this place would ask of you.”
“What will it ask of me?”
“It will ask you to split yourself in two. Because now that you know about Greengage, you’ll always live a sort of double life. And there’s no way to unknow it, no way to take it back. You’ll reside in two worlds now. Half past. Half future. That’s your new life. Our new life.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“I won’t lie. Often, it’s a difficult thing,” I said. “But incredible.”
“Benno!” a girl’s voice cried out.
Benno looked impatiently over my shoulder.
Miss Russell had introduced Benno to a group of kids his age, and now they were all going swimming. It was barely spring. The creek must be freezing, but they were children, they didn’t care.
“Mom, can we spend the night? Please? I have a bedroom and everything.”
It was Saturday and I had the weekend off—potentially we could.
“I’ll think about it.”
He sprinted off.
—
I finally caught up with Joseph in the parlor just before dinner. He stared at me vacantly.
“I brought you something,” I said. “It’s called a Walkman.”
Joseph examined the black and silver square, turned it over in his hands.
“The batteries will last for a while. At least through the month. Provided you don’t listen to it nonstop.”
I popped it open and slid in a cassette of the Beatles’ greatest hits from 1967 to 1970. I handed him the headphones and showed him how to put them on.
“Ready?” I asked.
He nodded and I pressed Play. I’d cued the tape up to “Let It Be.” The music leaked out of the headphones—I listened alongside him.
When the song ended and he slid off the headphones, tears were streaming down both our faces.
“I can’t—” he said to me, “get out of that goddamned room.”
Valley of the Moon Page 25
