House of Echoes: A Novel

by Brendan Duffy

  Caroline liked the way Ben walked the university’s halls and paths with a slight smile, how he tended to wear a scarf but not a jacket when the season started to turn. They began dating during their junior year, and Caroline had understood at once that Ben was different from her other boyfriends. More thoughtful and understanding. He listened. A man and not a boy, she thought—finally. Boys had demanded much from her. They needed to be entertained, they needed to be impressed, they needed to think that she needed them. Being with Ben had never felt like work. He was someone with whom she could be quiet, and yet he also made her laugh. For twelve years they had laughed so much. Twelve years of that—and the boys. She hadn’t always thought it, but she’d known all along how lucky she was.

  Bipolar had been her psychiatrist’s diagnosis. She was told that the disease sometimes lay dormant like bulbs of spring flowers in the cold earth, awaiting the right conditions to sprout. For Caroline, the hormones from her pregnancy with Bub combined with the stress of losing her job had been the soil in which her condition had blossomed.

  Between the diagnosis and her unemployment, Caroline had found herself spending more time with Ben than she had in many years. They’d had such busy lives that it had seemed a new thing to idle together, and she began to notice the changes that had accrued over the years. Her husband was not the way she remembered him.

  She’d never paid attention to how Ben looked when he wrote, but now she had little more to do than study him. The way his face would tighten and then slacken, the way he would silently mouth the words written by him but spoken by another. Sometimes he’d fire an expression at the screen that she’d never before seen on his face.

  Dr. Hatcher told her that this was simple paranoia, something that she had to be vigilant for. Nevertheless, a sense mounted in her that whoever Ben conjured in his head sat there in his chair, mouthing dialogue to the computer screen. Sometimes, when the words were working for him, she could almost see his creation, with its alien posture and phantom outline.

  She could not arrest the thought that he wore an actor’s smile when he played with the boys or held her close. As if another life—his real life—lay elsewhere.

  “I thought this would be more popular,” she said when they arrived.

  The Preservation Society meetings were held at the little church in the village, and its parking lot held only six cars.

  “This is probably, like, a solid third of the village’s population,” Ben said.

  They pulled alongside a battered hatchback with a license plate two generations older than the one currently in use.

  “Can I play out here?” Charlie asked them.

  “Here?” Caroline asked as she slipped Bub into the BabyBjörn she’d fastened around herself. “What would you do out here?”

  “I want to play in the park, then I can read for a while,” he said. Charlie didn’t fidget, but Caroline had the sense that he thrummed with energy. He’d been like this for days now. Fueled with enough food and sleep, little boys were like engines without off switches, but the way he’d been acting struck Caroline as manic—something she knew a few things about.

  “What park?”

  “He means that broken plaza with the old fountain,” Ben said. Caroline remembered it now. It was a broad space that once must have been the center of village life, but now it was overrun with trees and clogged with vegetation.

  “You think it’s safe there for him?” she asked. They’d agreed to give Charlie a longer leash up here, but some habits were hard to break.

  “As long as he stays out of the streets. It’s just on the other side of those trees,” Ben said. He pointed to an outcropping of scraggly evergreens that leaned against the back of church.

  “Take my phone.” Caroline pressed it into Charlie’s hands. “Call Dad if you have any trouble, and if you see anyone, run back to the church.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay out of the streets, and don’t leave the square, got it?”

  Charlie nodded and ran for the plaza. Only an eruption of trembling fern fronds marked his way.

  It was warm outside, but the inside of the church was stifling. Although the windows were open, there was little breeze. There were only ten rows of pews, but that was more than enough for today’s crowd. Three women sat at a table facing the congregation, and four others occupied the front bench.

  A large middle-aged woman rose from the table up front when she saw them enter. Ben moved to greet her, and Caroline guessed that this was the diner owner he’d been telling her about. Another of the women at the table stood up soon after the first. Mary Stanton, Caroline remembered. The chief of police’s wife. She’d dropped off an apple pie as a housewarming present.

  “So good to see you again,” Mary said as she clasped Caroline’s hands in her own. “Look how big he’s gotten! What a beautiful little boy.” She ran a finger across Bub’s cheek. “Lisbeth said that your husband might come by, but I’m glad you came, too.”

  “Ben’s eager to learn more about his family history, and I’d love to learn more about the village.”

  “We’re so glad you’re interested,” Mary said. “Our history’s very important to us. Do you know Lisbeth?” she asked. The heavy woman was still talking to Ben, and Mary put a hand on her shoulder.

  Lisbeth turned around and Ben began to introduce them. The next thing Caroline knew, the older woman was hugging her. Embracing strangers wasn’t high on Caroline’s list of favorite things, but she allowed herself to return the hug. Making connections with the villagers was important, she told herself as the woman enveloped her. The success of their inn depended on it. Everything depended on it.

  One by one, the other women introduced themselves. Mary Stanton seemed the youngest of them, and Caroline saw that she’d been correct to dress casually. They all said the right things, but Caroline couldn’t help but think that some of them were more sincere than others. She didn’t like the way their eyes held her gaze for only a moment before looking the rest of her over. Paranoia, she reminded herself; something I must be vigilant for. After a few minutes, everyone took their seats.

  “We’re very happy to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Tierney to our meeting today,” Lisbeth said. “Mr. Tierney’s grandmother was Alice Lowell,” she said.

  The woman who sat between Lisbeth Goode and Mary Stanton at the front table nodded at that. She was a wisp of a thing, and Caroline couldn’t imagine her being a day younger than ninety. In a paper-thin voice, she’d introduced herself as Mrs. White. Caroline thought she might be the only one in the room old enough to have known Ben’s grandmother personally.

  “It’s a rare thing to get fresh blood in this village, and rarer still for it to be blood of a familiar brand. Now, let’s begin with a reading from Corinthians.”

  Lisbeth moved to the lectern while everyone else pulled out their Bibles. Caroline surreptitiously glanced at Ben. She hadn’t mentally prepared herself for a religious component. Lisbeth began to read.

  “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain—”

  Caroline didn’t consider herself a religious person, but neither was she irreverent. It just seemed to her the kind of thing politely kept in private.

  Yet there was something soothing about hearing biblical passages read aloud. It reminded her of the poetry that Ben used to read to her years ago. Depending on the mood or season, he’d recite some Eliot or Frost or Keats. His voice would sound fresh and robust as he tried to get the inflections just right. But mostly it was the words themselves: worn and old, and stronger for it.

  “Now, then, Mary, you brought the diary?” Lisbeth asked once she’d finished.

  “I did,” Mary Stanton said. She rose to take Lisbeth’s place at the lectern.

  “Most of you have heard this before,” Mary said. “But this seemed l
ike a good first step for the Tierneys to take with us. This is the diary of my Bill’s ancestor, Margaret Stanton, who was only twenty during the Winter Siege.” After clearing her throat, she began to read.

  Caroline had never heard of the Winter Siege, and she wondered if this was one of the things Ben had been trying to tell her about on the drive down. The papers Mary read from were yellowed and loose. Caroline could hear them crackle as she turned the pages.

  The diary chronicled a Native American attack on the village of Swannhaven during the Revolutionary War. The villagers who were able to flee escaped to the Crofts, of all places. There, they weathered a treacherous winter during which they were plagued with starvation and other misfortunes.

  The material was chilling; each page brought a new horror for the people starving between the mountains. Margaret Stanton wrote with an unadorned prose that captured the terror of that season well. There were moments when the story was hard to follow, as if some pages of the journal had been lost. But none of that affected the tension of the narrative. Still, the story had to have a happy ending, Caroline thought. If their descendants still lived, then someone must have made it off the Drop. But in the part of the diary that was read, no such resolution was reached. The passage ended with a haunting description of the villagers huddled by a fire in the Crofts, listening to the screams of the forest caught in a winter gale.

  “That always catches me short,” Lisbeth said a few moments into the silence that followed. “What did you think, Ben?” she asked.

  “It’s quite a story,” Ben said. “Very affecting to hear it from a firsthand source. Thank you for sharing that,” he told Mary.

  Caroline nodded in agreement and turned to Ben. He always seemed to know just what people wanted to hear, and his face matched his words: brows slightly furrowed in thought, lips slightly curved in gratitude. But these women didn’t know his eyes, the way Caroline did. In his eyes she could see that he wasn’t here at all. In his eyes she could see his gears whirring.

  “Don’t forget that it’s your story, too,” Lisbeth said. “That’s why we three are sitting up here.” She pointed to Mary and Mrs. White. “We’re all descended from the Winter Families, just like you.”

  “I only married into one,” Mary Stanton said. She raised her shoulders in humility.

  “Well, maybe next time you should save me a seat up there,” Caroline said.

  The ladies, both those seated at the table and the ones in the pews, turned to look at her. It had been a joke, but she hadn’t quite gotten the tone right.

  “We’re so grateful to be invited to this. I absolutely would love to come again,” Ben said. He put a hand on Caroline’s leg. “And I can see that the Crofts is a really important part of your history. We’re in the middle of fixing her up, but as soon as she’s in better shape we’d be honored to have you all up there.”

  “Might take you up on that,” a woman seated in front of them said. She shifted her gaze back to Caroline before facing forward again.

  “Yes, we’re all excited to see the Crofts back to being a home,” Lisbeth said. “And who better to—oh, now who’s this?” she asked.

  Everyone turned, but this time it was not to stare at Caroline. When she looked, she saw Charlie standing in the church’s doorway.

  “Can this be Charlie?” Lisbeth asked. Ben waved for him to come forward. “This is the Tierneys’ eldest son,” she said.

  Charlie made his way toward their pew. He looked wary under the gaze of those eyes. As he got closer, the women stood to greet him. They patted his head and put their hands on his cheeks. The ladies had cooed over Bub, but Charlie had them transfixed. He was a handsome boy, with that combination of dark hair and light eyes that some people find so arresting, but Caroline had never before seen people so taken with him.

  After a few minutes of this, Charlie began to look uncomfortable. Ben was too occupied talking with Lisbeth to notice. Caroline put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I think it’s time for Bub’s nap,” Caroline told Ben. She clutched the boy through his BabyBjörn as if this were the only thing that prevented him from crying.

  “He does look spent,” Ben said. He turned back to Lisbeth. “We should get going, but thank you again for inviting us. When’s the next meeting?”

  As Ben got his answer, someone tugged on Caroline’s shirt from behind. She turned around to see Mrs. White beaming up at her with her wizened face.

  “My dear, you are so beautiful, and so are your sons,” she said, her voice as brittle as dried leaves.

  “Oh, thank you,” Caroline said. The first genuine smile of the day.

  “The Crofts used to have the most beautiful gardens. Mine’s not so grand, but many of my plantings trace their ancestry back to the originals from the Swanns’ gardens.”

  “Mrs. White is being modest,” Mary Stanton chimed in. “Her herb garden is the finest in the county. You ever have a problem, she can sort out anything from headaches to sleeplessness with her teas and tinctures.”

  “Really, how interesting,” Caroline said. She’d planned to plant an herb garden at the Crofts so that the kitchen could use the freshest seasonings. Restoring the gardens with descendants from the original plantings would contribute a nice sense of authenticity and make good copy on the website and brochures. “I’d love to see it sometime.”

  “And I would love to show it to you,” Mrs. White said. Smile still on her face, she turned to walk haltingly from the church.

  At Caroline’s side, Charlie was tugging on her hand. Bub lolled against her chest. She turned to Ben, who was still talking with Lisbeth. Whatever flutter of happiness Caroline had allowed herself to feel from the pleasant exchange with Mrs. White died at sight of him. Her husband’s eyes sparkled, and his teeth gleamed through an easy smile. The indictment lay in the fact that it had been months since she’d seen his real smile. The one he used with her was fragile, the look in his eyes laced with fear and weariness. To see him use that smile so freely with strangers while withholding it from her—it made her feel utterly sunk.

  “Ben, would you unlock the car?” she called over her shoulder. She tried to pitch her voice in a way that made it sound casual. She tried not to blink for fear that the tears that had suddenly sprung to her eyes would overflow. Used to be that years passed without her shedding tears, but they now turned in a daily performance. No wonder Ben’s eyes didn’t light up at the sight of her. She had changed on him as much as he had changed on her. Perhaps even more so.

  “It was good to meet you, Caroline,” Lisbeth called after her.

  Caroline had already fastened Bub into his car seat by the time Ben caught up to them. She waved a fly away from her face. When she closed the door, she saw a swarm of them undulating over a dead raccoon, whose flattened body lay on the far the side of the road.

  “That was interesting, wasn’t it?” Ben asked her. “It’s nice that people are starting to warm up to us.”

  “I guess so.”

  He smiled at her with a terrible facsimile of his real smile, but his eyes had that faraway look that told her that her husband was somewhere else entirely, thinking of things that had nothing to do with her.

  They pulled out of the parking lot, and the dead raccoon was on Caroline’s side of the car. The flies surged away from the body as the car drew near, but Caroline knew they’d be back.

  12

  The meeting of the Preservation Society had fired Ben’s creative furnace. Revolution and loss. Wealth and suffering. Tragedy and love. Perseverance. In Swannhaven he’d found something he hadn’t even known he was looking for.

  He’d been imagining the conversation with his agent, telling her that the book he’d been writing wasn’t working. He had 37,150 words, according to the counter at the bottom of the page. Months of work, months of his life, and it was dead on the screen. Somehow both meandering and inert.

  Ben should have felt sick about this, but he didn’t. He had a mug of fresh tea, a lively play
list humming in his ear, and a blank document on the screen in front of him. He’d also moved out of the kitchen and up to the attic. It was a vast, unfinished space comprised of many rooms. Ben had chosen a nook with a pair of broad windows set into the steeply pitched roof. The windows faced east and kept the room full of sunlight through the morning. A fresh start for a new book.

  He rapped his fingertips lightly against the keys for a few moments before typing.

  In God’s country, the Drop seemed like heaven itself.

  He read it aloud, testing it. Seeing what it conjured in him. The old Bible he’d found in the basement was one piece of the Crofts’s hidden life that he’d already discovered, but the people who’d walked these halls over the centuries were the real prize. He thought again about those two spinster sisters who had died here, the last descendants of the Swann family, which had lived here from the beginning.

  A family like that must have secrets to spare.

  Ben had hoped to tell his agent something that would take the sting from the news about him starting over, and as he chewed on it he thought this new idea could be that good thing. A semi-famous writer who moves upstate and becomes so enchanted with his historic house that he sets his next novel there: That was a seductive hook. Ben understood the importance of such things. While his second book had been a hit, his first one had disappeared without a trace. With newspapers and magazines folding and book-review sections being cut, securing any measure of media attention for a work of fiction was a careful alchemy of black magic and divine luck. An angle like this gave the marketing and publicity teams something to hitch themselves to.