by Brian Hodge
Something breathed past her face. The spirit of the cupola leaving. Gone before she could become alarmed. Carefully she pawed the darkness, then waddled through until she found herself crouching on a platform. The funny thing was that the odor inside wasn't so bad, even though it had pretty bad outside. The second thing she noticed was that she could see the blue velvet sky through all the slats. In a few seconds she could make out the geometric contrasts of board ends and wood frames. Then she distinguished shades of gray. Then she could separate the eight sides. Cool, she decided (kids still said "cool"). Except for a couple of slippery spots where rain had dripped on the platform, it was dry. She felt safe here, like she was wearing armor. Girl in a cage.
But no ghosts. A little disappointment; a little relief. She really would like to meet a ghost. Not one gushing blood as it staggered across the fields maybe, but a nice sad one floating around lost. Like Topper. You couldn't get Topper on TV anymore. Not even reruns like she used to watch in the 60s. She sat in the cupola a few minutes longer, listening to the wind and thinking about the things she could move up here to make it a kind of a clubhouse, and then she crawled back out to start the descent.
Sliding down to the chimney was a piece of cake, and now that she knew how to keep her weight straddled around the base of the pipe and push off again, that was no problem either. The lightning rod was a little trickier, because she had to stop her momentum by going a couple of steps against the pitch of the roof, then dragging and scuffing as she slid so that she didn't hit the gutter or the lightning rod too hard. But she did that okay too. One scrape from bracing with her elbow coming off the shingles, but heck, she got those just leaning her elbows on the dinner table.
She lowered the window sash in the sewing room and passed downstairs, listening for sounds from her mother's room. If anyone heard her on the roof, it would be her mother, though probably she would think it was a raccoon. So Amber wasn't expecting anybody when she got to the first floor. And that was when she saw the ghost.
It was floating slowly through the dining room beyond the arch. Tall, thin, its silver hair kind of glowing. She froze at the foot of the stairs, waiting to see if it would know she was there and turn and grin with rotten teeth and maybe lift its hands like a strangler. But if it knew she was there, it didn't care. And it kind of groped through the gloom, touching things, melting into them and reappearing again. A ghost for sure. She took a step to follow, and then another—long and darting—like a game of Mother, May I or Red Light, Green Light, where you snuck up as close as possible while the person had his back turned. And now she could see that the ghost wasn't walking right through objects, but just passing through shadows. And then she heard it breathing.
Breathing?
Ghosts didn't breathe. The hair on this one wasn't really glowing either. Up close it was thin and white and stuck up where it kind of gathered the moonlight. She waited until he reached the faint illumination that crossed a threshold from the sunporch with its large windows, and then she hopped alongside.
"Who are you?" she challenged.
He stopped, then turned his straining eyes on her. "Where are we?" he asked.
"In the house, of course."
More peering, as if to reconcile contradictions.
"You're the new resident," Amber said.
"I am?"
"I'm Amber."
"You shouldn't be here."
"Why not?"
"It's dangerous."
"You're here."
"That doesn't matter. I've lived too long anyway."
She studied him. "Why is it dangerous?"
He looked back at her, looked away, looked back again. "They might find you."
"Who?"
"Better get rid of your Japanese money, if you have any. They'll cut off your head, if you have anything you've taken off a body."
"I don't have any Japanese money," she said.
"Good."
"Are you trying to find your room?"
"… No. We've got to steal some food and take it back."
He craned in the direction of the light.
"I can get you food," Amber said. He looked like he might be starving, she thought, but that was because he was old—older than anyone in the house probably.
She led him a few steps at a time, pausing for him to catch up, until they were in the kitchen, and there she opened the refrigerator and stood aside.
"You want some yogurt? The lemon is the best. But the cherry is good too. You can have both, if you want." The light from the refrigerator fell on her, and his eyes were suddenly intent. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I didn't know it was you."
"Yup. It's me, Amber."
"You're Tiffany."
Amber."
He lost half a beat, huffed a curt laugh of disbelief. She considered. "You can call me Tiffany, if you want."
"Mm-h," he said with a nod. "Where are we?"
"We're in the house. You said you wanted food."
"I'm not hungry."
"You said you were."
He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
She puckered her rosebud mouth, tilted her head. "You got that Weisenheimer disease or something, mister? I seen it on Oprah last week."
"Mm-h. Where are we?"
"I'm gonna take you to your room, okay? I saw them cleaning it out for you a couple days ago."
He let her pluck his sleeve and lead him to the corridor, and twice he hesitated before a door, thinking it was his own. When she took him to the right place and helped him lie back on his mattress, the energy that had gone to his body seemed to flood back into his face. "I've got to get food for the others," he said, trying to sit up.
"It's okay. You stay here, and I'll bring you food every night, if you want. Just don't leave any crumbs, okay? Molly gets mad if you leave crumbs."
He lay back again.
"I'm going now, mister."
He called to her again when she was at the door. "You don't have any Japanese money on you, do you?"
"No. I got rid of it."
"Good. They're beheading anyone with souvenirs."
It was sad to be that old. Sad to say you didn't care if you died. Amber climbed back to her sanctuary on the roof and thought about her father in a wheelchair, aging like that. It didn't seem fair. Why had her mother brought him back? Even though he was an abuser, you shouldn't punish someone forever. If he was bad, he would've been in hell and probably come back all burned. But he wasn't burned, so maybe he wasn't so bad after all. The heat lightning flashed from the horizon, stabbing between the weathered slats of the cupola, catching the whites of her eyes. Too bad she wasn't the magic painter instead of her mother. Too bad she didn't have the magic paints.
And that made her think.
Why not? She could steal the paints. And then she could practice. And when she was good enough …
Chapter 4
"What is this place?"
Martin squinted up from the bed like he'd been lying there since yesterday just waiting to ask the question. Denny felt guilty already.
"It's called New Eden."
"Never heard of it. I want to go home."
The Nightmare Assertion. Denny had known "I want to go home" was coming. Known he would have to deal with it, knew there was no answer for it. He kissed his father's forehead, and the old man's muzzy blue eyes followed him to the captain's chair by the windows.
"I know you do, Dad, but you weren't safe at home."
Martin Bryce looked away, and his chest seemed to collapse a little. "Who cares?"
"I care."
"I don't know why I have to live so long. You should just … just leave me alone."
"You know I can't do that, Dad."
"Why not?"
Let me die. Call Doctor Kevorkian. Time for Jack the Dripper. Bring in the elixir of death, set up the tubes and the bottle…. Denny had heard it a thousand times. Was defeated each time his father wished fo
r death. It was bad enough when his mother had been alive—so hard on her—but his father hadn't meant it then. Now he did.
They argued in that slow, loving way that had evolved somehow. Pathos, humor. Negotiating death. The father reviving slightly with the son's attention; the son dying a little:
If you don't care for any other reason, then care for me, Dad. You can't ask me to let you go like that.
Why can't I?
I'm not trying to keep you alive beyond your time. But you're healthy. You're not in any pain.
I am in pain.
Hey, old man, when God puts the death certificate in your hand, I'll sign off, but not a moment sooner. Maybe I'll even leave your head sticking out of the ground for a tombstone. Okay? Okay?
Polemics. The flow was circular. Stalemate.
"Ariel is complaining about you, Dad. You've got to cooperate, you know."
"Who's Ariel?"
"Woman who runs this place."
"They're all women here."
"Mostly. I guess that's the problem. She says you keep going in other people's rooms. She says one of the women found you asleep on her bed and that you tried to hug her. Nice goin', guy."
Frail smile. "Some people are all about wish fulfillment."
His father still had a sense of humor sometimes. "Yeah. Anyway, try to remember which is your room, okay? And wait for formal introductions before you hug a woman."
"There's no woman for me except Beth," he said. "Best thing that ever happened to me."
They were silent for a while, and Denny wished he could think of something to say, because he could feel the lucidity draining away like heat from a car left in the cold. Just to make a noise, he pulled open the nightstand drawer. Oh, shit. Three pair of glasses, only one his father's. One of the other two had Hollywood glitter frames. He lifted them out, shoved them in his pocket. Best to leave them inconspicuously around the house when he was on the way out than draw attention to senile larceny.
"What is this place?" his father said.
"New Eden."
"Tell Tiffany to come in here."
"Tiffany's not here, Dad."
"Where'd she go?"
"I don't know."
"Then get your mother for me."
"Mom's not here either, Dad."
"Tell Tiffany to come in here."
Denny hesitated. 'Tiffany has never been here, Dad."
"I saw her last night."
"Tiffany died seven years ago."
"I saw her … she's getting tall for her age."
"Dad. Tiffany was forty-seven. She died of a drug overdose. She was in bad shape."
His father listened attentively, as if the news were freshly arrived and pummeling him, and Denny couldn't stop telling him the truth. There was no reason to dredge up his sister's miserable life and fate, but he did, because it was the truth and he couldn't spare his father the truth, couldn't let him slide into whatever merciful dementia was scattering his memories. If the memories went, what was left?
"I saw her last night," Martin said. "My little girl. She's got her momma's green eyes."
"… Yeah."
"I don't know where she got that blonde hair and those pouty lips, though."
"Yeah." His sister's hair was steel gray when she died. She had looked sixty on her best day. The blonde hair, the rosebud mouth, the green eyes—that was the nine-year-old before the fire in 1956. After the fire she was scars. Grafts and operations had traumatized her adolescence, leading to drugs and worse. By the time she took her last overdose in 1994, addiction and prostitution had taken their toll.
"When is her birthday, son?"
"November."
"Is it November now?"
"It's summer."
"Oh. Remind me when it's your sister's birthday."
"Okay."
"And tell your mom I want to see her."
"She's not here, Dad. She's never been here. And Tiffany's not here. She's never been here either."
Befuddled look. "Well, then who did I see last night?"
"I don't know."
"She had blonde hair. She had your sister's green eyes and that pout on her mouth. Who was she, then?"
"No one."
The denials were like plunging a knife into his old man. Stabbing him again and again in the brain, the mind, the soul. Fragmented memories kept rescuing his father from reality, and Denny kept dragging him back to the present. He wouldn't let go. Couldn't. Because then the figure on the bed wouldn't be his father anymore.
"—Dad. Listen to me. I know it's hard to remember, so that's why I keep repeating things and writing them down for you. And you've got your tape recorder here, remember? I made you a tape. I told you to listen to it any time you couldn't remember. It's the same tape we've had for years, but you never play it. Momma used to play it for you so that you wouldn't keep thinking you had to do your taxes."
He didn't like the faint echo that dogged his words in the oversize tile bedroom, and he moved to the black vinyl chair by the bed.
"You've got a common medical condition that sometimes keeps you from remembering. You're the same grouchy old guy you've always been—you're wise and you're funny—but you lose track of things because of the condition. I'm not gonna treat you like a kid, dad. I'm gonna take care of you and make you sure you don't have any pain or indignities, but I'm not gonna treat you like you're less than what you are. You're my dad. So try not to be frustrated if I keep at you, okay? Okay, Dad?"
"Okay."
"I'm not telling you you've got to live forever, but I don't want to lose you before you tell me the secret of why you've got more hair than I do."
Faint nod. "You must take after your mother's side."
"Yeah. Well, that's not all bad."
"Send her in again, will you?"
"… I can't, Dad."
"Why not?" The look. Then slow tears welling up. Nothing else. No movement of the sagging, worn cheeks, the reddened throat. "I forgot. She's dead, isn't she?"
"Yeah, she's dead."
"And Tiffany … ?"
"Tiffany too."
"She was burned in the fire—I didn't save her."
"Dad—"
"I tried, but I couldn't."
"You did save her, Dad."
"She was already burned."
"Dad."
Sniffling now, both of them. Fighting it. Big, stupid men unable to turn the valve and let it out. Tears aching in their skulls, teeth clenched, blinking blurry-eyed at each other. Silence and irregular breathing. A rough, dry hand on top of a rougher, dryer one.
"Hey." Denny pushing himself to his feet. "I came in here to tell you to stop groping the women."
Martin nodded but wasn't sure the words they had spoken matched his memories. "So everyone's dead."
"I'm not … you're not."
And that's how Denny left—fleeing out of the house, avoiding everyone. Ariel Leppa with her magic camera, trying to capture his soul. The glasses still in his pocket—Stop, thief, you're robbing us blind (ha-ha)! But as he turned his Toyota Tercel in front of the house, he caught a face in an upper window, and for just a second he thought he was looking at his long-ago sister. Tiffany, before the fire. Blonde hair, green eyes, rosebud mouth. Momentary, because it backed away. Probably just the imperfections of a windowpane in a vintage farmhouse. Wavy, distorted. Fade to black.
Chapter 5
Why don't I paint myself younger?
Such a temptation, and therein lay the evil. Like a cough that would inevitably become a cold, Ariel fought it. Humility—she must keep her humility. And, of course, there was the problem of the corpse. Some revitalized version of herself dragging the dead one into the woods and digging a grave. Not an appealing prospect. She couldn't paint herself out of existence, like she was sure she could do with the others, who had already gone through natural death and now existed tethered to those paintings, as if those seminal portraits were their spirit guardians. She would have to die like Amber had when h
er younger self came into being.
But already Ariel had an idea of how to take care of the burial, if she could only trust that it would work. She knew the painting had to dry before the creation was finished. And that would give her time to … arrange things. She could paint herself, and then she would have an interval before there were two of her—one dead, one alive. And in that interval she could go out into the woods and dig her grave and lie down in it, and wait for the second Ariel to come finish the job. She wouldn't have to drag the body, dig the grave or trundle the cadaver in. She would just have to fill the damn thing. Shovel dirt in a hole. Not so bad. She wouldn't even look down in the hole at herself—black clods raining over her face. She wouldn't have to see that. You could sling dirt without looking. Hard to miss a hole.
But what if she didn't remember what had happened from her previous life? Amber didn't. When the portrait completely dried and she drew her first breath, the new Ariel wouldn't know that her former self had simultaneously expired and was lying in an open grave out in the woods. What then? But she would remember. The two Ambers had been separated by thirty-five years, that was all. The child and the adult. Vastly different beings. No wonder the child didn't remember. More likely she didn't understand and couldn't interpret an adult version of herself beyond her nine years. So in that respect, Ariel would be like the ones who had died naturally, she thought. They remembered their previous deaths—remembered past them, in fact—even though they wouldn't tell her what it was like in their graves. And Ariel could write a journal about all that had happened in the last year, just to make sure her reborn self would know.
The power she had was still dawning on her a year after that first painting. She had resurrected the major players from her past, because they had died, but there were others who had died that she had thought about bringing back. Like her parents. She didn't remember her father—didn't have his picture—but her mother, well, Ariel was still thinking about that. Did she want to compete with her and deal with issues of control that she could take for granted with the others? Did she want to have absolute power over her own mother? And her mother had died younger than Ariel was now. If she brought her back younger than herself, what then? No, she didn't think she would be resurrecting her mother. Rest in peace.
