The Sighting

by Christopher Coleman

  But her father’s words bore the texture of truth; if not because of the sure somberness of his words—“Something’s happened”—than for the possible explanations available. Even if Deda had suddenly been rushed away in an ambulance and died suddenly en route to a hospital (which, of course, hadn’t happened since her father had spoken with him earlier), Mother would have called as soon as she reached the hospital. Mother always called. If she didn’t call, there was a problem. In this case, Gretel proposed, that problem may simply be a blown tire or some mechanical malfunction in the car. But the Northlands were no more than two hours away on a clear spring day, so it was unlikely she wouldn’t have found a telephone by now if it were something so benign. There was no logical reason she could think of that Mother wouldn’t have called, other than reasons she didn’t want to imagine.

  She began to cry again softly, and her mind became overwhelmed with thoughts of never again seeing her mother. It was unimaginable, and physically nauseating. Her mother was everything to her. Everything. Gretel’s image of herself as a good young girl—exceptional even—was due solely to the woman she had studied thoroughly and tried for as long as she could remember to emulate. Though Gretel rarely noticed it in the environment which they lived, her mother had a finesse and dignity about her that always astounded Gretel, and only became evident—almost embarrassingly so—when it was contrasted with the tactlessness of most women in the Back Country. She avoided the crude speech that most of the Back Country wives used in an effort somehow to endear themselves to their husbands’ friends. Instead she maintained an easy poise that seemed almost regal and out of place. Consequently, of course, her mother stood out among her peers, earning the attention of the men and, Gretel supposed, the backstage scorn of her fellow ladies. She was far from what most people would describe as beautiful, but despite the physical advantages they may have had, other women always appeared intimidated by her mother’s confidence.

  Gretel got to her feet and walked to the vanity, where she sat on the bench and looked at her distraught face in the mirror as the day’s last few rays of sunlight entered her window. It was almost dark and there was no sign of Mother. She turned on the lamp and examined the framed picture of her parents that sat on the vanity top. Her father had gotten very lucky, she thought, and Gretel became sad for him. He was twenty years older than his bride, and in his marriage had always been decided in his ways, insisting on the traditional roles of husband and wife: provider and caregiver, tough and understanding, et cetera.

  But in that tradition he had never shown anything but respect and love for her mother. When choices of importance had to be made, concerning her and her brother, or otherwise, Heinrich Morgan always insisted on his wife’s opinion. He knew between the two of them she was the smarter one, and he never pretended otherwise.

  And though Gretel couldn’t remember a time when her father was what she would describe as ‘sweet’ toward Mother, he certainly never gave her any reason to be docile or frightened around him. He never complained about a meal—whether overcooked or late or for any reason—and he always thanked her when it was over, even offering compliments if he found it exceptional. And if Mother needed to leave him for a day or a week—as in the current situation visiting her ill father—there was never a sense of trepidation when she told him, and the news was always delivered as a statement, with the full expectation that it would be received without protest, if not encouragement. “I’ll need to leave for the North tomorrow,” her mother would say. “Father’s doing poorly. Gretel will handle the house while I’m gone.” And father’s replies would be nothing other than words of concern for his father-in-law.

  The memory of these exchanges suddenly awakened Gretel to the fact that she was not ready to assume this position of authority. The surrogate role of housewife that Gretel had taken on for the last nine days, and that she had begrudgingly admitted to herself was, on some level, enjoyable, was beyond her capabilities. Well beyond. She couldn’t do this for five or ten more days let alone years!

  Gretel was startled by the muffled sound of the cabin door opening and then closing. She sat motionless, not breathing, and looked at nothing as she shifted her eyes in amazement around the room waiting for the next sound to decipher. Mother! It was definitely Mother. It had to be. Tired and with quite a story to tell, no doubt, but it had to be her. She waited for the booming sound of her father’s voice, joyful and scolding, to ring through her room. She wanted to rush out and verify her belief, but she was paralyzed, fearing that somehow by moving she would lose the sound and her hopes would evaporate.

  At the tepid knock on her bedroom door, Gretel smiled and lifted herself from the bench, banging her knee on the underside of the vanity and nearly knocking the lamp to the floor, catching it just before it fell. The door cracked and began to open. Gretel looked toward it, waiting for the miracle, holding her awkward lamp-in-hand pose.

  It was her father.

  “No!” she said, the word erupting from her mouth automatically, denoting both fear and authority, as if she were repelling a spirit that had ventured from hell to inhabit her room. Her father looked at her with sadness and acceptance. “Is she dead?” Gretel said, surprised at the bluntness of her question.

  “I don’t know, Gretel, we’re going to look for her. Your brother is home.”

  GRETEL LET OUT A RESTRAINED sigh as the family truck pulled in front of her grandfather’s small brick house, amazed they had made it. The truck, she guessed, was at least thirty years old, and probably hadn’t made a trip this far since before she was born. And each time her father had made one of his dozen or so stops along the way, exploring the considerable land surrounding every curve and potential hazard that the back roads offered, he turned the engine off to conserve fuel. She was sure with each failed effort to locate her mother, the key would click ominously in the ignition when her father tried to restart the engine, and they too would disappear along the road. But it had always started, and here they were.

  She looked across the bench seat at her father and was disturbed by the look of indifference on his face. Her brother lay between them asleep.

  Her father opened the door and said weakly, “Stay in the car.”

  “I’m seeing Deda,” Gretel immediately responded, opening the door quickly and storming out of the truck, taking a more defiant tone than was indicative of how she actually felt. She had every intention of seeing her grandfather though. It had been months since she’d seen him, and even though she often felt awkward around him lately, more so now that he had worsened, she loved him enormously, and still considered him, next to her mother, the most comforting person in her world. If there was one person she needed right now, other than her mother, it was Deda.

  She ran toward the house and as she reached the stoop she saw the tall, smiling figure of Deda standing in the doorway. She screamed at the sight of him. He looked so old, at least twenty years older than the seventy-five he actually was, and his smile was far from the thin-lipped consoling grin Gretel would have expected. Instead his mouth was wide and toothy, as if he had been laughing. He looked crazy, she thought.

  “Hi, Deda,” she said swallowing hard. “How are you feeling?”

  At the sound of Gretel’s voice, Deda’s face lit up, morphing to normalcy and becoming consistent with that of a man seeing his beloved granddaughter for the first time in four months. “Gretel!” which he pronounced ‘Gree-tel,’ “my love, come in! Where is your brother?”

  “He’s in the car sleeping,” she replied, and with that her brother came running into the house and into Deda’s arms, which Deda had extended just in time to receive his grandson.

  Deda held Hansel’s shoulders and pushed him away to arms length. “Ahh, Hansel, you look so big!”

  “You look really old, Deda,” Hansel said, as respectfully as an eight-year-old could say such words.

  Deda laughed, “I am so old, Hansel! I am so old!” He placed his palm on the back of the boy’s neck a
nd led him to the small sofa which was arranged just off the foyer. Deda sat down and lifted Hansel to his lap; Gretel followed and sat beside him on the cushion.

  “Hello, Heinrich,” Deda said, not taking his eyes from the children.

  Gretel’s father stood at the door, silently watching the interaction between his children and his wife’s father. “Marcel.”

  “Why don’t you sit?”

  “We won’t be staying.”

  Over the years Gretel had grown used to this style of conversation between her father and Deda, terse and factual, completely devoid of style. It wasn’t that they disliked each other exactly, but more that they had failed to reach the level of trust normally achieved between two people at this stage in a relationship. Her parents had been married almost twenty years.

  “Have you contacted The System?” Deda asked.

  “Of course. They won’t do anything for days,” Gretel’s father replied. And then, “Unless there’s evidence of a crime.”

  Deda nodded in understanding. “Gretel,” he said, “why don’t you and your brother explore in the cellar for a while. I’ve some new books you would both like, just at the bottom of the stairs, on the first shelf there. You’ll see them when you go down.”

  Deda stood and led the children to the cellar door, opening it and pulling the ribbed metal chain that hung just at the top of the stairs, unleashing a dull orange glow of light. The cellar was an obvious suggestion so that Deda could speak to her father alone, but Gretel didn’t mind, and played along for her brother’s sake. Besides, they were going to discuss her mother—and the possibilities of what might have happened—and she didn’t have the emotional stamina to handle that right now.

  As she and her brother reached the bottom of the cellar, Gretel saw that the books Deda referenced were the same ones he had had for at least two years now: Reptiles of the Northlands, Sea Life, and a few others containing topics Gretel had long since lost interest in.

  “These books aren’t new,” Hansel complained. “I’ve read these a thousand times.”

  “Your Deda’s old Han, he doesn’t remember” Gretel replied, “And, anyway, you still like them.”

  “Fine.”

  Hansel opened the sea creature book absently and slumped heavily into a dusty club chair, once the centerpiece of Deda’s living area but now in exile, having been replaced by a chair more conducive to Deda’s frail condition. The dust from the chair puffed into the dim light and then dissipated. Normally Gretel found places like Deda’s cellar repulsing—the dust was as thick as bread and seemed not to be spared from any section of furniture; and the scurrying sounds that clattered from the corners of the dark room conjured in her mind pictures of things much larger than mice. And she was sure that the spiders she had seen over the years had to be as large as any in the world.

  But for all the impurities, Gretel had no memory of ever fearing the cellar. Lately, in fact, she felt drawn to it, mystified by the shrouded hodgepodge of books and tools and bric-a-brac that coated the surface of every shelf and table. There were candles and candle holders next to decorative plates and stemware; prehistoric preserve jars being used as paperweights for pictures of men and women Gretel had never seen in person; and dozens of other trinkets and curiosities that as a small girl she had considered junk—nuisances that cluttered up what might otherwise have been a play room for tea parties and dancing and such—but that she had recently come to admire.

  The cellar, however, for all its antique charm, was also dark and difficult to explore. There was no window, and the one low-watt bulb that hung by the door illuminated only the area a few feet past the base of the steps; beyond that, a flashlight was required to make out any details of an object, if not just to walk. Gretel never asked Deda why he hadn’t put a working lamp in the area, and now assumed it was to discourage her and Hansel from playing back there, though he had never explicitly forbade them from exploring that part of the house. Besides, as large as the cellar was, certainly large enough to convert into an apartment if Deda had ever decided to take in a boarder, most children didn’t need to be warned about what may lurk in such a place.

  But by eleven, and certainly now at fourteen, the illicitness of the “dark areas” only enhanced Gretel’s curiosity, and, frankly, made the jaunts to Deda’s bearable. What enjoyments she got at eight or nine were now almost completely nullified by her grandfather’s health and her own adolescence. So the cellar had become her entertainment, and specifically the magazines.

  Gretel found the flashlight that always sat on the seldom-used workbench and turned it on in Hansel’s eyes.

  “Stop, Gretel!”

  Gretel chuckled. “I’m going to look for something in the back, I’ll be right here, okay?” Gretel knew to be playful and delicate with her brother; he hadn’t yet fully accepted that something bad might actually have happened to his mother, and if it occurred to him now, she thought, she was in no condition to help.

  Hansel didn’t respond, but looked up from the sea creatures book and followed Gretel with his eyes to the far end of the cellar, making sure the light was always visible.

  Gretel felt her way to the antique bureau she was looking for and found the knob of the right-side drawer of the middle row. She could feel the weight of the magazines as she pulled, careful not to force the drawer and tear one of the covers. She pulled the top issue off the stack and thumbed through it, suddenly feeling nervous at the sight of the smiling, underclad women flipping past her. She leafed through to the end and put the first issue in the stack face down on the surface of the bureau so as to keep them in order when she put them all back, and took out the next issue, passively thumbing through it, staring at the women who were pretty much all the same. They weren’t nude, but they were certainly there to provoke men and not to sell undergarments.

  Gretel wasn’t exactly sure why the women fascinated her. She didn’t like girls in that way—at least she didn’t think so—she certainly didn’t get the same feelings looking at these women that she got when talking with certain boys at school. It was something else, something about their expressions. The way they smiled so easily for the camera when, Gretel had to assume, they felt ashamed and sad the whole time. She wanted to hug them, befriend them, let them know that she was fascinated by them, by their strength to do what she could never imagine. And that they were beautiful.

  “Gretel, what are you doing?” Hansel called from the stairs.

  Gretel flinched, nearly dropping the magazine, before fumbling it back to its proper place in the drawer and stacking the first one on top of it. “Nothing Han, looking at some old magazines. I’m coming.”

  She shut the bureau drawer and turned back for the stairs, and as the flashlight turned with her, the beam strayed wildly, just drifting over the thick black spine of a book. The book.

  There it was.

  The thick hardcover tome had presided from the top of Deda’s tallest bookshelf for as long as Gretel had a memory of the house, which was from about age four. At that time, of course, the book was as mysterious and out of reach as space, and she hadn’t the slightest clue as to what it might contain. But its sheer size and blackness had fascinated her even then.

  The cover was absolute in its darkness, with no shine or reflection, as if it were overlaid with black wool. And there was no text or pattern on the spine—which was the only part Gretel would ever see for many years—and she imagined that someone looking up casually at the shelf could easily have mistaken the book for emptiness, a large gap in the middle of other books.

  By age seven she got up the nerve to touch the book, which was no easy task given the height of the shelf and the book’s position. It required delicate stacking of furniture and the tip-toe balance of a ballerina, but Gretel was determined, and soon became quite adept with her scaffolding.

  During those years Gretel visited Deda’s house regularly—at least once every other month—and with every visit she made a point to feel the book, to physical
ly touch it, rubbing her fingertips on the exposed area. It was always cold—as were all of the books in the cellar—and its lack of any real texture, Gretel believed, gave an indication as to its age.

  But she didn’t touch the book because of any particular enchantment, or even because she thought it was magic, she did so more as a gauge, testing when she would be able to move forward on her stalled curiosity. As she grew taller, and as her level of comfort on the far ledges of stacked stools and empty milk crates increased, she began trying to flip the book out of its snug resting spot, placing her index finger at the top where the spine met the pages and then pulling backwards. At seven it never budged, as if cemented down, and the effort only enhanced Gretel’s wonderment. It would be two years later when she would finally free the massive text and learn a word that would eventually come to hold a high place in her lexicon forever.

  Gretel turned and faced the bookshelf and centered the beam of the flashlight on the book, which was no longer in its normal far left position on the top shelf, having moved to one center-right. In ten years it was the first time she had ever seen it out of place, other than when she was perusing it of course. Had it been in its current position when she was seven years old, she noted, it would have been a much easier endeavor to pull the book down, since this particular side of the shelf was far easier to access.

  Now, at fourteen, the trick was to grab the book without attracting her brother’s attention.