Light from Distant Stars

by Shawn Smucker

  Cohen! Look away!

  But it was too late. He had seen it. He had seen them.

  He drifted backwards, bumping a table. He turned and ran, his father choking out words after him, his voice a wreck of emotion. But Cohen fled, pushed open the door at the top of the basement stairs, and burst through the back door, nearly screaming, holding one of his hands over his mouth to keep the sound in. He ran to his bike and rode it all the way north on Duke, east on Liberty, under the bridge, through some neighborhoods, under the highway, until he was slipping along on the same small roads that led out to their old house.

  But he didn’t get to the old house. He dropped his bike in the ditch along the country road, still not thinking, still panicking, and fled into the woods, propelled by something, something his mind was already trying to block out. That thing he ran from, that thing he had seen, it was already like a dream slipping beyond his ability to recall, a sad or terrifying dream that left its residue scattered throughout his brain in pieces he could not put back together. That memory, that thing that came before he had fled the funeral home and run into the woods, would always be smoke to him, smoke and the bitter taste of ash.

  He stumbled farther into the woods, through an old cemetery, and up a hill. It was December—cold, cold December—and the leaves on the ground were brown and the branches all ended in reaching, frostbitten fingers.

  There was a halfhearted path up the hill, a path he remembered from when they had lived in the country. He followed it farther than he ever had, even beyond the train tracks where he had never been allowed to go, and the sadness in his stomach was like a peach pit: tough and ugly and somehow coming up hard against any other thought that cut through. He wondered if he would feel better if he threw up. He stopped and leaned against a tree, but he didn’t have the nerve or the know-how to make himself vomit. He wondered maybe if he thought about throwing up enough it would happen, and he tried to think about the time a substitute teacher had thrown up in his classroom when he was younger. But that only made him smile, because he recalled how Ava, also in the class, had pretended to throw up the rest of the day, sending people scattering.

  Ava. He missed her. When he and his father moved into the city it had meant a new school, new friends, new acquaintances. He had not wanted to play baseball anymore. He had only seen her twice since then, two chance crossings that stood out in those dull years. She had looked at him, both of them too bashful to cross the empty space of years, and he had wondered if she ever thought of him, what she thought of him, and whether or not she remembered what they had together when they were innocent children, before his world fractured.

  Cohen walked farther, crested the hill, and looked down into a large hollow. The bank that led down was covered with leaning blackberry brambles, stripped bare by a season of birds and a season of winter. Their thick, thorny stems were a dull red in the winter light, each a single strand, but thousands of them, so that the hollow was nearly impenetrable. They cluttered the ground around the trees and swayed when the wind picked up.

  Beyond the blackberry thorns, down farther in the hollow at the bottom of the bowl-shaped valley, sat the lonely husk of a mobile home. The door swung open and closed, open and closed, as if someone unseen walked in and out over and over again. Part of the trailer was blackened from a fire, and there were slashes in the roof. The trees around it were black too. Cohen wondered how the trailer had burned without setting the entire forest alight.

  If he had come in the summer, when the blackberry brambles grew their lush green and the oak and maple and sycamore leaves crowded together in the upper gaps, he never would have seen the small mobile home. He wondered if there was a way down to it, and if anyone lived there or if it was abandoned. He thought it could make an interesting fort, a place for him to get away when he needed to.

  He made his way around the hollow, probing the blackberry bushes for a way through, constantly turned aside by their thorns scratching his hands and snagging his coat. When he pulled away they made a loud tearing sound on the fabric. The air smelled crisp like ice, and the smell of smoke was coming up from the trailer, as if the fire had taken place not too long ago. His skin felt tingly, his nose numb with cold. He kept going, though, circling at the top edge of the hollow, looking for a way down.

  He had nearly about made it all the way around to where he had started when he heard voices. He hid behind an especially wide oak tree, his feet propped on the beginnings of the roots where they reached into the ground.

  “Will not!” a boy’s voice said in earnest tones.

  “Will too,” a girl’s voice said, and when she spoke, her words weren’t argumentative at all. They were simply correct, and she knew it.

  Cohen held his breath. He peered around the tree, then ducked back behind it. He had never seen those children before. He peeked around the tree once more. The boy wore a long-sleeved T-shirt but no jacket in the cold, and the holes in the knees of his jeans gaped like large, sagging mouths. His light brown hair stuck up in strange places, as if he had recently woken up. The girl had the same forlorn appearance, but her hair was much darker, and there was something very pretty about her. He couldn’t decide what it was. He was sure they were brother and sister, and they looked to be about his age.

  The two of them walked side by side, each carrying a walking stick. As they were about to pass the tree where Cohen was hiding, they stopped. The boy stared at something on the ground. The girl looked up and scanned the slate sky.

  “I don’t know why you think it’s going to come back here,” the boy muttered, tracing the frozen ground with one of his bony fingers. “There’s nothing left.”

  “It always comes back,” she said in a hoarse whisper, and Cohen felt a chill race through his body, so strong it made him tremble.

  It always comes back.

  He leaned closer to the tree. The rough bark sanded his face, but the sense of feeling something, anything, on that cold, numb day was a good thing. It reminded him he was alive.

  It always comes back.

  “So, are we going to sit here and wait?” the boy asked, as if that was the stupidest possible thing they could do. He didn’t sound scared at all, only impatient and annoyed.

  The girl raised her hand and shielded her eyes, still staring at the treetops. “Maybe we’re here for another reason,” she said in a mystical voice.

  “Okay, your royal weirdness,” he said. “Now what are you talking about?”

  “You know how I’ve been saying we need one more person to help us?”

  He nodded, poking at the ground viciously with his walking stick.

  “Maybe that person is here,” she said.

  Cohen’s mouth went dry and his heart raced. He leaned in tighter against the tree and held his breath, closed his eyes. Had she seen him?

  “I don’t see nobody,” the boy said. “Besides, the two of us can handle it now. We’re different. We don’t need nobody else.”

  “Maybe he’s hiding because you’re being rude,” she said. Her voice was louder, and there was something fierce in her, something emerging.

  “Who?”

  “The other person we need to help us find it.”

  “I . . . don’t . . . see . . . nobody,” the boy said again.

  “Maybe he’s hiding because . . . you’re . . . being . . . rude,” she shouted, her voice echoing through the woods. The sound of it was like the crashing sound ice makes when a frozen river breaks apart in the spring. The voice terrified Cohen, and he simply had to look, had to see the source of this furious sound, so he peeked around the tree again.

  The girl seemed larger now, though that could have been because she stood up straight and tall when she shouted. Her skin was whiter than it had been before, or it seemed that way—whiter than white, as if she was dead. She dropped her walking stick and held her hands out in front of her.

  Cohen’s gaze darted to the boy, expecting to see signs of someone humiliated, someone giving in. Who woul
dn’t give in to the incredible power the girl seemed to have? Who could resist that shout, that look?

  The boy, that’s who.

  He stood his ground and raised his walking stick with both hands. They seemed ready to strike each other. Something seemed to push Cohen out from his hiding place, something in him that knew what it was doing, or thought it did.

  “It’s me,” Cohen said, stepping out from behind the tree. “It’s me. I’m the one who’s here. I’m Cohen. And I’m not hiding, not anymore.”

  He had no idea why he did it, why he revealed himself to them. Maybe he was scared of what they were about to do to each other. Maybe he thought he had seen enough horrible things to last him the rest of the week, or the rest of his life. Maybe he wanted a closer look at the girl.

  The boy looked over at him first and let his stick swing down to his side. The girl seemed to deflate back to her quiet self. Her hands came down slowly, and there was color in her cheeks again, but only small round spots of it.

  She sighed, and when she spoke she sounded exhausted. “Yes, it’s you. Finally. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Cohen looked back and forth between the two, trying to decide who to speak with. The girl seemed friendly, but she was also exhausted and he had seen her fury. She intimidated him. The boy, on the other hand, was a little more . . . well, normal, but also seemed like he might be mean, possibly even cruel.

  Cohen looked back at the girl. “Who are you?” he asked, rubbing his hands together in the cold.

  But the girl sat down on the hard ground, once again clutching her walking stick, and said nothing. She seemed even smaller than before, the whole wide forest growing up around her, the sky drowning her. Cohen looked over at the boy.

  He hesitated. “I’m Than,” he said reluctantly.

  “What’s her name?” Cohen asked, amazed at his own bravery.

  “That’s my sister, Hippie.”

  She smiled a tired, wry grin.

  “Is that really your name?” Cohen asked.

  She shrugged, clearly unwilling to fight about it. “It’s fine.”

  Cohen smiled. Than did too, but his grin was caustic and cynical. Cohen didn’t know what to think of him, whether or not he could trust him, whether or not he could like him. But Hippie . . . Cohen fell for her immediately.

  “Did you hear us talking?” Than asked.

  “Not much,” Cohen explained, not wanting to sound like a snoop. “Not very much.”

  They stared at him.

  “Well, you know, I mean, I heard you’re looking for something.”

  Than looked nervously over at his sister, but Hippie’s eyes didn’t leave Cohen.

  “Do you know what we’re looking for?” she asked in a calm voice.

  He started to shake his head, but an image stopped him. It was the image of the car crash—when he’d stood beside the open window, hearing the approach of a speeding car, the crash. The darkness that had come out. That’s what he couldn’t stop thinking about. The darkness that had crawled out from under the car. The Beast he had seen coming for him. And in that moment he knew.

  “Maybe,” he whispered. “I might know.”

  “Ha!” Than laughed skeptically and turned away, swinging his stick at a large oak. A piece of bark broke away. A breeze rustled the bare bones of the trees, carrying the scent of the burned-out trailer up the hill to where they stood.

  “What?” Cohen asked.

  Than shook his head, still laughing to himself. “You haven’t seen nothing. No way. Not possible.”

  “What did you see?” Hippie asked.

  The wind in the trees died down. The woods were nearly silent, as they are in the winter when the birds are mostly gone and the squirrels are not flitting through the undergrowth. In the winter it’s only the wind that brings life to the trees, but in that moment the wind had stopped and Cohen could feel his own heart beating.

  “I saw a car crash,” he said. “I saw a car crash.”

  “And?” Than demanded.

  “And . . . and I saw a shadow. A darkness. A Beast?”

  The change that came over Than’s face was comical. It was as if someone had turned him into a wax figure, his mouth posed in an open position, his eyebrows raised.

  Hippie smiled. “Yes. I knew it. I knew it was you.”

  Cohen looked at her but didn’t ask the question.

  She answered it anyway. “You can help us. Yes. You.”

  “With what?” Cohen asked.

  Than started walking away, making his way around the path that circled the bowl in the hills.

  Hippie nodded toward her retreating brother. “Follow him,” she said, still smiling.

  “Where are we going?” Cohen asked, suddenly very aware of how far he was from home and how much trouble he would be in if his father found out he had left the city on his own, gone clear beyond the railroad tracks.

  “Down there.” Hippie pointed with a slightly bent finger down the hill to the charred mobile home with its burned roof, its blackened walls, and its door that kept swinging open and closed, open and closed, even when there was no wind.

  twenty-three

  The Accident

  “Mr. Marah?” the detective says in a thin voice.

  Cohen looks around the funeral home basement as if he can’t remember how he arrived there, and it feels surprisingly foreign to him, this place where he has worked nearly every day of his adult life. It’s empty now, and he hasn’t seen it that way before. He glances up at the ceiling, wishing he could see the sky. But he can only see a water-stained drop ceiling, a grid of yellowing, once-white squares. Whoever turned on the lights turned on only one switch, so half the room is dark.

  “Mr. Marah?” the detective says again. “I know this is probably difficult for you. We only have a few questions. After that, you can head back to the hospital to be with your father.”

  Cohen looks at him calmly. The man doesn’t look like a detective—he’s short and thin and wears large glasses. His hair is wispy and parted, and he has large hands for his size. He looks more like an accountant or the manager of a factory that makes buttons.

  “Call me Cohen.”

  “Of course. Cohen.”

  Cohen looks over at Ava. She gives him a soft, encouraging smile.

  “Cohen,” the detective says, “when was the last time you saw your father?”

  “I guess the night before all this. Was that Sunday night? The days are all running together.”

  “Okay, Sunday night.” Every word the detective speaks is weighed down with suspicion, as if he does not expect Cohen to answer truthfully, as if the next question might be the one to undo him. “Can you tell me about that?”

  “Sure.” Cohen looks around the room. This is what he doesn’t want to talk about. He wonders if he starts down this road whether he’ll be able to stop. “To be honest, it wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”

  He pauses, deciding that, all things considered, he should be as honest as possible. He feels on the verge of losing track of what’s true and what’s not. The stories inside of him are becoming tangled cords. Why he thought his father was dead. When he first arrived at the scene. When he last saw his father.

  “I went up to the apartment to let Dad know I was heading home for the night.”

  “This was on Sunday night?”

  Cohen nods.

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It was late. Maybe around eleven.”

  “Eleven p.m.? That’s late. And your elderly father was awake? Okay. Go ahead.”

  “He’s always awake at eleven p.m.,” Cohen says defensively. “This is a funeral home. People don’t schedule their deaths between the hours of eight and five.”

  The detective does not respond to his sarcasm.

  Cohen shakes it off. “I went upstairs.” He motions toward the back of the basement and the stairs that go all the way up to the apartment. “I was working down here, getting some things together, no
thing big. So, upstairs, I knocked. He didn’t answer, so I went in. He had obviously been drinking. He drinks.” Cohen rubs his eyes. “He drank.” He shakes his head. “Whatever. Anyway, he was on the sofa, as usual. He had a drink in his hand.”

  “He didn’t lock the door?”

  “The door?”

  “The door you entered the apartment through? You said you knocked and walked in. The door wasn’t locked?”

  “Good question,” Cohen says, thinking. “I don’t remember if it was locked. I do have a key.”

  “So, you can come and go as you please, here in the funeral home and also upstairs in the apartment?”

  Cohen feels a rise of exasperation, tamps it down, and nods. “Yes. I come and go as I please. I lived here for many years. This is where I work, and that is my father’s apartment. Don’t you have a key to your parents’ house?”

  He stops. He takes a deep breath, begins talking, stops again, and the breath eases out in a long sigh. He shakes his head, trying to clear a path through all the memories that have been bombarding him since the morning he stepped over his father’s body.

  Ava speaks quietly. “You were saying that he drinks?”

  “Yes. Right. He drinks all the time. Anyway, I told him I had decided I was leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Ava asks.

  “Yeah, leaving. I told him I wasn’t going to work here anymore.” He looks over at Ava. “I can’t do it anymore. I’m vanishing into all this. All this death. I’ve been trying to quit for years, a decade maybe? I’ve been dropping hints every so often. But he ignored them. He couldn’t imagine a future for this place that didn’t involve me. Even though my sister works here and is way more capable than me. It was always about me.” He looks around at the strangely empty basement.

  “So you felt trapped?” the detective asked, peering over his glasses.