The Silver Bough

by Lisa Tuttle

  Kathleen shook her head. “But I never knew it was a door,” she murmured. She reached out her hand to the golden apple, the lowest of the three, and as she pressed it there was a click, and the door that had been hidden in the wall swung open.

  It revealed a second spiral staircase, this one well lit by the light that flooded down from above. Kathleen started up the stairs, moving in a slow, oddly dreamy way, and Nell, close behind, had to take care not to bump into her.

  The stairs took them up into a wide and spacious room filled with a faintly golden light. It was a round room and, as she looked up at the high, curved ceiling, Nell realized they must be inside the golden dome that made the library such a famous landmark in the town. The other thing she noticed immediately, as distinctive as the room’s shape, was the smell: oil paints and turpentine. Even before she took in the number of painted canvases, resting on easels or stacked against the gently curving walls, she knew this was an artist’s studio.

  She looked at Kathleen, who looked back at her, pupils dilated in shock, clearly even more astonished than she was by the discovery of this secret atelier. Then they both turned and stared at the artist who was very much in residence, and deeply engrossed in her work, painting away at a canvas resting on an easel. The unfinished painting, largely composed of shades of green and brown, seemed to depict a grove of trees. The artist wore a multicolored, striped, long-sleeved, knee-length smock over a long dress or skirt. She was turned away from them, so they couldn’t see her face but only a mass of light brown hair loosely fastened behind her head.

  Kathleen cleared her throat. “Hello?” Her voice sounded soft and weak. “Excuse me,” she went on, more determinedly. “Would you mind telling me who you are, and what you’re doing here?”

  The artist gave no sign that she’d heard. The librarian walked right up to her and reached out to touch her. Nell, who stayed put, admired her nerve, and was not at all surprised to see her hand pass right through the artist’s colorfully striped shoulder.

  Kathleen reeled back in shock, then suddenly giggled. She walked all the way around the working artist, looking at her from every angle, but keeping well clear of her, taking no risk of trying to touch what looked so solid yet had no mass. When she’d completed a circuit she looked back at Nell. “You see her, too?”

  She nodded.

  “She doesn’t look like a hologram projection. Not like anything I’ve ever seen. She looks absolutely real. I wonder, can she see us? Hear us? Or…are we ghosts to her, too, only she’s used to ignoring us so she can get on with her work?”

  “She’s very industrious.” It felt wrong to talk about the artist as if she wasn’t there—but, probably, she wasn’t. “Any idea who she is?”

  “Emmeline Wall.” She took a step back, her eyes fixed on the ghost as she spoke the name, but it seemed to have no more power than any other words.

  “I never heard of her.”

  “Daughter of the man who built this library.” As she spoke, Kathleen moved away from the painter and began to prowl about, inspecting the paintings on display. “She was never famous but I found a really interesting painting by her tucked away in the storage room. Oh, and she was the mother of Ronan Wall.”

  Ronan’s mother.

  Although the information made her focus once more on the back of the oblivious artist, Nell still did not move. She had a strong feeling that they were trespassers in this room. They hadn’t been invited, and even if she was unaware of them, even a ghost deserved courtesy.

  “Hey, look at this!”

  “Kathleen, I think—”

  “Come here—it’s a portrait of her son. See if you can recognize him.”

  Despite her unease, she couldn’t resist, and crossed the room to Kathleen’s side.

  “That’s Ronan, isn’t it?”

  She looked at the canvas Kathleen had found and could only nod, speechless, as she recognized the man who had offered her the chance to have her heart’s desire, the man she had sent away yesterday. The painting was fairly small, no more than eight-by-ten, a head-and-shoulders portrait of an unsmiling, darkly handsome young man.

  “How weird is that,” said Kathleen, sounding awed. “I thought it was, you know, because I just saw a newspaper photograph of him from nineteen fifty, when he would have been in his early thirties, and he looked just like that. But Emmeline didn’t live to see her son grow up. He was only about three years old when she killed herself. So how could she have known?”

  Obviously, thought Nell, the picture had been painted by Emmeline after her own death, when she was a ghost, drifting about the town unseen, still watching over her orphaned son. As the image formed in her mind she felt sorry for the sad little boy who’d lost his mother at an even earlier age than she had. “What happened to him? Was he adopted?”

  “He was looked after by his grandfather, but not with much affection. I’ve been reading his diary, and it seems that he just couldn’t warm to the boy. I guess he couldn’t forgive him for what happened to Emmeline.”

  Nell thought of Ronan, and her heart ached for him—and for herself. She remembered her child-self—dirty and desperate and doing her best—and felt ashamed of the foolish coward she’d grown to be. Once she had not been afraid to take chances, to try to achieve the impossible. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “I think we should go now. Kathleen?”

  The librarian had drifted away. Nell called her name more loudly, but she seemed nearly as oblivious as the ghost, and Nell could see no other way of getting her attention but to go after her and take hold of her arm. It was a relief to feel warm, solid flesh beneath her fingers.

  “We have to leave.”

  Kathleen looked puzzled; Nell had the idea she wasn’t sure who she was.

  “Kathleen,” she said, more urgently. “Let’s go.”

  Her face cleared. “Oh, that’s all right! You go; I don’t need you here.”

  “Come with me. We don’t belong here.”

  She laughed. “I do! I’m the librarian. I’ve got a job to do. Just look at all these paintings! Absolutely none of this stuff has been catalogued; can you believe it?”

  For a moment Nell was tempted to leave her to it. But she knew it would be wrong. Even though Kathleen looked happy enough, she clearly had no idea where she was or what had happened. She was in a dream-state; she hadn’t made a conscious choice.

  “Well, before you get started, we should finish downstairs. We have to make sure everything is all right downstairs; all the books and everything; make sure nobody broke into the library.”

  She frowned. “Broke in?”

  “Remember? It’s late, Kath. You’re not supposed to be working now. You’d gone home, and then you saw a light on—”

  “Oh, I remember! But we came up here—” She broke off and looked around uneasily. Her gaze fell on Emmeline, still working away at a mass of green in the center of her canvas, and she shivered. Without another word she headed for the door.

  Nell hesitated, drawn by her own curiosity about what the ghostly artist was actually painting. But she recognized the danger in that and would not let herself be distracted. She hurried down the slightly swaying staircase after Kathleen and, after a moment’s uncertainty, left the hidden door ajar before descending the second staircase. She did not believe that Emmeline Wall could pose a threat to anyone save herself, and did not like the idea of her poor ghost being trapped up there if she couldn’t manage to open the door from the inside.

  Once they were back on the ground floor, Kathleen shut the door behind them and locked it, her trembling hands making it a difficult enterprise. There was no talk of searching the library for other intruders; they were both eager to get away.

  It had been dark when they entered the library, but now it was light—light enough, at least, that they could see their way around outside. But it hardly seemed like morning. There was a dim grey half-light that might have come just before dawn, but with an odd greenish tinge.


  “How long were we in there?” Kathleen said, sounding bewildered. “What time is it? Darn this cheap watch! Do you have the time?”

  Nell shook her head.

  “We must have been in there for hours! The whole night! And it felt like minutes—I’d still be in there, if not for you. Look, the window’s disappeared!”

  Together they stared up at the side of the building. Where the glowing rectangle of an upstairs window had been there was now nothing but solid reddish stone. Then Nell staggered slightly as Kathleen threw her arms around her and gave her a strong hug. “Thanks for being there. Thanks for getting me out,” she murmured. Then, letting her go, she said, “Want to come in for a drink?”

  “Thanks, but I have to go. There’s someone I have to find, if it’s not too late.”

  From Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements

  of the Highlanders of Scotland

  by W. Grant Stewart

  (Archibald Constable, 1823)

  IN the former and darker ages of the world, when people had not half the wit and sagacity they now possess, and when, consequently, they were much more easily duped by such designing agents, the “Ech Uisque,” or water-horse, as the kelpie is commonly called, was a well-known character in those countries. The kelpie was an infernal agent, retained in the service and pay of Satan, who granted him a commission to execute such services as appeared profitable to his interest. He was an amphibious character, and generally took up his residence in lochs and pools, bordering on public roads and other situations most convenient for his professional calling.

  His commission consisted in the destruction of human beings, without affording them time to prepare for their immortal interests, and thus endeavour to send their souls to his master, while he, the kelpie, enjoyed the body. However, he had no authority to touch a human being of his own free accord, unless the latter was the aggressor. In order, therefore, to delude public travellers and others to their destruction, it was the common practice of the kelpie to assume the most fascinating form, and assimilate himself to that likeness, which he supposed most congenial to the inclinations of his intended victim.

  The likeness of a fine riding steed was his favourite disguise. Decked out in the most splendid riding accoutrements, the perfidious kelpie would place himself in the weary traveller’s way, and graze by the road-side with all the seeming innocence and simplicity in the world…he was as calm and peaceable as a lamb, until his victim was once fairly mounted on his back; with a fiend-like yell he would then announce his triumph, and plunging headlong with his woe-struck rider into an adjacent pool, enjoy him for his repast.

  DAVE’S LETTER LAY on the kitchen floor where she’d dropped it when she saw the light from the library. As

  Kathleen bent to pick it up she remembered the last she’d seen of him, running off with some strangers only minutes after agreeing to come back with her for dinner. But before she could get too indignant over the way she’d been abandoned, she recalled the compulsion she’d felt to stay in that room on top of the library, the room that did not exist. If not for Nell, she’d be there still. Strange things were happening, undoubtedly. She couldn’t presume to judge his behavior without more information.

  So, instead of throwing it away as she’d meant to do earlier, she slit open the square blue envelope with a table knife, took out the folded sheet of paper it contained, and held it up to read by the murky light that filtered through the kitchen window.

  Dearest Kathleen,

  Although I haven’t seen or spoken to you since Saturday night, you’ve hardly left my mind. I tried to call several times, but “No network coverage” said my cell phone, and my landline has become even more mysteriously unreliable than usual. My noble (and formerly trusted) steed took me only as far as the sign which always makes me think of Virginia Woolf before collapsing.

  I’ll spare you the mechanical details. Suffice to say it has been repaired, I have wheels again, and I really should have managed, as intended, to turn up at the library before it closed today.

  The reason I didn’t is because of you, actually, and I hope you’ll forgive me when you know why.

  I’ve written a song.

  (I feel those words should leap off the page in neon lights, at the very least!)

  It’s the first song I’ve written in over three years, and it’s for you.

  I must see you. I won’t leave Appleton until I do. I’ll be back shortly.

  Your

  Dave

  She gulped. Her heart was fluttering; she felt like someone in an old-fashioned romantic novel—no, like the teenaged fan she’d once been. He’d written a song for her!

  Again she recalled her last sight of him, the greying reddish ponytail bouncing against the back of his smart leather jacket as he walked quickly, almost running…

  He’d been running after that crowd; he wasn’t with them; he’d been struggling to catch up, while they’d strolled on, completely unaware…Who were they that had drawn him away, that he’d been so desperate to reach?

  She thought of the ghost and the secret room inside the library dome. She’d had Nell to draw her back to reality, but Dave was on his own. She grabbed her purse and her car key and went out to find him.

  Even in a small town it was hard to know where to begin. Since her car was still parked in front of the library, she had only to drive half a block and turn left on the Esplanade to find herself back in front of the Victoria Hotel, at almost the same spot where she’d had her last sight of Dave. The hopeful attempt at a sidewalk café had been dismantled, the outside lights were off, and the hotel looked dark and deserted in the cool grey light.

  She took the second turning at the pierhead circle, but was then stymied in her attempt to retrace his steps. Half a dozen smaller streets branched off it, and he might have taken any one of them. Yet it hardly mattered, for they all joined up with Main Street, and from there…Flipping a mental coin, she turned right, taking the road out of town as far as it allowed. Dave’s car was still parked where he’d left it, the glossy red paint softly beaded with moisture: dew or sea spray. She noticed a soft grey fog hanging over the sea, gradually creeping closer to the land. At last she made sense of the strange light and odd, muffled atmosphere hanging over the town: fog.

  Wrapped in the dim, foggy silence, the town slept. She met no one on the road, and the shops were all shut up tight. The clock in her car had chosen this inconvenient moment to die, and when she went past the town hall she saw the hands on its clock face both pointed straight up at twelve.

  She shivered uneasily. It could not be mere coincidence. What sort of power would stop every clock in town? Or had time itself been suspended?

  She felt a sudden, childish urge to hurry home, lock the doors, crawl into bed, and put her head under the covers. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn that was what practically everyone else in the town was doing at that moment, waiting and praying for the return of normality. Unless, of course, they were all innocently asleep as they would be in the middle of the night, and it was still the middle of the night, despite this strange, sourceless grey light.

  On her first drive along the Esplanade, past the harbor, she’d noticed people hanging around on the pier. So, having found everywhere else so deserted, she was drawn back there. Slowing her car to a crawl along the Esplanade, she peered out at the dockside activity, and her unease grew. Who are all these people? And what are they doing, so alert and busy, while the town sleeps? Then, at last, among all the strangers she glimpsed a single familiar figure: an old codger in a filthy old sweater and knitted cap, with a pipe sticking out of the side of his mouth as if growing there. He was often to be seen on a bench gazing out to sea, or loitering on the pier, offering advice to visiting sailors, and on very wet days he’d sometimes pass a whole afternoon in the library, poring over the latest issues of The Fishing News. As she parked her car nearby and walked back to the pier, she searched her memory for the old man’s name.

  “Mr. Mc
Naughton!” she called out brightly, the name popping into her mind just in time. “Good morning!”

  “Is it?” He levered himself slowly off a bench, peering at her suspiciously from beneath bushy white eyebrows.

  “I’m Kathleen Mullaroy, from the library,” she said, thinking he hadn’t recognized her.

  “Aye, I know fine who you are.”

  “I’m looking for someone. I wondered if you might have seen him go past. Dave Varney is his name, and he’s—”

  “Mr. Varney as stays out at White Gates?”

  “You know him?”

  He gave a grunt and shifted his cold pipe in his mouth. “Not to speak to. I knows him by sight.”

  “Did you see him? It might have been a few hours ago…possibly with a group of people.”

  The old man removed his pipe and went and knocked it sharply against the back of the bench. “I saw them, all right. Took it he was going home. Time I was off myself.” Replacing the pipe in its accustomed place, he steadied himself and began to walk away with slow, careful steps. After four or five steps he stopped and turned back. “You want to get yourself home, too. Don’t hang about here—it’s not safe.”

  “Why?” She couldn’t stop herself glancing around at the other people. There were now only a few left on the pier; the others had returned to the boats lying at anchor, or otherwise melted away out of sight.

  He shook his head slowly. “You’ve seen the fog, haven’t you?”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “It’ll get worse. And if you get yourself lost in it—well. You don’t want to be out alone when the fog comes in. You don’t want to get yourself lost. Go home.”

  “I’ll be careful. Did you speak to Dave, Mr. McNaughton? Did he say anything?”

  “Go home,” he said again, and turned away.

  But going home was not an option—not until she knew Dave was safe. She went back to her car and headed for the hills. She had only a rough idea where White Gates Farm might be, but as there were so few roads on the Apple, even a rough idea should be good enough. If Dave had struck out for home on foot, there was a chance she’d meet him on the way.