I See You So Close

by M Dressler

  “They don’t deserve our charity!”

  “Ungrateful!”

  “After all we’ve done for them!”

  “You blast ’em”—John Berringer shouts now, standing under the Prospector, leaning against him—“they win!”

  The square quiets down, obedient.

  I wait and listen, for my kind.

  John Berringer wipes the ice from his chin. Squinting at the townspeople around him, he says, “That what you all really want, huh? Think that’s what they really want? To have no place to go? Don’t be fooled by all this . . . spectacle. This is a tantrum that’ll blow over. It happened at the very beginning. Before the first bargain. Which put an end to such dramatic displays. Those who don’t have any choices, and got nowhere else to call home, always come home to their senses in the end.”

  Mary Berringer stands beside her husband. “My dear John is right. No need for us to overreact. None at all. Children will have their outbursts from time to time. Then they remember what’s best for them—with a little help. John and I have been here longer than any of you!” she calls out. “We know what to do, good neighbors and friends. We know the history of the Bar. We know how to get through this, and keep what’s ours.”

  A man stands up, shivering. “And just what do you propose we do right now? Freeze our asses off outside our own homes because they’ve hounded us from them and won’t let us back in them, until—what?”

  “They drove me from my own kitchen!” another calls.

  “From my TV!”

  “From my bed!”

  “It’s simply time to renew the bargain,” Mary Berringer announces. “A little early. Pick up your flashlights, everyone,” she says, for night is descending. “Bill, get some torches from the storeroom. Everyone. Stand up. Turn on your sled lights. Time to put everything back in its place. As any lost thing will know is best.”

  “Everything back where it belongs!”

  “I like the sound of that!”

  “I’m with Mary and John!”

  “This is our home. Our way of life!”

  “But it’s not,” Martha whispers to Mary, “the anniversary yet.”

  “I think we can move things up by a week, don’t you? Sometimes in life, dear, you have to adjust.”

  “But what about the hunter? He’ll be back soon.”

  “Then we have no time to lose, Martha. Now come. You’re our mayor! Be mayoral. Lead us. Go up on the Huellet balcony, as you’ve always done. Begin the recitation.”

  She gives Martha a little push toward the Huellet House. The mayor wipes her hair, then wades through the snow, a slow crossing, to the porch. There she looks back, uncertain.

  “We’re all with you, Martha dear.”

  The townspeople turn on their beams, and the lights flood the darkened mansion. Martha goes through the front door. A feeble light turns on inside the house. Next a brighter one, on the second floor. At Ruth Huellet’s bedroom one of the tall windows is thrown up, jerkily. The mayor tucks underneath its sash and climbs out onto the ragged balcony.

  The faces of the town look up at her. Solemnly.

  She closes her eyes, as if trying to recall something.

  “People of the Bar—”

  She stops.

  “People of the Bar.”

  She opens her eyes, trying again.

  “It’s okay!”

  “Go on!”

  “Do it, Martha!”

  “You can do it!”

  She sets her shoulders. She shouts: “People of the Bar! I thank you for gathering here. Let us begin the ceremony. O, spirits from beyond the grave: we now join with you. The perils of the world are many. And the way is hard. Who among us is not without sorrows?” She looks down. “Who among us does not know the pain of loss, or the wish for retrieval? There will be errors, accident, tragedies, and dismay. But so long as our hearts are good, and made of good intentions, our consciences will be clear and our purposes certain. Let us not seek ways to tear each other apart, but in politeness and civility make our bargain: that we will dwell together, each keeping to our own place. We have built for you a house, spirits, a monument to you, where you will find a home, and be forever cared for and entertained and educated. You will acknowledge what we have built for you, and cease your ravaging our homes and shops. Your families are gone, o spirits. They left, tearfully, when you were taken from this life. You have no other family but us, to honor and care for you. It is a time for a rebirth. If you will keep to your house, then we will keep to ours, and never let your peace be disturbed, as you will never let ours be. All things are possible with order and the rule of law. All things will be torn down with vengeance and blame. Anger is futile. Peace and correct behavior an endless reward. We will now proceed to your domicile and raise our lights to you. Come, and show yourself at its windows, so that we may know you are content, and all may go on in fitness and rightness, with glory to God. These words first spoken by Dr. Caleb Huellet, mayor of the township of White Bar, 1852, in the presence of all those of right-thinking civilization. Let us now proceed to the offering.”

  The gathering in the photo. Not a hanging.

  The bartering of souls.

  The citizens of White Bar turn the iced noses of their sleds and plow and walk with their lights through the shadows on the hill, up to the schoolhouse. They’ll find nothing there, surely, I tell myself, hurrying invisibly along with them. I’m certain of it. The children have shown they know now what it is to move freely. They’ve chosen freedom for themselves. Unless . . . unless . . .

  Longhurst.

  I wing over of the heads of the mob, looking down for Su, her bright scarf. She isn’t with them.

  Inside the schoolroom, empty desks. I wait for the gathered people of White Bar to top the hill. No one is here to greet them, I see, relieved, but me. And I’ll do whatever must be done.

  The parade of lights and torches comes no farther than the edge of the schoolyard. The people of White Bar unmount and stand and face the locked and chained school, their faces half hidden by the flares they hold in their hands.

  “This house”—Martha stands just in front of them, still reciting—“is a house of dignity, built by humanity, in the shape of what is holy. Show us you are like us in dignified breeding and humanity—or if you are mere animals, creatures of the devil. We believe you are not. We believe you to be marked by charity and good manners. Let us see each other, and make and resolve this bargain from this day forward. Show yourself at these windows of wisdom.”

  No one comes.

  “No one’s at the windows,” someone whispers.

  “I told you. It needs to be the actual anniversary,” Martha says to Mary Berringer.

  John Berringer steps forward and lifts his chin at the steeple, into the darkened air. “Just to be clear,” he shouts. “Return to this house, and we’ll manage this hunter, and any who come after him. As we always have. That could change, however, whenever we want it to. If you stay in line, we’ll take care of him and the rest. If not . . . well. We’re returning now to our homes, unmolested. We’ll come again in the morning, and look for your answer—unless you want the hunter to be told about each and every one of you, down to the smallest. And if any one of these good people”—he points behind him—“are made to feel even the least bit of discomfort tonight, you’ll all be destroyed.”

  “You see, we have to show strength.” Mary nods at Martha. “It’s the only thing they understand.” She turns to the others. “Now, if any of you don’t want to preserve our traditions in the way John describes, speak up or forever hold your peace.”

  Soft murmurs come.

  “All right.”

  “Give ’em one last chance.”

  “If they’re blasted, it’ll be their fault.”

  “Not ours.”

  “Give ’em some time to think it through.”

  “We’re probably being too generous.”

  “But let’s go.”

  Inside the
schoolhouse, I feel faint vibrations behind me.

  I know it’s the children. With Longhurst.

  I don’t turn away from the windows to look at them. I stay frozen. “Keep still and cold,” I whisper to them behind me. “Be clever. Wait. Listen.”

  “We won’t be sacrificing the oldest boy to Pratt?” Martha is saying to Mary.

  “No, of course we will, dear. Some price must be paid for what they did tonight. And to keep them in order.”

  The vibration grows stronger behind me.

  “Stay calm,” I say. “The hunter will be back at any moment. We must keep to a plan. Ola, do you remember where I said to take the children?”

  Her voice rises out of the silence.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Mr. Longhurst, will you help me distract the town?”

  I feel him move closer to me, away from the children. Good.

  “You have some plan, Miss Finnis?”

  I have an end. “I need more time. I know this hunter. I know what to do. Will you help me, for the children?” To atone for your murders, I don’t say, but let the thought vibrate through the souls around me.

  A pause.

  “I can,” says the schoolmaster.

  “Then I’ll trust you.”

  Trust no one, the children once said. We burned.

  They sometimes frighten me, they stare at me, the schoolmaster said.

  “We all know what to do, then,” I say quietly and rise through the steeple, the children’s eyes following me, looking up.

  26

  I’ve never taken to the air with another like me. A strange comfort to it, in spite of everything. After the coldness of the children.

  “There they are,” Longhurst says of the townspeople below.

  “You’ll keep them on the square?” I ask. “Don’t let them go back to their homes.”

  “And you?”

  “It’s Pratt I have to take on.”

  “You know him. You’ve met him before.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s good to know your enemy. I’ll keep them busy. As long as I can.”

  I leave the schoolmaster to take on the Bar.

  I alight on the roof of the hotel, where the body I’ve protected waits for me under its icy cover.

  “A little longer,” I whisper, “and I’ll return for you. I promise.”

  I pass down the chimney.

  In Pratt’s room, nothing is as it was when I last saw it. Papers are scattered all around on the floor. On the bed, an artist’s sketchbook lies open, sheets torn from it. Across the bedspread, in scrap after scrap, a face is charcoaled over and over again, each drawing stricken through and dismissed, it seems, and a new one tried. Yet he can’t quite remember. He can’t quite capture what he saw, months ago. Two faces, blurred into one. One small and round, the other with eyes that seem too large for it, and the shadow of a cleft in her chin.

  I’m glad I’ve been haunting you, Philip Pratt. You might think me a monster, yet here, with every line, you’ve been trying to grasp me.

  Outside the window the statue of the Prospector groans and falls. Longhurst, showing off his rage and vengeance and power. The townspeople cower in the snow, fallen, too, their knees curled into their chests.

  On the dresser, below the town’s famous photograph, Pratt has made more sketches, of buildings and plunging bodies with arrows drawn beside them, pointing up and down. I see after a moment what Pratt’s doing: he’s mapped the course of what happened when last we met—what he did, how he lifted his wrist and turned it to fire his weapon, too late to save a life, too late to strike me down. He’s haunted by this, by the error he’s not sure he made.

  Dates below, and scribblings, notes different from the ones I saw him make in front of Harold and Su and the others.

  “First sighting—San Francisco—Fisherman’s Wharf. Ferry crossing.”

  “Second sighting—near Davis—moving East.”

  “Third sighting—Lake Berry—attack on driver. Still East.”

  He’s been following me, closer than I knew. Chasing the error.

  Well, now we each have a weapon.

  Longhurst is done flinging the Prospector to the square. He rises, spreading his black coat wide. The cries of the town go up and now, added to them, is the shrieking of a fresh motor. I go on looking through the curtained window. Harold and Pratt are returning by sled. Harold’s mouth is all agape below the window. Martha is running toward them, stumbling into Pratt’s arms.

  “Help us! Please!”

  “You’re all right.” Pratt grabs and steadies her as he watches Longhurst’s coat flap away into the night. “Listen to me. You’re all right!”

  “It was the schoolmaster!”

  Yes, the new part of my plan.

  “I know,” Pratt says quickly. “Ruth told me. Mayor Hayley, pull yourself together. Where is he going? What lies that way? The school?”

  “Schoolhouse Knob! Yes! Yes!”

  The children will be gone from there by now. Longhurst will be leading Pratt there for me.

  “Harold, I’m taking the snowcat!” Pratt shouts. “Take care of Martha!”

  And now we’ll all race to see who’s fastest, whose aim the sharpest.

  Pratt rattles the chains at the schoolhouse door. He can’t get in. He kicks it with his good leg, breaking it in, falling forward inside. He swings a beam of light across the slanted desks and the slates tossed to the floor, over the cold stove, across the neat alphabet on the chalkboard, reflecting now with dust and snow.

  “No need to stay,” I whisper to Longhurst. “Go.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Pratt says, misunderstanding me.

  The hunter hunts quietly now, moving slowly between the desks.

  I see him breathing, sense his heart pounding. He reaches for his own chest. “Ruth has told me about you. What a long, sad road it’s been, Landon Albert Longhurst.” They try to use our names to call us out. “She told me she wants to end this long curse, this burden and suffering you’ve all been sharing for centuries. She’s lying in a hospital bed, at this very moment, wishing you peace.” He adjusts his wrist with one hand, carefully, twisting the mechanism. “The hospital where you put her. But she bears you no ill will. She’s tired and frustrated, as you are. It’s time, at last, for a new beginning. And peace and rest that can be shared by all. Not just by some. Rest is so close. Why don’t you show yourself to me, and let me help you toward a happier place than this mad, maddening one?”

  A slate rattles at his feet. He sees it. Stares down at it for a moment. Then bends, inching—is it because he’s in pain, or because he wants to show how little he needs to hurry?—and lifts and turns it over.

  I’ve written across it: WE ARE SO TIRED.

  “I understand. So there is more than one of you here?”

  I whisper, in a childish-sounding voice, Yes.

  “Are you all here?”

  Yes, my whisper comes, as another slate slides across the floor to him.

  It reads: ARE YOU TIRED, TOO?

  “It’s kind of you all to ask. Ruth says you were always polite ghosts—before time began weighing so heavily on you. You’re right.” A hand still at his chest, he looks around the room. “I am tired. I wouldn’t mind a bit of rest myself.” He sits at a small desk, his bulk nearly too much for it. “Ah. It’s so dreary, isn’t it, children, always having to do your duty. It’s so heavenly—for teacher and students both, I imagine—when school lets out. No more being bound by rules.” He sighs, deeply. “I don’t miss school at all. I didn’t go to a school, myself, exactly like this one. But then, you didn’t attend this schoolhouse either, did you? Your school was burned, Ruth told me, when you died. This is just a tomb. A room that’s never meant anything to you. It isn’t really your home. And never really felt like it. I know. I understand. I can imagine. You’ve been trying to imagine you’re at home, inside death, and that these walls are real to you, and that all the long days and years, th
e centuries, that have come and gone are real, watching others more real than you come and go, while you stay, and go nowhere. The nights are too real, too, aren’t they, the most real thing of all. They stretch so long, with nothing to fill them. You understand all the days and nights are real. But you know, in your hearts, you know that you can never be real again, no matter what tricks you try. And it makes you feel terribly sad. So terribly sad and alone. With nothing but more sadness ahead of you.”

  This is what he does. He tries to worm his way into your soul—though you’ve kicked and scraped and fought off worms. He tries to make you doubt your heart is real because there’s no beat to it, doubt your wishes are real because they haven’t come true. And should you find, by some miracle, a body to put all your wishes and dreams in, a body at this moment waiting saved and cold, he’ll want you to believe that miracle isn’t real, either, and that you don’t deserve it. It’s all the same, what the powerful want to do: trick you into thinking so little of yourself, you’ll come out and hold your hand up, like a child asking to be slapped.

  I slide another slate across to him, from a different part of the room.

  YOU SHOULD HAVE, it reads.

  “I should have what, friends?”

  He stands, baring his arm, gauging the distance the slates have crossed. I keep calm, move away.

  SAVED HER, the next says.

  “Saved who?”

  The last of the slates, now.

  THE ONE WHO FELL. EMMA ROSE TOLD US.

  “What?”

  A piece of cold satisfaction—if a small one—to see the certainty on his face slip away. It needs no slate to speak what’s written in that man’s eyes. The living might not know, but the dead know you for what you are, Philip Pratt. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? You’re imagining six ghosts in this room with you, seeing you, though you can’t see them, all of them seeing you for what you are. This room knows, Pratt, that you used a young, living woman to try to catch a ghost and got her killed in the process. It was later called an accident—but let’s call it what it was: a bargain you made. And now you know, as your eyes widen, that you’ll never be able to fool anyone, not in this room, with your lies and tricks. And more: if you want to finish your business here so you can go off and chase me, the rose with the thorn that cuts because she reminds you of what you cut down, you’ll have to aim, now, recklessly, wildly, again—as you did on that day the young woman whose dead body cools not far from here fell and died, glass piercing her neck. I’ve worn her scar.