Death Watch (42 page)

The spirit, as it enters into the Other World, is immediately recognized by its friends and acquaintances, for spirits recognize a person, not merely by his face and speech, but also by the sphere of his life as they draw near it. When anyone in the Other Life thinks of another, he thinks of his face … and when he does this the other becomes present, as if he had been sent for or summoned.

—From “Certain Useful Notes and Translations from Swedenborg’s
Heaven and Hell
,” copied out by Jonas Umber

I
N SILAS’S MIND
, all the time he spent with Bea melted into one long evening of looking at the sea and stars, of looking at her and hearing her words, her voice surrounding him like a song. Silas loved the distraction Bea provided because when he was alone, all he could think about was how he didn’t know what to do next about his dad. When he was with her, he could think of nothing but her; she worked on him like a spell.

Now he was alone again, trying to hold off the coming day. He lay in bed, awake but with his eyes closed, thinking about the night, about Bea; little moments, strung together like jewels, were turning over and over in his mind, growing brighter in remembrance.

She loved the footpath by the river, and at night, the sound of the rushing water was soft music running alongside their conversation.

“Will you ever leave Lichport, Silas?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have any plans to leave here. Where would I go?”

“Will you promise me, Silas? Promise me that you’ll never leave.”

“I’ll try,” he said tenderly.

“Try not to leave, or only try to promise?” she asked, looking away at the sky.

“I’ll try,” he said again. When he looked at her face lit by the pale moon, he thought his heart would break for the way it glowed, her perfect features, so familiar, limned in pearl and opal light. “You are beautiful …,” he whispered.

And Bea looked back at him, the light slipping from her face, and said with a voice he could barely hear, “You always say that, my darling.”

Another night, they walked far north of the Narrows, around the bay and out to the lighthouse. The surface of the sea was embroidered with stars, for the moon was nowhere to be seen. Bea had asked him about his family, and Silas had said he wasn’t sure what to tell her. He had hoped she might have known his dad, and sometimes she looked as though she was about say something when Silas mentioned him. But she never did. So he asked her about her family, and to his surprise, she avoided family questions too, and asked him another question instead.

“Don’t you want to kiss me, Silas?”

“I—Yes, I do. Very much.” Silas thought about leaning over, but stopped. Then, without thinking, he did it; inclined his head toward her with his eyes closed. But nothing happened. When he opened his eyes, she was standing several feet away by the lighthouse. He got up and walked toward her, hurt and embarrassed.

“Not yet, Silas.”

“Okay. It’s fine. I just—”

“We can’t. I think you know that. Not yet.”

He looked away from her and down at the sea throwing itself against the rocks far below them.

“There is a great lantern up there,” Bea said, drawing his attention back, gesturing to the top of the lighthouse.

“Oh, yes?” Silas answered, trying to refocus on her voice.

“Think of all the ships it’s called home from the sea … think of all the people it’s saved. Sometimes on certain nights I think I can see a light up there on the tower. Isn’t that odd? No one’s been in the lighthouse for years and years, but I’m sure I’ve seen it. Little lights are good luck, you know. Lights seen over water are good luck. They’ll always lead you home.”

“Really? I think I’ve read something different—,” Silas started to say.

“Maybe,” Bea replied sharply. “I guess it depends what you want to believe.”

“And didn’t you tell me that sometimes people lit fires to make ships crash on the rocks? How can you tell which lights are dangerous and which ones lead you home?”

Bea smiled at him thinly but didn’t say another word as they left the lighthouse with the rising dawn. The sky was burning as the sun rose over the water, and its early fire hung at the edges of the world and in Silas’s tired eyes. They silently parted company by the fence at the bottom of Beacon Hill. Silas returned home feeling confused and heartsick. As he entered the house, his father’s belongings seemed to glow in the early morning light like a reminder. He knew he had to keep looking for his father, had to keep trying to learn
how
to look.

Exhausted, Silas made his way to bed. Sleep came quickly, but it cast him on the rocks of troubled dreams.

Only certain of the dead truly pose a danger to the living. Those who die by violence, or before their appointed hour, those executed for no just cause, those dying in youth upon the battlefield, and, of course, the drowned.

Once, in a villa rented by my family in Athens, a very wretched and most terrible ghost appeared to us, shackled upon its feet and wrists, water pouring from its mouth at every moment like a grotesque spigot. It would often wake a member of the household, putting its hand about their throats to wake them. Or it would stand before me, screaming, always in some small hour of the night, bidding me to follow it to the inner courtyard, whereupon it would then swiftly vanish. My wife and family bid us leave the place. Instead I had the courtyard dug up and lo! There was the ruin of an ancient well, long since covered over. The bottom of the
well was drained and a skeleton found, shackled in the same manner as the ghost.

At my insistence (and expense), a public funeral was held, and never again did the ghost appear or trouble the house in any manner.

—from the lost account of Athenodorus, found and translated from the Greek by Jonas Umber in the year 1792

M
RS. BOWE STOOD BY THE MAUSOLEUM
in her garden, listening. The bees had been bringing her news of Silas’s rambles about town. She had looked into her mother’s crystal and discerned that he was not alone on many of his walks. She knew, now, who he’d been spending his time with. Although she could see no more than a shadow moving beside the boy as he walked, she knew it was the drowned girl. She had come free of the millpond again.

Mrs. Bowe told herself it was none of her business.

But of course it was her business.

She knew Amos would not want Silas going to the millpond or consorting with anything that resided there. She knew that as sure as she knew her own name. Amos had confided in her that there was something about the millpond that gave him nightmares, and Mrs. Bowe suspected that the drowned girl had played at least a small role in his many excuses for moving to Saltsbridge with his infant son and wife.

“Just give it a wide berth, particularly as the year turns,” Amos had told her. “It is a critical place for children at all times, and for young men especially.”

She didn’t want to worry the boy, and maybe everything for the moment was fine. He certainly seemed happier lately, if not a little distracted, but she didn’t want him going near the millpond again. She knew something about the place. She knew about his
father’s experience with the ghost there and how it had followed him and how it disappeared during his father’s courtship. She knew how Amos had seen the spirit looking at him once through a window as he stood over Silas’s cradle. Mrs. Bowe feared that anything she told Silas would only make him even more curious. And clearly, the girl from the water had already appeared to him many times. No. In this instance, action needed to be taken, but discreetly. She didn’t want to upset the boy, after all.

Mrs. Bowe waited until after dinner to bring up the matter with Silas. She only knew what the bees told her and what she’d been able to spy within the crystal. But those were more than enough, and the bees were never wrong. She’d been raised right, though. No confrontation. Just a little story before bedtime. She crossed the passage between their houses and called to him from the doorway.

“I’m here, in the study,” Silas called back.

She went to him there. “I thought I might share a little tale with you.”

“I’m a little old for bedtime stories, don’t you think, Mrs. Bowe?” Silas asked, looking up from his reading.

“Then call it a cautionary tale, if you prefer. Now, are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin….”

This all happened long ago, right here in Lichport
.

There was a boy, a handsome, charming lad from an old family. He was sure of himself, sure of what he wanted, and when he fell in love he gave everything he had, though the girl he loved was not like his people. She was lovely, but wild, a thing of the woods and meadows. She hardly spoke, so he gave her his song. He played her music of his own making. He sang her honeyed words, and his sweet voice made the world grow still about them. He gave her his heart. But for all this, his
bright days with her would end too soon in shadow. Though their kin knew nothing of their love, for they hid it, the lovers soon announced their engagement and came very quickly to their wedding day
.

No one was surprised that things went bad fast. There was a pall over the whole business, folks said. And it was true. Even the torches at the wedding dinner sputtered and hissed and would not light. Some thought this an ill omen, but such folk spoke their concerns softly, for who wants to hear of dire portents just as a bride and groom’s hands begin to intertwine? So, to the music of whispers and prognostications of the worst kind, they made their vows and tied the knot
.

Well, he was a high-born fellow, graceful, descended from good stock. Maybe that’s why he loved her. Because she was so very different from him. She was wild, and no one knew who her family was. He loved her wild heart. And he never complained at how often she would take to walking along among the trees at the edges of the marshes, for that windswept place spoke to her and she heard a kind of music on the salt-sweet air that no one else could hear. And though folk spoke ill of her for doing so, often she would go to the marshes alone. There, she could be just another creature of the wild among the other wild things. Folks knew no good would come of it, and no good did
.

One day, as she wandered and her husband waited for his supper, a serpent of the marsh crept close to her on the path, and when her small foot trod upon it, it bit her on the ankle just as long ago a serpent’s poison bit hard the heart of Eve in the garden. Now such poison is as quick and strong as love, and soon she was overcome and so she fell, her last breath stirring the dust of the earth from which man must take his daily bread
.

That is where her husband found her, just there by the marshes, and that is where his heart fell all to pieces. But he thought highly of himself. So highly that he would have things his own way or not at all. What’s mine is mine, he said, and was resolved to take her back, to bring her back
.

And there the tale goes right to hell, for under the earth he goes to fetch back his love, despite knowing what we all know: Some roads must lead away from home and do not, cannot, ever again return. Not ever. He was clever. Too clever. He knew just where to take up the mist path to that dark land. And because his love for her burned strongly still in his chest, he needed no map to follow on that dim and turning road, but walked his way right to the doors of Hell
.

How long he walked he did not know, but when he found the high hall of the dead, he did not hesitate. He took her hand in his and led her away. But the King of the Dead, the Lord of Hell, could not be got around, for this was before the Revolution, and a king’s word still held sway in the colonies. Strong are the gates of his land, and no one may enter or depart them without his leave. Still, he released them both, saying only, “Go, but do not look back.”