Death Watch (51 page)

“This is sloppy work,” said the first of the three. “This will all have to be redone.”

She pulled out the broken threads, leaving a bare patch in the tapestry.

“Perhaps not,” replied the second. A moment later she began working in the hole with a piece of blood-red linen, roughly binding it down with black cotton thread. “This will hold until we know more. I am hoping to rework the whole scene in gold.”

“Too early for gold,” said the third with a sigh. “Far too early for gold.”

Silas wondered if this was all part of the day’s work, a correction. Or were they hiding something from him?

After a few moments, the three ladies all turned to Silas, as if they’d been waiting for him. They said nothing, but gestured invitationally toward the web.

Turning his head to look more carefully about the room, he saw many familiar sites: the marshes had been extended, seemed wider now, and he wondered if this was because he had gone there. At the far end of the weaving, flowers had been sewn in complicated knots all about the houses on Fort Street. Near the marsh, the millpond had been reworked many times in deepening shades of gray-blue silks, the ripples of the water now held fast by tiny stars of white stitches, like ice crystals. Where once he’d seen trees at the edge of the pond, he now saw seven dark human figures looming around the lip of the water. A little stream of footsteps led from the pond toward the town, and this was new too. In front of his house, a small pool of standing water had been embroidered in brown and green silk, and there was another near the Umber cemetery. Looking closely, Silas imagined he could see his own reflection had been delicately worked in.

“Lose something?” the three asked at once.

It unsettled Silas when the three spoke together. It made whatever they were saying feel more like a portent than a comment.

“You know I have—”

“You have been giving some things a lot of attention. We should give you a pair of your own knitting needles! Invite you to join our Sewing Circle!”

“Are these additions about my father?”

“Is that the only person you’ve lost?” One of the ladies laughed knowingly.

Silas felt embarrassed. He should be keeping his focus on his dad and his dad’s work. But the tapestry brought his memories and fears to the front of his mind. Bea had run away, and he had no
idea where she was or if he’d see her again. Silas told himself this was for the best as the memories flooded back. He’d nearly died that night, following her into the water. He did not want to go back there. But still, deep in his heart, he knew she was waiting for him.

After looking at the figures in the tapestry for many moments, Silas asked, “What happened there, at the millpond?”

“He doesn’t want to know,” one said.

“I do. Why don’t I?”

“Leave it where it is,” said another. “The binding stitches there will not hold long anyway.”

“Leave it
be
,” said another, and the three laughed at the pun.

“Most are happiest knowing what they know and no more. Besides, love flourishes best in ignorance … or in absence.”

“I understand that I am amusing you. You’re bored here, all by yourselves, and my losses are a source of amusement. That’s fine, but don’t expect me to laugh along with you. None of this is a game to me,” Silas asserted. “I’m asking you to help. Either you will or you won’t. Besides,” he said, gesturing at the room, “this is all part of my work now, and if someplace in town is not restful, then I
should
know about it. Even if you don’t think it concerns me. Keep your secrets if you want to. I’ll find out anyway. But then, maybe I won’t visit you again, and you three can just sit here listening to the sounds of your own voices and the click of your needles as your spools wind down. I don’t expect you have any other visitors, do you?”

“Oh! He’s his father’s boy and no mistake!” said the second of the three.

“And threats now!” said the first of the three, one side of her face gone black in shadow.

“It’s not a threat,” Silas said more kindly, hearing a sharpness in their tone that made him uncomfortable. “Neighbors talk with
one another, share news. If you don’t want to talk with me, then I guess there’s no reason for me to come here.”

The three ladies drew back into darker corners of the room, working as they spoke. The stitches began to knot and weave as though by themselves, enlivening scenes that came to life as Silas tried to pierce the shadows with his gaze. Behind the weavings, unseen, he heard the voices of the three, still speaking.

“Why did your father leave this town?” asked the first of the three.

“Because my mother couldn’t bear her familial obligations any longer,” Silas said.

“That answer is astute, but not complete.”

“And maybe something was worrying my father, after I was born. That’s what I heard.”

“Yes. And when that something turned her pale eyes from him to you, he wisely took you elsewhere. Not that she would come for you as a child. Children are of no interest to her. But it is in her nature to be patient. And she has been waiting. Now you have returned—grown so fine and handsome—and those eyes have been upon you again and have drawn you away from your purpose.”

“Why was my dad so concerned about her?” Silas asked, knowing now they were talking about Bea. “And what is my purpose?”

“Your father was frightened of her because she can no longer see where her own story begins and ends. Because she cannot discern the passage of time, she is not of one mind about things and doesn’t always know that she brings distress and suffering to others, or that those who love her come to no good end. In her present mind, she can only repeat the past, Silas. She cannot change after so long. So she can only bring upon others the fate that was brought upon her.”

“And what is that?”

“You understand too little of what you see. You see a pretty face and hear a loving voice. But she is more than that, Silas. Much more. She is cold water and lack of breath. She is emptiness and oblivion. She is the very tide, drawing things to her and pulling them below.”

“But she loves me, and I think I—”

“No doubt she does, for otherwise, how could you see her so easily? To love you is her nature. But hers is a love from which no good may come. And your desire for her will lead only to cold, dark places. Already, we see you are concerned by her absence—you want to help her—that is part of the peril. Leave her where she is and continue the work you have begun here.”

“If she’s in trouble, isn’t she part of that work? Did she do something horrible in life? Is that why she’s trapped now?”

“Not at all. It is rarely the action itself that binds a person to this fate or that, but how the action is judged and remembered. Really, I shall never know why people let their shame and fear consume them so. She loved a young man. No more than that. But those close to her, her kin, took against her. She appears to be here with you in the moment, but be assured she is of a different time when women, please believe us, were not generally allowed to do what they pleased. She was punished by those she loved, and that makes everything worse. To be killed by your kin is very terrible. There used to be a power that might have been called upon to avenge such wrongs as family spilling the blood of family, but we live now in more ‘civilized’ times.”

“Do not speak the ancient names,” said the third of the three.

“I was not going to say them,” assured the first of the three. “But I will say that in this country, there is not so much justice as there once was in other lands, and in more ancient times, when such acts might have been avenged by righteous fury.”

“Will you tell me what happened to her? I won’t be able to think about anything else now. I think it’s the least you can do,” said Silas.

“Ah, well,” said the first of the three, “for your father’s sake then. Come to the weaving and look; it is almost all there now in the stitches. As you learn more, the weaving waxes full of sumptuous detail.”

Silas walked with the first of the three to where the edge of the millpond had been stitched in small, even knots, from which tall, thin stitches stood as reeds. In the middle of the pond there was a hole, a black place of emptiness in the midst of the image, and a thin veil of watery silk netting lay across it. As Silas watched, the thread-reeds of the pond seemed to wave in a wind as the tapestry shook slightly, and the first of the three began to speak.

In that time, she would look for the white stone
.

If they were to meet, her lover from one of the big houses left a small white stone on her windowsill. So, each night, she would look for the stone and see what was to be. She would meet him behind the church, and they would make their way to the little woods that once stood at the edge of the millpond. Upon arriving, she would place the little white stone at the same place on the earth, and before long, a small cairn of white rocks rose up, testament to the frequency and passion of their ardor for each other
.

But towns are full of tongues, and it takes only one to start wagging before even the most cherished secret is spoiled. At the tavern, words were said. Intimations. Suggestions. Rumors
.

A rock for every embrace, and look how high!

What manner of girl was she?

Count the stones and find out!

And there, to the tavern, her father went to take his daily medicine, for life was hard, even with seven sons
.

And there he heard the words about his daughter and her doings. And there his heart was broken
.

Go, he says to his seven sons. Go and make it how I feel. Broken. All broken. Break this lover’s knot. Go and make it so and do not come back until your father’s words hold true. End this shameful thing she’s done. And his seven sons hear him, but the first son hears and understands
.

So to the pond the brothers go and find there the cairn, and taking many stones from it, they step back into the shadows of the trees and wait
.

She comes then—the girl, their sister, some lover’s lover—eager and wide-eyed to the millpond. But she sees the cairn has been diminished and wonders why. Some new game of her sweetheart’s? She whispers then his name, “Lawrence Umber
,”
but instead of her one true love, seven brothers step from the trees
.

Her heart begins to beat so fast, but with fear now, not with passion, for she knows she is discovered
.

Just missed him, her brothers say. You have just missed him. Your fine Master Umber departed
.

Where has he gone? she asks, trembling
.

All they say is: below
.

She sees the ripples on the surface of the black water, and she starts weeping and tearing at her hair for the death of her young man
.

She is miserable. But her misery rises into anger, and she begins to scream at her brothers. From her knees by the water’s edge, she rails at them and will not be silent
.

Quiet her, says one
.

Shut her mouth, says the youngest to the oldest, and the oldest understands and grabs her face and puts his hand over her mouth,
feeling her hot breath upon his palm. She sets her teeth deep into his flesh, and he cries out. He does not think but seizes her throat and thrusts her face into the water
.

Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet, is all he thinks. He hears nothing else but this thought: Silence her for our father’s sake. He does not hear his brothers’ frightened cries to leave her be, nor the thrashing of her limbs against the water. Nothing. And when he lets her go, after all her shaking stops, she does not move
.

What shall we do? the brothers cry, and so the first, all light gone now from his eyes, takes the stones and fills her dress with them, lifting the hem up and, with his belt, securing the rock-filled dress to her waist
.

She sinks fast, for she is such a little thing, so lithe and fair. Above her, the moon goes small as she sinks down and down. And when she reaches the bottom, she is alone. No lover’s corpse to rest upon. Nothing there but eels and crabs and cold mud
.

And now here’s truth: Her brothers found her lover, and beat him and drove him from the town to save their family shame, and they told him that if he spoke of their sister to anyone they’d come to kill him sure as dusk ends each day, and that was a promise. And so he fled, ran out into the marshes and toward the woods and away, and lived, though Lawrence Umber was never seen in Lichport again
.

But she was not so lucky
.

And her story is not over, because sometimes she wakes and rises. When a face pleases her, especially an Umber face, she rises and walks for a time, until she takes him by the hand and joins with him and brings him down with her among the deep water weeds so she will not have to be alone
.

As the voice of the first grew quiet, Silas’s face was white, all his blood gone heavy and cold, sinking in his limbs. At the knowledge of how close he’d come to death that night at the millpond, his
mind began twisting in every direction, coiling around and about itself. Yet part of him knew that she loved him and that in the depths of the millpond, she’d tried to help him. She let him go. He could almost see her face before him, hear her voice, and he knew he cared for her and wanted, truly desired, to help her if he could.

The three ladies could see him becoming uncomfortable. The second of the three spoke.

“Silas, we know this is no easy matter, and there is no right answer about what to do. Your love for her is part of what makes you exceptional. Who but an Umber, who but you particularly could love one such as her? Knowing you have nearly nothing to gain, you love anyway. I believe that is heroic, in its way. But she is a very dangerous someone, Silas. She died desirous of so many things, and very angry, very betrayed by so many. That has confused her and bound her in a state where she cannot see her way out. You know why, I think. What we desire most in life, we shall try to find in death. And right there is the problem for so many souls.”