Fitcher's Brides (13 page)

Kate glanced up, blinking, emerging from a fog. She checked herself against Amy, finding Amy similarly dazed. Together they glanced at Vern.

Their sister held her head slightly tilted, her lips parted, her teeth lightly gripping the bottom lip as she stared with naked infatuation at Reverend Fitcher. It was the look of someone beholding the divine.

The only thing missing, thought Kate, was her hairbrush.

“My girls,” Mr. Charter said, drawing their attention to him, “must marry in proper order, though I fear no time's left for them to find eligible suitors, much less husbands. It's regrettable, but while we approach the end of days, we mustn't allow propriety to be cast to the wind.”

“Oh, certainly not,” replied Fitcher. “You're so right to hold to principle. And that, sir, is why I feel a man like you must accompany me. I am honor bound to bring such members as yourself, whose passions are leavened with sense and purpose, and thus can persuade others. Someone who will approach God's Judgment without doubts about duty.”

Mr. Charter replied, “I'll have to go, of course. It's why we came, isn't it, Lavinia?” He clutched his wife's hands between his, and she beamed at him and at Reverend Fitcher. To Kate, she seemed in her joy to have shed years.

“Why you came,” Fitcher repeated, but his eyes slid around them to focus farther down the table. “Yes. And I think you must all come with me to Harbinger today, there to meet the others saved among us, and especially, Mr. Charter, my other ambassadors, with whom you'll work closely on our travels.”

“Harbinger.” Mr. Charter spoke the name in awe, as if invoking a secret name of God.

Reverend Fitcher asked, “Is there more tea?”

Vern got to her feet. “I'll make it,” she said. “Let me.”

“Of course,” said Reverend Fitcher, and held his cup out to her.

T
HEY WALKED, THE SIX OF THEM
, along the rutted road. To either side the woods engulfed them. Signs of habitation had vanished, yet they were only a few hundred yards beyond their house.

Fitcher strode along at the front of the group, swinging his black walking stick, unimpeded by the uneven road. His followers had to scurry to keep up while picking their footing carefully to avoid twisting an ankle.

It wasn't long before they arrived at the gorge that gave the road its name. A wooden trestle bridge spanned it, wide enough that two wagons could pass each other on it. They paused beside the reverend at the brink.

“Jekyll's Gorge,” Fitcher announced, sweeping his arm over the railing as though creating it before their eyes. The girls moved past their father and Lavinia to see.

The gorge wasn't very wide, but the sides plunged straight down. The rock face seemed to have been chiseled with intent by nature: In places vertical columns protruded from the face of the cliff, and elsewhere similar natural processes had removed a huge ellipse, and within it a smaller one and within that still another like a series of doors opening onto doors, each smaller or receding.

The formation reminded Vern uncomfortably of her dream of unfolding hallways and the man without a mouth.

“Gorges run all through the countryside here,” Fitcher was saying. “There's another at the tip of Cayuga Lake, but nothing to compare with this one. Shh, listen now!”

They hadn't spoken but they stilled themselves and strained to hear. Finally, Amy said, “Something's hissing.”

Fitcher smiled upon her. “Indeed, Amelia, the falls. You can't see them from here. There's a path on the far side of our bridge, however, that winds down to the bottom of the gorge and along it to the base of the falls. Up that way some distance.” He pointed behind them with his stick. “It brings you right back beneath this bridge, but down there at the bottom.” He started across the bridge, and they followed.

Halfway across, he paused again to lean over the railing. From that vantage, the gorge curved inward on either side so that they seemed to be heading toward a promontory, a chimney of rock.

They were all so lost in the vast beauty of the chasm below that they didn't hear the approach of the buckboard. Abrupt thunder shook the bridge beneath them and the family shrieked and shouted and clutched at one another as if the world had decided to end here and now. Reverend Fitcher turned, unruffled, and watched the heavily laden wagon's approach.

The driver, a young man with scraggly chin whiskers, cast a malevolent grin at the Charters, but his smile faded as he recognized Fitcher beyond them. He snapped the reins to speed the horses then. Fitcher swiped his stick through the air and struck the side of the wagon as it passed. The wagon bounced off the end of the bridge, its contents jumping. The driver glanced back over his shoulder once before rolling out of sight.

Fitcher walked over to the family. “I do so apologize.” He glanced after the wagon. “Young master Notaro requires some discipline, I think. Such behavior is inexcusable in our people. You needn't worry, though—this bridge is perfectly sound. I oversaw its construction myself.” He allowed himself a slight smile. “It wouldn't do to have my disciples falling into the pit prematurely, now would it?” Then, taking a step back, he swung around and strode on, his heels thumping on the boards.

They were so shaken that no one wondered at that moment how the wagon had gotten past the turnpike without Mr. Charter there to raise it.

 

On the opposite side of the gorge, they continued along the track into complete wilderness. Fitcher said nothing now, but trod steadily, solemnly, ahead. The trees here seemed to lag a few weeks behind those on the other side. There were no apparent buds on the leafless branches. Only the pines were green.

The road ran to the right around an outcropping of rock, and they looked for something to appear in that direction.

Then for a moment, through a break in the trees ahead, something flashed like a sunburst at Vern. She glanced up to see a bright geometric shape—sharp gleaming lines not of nature—in the treetops, but before she could draw anyone's attention to it, the thing vanished again behind the branches.

The serpentine track curved back to the left around a second outcrop. The two jagged hunks of rock stood like eroded monolithic gateposts bordering the track. Beyond them the path ran straight. The tree limbs hung over it, creating a long, veined tunnel, at the end of which stood a tall wrought-iron gate between two man-made gateposts. The right side of the gate hung open. Beyond it, a portion of a huge house was visible.

The house was white, set upon a rise, seeming to swell into the sky. A portico extended from the front, braced by six Corinthian columns, each two stories high. Behind the columns black shutters as tall as a man defined windows built at the level of the portico floor. Three stories of windows ascended above the portico, ending in a flat roof. Amy counted six chimneys, but there might have been more farther back. She mentioned the number to Vern, but Vern wasn't listening. She was staring up at the center of the roof where a cupola or widow's walk would have been on many houses this size. Instead, at the top of Harbinger was the shining thing she'd glimpsed through the trees: a pyramid of glass.

As they neared the gate, they could see extensions to either side of the main house; smaller two-story miniatures of it, fronted by shorter columns and each extending like wings across the yard. The sloping roofs overhung more tall black-shuttered windows. The house in its entirety had the look of some reimagined Greek temple, a Parthenon robbed of friezes and paneled over in whitewashed slats, a manor, a phalanstery.

The wagon that had passed them stood to the left at the top of the rise. It had been unloaded and its maniacal driver was nowhere to be seen. An iron arch spanned the two stone columns that held the gates. On either side more wrought-iron fencing ten feet high extended in either direction. Tree branches overhung or poked through the uprights, which ended in spikes.

Fitcher pushed back one of the gates. “Welcome to Harbinger,” he said. The family followed him in.

The fence stretched far to either side, vanishing behind the wings. There were no people anywhere to be seen.

“We have our own ironsmith,” Fitcher said, as if a question about the fence had been asked. “And carpenters and masons besides. We've proved a refuge for the latter, who were driven out of many communities they once called home after that affair in Canandaigua. I do not care what beliefs they have professed to or rituals performed, provided they embrace our own Parousia and contribute to our society. As I know all of you shall do.” He led them up the slope to the front of the house. Flagstones separated by lines of gravel composed the portico floor. “There's even a mill,” he added. “If God chose to delay His descent, why, we could survive with all we have here for another century at least.”

He opened the front doors. The warm scent of baking bread rolled over them.

The interior foyer was an exercise in lushness. Hardwood floors had been polished to such a high gloss that the walls and columns reflected in them as in a looking glass, making the space seem twice as vast as it was. The walls were covered in a cream-colored paper with sienna arabesques; square white pillars stretched to a ceiling three flights up.

In the middle of the space, bicameral staircases led to a single wide landing. A large clock of black walnut and with a silvery face stood on the left side of the landing like some dark inquisitor, but it was the space below that caught everyone's attention. Between the staircases an enormous weathered crucifix had been set in place on a small dais. The cross tilted forward as if it had been uprooted from Golgotha and planted here—an image reinforced by the decayed ropes that dangled near the ends of the crosspiece. Amy, as she stared at it, could almost see the phantom of Christ hanging there. An arrangement of dried flowers spotted the dais with reds, yellows, and blues; in the center of this a single Lenten rose was blooming, its ivory flower like a hallmark above them.

The slanted underbelly of a second staircase ran from the landing to a mezzanine balcony overlooking the front doors. In front of it and directly above them hung an ornate chandelier.

Dark green drapery skirted the outside of the bicameral stairway in crescents decorated with gold tassel and braid. There were chairs and deacon's benches along the walls on either side, separated by urns and small statues or busts set on pedestals, all seemingly of Greek or Roman antiquity. A gilt and ebonized girandole mirror hung on the right-hand wall above one of the benches. The tall windows to either side of the front doors were polished so clear that the glass would have been invisible had it not caused the view of the outside to ripple as one moved.

There was not a speck of dust, not a cobweb, not a smudge or finger stain to be seen anywhere. There didn't even appear to be knotholes in the woodwork.

Doorways led off the foyer on every side. One, on the left, was open, and gave onto a keeping room. They could see one end of a red Chippendale mahogany sofa with its scrolled arms, next to a Federal card table through the doorway.

There was still no sign of anyone else, but the smells of bread and rosemary and gravy filling the space painted the air with phantoms industriously at work baking and cooking somewhere near; smells of community, of family.

Fitcher led the way to double doors halfway along the right-hand wall. The family clustered behind him. He opened the doors and, like a magician, stepped back to reveal his illusion.

The room beyond was a long narrow refectory. Two central tables ran the length of it. On benches to either side of the tables sat an entire congregation, which had paused in their midday meal to look up. There must have been hundreds of faces, thought Kate. Their eyes were wide, bright, and motionless, like the eyes of mounted animal heads. Their features seemed to run together. She couldn't focus on anybody.

No one ate or even moved until Fitcher made a slight gesture with his hand. Then in unison the congregation said, “Welcome.”

Mr. Charter shuffled humbly forward and replied, “Thank you,” first to the group, then to Fitcher.

The congregation went back to eating, making hardly a sound with their wooden utensils and bowls, and paying no further attention to the new arrivals, even as Fitcher explained things.

“We are many hundreds in number, thus we eat in shifts in order to accommodate everyone,” he said. “Our midday meals begin early, usually after a sermon or silent communing.” He stepped back, closing the doors behind him.

“They don't speak?” said Kate.

“They do, in fact, quite a lot when they have something to say, Katherine. But it's a courtesy to the next group that they eat in silent contemplation, finish quickly and make way. Once the meal is over, many of them will take up kitchen duties for the next group, and so forth. Everyone participates in every duty before very long. We are all of us part of a great mechanism, you know. All of us equals. No leaders, and no governing body to intrude upon our lives. In God's eyes this is how we are, so this is how we are here. It will make the transition to the next level that much simpler.” He turned. “Please,” he said, indicating they should follow him again.

They crossed to the rear of the foyer and went through one of the doors there. It opened onto a narrow corridor that ran the width of the foyer. There were doors at either end of it, doors in every wall. Fitcher walked directly across to a back door that opened to the outside.

They found themselves on a broad porch at the rear, between the two wings of the house, which extended a good thirty yards farther. Along the outside edge of the porch, X-shaped uprights supported a railing. Fitcher leaned on the rail as if to survey his world a moment before leading them down the steps to the lawn.

“Our chapel,” he said, gesturing to the left. The porch ran around the wing of the building, ending in more steps at the end. A row of round stained-glass windows punctuated the chapel wall at eye level. Viewers outside could peer in through the colored images.

In the center of the yard, a large bell hung on a wooden frame. A handle by which the bell could be swung extended up from the frame. Fitcher passed it by without a word. He had his sights set elsewhere.

The lawn stretched unbroken to the first of five or six rows of trees—an orchard. It served to separate Harbinger House from both the fields and the village that had been erected.

There were people in the fields, hoeing from the look of it, but too far away to be sure. Fitcher said nothing about them, either.

The buildings of the village were laid out upon a grid of narrow dirt lanes. People walked about here and there, most of them carrying something. A squealing group of small children charged momentarily into view across the nearest lane, engaged in a game of pursuit, and disappeared as quickly between two buildings. Most of the people were concentrated in or around the buildings, all busy at some task, but they paused in their work as the group approached. Their eyes, Kate noticed, followed Fitcher obsessively. The people bowed their heads in reverence before him. He strode past, giving the slightest nod to their gesture. They muttered, “Welcome,” to the Charter family as those in the dining hall had done and kept their heads bowed until the group had passed. Amy glanced back to watch them return straight to their tasks.

Unlike the village of Jekyll's Glen, this one had no obvious main street. The lanes were of equal width and seemed to have been laid out based on utility. The ironsmith shared a lane with a row of carriage houses, machine shops, and wagon sheds. Animal pens, coops, and an abattoir lined another.

Fitcher led them away from the pens.

They arrived at a cluster of henhouses, and Fitcher ducked through the small door in the side of the nearest one, sweeping back toward them almost as fast, pivoting on his walking stick. He held out his hand to Vern. A brown egg rested upon his palm. Vern accepted it shyly. He said, “You shall take some eggs home with you today, as you have no chickens of your own just yet and we've many.”