Elizabeth Webster and the Court of Uncommon Pleas

by William Lashner

  A bright, musical scream sounded out.

  The whistle split the night quiet like an ax through ice. We were both frozen by the sound when a fierce thing leaped through the hut door and sent the man sprawling. It took me a moment to realize it was Henry, responding to my call, diving at my attacker.

  As Vance fell to the floor, Henry flipped beyond him into the overturned table.

  Vance struggled to his feet, blood now staining his gray whiskers. He took a step toward me. I was waiting for Henry to stand up and save me, but he stayed on the floor, shaking his head as he tried and failed to rise. I darted toward the door, but Vance cut off my exit. I put the whistle back in my teeth, took the screwdriver from my pocket and gripped the bowling ball bag tight. I was ready to defend myself and Henry as best I could.

  Then I felt the breeze.

  It flitted through the space like a bat, darting here and there. Through the foul stink of that hut a new scent arose. It was sweet and bright, flowery and full of hope.

  A grayish light shimmered in the middle of the hut before the ghost of Beatrice Long began to appear. First her eyes, then her face, then the whole of her. She let out a moan. The attacker, illuminated by her ghostly light, fell to his knees and reached out to her, as if to a memory.

  “I waited like you told me,” he said. “And she came.”

  Henry, too, still on the ground, became lit by Beatrice’s supernatural light. She raised a hand and, with his face filled with all kinds of wonder, Henry stood. Beatrice looked at Henry and me, and her smile was angelic.

  Then she took off her head with one hand and, instead of rolling it, she held it right out in front of me. The glowing head said, “Save me, save him. Save me, save him.”

  With her free hand she pointed at the little birthmark below her eye. I thought it had been something pretty and distinctive, that dark dot, but I saw now it wasn’t just one mark, but two, the other hidden in the shadowy edge of her nose.

  Then the most magical, horrifying, and beautiful thing happened. She reached a hand through my chest and into my heart, just as I had thrust the alder stake into hers. It felt warm and shaky and full of light, that hand. I don’t know how else to describe it. Maybe this: It felt like friendship. And as something passed between us, I finally understood.

  “Save me, save him,” she said for a final time, and this time I knew exactly who she meant.

  She disappeared into an explosion of sparks just as I heard the voices outside. Loud official voices, calling our names. “Elizabeth?” “Henry?” Even Natalie was calling out my name. And my mother, too. It was like a posse on horseback had come to save me.

  But by then I knew it wasn’t me who needed saving.

  They reburied Beatrice Long, this time with her head, in a small ceremony at her gravesite at the Mount Lebanon Cemetery. It should have been raining, I thought. The burial scenes in my imagination happen in the rain, water dripping down black umbrellas like all the tears of the world—but it was bright and sunny as we formed a circle around the open grave.

  Henry stood to one side of me with his hands clutched together, leaking some sort of misery. He had jumped without hesitation into the hut to save me, living up to the name of his war-hero great-grandfather. But he seemed empty, as if he had lost something inside the hut. Maybe it was an aftereffect of the knock he had taken to the head, but I think he was still overwhelmed by his feelings for a dead girl, and I feared he might be for a long time.

  On the other side of me stood Natalie, with a guitar and a smile. It was Natalie who had heard the police tromping through the woods with my mother and Anil Singh and rushed to lead them to the hut. “I sure wasn’t going to jump into the fight like Henry,” she said afterward. “I just got my nails done.” I always thought Natalie was too concerned with stuff, if you know what I mean: the right shoes, the right sweater. But what I found out in our Beatrice Long adventure was that I would trust her with my life anywhere, anytime, because, in bringing her with me to that hut, I already had, and she hadn’t let me down.

  Also in the circle were Beatrice’s sister, Roberta, and Beatrice’s mother, who had been so grateful to us for making her daughter whole. “You don’t know what it means to me,” she said, and she was right. I couldn’t imagine what it meant to bury a daughter—it was tough enough burying my dead hamster a few years back. It was Mrs. Long who asked Natalie to bring her guitar. “How nice would it be to play something that Beatrice might have known,” said Mrs. Long.

  “I have just the song,” said Natalie.

  Along with Beatrice’s family there was Delores Baird, standing with an aide as she watched the final chapter of the story she reported, and Anil Singh, his eyes wet, still mourning the loss of his first love. I wanted to slap him on the back of his head and tell him to get over it. It was Anil Singh, actually, who ended up bringing the police and my mother to the scene.

  After our meeting, Mr. Singh grew concerned over what we crazy kids might end up doing and placed a call to his patent lawyer, Stephen, who was working late. Stephen relayed the story to my mother, who, finding me not at home, immediately got on the phone with Chief Johansson. Together with a squad of police and Mr. Singh to lead them, they went to the burned-down house, where the infamous Halloween party had been, and followed our path until they heard the whistle. As they ran toward the sound they met up with Natalie, who took them to the hut.

  That was where they were, the police with guns drawn, my mother with her hands over her heart, all of them calling out our names when the three of us walked out of the ruins of that old farmhouse. Henry was in the lead, waving his hands, telling everybody everything was okay and not to do anything crazy. I followed behind Henry, one hand holding the bag with Beatrice’s head, the other gently holding on to Vance Johansson’s arm. Together, Vance and I walked right up to the chief.

  “Your brother didn’t kill Beatrice,” I said. “It was a snake. It bit Beatrice right below the eye. And the proof might just be in this bowling ball bag.”

  I handed Vance over to his brother, along with the bag, and then I rushed over to give my mother a hug.

  Chief Johansson was also at the cemetery. He stood with my mother and Stephen and my little brother, Peter. Even Charlie and Doug Frayden showed up, since they were a part of what had happened, too. We were all there to pay our respects to a girl from our township who had died before her time. And along with all of us was Vance Johansson, wearing an ill-fitting suit, his rough cheeks clean-shaven for the occasion. The chief had intended for his brother to stand by his side, but Mrs. Long insisted that he stand with her. They held hands during the priest’s eulogy, linked together in irretrievable loss.

  Finally, after the priest was finished, Mrs. Long, still holding Vance Johansson’s hand, spoke:

  “I want to thank you all, especially the children, for showing up today. This isn’t a sad occasion. In fact, I can’t remember when I’ve been so happy. Roberta and I, and Anil too, and Vance, of course, all of us have been mourning my child ever since they found her body that terrible day so long ago. But since then I’ve also been strengthened by remembering her love and spirit, the way she cared for every living thing, especially the weakest and most in need. That’s what today is about, the remembering. And that you, Elizabeth, and Natalie, and Henry, and your family and friends are remembering her, too, even if just for a day, gives me so much joy. I hope that her being whole, finally, will put her spirit at rest. Be at peace, my Beatrice.”

  And after Mrs. Long said that, one by one we said it ourselves.

  “Be at peace, Beatrice.”

  “Be at peace, Beatrice.”

  I don’t know if it was as effective as a chant in Latin that Barnabas could have recited, but it seemed to work, because I smelled something fragrant and just above the site a gray light shimmered. Henry looked at me, and Natalie did, too, with wide eyes, and Vance seemed to grow upset, stamping around like something was coming.

  “Be at peace, Beatrice.”


  “Be at peace, Beatrice.”

  When it was her turn, Natalie handed me the guitar and stepped forward and dropped the silver whistle she had taken from Beatrice’s box into the grave. “Be at peace, Beatrice,” she said, and then came back into the circle. I handed her the guitar and as she hung the strap over her shoulder she said, “This song was being played on the radio the year Beatrice died.” Natalie started strumming, mostly minor chords that seemed to match the mood, and then began to sing.

  It was a song about summer love and saying good-bye. I had never heard it before, but the older people had, and you could see them nodding, even my mother. Mrs. Long smiled. Mr. Singh started blubbering. I looked at Henry, who seemed dazed as the glow over the grave became brighter.

  I’ll see you in the sunlight

  I’ll hear your voice everywhere.

  I’ll run to tenderly hold you,

  But darling, you won’t be there.

  As Natalie sang the song’s sad chorus, out of the shimmering light Beatrice appeared.

  She smiled and spun around slowly, as if taking in the beauty of the day and the people in the circle. Natalie smiled when she saw her and kept strumming and singing. Henry waved. My mother seemed to notice nothing, as did Stephen, but a curious expression flitted across my brother’s face. Petey looked at me and I could tell, right there, that he had seen Beatrice, too. I put a finger over my mouth and he nodded.

  Beatrice swooped around the circle until she stopped before Mrs. Long. She bowed her head and touched her forehead to her mother’s and there was a moment when Mrs. Long seemed to shudder. Then Beatrice hugged her sister and Roberta started bawling as if being touched with forgiveness. Then Beatrice put her hand on Anil Singh’s cheek and he sobbed again. None of them saw the ghost, but they all grew brighter, as if they had started glowing themselves.

  When Beatrice reached for Vance Johansson’s free hand, he gave it to her and she brought it up to her lips. As she kissed his hand and pressed it to her cheek, Vance gave the first smile I had seen from him and he said out loud, “Good-bye, Beatrice.”

  The story that Chief Johansson eventually told was a painful tale of a father suspecting that his son might have killed the one child who had befriended him. While he never found enough evidence to convict the boy in a court of law, he had Vance placed in the state mental hospital to protect his community. Fifty years later, when Vance wandered away from the hospital, his older brother, now chief of police, and aware of his father’s concerns, authorized his officers to find and capture his brother, with violence if necessary.

  Word must have reached Beatrice on the other side. It wasn’t a coincidence that Vance had escaped four weeks before the night at the hut, which was the same time Beatrice started haunting Henry.

  The guts of this story lie somewhere in the relationship between a sweet girl and a troubled boy and a devotion that lasted way past death. Don’t get me started, because I still cry when I think about it.

  When Beatrice let go of Vance’s hand she nodded at Natalie, who kept singing, and then swooped over to Henry. Just as Natalie sang the last line of the song, about sealing a pledge with a kiss, Beatrice did just that with Henry. He staggered back and fainted dead away. My mother and stepfather and Chief Johansson rushed over to him as the ghost of Beatrice Long came to me.

  She spread her arms and hesitated a moment, staring into my face, before she swooped right through me. It felt as if everything inside me, my stomach, my kidneys, my spirit were rising. It felt as if I were swooping, too, as if I were flying through time and space. Something filled my heart, and I realized it was a gratitude that wasn’t my own. Beatrice was thanking me, and her gratitude vibrated in my soul. I had freed her and saved Vance, and she was so grateful. It was the sweetest thing I have ever felt in my life. I spun around and saw the ghost of Beatrice Long floating away from us all. She turned her head, smiled, and then she disappeared, for good.

  It was only later that night, in a moment just before I fell asleep, that I bolted upright in bed and realized Beatrice had given me more than just her gratitude.

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez,” called out the great ram’s head affixed atop the five-pointed star on the wall of the Court of Uncommon Pleas. As the ram bellowed, the scent of licorice wafted over the benches.

  When the ram finished his call, he stared at me in the back of the courtroom and stuck out his tongue. But I wouldn’t be chased away by a black-stained tongue, not today, not when I was in court to save my father. The empty cage hanging from the ceiling was a symbol of my father’s imprisonment. On one side of me stood Barnabas and my grandfather. On the other side stood my mother.

  Yeah, my mother.

  “What are you doing here?” I had said to her when I saw her waiting for us inside the courtroom. “How did you even get through the door?”

  “Oh, Ivanov’s a sweetheart,” she said, looking down as she fussed with a large bag. “I knitted him a sweater once. It didn’t take much yarn.”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I said.

  Her head rose quickly. “Why not? I went to your soccer games, even though you were more interested in the clouds than the ball. I went to all your band concerts, thank heaven for earplugs. This is what I do, Elizabeth, I show up, which is more than you can say about your father. Besides, your grandfather called and told me you were trying to bring your father back from the other side. I felt I owed it to both of you to be here.”

  “But you hate my father.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, how little you know about love. You should get some experience sometime, but maybe wait until high school. So, are you excited? Your first trial.”

  “My second. I lost my first.”

  “Oh yes, I forget. But you didn’t invite me to that one, did you?”

  “Or to this one, either,” I said.

  “Nevertheless.”

  I had purposely not asked Natalie or Henry to accompany me to this session of the Court of Uncommon Pleas. If I were to lose again, I preferred to do it without seeing the pity on my friends’ faces. It felt like my mother had stepped over a boundary by barging in like this. I should have been angry at her for just showing up, but I wasn’t. She was my mom. Kind of pathetic, I know, but there it is.

  “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I said.

  “You know more than you think you know. Anyone who can find a dead girl’s head after fifty years can handle a little court thingumajig. After all, you are part Webster. Here, I brought this for you.” Out of the bag she pulled a black robe and held it up to my neck to judge its length. Two wide purple stripes fell down from each shoulder, a purple that was the same shade as the walls in my room. “It was your father’s.”

  “Mom?”

  “I fixed the zipper, took it in, shortened the overall length, and sewed on the stripes. It needed some color, don’t you think?”

  “Mom,” I said as I took hold of the robe and lifted it to my shoulders to judge the length. It was perfect, as I knew it would be.

  “My sweet little barrister,” she said. “There was something your father once told me about being a trial lawyer. He said that you don’t start with the questions and move forward, instead you start with the answers and work backward.”

  “It sounds a little like cheating.”

  “Or like being a teacher,” she said. “You have that in you, too, you know. Now, are you ready to give them heck?”

  “Heck?”

  “Shhh,” said my mother as the ram blasted out his trumpetlike bellow. “It’s beginning.”

  We stood when we were told to stand, and we waited quietly as the ram jabbered on about the court, and then we watched the whole cheap Vegas smoke-and-dance show bring the judge, red-eyed and red-faced, into the courtroom.

  “Be seated,” spat out the judge between coughs.

  We sat. My mother patted my knee. At least she didn’t pinch my cheek.

  The right honorable Lord Judge George Jeffries, First Baron J
effries of Wem, shook his long wig, twitched his long nose, and stared out at us with those red marble eyes. “Be brief in your pleadings or there will be consequences, don’t you doubt it,” croaked the judge. “We have much to accomplish and the fire pits are hungry, so let us not delay. Any emergency motions? First call, last call, come forward and be heard, or forever hold your tongues. As there are apparently no emergency motions, then the clerk—”

  “Not so fast, you scurrilous British interloper,” said my grandfather, in the aisle now, slapping his cane on the floor as he stepped forward at his fastest speed, which was slow as a snail, a bundle of scrolls held in a raised hand. “We have an emergency motion to be heard forthwith.”

  “If my eyes don’t deceive me,” said the judge, “I see a mangy gray rodent named Webster scurrying about my courtroom. Bailiff, order this rodent to be ejected with all due haste and appropriate violence.”

  The ram was about to speak, but my grandfather cut him off. “Eject me if you will, but not before you hear our motion.”

  “And what do you have for us today, Ebenezer,” said the judge, “an emergency motion for clean undergarments? Now that would be a notable improvement.” The judge laughed and the ram laughed and the flying babies overhead laughed with them and there was great hilarity until my grandfather hushed it all with two words of Latin.

  “Habeas corpus,” he shouted, and, bam, just as if he had unleashed a bolt of lightning, the courtroom silenced.

  “Ahh,” said the ram into the hush, its booming voice filled with awe. “The great writ.”

  “Why does everyone say that?” I whispered to Barnabas.

  “Because it is the cornerstone of freedom,” said Barnabas.

  “I should have known.”

  The judge glared at the ram for a moment before turning back to my grandfather. “Habeas corpus, you say? And whom, may I ask, are you seeking be brought before this court?”