by Matt Ruff
Ruby stood with her hand still on the banister. She thought about the hot teakettle upstairs, thought about going back to it, forgetting she’d seen this. As if she could.
She walked forward into the cold basement. She stood beside the coffin and looked down at the pale freckled face both familiar and strange: for though she’d come to know it well, she was used to seeing it in a mirror.
The woman’s eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She didn’t appear to be breathing—or if she was, the breaths were so shallow that her chest didn’t seem to move at all.
Her left arm was covered by the satin sheet, but her right lay on top of it, palm up. A silver cuff encircled her forearm, and ascending from it was a slender glass tube with a ruby red thread at its core. The tube coiled up and around and fed into the back of a spigot that jutted from the coffin’s side.
A spigot. Like the kind a bartender might use to tap a keg.
Another one of those moments, then, when Ruby had to choose whether to go crazy or just deal. A close call this time.
She took a step back and tried to figure out how the coffin opened. There was no lid; the glass panels that made up its top and sides were joined to a gray metal frame that seemed all one piece. Maybe the whole thing lifted up. She scanned the top edge of the pedestal, looking for a lever or a catch.
“I wouldn’t touch it barehanded unless you like frostbite.”
Braithwhite was standing at the foot of the stairs, still in his coat, his cheeks flushed as though he’d been running. He was smiling though, an indulgent smile, as if it were Ruby who’d committed a transgression here—but one of the mildest sort, which he’d be happy to overlook.
“What,” Ruby said. “What is this?”
“Her name is Delilah,” Braithwhite told her. “She used to work for my father.”
“Your father put her in this?”
“No, I did. Dell suffered a blow to the head, the night before my father died. She fell into a coma. I got her medical attention, but months later she hadn’t woken up and she was starting to deteriorate. She would have slipped away before much longer. So I decided to see what I could do with her.”
Don’t you even act surprised, Ruby thought. You knew there was something more to this deal. You knew it. “You use her blood to make the potion? I’ve been drinking—”
“Blood is an ingredient in the process,” Braithwhite said. “I know it sounds disgusting, but the final elixir is a distillation. Not blood, only its essence. The essence of Delilah.
“It doesn’t hurt her,” he continued. “Just the opposite, in fact. Right now, she’s unconscious. She’s not dead, but she might as well be. But when you wear her shape? She dreams. Your experiences and adventures, everything you do, she dreams. You’re all the life she has now, Ruby.”
Ruby shook her head in disbelief. “You trying to make this out like it’s a favor to her?”
“A dream life is better than nothing. It’s what I’d want.”
“You’re a liar. You want to help her, why not use your magic to cure her?”
“Healing is a different branch of the art. A complicated branch, and one I’m not well-schooled in. The elixir is low-risk. To revive Delilah from her coma would require what’s called a ritual of regeneration, and if that went wrong it might kill her, or worse. It’s not out of the question, sometime in the future when I’ve had more time to study, but for now this really is the best thing for her.”
“For you, you mean.”
“For us, if you want to think of it that way. But Ruby—”
“No,” Ruby said. “This isn’t what I bargained for. I— Stay back!” she shouted, as he stepped forward.
But he didn’t approach her. He crossed the basement to a tall refrigerator cabinet clad in stainless steel. He paused in front of it, looking back at her as he spoke.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this sooner,” he said. “I knew you’d be upset by it, and I didn’t want that, but I should have found a way . . . Well. You’re free to go, if you choose to. I won’t stop you. But before you walk away, you should understand what you’re leaving behind.”
He opened the cabinet door and stepped back to let her see what was inside: a dozen closely packed shelves holding what must have been hundreds of glass vials, all full.
“I made this elixir for you,” Caleb Braithwhite said. “It’s no use to me on my own, and I doubt I’ll find anyone else to take it. I’ll still look after Delilah, of course. Even if I can’t wake her up, she’ll survive a long time, in there. But that’s what she’ll be doing: surviving. Not living.” He reached into the cabinet, selected a single vial, and closed the door on the rest. “It seems like an awful waste.”
Ruby was shaking her head again, but she didn’t speak or run out, even when Braithwhite came towards her.
“You should think it over, Ruby. Go for a walk. Take the day.” He took gentle hold of her wrist and pressed the vial of elixir into her open palm, holding it there until her fingers closed around it. “I’ll understand if you feel like you have to say no. But think about the reason. If you pass up this chance, which will never come again, is it because that’s the right thing to do? Or because it’s safe? Because not getting what you want is what you’re used to . . . And do you really want to go on living that way?”
“You’re the devil,” Ruby said.
“I’m a man who knows what he wants—and how to get it,” Braithwhite said. “But this isn’t about who I am, it’s about who you want to be. That’s what you need to decide, Ruby. So take the day, and ask yourself: Who do you want to be?”
THE NARROW HOUSE
When I looked out in the morning I saw a mob of about 400 or 500 people coming over the hill and I saw them shoot a Colored man . . . About 8 o’clock they came into the residential district and began ransacking the Colored homes. I went up in the loft when I saw them coming. After setting fire to several homes around, they came into our house and after turning on the gas they piled furniture on top and lighted a match. As soon as they left I went down and turned off the gas and managed to put out the fire and went back into the loft. About an hour later another bunch came along and when they saw this house was not burning they came in and started a fire. I went down again and succeeded in putting it out and returned to the loft a second time. By this time the smoke was so bad that I decided to go out and started across the street toward the iron foundry when four fellows caught me. They said, “Where have you been, Nigger?” and I told them I had just come from work. Then they said, “Well, we are going to kill you.”
—G. D. Butler, survivor of the 1921 Tulsa riot,
as quoted in The Chicago Defender, June 11, 1921
Quarter past dawn of a Sunday in late January and Montrose stood beside his son’s Cadillac, smoking to keep warm and watching an alien invader emerge from the gloom across the road.
The invader was cherry red, about five feet tall, and emblazoned with the words DRINK COCA-COLA IN BOTTLES. Beneath that familiar slogan was another, executed in a cruder freehand style: WHITE CUSTOMERS ONLY!
Montrose knew that many of the white residents of this southern Illinois county would regard him rather than Jim Crow as the true interloper. He regretted that none were present to debate the matter; in particular, he would have loved to engage in a frank exchange of views with the owner of the store, John Perch’s Gas & Go, whose property the Coke machine occupied. But the store’s lights were out and the sign on the gas pump read CLOSED FOR THE LORD’S DAY.
Two Negro boys came walking up the road. They were about ten years old and dressed in bright winter coats, one yellow, one orange. Montrose exchanged nods with the boy in yellow, then looked with fresh concern at the Coke machine, regarding it as he would a Confederate soldier lying in ambush.
The boys walked heedlessly up to it, groping in their pockets for nickels.
Montrose threw down his cigarette. “Hey!” he shouted. “What are you doing? Don’t put your money in t
hat!” He crossed the road in quick long strides, the boys looking around startled. “What are you doing?”
The boy in orange, clearly not the brains of the pair, took the question literally: “Getting a Coke.”
“It’s all right, mister,” added the boy in yellow, smarter but no wiser. “Mr. Perch gave us permission.”
“He did, did he?” said Montrose. “And why would that matter?”
“It’s his store,” the boy in orange said with a note of disdain, as if Montrose were the dummy here. He reached for the coin slot, but Montrose caught his wrist and yanked him away, and when the boy opened his mouth to protest, backhanded him across the face. The boy stumbled and fell, squawking.
“How’s that feel?” Montrose said, looming over him. “You like getting hit in the face?”
“Mister, please—” said the boy in yellow.
“Be still or you’ll get the same,” Montrose warned. He stared hard at the boy on the ground. “I asked you a question.”
The boy stared back, angry but frightened. “No,” he murmured.
“What’s that? I can’t hear you.”
“No, I don’t like it.”
“I didn’t think so. And how about if I were to open a store across the way? You think you’d want to come in and buy a Coke from me?”
“No!”
“That’s the first intelligent thing out of your mouth.” Montrose pointed at the vending machine. “This here? This is a slap in the face. Every time you put in a nickel, you’re telling Mr. Perch, ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’ A man who respects himself will never do that. You understand me?”
“We understand, mister,” the boy in yellow said.
“Shut up. I want to hear it from him.”
The boy in orange gritted his teeth and contemplated the cost of refusal. Finally he forced the words out: “I understand. Mister.”
“All right, then. You get on out of here now. And don’t let me catch you doubling back or I’ll beat you for real.”
The boys went on their way, the boy in yellow hurrying, the boy in orange making an effort to appear as though he wasn’t. “Yeah,” Montrose called after them. “And next time, get a Pepsi.”
“I don’t like Pepsi,” the boy in orange called back. “Old fool!” He broke into a run and his friend ran with him. Montrose watched them go. I’m no fool, boy, he thought. As for old, well . . . I’m forty-one. But forty-one, in Jim Crow years, is old. Ancient, even.
Across the road, Atticus had come down off the snowy embankment carrying a roll of toilet paper.
“Don’t say it,” Montrose cautioned as he walked back towards the car.
“I’m not saying a word, Pop.”
“Yeah, and get over to the other side. I’m driving.”
Two days earlier, Caleb Braithwhite had been sitting in a booth in Denmark Vesey’s when Montrose came in after work. Montrose hadn’t seen Braithwhite since that night in the museum, but he’d known it was only a matter of time.
“What now?” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Turner,” said Caleb Braithwhite. “Please, sit. Can I get you something?”
“I can buy my own damn drink.” Montrose sat down in the booth. “What do you want?”
“I have another project I’d like your help with.”
“Yeah? And what are you going to threaten me with this time?”
“Nothing,” Braithwhite said. “I was hoping we could move beyond threats.”
“To what, me being your nigger?”
Braithwhite looked affronted. “Have you ever even heard me use that word?”
“When you put me in a cellar with a chain around my ankle,” Montrose said, “it’s assumed.”
“That was my father’s doing.”
“How about when I got shot, whose doing was that?”
“My father would have shot you for real,” Braithwhite said. “He’d have killed your son. Instead, thanks to me, you and Atticus are alive, and my father can’t bother you ever again.”
“Yeah, but that story’s got a sequel. More than one, it seems.”
“I’m sorry about stealing Adah’s book,” Braithwhite told him, “but I needed to make a certain impression on the captain and his men.”
“Uh-huh. Me and my family aren’t your niggers, but you want the captain to think we are.”
“I’d have handled it differently if I could. Still, nobody got hurt, and you have to admit you made out very well on the deal. Even if you could have convinced the Burns family to take Adah’s claim seriously, they’d have nitpicked her accounting to death. I just gave you the money.”
“No.” Montrose shook his head sternly. “You do not get to do that. You do not get to count paying off a debt ninety years past due as a good deed.”
“But it wasn’t my debt.”
“No, your debt is still outstanding. And don’t think I’ve forgotten that, either.”
“You mean Hannah? You want back wages for her too?”
“It’s got nothing to do with wanting.”
“Because I could arrange that,” Braithwhite said. “Of course, with a century and a half of interest to cover, it might take some time to get the funds together. But if it’ll help make up for the way I’ve treated you—”
“You don’t get it,” Montrose said. “You can’t buy goodwill with money that ain’t yours. It’s not a favor to pay what’s owed.”
“Let’s talk about real favors, then. There must be something you want, Mr. Turner. Name it.”
Montrose hissed in frustration. “No, Mr. Braithwhite, let’s talk about what you want. That’s what this conversation is really about, and I can see you’re not leaving until you speak your piece. So spit it out, and then I can tell you to go to hell.”
“All right,” Caleb Braithwhite said. “I want you to find Hiram Winthrop’s son, Henry. He ran away from home not long before my father killed his father. He was sixteen at the time, and the story is he ran off with one of the housemaids. He also stole a number of his father’s books.”
“Books! So that’s what this is about, more magic books?”
Braithwhite nodded. “My father thought Henry might have taken The Book of Names, so he was eager to find him. But Henry did a surprisingly good job of covering his tracks. The thing is, as far as my father knew, Henry wasn’t a practitioner of the art. In fact, he apparently loathed natural philosophy. So he wouldn’t have taken the books to use them—he’d have taken them to deny their use to Hiram Winthrop. But the books were also very valuable, and my father assumed Henry would eventually sell them.
“The market for that sort of literature is small; my father kept feelers out. It took longer than he expected, but a few years ago, a book called The Atlas of Untrod Paths that was known to have belonged to Hiram Winthrop went on auction in Manhattan. My father contacted the auctioneers and eventually traced the chain of provenance to a man calling himself Henry Narrow, who’d sold the book in Philadelphia in 1944. Narrow matched Henry Winthrop’s description—he was the right age, and he’d been living with a Negro woman who was probably the missing housemaid. But by the time my father’s people came looking for him, he’d vanished again.”
“And this is where I come in?” Montrose said. “You want me to go to Philadelphia and pick up the trail with my special Negro powers?”
Braithwhite smiled. “No,” he said. “Detectives Burke and Noble are going to Philadelphia. They’re flying out tomorrow afternoon. While they’re preoccupied with what they think is a new lead, I’d like you to go to Aken, Illinois.
“You see, I’ve had my own detective out looking for leads. Recently he discovered that a man named Henry Narrow bought a house in Aken in the summer of 1945. He bought it for cash, for a sum slightly less than what Narrow was paid for the Atlas.”
“If you know where Narrow’s house is, what do you need me for?” Montrose said. “Why not just send your detective?”
“I did,” said Braithwhite. “He’s disappeared,
along with the fifty thousand dollars I gave him for book-shopping.”
“So now you want to trust me with fifty thousand?”
“I trust you not to run off with it. I know you don’t need the money.”
“That still doesn’t make sense, though,” Montrose said. “You could go see Narrow yourself.”
“I could. But he might not want to deal with me, especially if he knows how his father died.”
“I don’t want to deal with you, either. But here you are anyway. How’s Henry Narrow any different?”
“He isn’t. But those ‘special Negro powers’ you joked about? They might actually exist in this case. He’s been living with a Negro woman—and he’ll know you’re not a member of the Order. I think he’s more likely to deal squarely with you than he would with any white man I could send.”
“Maybe,” Montrose said. “But that ain’t the real reason . . .” And then it came to him: “You’re worried. You say this guy isn’t a ‘practitioner,’ but that was when he was sixteen. How old would he be now?”
“About thirty-five.”
“So for twenty years, he’s been hauling around his daddy’s magic books. Is there a particular one you’re looking for?”
“I’ll take whatever he still has,” Braithwhite said, “but I’m especially interested in a set of handwritten notebooks containing his father’s research.”
“His father’s research notebooks. And you’re not concerned he might have looked into those at some point, maybe learned a trick or two?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“I’m sure. But over twenty years . . . Maybe your detective didn’t run away with the money. Maybe Henry Winthrop turned him into a toad.”
“That would be a good trick,” Caleb Braithwhite said. “I’d like to learn that one myself.”
“I bet you would.”
“Is this the part where you tell me to go to hell?”
“No,” said Montrose. “If you’re scared of this guy, maybe I do want to meet him. But assuming I get him to sell me the notebooks, what’s to stop me from throwing them into the nearest bonfire?”