by Scott Thomas
A long night of brooding and brandy followed as I prowled the old house with my pistol in hand, my curses hissing off into unlit corners.
I sat and stared at the impassive face of the skeleton, its surface both smooth and ridged, and I wondered with a quiet sense of awe about the construction of such an armature (both the fine piece of jointed metal work and the bone original it was modelled after). Whether one dubbed it God or evolution, some form of genius had been at work.
Still, even more impressive than that, more a mystery than bone and muscle and tendons and organs, was the force of life and the sentience that occupied and animated the corporeal human vehicle.
Those were my thoughts before I dozed at the desk, before the aroma of coffee seeped into my dream and summoned my consciousness into the cool bronze of October’s morning light. There were birds in the garden, but not the hungry, territorial birds of spring—there was a purposeful urgency now in their cries as they plotted their travels south.
The coffee was stronger than I like and some had spilled on the desk near to where my own sleeping skull had weighed. It took me a moment, and a sip of the brew, to remember that I had dismissed all the servants, and I had no recollection of preparing the stuff. I held the cup away and eyed it quizzically, but then my eyes fell upon the corner where the skeleton should have stood.
The wrought-iron skeleton gleamed. It stood outside in the light and spitting leaves, solemn and black, rigid on the granite stoop. The head turned to face me, the teeth clenched as it regarded me with its inscrutable scooped-out stare.
I must have mirrored its rigidity just then, as a shock of horror shot through every limb; but a moment later I was like a rag fluttering back into the hallway. I slammed the door shut and fumbled the locks, a whole herd of hearts in my chest.
It was another trick, of course, a puppet, or something like those clever mechanized dolls that jerk their heads and wag their arms in the windows of Boston toyshops.
I heard the thump of a footfall and rushed to the parlour, where I pulled aside the drapes and peered out. The skeleton took an awkward step, then another. I gasped. It was walking.
Despite the lumbering aspect of its motions, the skeleton conveyed something that I could only term as determination as it started out along the road, rasping through the fallen leaves.
I rushed to throw a coat over my sleeping gown and hastened into my boots, a fever of exclamations firing from my lips. As a last minute thought, I grabbed my pistol from the study and headed out to follow the skeleton.
It had not progressed far when I caught up with it. I hung back, naturally, shivering, trying not to make noise, despite the broken pavement of leaves. How stark it looked against a background of autumn colours as it jerked along, the head turning ever so slightly from side to side as if looking for something.
We ended up at the sad disarray of the Trowbridge house. The iron figure stood with its hands on its cold hammered hips, surveying the scene.
I suppose I could go on for pages about my feelings on that cold golden morning, but I’ll spare you the bulk of it and only say that a thousand thoughts were in my brain. There was awe and terror, fascination and dread—all these things colliding, and then, in a predominant flush... sadness.
The thing of iron bones waded into the wreckage and began sifting through the sooty boards. Its body creaked and the boards clattered, tossed aside. It stooped and stared and went on in this relentless manner for some time before standing and turning to face me. While incapable of expression, there was a questioning quality to the action.
What does one say to a metal skeleton?
“Mrs. Trowbridge… is that... you?”
The neck squealed as the head shook back and forth.
It seemed the obvious explanation at the time that this strange sculpture was somehow a vessel for the disembodied spirit of the old woman who had died in the blaze.
“No,” I muttered, “not Mrs. Trowbridge. Would you then be the spirit of Mrs. Trowbridge’s deceased husband?”
No again.
“Then who are you?”
Again the head wagged.
“Don’t you know?”
I shuddered as the thing took a step toward me. Brittle bits of blackened wood snapped beneath its weight and leaves hissed and kicked up as it walked within feet of me. Staring, and in response to my inquiry, it shrugged, its metal joints squeaking.
I suppose none us truly knows what elusive spark holds up our frail figures, be it a spirit or soul, or some other force as yet unimagined by our limited minds. All we even know of our selves are our personalities. This creature, as it turns out, would prove similar in that aspect—I would never learn who or what occupied that black assemblage of parts, but a form of madness had overtaken me, for I found myself urging the thing to follow me back to the house.
It stood hovering in the parlour until I told it to sit. The chair did not care for the idea, groaning beneath the weight of my guest. Dusk softened the windows and a chill came on as I knelt at the hearth and started a fire. The skeleton watched, leaning forward, seemingly in great interest.
I could only imagine what my friends would have thought had they come around that evening. There I sat, talking to so many pounds of upright black iron as if it were alive.
Sadly, there was no way for the thing to properly communicate, although I did test it some.
“Do you know where your head is?”
A thin black arm rose and the hand pointed to its skull.
“Where are your feet?”
It pointed again.
“Did you bring me coffee this morning?”
It nodded. I was thrilled, fascinated.
“So, you prepared the coffee by yourself?”
The skeleton nodded.
I thought for a moment and hesitantly asked, “Should I fear you?”
It shook its head; no.
I smiled. “Well, then, seeing as we seem to be on friendly terms, I’ll just have to teach you how to write so that our interchanges won’t be so one sided. Would you like to learn to write?”
The skeleton nodded enthusiastically, the neck squealing.
In the morning there was coffee. It seems the skeleton had managed the stairs, for the brew was on the table by my bed when I awoke.
Once again the skeleton had gone out into the morning, back to the ruin. I found it rummaging about in the boards, a strangely graceful creature in that it was thin and slow. I wish I knew what it was looking for, but I’d wondered if perhaps it missed its old friend.
“Good morning,” I said.
It looked up and nodded then turned back to its task.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
I received a small bow, but then it was back to its business.
After thinking a moment I inquired, “Excuse me... are you looking for Mrs. Trowbridge?”
The skeleton shot up and I started, stepping back. The thing nodded eagerly.
“Mrs. Trowbridge is dead,” I said.
It stared at me—there was no perceivable reaction.
“Do you understand dead?”
The skeleton shook its head.
I sighed. “Come with me back to the house. It’s time for your lessons.”
My companion followed me along the road, past the lake—the trees had made a great ring of colour around it and the sun was trying to penetrate the dark waters.
Considering the fact that I was never inclined toward rearing children, I exhibited a great deal of patience when it came to the schooling of my pupil. The skeleton caught on quickly—in no time it was writing the alphabet, although it had an awkward time holding the quill initially.
I taught the student my name and asked it if it, too, had a title, if the old woman had called it something. It nodded and wrote “J”.
The lessons became a daily routine, as with the visits to the Trowbridge wreckage where the skeleton continued to scrounge.
Within weeks the skeleton was writing word
s and added some letters to its name.
“John. She called you John?”
The skeleton nodded.
“Well then,” I said, “how nice to meet you, John.” I held out my hand and my friend took it in its icy black fingers and shook it gently.
We found a dead half-grown fox by the road the next morning. It was peaceful-looking and bore no sign of injury. John knelt by it, creaking, and prodded the silvery mass.
“It’s dead, John, the poor little creature. Dead.”
Leaves made soft clicks as they fell in the near wood.
“John, it’s like the bones that Mrs. Trowbridge hung in the trees— whatever property was within to make them alive has ceased, or perhaps moved on.”
John looked at me with his hollow eyes and then pointed off toward his old home.
“Yes,” I said, “dead, like Mrs. Trowbridge.”
The skeleton returned its gaze to the fox.
“I’ll show you what we do with the dead, John. Come, we’ll bring it back to the house and give it a burial.”
Much like a child who imitates the actions of a parent, John had taken to reproducing mine. He took a turn digging the hole and helped pad the earth down over the small grave.
“Some people pray about this time,” I explained, “but I think that concept might be a bit complicated at this point.”
While John could offer little to nothing in regards to his origin and history, he was getting to the point where he could formulate crude sentences. One evening, when the month was drawing to its end and the trees were mostly bare against the wide moon-tinted sky, we sat about my desk in the study. His face gleamed strangely in the candle-light.
He wrote:
SHE WAS COLD. I MADE FIRE. BAD BAD BURN.
I began to understand. I nodded. “Mrs. Trowbridge was cold, so you tried to make a fire to get her warm, but the house went up... ”
Now John nodded. I remembered back when we found him in the rubble, holding the bucket, and how there was a trace of water left in it.
“You tried to put out the fire?”
A nod. Then he wrote:
SORRY SORRY SORRY.
I gathered myself. “Well, John, you meant well and you did the right thing. You tried. You did the good thing, John, you tried to save her.”
WHERE MRS? John wrote.
I put a hand on his cold shoulder. “She’s buried, in the ground, like the fox. You remember the fox?”
He nodded and then he pushed his chair back and seemed to gaze off into the fireplace where the flames were licking up through the maple logs and the smoke made ghosts.
A touch of snow had fallen in the night—no more than a dusting, but it gave the world an ethereal quality as it softened the road and lightened the shadows under the leafless trees.
There was coffee waiting when I awoke and a piece of paper by that. I sat in my bed, tasted the coffee and took up the note. It was crudely written; a single sentiment emerging from the sepia of coffee stains:
GOOD BYE.
I dressed in a rush and started for the Trowbridge house. John’s steps were in the snow — odd patterns left by the metal bones. I followed the tracks, but they did not lead to the Trowbridge ruins; they led to the great black circle of the lake. The tracks led into the lake.
I caught my breath and stood there looking out at the water, its dark stillness, the empty trees ringed grey around it. I muttered a name—a metal skeleton’s name, of all things, and I had to laugh at that. I gave a small laugh so that I would not cry.
I’ve kept the lessons that John wrote and the final coffee-stained message. I take them from my desk and ponder them on occasion. Once in a while, and mostly in October, I walk out to the lonely boards that were the Trowbridge house. Weeds have claimed the place—resilient, unthinking entities that they are.
Generally, I stop at the edge of the lake on my way back to the house. It’s a quiet spot and the coloured leaves spin down to the water and settle on the surface. I imagine John somewhere out in that deep water, lying at the bottom, rusting to the colour of autumn leaves.
Sharp Medicine
Many years ago, before there were motorcars and electrical machines, there was a large farm in a small New England town. For the sake of the story let’s imagine that this is the very site of the happenings I’m about to relate...
Nathan Bell, his wife and two children lived at the far edge of a healthy tract of land. Their home was a fine and sturdy thing, bordered on two sides by deep woods. The front faced the distant buildings of the village proper, and of course, there was the swamp... a dank and dimly lit expanse stretching along the western edge of the Bell property.
Nathan and his wife Emma gave strict orders to their children not to wander into the swamp.
“Who knows what manner of dangerous wild beasts might dwell in there?” Mr. Bell asked in his deep, stern voice.
The children, Betsy, who was ten, and James, whose age was twelve, listened with wide eyes. They knew better than to cross their father. Besides, the swamp was a fearful place—even on the brightest of days it seemed unnaturally shaded, and the air was sickly-thick with decaying leaves and stagnant water.
Life for the Bells was generally good. There was always hard work to be done and the finicky New England weather was at times challenging, but their farm was prosperous. That spring when the troubles started, the sheep had been sheared and the planting was done. Nathan believed it would be their best year yet.
Dusk was blurring the eastern sky when young Betsy spied a strange figure coming out of the swamp. Alone, but for a hug-worn doll, the girl ducked down so that the stranger would not notice her. He was a spindly old thing with long, white, unkempt hair. He had a muddy shovel resting across one shoulder as he headed across one of the Bell’s newly sown fields. The curious girl followed him from behind.
The figure slowed as he got close to the farmhouse and barn. He seemed to be staggering, weakening as he went. Betsy could have sworn she heard a low moaning sound coming from the man, but it may have been the sudden chill of wind blowing in from the west, carrying with it the musty smell of the swamp. She noticed that the man was carrying a cloth sack in one hand. It made a clattering sound as it swayed. As the old fellow slowed, the distance between him and the girl shrank until at last he spun around, startling her.
“Girl!” the old man said, his eyes staring wide from a pale bony face. “I am not well!”
Betsy Bell was too frightened to respond. She stood gawking up at the trembling, wheezing image of the stranger as the contents of the cloth bag rattled. The man bent down and stuffed the sack into the girl’s hand. He mumbled something that she could not make out, and then collapsed.
The girl ran the rest of the way to the house. She called to her parents, who followed her out into the fields.
When they reached the point where the girl had claimed they would find the fallen stranger, Nathan frowned and gave Betsy a bewildered look.
“He was there, Papa, I swear—he fell right there!”
The old man was gone.
Mrs. Bell pointed at the freshly turned, newly seeded soil and said, “Look, Nathan, there are marks . .
It was as if something had been dragged. They followed the lines to the edge of the western field, a good many yards from where the poor old fellow had dropped. He was lying on his back, his head turned, eyes looking off into the swamp like two wide coins. He was dead.
They never did learn much about the man... not even his name. Talk of the mystery spread though the town. Some claimed he matched the description of a man who was thrown out of a tavern in Southborough for acting in a disorderly manner. The man, it was told, had boasted drunkenly about all the graves he had robbed and all the ancient artefacts he had stolen from the earth. He claimed that he had found the remains of an old settlement dating back before the Indians, but would not disclose the location for fear that others might rob him of the treasures there. When several locals mocked him, he flew in
to a violent rage and, in turn, found himself tossed out on his skinny rump.
Well, the old fellow was buried in the potter’s field, and within a few weeks he was forgotten. Nathan Bell took the cloth bag and tossed it into the cellar, where it and the flaked-stone arrowheads it contained were also put out of mind.
Several months passed. Summer came and the crops grew tall. The madness struck the sheep first. They became skittish, then began making strange noises in the middle of the night. Emma Bell woke one evening and thought she heard garbled voices coming from the barn.
When her husband went out to investigate, he also heard them, but he could make no sense of the words being spoken, if they were indeed words. When he flung the barn door open the sheep fell silent.
The Bells became more concerned when the normally passive sheep became rowdy. Several even tried to trample the children. The town reverend was summoned. He suggested they try “sharp medicine”—slitting the throats of the afflicted animals to release the evil that had polluted them. Nathan Bell picked the most demented creatures from the flock and spilled their blood. For a while, things seemed to return to normal.
Summer dwindled, the long days of heat and haze yielding to the chill encroachment of autumn. The days were crammed with work as the harvest kept the Bell family busy. The bracken that spanned the dark length of swamp blazed gold and the leaves in the nearby woods began to crisp and colour. Ironically, the beauty of the season ushered in the decay of the year.
One night Nathan woke to find his wife was missing. He searched the house, but did not find her. Then he heard the sound of hammering echoing out in the fields. He took a lantern and followed the sound beyond the apple trees and pumpkin patch. He found his wife, her nightgown splotched with dirt, her hair stringy with sweat. She was banging boards together. Mrs. Bell had made a box of impressive size, big enough to hold a good-sized pony, or several humans. She had also dug a hole large enough to hold the box.