He swam toward the center, noticing the land dropped off ten feet, then twenty, then thirty. There has to be a crab somewhere in this water, he told himself. Fish swam in their schools around him. They were bright and beautiful colors, more likely to be found in tropical waters than within a mountain cave, not that this surprised him; behind these doors it seemed anything was possible. The floor was covered in thick sand and peculiar plants and critters. Desperately, he looked for a crab scuttling about but found nothing.
Every few minutes he had to return to the surface, get some air, and dive back down again, the chain making his swim incredibly difficult. Each time he hoped he could hold his breath just a bit longer, swim just a bit farther. Then, when he was farther and deeper than he had yet been, he saw huge mounds of sand, one after another, protruding from the ground. It was as if there were waves on the seabed or as if somehow, an ocean had submerged the dunes of a desert. Thinking that this might be something to inspect, he swam closer and soon noticed that at the end of each dune was a piece of stone with words written on them, and immediately, even without understanding the language in which they were written, he knew what lay beneath the mounds of sand. This was a giant burial ground.
Vincent kicked wildly for the surface. He didn’t want to search such a sacred site; it didn’t feel right to him. But he also knew there was a great possibility that a crab would dwell in just a spot. And so, with renewed breath, he returned to the burial ground.
There were six mounds in all. Were these relatives of the giant? Parents, siblings? Vincent hovered over each one, searching for a sign, a disturbance of some sort. But everything was still. Then, just as he was about to give up and get some much needed air, he saw bits of sand cascading down like an avalanche. He moved in closer. Please. Please.
Yes, there it was. A claw. The crab was half under the sand and unaware of Vincent’s approach. Vincent had been underwater for far too long already, but he didn’t want to risk losing this opportunity. Without further hesitation, he lunged for the crustacean. But it was as if he were moving in slow motion. The crab began to skitter away. Vincent, taking in water, his head pounding from the pressure, reached out. He almost had it. The crab tried to dive back under the sand. Vincent’s finger just traced its back, scratched it with his nail. A little closer. A little more.
He snatched it up.
As he swam to the surface, nearly blacking out from the lack of oxygen, the crab, clearly agitated, snapped at him. Its huge claw gnashed his cheek, removing a large chunk. And that was how Vincent came to bear the scar he was to carry for the rest of his life.
Finally, after he had returned to the surface, bleeding and gasping for air, he ran out of the room and found the giant.
“Here,” he said, hunched over and panting. “A crab.”
The giant extended his hand, and Vincent placed it in. Feeling his prize wriggle in his palm, the giant grinned. “Yes. I was beginning to lose hope. But it seems all is not yet lost. You have done well. Only two more left, and then you will be free.”
With such monotonous work, the days felt more like years, and Vincent, without ever fully realizing it, grew stronger and wiser. He was disciplined, keeping his mind active, telling himself stories as he searched, repeating poems and philosophies over and over in his head. He created entire worlds in which to lose himself, beautiful songs that rang between his ears. The only times he felt like a child again were whenever he walked by the red door. Only then did he yearn to give in to his impulsiveness.
Every now and then, as he ventured from door to door, Vincent would hear a scream, a terrible, hideous shriek, and he knew it was the gnome, angry again at not appearing where he so desperately wanted to be. But as hard as he tried to locate the gnome and his snake, they never encountered each other. Somehow, Vincent always chose the incorrect door to enter.
After nearly another six weeks of searching, upon hearing such a scream, Vincent, thinking he had found the gnome at last, stumbled, instead, upon a room filled with tall grass and flowers, an entire field of them stretching for what seemed like miles. The ladybug was in this room; there was no doubt in his mind. He would have to search every blade of grass, every flower stem and petal and the soil in between. He quickly realized he could be in here forever.
And indeed it felt that way, for he painstakingly inspected every inch of that field, never once stopping to rest, forgoing all meals, forgoing all sleep. However, in all this time, he never came across anything even resembling a ladybug. How long had he been in this room? He wanted to cry; he wanted to just give up and open the red door—be done with it all. He would never escape the cave. Disillusioned, he left the field behind, pushing the door open to walk back into the hall and start again in yet another room. But as he did so, he happened to glance at his arm. And there, crawling across his sleeve, was a ladybug.
CHAPTER 7
Vince turned away from the book and glanced out the window, catching a reflection of himself in the smudged glass. It was an odd image there, staring coldly back at him. For a moment he couldn’t even recognize his own face. There was something different about it, especially in the elliptical darkness surrounding his weary eyes. It was a lost boy trapped in a sheet of glass, a two-dimensional being going nowhere.
As the train continued to run along its tracks, he tried to look past this distorted reflection and out at the trees and roads streaming by. But beyond the glass, the scenery seemed to be repeating over and over again as if the outside world were running in one long, depressing loop. It didn’t look nearly as exciting and thrilling as Vince had always imagined it to be and certainly not like the world his grandfather had grown up in.
But his grandfather’s stories weren’t real. This was the real world. In a strained whisper, he said to his estranged image, “What are you doing, Vince?”
The next stop approached, and the train began to slow. Vince tossed the book on the seat beside him. Why are you even reading these tales? the Vince in the glass wondered. Your grandfather was crazy. I mean, he can’t even get his own story straight. First he got the scar from the witch when he was born, and now he gets it from a crab? That makes no sense. Which is it? It’s all fantasy. Just like reuniting with dear old Dad.
“You’re wrong,” he said. “He’ll be there. Dad will be there.”
The train came to a full and screeching stop, and still glancing out the window and through his warped self-image, Vince saw a man waiting on the platform, bundled up in the cold, the collar of his jacket covering half his face. The first thought to pop into Vince’s head was that of his father: he was on his way to the funeral, no doubt. Fingers crossed, Vince couldn’t help rising in his seat and scrutinizing the stranger as he stepped onto the train.
Peeking over the headrest, Vince felt his nerves start to take over, the same feelings he had nearly every day at the orphanage. And how did that always work out for you? the voice within the glass said. What are you doing? Stop this. It’s not him. You know this.
But still, he looked, waiting for the man to turn his way.
And then he finally did. The man walked right past Vince and chose a seat two rows ahead of him. He looked nothing like his father.
Vince glanced down at his hands and quickly uncrossed his fingers. He leaned his head against the window, meshing with his reflection, and glanced up at the gray sky, as if he might find some explanation for his naïveté there. The sun’s appearance was brief today, and the sky was darkening by the second. The clouds were moving in fast, and the snow had begun to fall lightly across the dreary landscape. Looking up, Vince wished he could take flight, rise above the dense clouds and just keep going, watch the world from far overhead. Why not?
Like a rock, his head fell into his hands with an audible smack. He sat there for some time, like this, unmoving—however long it took for the tears to go away. What was he doing? What was this whole trip really about? He had a sudden yearning, a strange desire he never believed he would have: he just wante
d to go back to the orphanage.
Minutes later he had nearly fallen asleep in that comforting darkness when bits of conversation from the other passengers began to penetrate his thoughts. They were at first like the cloudy comments of a dream state but became more like short spikes of intruding information. “Look real close . . .” “Have you seen . . .” “On the run . . .” “Police are searching for . . .”
Groggy, Vince looked up, and immediately his stomach sank. It was the ticket collector, shuffling from one passenger to another. As she went through the car of the train, checking and punching tickets, she was holding up a piece of paper and asking each passenger if he or she recognized the person in the picture. “Take a good look. This is important.”
He didn’t know what to do. Clearly, they were on to him. Should he run? Pretend to sleep? He stood up, his legs heavy with fear.
Backpack in hand, he shuffled over to the aisle. Do it. Run. Now.
Too late. The ticket collector saw him. “Excuse me, young man. Wait right there. I need to see your ticket.”
Vince kept his back to her. He didn’t want to turn around. “I—I don’t have one.”
“You can buy one now. I just have to add a three-dollar surcharge to the price.”
Still, Vince didn’t budge. His eyes were closed, as he wished for everything around him to vanish.
“All right, so, where are you going?”
“D-Dyerville.”
“Dyerville. That’ll be twenty-four dollars and fifty cents.”
Vince turned around, making sure to keep his head down. He took out the money he had received from M and meekly handed it over.
After sifting through a wad of bills, the ticket collector gave him his change and shoved a piece of paper inches from his face. “Look familiar to you?”
Slowly, and with intense dread, Vince raised his eyes to the paper. As he took in the images, a sudden wave of calm washed over his body. There wasn’t a picture of him. He was safe; she was looking for someone else.
There were three photos on the paper in all. The first was a middle-aged man, pale and skeletal with a scar like a worm traversing across his scalp. The second was of a young woman with a faraway look and no eyebrows, with a nose so slight it might just be nostrils. The third image was a blur, a woman hidden in shadows. Nobody would ever mistake Vince for any of them. Relieved, he shook his head. “No. I’ve never seen them before.”
“Are you sure?”
Vince nodded. “Positive.”
As the ticket collector walked away, Vince slumped back into his seat and asked, “What did they do?”
But he wasn’t heard. Not by her; she was already on to the next passenger. Instead, Vince was heard by the man sitting across the aisle from him, the same man, it turned out, who had prevented the doors from closing.
“Bad people,” the man said. He was looking down, sketching on a large pad. “Very bad. Haven’t you seen the news?”
Vince said he hadn’t.
The man stopped sketching and edged closer. “It’s been all over. They’re wanted for knocking over banks. A whole slew of them.”
“Really?”
“They call themselves the Byron Clan. They even grabbed a rich kid from his home and held him for ransom for days, asking for millions of dollars. Huge news. Police were able to track them down, but the situation got out of control pretty quickly. They were able to save the kid, but the Byrons escaped. Now authorities are checking this train because they think this demented family is heading upstate to hide in the blizzard. Probably think they’ll be safe with everything shut down. Hide out in the snow. Buy some time. Not a bad plan. I just hope they find the sickos. And fast. Before anyone gets hurt.”
He studied Vince through narrowed eyes and went back to sketching, his hand moving incredibly fast. The man appeared to be about the same age as Vince’s father. He was a tall man with perfect posture, pale skin. His hair was long and pin straight, drifting down over his boyish face so that he constantly had to flick it aside with a snap of his thick neck. Each muscular arm was covered with dried paint, but almost purposely so, like temporary tattoos.
Finished, the man tore the page free from his book and handed it across the aisle to Vince. “For you.”
Vince grabbed the paper and found a sketch of himself leaning against the train window, reading his grandfather’s book. It was a beautiful image, very well done, and the style reminded him of the drawings on the cave he read about; there was a brutal simplicity to it, a certain timelessness.
“Habit I have,” the man said. “I’m always sketching people I see. Places. Still lifes. You name it. I can’t glimpse anything without wanting to capture it on paper.” He extended his hand. “Name’s Eric.”
“Vince. Thanks . . . for before. For holding the train.”
“Oh, no problem. Saw you running. Figured you had somewhere important to be.”
“I do. I’m going to see my father.” He was disappointed for saying this aloud, as if it were a fact, when really it might end up being a wild-goose chase.
“Been awhile since you seen him?”
Vince nodded and with great sadness said, “Years.”
A twitch crept across Eric’s face as if his skin were ripping open from within. He held up a finger. “One minute.” Frantically he flipped through the pages of his pad, one sheet falling back upon another. “Oneminuteoneminuteoneminuteoneminute—” Then he stopped and, without taking his eyes from the drawing, picked up his pencil. His rambling ceased. A look of concentration fell upon his face. His chestnut eyes didn’t blink, and his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth. He was ready to create.
But the pencil never had a chance to leave a mark. Like a weak spell, the trance was abruptly broken, and Eric shook his head in frustration. “Ah! For a second there, I thought I had it.” He snapped the pencil in half between his two fingers.
“Had what?”
With slight hesitance and perhaps some embarrassment, Eric handed the pad over to Vince. “I don’t know how to finish it.”
For a moment Vince believed the drawing to be complete. It looked perfect, in fact. A drawing of a man, an old but intriguing face with many lines and grooves and marks, a face of great history. But then Vince noticed the eyes. They weren’t filled in. They were empty, having been erased many times over, the paper thinning.
“I can’t get it right,” Eric said. “I’ve been working on this portrait for years now, but I don’t know why I can’t finish those damn eyes.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Art is such a precarious pursuit. I tell this to all my students. We lose a part of ourselves with everything we create. Sometimes I can feel that loss; I can somehow feel myself becoming a little bit smaller. I shrink. Is that possible?
“I haven’t seen my dad in years either. But a part of me believes he never died, not really. I think that maybe after the hundreds, thousands of pieces he created, he just became so small he vanished. Popped out of existence. I don’t know. Maybe he’s just so high above me I can’t see him anymore. I’ve tried to follow in his footsteps, but—” He gestured at the piece Vince was holding.
Vince took another glance at the drawing and shook his head in confusion. “Your work is amazing.”
“Thank you for saying so.” Eric continued to study Vince as if he were not yet finished with his sketch either. He even pulled free a new pencil. “You know, I started this drawing when he was still alive. But I never got around to finishing it. I always thought there would be more time. We always do, don’t we? He guided me on most of the work, telling me where I could improve, where my strengths were, where I was lacking. Even though he was arthritic and couldn’t paint or draw anymore himself, he could still give advice. That never left. Every day he would come to my studio for a visit and tell me how proud he was of me, my work. That meant a lot. In the end I suppose he wasn’t meant to see this finished. It wouldn’t have been right. I have to finish it myself. Only I don’t know if I can
.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe he doesn’t need the eyes. Maybe he can already see you and everyone else.”
“It’s lovely to think so, isn’t it? You could be right.”
Eric looked away, and Vince peered closer at the drawing. The strokes popped like gray tides, giving the work a greater depth, another layer, another world. Funny, he thought, inspecting the blank eyes, it looks like there’s already life in there. A shadow of existence maybe, but life nonetheless. Maybe, for Eric, there was nothing to fear. Regardless how much he erased or how much he filled in, it didn’t matter. He could never erase his father’s life. It would always be there in everything he ever did.
“Tell me,” Eric continued. “Why haven’t you seen your father in so long?”
Vince wasn’t sure how to answer. “I—I couldn’t find him.”
“Until now.”
Vince nodded. “Right. Until now.”
“What do you remember best about him?”
“I—” Vince shifted in his seat. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever asked him something like that. “I remember how much he loved the house we grew up in. It was this cozy little house in Eastbrook. Out in the woods. He built it himself years before I was born. Only it was kind of like your drawing; it was never really finished. He kept working and working on it, adding something here and there, and I would watch him all the time, help out wherever I could. One day he showed me the spot on the foundation where he had carved his initials, and I don’t know, those letters seemed so lonely to me. It seemed like he was all alone down there on the cold cement. And so he laid down some new cement, and I added my initials right beside his. It looked better that way. We were always together.”
“Will you be stopping there? Eastbrook?”
The Dyerville Tales Page 7