The Visionist: A Novel

by Rachel Urquhart

  “Why do you persist in wanting the one fruit you know I cannot help you to reach?” she asks, her tone suddenly reproachful. “Are not all the other fruit in this orchard sufficient to satisfy you?” She looks angrily at me, and I know that she is right to be cross. I am being selfish, ungrateful for the bounty that surrounds me. Still I cannot forget the single red apple, the way it looks against the infinite blue of the heavens. My eldress turns and begins to walk quickly up the hill, back to the houses, back to work and the emptiness of union with so many. I want her for my own. I want her to see me more brightly even than she sees Mother. Without her vision, I cannot find myself.

  It is a silly tale. I was no Eve drawn to the serpent’s urging hiss. Or was I? Did not her apple stand for temptation? And is not temptation the hope that things might be better if only…? My apple—the one I could not reach—was pure hope. And though Eve’s brought down all manner of trouble, could mine truly have wreaked the same havoc?

  I never allowed myself to think upon that fruit again because it seemed like blasphemy to wonder if hope was such a dangerous thing. To wonder if whatever it was that Eve had sought deserved to be punished with the curse of Original Sin. The notion filled me with shame, for what child would dare to consider such a thing? I gave myself, body and soul, to the believers that day. I recast my heart such that it would allow me to think only of others.

  It has been but a few days since I went to the healing room with Sister Polly. Elder Sister Agnes has been kind since I discovered the truth about my friend. I can fathom not what she knows or how she came to know it—only that she can see that things have changed. She invites me to remember our early years together, but her words ring false and leave me feeling lonely.

  You were the first sign that I deserved love.

  She is now full of souvenirs I cannot myself recall.

  A kind child, always bringing me presents. A bird’s nest once. A perfectly round pebble. A silky milkweed pod scaled like a fish!

  Strange that I can have erased my memory of love, past and present.

  I looked in on you every night and wished for the angels to guard your pillow. Have I not proven myself loyal to you?

  I wish I could confess to her: My heart is frozen, my faith intangible as air.

  Truth be told, I find the eldress’s tenderness harder by far to bear than its stern counterpart. I was never made to understand that her love for me was so full and lush; indeed, it seems as if she is recalling a life led with some other child.

  Now, as I sit and work the treadle, the taste of humility is bitter. How dare I imagine that my life before Sister Polly was not enough? That she, above all others, was the prize? Elder Sister Agnes had been right to scold me, for I had chosen one blessed fruit to be better than all the rest, and in doing so, I had dared to imagine that I deserved to possess it.

  I spin and spin, and my foot works the treadle more quickly still. The yarn will break—has broken—and all the sisters cease in their work and stare at me, the clatter of my wheel as loud as the noise in my head. I leave the workshop and make my way to my eldress’s chamber. The time has come for me to ask: When can a Meeting be called that I might walk The Narrow Path?

  The morning of my public trial, the sky dawns dull and gray. Taken aback by the crowd my eldress has summoned to the Church Family meetinghouse—everyone in the settlement has come—I find that I cannot distinguish between faces. Seriousness seems to have turned them hard and heavy, for the believers suspect my faith to be weakening. Why else would I undertake so difficult a test of my devotion?

  Walking to one end of the long room, I breathe in deep the air that—even on a cold late-winter day—is hot and damp with nervousness. It will be difficult to stay the path should I become dizzy and confused. If I blink or raise the back of my hand to wipe sweat from my brow, will I waver? And if I waver, how can I hope ever to reach Zion?

  The believers walk to the edges of the space and begin to sing the song that is to accompany my every step. In deep tones, more authoritative than our usual singing, they drone:

  Precept on precept and line upon line

  We’ll walk in the path our Mother has trod.

  Yea strait and clear straightness the pure way of God.

  They repeat the verse, louder and louder, stamping in rhythm. I place my feet along the seam between two floorboards. Barely thicker than a strand of sewing thread, it extends all the way to the other end of the room. If I step off while on my journey, I will show my failings. Then, I wonder, will the others know of the doubts that so confound my soul?

  The dance of The Narrow Path is new to us in The City of Hope, and so strange. Most of the sacred pictures that have been received and recorded—we call them Gift Drawings—are full of forbidden color, yet forgiven their beauty for the fact that they represent messages from the spirits. The Narrow Path is a more somber piece of business, drawn in black ink over seven sheets of paper and depicting a pantomime of penance so complicated as to test the most devout believer. For several nights, I have practiced it alone in the attic sewing room. I am ready to perform its movements while walking the thin line between floorboards so that I might be perfect and prove the cleanliness of my soul, so that I might keep from stumbling, so that I might reach the end. I tell myself as I position my feet on the line: When I reach Zion, all shall be made clear.

  Heel to toe, heel to toe, how soft my shoes, how shaky my balance! With the balls of my feet true to the path, I crouch down and scratch at the floorboards, reaching for the invisible pistol to my right.

  “Away, pride!” I cry, standing and then pointing the gun at my heart. It is my fingers that explode against my chest (for we have no weapons here) but the force is real to me, and I sway under its power before crouching once more to replace the instrument of mortification.

  Heel to toe, heel to toe, how slick my brow! I kneel just a few paces down the path and come upon a tomahawk left for me by the Indian spirits that I might hack at my anger and be free.

  “Away, rage!” I scream, rising and thrashing at my arm so as to chop it from my soul. Then towards the floor again I bend low and lay the weapon down.

  Heel to toe, heel to toe, how tired my legs! I come upon a field of sharp stones and, ducking to take one and then another, I hurl them against my lust.

  “Away, lust and carnality!” I command, for these are the sins I hate most. Then I toss the stones back, stand once more, and continue on my way. The believers’ chanting grows more fervent, as though my actions excite in them passions of a strange origin. I try not to listen to their song.

  Heel to toe, heel to toe. How loud their roaring as I touch upon pincers, a broom, and a gallows so that I might pluck out sloth, sweep gluttony from my soul, and hang the disbelief of reprobates lest their treachery entice me.

  The spear, the axe, the basket full of serpents, these await me down the path. Heel to toe, heel to toe. To the shovel, the hetchel, the hammer, whip, and tongs I must go. Heel to toe, heel to toe. My mind grows weary from self-mortification, but Zion shimmers at the end of the thin line and I can almost smell the blossoms on the boughs of its fruit trees. Heel to toe, heel to toe…

  The sound of creaking freezes me in my tracks. What cold wind threatens to blow me from the path of righteousness? Has the Devil come to dislodge me from my purpose? My intention flames out. I cannot move forward. I look behind me to see who is at the door, but as I twist like a fish on a hook, I cannot hope to keep balance, stumbling slowly until I find myself down. The ground veers to meet me; I see a flash of white-blond hair.

  She rips off her cap as she pulls open the door, turns and stares at the crowd. Her color is high, her expression furious.

  “How could you doubt her?” she hisses. Her skirts billow wildly in the wind as she glares into the faces of the believers. Her voice is low, almost demonic. “How could you let her doubt herself?”

  The believers go quiet at the sight of the Visionist. They are terrified by her wrath. They t
hink she speaks for Mother. I press my cheek to the floor and close my eyes.

  Only I know that she is speaking for herself. Only I know that she speaks for me.

  Simon Pryor

  IT WAS AS cold and dreary a ride as ever I’d taken the evening I left Tanner’s barn. Flecks of dried blood peppered my hands, and as I gazed out over the snow-covered fields, I felt winter to be endless and unforgiving, a season to stunt the heart. May Kimball gone in an instant, her horse shot dead, all hope of resolution trampled.

  I’d stuffed the mysterious packet into my pocket. The manner in which she’d played with the straw, the persistence with which she’d passed it in and out of the flame—at the time, they had seemed the actions of an addled woman, one who was more than capable of setting a fire out of pure madness. But no. Could she have foreseen that she would need the burnt stalk to write me a message? And how had she known about Trask?

  The sight of home gave little comfort, save to remind me that it offered a cave in which I could hide from my failures. A drink, a chair by the fire, a pile of miseries yet to be exploited—these were the crude tools I would use to put the events of the day behind me. Then, I would go back to work.

  Sitting down at my writing desk, I placed several sheets of clean paper before me. I am not quite sure what it is I initially planned to write, but I discovered that one is not always in control of the message that spills forth from one’s quill. Indeed, the mere act of sitting quietly brought on many of the thoughts I am accustomed to pushing away, my parents appearing foremost in my mind at that moment. May Kimball and I had not behaved so differently in the face of shame. We had sacrificed everything at the altar of a God intent on convincing us that we must pay for our alleged sins by depriving ourselves of the one thing that might save us: love.

  I had lost years of the past, but I was suddenly filled with the urge to recapture my future. The words did not come easily, for how does one go about trying to mend so great an undoing? Hour upon hour, I composed and then destroyed each attempt until I came full circle to the missive I had penned on my very first try.

  My Dearest Mother and Father—

  This letter will no doubt bring you some measure of surprise and understandable confusion. For that, I must apologize. I have never regretted any decision more than the one I felt forced to take in leaving you. I implore you to believe me when I say that I thought then, as I have for all these many years, that I was protecting you.

  I have, of late, come to see my life in a very different light, one that encourages me to ask your forgiveness. This is an enormous request, and yet it pales in comparison to what follows. For if you would consent to see me again, I would be thankful beyond measure.

  If you feel that you are able, then you may send your reply to the address I have printed on the envelope in which this letter is enclosed. I shall await your answer knowing full well that it may never come. And I shall understand your silence better than you could ever imagine.

  I send you all the love that has burned in me since the moment I closed the door on the happiest years of my life. And if this note does nothing save to tell you of that love, then not a word of it shall have been in vain.

  Your son,

  Simon

  Fresh ink blotted and seal stamped firm, I placed the envelope in my coat pocket, intent on finding an errand boy to deliver it come first light. The Hurlbuts had already caused my family the greatest misery possible—they had splintered us apart in a world that demands devotion if loneliness, bitterness, and despair are to be kept at bay. May Kimball, curled up at the feet of the last living creature that could give her comfort, broken, guilt-ridden, alone—she was me. And just as I could not let James Hurlbut get away with stealing her from her children, I could no longer allow him to deprive me of my mother and father. Our fates, May Kimball’s and mine, were well and truly wed.

  It had finally dawned upon me that our time on this earth is limited, and we are fortunate souls indeed if we can hold even one person close to our hearts, let alone two. Now, though I knew I had to finish what I had started and take May Kimball home, I could barely trudge through another hour without wanting to run back to my own.

  It was late, but I could not help myself, reaching into my other coat pocket for the envelope that had been left in the stall. Its broken seal was a pair of interlocking Bs. Benjamin Briggs. I took the papers out of the packet—they were dirty and worn. Someone had read them many times, but I would wait to study their meaning. Instead, my eye sped down the page to the signature at the bottom, and I saw that it belonged to none other than Barnabas Trask. If I could have re-saddled my mount and gone in search of him that instant, I would have. But that would have been unfair to my horse, for it had been a hard day for both of us.

  Next morning, with the parcel burning a hole in one pocket and my letter hot in the other, I cannot say that I was happy to open my door to the sight of a twisted and broken soul limping up the walk. Elwyn Cramby, the embodiment of our mutual misery, and worse still, James Hurlbut’s messenger.

  “Can I have a word, sir?” he asked in a quiet voice. He had traveled on foot, and his bony face was gray with exhaustion. “I’ve come a good way with news you’ll be wanting to hear. And…well, the news’ll be plenty enough for now.”

  I thought with some distress about the delay this surprise visit was costing me, but then I remembered that it had been a day and night full of surprises, and that this one had every possibility of being as important as the rest. Waving him in, I took his coat and showed him to a chair.

  “Something I’ve to say first,” he said before he’d even had a chance to catch his breath. “Your permitting, of course.”

  “Say your piece, Cramby.” I was loath to listen long if all he was here to do was parrot James Hurlbut’s orders.

  “It be about you. About you and that little girl. A long ways back.” He peered at me, knotting his hands while my heart began to thrum in my chest. “Owe you an apology, I do. Never coming forth, never telling the town what it was you tried to do. I was there, see. I knew. Knew he ran. Knew she was dying of cold and that no one but you had the guts to try…to try and save her.”

  He stopped talking, and though the content of his confession was confounding to me, equally so was the fact that he suffered none of his usual awkwardness. He twitched once or twice but otherwise seemed squarely in control of his faculties, mental and physical.

  “I can tell what you be thinking,” he said. “Remembering that I gimp around an’ don’t say much. Did that a long while. Had to. Scared not to. Master Hurlbut, he’s not one to leave a man alone. Works you ’til you break. Then you’re free. Been trying just to be free, but been broken just the same. Things he asks of a person…and all in the way of breakin’ down someone else. It’s misery unending, that’s what I calls it.”

  He looked at me, wondering if I understood, unaware that I understood all too well. About being broken and doing the breaking. About pretending to be someone you’re not simply to stay safe—or, in my case, to keep from harm those I loved. Cramby and I seemed to have grown tired of our bondage at just about the same time, and I wondered what it was that had turned him.

  “You mean that, all this time,” I started to say, “you’ve been…”

  “Pretending,” he said. “Acting fool. Bowing and making like I was an idiot. Can’t take it. Through’s what I am.”

  He went on to tell me that he could stand no more of James Hurlbut’s cruelty, that he was ready to abandon all duties, and that, if I’d take his word, he had a lot to tell me regarding May Kimball.

  If Cramby had been anyone else, I would not have trusted him. But years of abuse had so beaten him down, I did not think it possible for him to possess the wiles necessary to fool me. One needs fortitude to perform believably in a scoundrel’s scheme—I can attest personally to that. He knew I had been witness to his public humiliation since we were boys and, what’s more, he to mine. This bond was what gave him the courage he
showed now, and I was grateful for it.

  “She shivers,” he said. “Cries in a dark room at the back of an office Mister Scales has rented in Burns’ Hollow. Fed her my rations before I left—as well as what little they give me to toss down to her like she was a dog. She talks about papers—all the time, papers—and now that’s all Master Hurlbut can think about.”

  “What exactly does he say about the papers?” I asked, eager to glean just what James Hurlbut thought he might find.

  “Doesn’t know what they’re about—and she won’t say. But he wants to ‘take care of’—that’s the phrase he uses—anything what might stand between him and that land. Got two friends. One’s a constable who’s crook as crook can be. Other’s a miller and a gambler Master Hurlbut’s got himself in debt with. The three of ’em are in the stew together. Johnny Constable’s ready to make sure the land don’t go to anyone but Master Hurlbut. Then Master Hurlbut turns around and doubles the price on Johnny Miller, paying off his debt from the overcharge and tossing some scraps Johnny Constable’s way. Everyone walks away whistling, right? ’Cept the woman. Be dead most likely by then. He don’t care. Just wants to know, What’s in the papers, what’s in the papers? Wants to know if there’s some such he hasn’t thought of. I don’t know what, sir, but he told Mister Scales he needs to know there’s neither man nor woman who’ll stand in his way once that farm’s been put up. Now that he’s been told about those papers, he’s full of worry, like they held the power of the Lord in ’em.”

  “But if he never knew about them before now, why would he have cared about May Kimball?”