He didn’t see the punch coming.
But in hindsight maybe he did, which is why he said it.
The sign on the door said the shop was closed on Sunday, but the doorknob turned when they tried it. “He said he’d be here,” Anna Belle said as they stepped over the threshold. Eschec Mat was windowless and dark except for the hazy glow from lamps in each of the room’s four corners.
Wooden countertops stretched along every wall, holding what looked like a hundred intricately carved chess sets, the pieces two-to-three inches tall. More countertops and chessboards filled the middle of the room.
“Not one board is the same as another,” Ellsworth said, in awe of the talent. It was quiet inside the store. No one emerged from the back room to greet them, even though the bell had tinkled as they’d entered the front.
Anna Belle leaned over one of the sets and lifted a painted frontline soldier, a warrior knight dressed in armor and chain mail, holding sword and shield.
“Don’t touch, please.” Lou Eddington appeared from the shadows in a black suit and shiny shoes. A folded red kerchief jutted up from the pocket below the right lapel, matching his bow tie. He looked taller and thinner in the meager light, but his toothy smile stretched the room.
Has he been there all along?
Anna Belle was quick to obey and placed the pawn back on the board, crooked.
Eddington straightened it. “So glad you could both come. I’m sorry I wasn’t in here to greet you properly. My wife used to run the store while I carved in the back. Now I try to do both. Though of course I am closed on Sundays.”
“And you actually make a living from selling chessboards?” asked Ellsworth.
Anna Belle slapped his arm in the same place she’d pasted him earlier. “Ellsworth’s as subtle as a mule tiptoeing through a tulip garden.”
Eddington’s laugh was a little fidgety, but his manners remained smooth, almost courtly. “I am blessed to have some family money—not a fortune, but enough to keep me comfortable.” He patted down his pomade-slick hair, which was parted so carefully up the middle his scalp was visible. He wasn’t as put together as he’d been days ago. He’d missed a button on his shirt, and the collar was wrinkled—slept on. His skin was ruddy.
“We used to have a little store in Savannah,” he said, eyes darting, preoccupied. “Along the river. But when my family died I found the memories of our home too difficult a burden to bear, so I decided to move. I looked many places, but fell in love instantly with Bellhaven. In a sense I felt pulled there.” He’d begun to sweat. His neck flushed and suddenly looked too thick for the collar, like a sausage about to burst its casing. He wiped his brow, slid a finger under his neckline.
Anna Belle put her hand on his arm. “Lou, are you all right?”
He nodded, forced a smile.
“You talk to your family in that chapel?” Ellsworth asked.
“Ellsworth, that’s none of your business.” Anna Belle looked at Lou. “Maybe you should sit down.”
Lou stepped away from her touch and straightened his coat. “I’m fine. I’ve been suffering from bouts of dizziness lately. But they pass as quickly as they come.”
“Have you been sleeping?”
“I’ve been working too rapidly to sleep,” he said tersely. He sucked in a deep breath as if to compose himself and then offered an olive branch handshake. His hand was a vice grip, thick and muscled from carving, and beneath his cuffs the forearms were roped with sinewy muscle, the dark hairs faintly touched with what looked like rock dust, as if he’d quickly changed upon their arrival. “Where are my manners?” He patted Ellsworth’s back hard enough to nearly unhinge the prosthesis. “Welcome back, Ellsworth.”
Ellsworth looked confused. “I’ve never been here before.”
“I mean from your deathbed. Your recovery was nothing short of . . . a miracle. I hope that man Tanner will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
“I had the charges dropped.”
Lou let go of his hand. “But the man tried to murder you.”
“He failed.” Ellsworth surveyed the store.
After a beat, Lou clapped his hands and smiled pearly white. “Nevertheless, you’re here, and I should show the two of you around. I’ve just finished painting my newest set.” He slid his arm inside Anna Belle’s and guided her toward the front of the store, gesturing with his free hand, acting now more like the confident man they’d met in the road. “Eschec Mat. The king is dead. The king is lying down. Chess is a game of strategy, a battle to kill another’s king. Us against them. Good against evil. Chess is history. And as you can see, that is my passion. History. Battles. Uprisings.” He glanced at Ellsworth. “War.”
“Do you play?” asked Ellsworth.
Eddington thought on it. “I’ll partake in a game from time to time.” He motioned them to the countertop. “This one I created twelve years ago. It portrays the Ottoman-Hapsburg Wars. With no support from the pope in Rome, the Austrian Hapsburgs were left alone to stop the Ottoman Empire’s northern advance. With the help of a few northern allies, the Danube, and a timely winter, they did. Held the Ottoman Turks with their janissaries off at Vienna—fought back the Turks and the spread of Mohammadism.”
Ellsworth leaned in. He couldn’t believe the detail on the figures, from the tiny eyeballs to the fingernails of every pawn, which were all slightly different, yet real enough to walk right off that checkered board and start fighting. He pointed to the next chessboard. “And this one?”
“Ah, one of my favorites, the Peloponnesian War. Athens and Sparta. Took me months to finish it. I research tediously.”
“Months? I would think it would take longer for such detailed work.”
“Once I set to carving I barely sleep or eat. And since I moved into Bellhaven, it . . . um, the work has taken me over.”
Eddington walked Anna Belle along the wall, describing each board. The British and the French at Waterloo, with Napoleon as the king. The Battle of Antietam during the War Between the States. The American Revolution. The Battle of Hastings in 1066. He described not only the battles, but the major players and why the wars had been fought. The Boxer Rebellion. The Crimean War. Rome versus Carthage in the battle of Metaurus in 207 BC. The Crusades—one board for each. Caesar’s Gallic Wars. The Beaver Wars and the French and Indian. The War of the Roses. And dozens more.
By the time they’d walked the entire room, Ellsworth stood speechless.
“Well?”
Anna Belle said, “I’ve never seen anything so splendidly done.”
“About that we are in agreement,” admitted Ellsworth.
“You’re an . . . artist yourself,” said Eddington. “Your painting—the one you created the day you were attacked. Amidst all the commotion, I came down the hill and saw it on the veranda. I placed it back on the easel. It was of a town and a traveling circus—was that it?”
“Ever heard of the town called None of Your Business?”
“Ellsworth!”
Eddington grinned. “It’s no problem, Anna Belle. Really.” He looked to Ellsworth again, his lips hooked in a grin. “How long have you been painting?”
“Couple hours, give or take.”
Eddington chuckled. “Well, it shows.”
That response drew a queer look from Anna Belle.
Ellsworth grunted, then acted as if he hadn’t heard the retort or was ignoring it.
Eddington stared briefly at Ellsworth’s fake leg, clapped, and changed course. “I’ve noticed a black boy in your house, Anna Belle. Is he a servant?”
She threw him another strange look. “Of course not!”
Eddington slid his arm from hers and stepped away. “Yet he lives with you?”
“It’s an involved story.”
“One you should tell me about some day? I can see that you care for him dearly.”
She paused. “He’s a good boy.”
Eddington was prodding. But why? Did he hold the same reservations about
Raphael that Raphael had against him?
“Why did he not come with you today?”
“He was feeling ill,” said Anna Belle. Ellsworth knew the boy was perfectly fine. He didn’t want to come. Anna Belle was quick to add, “He’s staying with the Dennisons for the afternoon.”
“The blind man and his wife. How unfortunate to be unable to see. He seems in fine spirits for being wounded so.”
“It’s only of late that he’s become that way,” said Anna Belle.
Ellsworth said, “Ever since he visited that chapel, he’s been better. I think.”
“Yet he’s still blind.” They watched each other for a moment before Eddington’s eyes lit up. “Wait here. I’ve got a gift.” He returned a moment later with a carefully crafted wooden box. The top was a checkered board, and on the front was a polished knob for a drawer. He handed the heavy box to Ellsworth. “For you. The Battle of Cantigny.”
Anna Belle went pale.
Ellsworth wanted to grab her elbow but his hands were full, so it fell to Eddington to hold her steady. Ellsworth did take a deep breath to right himself. “We better go, Anna Belle.”
She regained her composure and backed away from Eddington.
Ellsworth saw the sudden gleam in Eddington’s eyes. But before he could steer Anna Belle away, Eddington grabbed her hand and kissed the top of it.
Ellsworth nearly dropped the chess set.
Eddington’s eyes settled directly on Anna Belle’s. “Do you like to dance?”
She looked up at Eddington with sadness in her eyes. And a look that implied that this man, though she hardly knew him, was the only one now capable of taking that sadness away.
Ellsworth sat with Anna Belle at her kitchen table, both of them staring at the wooden box containing the Cantigny chess pieces they’d yet to pull out. He pulled a flask from his jacket pocket and took two gulps of Old Sam.
“You drink too much, Ellsworth.”
“I don’t drink enough, Anna Belle.” He slid the flask across the table. Anna Belle stared at it for a few seconds before taking a sip. She wiped her mouth and slid it back. Raphael was in the other room playing the piano.
“Would you go?”
She stared blankly out the window toward the orange-blue sunset. “Go where?”
“On his invite. To his house for dinner and dancing.”
She shrugged, chewed her fingernails, eyed the wall clock across the kitchen. She hadn’t been watching the sunset. It was the woods she coveted.
He pulled the drawer from the chess box; each piece nestled on a bed of red velvet. “Care for a game?”
“I don’t know how to play.”
“I’ll teach you. I taught Eliza.”
“Eliza was smarter than me.”
“You’re plenty smart, Anna Belle.”
She exhaled two cheeks of air and kept her attention out the window.
Ellsworth began removing the Kraut soldiers of various rank and order, all unique down to their hair and noses, the height being the only similarity. The pawns were the same height, as were the men acting as bishops and rooks and knights. Ellsworth placed each pointy-helmeted soldier on the front line and explained their movements to Anna Belle, but she didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“I told him I was in the war. Do you remember?” She did. “But I never mentioned Cantigny.” She didn’t respond. He continued removing the pieces from the drawer beneath the checkered board. “How did he know? Or was it coincidence?”
She stood from the table. “I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going? Anna Belle, it’s too late to be going into those woods. The sun is going—” She’d already closed the door. “Down.”
Through the window he watched her enter the woods. She’d be safe, he guessed. She wasn’t the only one in there. Mayor Bellhaven was on his way, too, moving as if possessed. Or maneuvered.
Like chess pieces on a board.
He removed the first American soldier from the drawer and placed it on the board facing the line of Krauts. A general posing as king. Colonels and sergeants with faces that all looked familiar to him. Too familiar. “I research tediously.” Ellsworth aligned the back row and began to assemble the privates acting as pawns.
Raphael had stopped playing the piano. He entered the kitchen and sat in the chair Anna Belle had just vacated.
Ellsworth asked, “Do you play?”
Raphael shook his head no but looked eager to learn.
Ellsworth continued placing the pieces.
“It’s you.”
Ellsworth looked at the boy. “What’s me?”
Raphael had a pawn in his hand—a private with a rifle and bayonet. “This one. It’s you.”
Ellsworth took the piece from Raphael and studied it until his hands shook. Holy Moses. It was him, but in small scale. “I research tediously.” When he tried to place it on the board, his fingers were so unsteady the piece fell over.
“You all right, Mr. Newberry?”
Blood rushed from Ellsworth’s face. He rubbed his stubbly cheeks and forced himself to look back in the drawer, where four pawns remained.
The next one looked just like Calvin.
CHAPTER 14
Ellsworth tossed and turned in bed until he’d entangled himself in the sheets.
It was the middle of the night, and he was wide awake.
This used to happen to Eliza. She’d go to the window and watch the woods. He’d ask her to come back to bed, but she never would right away. Too often she’d see things out there—people, she’d claim.
“Sometimes they come through.”
“Through where, Eliza?”
“The doorways.”
Ellsworth sat up in bed, kicked the twisted sheets to the floor. The night she’d mentioned the doorways, he’d asked what doorway? She’d never answered.
The chapel—was it a doorway? Some conduit?
He hugged Eliza’s pillow. Closed his eyes and breathed in what remained of her scent.
He’d left Anna Belle’s in a hurry earlier that evening, right after Raphael placed the chess piece that could have been Calvin right next to the chess piece that could have been him. He’d hurried across the street and downed the rest of his Old Sam while sitting on Eliza’s half of the bed. He’d gotten drowsy wondering what their kids would have looked like had the first not been stillborn and the next two miscarriages. What kind of father would he have made? And then he’d passed out trying to remember exactly what Eliza’s face looked like.
Even now, as he sat up in bed, her features were still a blur. He should have had more photographs taken of her. Of them together. But he’d always thought they’d have more time, and he didn’t like his picture taken anyway. Didn’t like how Eliza always pointed out his color when he claimed never to see it himself. But that had only been denial. He’d seen the color even in those black-and-whites, just as he’d seen Raphael’s color the first time he met him in Anna Belle’s living room. And what about the faint color he sometimes saw around Gabriel, that coppery light he’d always pretended not to see as far back as when they were children, daring each other to run to the yellow trees and back.
He got out of bed in a hurry, needing to see Eliza’s face like flower blooms need sunshine, to hold the picture he kept atop the piano of her standing next to the oak in White Point Garden, with the Battery in the background and her hair tousled by the harbor breeze. He hobbled down the stairs, skipped to the piano, but the picture wasn’t there. He scoured the living room to no avail. It wasn’t in the kitchen or bathroom or dining room, either.
He hustled back upstairs in a panic, looking through the nightstand drawers, her vanity, her dresser. Her face was slipping in his mind. The more it faded, the more frantic his search became. He pulled out every drawer, scattered contents to the floor. He tore through the closet, ripping shirts and dresses from hangers. Where did it go? Someone took it. But who would take the only picture he had of his dead wife?
He se
arched the other two bedrooms, then he headed downstairs again—but too fast. He stumbled the last five steps, rolling into the wall. The impact knocked a framed oil landscape painting down on him. He shoved it aside, winced as he made it back to his feet.
Her voice. Now he couldn’t imagine the sound of her voice. He punched the wall, denting it and bloodying his knuckles. The headaches she’d begun having upon moving to Bellhaven had often pained her to tears. Those he could see clearly now, the way she’d curl into the fetal position and try to squeeze them away with clenched fists.
“Don’t show me the bad stuff.” The bad medicine, Eliza called it. “Show me her face.”
He stood for a minute, heart thumping, looking out the living-room window as Bellhaven slept content until morning, when they’d venture into the woods again without thought of the consequences, falling into the same pattern Tanner Whitworth had succumbed to decades ago. Look at the old man now. The bad medicine, whatever it was, had dug into the folds of his brain and begun eating away, eating and eating and eating.
But perhaps that was an isolated incident. Perhaps it wouldn’t happen to the rest of them.
Wouldn’t happen to him.
Ellsworth had denied himself the simple pleasure for too many days now, chastising everyone else for going while doing his best to bury his own urge to hear his wife’s voice one more time, to feel her embrace.
One more visit won’t hurt.
He grabbed the oil lamp from the kitchen, lit it, and headed out into the Bellhaven woods.
The next morning Ellsworth woke to birdsong.
He sat up in bed with a clear head, an easy smile, and a detailed image of Eliza in his mind. He found Alfred, Omar, and Gabriel in his living room, all hunkered over that radio.
“You wait right der, Ellsworth,” Omar told him, returning a minute later with a dining room chair. The four of them leaned over the radio like it was a bonfire and the air was cold. They found stations and listened hard, all three men less somber, even smiling. But after fifteen minutes of news and static, they lost focus.
Ellsworth found himself glancing at Gabriel, sometimes watching her for seconds at a time. Twice she caught him and he looked away.
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