All Things Bright and Strange

by James Markert

  By now Ellsworth was flipping pages back and forth, comparing, analyzing, snapping them palpably inside the quiet bedroom.

  January 17, 1915: The little girl my mother saved when I was young is now a grown woman. I remember her name—Clare. She still lives in Arkansas. There’s a story about her in the newspaper. They call her a saint, even though she still lives. Her orphanage has saved more than a hundred children from life on the streets. She’d founded it when she was only fifteen.

  March 10, 1915: My father struck me on the face. My right cheek stings from the blow. His knuckles are large. He read my diary and threatened to put me in an asylum. He told me there would be no more talking or writing of voices. He says my mother is dead and that I’m a fool just like her.

  Ellsworth’s jaw tightened, as did his grip on the diary. Her father had died two weeks later. They’d found him on the sidewalk outside his favorite tavern, stabbed to death and robbed of a wallet that contained only a collection of pictures of Eliza’s mother.

  June 25, 1915: I had a dream last night about a boy who plays baseball. He’s what they call a pitcher. Martha tells me his name is Michael and that I’m to watch over him. In the dream he had wings and a blue glow. I liked his smile. He has kindness in him.

  A tear dropped from Ellsworth’s cheek and plopped on the page, smudging his name. He skimmed the next pages quickly. More entries about the weather, about Lilly, about a tornado in Kansas, a flood in Louisiana, and a young boy in Atlanta who at seven had just written his first novel. He slowed when he saw his name again. How strange to see the story of his life through her eyes.

  August 5, 1915: Michael is in Florida today, pitching for an important man in a suit who claims to be from the Brooklyn Dodgers, whoever they are. His mother is with him, but I have a feeling he’s upset with her. She buzzes around him like a bee. Apparently Michael pitched well. The man clapped him on the shoulder and told him they’d hear from him soon. Of all the people I have guarded, Michael is the only one who has ever sent my heart fluttering, and I’m unsure what to make of this.

  August 6, 1915: What does it mean to be in love? I try not to smile but it can’t be helped. He’s but five years younger than me. Does age matter with love?

  August 7, 1915: Today Michael is due to return via rail to Charleston and then onto his home in Bellhaven. Something tells me I should go with him. Something feels wrong about this train. I bought my ticket and now sit inconspicuously across the aisle and three rows back. I wonder why he doesn’t sit with his mother. They seem to have gotten into an argument, and she now sits by herself.

  August 8, 1915: Yesterday I survived a terrible train derailment ten miles south of Atlanta. Just before the wheels screeched I was out of my seat and by Michael’s side. I had him in my arms and told him to curl in tight. I didn’t tell him who I was, but I think he knew. Everyone in the two train cars perished except for the two of us.

  August 10, 1915: I can’t leave him. I will not leave him. The two of us are inseparable. His bruises continue to heal from the wreck, as do mine. Is it possible for two hearts to beat as one?

  Ellsworth hurried through the next pages, which described her decision to follow him to Bellhaven. She’d written that she felt pulled to the town, just as he’d felt pulled to return. Then he read through brief but numerous entries about their months of courtship. Their trips into Charleston. The restaurants where they dined. Walking hand in hand along the Battery wall. Tears rolled down his cheeks and dripped to the pages as he relived those days. Then came an entry that made him refocus.

  December 3, 1915: Sebastian Nowark killed himself in prison yesterday. He was the man arrested for causing the train derailment months ago. He’d been a loyal worker on the railway for a dozen years, with a wife and three kids and no apparent motive. In the courtroom he’d appeared dazed, confused as he’d admitted to removing the rail on the northbound bend the night before the accident. When the judge had asked why he’d done it, he’d said with a straight face that he didn’t know. But in his suicide note he claimed the devil made him do it.

  April 20, 1916: I’ve found a home in Bellhaven. The woods are magical. Mother’s presence is even stronger here.

  May 9, 1916: After some research, I’ve learned more about the man who derailed our train and later killed himself, Sebastian Nowark. Seems like he spent time in Bellhaven months before the wreck. His dear mother showed me his diary. He wrote about the woods and the yellow trees and an odd patch of white that had grown in his hair. He wrote that he needed to do something to release the pressure.

  Ellsworth shook his head, heart thumping. Why had she never mentioned this to him, this proof that the derailment was deliberate? It took him a minute to begin reading again.

  The next entries took him through months and years at a time. Their first several months in Bellhaven as husband and wife. The sorrow of little Erik’s stillbirth and the two miscarriages that followed. The guilt Eliza had felt for never giving him a son. Her first encounter with the woman called America Ma in the woods. And interspersed with all these momentous events were simple entries about the blooming azaleas and dogwoods and the moss hanging from the avenue of oaks. And she continued to write about Raphael. He counted ten trips she’d taken to Macon to spy on the boy at the plantation before the final one, when she’d rescued him and his mother and brought them to Bellhaven.

  Ellsworth flipped backward, finding more that he’d missed. He was surprised to find short passages about visiting a doctor in Charleston.

  June 10, 1917: I visited Dr. Blackburn today. Diagnosis still the same. Oh how I dread telling Ellsworth.

  Dr. Blackburn? Ellsworth turned the page, shaking. Tell me what?

  June 26, 1917: Ellsworth continues to work on his pitching—every day, throw after throw. The ball sounds like an explosion when it hits the other mitt. He grows stronger daily with strenuous exercise. The scouts assure him that next season will be his first in the big leagues. I don’t have the heart to tell him about my condition. I fear he’d set his dreams aside to stay with me.

  Ellsworth choked back the lump in his throat, wiped his eyes.

  She was right. He would have done that. Whatever the condition was.

  July 17, 1917: Dr. Blackburn says my color is improving. My strength is better. I didn’t tell him about the chapel I found in the woods. Didn’t say I’ve found a way to not only listen to my mother, but speak back as well. Her voice is inside those walls.

  August 2, 1917: I feel drained, but I must go back. The woman in the woods, the one who calls herself America Ma, she keeps saying the name Radkin. I must learn who this is.

  Ellsworth’s eyes flicked over the words, skipping the dates now in a hurry to understand.

  . . . One more time and I won’t return.

  . . . Ellsworth says I look tired. I think that place is aging me. But I can’t stop going.

  . . . I’m having strange thoughts today. I had a notion to stab Anna Belle Roper at lunch with my fork, and I even got as far as clutching it before my better senses won over.

  . . . Inside the chapel today, Mary Bellhaven spoke to me. She used to live in that yellow house on the hill. She told me to watch out for the flies. I know not what she meant.

  . . . I traveled the trains today and learned news of another similar to myself. His name is Asher Keating, and he watches over many in a city called Louisville.

  . . . I finally may have found the Radkin America Ma speaks of. There’s a Father Radkin, a priest in Charleston, retired due to health concerns. I should set up an appointment to see him promptly.

  . . . After meeting with Father Radkin today, I’m nearly lost for words. His refusal to visit the Bellhaven Woods unnerved me. I could tell from his eyes that he knew of that chapel. He warned me to stay out of the woods, but I’m not sure that I can. I asked him about Mary Bellhaven and the yellow house on the hill, and he asked me to leave—to please leave. He made the sign of the cross over me and practically begged me to speak of i
t no more.

  . . . I visited Dr. Blackburn today. He was stunned silent. He asked me if I believed in miracles.

  . . . The old Bellhaven plantation frightens me. Odd things happened there.

  . . . I saw America Ma again last night. She was walking backwards through the woods.

  . . . I look older. There are strands of gray in my hair, and I’m not yet thirty. So I punched the mirror, and glass shattered. The chapel no longer brings me peace after I leave it. I cut my wrist with one of the shards, but Ellsworth found me in time. And now I sit bandaged to the elbow, fresh from a bath. Ellsworth combs my hair and tells me not to worry. But I do. I don’t think moving to Bellhaven was a good idea at all.

  Ellsworth wiped his face, exhaled. Dr. Blackburn. Father Radkin. Why was she visiting a doctor? A priest?

  The next two entries mentioned Raphael and his mother hiding in the town-hall basement and Eliza’s fear of them being found. Then there was an entry expressing her excitement about the town-hall gathering. She looked forward to the music and the displays of talent. She’d make sure they played loud enough for Raphael and his mother to hear from their hiding spot.

  Ellsworth had already glanced at the final entry but looked away. She must have written it in a hurry before they’d walked hand in hand to the town-hall festivities that night.

  . . . I love you, Michael Ellsworth Newberry.

  Like she’d known those words would be her last entry.

  Ellsworth closed the book, kissed his fingertips, and then pressed them against the cold, dusty leather.

  CHAPTER 24

  At two thirty that morning Ellsworth returned to the jailhouse to find Raphael asleep on the floor outside Anna Belle’s cell, curled up like a puppy and snoring with his head on a bent elbow.

  He found a blanket and pillow under Lecroy’s desk—it was rumored Lecroy slept on the job—covered Raphael with the blanket, and slid the pillow under his head. Anna Belle sat next to the bars with her back to the wall, feet reeled in and hugging her knees. She rocked, bit her lip, said nothing as Ellsworth sat next to her on the opposite side of the bars. He didn’t know where to start, so he closed his eyes and eventually Anna Belle broke the silence.

  “I didn’t do anything with him. With Lou, I mean.”

  Ellsworth’s eyes popped open. That wasn’t where he had thought she’d start, but truth was he’d thought about it. “That’s good, Anna Belle.”

  She chewed on her fingernails and lightly tapped the back of her head against the wall.

  “Anna Belle, stop. Please. Stop hitting your head against the wall. Anna Belle.”

  She stopped. “I just wanted one more visit with Calvin. You lied to me.”

  “You threatened to kill Raphael.”

  She spoke under her breath. “It was a test.”

  “Where’s Linda May?”

  “Still up there, being a good soldier.” She knocked her head against the wall, harder now. Tears welled. “Good soldier.” Ellsworth slid his arm through the bars and gripped her hand. She banged her head again, but more softly, and then she stopped. “He has a chess set of the town, Ellsworth.”

  “I saw it.”

  “You’re the king on the opposite side of the board. He knows about you.”

  “Why did he come here?”

  “To grieve. He lost his wife and children to the flu you soldiers brought back.”

  “Why Bellhaven?”

  “Bellhaven chose him, I think.” She looked at him. “Ellsworth, what is happening here?”

  “I don’t know everything, Anna Belle. But I know more than I did yesterday.”

  “Don’t hold out on me.”

  “Tell me who my queen is first. On his board? Who is my queen?”

  Anna Belle squeezed his hand. “Gabriel.”

  “So he knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “What side does he have you on?”

  “I’m a pawn,” she said. “Sometimes he moves the pawns from side to side, the good soldiers and the bad. Linda May is a good soldier. She passed her test.”

  “You’re a good soldier, Anna Belle.”

  “When the Klan arrived. I couldn’t stay.” She shifted against the wall, chewed her bottom lip. “Lou is physically changing. His skin has lesions on it. There’s one on his neck, another on his forehead. He covers them with powder. You said he knows? What does he know?”

  He faced her. “Do you believe in angels?”

  “I’d believe in just about anything right now.”

  He pulled the flask of Old Sam from his jacket and took a gulp. He slid it through the bars, and she partook. As they shared the bourbon he told her about Uriel’s arrival, the San Francisco earthquake, and the behavioral parallels with the great Charleston earthquake. About Gabriel’s story, Raphael escaping the Macon plantation. Last he told her about Eliza’s diary, about how she and her mother had both died saving children, special children. By the time he finished it was four in the morning.

  They stared across the room at the wreckage from Rabbi Blumenthal’s explosion. Two cardinal birds flew in, talons clicking against the floor, leaving tiny prints in the plaster dust.

  Ellsworth said, “He talked about you every night, Anna Belle, from the day we left Bellhaven. We sailed across the ocean, trained as doughboys at Saint-Nazaire, and you were always in the front of his mind. He’d talk about you until his eyes grew heavy, and he’d fall asleep with a smile on his face, thinking about you.”

  Ellsworth wiped his eyes, regripped her hand. “It was like quicksand over there. Solid ground was never solid. We captured Cantigny, our first offensive of the war. We were tired but confident, getting acclimated to sleeping in the trenches. For three days the Germans launched heavy counterattacks. Truth be told, Calvin was better at it than I was. Better at war. I was still angry from Eliza’s death, and I’d hoped to channel the anger, but all it did was make me fear for my own life.”

  He wasn’t completely sure she was listening. Her expression didn’t change, and she stared straight ahead. He took another sip of Old Sam before pressing on. “On the third night a fog set in across the forest, and the Krauts caught part of our line off guard, forced us out of the trenches. In some places it was hand-to-hand combat—a first for many of us. I knew Calvin was close by. We’d promised we’d watch each other’s backs. One time there was a break in the fog, and I spotted a Kraut about thirty feet away, standing in between two trees. I aimed at him but then froze. I’d never killed a man that close. And because I hesitated, that Kraut shot and killed another of our men. Private First Class Wells. I watched him drop, then ran toward him. He was dead because I had hesitated to protect my fellow soldiers.

  “Something in me snapped then, and I started firing at every Kraut I saw. I heard a twig crunch, I turned and fired. Heard footsteps, turned and fired. I fired at dying Huns all over the ground so they’d stop whimpering.”

  Ellsworth’s heart raced as he relived the memory. He pressed on, determined to finish. “We’d lost some men, but we were doing all right. We were holding them off. And then I heard footsteps behind me. Someone screamed in the distance. I panicked and fired, Anna Belle. Blindly, like a fool. It was Calvin, and I’d clipped him in the throat.”

  Anna Belle gave a little gasp, but she still didn’t look at him. So he just kept talking. “I looked around through the fog. No one had seen me do it. I ran to Calvin on the ground and held him in my lap. I don’t know if he knew it was me who’d shot him. I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, Calvin. I’m sorry.’ And his light went out fast. But he smiled.” Ellsworth clenched his jaw. “He said, ‘Tell Anna Belle I love her.’ Said it twice. ‘Tell Anna Belle I love her.’”

  Ellsworth chuckled softly. Anna Belle looked at him now.

  “‘And tell her she makes the best doggone hoppin’ John I ever tasted.’”

  Anna Belle choked on a sob, then squeezed his hand, and in that touch Ellsworth knew he’d been forgiven. She’d given him a burst of air n
o chapel in the forest ever could. A dose of good medicine—the real, human kind. She cried out loud, then continued to weep silently. He let go of her hand and used the bars to pull himself up. He unlocked the cell, stepped over Raphael, and locked himself inside with her. He sat with his arm around her shoulders and rubbed her back until the sobs eased and she rested her head against his chest.

  They stayed that way, feeling each other’s heartbeats, their intakes of air. He kissed the top of her head and realized how much he’d missed the sounds of her voice in the few days she’d been in that house. It had been so long since he’d held a woman, he never wanted to let go. His eyes grew heavy, and sleep seemed possible.

  “Ellsworth.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you stop going by Michael?”

  “Thought it was bad luck.”

  “It’s more than that.” She burrowed deeper into his chest.

  He rested his chin atop her head. “Ellsworth was my father’s first name, but he always went by his middle name, Robert. When I was born my mother insisted the name Ellsworth be part of mine. In hindsight, I guess it was just another way for her to prove to him that I was his. You know he had doubts about that, right?” She nodded. He went on. “One day when we were out playing catch, I asked him why he went by his middle name. He said, “’Cause Ellsworth’s a name that gets poked at in the schoolyard. Robert isn’t.’ ‘I don’t get it,’ I told him. ‘As Ellsworth I was weak,’ he said. ‘As Robert I had more confidence.’ After a few more pitches I said to him, ‘Well, maybe Michael’s a name that’s destined to be sick all the time.’”

  Anna Belle chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just that you never talked about your father much. Feels good to hear it, is all. What did he say next?”

  “He laughed just like you did and said Michael was the name I was given. That it was a good, strong name and to leave it be. I threw another couple pitches. Told him that I liked the name Ellsworth on him and that a name was just a name.” Ellsworth took a deep swallow. “Told him strength comes from elsewhere, from somewhere down deep. After that he told me I was too smart for my own good sometimes and to go wash up for dinner. Anyway, I changed my name to honor him after he died. To show him.”