Lych Way

by Ari Berk

  “I am so sorry. Listen, please, go to Fort Street. Go to my great-grandfather’s house. He can help you. There are empty homes on Fort Street. He can tell you which ones. Tell him I’ll come soon and we’ll sort it out together. Can you do that?”

  The old woman nodded.

  Silas walked with her a little way until she turned the corner to make her way toward Fort Street.

  He paused and looked at the death watch in his hand. A little more eager to be gone than a moment ago, Silas opened the skull and stopped the dial.

  Fires burn in large oil drums on each corner of the town square

  Outside the theater, just before the large doors that tilt at angles from their shattered hinges, wide, stained advertisements of past diversions still hang from the beams of the entry courtyard. One, from some long-forgotten commedia, depicts Time with his titanic scythe, threatening three young women who kneel and weep and beg for pity, minutes, hours, and days. Under Time’s foot the traveler may discern some paraphernalia of the arts in a heap—a viol, a papier-mâhé crown, a mask, a script, a tin horn—all crushed, bent, and shattered, and so bespeaking the true value of earthly indulgences.

  As he enters the theater lobby, the youth sees an elaborate puppet stage, stained and old, the worn wood still offering glimpses of gold leaf. Its curtains are torn. Its carved arch depicts little plain houses, all in a row, each the same. Three large forms are painted on the front of the theater: a father, a mother, a child. The familiar but cartoonish figures wave blindly at an audience that has long ago departed.

  A man emerges from behind the puppet stage. He is dressed in what seems to be a bit of everything: pieces of costume taken from years of productions. A doublet of velvet, coarse cotton pants, a sash of satin. Everything worn and thin.

  “Auditions are over,” the stage manager says.

  “That’s okay,” says the youth. “I’m not here to audition. I am looking for someone I love. I lost her. Is she here, in the wings?” Then, trying to shape the scene to his need, he says, “I know a play, it begins by the millpond. . . .”

  But no. The stage manager cannot be budged.

  “Nay, sir, nay. That play is done. As I’ve said, all the actors but you have gone to their restitution, and what’s left of the scenery is not so fine. You’d find the conditions of the stage distressing. All the bladders have burst, and it’s a bloody mess back there.”

  “But I’m not one of the actors. I am here looking for someone!”

  The stage manager smiles in incredulity. “Not an actor! By my troth, sir, you jest!”

  “It’s true. I’m no actor.”

  “An inactor then? Oh, sir, are they not all the same come performance day? Cannot the inactor play the bawd or the melancholic or the wretch as well as the thespian? Does not your talk, of this and that, declare the nature of your disposition? Does not everyone take that part which is proper to his kind? Ask anyone, actor or inactor, if in the laying out of their parts they choose not those characters which are most agreeing to their inclination, and that they can best discharge believably to a crowd? Oh, sir. All the world’s a stage, or so some have said!”

  “If that’s so, I’d like to wait in the wings, and see something of the production,” says the youth.

  “I tell you, the show run’s over! All the principals have flown excepting your good self. Only the rudest of the mechanicals remain. There is only the epilogue, and it is very small spectacle, I swear.”

  But the curious youth moves past the stage manager and puts his head beyond the arch of the doorway to see what might be seen on the large main stage below.

  On the stage stands a child with an absurdly overdecorated Valentine’s Day card. There is white paper glued about the edge in something almost like lace. The word “LOVE” is written in shaky script across the paper heart, and the child looks to the side of the stage for Love’s entrance. Briskly, in walks his fourth-grade teacher. Her low heels clip across the wooden boards, and the child smiles, but looks down. As the teacher approaches him, he raises his arms slightly, elevating the heart to the height of his head. He is offering it to her.

  “An old tale!” jeers someone in the shadow-strewn stalls. “Give ’er a kiss, if you love her so!”

  The teacher walks past the boy without noticing the paper heart. She sits at her desk and busies herself. The school day is nearly done.

  The boy with the heart waits a moment, unsure if he should approach. But then he walks up to her desk and holds his heart out to her.

  She laughs. “This is sweet,” she says. “Oh, Silas. For me?”

  The child nods.

  She takes the heart and sets it on a pile of paper on the very edge of her desk.

  As the boy walks back to his seat, a bell rings. All the children run from the room. The boy follows them. Outside, he sits by a tree, waiting for one of his parents to come and take him home.

  Offstage: the sound of birdcall made with a device.

  Light laughter from the audience.

  The boy watches the teacher come out of the classroom. She is holding her purse and a stack of papers. She pauses to wave to a colleague. The boy’s paper heart slips from the stack and floats to the ground behind her. She does not see that it has fallen. The boy already knows that when she gets home and puts the papers on the table, she will not notice the heart is gone.

  The boy sees his heart on the ground. He presses his face into his knees and covers his head with his hands.

  More laughter from the audience.

  The youth has seen enough of the play, but before he can turn back to the stage manager, he hears a scratching sound, a tearing at the floorboards somewhere past the door, farther down among the distant rows

  “What was that?”

  “Well, sir. You know how it flies with such as them. The folk of few words will always grub about for more lines, and then go mad with hunger between seasons.”

  Down in the darkening theater, the remaining floor lights go out. Growls come crawling from among the empty seats, and worse and louder cries leap up from the orchestra pit.

  The youth steps back from the doorway where the carpet runs red and down the aisle.

  “Come back to the lobby, sir, I pray you. There awaits diversion in keeping with your station. There’ll be a bit of farce left, I warrant you! We’re done with historicals and comedicals. Why not a bit of farce, then, before we shut our doors and go home to our own tragedies, eh?”

  Behind him, the youth hears the sound of the swazzle growing louder like the approach of locusts. As the noise becomes a din, he raises his hands to his ears to block it out. But then the awful noise crests and swings into a singing voice, a buzzing, jovial, mocking song.

  The youth returns to the puppet stage. The thin walls shake from motion within. Two puppets rise up and jerk this way and that, finally turning out to the audience.

  The Judy puppet, wearing a necklace of little paste pearls, holds a tiny parcel, their baby. She shakes the baby frantically and screams.

  “What’s all this, then?” cries Punch, swinging a pocket watch too casually.

  “Something’s happened to the ba-beeeeeeee!” screams Judy, flinging the child at Punch, who catches it awkwardly.

  “He won’t laugh,” says Judy.

  “Babies don’t.” Punch laughs. “He’s fine as a fiddle.”

  “All right,” says Judy, instantly recovered. “I’ll go shopping, then!” She drops below the stage and emerges a moment later carrying a large purse.

  Punch stands there holding the baby. “Who’ll watch the child while you’re away, missus?” asks Punch, his dangling legs clacking. He looks at the baby and says, “Quiet down, you! Quit your chirping!”

  Punch sings a song.

  Hush-a-bye, little brat, aye, aye;

  Hush-a-bye, little brat, aye.

  But before Punch can finish his tune, a crowd of ghosts appears from the side of the stage. They cry “BOO!” frightening Punch, who throws the bab
y out the window.

  Judy returns, her arms filled with boxes, and asks, “Where is the baby?”

  Punch sings, “That bird has flown!”

  A small bird on a wire drops from the top of the stage and flits about their heads. Punch checks the time on his pocket watch. Dashes offstage and gets a net. He tries to catch the bird. He knocks Judy down. He runs back and forth, but finally catches the bird in his net.

  “There’s your nestling, missus!” cries Punch, showing Judy the captured bird struggling in the net. He hands her the net.

  Judy carefully takes out the little bird and looks it over.

  “Them’s no babe in arms!” she cries, handing it back to Punch.

  “It is if you holds it, deario!” says Punch, who throws the bird back to her. “Now you rears it up proper! For here’s our little bird come back to the nest once more!”

  The ghosts gather again, now at both sides of the stage, beckoning to Punch, who has started singing, “Rum ti tum ti iddity um. Pop goes—”

  “BOO!” shout the ghosts.

  Punch chases them. As he passes, Punch leans over the edge of the stage, bowing. “Now I must away, to earn our crust, or hell’s to pay,” he sings. Judy bows. The ghosts return and bow. All the puppets drop below and the little curtain draws shut.

  The youth, slightly pale now, looks to the stage manager and says, “If my love isn’t here, I have to go.”

  “You are welcome back for the season, sir!” replies the stage manager distractedly, eager for home or a drink at some public house. Then he bows reverently to the youth, once, twice, three times. He rises, but does not look into the youth’s eyes. “Death is always welcome, sir. Think of our little playhouse of life’s longings as your home away from home . . . as your summer cottage. Love and Death are old friends, sir. Why, they’re lovers, as you know well, sir. Oh, how they tussle and tup. But Death is always on top. Every time. If we could only fall in love with Death, then, oh, how long and majestical our play might be. . . . Death loves us, oh most certainly, most deeply and sincerely, but ever and ever, his love is unrequited . . . how we do fight him! So, Death gives us back the blow and does not even close our eyes or kiss our cheek after he lays us low, you see, because we’ve broken his heart so many times.”

  The youth cannot hear any more. The youth cries out, “Cedo Nulli! Nulli! Fall away from the earth, all of you!”

  All the footlights go dark, but the youth hears a trapdoor being thrown open and the awful sucking sound of air and souls being drawn swiftly into the traproom, into the abyss. In the midst of this lamentable third act, the youth takes his leave of the playhouse and walks until the air grows moist, where tall reeds stand stiff with frost and sorrow at the edges of the millpond.

  LEDGER

  . . . they see imprisoned in the transparent stone

  the lonely water which winter did not freeze.

  Placing their thirsty lips upon the dry crystal

  they press useless kisses on that icy stone

  that holds within the waters that are their chief desire.

  —CLAUDIAN, FROM “ON A CRYSTAL ENCLOSING A DROP OF WATER,” TRANSLATED BY AMOS UMBER

  Who calls the dead

  from quiet sleep

  Shall the huntsman’s

  vengeance reap.

  — FROM CHILDREN’S RHYMES AND TALES FROM THE LICHPORT NARROWS, BY RICHARD UMBER

  Morning and midnight both did find this knight at hunting. From chase of every creature, or of poor maidens, ondines, and moss ladies, he did not cease. He lived for nothing but capture and kill, and for the blood of his enemies, he was most relentless. As old age began its approach, the knight for a moment slowed his horse. He looked to Heaven and prayed aloud. “Lord,” he demanded, “let me hunt until the Day of Judgment comes!” Silence fell upon the forest, and the knight spurred his horse on and ever on, and when death came for him, the huntsman paused hardly at all, but soon rose up from his tomb and set out once more upon his terrible pursuits. And by this, goode reader, know ’twas the Devil, and not God, had granted the huntsman’s prayer.

  —TRANSCRIBED BY AMOS UMBER FROM THE BOOK THE DARK AND DIABOLICAL HUNTSMAN, HIS KITH AND KIN, BY JOHN BROMYARD (CIRCA FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

  THE MILLPOND LAY FROZEN AND glistening under a watching moon.

  The quiet of the place put a loneliness on Silas heavy as iron and dagger-sharp. Beyond the pond, even the marshes were silent. No birdcall broke the silence winter had settled on the land. Each reed stood separate from its neighbor. When Silas shifted his weight, his shoes grated against the icebound edge of the pond, but even that sound seemed faint and distant.

  Silas could feel Beatrice somewhere below. The longer he stood quietly among the sharp reeds, the more he thought he could hear her crying.

  He looked about. Cold land under a cold moon. Nothing more. Even with the death watch stopped, the landscape was totally familiar. Except for the ice, it was no different from the millpond he had visited before. Again, the boundaries had blurred. His world, the otherworld: indistinguishable.

  Silas stepped onto the ice. The surface of the pond was frozen completely solid. He knelt down and listened. About the pond, trees bent and moaned with the weight of snow on their branches. With each gust of wind came the sound of grating and cracking as reeds stirred and splintered the ice clinging to their stalks. He leaned over and brushed the scattered snow away from the surface. Blue-green glass shone up and caught his reflection.

  Below, something whimpered and cried. Had it said his name?

  Silas leaned closer and looked through the ice.

  There was only darkness beneath the surface at first, but he moved aside, and moonlight fell through the ice. Ripples of water below, like quick fish, flashed in the pale light.

  He pressed his face against the surface, as though his warm, unkissed cheek alone might melt it. Maybe the closeness of his affection could summon the girl’s ghost. He could feel the thickness of the ice pressing back. He set his hand to it and felt his skin briefly freeze to the surface. As he looked down, he thought he could discern something else moving below. No mere play of moonlight, something was stirring up the mud. He struck the ice with his fist. It was heavy and solid. He would never be able to break through it. Not even with an ax.

  And what of the binding? Three women he loved wove the spell . . . three strong women. Even if he could loosen or break their binding, what would happen to them?

  The more he looked at the cold, ironclad surface of the pond, the more he allowed its solidity to weaken his faith in himself.

  Silas rose, standing on the ice.

  The fact was, the state of the pond was a different kind of reality from the spell that was holding Bea. They were not the same, although those two realities had become bound together and certainly the ice was deliberately made part of the binding, a condition of the spell. If he waited until the spring thaw, he believed he would have less trouble releasing Bea. But he didn’t want to wait anymore.

  When Bea had drowned here, that tragedy, her corpse sinking to the bottom, had made the pond lych, hallowed by the presence of her corpse. Her bones remained at the bottom. The pond was then especially subject to his power as Undertaker, and as Janus, guardian of the thresholds of the dead. And now he could, if he wished, call upon other, even more ancient names. He’d been thinking too literally about the problem. Instead, he’d open a door for her. He didn’t have to dig her out, or break the spell in a conventional way. He would open the lych way through the pond, through the binding, and bring her to him.

  “I open the door. Let this way be open to me and to any I call. I, Janus of the threshold, open the door!” And he threw both his arms wide as he’d done at Arvale. The air seemed to condense over the millpond, and a crack formed at the center of its surface. Swiftly water welled up and began to freeze again. But from across the ice, flickers of cold blue fire rose, and pale shadows lengthened below the moon. Perhaps others had died here. Silas looked at the ri
sing veils of mist and could barely discern their faces, but his heart told him Bea was not among them. She was still down there, held by the binding, by the formidable wills of the three strongest women he knew. But those women did not love her, and he did. In his memory, she was still free. He could see clearly with his heart: their walks through the town and among the graves of the past . . . he could hear her voice, singing to him.

  He put aside the words of formality and compulsion. He didn’t need to summon her. They were bound with something stronger than fear, something more enduring.

  He leaned down and whispered to the frozen water.

  “Beatrice, please come back to me. Don’t stay here, love, in this cold place, alone. I have not forgotten you. I have felt you in my dreams. Reach up now and take my hand and we’ll go home together. Beatrice, my love, my love, come back to me.”

  A cloud flew across the moon, and for an instant the land was completely dark.

  “Come to me, Beatrice, please!”

  Before him and a little away, mist came up from the ice. Silas’s heart jumped.

  Beatrice’s ghost hung in the air above the millpond, her eyes closed and her lips quivering.

  “My love left me here. . . . ,” she whispered.

  “No, Bea. I am here. Come to me!” Silas implored and held out his arms. “Please, come.”

  Beatrice opened her eyes and raised her hand, pointing one slim finger toward Silas. Was it recognition or indictment? Silas couldn’t tell. As he held out his hands to her, Bea’s eyes opened wider, and she trembled above the ice.

  “Come to me . . . ,” Silas implored.

  From behind him, a familiar voice cracked the air like the firing of a cannon. Silas felt a blast of heat singe his neck.

  “Enough, Silas Umber. I am come. Shout again, and you might wake the dead!”

  Silas turned around. He held his arm in front of his face to shield it from the conflagration swirling about the ghost of Cabel Umber, who was seated on top of a horse made all of burning wood and bones. As the ghost laughed, the horse reared its head, screamed, and threw its flaming mane from side to side.