The Trap

by Steven Arntson

  The sergeant spoke the truth. Even though it was strange to hear about Møller’s capture after the fact, I was glad he would get a fair trial.

  “Henry,” said Sergeant Johnson, “what ever happened with the box—the one Joseph Brody gave you? Did it open? Did you find out what was inside?”

  “No, I never did,” I said. “It’s still on my belt, in the subtle world. And I still don’t understand why I couldn’t open it in the forest. If it was a weapon like Mr. Brody said, why not let me use it against Møller? I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with the lock.”

  “That’s possible,” said the sergeant, but I could tell he doubted it. It seemed unlikely that Mr. Brody would have made such a mistake.

  We spent some time talking with Sergeant Johnson about everything that had happened, and we laughed about some of our close calls. Now that the adventure was over, things that seemed pretty scary at the time were starting to seem almost fun.

  Before long, though, it was time to go to bed. Well, time for us, anyway. The sergeant left and Mrs. Brody showed us into the living room, where the couches were all pushed near to one another as they had been for our previous sleepover. This was the plan—to go to the dance as our subtle selves.

  “You all look beautiful,” said Mrs. Brody. “Let me get my camera.”

  We stood by the living room windows for the photo. Mrs. Brody snapped the shutter and wished us a good dance. Then we turned out the lights, lay down on our couches, and propped up our arms.

  1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 . . .

  ONCE WE’D ROLLED OUT of our bodies, we walked out of South Half to the highway, but we didn’t go straight to school. Alan said, “Let’s stop by my house. There’s something I want to check on.” He wouldn’t tell us what.

  As we walked, I held Nicki’s hand. I still hadn’t really looked at her. I glanced her way and shook my head, hardly able to believe that we were on a date. Then I glanced again. Yes, she was still there.

  At Alan’s house I saw a few people in the field out front. One had a flux stream that was threaded through with white—Carl. But there was more color than ever. He was changing, just like he’d said he would.

  Carl was holding a baseball bat. Behind him was someone crouching with a catcher’s mask on his head and a mitt on one hand. Out on the pitcher’s mound was a third figure.

  “Is that Mr. McTavish?” said Helen of the man with the mask. I looked closely. Yes, it was McTavish for sure.

  “Where did Carl get a subtle baseball bat?” I asked.

  “He went to sleep with it in his hands,” said Alan.

  I should have thought of that. Whatever you’re wearing when you go to sleep is what you wake up with. Even a baseball bat. I squinted out at the third figure, the one on the pitcher’s mound. Finally I recognized Mr. Dunn. But he wasn’t hunched over from his messed-up back. He was still a big guy, with somewhat of a gut on him, but he stood straight. In one hand he held a baseball, and the other hand wore a glove. I guess he had gone to sleep holding them too.

  “You told your dad?” Helen said, surprised.

  “Why not?” said Alan. “And he told McTavish.”

  Helen and I glanced at each other, imagining telling our own parents and totally unsure whether we should. I wondered what it would be like to be subtly grounded.

  Mr. Dunn leaned back, brought his arm around, and lobbed a pitch at Carl. It was slow, and for a second it seemed like it would be an easy hit. But as the ball passed over the plate, it dropped out of the air like a stone. Carl swung and missed, and the ball sank right into McTavish’s mitt.

  “Wow!” I said. “Was that a knuckleball?”

  “He’s going to pitch again,” said Alan, a little choked up.

  I’m happy to report that Nicki looked incredibly beautiful that night in her frilly pink dress as she did a swan dive off the roof of the school. At least, out of the corner of my eye she did.

  We all jumped, by the way—even me. And it was pretty fun, as Helen had claimed. I did it twice.

  Then we went to the dance.

  The gymnasium was full of kids dressed right out of a fantasy world—princes and princesses, ogres, dragons, a toad. A cardboard castle sprawled across the floor, and there was a big bowl of punch labeled “MEAD.” But no one there was as convincing as we were. We were ghosts—real ghosts. Invisible.

  The music was mostly fast songs, rock and roll tunes that we could jump around to—but I was feeling nervous. Ever since that day when I saw Nicki dancing, I’d worried what would happen if a real dance song came up.

  As the evening wore on and some of the kids started to leave, the DJ began playing slower numbers. Then he leaned into his mike and said, “Time for our last song. Let’s do a slow dance to Elvis Presley singing ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’”

  The music started. I’d always thought this song was strange and eerie, but now I felt I finally understood it. It’s about love—about how missing a person means you love them. It made me think of the Brodys, and how much they’d loved each other. That kind of loneliness, I thought, is a good kind. It means you care about someone.

  “Nicki,” I said, looking at the floor, “I don’t know how to dance.”

  Without a word, she took my right hand and placed it on the small of her back, and grasped my left hand with her right. “Don’t step on my feet,” she said, smiling.

  Our subtle forms moved close.

  “I really like you, Nicki,” I said.

  “I like you, too, Henry,” she replied.

  And I finally looked at her. It was maybe the bravest thing I ever did, and also the best. I can’t describe it. Maybe if I knew another language, I could find the words.

  I leaned forward and kissed her. A subtle kiss is a strange thing. It’s slippery, and a little electric, and it buzzes on your lips. And it makes a little “click” sound.

  Click?

  Nicki felt it too. “What was that?” she said. Then, “Henry—the box!”

  I looked down at my side. There was the box, as always . . . but the flap at the top was no longer fixed. It had opened.

  A little hesitantly, I reached in. I heard a gasp right next to me, and looked to see Helen and Alan there, with expressions of astonishment.

  “What’s inside, Henry?” said Alan.

  I pulled my hand out.

  I was holding a book. It was a hardback, with a blue fabric cover. Even as I looked at it, a few small, colored snowflakes broke away from it and floated off into the room—blue, yellow, red, brown.

  Around us, our classmates circled slowly as Elvis sang. They had no idea we were there, and, for the moment, we had no idea about them either. I opened the book, and my eyes ran over the words on the first page—only a few, but they defied understanding. I read them again.

  THE TRAP

  By Henry Nilsson

  The rest of the pages—maybe three hundred of them—were blank.

  There was one other thing in the box. I brought it out so my friends could see.

  It was a fountain pen with a long slender shaft leading to a gold point. And there, poised at the tip, glistened a drop of black ink.

  “Henry,” Helen whispered, “you’re going to have to, um . . . I mean . . .”

  I knew what she was trying to say.

  My heart fluttered in my chest, and the pen felt shaky in my fingers. The whole universe unfolding, Mr. Brody had said—like a story written out.

  I was going to have to think about this.

  Acknowledgements

  Novels aren’t easy to produce, even in the best of circumstances. During the course of composing this story, I learned that when the going gets tough it’s the people around you who make or break your efforts. I was immensely fortunate in this case to be buoyed by some excellent makers.

  I’d like to thank my agent, Jenni Ferrari-Adler, not only for her invariably sage advice and well-grounded strategizing around my literary life, but also just for sticking with me, especia
lly when my circumstances periodically grew incompatible with the writing of books. I’d also like to thank my editor Margaret Raymo at HMH, not only for devoting so much time to the many rounds of revision this story required and for constantly pressuring me with better ideas and insightful questions, but also for her patience with my “two steps forward, one step back” creative process.

  As its opening sentence attests, this book is set in 1963. It’s a year that occurred a decade before I did. While I tried to get a sense of things by reading blotty scans of old newspapers, I also wrote a letter that began, “Dear Person Who Was Alive In 1963 . . .” I’d like to thank everyone who responded, whether briefly or at length, to the questions I asked, especially Oliver, Maria, Peter, and Jack—I think I said to one of you, “You have just written my book for me.” I didn’t really mean that, though, and I’m going to keep whatever money I make from it. I am nonetheless deeply indebted to you for opening such brilliant windows on things I never saw.

  Above all others, no matter how deserving they may be, I’d like to thank my wife, Anne. When we married sixteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about “better or worser, richer or poorer,” but I find that terminology mistaken. You’ve given me better in the midst of worser, and poor times I count as rich because of our life together. Thank you for this strange, impossible daily alchemy.

  Last, to my readers, thank you for reading. I’ve spent a large part of my life struggling to be a better writer, and it hasn’t gotten easier. It’s profoundly encouraging to see my efforts turned into real stories in the imaginations of people who are committed to seeing the best in them.

  Death Letter

  Some people die from heart attacks, and some from falling off ladders. Some are killed in car accidents. Some drown. Some, like my grandfather Gonzalo, die in war.

  But some people don’t die—they depart. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is debatable, but departures are always interesting, so when the bell rings at the end of seventh period I’m not surprised that Iris springs up and places one pale hand firmly on my forearm. She digs her red nails in. “Hurry, Gabriela!” she says.

  I allow myself to be pulled from the classroom as Mr. Harpting, our history instructor, hopelessly calls out a reading assignment to his former audience. Iris and I are already in the hall, and Harpting’s voice is lost amid the afterschool rush.

  Outside, cars and buses clog the sunny hilltop turnaround. Iris drags me down the front steps, her long, straight blond hair glowing like a beacon. At the entrance to the student parking lot, a voice behind us calls, “Where are you guys going?” I turn to see Sarena running to catch up, her trumpet case bouncing against one thigh. I explain as she reaches us: “Iris thinks the Singing Man’s departing today—” I hold out my free hand to her, and she grabs on. Her braided black hair, lustrous in the afternoon sun, shines. She sings: “Ca-a-a-ro mio be-e-e-n!” reprising the song we heard the Singing Man perform yesterday. “Hey, Gabriela,” she says, reminded, “did you think about those lyrics?”

  I wince. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I will.”

  “That’s okay,” she replies. She’s disappointed, and I feel bad. Sarena plays trumpet and sometimes sings in her dad’s band—a jazz orchestra called the Washington Fifteen, which is the house act at the Caballero Hotel downtown. Her dad told her she could compose a song for the group, and she asked me to write the lyrics, because she thinks I have a way with words. I was thrilled at first, but now I regret it. I can’t seem to get started.

  Iris pulls us both through the parking lot, where mostly juniors and seniors loiter, playing car radios and socializing. I see Sylvester Hale leaned against the hood of his new pepper red sports car—he’s in his letterman’s jacket, surrounded by friends who also wear letterman’s jackets. His pretty, wide-set eyes glance my direction for a moment, and my legs wobble, but Iris keeps pulling, and soon we’re past.

  “Hey—” another voice calls.

  “Grab him!” I say to Sarena. It’s Raahi standing outside his beat-up hatchback with some friends. Raahi’s older than the three of us, eighteen, a thin kid with a head of thick, wavy black hair. He’s one of those rare seniors who don’t mind being friends with underclassmen. I met him last year in Mr. Wilkson’s American Geography class.

  Sarena extends her hand, holding out her trumpet case. Raahi takes her wrist, turning us into a chain of four as we head down the hill, leaving Raahi’s car. He doesn’t even bother to lock it up.

  The four of us are a known group at school. Once, when we were sitting in a row in art class (left to right: Iris, me, Raahi, and Sarena), Mr. Jensen spontaneously used our skin tones as an example of a color gradient. I feel strange about that, but I guess it’s true—cream color, light brown, brown, dark brown. Our school isn’t very diverse in this regard, so I guess it struck Jensen as a noteworthy moment of life mimicking art.

  “Iris thinks the Singing Man is departing today,” Sarena explains to Raahi.

  He nods, mock serious, and says, “Iris thinks someone’s departing every day.”

  “I heard that!” Iris yells over at us.

  “One time she thought Ms. Lime was going to depart,” I recall.

  “Remember when she thought I was going to?” says Sarena.

  “And last week it was Sylvester,” I say, “because of his new car.”

  “But how did he get that car?” says Iris, trying laughingly to defend herself. “It appeared out of nowhere.”

  We arrive at the bottom of the hill, where Cougar Way intersects Eighth. I hear the Singing Man before I see him—a big, operatic voice that suggests the exact sort of person who comes into view across the street: an elderly, portly Italian gentleman. He’s wearing a blue suit and a thin red tie. The first time we saw him, a few weeks ago, Iris was immediately sure he was going through his wrap-up, and when he kept performing each day, the rest of us were inclined to agree—the Singing Man was scheduled to depart.

  Here’s how departures work. First, you’re contacted by one of the Deaths, the creatures who oversee the process, usually with a letter saying “Dear So-and-So, your days are numbered.” Then you correspond, deciding how much time you need and what you want to wrap up before you’re taken. In the Singing Man’s case, he wanted to sing, obviously.

  No one knows why Deaths select particular people. There are plenty of theories, but it’s basically random beyond the fact of one statistic: departures account for one percent of all fatalities.

  Sarena says all of the Singing Man’s songs are famous Italian arias, with lyrics along the lines of “Don’t leave—it’s bad when you go.” Today, he belts his a cappella melodies with particular gusto. “Have we heard this one?” I ask Sarena. The Singing Man’s repertoire is pretty limited, but this melody is unfamiliar.

  “No, we haven’t,” says Sarena.

  “This is the day. For sure!” says Iris as a delivery truck rumbles past, interrupting our view. “He saved this song for today. It’s his swan song.”

  As the truck exits the intersection and the Singing Man returns to view, my eyes widen.

  No matter how many times you encounter them, the Deaths are startling creatures. The one who appears today is Gretchen, whom I’ve seen a few times before. Like all the Deaths, she’s about eight feet tall, extremely skinny, and grayish silver, as if you’re seeing her through a screen that filters the colors out. The Deaths live in a place called the Silver Side (where everything is presumably colored silver?) and only come visiting here when they’re drawn for a departure. Today, Gretchen is wearing a dark gray jacket over a silvery, flowing, ankle-length dress, and slate-colored heels. She approaches slowly, walking like they all do, as if through water—for some reason the Deaths experience our atmosphere as if it’s thick, and a little buoyant. They always look like they’re crossing the bottom of a swimming pool. Gretchen’s salt and pepper hair floats hugely around her, and her dress pushes and pulls against her frame, moved by unseen currents. She looks about fifty years old, but
the Deaths are much older than they look (centuries, millennia in some cases). Her face, long and skinny, is expressionless, and my eyes are drawn to the dark slits, like gills, to either side of her nose.

  “We’re going to see it!” Iris whispers frantically. She clutches one of my hands in excitement.

  Gretchen stands to one side while the Singing Man finishes his last song. A number of people see what’s going on and stop to watch. When the Singing Man falls silent, no one applauds, but he bows. Then he turns to Gretchen. She extends one hand toward him, as if they’re being introduced. He reaches out hesitantly, and their fingers close. The Singing Man straightens up—the way you might if an ice cube were dropped down the back of your shirt. He takes a deep, surprised breath.

  Then, beginning at his hand where he’s touching Gretchen and spreading through his body, everything about him from his pink skin to his blue coat to his red tie turns silvery gray. His eyes close, and he exhales. His thinning hair lifts slightly around him, weightless, submerged. He stands still for a few moments, and then his lids flutter, confused, until his gaze settles on Gretchen.

  “Thank you,” he says politely, his voice barely audible to me across the street. Then he and Gretchen turn together, and begin to walk away—toward the Fields.

  “Let’s go!” says Iris, excited.

  I roll my eyes. “Why do you always have to follow them? I can’t. I’ve got homework.”

  “Sarena?” says Iris, but Sarena holds up her trumpet case, indicating her need to practice. “Raahi?” Iris sees his answer in his eyes, and without even a goodbye she rushes off, leaving us staring after her for the few moments it takes her to disappear up the street after her quarry.