by Alison Stine
This bread? She was offering bread to the Stationmaster? Plain white grocery store bread? I bit my lip hard to keep from saying something. The Stationmaster didn’t want bread. He wanted blood. Preferably mine, I thought. Or someone else young.
Not the Firecracker. Not her. Don’t even think of that.
I tried to push the thought out of my mind, and then it was all I could think about. Had he hurt her, hit her with the lantern, burned her, pushed her down in the pond? Where was she? And was this really going to bring him? Would he tell us where she was; could we make him? I tried to focus on the table, where everyone sat, eyes closed, holding hands.
Nothing was happening.
“Clara, no peeking,” my grandmother said.
“How can she tell?” Clara whispered.
“No, whispering, either.” She raised her voice. “Spirit, I summon you. Show yourself to us in this place. Move among us and communicate with us.”
Over and over my grandmother said this until I grew less and less afraid, more and more bored—and more convinced that the Stationmaster wasn’t going to show. No one was going to show. My back ached and my legs were starting to tire. I sat down cross-legged, and slumped against the wall. I closed my eyes, just for a second.
The last thing I heard was the drone of my grandmother’s voice.
I dreamed about the house. I was inside the house, my grandmother’s house, but it was so much nicer than my grandmother kept it. The hardwood floors were gleaming, swept free of dust, reflecting the glow from the sparkling chandeliers. The wallpaper looked new—no water spots—and there were garlands hung across the moldings and draped over the mantles: thick dark greenery braided with bright white flowers. Everything was lit by candles, the flames sparking in men’s glasses and ladies’ earrings and shivery dresses.
Because the house was full of people. Crazy dream, I thought, sliding through the crowd. Everyone was dressed up: flowers and lace and jewels in their hair. Everyone was laughing. Waiters weaved through the halls, carrying trays of tiny pies and drinks in tall glasses and candies. I tried to reach for a treat, but the tray swept away from me, as if the waiter hadn’t seen me.
I looked into her face. She wore a long black dress, a white cap. There was some kind of flower tucked behind her ear, small and yellow.
It was Martha.
“Martha!” I said. “Martha, it’s me.”
But my dream voice was muted, distorted and almost soundless, like I was speaking underwater. I could barely hear myself. And Martha couldn’t hear me.
She disappeared into the crowd. I tried to follow, but the hallway was jammed, people in the dining room, people on the stairs, and I soon lost sight of her.
The crowd made way for a child, running through and laughing. She had big curls like Clara, but her hair was dark, and she was only five or six, dressed like a princess. Right behind her, chasing her, was a boy. I heard a muted shout. A woman followed the boy, a woman I had never seen before, with dark hair like the girl and a fancy white dress that shimmered in the candlelight. She scolded the children. At least, I think she did. The sound was distorted to me, faint and wavering, like my own voice had sounded in my ears.
I couldn’t hear in my dream.
I left the woman and her children, and passed on through the crowd. I knew I was underdressed, in my usual T-shirt and jeans, but no one looked at me. No one seemed to see me.
I was invisible then, too.
I heard a deep belly laugh, dampened and warped so it sounded almost evil, and turned to see a mustache, a pocket watch, a stomach. It was the Builder. He was beaming, surrounded by friends who all laughed at his joke, whatever it had been, and downed drinks. I crept forward to the group and strained to hear them.
“Didn’t think I could do it,” he seemed to be saying. “And I didn’t quite.”
More laughter. I didn’t understand what was so funny.
“Only the widow’s walk left, in case Emily becomes a widow!”
Rollicking laughter this time from everyone. The dark-haired woman, the one who had scolded the children, glared at him, then moved quietly away.
“Would you like to see it?” the Builder asked his friends. “See the widow’s walk, up on the roof?”
“No!” I said.
But of course no one heard me. They all made sounds of approval and moved toward the staircase, one glittering jovial mass.
“No!” I said again. “Don’t go up there. You’re going to die up there.”
But the Builder led the group up the stairs.
So he had an audience, then, when he died.
Was this the first time? His original death? The night it had happened? I looked around at the party-goers, their champagne, their fancy dress. Was this New Year’s Eve? Why was I dreaming this? Could I stop it? I tried to force my way through the press of people, to follow the Builder.
Then I saw a pair of red shoes.
I stopped. The shoes were attached to a small woman in a pale green dress with a ribbon on the back. She wore her hair in a black bun, like my mother always did. She was facing away from me, and she was moving fast.
I followed her. I fought my way through the crowd, pushing past people, stepping on toes. No one seemed to notice me. I followed the red of the woman’s shoes, blood-red shoes.
My mother wouldn’t tell me why she always wore red.
It had to be my mother I was seeing. It had to be. I followed her through the hallway, past the sitting room. In a corner near the door, under a neglected bunch of mistletoe, a man in black drank from a bottle, looking miserable.
The woman with the red shoes turned to go up the servant steps, surprising the servants who were streaming down the stairs with trays. I turned to follow her, and thought I saw in the corner of my eye, through the sitting-room window, a child’s face, looking in from outside, a boy with black hair and bright-blue eyes, shivering in the cold as he watched the lovely party.
I didn’t slow down. The woman was on the second floor now, and I tripped to keep up with her. “Mom,” I said. “Mom, is that you?”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t stop, didn’t give any indication that she had heard me. I still couldn’t see her face as she turned and glided down the hall—only her red shoes, her green dress, and her gleaming black bun. She walked purposefully through the second floor and headed for the stairs to the third.
The crowd was thinner here: only a couple kissing in a corner hung with flowers. More mistletoe, I guessed, left over from Christmas; that was the flower Martha wore behind her ear.
I followed my mother up the stairs. “Mom,” I kept saying. “Mom.”
But she gave no sign that she had heard me.
On the third floor, I heard music.
And it was as if my ears had popped on a plane, like the bubble that had been surrounding me, muting and distorting everything in my dream, every sound, every word, burst. I heard the music sharp and clear.
A band stood on a little raised platform at the end of the ballroom, a quartet of musicians. In front of them, packing the floor, people danced—so many people, all dressed in jewels and tuxedos and dresses that glittered under the chandeliers. The room itself sparkled, reflected in the mirrors.
My head swam. It hurt my eyes, all those lights. I followed the red shoes as they slipped into the crowd, not dancing, but moving swiftly, instinctively through small gaps in the dancers: ducking under a raised arm, sliding between a talking couple. She seemed to anticipate how people would move, where there was going to be an opening for her to slip through while behind her, I crashed and banged into people, not watching where I was going, unable to predict who would move and who would stay still.
And just as my hearing had returned, it seemed my physical body had also. People felt it when I ran into them. They seemed to see. They stopped and glared at me, or said something rude to my back. I trod over toes, over a lady’s hem. I heard it rip.
The woman with red shoes slid between a group in fr
ont of me, and was gone.
“Mom,” I said. “Wait for me.”
The music stopped. Before me, the crowd parted. And there was my mother.
She stood in the center of the ballroom. The crowd had moved back, surrounding her in a semi-circle as though she was going to start dancing a solo for them. She was more beautiful than I remembered. I hadn’t remembered how much she looked like my sister, how much she looked like me.
She was smiling, smiling at me. She saw me; she actually saw me.
I felt my eyes clouding over and spill. I was weeping, trying to get the words out.
“Mom,” I said. “Mom, I miss you. I don’t know what to do.”
She brought her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
“I’m invisible. I don’t know why. And I can see ghosts. Why can I see ghosts? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There wasn’t time,” my mother said. “I didn’t know I wasn’t going to have time.”
“I know,” I sobbed. My nose was running, my voice sticky. “Where’s Dad? Is he okay?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“What’s going on? What’s happening to me?”
“Shh,” she said. “Remember the mail.”
I sniffed. “What?”
“Remember the mail.”
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
“The mail, Esmé. When the time comes, and it will, remember the mail.”
I felt panic. The crowd was starting to move again. The music was picking back up, and couples danced in front of my mother, filling in the circle. She was starting to disappear.
“Mom,” I said. I couldn’t see her through the crowd. I pushed at couples, trying to move them, but they ignored me, dividing us, keeping her from me. “Mom!”
I heard only her voice: “Remember to put out the mail.”
“Mom, what do you want?” I cried.
Then there were hands on me, shaking me gently. One hand smoothed back my hair, another cradled my head. I lay on the floor of the ballroom. Faces peered over me: my grandmother, Martha, Tom. I slid up.
“Easy,” Tom said.
“I’m okay. I had a dream.”
“You fell on the floor and hit your head with a huge bang,” Clara said. “Do you have a lump? Can I touch it?”
I felt the back of my head, brushing away Tom’s and Martha’s hands. “No. No, I don’t have a lump and no, you couldn’t touch it if I did.”
“You were crying like a baby,” Clara said.
I moved my hands from my head to my face. It was sticky and wet. Tears dampened the neckline of my shirt.
“Clara,” Martha said.
“Screaming your head off, disrupting the circle.”
“That’s enough,” Tom said.
I wiped at my face, and tried to smooth my shirt. “Did it work?” I asked.
Martha peered at me. “Did what work?”
“Did the séance work? Did the ghost come?”
“No,” Clara said. “Nothing happened. It was the most boring thing in the world. More boring even than being dead.”
“I came,” a voice said. “I thought you all were calling me. I … thought I heard my name. I hope I didn’t interfere with anything.”
I turned my head to see the Builder, standing with his hands in his pockets.
Then it came back, the dream. It all came back to me: the New Year’s Eve party, the Builder, Martha. My mother. I looked at my grandmother. She looked like my mother too—all of us did—but tired. So tired.
I couldn’t tell her. I knew I couldn’t. I watched her try to find me, find my face, her eyes pouring over the floor, the space where I might be. Her face changed as she tried to look at me, crumpling like a tissue. She knew, somehow she knew, something was wrong.
“What is it, Grandma?” I asked.
“You act like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.
CHAPTER 19:
It’s Easy to Dye
The spirit had come at the séance. It had come to me.
She had.
I wrapped the blanket Martha had brought me tighter around my shoulders. It was Lucy’s quilt, and it still smelled a little smoky, but I had asked for it. I had wanted something comforting, something at least a little familiar. I needed to think. The mail, the mail. My mother had said to remember the mail.
But I hadn’t gotten any mail, not since I came to my grandmother’s house. No one wrote letters. Not to me, anyway.
“Mr. Vale,” I said, addressing the Builder. “You know this house pretty well, right?”
He stiffened. “I should hope so. I’m building her.”
“Do you know if the mailbox was always where it is now?”
“The mailbox?” he repeated.
Behind his shoulder, I saw my grandmother freeze with her hand on the saltshaker. She was busying herself, putting away the items from the séance.
“Yes,” I said. “Was it ever different? In a different place maybe?”
My grandmother was striding across the ballroom, clutching the saltshaker. “What’s this about the mail?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was just wondering.”
My grandmother dropped the salt. She didn’t even bother to throw some over her shoulder. “What was it?” she said. “What was the vision? I know you had one. Who did you see?”
“You saw a ghost? The Stationmaster?” Tom asked.
“No,” Clara said. “She’d be crying. Harder.”
“What did they say?” Martha said.
I swallowed. I said it, “Remember the mail.”
Everyone’s face went blank.
“There was a mail slot,” the Builder said, thinking. “In the front door. We didn’t always have a mailbox—modern invention, bothersome, hooligans always smashing it down. The mail was delivered through a slot in the door. It’s still there, if you want to see it.”
“I do,” I said.
But the mail slot wasn’t there when the Builder, Mr. Black, and I went to check. The doors were solid oak.
“Oh dear,” the Builder said, checking the doors from front to back. “It looks like these have been replaced. Did I do that? I don’t remember doing that.” Then he was lost in thoughts about the house. “We had a fantail light above the door,” he said. “Stained glass. Expensive. Imported from France. We had a screen. My wife didn’t like that. We made the roof conical, the porch wrap-around. Crown detailing for the roof peaks, radiating spindle details for the gables.”
Now the Builder was just talking. Now he had forgotten me and Mr. Black. Now he would never say anything useful at all.
“The embedded corner tower …” he said.
“Wait,” I said. “There’s a tower?”
“Why, yes. Finished it a few days ago.”
“But it didn’t last? The work of the dead doesn’t last.”
“Strangely, no,” the Builder said. “So I built it again.”
The tower was off the third floor, and it took us a while to get there because the Builder kept stopping to examine a step or fiddle with a balustrade, pulling a ball-peen hammer from his pocket and pausing to pound in nails. At the end of the hallway, past the ballroom, he slowed to push in a loose molding, and Mr. Black cried, “Oh, come on.”
“Mr. Vale, where exactly are we going?” I asked.
He looked up at me, surprised, pulling on his mustache. He had forgotten about the tower, forgotten about the mail, forgotten about me, forgotten he was a ghost even, probably. But he said, “We’re here.”
Mr. Black sighed. “Here is a dead end. A hallway.”
“I’m surprised you don’t know it,” the Builder said to me.
“Me?”
“My servant knows it.”
I felt my chest get tight. I couldn’t get angry; there wasn’t time. I made myself say evenly, “I’m not your servant.”
“No,” the Builder said simply. “But she’s your great-grandmother.”
What did I know about the h
ouse, how it had come into my family? My mother had grown up here. So had my grandmother, and her mother had worked as a maid for the family of the house, the rich family who didn’t want to live in their house because … because …
Because their father had died here.
The Builder rapped on the wall with his fist, and it popped open, a paneling of false wall creaking ajar.
I peeked inside and saw a staircase. “Where does that go?”
“To the tower,” he said.
“Esmé, wait,” Mr. Black said.
But I was already climbing into the passageway.
The walls of the secret staircase pressed in on me, a tight fit, with only enough space for me to crawl. I couldn’t stand upright, or raise my head. And as I pitched forward, the steps behind me dissolved. My foot missed a step, and it slipped down onto nothing, into space. I kicked at the air.
The stairs behind me were gone.
“What’s happening?” I said.
The steps below me were falling away like cards—and the walls on either side of the staircase started falling down too, melting. A plank was torn away, then another and another. It was like someone had thrown acid on the staircase. It was dissolving. I could see patches of the outside breaking through: the tops of trees, the purple sky, a star.
The work of the dead was undoing itself.
The Builder’s tower was falling down.
My fingers scrabbled at the stairs. In my rush, I hit my chin on a step and slid down on my stomach, my legs kicking at the emptiness below. I swung and my arm touched a higher step. I pulled myself up.
There was nothing but air below me, waiting to swallow me. Above me, the staircase turned around a corner. I couldn’t see where the bend led, but I vaulted up two more steps. I was at the top now, clutching the very last step. The staircase had ended, but there was no door at the top—just a solid wall. I couldn’t climb any higher; there was nowhere to go. The staircase was going to dissolve and drop me.
I screamed.
Below me in the hallway, somewhere far away, the Builder shouted, “Push on the wall! There’s a door hidden at the top, a secret door. Push on the wall.”