Death Watch

by Berk, Ari

  As he exited through the bronze doors, he saw her standing just inside the gate, under his family name. She looked at him and tilted her head to one side as if offering an invitation, but she didn’t speak.

  Silas was nervous. Maybe she’d think he was weird skulking around the cemetery at night, so he sort of waved an arm around and said, “These guys are my family.” Idiot, he thought instantly after that. Idiot.

  But she was smiling now. Good. She likes weirdos. Or maybe she felt sorry for him. Silas was okay with either reason. He looked at the pale skin of her face and at the bright aquamarine of her eyes and guessed that he and she must be about the same age.

  “You’re Silas,” she said, calling him over. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah. Silas Umber. I just moved here.” He looked down and tried not to smile too broadly, which was hard because he thought she was the prettiest girl he’d ever spoken to.

  “I know who you are,” she said, looking up at the word “Umber” over the gate.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s not a very big town. Word travels fast,” she said, waving her arms around at the graves, imitating him.

  “Have you lived here long?” said Silas. He hoped she wasn’t making fun of him.

  “I come and go.”

  “But you live in Lichport now.”

  “Yes. My family’s been here a long time.”

  “I think I saw you the other day near the millpond.”

  “That’s where I live.”

  “Which house?”

  “The dark one.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s one of the older houses. Maybe I’ll show you sometime.” The girl ran her hand over her hair from her temples to the back of her neck. “Don’t you want to know my name?”

  “I really do.”

  “Bea,” she said so softly Silas could barely hear her. “I am Beatrice.”

  Silas smiled and bowed slightly, then opened the gate for her, and they walked out of the cemetery and onto the sidewalk.

  “Where are you going, Silas?”

  “Don’t know. I thought I might walk along the river,” Silas said, as he realized that he hoped she’d want to come along.

  “Oh, I’ve just been swimming,” she said, seeming a little sad. “Tell you what, why don’t I meet you here another time?”

  “How will I find you?”

  “I’ll find you. You kind of stand out here,” she said. With that, Beatrice turned and walked off up the street.

  Distressed at her quick departure as well as the sketchy nature of the plan, Silas called out, “But what if I want to find you?”

  “Just look for me at the gate. Or whistle, if you like, and I’ll come to you.”

  And as Beatrice walked away, Silas saw that she was still wet from her swim, and in her long hair, among the chestnut strands, green weeds were woven; and where she’d walked, he could see the trace of wet footprints. He pulled his collar up against the evening breeze. He hoped she didn’t catch a cold on her way home.

  Silas walked absently along Main Street, and then down Coach until the lights of the general store were glowing before him. Silas hadn’t yet visited Peale’s General Store and Mercantile, and so, not wanting to go home yet, he entered. Little bells rang from a string on the back of the door. A woman in her fifties stood behind the counter and beamed at him.

  “Silas Umber! Have you finally come to see me about a job?”

  “Sorry?” Silas said, distressed that while he knew no one, people in Lichport generally seemed to know him.

  “No, no. I’m sorry to tease you,” she said, still smiling warmly. “I’m Joan Peale, and this is my father, John.” She hugged an elderly man, maybe in his eighties, who was sitting next to her. Silas could tell Mr. Peale wasn’t well, even though the man smiled at him from his chair. For an instant, as Mr. Peale looked at Silas, he seemed to be looking right through him into a room that wasn’t there. But after his daughter gently tapped his shoulder, Mr. Peale reached out a shaking hand to Silas and said, “I hope to see you again soon, Mr. Umber.”

  “We all knew your dad very well,” Joan said, “especially my mom. I was wondering how long it was going to take you to sneak out of your uncle’s house and come to see us.”

  An older woman came through a back door and into the shop. She was wearing a long apron over a faded dress, and her head was covered with a sort of loose bonnet like women wore centuries ago.

  “Silas,” said Joan, “this is my mother. But you can call her ‘mother’ too. Everyone does.”

  “How do you do, Mother Peale? I am Silas Umber,” said Silas, as he extended his hand to her.

  Instead of shaking hands with him, the old woman grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward her, then threw her arms around him. Silas could feel her walking stick pressing against his spine. She laughed heartily as she hugged him, then held him out at arm’s length and looked at him very carefully, studying, it seemed, all the features of his face in minute detail.

  “So you’re back then?”

  “Back? You mean back home? Because I was born here?” “I mean because Umber folk always come back, and we Umbers and Peales keep finding one another. Little things like time and generations don’t matter very much with good friends who are fond of each other’s company.”

  She squinted at Silas now, as she looked closer and closer at his face.

  “Of all the faces I’ve looked on, I was curious which one you’d have. Yes, it is very much like your father’s, but there are differences, in the right light. No. I’ve not seen your face for a very long time.”

  “How long is that?” asked Silas, enjoying what he thought was a game.

  “Oh, ages it feels like. And not perhaps on this land. But good friends and kin always find each other, don’t you find?” she asked with a hoarse laugh. “Anywise, we are who we were, so everyone’s always coming back, that’s how I see it. And here we are, all one in the moment, for the moment, if you take my meaning, Silas Umber.”

  “I’m not sure I do, ma’am.”

  “Well, well, let it be then, until you’ve settled in and remembered yourself.”

  “What can I get you today, Silas?” asked Joan.

  “Just looking really,” said Silas, as he gazed with wonder at the oddly stocked shelves.

  There were the sorts of things you’d expect: flour, sugar, cereals, bread, canned fruits and vegetables, coffee, chocolates, and other staples. However, most of the shelves were filled with things Silas had never seen, with labels he either couldn’t read or couldn’t understand. There were things he was not accustomed to seeing in cans, and packets of things no one ate anymore. Someone obviously liked something called Jell-O Spoon Candy, because there was a whole shelf of it. There was canned milk and canned apples and lots of lard and something called “graisse de canard.” One can appeared to contain some kind of stewed chrysalis from Asia. There were cans of jellied eels and cans of haggis from Scotland. There seemed to be every kind of canned fish, which seemed absurd considering Lichport was a seaside town.

  On a high shelf, Silas saw a can of roast veal and gravy marked 1824. He looked at the can, and then at Mother Peale.

  “You’re looking hard at my shelves, Silas Umber,” she accused.

  “Just curious. What is all this stuff?”

  “Old families, Silas. Old families. Stuck in their ways. They like things as they were, and some of ’em, I can tell you, go back a long ways. Folks just like what they’ve always liked and what their parents liked and back and back … and so I try to get it for ’em. And I’ll have you know, cans of veal and gravy sailed with Captain William Edward Parry when he went to find the Northwest Passage!”

  “Who would buy a can of meat from 1824?”

  “Hm,” Mother Peale admitted, “I can’t say it’s been flying off the shelf.”

  Silas looked at the kind old woman, at the deep lines of her face and the small hump on her back. “I have heard of
you, you know, Mother Peale,” said Silas. “I remember my father mentioning you when I was young.”

  “Well, I would not be surprised,” said Mother Peale. “There are many rumors about me, and your father spent enough time at my table eating my food.” She leaned in close to Silas. “What did you hear?”

  At that, John Peale, her husband, seemed to wake up. He smiled and turned to speak to Silas, although he didn’t get up from his chair.

  “Did you hear she’d been in prison, boy?”

  Silas shook his head.

  “She was, you know,” said her daughter.

  “Did you hear that she owns an ivory horn from a sea cow and that she stirs her cauldron with it to raise storms?” Mr. Peale asked again.

  “Also true,” said Joan Peale, and laughed.

  “Or that she can speak a dozen languages?”

  “Now that’s a lie!” shouted Mother Peale. “Seven and no more.”

  Silas smiled. He liked the Peales enormously and already felt like a part of the family, even though he’d been in the store only a few minutes. These were the kind of people he always knew he’d like but never met in Saltsbridge. People with interests. People with pasts.

  “Silas,” asked Mother Peale, “since you’re here, would you mind taking a few things back with you to your uncle’s?”

  “Sure,” he said, but Mother Peale saw by his face he took no joy in being at his uncle’s and wasn’t keen to go back to that house quite yet.

  She brought out a large box of assorted candies, and a bag with some bottles in it. They clinked together as she lifted the bag to the top of the counter and pushed it toward Silas. Looking at the candy, she said, “I guess your uncle must be glad you’re there.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Well, Uncle Umber is sure filling up the candy bowls for company.”

  “Maybe,” said Silas, but then, thinking about it, he added, “He must be eating it all himself, because I haven’t seen any candy bowls in that house.”

  At the mention of Uncle Umber, some people in the back of the store began whispering. Joan Peale said loudly, “Okay, Silas Umber, here is your uncle’s order. I’ve got it all right here.” She raised her hand slightly as if to stall the talk.

  “Don’t forget the gin!” someone yelled from the back.

  And before Joan could holler back there to shut up, someone else shouted, “Uncle Umber don’t drink.”

  “All right then!” said Joan loudly.

  The man who helped with stock said, “Umber’s got company. Who the hell do you think is eating all that damned candy he orders? Just put an extra bottle of gin and some more scotch in the box with the candy, and I’ll take it all over. Save us a trip when he sends for more hooch tomorrow.”

  “No need for that, Will Garner,” Joan said, as she gestured with her head and shoulders toward Silas. “Amos’s son is staying at the Umber place. See? Here he is. You don’t mind taking this stuff back with you, do you, Silas? Your uncle will appreciate you bringing it home. I’m afraid he doesn’t much care for coming here.”

  Someone in the store said, “Proud. Charles Umber’s always been that way, even when Mr. Bowe fired him.”

  Joan Peale turned to glare at the crowd, but it was too late. Silas had heard everything, and everyone around him looked embarrassed.

  Silas looked down at the boxes, saw all that alcohol, and knew then that his mother would not improve here in Lichport, and worse, that his uncle not only approved of her drinking, but seemed to be encouraging her to continue. Why? Silas would have thought this was one thing on which he and his uncle might agree. Uncle was orderly, precise. When his mother drank, she was sloppy, slovenly, her words rough and inconsiderate as they tumbled out of her mouth without thought. There must be another reason his uncle didn’t mind his mother being drunk all the time—

  “Why don’t I walk with you back to your uncle’s house and let Will get back to stocking the shelves?” Joan swept Silas out the door, as she pulled a little wagon with the boxes of candy and the bag of gin behind them.

  Once they were walking, she asked, “You doin’ all right since coming here? I can’t imagine how it must be coming back to Lichport, your dad missing and all. And living in that house—”

  “I’m okay,” Silas replied. “A little lonely, maybe. I’ve got a lot of time to myself. I used to think that’s what I wanted, but now, well, I have a lot of time to think, that’s for sure. Maybe too much. I guess I’d like to know more about the town. More about my dad and how he spent his time here. I’d sure like to know if anyone here knows anything about what happened to him.”

  Joan paused, as if choosing her next words very carefully. “Silas, if I knew anything about what happened to your dad, I would have told you the minute I laid eyes on you. Fact is, no one knows. Some got their ideas, but no one has ever liked your uncle much, so he’s an easy target for suspicion. There are folk you could ask, maybe after you get to know the town a little better—” She seemed to think better of saying more along those lines and instead asked, “Silas Umber, did you know you once had kin all over this town? Do you know where your mom was born?”

  “Where?” asked Silas.

  Just before they turned left down Coach Street, Joan Peale pointed past Beacon Hill and to the left and said, “You see those dark trees past the hill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “On the other side of those trees is Fort Street, and it was there your mother was born.”

  “On Fort Street?”

  “Oh yes. If it were daytime, you might be able to see the chimney of the house a little above the trees. And at the end of the street are the gates to the Arvale estate, where most of your folk once lived, long, long ago. Yes, Fort was a very grand street once. Richest folks in town lived there. Only people of quality. Do you know much about your mother’s people?”

  They turned onto Prince Street.

  “Only that they had money, and didn’t think much of people who didn’t.”

  Joan Peale laughed. “That’s true enough. They were an old Lichport family. Gone now, almost every one of them. They were quite the party-givers, back in the day. They liked rich company and showing their belongings and pretty daughters to advantage. So when the town turned downward, they were one of the first families to pick up and go. Funny how you and your mom are living here now. I’ll bet you could even live in that house if you wanted to. I’ll bet it was left to your mother. Of course, now that she’s living with your uncle, she’d have no need of it.”

  “I asked her about whether or not she had a house here. But she told me her family’s house burned down, and that was one of the reasons they all left for Boston and New York,” Silas said, as he wondered whether this was another of his mother’s many lies about to be revealed.

  “Well, you can see it for yourself sometime; the house is still there. People used to leave flowers on the porch. On some of the porches of the other houses, too. But no one has visited Fort Street in a long time, I think.”

  “Why would people leave flowers on the porches?”

  Joan merely said, “You should ask your mother.” With that, she put her arm around Silas’s shoulder and walked him back to Temple Street.

  “Ah!” Uncle exclaimed when Silas came in with the items from the store. “He leaves a man of the house, but comes home as the help! How endearing. Silas, do run those things back to the kitchen, won’t you? But you may leave the candy on the steps, and I’ll take it upstairs later.”

  Then his mother chimed in.

  “So you went to the store? At this hour?”

  “I met the Peales, and Joan Peale walked me back. She told me about Fort Street.”

  Dolores Umber was up out of her chair with surprising speed for a woman who’d been drinking all evening.

  Uncle spoke quickly, to defuse the coming storm. “Oh yes, not such a nice neighborhood now. All those abandoned houses.”

  “Then why do people leave flowers on the porches?” Sila
s asked.

  His mother’s face went absolutely pale. She asked, “You didn’t go into any of those houses, did you?”

  “Are there flowers? Still? How queer,” Uncle interjected. “People have such strange customs even in these enlightened times. Still, how quaint, no? Flowers for those who have passed on, yet remain fixed … in the memory.”

  “No, I didn’t go in. Joan just pointed out the street to me. But why wouldn’t they leave flowers on the graves of dead people? Why on the porch of a house?” Silas asked. He sensed that he was close to something his mother definitely didn’t want him to know about.

  “Obligation …,” Dolores muttered as she dropped back into her chair and tipped the contents of her nearly full glass down her throat. She promptly poured herself another.

  Uncle cleared this throat and said, “It’s nothing, Silas, just one of our strange, enduring Lichport traditions. Some old practice, I believe. Some of the families here brought their odd beliefs with them from across the sea and held tight to them. We’ve always been a little … different here, my boy. In any event, the flowers are just a curious way to say ‘farewell’ to the past. That’s all it really is when you get right down it.”

  “Why would anyone say ‘farewell’ to a house?” Silas pressed. “I mean, what’s the point of—”

  Uncle interrupted and said, through slightly clenched teeth, “As I said, strange folk, hereabouts. Even in these modern times you may still observe, on our fair streets, the most remarkable eccentrics and vagabonds.”

  Dolores spoke up again, her eyes closed and her lips pulled tight.

  “On and on and bloody on! Doesn’t anything in this miserable town ever end?”

  DOLORES HADN’T WORN HER PEARLS in a very long time, certainly not since leaving Lichport a year after her son was born. Her mother had given her the strand of luminous little moons, just as her grandmother and her great-grandmother had done, from mother to daughter right down the line. She had been obliged to wear them on “State Occasions,” on those days when the entire clan gathered together en masse: weddings, funerals, holidays, and the dreaded visitations.