Death Watch

by Berk, Ari

  But the voice spoke again, pushing back the graying air.

  No, said Tom. Not like that. Like this. Silas? Look! Say my name. Remember me.

  “Tom?”

  Silas raised his head again and Tom was standing before him, smiling, holding out his hand. Silas reached up and took it, and as he stood up, the present enfolded him. As he remembered what had happened and where he was, some of the heaviness fell away from his limbs like dead branches shaken from a tree by spring winds. But as he awoke to himself, he was concerned now for Tom, worried to see him in such a place.

  “Are you trapped here too, Tom?”

  “I am not trapped here, Si, I’m waiting here.”

  “For what?”

  “You, Silas.”

  Silas’s eyes welled up at hearing his name spoken by someone who loved him.

  “Why? I mean, how could you know? I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing to understand. There is no great mystery in friendship. You brought yourself here, just as I brought myself here to wait for you. I don’t even mind that you’ve kept me waiting.” Tom was grinning now. “To me, it is hardly a moment anyway since last time I saw you. Just a breath ago we were playing. But why have you come to such a place?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  Tom looked around and then lifted his head as though seeing something familiar in the distance. Silas couldn’t see anything else, and he wondered if they were both looking on the same world. He saw the shattered concrete of the playground. A place where lines were drawn and some were out and some were in. A place he hated.

  Tom saw Silas’s face, fallen and unsure, and moved closer to him.

  “While I waited for you, I’ve been running through our Saturday afternoon. That moment is ours to keep. Look, it’s just there.” At the far end of the playground, Silas could see the long stretch of grass that ran between the houses on their street back in Saltsbridge where he and Tom had played seven years ago, an island of light lying beyond a gray sea. Silas looked at his arms, his hands, his ashen skin, and then looked at Tom’s golden hands and face. They were lit by the light of two different worlds.

  “That world and a thousand others are waiting, yet here you are,” Tom said, gesturing at the bleak landscape of the playground around them. “You should know better than anyone, Silas, better than anyone. We choose these things. These are our choices to make and nobody else’s.”

  As Tom was speaking, the hard shadows of the playground’s embankments and borders had become a receding tide. Silas could see the gates and the empty playground equipment again. The childlike forms had vanished, though the small branches of the tree were filled with birds and were shaking with anticipation. The air of the playground was changing, and the birds could feel it. They began calling and crying out all at once from the foliage, but their voices suddenly dropped off, becoming low, frantic chirps. The whispering world was holding its breath, and the small birds were waiting.

  Tom was fading from the brightening air.

  “Tom!” Silas called out to him. “Tom! You are my best friend!”

  Tom, still smiling, was nearly indiscernible from the light rising from the land.

  “See you soon, Silas. Okay? See you soon?”

  In the space left by Tom’s absence, Silas remembered how many times his dad had come to the playground to pick him up; late, because his mother was supposed to come but had forgotten. One time his father had driven all the way back from Lichport to get him. One of the teachers had offered to drive Silas home, but he had refused, saying he was sure one of his parents was coming. He had wanted them to come, but if they didn’t, he was going to sit there until they noticed he hadn’t come home. Had he been less stubborn, he’d have been home hours ago. His choice. It was nearly dark when Amos walked onto the playground and found Silas sitting under the tree. Silas didn’t look up when his dad sat down on the ground next to him.

  “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

  “No way, little bird. Did you forget me?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right, because we are stuck together. I might be late, but I’ll always be there.”

  “I think being forgotten must be horrible,” Silas had said, warming a little as his dad took his hand and pulled him to his feet, then walked with him away from the tree and toward the parking lot.

  “Worst thing in the world, little bird. The worst,” Amos had said.

  Silas could still feel the death watch pressed hard into his palm. His thumb felt frozen to the dial, but he lifted it away and released the mechanism. He half expected to see his father, but he was alone on the empty playground, without even the sound of the birds for company.

  No birds, Silas noticed.

  Not flown away.

  Just gone.

  And quite suddenly he realized that the birds were not part of the waking world. Their world was the shadowland of the playground, and when the death watch continued marking time, they had vanished.

  Steeling himself against whatever he might see, Silas returned his thumb to the dial of the death watch and time stopped again. There were children sitting, their legs hanging down from all the branches of the trees. He could see their faces now.

  Silas turned around and around, his heart beating fast, looking at as many of the children’s faces as he could, then called out:

  “You have been lost here. Now it is time to go home. For some, kin are waiting. For others, there are safe bowers and the arms of mothers who wait to hold you. I am the Undertaker. I am Silas Umber of Lichport. I am here to help you. I am your friend. You are not alone.”

  As he spoke, the ghosts became clearer and clearer, until it seemed they could discern him as well. Silas could see some recognition on some of their faces. One was smiling tentatively, expectantly.

  Without thinking, Silas began to sing the song his father had sung to him, amending the end to suit the need. He didn’t know their names or what had brought them to this place, but he would help them if he could, and he knew where to take them.

  Hush-a-bye, little ones, aye, aye;

  Hush-a-bye, little ones, aye.

  The night birds are singing,

  And glad bells a-ringing

  And it’s time for you now to fly.

  Little birds,

  It’s time for you now to fly.

  Fly with me, fly with me, aye, aye

  Fly with me, little birds, aye.

  Your mothers are waiting,

  For ages awaiting

  Little birds to their waiting arms fly!

  Then Silas shouted out with gladness ringing in his voice, “Little birds, fly with me. We love you, all this time we’ve been waiting for you, come with me!”

  They rose from their perches in the tree, rising as birds again, each spirit moving on small wings. They rose together into the air above Silas’s head, one great longing carried up by a hundred hopeful hearts. Some of the small birds flew in other directions, to homes long lost to them, to waiting family, to their rests. Others were truly lost and needed more time to remember what it was they once were, to make an account of their losses. Silas did not know their names, and they did not, or could not, speak. But he knew who would care for them tenderly. He knew who would keep them close until they could make their way on their own. It was these lost children who flew after him, following Silas to the marshes.

  As Silas arrived at the Bowers of the Night Herons, the air above him was an eager tempest of swift-winged spirits. The night herons were already stirring, many standing on the edges of their high nests, looking frantically for the source of the cries coming from the small spirits flying above Silas. The women swiftly rose up as birds until there were two flocks turning about the tops of the trees. A great calling was heard, and the sky rang with bird-song. A sob of joy flew up over the marshes, and Silas could do nothing else but weep himself. And those bowers of absence and loss became the nesting places of peace.

  With their deep mourning p
ast, Silas thought many of the women and children would abandon the nests, move on, vanish into the contentment of their reunions. Yet many remained, glad for a time in each other’s company, quiet children resting, secure in the love only a mother may bring to a child, even if the child was not hers in life. They were all at peace; not looking, in that moment, for any other place or any other thing. No past or future existed for them. There was only mother and child, and nothing else in all the wide world. And Silas knew that his plan to ask them about his own troubles was foolish. Leave them to their long-overdue joy, he thought. He turned away from the marshes and released the dial of the death watch.

  Silas knew his troubles were his own, not the dead’s, and he would settle them himself, one way or another. He made his way toward the Beacon, wanting to look out over the town. His heart was beating fast, briefly happy at the good work he’d done, but there was more and darker work ahead of him.

  LEDGER

  … Some men through the feebleness of their sight, beholding in the air near unto them … suppose they see their own angels or soules: and so as the Proverbe is, they fear their own shadow…. And we many times suppose those things which we see, to be far otherwise than indeed they are.

  —Transcribed by Jonas Umber from the work of Lewes Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking by Night (1572)

  SILAS LEFT THE MARSHES and walked along the footpath toward Cedar Street, heading toward the Beacon, but as he approached the bridge to Fort Street, he turned instead and went to the house of his great-grandfather. Fort Street for fortitude, he told himself.

  As he entered the large second-floor chamber, he found his great-grandfather still sitting in the chair, looking out the window.

  “Ah! Silas!” the corpse said in a joyful rasp. “It is very good of you to come. Indeed, I suggest you make yourself comfortable and stay a while. Things that love the night love not nights such as these.”

  “But the sky is very clear …,” Silas said, but then understood his great-grandfather’s meaning. “You’re right. It’s going to be a bad night. I just wanted to see you, too … you know, be with you again in case … well, anyway, it’s just good to see you. I can’t stay long, though. I have things I must do.”

  “Yes, I expect you do. There is trouble written right across your brow. How has it been with you?”

  Silas told his great-grandfather about the shadowlands where he had walked looking for his father and about the ship and his fears about going back to his uncle’s house on Temple Street.

  “I think, Silas, you have known for some time that you’d need to go back to that house. Your uncle is, I fear, part of your father’s unfinished work. In Lichport, we see to our own affairs, and settle them in whatever way the situation requires. There’s a lot on your plate at present, I know. But some things you can do something about, while others may only get sorted out in the fullness of time. If it were me, I’d start attending to what I knew I could settle right now. Today. A man can’t walk on two roads at once, at least, not if he’s hoping to get anywhere.”

  “But how can I settle what I can’t find? Bea is gone. And I don’t even know if my dad—”

  His great-grandfather interrupted him and said sternly, “Forgive me. You know where you must go. Kin must see to kin. Settle your family affairs before any other thing. You are the man of the house now. Act like it.”

  Now, as Silas walked quickly toward the Beacon, every sensation—the wind, the smell of earth, the beading of sweat on his forehead—made him feel more and more solid, washing away the mud of his immaturity, firing the clay of the man he hoped to become.

  He could feel the soles of his shoes getting hot as he began climbing the hill. It was as if the soil of the Beacon had been mixed with embers, as if somewhere below his feet a fire was burning and warming the soil. Pausing, Silas leaned over and placed the cool skin of his palm flat on the ground. No illusion. It was warm, and now, with his head closer to the earth, he thought he could hear a kind of music below, a tune tapped out on slate and bone. Standing, he listened again for other sounds. Nothing stirred on the air, but still the drumming below continued, and with its rising rhythm, a vision engulfed him. He closed his eyes and was looking through the ground beneath him into the heart of the hill. Below was a great chamber, a massive vault of stone, and on the slabs of the floor, the dead of the town danced together, hands joined in dozens of interlocking circles, all the ages of Lichport moving with and through each other like the inner workings of a massive clock, turning, turning in a beautiful and terrible danse macabre. He could feel himself leaning toward them, leaning down into the earth. The music pulled at him, but as he began to reach toward the dancers, his grandfather’s face rose up in front of him. He did not speak, but his expression was comforting and seemed to say, Here are your earth-fast kin. They have always been here. We shall always be here. We are with you. On the earth or within it, we are with you.

  Silas opened his eyes. Heart racing, he moved quickly to the top of the hill. Never once during his whole life in Saltsbridge had he ever felt as alive as he did at this moment. Many times after his father had disappeared, Silas had thought of running away. How often had he starting walking, telling himself, Get out. Leave. Who would care? I have nothing here in Saltsbridge now. I can go anywhere, get a job, live my life. Change my name. I could just disappear. Like him. Disappear. But always, always, just at his side, or in his mind, a small, sure voice whispered, Go home. And now he knew the voice had meant Lichport.

  This was where he was meant to be.

  As he mounted the top of the Beacon, the wind began to show its teeth, slavering across the town like a pack of dogs, biting at his skin. He drew up the collar of his jacket and looked out toward the water.

  From the top of the hill, with the dial of the death watch stopped, Silas could see the mist ship in the harbor, a patient and predatory animal waiting on the foam. It felt like the whole world was waiting for him to do something. Nothing would shift until he acted. No more questions now. Looking back over the town, he could see only a crossroads, a place of stasis, a ghost on every rooftop, just sitting there. Like the dead, Silas had made Lichport into his own personal limbo.

  That time was over.

  He released the hand of the death watch, and the mist came away from the land.

  He was going to get his mother out of his uncle’s house. And when he was there, he was going into his uncle’s Camera Obscura, even if he had to break down the door with an ax. Whatever was in there, whoever was in there—his dad, his uncle’s wife, even if it was an empty room—he would look at it straight on and then deal with whatever consequences his uncle might have coming to him. He wasn’t running anymore, and the time for answers had come. Before the night was over, Silas would know what Uncle knew.

  He was the Undertaker. He was responsible not only for his family but for the well-being of the town, its living and its dead. He would go back to his uncle’s house. He would find a way to send the mist ship back to wherever it had come from. He would find his father, one way or another. And when that was done, he would find Bea, too, and help her if he could.

  Silas felt the heat within the hill rising through him, as if all the dead of Lichport were filling up the gaps in his resolve. Every moment he stood there, he grew more certain that his hour was upon him. Hiding wasn’t the answer. Neither was leaving the town’s problems to someone else. Besides, Uncle was his problem. Kin must see to kin. Both his great-grandfather and his uncle had told him that.

  So be it.

  WHEN SILAS GOT BACK HOME, he learned that his return to Temple Street had been anticipated, even expected.

  The note was supposedly from his mother. “Come back,” it read. “I need you. I am ill and I need you. Please visit as soon you can, Si. Please.” He could feel the fear bleeding from the fibers of the paper as his finger smudged the dark ink letters, even though it wasn’t written in his mother’s hand.

  He knew his uncle had written it, and
the knowledge was fuel to the fire that now burned in him.

  Mrs. Bowe was telling him not to go back to that house. She wrung her hands and worried the threads at the edges of her sleeves. She kept saying it and saying it. Like she knew already what was waiting for him there. But he couldn’t be talked out of it. He didn’t feel scared anymore, and he almost didn’t care what he’d find or what might happen to him. If he opened a door in his uncle’s house and found his dad’s corpse, fine. He could cry later. Right now, he just wanted to know the truth. Whatever the answers might be, Silas just wanted all the blank spaces in his life filled in.

  He stood very still. He looked at Mrs. Bowe, willing her to calm down, to stop talking, just for a moment. It seemed to work. She lowered her voice, the shrillness subsiding.

  “I am going to get my mom,” Silas told her calmly.

  They both knew there was another reason he was going.

  “Besides,” he added, “who knows what else I might find in that house? And if I should die trying to find out the truth, well, I think now there are worse things than death.”

  He could see his calm was terrifying her.

  Mrs. Bowe stood up so quickly that she knocked over the small side table next to her chair.

  “Silas, I am asking you to wait. You have friends. People who care about you. People who want to help you. Let’s call some folks over and figure things out. Your uncle is one man, he can’t stand against the whole town. Maybe if some of us went over there together—”

  “The whole town?” Silas interrupted. “How many people would that be, anyway? No. He’s my uncle and my problem. Besides, were you planning on going over there with me? No one’s died that I know of. We are not going to a funeral. Are you leaving the house now? Did I miss something? Are you accepting invitations again? Are you going for walks?”