House of Echoes: A Novel

by Brendan Duffy

  “Yes, that’s true,” Ben said. “Sorry to hear about the Kirkwoods’ troubles, though.”

  “Well, everyone’s got some of their own, I suppose. The sorry year we’re having, it’s a wonder that the bank hasn’t taken half the land in the valley. The town’s bleeding money as it is. We can’t afford to lose any more taxpayers. You know it as well as I from the trust meetings. This year’s worse than last, and last year was mighty bad. Especially with the sickness still hitting the herds. Don’t know how we’re going to keep everything running. Some say we should ask North Hampstead to annex us. Sure, it would save us a pretty penny, but it’s still hard to believe it’s come to that.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Ben said. Now it was Lisbeth’s turn to look at him. “Swannhaven’s been through a lot in three hundred years. It’s going to take more than a burst real estate bubble to finish it off.”

  “It warms my heart to hear you say so.” Lisbeth smiled. “Now tell me how things are going for you.”

  Ben didn’t bring up Hudson; he told her about the progress they’d made on the house. He also mentioned how his book was going, but he was vague on the details. Swannhaven was a private place, and he didn’t know how the villagers would react to the subject of his novel. He mentioned that his brother would be staying with them for Christmas, though Ted traveled so much for work that Ben wasn’t sure when he’d be coming up.

  “Must be a success, too, then. Must be in the blood.”

  “Were the Lowells a success?” Ben asked. The ruins of their dreary farm did not speak of any great achievements. The people there might have been happy and proud and good, but he had not sensed accomplishment.

  “Oh.” She squeezed a wedge of lemon into her tea. “The Lowells were always well thought of around here.”

  Ben noticed a yellowed front page with a huge headline framed and hanging on the wall behind Lisbeth. The Great Fire, it read.

  “How bad was that?” Ben gestured to the frame.

  “The Great Fire of 1878. Let’s say there used to be a lot more buildings in town. Used to be a town, for that matter.”

  “That was around the time the railroad went under, too?”

  “That’s right,” Lisbeth said. “Though I don’t remember that coming up at the Preservation Society.”

  “I’ve been doing a little research on my own,” Ben said. He reached for the milk and he felt her eyes on him. “Oh, and before I forget, Caroline and I are having some people over next Friday—we’re inviting everyone from the trust, and the Bishops will be there, too. We’d love for you to come.”

  “Lord knows I’ve been half-dying to see what you’ve done with the place.”

  “We’re hoping people can come over between six and seven o’clock; can you get away from the Lancelight by then?”

  “It’s the slow season. This time of year, one of the girls could work the register, walk the floor, man the grill, and still have enough time to do her nails.”

  “That’s great. We’re both excited to show you around.”

  “Likewise. Now, should we get down to business? I could jabber on all day, but the old copies of the Dispatch are in the cellar.” She got up and Ben followed her into the kitchen.

  The steps to the cellar were narrow and steep. As they descended, the air became colder. The tight, damp feel of the space reminded Ben of the old Lowell farmhouse.

  “You’re welcome to look at anything down here,” Lisbeth said. They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and the cellar was larger than Ben had expected. There were cardboard boxes piled against three sides of the room and a small desk and chair arranged along the remaining wall. A few framed portraits were hung above the desk. “You won’t find everything in here, but you’ll find everything that survived. Between fires, floods, and careless clerks, you’re sure to see a couple gaps here and there. You know what you’re looking for?”

  “I guess I’m most interested in the major events that the village has been through. It seems to have a more action-packed history than most.”

  “That’s a pretty way of phrasing it,” Lisbeth said.

  “I’m still curious about the Winter Siege, but I guess the Dispatch doesn’t go back that far. I’d love to learn more about the Great Fire that the issue upstairs mentioned, or anything else that you think is interesting.”

  “There was a problem with poisoned water during the Depression.” She moved closer to the stack of boxes. “The Black Water. The crates should be labeled with the year of the issues inside, but I wouldn’t count on much more organization than that. I’d try ’33 for that one. The Great Fire was in 1878. And there was also the sickness that cut through the milk herds; ’82 for that calamity.”

  “That’s the same thing that the cows are getting now?” Ben asked.

  Lisbeth nodded. “Still hasn’t gotten as bad as ’82, though. Not yet, praise God.”

  “I’d love to know more about that. And I’m interested in the fire at the Crofts that killed the Swann boys in the early eighties.”

  “We seem to have trouble with fire, don’t we? That was also ’82.” Lisbeth raised her head to look at one of the framed photos on the wall: a formal black-and-white photo of a handsome teenage boy with porcelain skin, a shock of dark hair, and silver eyes. “Even back as far as the Winter Siege, all the buildings in the valley were burned by the Iroquois, and the homes on the Drop didn’t fare much better. All but yours, of course. Spared by the grace of God.”

  She pointed up to the photograph she’d been looking at. “There’s Mark Swann, one of the boys who died in the fire at the Crofts in ’82,” she said. “What a terrible night. One of those things that—” Her voice caught. Ben saw that she was struggling with tears. He approached her, but she waved him off. She rubbed the sleeve of her blouse over her eyes and collected herself. “A night like that changes a place forever, is what I wanted to say.”

  “Did you know him?” He felt bad to press, but he wanted to know.

  “It’s a very small village, sugar.”

  “Of course. I’m so sorry.”

  “He was a beautiful boy, as you can see.” She ran her hand in front of the other images on the wall. “Here’s Philip Swann; he was taken in 1878. He was just eighteen.” She slid her fingers along the frame of the large portrait.

  “The same year as the Great Fire?” Ben asked. He remembered that Joseph Swann, the artist, had moved to St. Michael’s after the death of his brother.

  “That’s right.” The next one she came to was a large painted portrait. “And you know James Swann from the Winter Siege.” The boy depicted shared the same fine features as the others. “I’m named after his sister, Elizabeth.”

  “They all died so young,” Ben said. In his portrait, James Swann looked no older than Charlie.

  “They used to say that the Swanns were cursed and blessed in equal measures. But I think someone had their finger on the scale.”

  The last of the prominent photos was of an even younger boy. A year, 1933, was scrawled on its corner.

  “Well, I have some paperwork of my own to get through,” Lisbeth said.

  “Why do you have these hung here?” Ben asked as Lisbeth headed for the stairs.

  “They’re beautiful and sad, aren’t they? I have them here so that we can remember. Remember those who were taken before their time. Remember how blessed we are to still be here, and remember how quickly those blessings can change.”

  Ben turned back to the portraits of the Swann boys, their likenesses frozen in youth like a thing caught in amber. Striking young men, all of them.

  “Well, you have me feeling just about low enough to stick my head in an oven,” Lisbeth said. “I’ll leave you to it. I’m trusting you to take care with the papers, now. They’re the last of their kind. When they’re gone, it’ll be as if all of this never happened.” Ben heard her slow steps as she began to heft herself up the stairs. “And it wouldn’t do to forget,” she said. “Even if that’d be the easier
thing, we can never let ourselves forget.”

  30

  Ben spent hours at Lisbeth’s house. When it came time to pick up Charlie, he took three boxes from the Dispatch archives with him: 1878, year of the Great Fire; 1933, year of Black Water; and 1982, year of the fire at the Crofts. Each issue was slim, no more than three pages folded into one another, thin even for a local weekly. While they primarily contained weather forecasts and the kinds of things you might find in a farmer’s almanac, each usually had a couple of news articles, as well. He hoped there would be something in them to jump-start his imagination. At the very least, they’d be useful examples of the local vernacular, something upon which he could model his characters’ dialogue.

  He’d known from the beginning that the novel he was writing was different from his others. There was a piece of him in every character he’d ever written, but he felt a special kinship with the people in this book. Living at the Crofts, as the Swanns had, made for a strong connection. And his people, the Lowells, had been one of the first families here: They’d survived the very Winter Siege that he wrote about. He’d known this in an academic kind of way, but the more time he’d spent with the Preservation Society, the Swannhaven Trust, and the men from the village, the more Ben realized that a part of him had been woven through the whole arc of the narrative from the very beginning. Woven through by both will and blood. Even if it turned out to be a dark and unhappy story, it was one that had always been his to tell. He guessed that this was one reason why it had become so difficult for him to write it. It might also account for why he had become so certain that something was still missing.

  When Ben got to the priory, its pathways were quiet, its grounds still. Early for once, he decided to take advantage of it by telling Father Cal to set up a session between Charlie and the school counselor.

  He found the old priest’s office empty, but a young woman at the administrative desk directed him to the archives in the subbasement. The stairs she sent him down terminated with a single unmarked door.

  Ben had a romantic’s image of the archive: Leather tomes carefully shelved on heavy wood bookcases that stretched to the ceiling. Thousands of books, each one a mysterious bud waiting to flower. A smell that combined desiccated paper and incense with the dusty notes of neglect. Can you see it?

  Ben knew better than to expect an Alexandrian labyrinth, but he was still surprised by the state of the place. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Banks of large metal filing cabinets broke the room into narrow corridors that stretched the length of the floor. Sheaves of paper and accordion files were piled high on top of them. Father Cal poked his head between two of these stacks and saw the look on Ben’s face.

  “It’s a disgrace, I know,” Cal said. “One of the reasons I’ve never taken you down here. Someone was tasked with straightening this room out in the seventies, so they brought in all these horrible filing cabinets. But if you thought their notion of filing meant anything more than shoving papers into drawers to keep them out of sight, you’d be mistaken. I’ve been trying to discern some logic from the organization, but it has thus far eluded me.”

  “I had no idea you had to ford through all this,” Ben said. He pulled open a filing-cabinet drawer. It was wedged so tightly with reams of yellowed paper that he could barely close it.

  “I knew what I was getting myself into when I offered to investigate down here for you.”

  “It’s a shame. There must be some interesting things in here.”

  “Interesting for some, but not for most. More than two centuries of accounting notations and meeting minutes. No wonder no one else seems to care about the place. All the records we keep these days are digital. But, if nothing else, there’s a principle at stake. Monasteries a thousand years older than this one manage to have a well-organized vault of records.” Cal picked a manila folder off the floor. “Of course, when a seeker is forced to deal with chaos like this, it’s that much more rewarding when he’s able to turn something up.” He handed Ben the folder. “There’s probably little here that you’re not aware of, but it was satisfying to find it all in one source.”

  Ben opened the folder to find a tree of names that began with Aldrich Swann and his wife, Sarah, at the top.

  “A partial New World lineage of the family Swann,” Cal told Ben. “You’ll see that Mark and Liam Swann, the ones who died in the fire, aren’t noted here, so this must have been written before their birth. Carlisle Swann was the boys’ father, who passed away some time before they did.”

  Ben had already put together a short family tree that covered the first four generations of the Swanns, but it was good to have a more complete record. At the bottom, Ben recognized the old sisters, Eleanor and Miranda, alongside Carlisle, his wife, and some half-siblings, Emily and Washington. Above them were Dorothy, Tucker, Huntley, some of their spouses, and dozens of other Swanns.

  Whoever had compiled the document had included many of the years of birth and death; Ben had been missing a lot of this information. “This is fantastic. Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure.” Muted church bells sounded from the world above. “Final bell,” Cal said. He flicked off the lights and held the door open for Ben.

  “By way of insufficient thanks, Caroline’s having a dinner party next Friday. We’d love for you to come.”

  “How wonderful. I’m so looking forward to seeing what you’ve done with the place.” Though Ben had told him about the renovations they’d undertaken, Cal hadn’t been to the Crofts since the summer.

  “It’s coming together, slowly,” Ben said. “Caroline thought it’d be a good time to show some people what we’ve done. A very select group, of course.” He smiled.

  “I’m so flattered to be included,” Cal said. They reached the ground floor and began walking to the door where Ben had entered the building. A towheaded student walked by them, wobbling under the strain of a large book bag. The young boy smiled at them as Cal greeted him by name. It was a sweet smile, but Ben’s spirits deflated when he saw it.

  “Caroline and I also discussed Charlie’s drawing,” Ben said. “We agree that he should talk to someone about it. She’s on board for one session, but I don’t know if I can talk her into more without a really good reason.”

  “I already checked with the counselor’s office, and she’s able to talk with Charlie, also next Friday. I’ll call to confirm and explain Caroline’s concerns.”

  “Thanks. Actually, if you could send me the counselor’s number, I’d like to fill her in on the family history before she meets with him.” Ben knew that children could be strange. He knew that they had phases and idiosyncrasies that they would grow out of. But if there really was something wrong with Charlie, Ben wanted the counselor to have all the relevant information.

  Through the door’s pane of glass, Ben saw cliques of boys jostle one another, laughing as they ran along the pathways to the buses.

  Then he saw Charlie and his tousled black hair, walking slowly and alone, staring at his feet.

  31

  The fabric store in Gracefield carried many patterns but nothing Caroline liked.

  The headache that had sat behind her eyes surged under the fluorescent lights. Bub was wrapped around her left leg, his feet on top of her own, his face buried in her pant leg, making kissing sounds into the crook of her knee. She waved off help from a salesperson for the third time and began to have difficulty discerning white from ivory. She felt too warm, and the harsh light seemed to accrue a physical weight.

  Caroline slung Bub over her shoulder and returned to her car. She sat in the driver’s seat, out of breath. It struck her as wet outside, though it had not rained. She listened to the sound of traffic in front and the toddler talk behind. She’d been feeling steadily worse since the ladies had left. She paced her breathing, trying to slow her heart rate.

  Ben was the problem. The idea of him talking behind her back had made her sick. She’d also slept fitfully after last night’s activities, and i
t had caught up to her. She could still summon the sound of Ben shouting at Charlie as it rang through the windows and pulled her from sleep. He almost never yelled, but he was wound tighter than she’d ever seen him. Tears swelled her eyes when she thought of what a stranger he’d become.

  Stop, she commanded herself. Pull yourself together. The websites she’d read advised to break a task down into manageable parts if she began to feel overwhelmed. She stuck her key in the car’s ignition and turned it.

  Bub said something to her, and Caroline tried to smile at him through the reflection of the rearview mirror. The websites also recommended that she visualize a wall between her and her troubles. She should construct this wall from bricks, each of which represented something that strengthened her. Bub was one of the bricks that she could always count on.

  Yes, for every problem, God offered a solution. Caroline just had to be aware of her state of mind, take her herbal treatments, and muster her strengths, brick by brick. By doing this, Caroline could handle not only the holidays and the Crofts but also her problems with Ben and her worries about Charlie.

  In the backseat, Bub muttered something in the neighborhood of his brother’s name, and Caroline realized she’d been talking aloud.

  “You won’t leave me, will you, Bub?” she asked the baby. “If you wandered in the dark alone, you would tell me about it, right? If you spent all your time in the forest, you’d invite me along sometimes, wouldn’t you?”

  She began to cry then. The tears came in a torrent, and sobs racked her chest. The car lurched, and when she looked up she was surprised to see that she was stopped in the middle of the Crofts’s gravel drive, just past the ruined outbuilding. The sky had seemed bright a moment before; now it was a study in gray scale. Behind her, Bub was wide-eyed. She looked at the clock and saw that almost two hours had passed since she’d walked out of the fabric store. She could not account for the lost afternoon.