Whisper Hollow

by Chris Cander

  She clutched it to her chest, knuckles going white as she listened to Alta. And then, the clock stopped ticking. The faucet stopped dripping. The cicadas stopped screaming. There was no noise, no heat, no light, no air. Nothing but the faint, urgent voice that came from the telephone receiver she’d dropped on the floor, “Lidia, stay where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

  June 28, 1969

  Alta had been restless that night; there was something too stark in the way the moon hung so full and low outside her bedroom window. She tried rolling away from it, plumping and punching the pillows, but the shadows that swayed on the opposite wall felt just as disarming as the moon. Finally, she flung back the sheet, pulled her work pants on underneath her nightgown, stepped into her boots, and went outside to confront the sky.

  Walking into the garden, Alta surveyed the asparagus ferns. The emerging spears shot up thin as pencils, which meant the end of that year’s harvest. John had told her back then that the plants would last twenty years if they were well cared for. It had been twenty-three. She wondered how many more crops these plants would yield.

  An owl screeched somewhere in the distance, loud. Then again. Alta was used to the sounds of owls defending their territories and seeking mates, but this one sounded not angry or amorous, but hurt. Desperate somehow. There it was again. Alta turned toward it and listened and when she heard it another time, it was clear: that was no owl.

  Without a thought, she took off running, following the sound, hopping over the branches and brambles that lay in her path. In a few minutes, she knew from where the crying came. She’d worn a route between the cabin and the mine during those long, haunted years, those unfathomably dark nights with nothing but the owls and crickets and fallen leaves and snow and ghosts for company. It wasn’t uncommon for her to pull on her pants and boots under her nightgown — dressed half for day and half for night, perfect for the half life she’d lived since then — and make her way down to the entrance of the mine, where she would sit and remember or beg or simply listen in case any of them would care to speak to her. But they never did, and so she played their parts in her mind, speaking for and with them, working out the details of their last hours over and over, always hoping that by some miracle of time or circumstance, they would come walking out from underground, all of them, coal-dusted but breathing, and she’d be there, waiting. To forgive and be forgiven.

  A woman’s voice twisted tightly, ululating, “No, no, no, no.” It grew louder as she approached, but only slightly, as though the woman was growing weaker as Alta drew near.

  Alta saw her: on her knees, her back curled forward, rocking. The hands, she could imagine, clasped together. She looked just as she did nearly forty years before, kneeling and sobbing at the foot of the Virgin on her wedding day.

  She reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Myrthen,” she whispered. “Myrthen, what’s wrong?”

  There came no answer except the ghost-owl screech of no-no-no-no, quieted now to merely a whisper. Alta, following Myrthen’s blank stare, walked the few steps forward to the edge of the highwall and looked.

  Then screamed.

  She ran to the clearing that led down, not caring how steeply, grasping thistles and weeds and skidding on scree bottom-first and bumping down the two stories of shale, scraping and tearing, until she got to Gabriel. He lay with his arms and legs splayed out, one leg bent an odd way. One of his shoes had come off and his pale foot seemed to glow in the moonlight. He wasn’t moving. She touched his face with both hands, then his chest and ribs, feeling for breath. He was still, but he was breathing. With a heady mix of panic and relief, she gathered him up into her arms, holding her breath and willing him to consciousness, until finally she was able to scream, “HELP!”

  A sound so fierce and immediate, it silenced everything between them and the nearest pair of ears, which, after a short time and some repeated calls, came running. Of all people, it was Danny, followed staggeringly by his soon-to-be-sober father-in-law, Stanley.

  Danny slid feet first into the dirt beside Alta and pulled Gabriel from her arms into his own. “Is he dead?” he screamed. “Is he dead?”

  “He’s breathing,” Alta said. “But he’s hurt. His leg. I think it’s broken.”

  “What happened?” Stanley asked.

  “He fell, I don’t know. Myrthen Bergmann’s up there, crying. I don’t know.”

  “I left Gabe with her while I went looking for Mr. Kielar.” His face turned ashen, and he looked up at her from a hollow place, like a scared little boy, not someone’s father. “It’s my fault.”

  Alta shook her head. “Where’s Lidia?”

  “Movies.” Danny started to stand. “We gotta get him to the hospital.” Gabriel lolled in his arms.

  “Wait,” Stanley said, forcing the slur from his words. “Lay him flat.” He bent down and swiped at the ground with his rough hand, clearing it of rocks.

  “You’re drunk, Stanley. He needs a doctor!” Danny said.

  “I know it. But look at his foot. It’s turning blue.” Stanley reached out and cupped Gabriel’s foot. Blood ran down Gabriel’s leg, and dripped off his heel onto the ground. “No pulse in his foot. Here,” he said, pointing to the space he’d cleared. “Gentle now.” Cupping Gabriel’s head as Danny laid him on the dirt, he ran his hands gently over Gabriel’s left leg, feeling the thigh where blood soaked his blue jeans. “Broken. We gotta set it.” He stood up, wobbling a moment, then finding his balance. “Sticks.”

  “Can’t we just get him downtown?” Danny said.

  “Stanley’s right,” Alta said. “No pulse in his foot means the blood supply’s kinked up.”

  Stanley returned with two branches from a fallen maple. He held first one and then the other against his thigh and broke them at the collar, stripped them of their thin offshoots. “Give her your shirt,” he said to Danny, all hint of liquor drained from his voice. Then to Alta, “Tear it. Three strips. Now, Danny, you hold him under the arms while I pull.” Danny, flustered, didn’t move.

  “Do it!” Stanley yelled.

  Danny pulled off his shirt and flung it toward Alta, who started ripping it at the seams. Then Danny crouched down at Gabriel’s head and leaned over him to get a firm grip at his armpits.

  “Got him tight?” Stanley asked. Danny nodded. Stanley held on to Gabriel’s ankle with both hands, then took a deep breath and seemed to say a short prayer. With a hard, controlled yank that produced a crunching sound like a truck stopping hard on a gravel road, he pulled Gabriel’s leg straight. Danny let go of Gabriel’s arms, turned away, and vomited in the dirt.

  Alta blew out a hard breath and put her hand on Gabriel’s forehead, grateful he wasn’t awake to feel that pain. Holding Gabriel’s foot, Stanley watched as the color started to return.

  “Is it set?” Alta asked.

  He nodded, then pressed the two maple branches against either side of Gabriel’s leg and told Danny to hold them in place. He threaded the strips of cloth under the bundle and tied them as tight as he could without cutting off circulation again.

  “Danny, you and me’ll carry him down. Alta, you find Lidia and tell her to meet us at Doc Bartlett’s.” Stanley nodded at Danny, who bent down to lift Gabriel into his arms while Stanley took hold of the splinted leg.

  “Go slow, hear?” Alta said. “Danny?”

  “We got him.” They started awkwardly down the mountain, Danny stepping blindly over stumps and rocks, Stanley walking sideways. Alta watched them for just a moment before she turned her attention back to the moaning coming from above.

  When Alta climbed back up the slope, hurrying past the fatigue and the ache that was settling into her bones, she found Myrthen where she’d left her, kneeling on the rocky ground and mumbling. She reached down, not gently, grabbing Myrthen under her upper arm, feeling the flesh yield beneath the black wool.

  “What happened?” She gave Myrthen’s arm a firm shake. “Why did Gabriel fall?”

  “Ha
ve mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love — ”

  “Stop that, hear? Tell me what happened!”

  “According to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions — ”

  Alta slapped Myrthen across the face, hard enough to leave a ghost-white impression of her hand before the blood rushed back and turned the handprint red. The praying stopped, but Myrthen didn’t look at her. “Stand up,” Alta said, and pulled. “Danny said he left Gabriel with you. Why are you out here? Why did he fall?”

  Myrthen looked up at her, still rocking. “He wanted his daddy,” she whispered.

  “And what? You brought him here?”

  She dropped her head again and shook it, slowly, from side to side. “He was running. I went after him …”

  “And what? What did you do?” Alta grabbed Myrthen’s arm again. “What did you do?”

  “I tried to stop him, I screamed, and she called me a meanie and said I didn’t know how to play baby. But it was my birthday doll, mine.” Myrthen began to sob. “Oh mighty God, forgive me …”

  “Stand up!” Alta said. She hauled Myrthen’s dead weight to her feet and held her at the wrist. “I need to use the telephone. I’ll let Father Timothy decide what to do with you.”

  Alta walked, hard and fast, toward St. Michael’s, dragging Myrthen behind her. She thought of Gabriel running, wondered why and where he was going, why Danny had left him with Myrthen. Behind her, Myrthen stumbled, mumbling a few plaintive snatches of prayer. Alta increased her pace. When they were within sight of the church, she urged Myrthen to hurry. Then, when they were on the path leading to the closed doors, Myrthen tripped on something and fell, breaking Alta’s grip with a yank. Alta turned and found Myrthen in a crumpled pile, her weight on one hip and both forearms in the dirt. Her hair had come undone and hung around her face in black clumps shot through with gray. She sat and sobbed.

  When Alta bent down and tried to help her up, Myrthen only dropped her head against her arms and cried harder. “Are you hurt?” Alta asked. Myrthen shook her head against the backs of her hands. “Come on now,” Alta said, her voice softening. “Get up.” But she made no other move toward Myrthen. Instead, she cupped her hands to her mouth and directed her voice toward the church.

  “Father Timothy!” she called. “Father Timothy!” Then she turned back to Myrthen and said, “Wait here. I’ll get help.”

  Myrthen lifted her head and slowly pushed herself up. Not bothering to move her hair from her face or wipe her nose or brush the tear-streaked dirt from her cheeks, she looked up at Alta and whispered, “Forgive me.”

  Alta looked at Myrthen, at her filthy, beautiful face, her pleading eyes as the night swirled around them. They had nothing in common but everything: a wedding day, a man, widowhood, emptiness, grief, age. Alta didn’t know her at all, didn’t know what sins she had committed, what secrets she bore. Likewise, Myrthen, she assumed, didn’t know any of hers. But Alta knew this: she’d taken something from Myrthen years before, something Myrthen didn’t want but that nonetheless had belonged to her. Alta could just as easily have been the one on the ground, begging forgiveness.

  “We’re all guilty of something,” Alta said. It was as close to a confession as she would come, and as close to absolution as she could offer. Whether it was enough, she didn’t know and, quite frankly, didn’t care, because at that moment Father Timothy came running toward them, his bathrobe like an unbuttoned cassock flapping at his sides.

  June 28, 1969

  Father Timothy held Myrthen by the elbow, and she stumbled, glassy-eyed and mute, alongside him to the church. He tried coaxing more information from her to complete Alta’s story, but all she would say was, “He ran away, he ran away,” in a voice that dwindled to a whisper. Shrinking into herself, she seemed to grow older with every step. They made an odd pair — him with his white hair standing erratically on end; her hunched over her guilt, cradling it like a newborn child.

  Father Timothy guided her to the confessional and closed the door after she went in. On his own side, he waited for her to begin the usual way, Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, but she did not. She knelt on the prie-dieu, shivering in spite of the summer heat, then rested her forehead onto her hands, which were knotted together as though in prayer, but no prayers came. Not in her entire life could she recall ever having felt more alone. She had forsaken herself. I could die here, she thought. A throaty, gasping sob escaped her, and Father Timothy slid open the window between them.

  “Myrthen?”

  But she couldn’t — or wouldn’t — answer. She couldn’t beg forgiveness, because she knew that she didn’t deserve it. Even if God were merciful, even if He would erase the stain of her sin if she could confess it, she could not bring herself to speak those secrets she had borne and buried. Instead, she sobbed into her fists. When she finished, she looked up through the tiny window at Father Timothy, and by the disappointed expression on his face, she knew that she hadn’t buried her secrets deeply enough. He didn’t know the details but still, he knew.

  Slowly, she stopped crying. She lifted her head and unclasped her hands, pried herself off her knees, and, as she uncurled herself from the confessional, she dropped her tangled rosary beads quietly on the floor. Then she left the church for the final time, without a single word to or from God.

  August 13, 1969

  Lidia stood with the fingertips of one hand pressed against her mouth, considering the mountain of cardboard boxes in the middle of the living room. They were marked in her neat and sprawling hand: “kitchen,” “books,” “clothes,” “mementos.” And “Gabriel.” When Danny’s acceptance letter from the City University of New York arrived in late July, they had decided — with Alta’s encouragement — that he would enroll for the fall semester.

  “It’ll be hard, I know. But you deserve a new start,” she had told them. Alta had come to stay with them after Gabriel’s accident, to fend off the intrepid few who were still greedy for whatever Gabriel might have known or seen or remembered. Finding buried treasure or filling in the gaps of history or confirming some treachery or assuaging some guilt. They wanted whatever they could get, even if they couldn’t ask him directly. “You stay here and what’ll you have? Ghosts. That’s what you’ll have and that’s what you’ll become. Just look at me.”

  “Come with us, then,” Lidia said.

  Alta wrapped her hands around a cup of coffee and looked out the window. “I had the chance to go to New York City once.” She smiled. “A long time ago. My uncle Punk and aunt Maggie lived there. I’ve told you about them. She was going to take me to the theater.” Alta shrugged one shoulder. “But I didn’t go and didn’t go, and then I was married and had Abel and I couldn’t go even if I wanted to. But by then, I didn’t want to. Next thing I knew, everyone I ever loved was gone.” She shook her head. “I was only thirty-eight when I lost them all. Thirty-eight. That number seems awfully young looking back.”

  “Why didn’t you leave then?”

  “Maybe I should have left, I don’t know. I wasn’t ready. Or brave enough. Maybe that was it.” She thought of Maggie and the Silver Palace Theater that she’d never seen and the cigarette she’d tried — and failed — to smoke. And of the life she’d led and the loves she’d buried in Verra, the loneliness of being on her own in the woods, surrounded by asparagus and memories.

  “I remember that day,” Alta said, turning back to Lidia. “That day two and a half years ago or so when Gabriel got lost in the hollow and found me.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “That’s how it was. He found me. Not the other way around. I didn’t know how lost I was until then. Maybe that’s why I stayed. So I could meet you and Gabe.” Alta shook her head. “Anyway, it’s too late for me now.”

  The soulful part of Lidia, the maternal, the emotional, couldn’t bring herself to get rid of any of Gabriel’s things. But the practical side, the one that had governed most of her uncommon life, knew it didn’t make sense to take everything wit
h them to a tiny student-housing apartment in New York City. She packed a box of books and stuffed animals, holding each one for a moment before putting them inside. Most of Gabriel’s baby clothes — except for a few sentimental outfits and his first pair of shoes, which her mother-in-law had had bronzed — would be donated. There were some things of his that she wanted Alta to have: the firefly jar Danny had retrieved, a crayon drawing he’d done of the cabin, his fishing rod —

  “Mama, not that!”

  Lidia spun around, gasped. “Gabriel! My goodness, you scared me.”

  He limped over to her, leaning on his little cane, and pulled the fishing rod out of the box. “I want to keep it.”

  “But, Gabe, there’s not going to be any place to go fishing in the city. I thought we could leave it at Alta’s so it’d be here when we come back to visit her. Would that be all right?”

  Reluctantly, he put the fishing rod back. “Okay,” he said.

  She put a few more things inside and sealed it. “It’s time. We need to go up and say goodbye. How’s your leg? Think you can make it?”

  Gabriel nodded. Lidia picked up the box and adjusted its heft. The contents were heavy but the weight was bearable. She stepped out into a draft of warm summer air, waited for Gabriel to pass, then back-kicked the door closed behind her. Slowly, they made their way one last time down through town and across the creek and up the Hollow to Alta’s.

  The light slanted low already. Katydids and crickets cried out as the pair walked, breaking small, dry branches and scattering the animals that lived low to the ground. How many times had they made this journey, Lidia watching Gabriel scamper ahead, both of them anticipating the warmth of Alta’s cabin? The cups of tea and bowls of soup and hours of conversation. Lidia could hardly imagine how much she was going to miss these walks — and Alta.