The Spirit Wood

by Robert Masello

  “They did a good job of fixing the car,” he said. “Runs fine.”

  “I think it runs better than it used to.”

  “Are you suggesting that we should have accidents more often?” he asked, and Meg, relieved to find that he could make any sort of joke at all on the subject, said, “I don't know if I'd go that far.” Peter reached over and, with one hand, gently stroked her cheek. Meg closed her eyes and, bending her head, captured the hand between her cheek and shoulder. She needed to feel this warmth, to preserve for a few seconds the tenderness of the gesture; since the night of Byron's party, she hadn't even attempted to make love with Peter. She couldn't bear the thought of another failure; from now on, she'd decided, she would wait until Peter himself took the initiative, until he voluntarily came to her. But still it was hard to wait.

  At the Syosset exit, they pulled off the expressway and followed the Route 1 artery past gas stations, carpet warehouses, and home decorating centers until the road narrowed to two lanes, lined on both sides by trees, small scruffy fields, the occasional vegetable stand. It was another warm and sunny spring day, and the breeze from the open windows blew Meg's hair into a slow, golden swirl around her shoulders. Peter had replaced his wire-rims with a pair of prescription sun glasses.

  “I think we're technically in Passet Bay around now,” said Meg. “We ought to see Huntington Road pretty soon.”

  “No sooner said than done,” said Peter, pointing with one finger to a small green and white sign mounted on a cement post just ahead. Canopied by tall, leafy trees, Huntington Road veered off Route 1 at a slight angle. Peter slowed down as they read the names and numbers of the mailboxes that appeared every few hundred yards along the road; the houses, some of which could be seen through the trees and behind the carefully laid-out shrubberies, ranged from stately old homes with broad front porches to modern wood and glass contraptions with solar panels and hot-tub decks. As the numbers decreased, from twenty-six to twenty to fifteen, the space between the homes grew greater and greater, and less and less could be seen through the trees and thick foliage.

  “Not a lot of low-income housing out here,” Peter remarked.

  “There's a twelve, on that gatepost,” said Meg with barely suppressed excitement. “Ten can't be far off.”

  The road suddenly dipped into a pocket of shadow and swerved sharply to the right. Peter had been looking back at the last gatepost, and when he turned his head he saw an open jeep with a gleaming steel roll-bar hurtling over the incline and straight down at them. A boy in a shiny silver windbreaker twisted the wheel; two or three other teenagers grabbed at the seats and dashboard. Peter slammed on the brakes and, throwing one arm across Meg, used the other to steer the skidding car off the road. Branches and leaves and rocks crunched beneath the tires. The jeep flashed past them, with a thump of tires reconnecting with the pavement, and a loud blast of its horn. One of those gimmicky horns, playing the bugle call that announces the start of a horse race. The last few notes trailed off down the road behind them. Peter felt the right front tire of their car bump to a halt against the rising shoulder of the road. Meg was rigid in her seat, eyes closed, all the color drained from her face. One of her arms was extended against the dash, the other wrapped protectively across her stomach.

  “It's okay,” he whispered in relief, leaning toward her and taking hold of the arm she instinctively held, still, across her abdomen. “It's okay—we're okay.”

  She dropped her hand from the dashboard and almost imperceptibly let out her breath. She opened her eyes slowly, looking straight ahead with a glazed, unfocused expression. Peter knew what it was she was seeing again, what she was feeling. He knew that, in her mind's eye, it was a cold, starless night, not a warm, sunny day. In his own left arm, he felt the sharp, shooting pain that he'd awakened to that night. “It's okay, honey. No damage done. None. We're okay,” and he stopped himself short just before adding “this time.” But the words hovered in the air just as if he'd said them.

  Meg gradually appeared to come back to life; she squeezed his hand with her own and, without saying anything, put her face to his shoulder, pressing her lips in a silent kiss against the fabric of his shirt. After a few seconds, she pulled herself back, brushed the hair away from her eyes, and said, with as much spirit as she could muster, “Well, what do you say we get going. Or are we stuck?”

  “I don't think so,” he said, still studying her to be sure she was all right. He put the car into reverse; the tires spun in the loose dirt and undergrowth before catching hold. He backed up a few yards, then straightened out and pulled back onto the road.

  “Are you okay?” she asked in a soft, unsteady voice.

  “Who, me? I'm fine,” he said. “I was just testing my reflexes back there.” He smiled weakly.

  They drove along slowly, scanning the thick wall of trees and brush for any sign of a mailbox, driveway, or gate. The road ran straighter now, with sunlight only occasionally breaking through the tangle of branches overhead. But even after driving the distance of a few generous city blocks, they still had seen no opening or address. The foliage, wilder and denser than it had been anywhere farther up the road, offered no glimpse of a house or garage or signpost. At one point, where there was a small break in the trees, Meg thought she saw, about ten feet in from the shoulder, a strand of black barbed wire strung along parallel to the road. At another spot, where the sunlight managed to pierce the overhanging boughs, she saw it clearly, at the same height—only this time, she could see it was one of four or five strands running from ground level to a height of eight or ten feet. It appeared to have been threaded, as if for camouflage, among the trees and brush. Sometimes the wire seemed to disappear altogether for a stretch, but knowing where to look and what she was looking for, Meg was always able to find it again just a bit farther on.

  “Peter, don't look now—and I do mean that—but there appears to be a lot of very mean-looking barbed wire on our side of the road.”

  “Where?” he said. “I haven't seen any.”

  “Back in the trees, a few yards in from the road. A lot of it's wound around behind tree trunks and branches, but it's there, and it's been there for the last quarter mile or so.”

  “You mean, you think it's ours?”

  “I'm getting that feeling.”

  “I thought it was illegal to string up barbed wire in an area like this. I wonder who Gramps was trying to keep out.”

  “Or in,” said Meg in mock-ominous tones.

  Peter laughed. “The Dark Secret of Arcadia. Maybe we'll find I've got a grandmother locked in the attic of the house.”

  “If you do, I hope she doesn't mind dusting.”

  “Pay dirt,” said Peter, slowing the car and indicat- ing two slim stone pillars on the opposite sides of a tall, black wrought-iron gate. “You see any number on it?”

  “Not yet, but give me a couple of hours,” Meg replied, scanning the elaborately filigreed gates, molded into a thousand intricate curves and swirls. Part of the design, she thought, might be the number of the house, but as she studied the gates all she could see were fleeting half-formed shapes, swimming in circles, dancing uncoalesced just beyond her imaginative powers to formulate them. What beautiful work, she thought with the artisan's eye. Nobody does work like this anymore. Nobody could.

  “Bingo,” Peter said. “Ten on the bottom of the gatepost. This, believe it or not, is the place. How do you think we get in?”

  “Open the gates and drive through?”

  “That may be easier said than done,” observed Peter, putting the car into neutral and climbing out. He walked to the gates and peered down the rough gravel driveway. Meg saw him push at the gates, but they didn't even shake. Then she noticed a white intercom box mounted on the left pillar. Leaning her head out the open window, she called, “Sherlock! There's an intercom on the gatepost. Try that.”

  Peter saluted briskly, then grimaced as if the gesture had hurt his arm; he pressed the button on the box. After a f
ew seconds, a crackly voice inquired, “Who?”

  “Peter Constantine. I believe Mr. Kennedy called to say—”

  “I unlock the gates,” the voice interrupted. “Just follow the drive. But don't get out of the car.”

  Before Peter could ask why not, the gates clicked and swung ponderously open. Peter looked at Meg as if to say “Don't ask me what's going on,” got back in the car, and drove through. The driveway swerved to the left after fifteen or twenty yards and meandered through thick trees, up and down slight inclines, past an occasional bit of open ground. It reminded Peter of certain historic houses and parks he'd visited, places where robber barons had built retreats and where summer concerts were now held in outdoor pavilions. But there, the lawns were carefully mowed, the hedges clipped, and there were signs pointing to parking fields or rest rooms. Here, everything had a wild, untamed air about it; if he hadn't known he was in an enclosed, private estate, Peter would have guessed he was simply out in the woods somewhere. The grass along the sides of the drive was lush and green, but uncut; the trees had been planted with no apparent plan or symmetry and, even to Peter's untrained eye, seemed to need pruning, if that was the right word for untangling some of the broken thickets or pulling out some of the felled, moss-covered trunks.

  “Something tells me the caretaker here isn't real big on landscape gardening,” said Peter.

  The driveway began to rise, very slowly but steadily, through a close and narrow defile of trees, until it suddenly opened up into a large, circular cul-de-sac. On the far side, set back from the drive by a sprawling stone staircase which rose to a broad portico, stood the house itself, caught in the early afternoon sunlight. Three stories high, of dull white stone, it appeared to be nothing so much as an ancient Greek temple that had been grafted, in some unnatural way, onto a French Renaissance palace; immense white pillars soared past narrow rectangular windows to a flat roof bordered by an ornamental balustrade. Everything about the house, from the sculpted pediments atop the columns to the enormous wings which extended on either side of the main doors, bespoke an intended orderliness in its design, and yet the final effect was one of colossal confusion and misguided expense. It was a house that strove for grandeur and ended, far short, in extravagant pretension.

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Meg, in awe, “what an elephant.”

  "Our elephant,” corrected Peter, his head lowered in order to take it all in from behind the windshield. As if not wanting to get too close yet, he parked the car just at the end of the drive. Meg started to get out.

  “The guy on the squawkbox said to stay in the car. You see any reason to do that?” They both turned in their seats to look around.

  “Looks all clear on my side,” said Meg.

  “Except for that,” said Peter, and Meg turned to see what Peter was referring to—a man, small and swarthy, emerging from behind the car to the left. He was wearing a canvas fishing hat squashing down tight on his head and black rubber boots with the buckles unclasped. He appeared to be about fifty, with a thick fringe of gray beard, and walked slightly stooped over, with an odd kind of sideways gait.

  “The caretaker?” Meg suggested.

  “You must be Nikos,” Peter called to him, stepping out of the car.

  The man looked up from beneath the brim of his cap, raised his hand, but said nothing. His baggy khaki pants, held up by red suspenders, flapped loosely around his legs.

  “I'm Peter Constantine. This is my wife, Meg. I hope you were notified we'd be coming out.”

  The head nodded vigorously, and the man wiped his hands, front and back, on his trousers.

  “Nikos,” he said, introducing himself. Peter put out his hand, but rather than shaking it in the usual fashion, Nikos reached out with a straight arm and grasped it from above. He squeezed it with surprising strength and, looking up at Peter, smiled broadly; his face was creased and weather-beaten, and his eyes a deep, rich brown.

  “My wife, Meg,” Peter said again as Meg came around to their side of the car.

  “We were paying attention to your instructions,” Meg said, “and staying in the car.”

  “The dogs—Fifi and Fritz—they were running loose. I had to call them in and tell them who you are.”

  “I hope they took the news okay,” said Peter, smiling. Nikos shrugged and said, “With dogs, who can tell?” Meg and Peter laughed.

  “So,” said Nikos, scratching his beard and casting a quick eye around them, “you came here from New York City, yes?”

  “No, from New Jersey,” Peter replied. “A little town called Mercer.”

  Nikos nodded his head, but without appearing to have really registered the information. It seemed to Peter that he was waiting for something. He appeared nervous, and his dark eyes never rested anywhere for more than a second. Finally, as if he couldn't wait any longer for what he'd hoped would come up unsolicited, he glanced up and, with just a hint of wounded pride, said, “And so, what do you think of it"—he gestured with a sweep of his short, muscular arm— “the house? Your grandfather, he was very proud of this house—the plans for it, he made them all up in his own head,” he said, tapping his hat for emphasis. He gazed across at the house with evident satisfaction, and Peter and Meg felt obliged to do the same. That his grandfather had arranged for the house to be built came as a great surprise to Peter; it meant that the place couldn't possibly be more than fifteen or twenty years old, though it looked as if it had stood there for centuries. And it wasn't just the archaic, jumbled design that gave that impression; it was the dour, dilapidated look of the stone, the way that the fluting on some of the columns appeared to have been worn away by decades of rain and wind, the cracks and crevices in the steps, distinguishable even from across the drive. The casement windows, in black lead frames, appeared to have been set there forever, like so many blank and unwinking eyes. The doors, two massive black panels—Peter couldn't be sure, but they appeared to be made of some sort of metal rather than wood—had a dull, antique patina to them and looked as if they were no more meant for use than the iron doors of a mausoleum.

  “Your grandfather,” said Nikos, as if the old man were somehow present in the house still, “he was a great man. But yes, you know that?” he asked, half, it seemed, as a question, and half a challenge.

  Peter cleared his throat. “I never really had the chance to meet him. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know he lived here.”

  Nikos shook his head sadly while looking at the ground, as if he couldn't understand how such things could occur in a family. As he did so, he uneasily shifted his weight back and forth from one leg to the other, once or twice suddenly stepping backwards to regain his balance. Meg wondered what exactly was wrong with his legs; the pants were so baggy it was impossible to guess.

  “I hope we're not interrupting your work,” she said, thinking he might be in pain and want to go and sit down somewhere. “If it's all right, we could just wander around on our own for a while. There isn't any quicksand or anything to watch out for, is there?”

  The joke was lost, because the term clearly meant nothing to Nikos. “Sand?” he said. “No, there is no sand. Just rocks, down at the water. At the boathouse. Did you want to go down there?” he asked, as if the request was not what he'd expected.

  “Well, no, not particularly,” Meg said, “not if it's a problem, certainly.” She laughed self-consciously and looked to Peter for help. “I don't think I even remembered there was a boathouse.”

  “We just thought we'd spend a couple of hours poking around the place,” Peter stepped in. “You know, seeing what my grandfather had built here, how he lived.” He thought a bit of reverence toward his forebear might impress Nikos. “I'd like to get to know him, as much as I can, from looking around the grounds and"—he paused, not sure how Nikos would react, then was suddenly irked with himself for needing a caretaker's approval—"the house itself. We'd like to look over the house, too.”

  Nikos, to Peter's relief, appeared pleased. “Yes, goo
d,” he said. “But can I ask you, can you wait for just another hour or so before you go inside? My daughter, Leah, she's been cleaning, putting things right. I think she would like to finish what she's doing and show you everything the way it should be. Can you wait that long?”

  Peter and Meg raced to assure him that was fine. Meg, for reasons she couldn't exactly pinpoint, wanted to get away from him; at first she'd thought it was concern over the old man's discomfort—funny, she caught herself thinking of him as old, even though he wasn't really—but then she realized it was something else. He was being perfectly pleasant, even accommodating; he'd given her absolutely no reason to take offense or to be uneasy. And yet, she was. She felt, inexplicably, the way she had when she was a little girl and her father had taken her for a pony ride at a carnival. The pony was beautiful, her father had said, the pony was her friend. But when she'd looked into the pony's lowered eyes to judge the safety of climbing onto its back, she'd seen no expression there, no welcome—only great, bulging eyes that glistened wetly, observing her, waiting for her. It was the first time in her life she remembered experiencing something as distinctly “other,” something that was large and alive but unutterably foreign, not to be communicated with in any way she knew. Not, above all, to be trusted. She rode the pony that day—her father had hoisted her up before she knew it—but she never did again.

  “Me, I don't move so good,” Nikos was saying. “I get trouble in my legs. Go, look around. I will find you later. And anyway,” he confided, “I like in the afternoon to take a little rest. Your grandfather,” he said, smiling and wagging one finger at Peter, “he used to say to me, ‘Nikos, I can never find you in the afternoon. Where do you go to—you are nowhere.’ “