On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home

by Gregory Miller

  Grandma leaned forward. “He was right, you see. If you ever go up there again—though I’m not saying you should, even if you are older now—you’d see the same young saplings in the same places, same height, same branches, that were there when you were a child. There would be a few more, since Mrs. Forester had a still-born baby two years back and that sweet Schretengoss child died of leukemia, but besides them the saplings in the forest would be the same. And the older trees? The ones when I was young are the same as the day they appeared, but have since been joined by many, many others.”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean, ‘appeared?’”

  “Just like you saw all those years ago,” Grandma said. “A tree that hadn’t been there before, full-grown, pushed those old steps up so you could swing your legs from the lowest branch.” She paused, allowing me to piece everything together so I could say it back to her, paraphrased and simplified, evidence of my understanding.

  But I wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  “You mean…” I began.

  “…that when someone in Still Creek has to leave, and that leave-taking involves a funeral home and last rites, Still Creek Wood gets a little larger,” Grandma finished. “One tree larger, to be exact. Yes. You’ve got it.”

  I looked up the incline of the back yard, to where the tops of Still Creek Wood waved in a cool spring breeze.

  “I believe it,” I said at last, quietly.

  Grandma took my hand. “Say it back to me.”

  “Whenever someone in Still Creek dies, Still Creek Wood gains a tree.”

  “Good.”

  Then we were silent, and it was the silence of deep thoughts.

  Finally, “But why was I attacked? I did nothing wrong.”

  Grandma sighed. “Because some of those trees, like the people they used to be, are cantankerous. Some downright bad. Rotten. Your grandpa got along with most everyone in town, won the respect of all he knew. That’s why he felt safe when he went walking in there, and why I didn’t worry too much when you went along with him. But given half a chance, the bad will always work what mischief they can, and by yourself you weren’t protected. Now maybe you can go back, if you have a mind. But if you do, promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “But why would I want to go back?” I said.

  “Oh heavens, did you forget the tree by the stone steps?”

  “No, but…”

  “Goodness, haven’t you guessed?” Tears again came freely to my grandmother’s eyes and spilled down her creased cheeks.

  And I made the last, great connection.

  Grandma must have seen the light in my face. “That’s right,” she said softly, and patted my hand. “That’s right.”

  * * *

  And now, age thirty, married and on the cusp of another era in my life, I wonder if I should finally go back. I didn’t that day. Perhaps I was still too incredulous. Or too frightened. But now I want to go, I really do. Loss, that crushing wheel, has turned again.

  I got the call this morning. Sometime during the night, Grandma passed away.

  I keep wondering… will it be there if I go?

  I’ll choose a sunny day in early spring, the season when life in all its forms is granted renewal. I will walk up through the yard of the empty house, past the flower garden under the maple tree, the flagstone walk, and the tool shed; past the burn pile, the three overgrown pines, and the spring. I will enter the woods and find my way, with great care, to the old stone steps.

  And will it be there? The second oak beside the first? New but not, full-grown and splendid?

  Will the two trees rustle their leaves in the warm, still air, just for me?

  The Saver

  Their car broke down thirty miles from Bedford, the nearest town with a gas station. Mabel and Tony Palmer sat for a moment in the softly ticking Oldsmobile Cutlass, the rapidly warming air thick with mutual disbelief.

  “Shit,” said Tony, simply.

  “There go our plans with Adam and Kathy.”

  He sighed, she sighed, and they both got out, slamming the doors shut behind them. Immediately the strong, cliff-side wind whipped at their hair, their clothes, bringing with it the salty tang of the sea and making them blink rapidly. On the driver’s side a guardrail marked the edge of the road. Just beyond it the cliff descended, all sheer drop and red stone, for three hundred feet to meet the crashing waves.

  “No reception,” Tony muttered, sliding the useless phone back in his pocket. “This must be the last place in America that doesn’t have it.”

  “There’s a house up there,” said Mabel, pointing to the top of the hill that rose steeply across the street. “We can ask for help.”

  “I hate asking help from strangers,” said Tony.

  “Then start pushing.”

  The seashell-paved driveway was winding and uneven. At the top, sweating and out of breath, they found themselves standing on a green, closely-manicured lawn. A small wooden windmill spun frantically in the wind. Glass and metal chimes clinked and rang from the porch of a small, neat cottage that seemed within inches of sliding down the hill, back end first, onto the road far below.

  “It’s quaint,” said Mabel.

  “In Big Sur, with a cliff-side view of the ocean, it’s probably worth a million,” said Tony.

  “More than that,” said a voice behind them.

  Mabel let out a tiny yelp. They turned.

  An old man of perhaps seventy was smiling at them beneath a frayed straw hat. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled up, his browned skin slick with sweat. He held a mud-encrusted shovel over one shoulder.

  “Sorry,” he added, and gave them a reassuring grin. “I was working yonder, in the field over the lip of the hill, and took the side path around when I saw you coming up.”

  The next thing he said was unexpected: “You need saved? They don’t usually come up to the house if they need saved. Usually I got to go down to them.”

  Mabel and Tony cast a quick glance at each other and locked eyes. A holy roller, Tony thought. Just great. Thick as flies everywhere.

  “Um, no, we don’t need saved,” Mabel said politely. “Our car broke down and we don’t have cell phone reception. We need to call for a tow. That’s all.”

  “Oh, hey, why didn’t you say so?” The old man swung the shovel off his shoulder and impaled it with surprising force in the packed, shell-strewn drive. It stuck there, quivering, then stilled. “You can use my phone, and we can sit a bit on the back porch and have some lemonade while you wait for your tow. It’ll take a little time. Name’s Carl Budren. Pleased to meet you and come on in.”

  They followed him into the prim, tidy cottage. Dozens of seashells, stones, sea glass, and starfish, carefully glued into patterns, adorned the wood-stained walls in driftwood frames. The wicker furniture, worn but not dilapidated, was simple and inviting—a perfect fit. Mr. Budren dug a phonebook out of a drawer in his kitchenette, licked a calloused finger, found a page, found a number, and soon the local towing service was on its way.

  Minutes later they found themselves sitting on the rickety, whitewashed porch overlooking a dizzying drop to the road, cliffs, and dark, crashing waves far below.

  Mr. Burden joined them, a cold, sweating glass of lemonade in each hand.

  “An hour ‘til the truck comes, huh? Well, it’s nice to have some company, even if you don’t need saved.” He sat down in a spare chair, sighing as his knee joints popped.

  “No, sir,” said Mabel. “We aren’t the religious type. I’m afraid converting us is a battle you just won’t win, if you’ll excuse me saying so.”

  The old man’s eyebrows narrowed, then he smiled and chuckled. The sound was faint, like a distant motor. “No, no, ma’am, you misunderstand me.” He nodded down toward the cliffside ro
ad, where their car sat like a squat, injured beetle. “You don’t know this spot, I take it. Just a random place your vehicle happened to break down.”

  “That’s right,” said Tony, bemused.

  The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes. “You mind?”

  “No,” said Tony and Mabel in unison, though both did.

  Mr. Budren lit up. “Across the highway by the cliff, and about twenty feet further down the road from your car, there’s a little jut of rock. An outcropping, like. On the other side of the guardrails. See it?”

  They looked. They saw.

  “For about forty years now, that’s been known as End Point. Don’t know why, but there’s been more suicides there over the years than anywhere along this coast for two hundred miles in either direction. Hell, you’d have to drive down to Frisco’s bridge to find a hotter spot.”

  They both looked again, longer this time.

  “How many have jumped?” Tony asked, chewing a piece of ice from his lemonade.

  Mr. Budren stroked his chin.

  “In the last twenty years or so, I’d put the number somewhere around forty, maybe a few more. There was more before that, but I don’t have the exact numbers.”

  Both Mabel and Tony started. Tony’s mouth worked a little, but he said nothing.

  “No one knows why?” Mabel finally asked.

  “Well, I guess it’s a couple things.” Mr. Budren took a drag off his cigarette. The smoke plumed out his nostrils like the exhalation of a geriatric dragon. “First, it’s a good view. Of course, there’s plenty of those, but I guess that’s something. I reckon the dying like a good view before they go. Second, all it takes is one or two jumpers before word gets out about a place. Then others copy the first. I don’t know why, except maybe the desperate like being part of something, too. Something they can share with like-minded souls.”

  “Like a club,” murmured Tony.

  Mr. Budren nodded. “That’s right, Mr. Palmer. An exclusive club.”

  He took another drag off his cigarette, and a far-away look palled his face. “An exclusive club,” he repeated, voice little more than a murmur.

  “Mr. Budren? What does that have to do with saving?”

  Mr. Budren turned to Mabel, and in that quick moment his eyes focused again. “Ah! Yes, oh yes. Well, my daddy owned this cliff-side property for going on half a century but never did nothing with it. When he died I was about retirement age. I’d heard of End Point, so since I got the rights I thought I’d build a little house up here. Figured I could save some people if I spotted anyone who came by and looked ready to jump.”

  Mabel leaned forward. “That’s the reason you moved here and built this house? To keep people from killing themselves?”

  Mr. Budren nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Tony shifted, his wicker chair creaking. “So how does it work?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Saving people.”

  Mr. Budren smiled widely. “It’s real simple, mostly. I keep an eye out, you see. When I spot a car parked near End Point, or a motorbike, or whatever else, I head on down the drive to the road and see what’s what. Usually someone’ll be sitting in the car, or on the bike, or even standing on the point, sometimes on one side of the guard rail, sometimes on t’other. If I get there in time, that is. And if I do, I go on down and have a talk with them.”

  “You don’t call the police?”

  “No time for that, son. Not if they’re settling in to jump. No. I just go down and have a talk with them. It’s what works. It’s what the moment needs.”

  Mabel took a small sip of lemonade. The ice clinked against her teeth. “But what do you say? I couldn’t imagine being put in a situation like that, with a life on the line and everything riding on what words you choose.”

  Mr. Budren grunted. “Well, miss, you do have a point. It’s a mighty tight spot, sometimes. But I knew it would be when I moved here. And that stress is worth it, when you save someone. To know they’re safe. That’s the payoff.

  “But as to what I say…” He paused, thinking. “It depends, but usually I ask them what their favorite thing to do is in all the world. I keep ’em talking, have them tell me all about it. Everyone has something they love to do. So if I’m lucky they start talking, and I listen, and prod, and ask more questions, and finally I get around to saying, ‘Now don’t you want to do that again? Because you sure as hell can’t if you’re fish food in the Pacific.’ Or something to that effect.”

  Tony raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?”

  Mabel jabbed him in the ribs, scowling. But Mr. Budren just smiled again. “One time it took five hours. Another, I made dinner for a woman and brought it out to her because she got hungry after talking so long. It was just the two of us sitting there, on the edge of that cliff, with Death circling round and round us. But she ate, and she came to, and she was saved.”

  He stubbed out his cigarette in a stained seashell ashtray and sat back in his creaking wicker chair.

  “That’s really something,” Tony admitted.

  “It really is, Mr. Budren,” added Mabel. “That’s incredible.”

  “Well,” said the old man, sighing, “it soothes me, to do something. But I can’t save ’em all. When I come down some mornings and find an empty car by End Point, I know I failed because I can’t be there all the time. Then I call the police and they call a tow, and sometimes a body washes up down the coast, carried far on the current. Most often it’s never found.”

  He brightened. “But it’s worth all that. And I’m very content. Now, unless I’m mistaken, that’s your tow truck! So I won’t keep you any longer.”

  They looked. It was.

  As they reached the front door, Mabel turned back and gave the old man a quick hug. “You’re an amazing man, Mr. Budren. I’m glad we met you.”

  “Well thank you, darling,” he replied, flashing a final warm smile.

  Tony held out his hand. “Yeah, those are lucky people, Mr. Budren. The ones you saved. Glad we could meet.”

  The couple walked quickly down the hillside drive, Mr. Budren watching from the top. Faintly, he could hear Tony hailing the tow truck driver. He watched them for another ten minutes until the car was latched to the truck, and both truck and car were nothing more than glints of reflected sun, far away and receding, on the winding, cliff-side road.

  Then he turned, retrieved his shovel, and walked purposefully across the well-tended yard and over the crest of a small rise. Beyond, a long, sunken field of scrub grass stretched away into the distance, just out of sight of the house.

  “Lucky people,” he repeated.

  He picked his way carefully down the other side of the rise and stopped beside a half-filled pit. Next to it was a small mound of dirt. Whistling tunelessly, he smiled as he resumed shoveling—the young couple’s interruption already all but forgotten.

  A pale, thin hand stuck up from the pit like a wilted, diseased plant. Moments later, dirt covered it.

  “Lucky people,” he said a final time. He stopped to rest, wiping his brow and looking out at the dozens and dozens of faint, rectangular depressions in the earth that even the tall grass could not completely obscure.

  “I sure did save them.”

  Shells

  My cove is rimmed on all sides by high, steep outcroppings of sharp rock. Only one gravel road leads through them down to the beach. The beach is white sand and small pebbles. And shells, of course. Lots and lots of shells.

  I’ve collected shells as long as I can remember, ever since I was a very little girl. I’ve always loved them. First, when we stayed at the cabin every summer, I collected everything I could find, but after my family moved here for good, I became more selective. Otherwise, where would I keep them all?


  * * *

  There are some wonderful rare kinds in the cove. You can find the best ones in late spring, in tide pools by the black rocks that jut out from the sand. And after a storm. Even in winter there are good shells to be found after a storm.

  I get lonely real easy, now that we’re at the cove all year round. There aren’t many children nearby. But one evening in late-November, I looked up from my shell hunt to see a boy walking toward me from the opposite end of the beach.

  He was tall and lanky, about twelve. A little younger than me. And he kept his head down. I knew what that meant. He was hunting shells, too.

  I met him down by the rocks near the tide pools. Boy, was he surprised! He looked me over, real shy, and said, “I didn’t know anyone else lived here.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Isn’t it a little late in the year for a vacation?”

  He shook his head. “My grandpa had a house on the other side of the cliffs. He died last month and my folks and my uncles have to go through everything and decide who gets what.” He paused. “They fight a lot, so I got out of there. I can’t take it.”

  I felt bad for him and nodded in what I hoped was an understanding way. “What’s your name?”

  “Sam Gerts. What’s yours?”

  “Mattie. Hey, you like shells?”

  Sam nodded. “Every beach I go to I look. But I don’t see any good ones here.”

  “No, not this time of year. Not unless there’s a storm, and then there’s some great ones, really! But let’s check over there.”