by Jane Langton
*57*
With Midnight to the North of Her—
And Midnight to the South of Her—
And Maelstrom—in the Sky— —Emily Dickinson
It was a deep hole. She hadn't seen it because it was covered over with a broken branch. But her foot had gone right to the bottom, and down she went, falling awkwardly on top of something that lay in the hole. Her foot twisted viciously in the crevice, and she had a tussle getting it out again. There was something very wrong with it. Could it be broken? Perhaps it was only a bad sprain. Now she was in a fix, for sure.
She must pull herself up and try to hobble. Mary reached one arm forward to lean on the great round boulder that filled the hole. But it wasn't a boulder—it was something that felt like leather. Leather and metal. She brushed aside the hemlock branch that lay across it and looked at it.
It was a chest. There had been the black box on Elizabeth Goss's dresser, and the bait box with the letters in it, and now this—an old-fashioned round-topped trunk. It looked like the kind that Long John Silver would dig up on Treasure Island, all filled with pieces of eight and jewels and pearls. And this was an island, too. She was in a dream of Treasure Island. Mary leaned on one thigh on the edge of the hole, with the storm raging about her, the wind clawing and tearing at her hair, her wounded foot lying at an ugly angle beside her, swelling and throbbing broken, broken—and opened the chest.
There were no jewels inside it. Just notebooks, ordinary three-ring school notebooks. Mary lifted them out, one by one, and glanced at them, wrenching her body around so that the rattling pages would be protected from the wind. How funny—someone was a student of Emily Dickinson. Familiar lines jumped out at her. The thickest notebook had a title, Rowing in Eden. That was Dickinson, too. (Rowing in Eden, Ah, the sea! Could I but moor tonight in thee!) There was a subtitle, too, written in by hand. Mary squinted at it. The light was bad and she had lost her glasses...
The True Story of Emily Dickinson's
Romantic Attachment
Oh, for heaven's sake, another one of those things. It was probably another of Ernest Goss's crazy fake documents, hidden like his letters beside the river.
But then she read a little more and changed her mind. This document was very different. It was no clever mimicry or burlesque of the real thing—it was the real thing, a work of profound and careful scholarship. And the suggested lover was none other than Henry David Thoreau. Mary's adventurous mind reeled and rejoiced, and she read on, hardly noticing the pitch and terror of the storm, brushing aside in annoyance the leaves that smacked against the page, heedless of the flailing fall of a tall pine tree behind her, although the dirt that was shaken from the snapped roots leaped upon her back! She neither saw nor felt nor heard...
The paired symbols were so daring, yet so sound. Henry had had a dream of a mountain that was his life—and Emily was the daisy at the mountain's foot. They had gone boating on the river (Rowing in Eden)—so Emily was the little boat, the little brook, and Henry was the mighty sea ... it was enchanting.
And to her flower he was the drunken, fainting bee...
What other revelations were there? Mary reached for another notebook and opened the cover.
Facing her was Elizabeth Goss. It was an old photograph, but it was Elizabeth without a doubt, as she had looked twenty or thirty years ago. And under it, in the same handwriting (Mary bowed over it, peering at it)—"a direct descendant of the union of Emily Dickinson and Henry Thoreau"—good God.
But that was impossible. That Emily and Henry might have met one another was plausible—she would love to believe it—but this was going pretty far—Elizabeth Goss a direct descendant of the union of... (Mary shifted her weight, and the hurt in her foot became a spasm of pain.) But, wait—wait! There was the black box in Elizabeth's room, with the coil of red hair—Great-grandmother's! Was it Emily's? Could it be Emily Dickinson's, that wealth of auburn hair, that was "bold, like the chestnut burr"?
Revelation beyond revelation—then the box, the black box could itself be the Ebon Box in the poem, on the page that Elizabeth had torn out of the book because it came so close to her secret truth. Elizabeth's box was black because it was ebony, and it had contained the "curl" and the "flower" and the "trinket"!
But the poem had mentioned something else. Mary mumbled the words over, closing her eyes to the wind and the storm and the pain—
To hold a letter to the light—
Grown Tawny now, with time—
To con the faded syllables
That quickened us like Wine!
Where was it then? Where was the letter?
What, what? Someone was shouting at her. Mary looked up. There on the other side of the hole stood Howard Swan. Howard? What was Howard doing here? Then she remembered. She had come to take him away. But it was too late now. They must find shelter from the storm, from the falling trees. She struggled to her feet, shaking her head over her wounded foot, smiling at Howard, apologizing. She clutched the two notebooks under her arm. She couldn't leave them behind.
Howard had a shovel in his hands. He didn't make a move to help her. He just stood with his mouth open, staring at her, his light hair streaming upwards around his bald head like a ghostly crown. Then he lifted the shovel over his head, as if he were going to smash something. He took a step forward. His lips were moving. Mary couldn't hear. "What did you say?" she shouted at him. But she could read his lips. He was saying the same thing over and over, "I'm sorry, Mary. I'm sorry, Mary..."
He must mean, about her foot. But she could manage. She showed him, hopping a little way, holding on to a tree. It would be all right.
Then suddenly she understood, and she faltered backwards. Howard jumped across the hole, and made a rush at her. The shovel—it was for her. He meant to kill her. He was sorry! Mary turned and scrambled into the clearing, running on both feet, hardly favoring her lame leg, ignoring the hideous broken pain. A livid scream arose in her throat. I'm sorry, Howard, I'm sorry, too. But I don't want to die. I'm sorry, too. She rushed at the landing place.
Oh, fool, fool. She hadn't pulled her boat high enough from the water, and the boiling waves had caught it up again and claimed it. It lay rocking six yards from shore, upside-down. And Howard was at her heels. Mary turned clumsily and dodged along the shore. She heard a mighty snap, as a tree fell on the other side of the island. Run, run. But you have no chance, not now. In the end you'll be caught! You are trapped. Trapped like a mouse some child has put into a cage with an owl. Run, mouse, run. Skitter on your small paws from side to side, dash in and out, let your small heart beat, beat, and your sides heave fear. You have no chance, you know, no chance at all...
*58*
It needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos! The anchor is up—farewell! —Nathaniel Hawthorne
It was a crazy time to get back. Homer drove up Walden Street, listening to the latest hurricane bulletin on his radio. The police station parking lot was full of cars. The police force was all there, a nerve center in crisis. The members of the fire department were bustling around on the other side of the building, ready for anything. Homer pushed open the door and went in. Bernard Shrubsole greeted him gaily. There was excitement in the air. All at once the Goss Murder Case seemed old hat.
"Looks like you're going to have some fun around here," said Homer.
"You bet we are. The eye of the storm is supposed to go right over us."
"No news?" said Homer.
"News? Oh, you mean—no, nary a sign of him. He was at home this morning, but nobody's seen him since. And he's not at his office. Don't worry. He'll turn up."
"Everybody's all right, I suppose? Nobody else has turned up stabbed or throttled, nobody's tipped any more statues on anybody?"
"Nope."
That was a relief. But he'd just make sure. Homer got back in his car. His fingers had to grip the wheel. It needed all his strength just to keep the car on the street. Along Barrett's Mill Road the wind tried to blow
it off into the Assabet. Homer decided that once he got to Mary's house he might as well hole up and ride out the storm with the family. He bit his lip, struggling with the steering wheel. What would she say to him?
He saw Tom first. Tom was dragging bushel baskets of apples off the truck and heaving them into the barn. He had sent the children into the house. Homer pulled up beside him. For some reason the question about Mary came out first. He had to yell to make Tom hear.
"What?" said Tom. "Mary? I dunno. Is she up at the house?"
But she wasn't. And Gwen seemed preoccupied, when Homer appeared suddenly in the kitchen, with a great windy slamming of doors. Her mind was somewhere else. She supposed that Mary was still at the library. "Tell her to come home, will you? It won't be safe out on the road much longer. Or else both of you just stay there."
Homer climbed grimly back in his car, and hurtled back down the road toward town. A big branch had fallen across Lowell Road at one place, and a bunch of men from the lumber company by the Red Bridge were tugging at it. Homer fumed. He got out of the car and helped. Nothing to it. What had they been stalling around for? He got back in his car and made a jackrabbit start. One of the men from the lumber company looked at the other and flexed his biceps. "Muscleman," he yelled.
The library looked shut up tight. Damnation. Mary's car was nowhere in sight. Just to be sure, Homer got out and dodged around to the back. He had to climb up on the wall beside the delivery ramp to look in the office window. There was no one in the office. What was that pink thing on Mary's desk? Like a hat? It was a hat. It was that crazy hat Alice Herpitude used to wear.
There was a cracking sound above the roar of the wind, and the feathery top of an elm tree went sailing past, sliding and bounding up the street. Where in the hell was Mary?
Homer teetered on the top of the wall and looked again at Alice's hat. Mary wouldn't have gone down to Alice's place, would she? Yes, she might very well have gone to Alice's, to ready it for the storm, because it was her own house now. There would be things a property owner would want to lash down, to take care of. Homer made a run for his car. His was the only one on the road now, the wind was so high. It was behind him as he flew along Sudbury Road, turned on Fairhaven and crossed the turnpike. It was a mad business, charging down a narrow wood road with trees tossing right and left. Twice he had to stop his car and drag branches out of the way. At last he came down the steep descent at the edge of the river and pulled up at Alice's house. There was Mary's car. Thank God. He would find her in the house, and in a moment she would be safe again, safe in his arms. Leaning forward against the wind, Homer struggled up the steps and banged on the door. No one answered. He peered inside. All dark, the door locked. Where in God's name was she? Homer turned wildly and looked out at the river. There was no little boat at the landing, but there was something else. Homer's heart jumped into his throat. He ran to the landing. There were her shoes, in the lee of a big rock. One of her stockings was fluttering in a tree, the other had blown away.
The river had gone wild. The wind stormed over the black bay, hurling up quick frightened waves, with white spume threshing from their tops, rushing away from him. There was no sign of Mary, not anywhere. But there was something there in the water, way out in the middle of the bay near the island. It was—oh, God—it was a boat, overturned, upside-down. It must be hers, it could only be hers. Homer stumbled along the shore, looking for something to go out in, a rowboat or canoe, or something, anything. He shouted "Mary," but he couldn't even hear his own voice. Then he cursed himself for a fool, and turned and struggled in the other direction. Teddy's house was on the other side, and there would be some sort of canoe in his boathouse, if the police had only left it there.
They had. There were two of them, a canoe and a rowboat, resting upside-down on sawhorses. Homer hauled on the canoe clumsily and dragged it to the water's edge, righted it, stepped into the boggy ground, shoved off and climbed in. He was instantaneously swamped. The waves twisted the canoe sideways and washed over it. It tipped over, dumping him into the river. He grabbed at the paddle and doggedly sloshed out of the river again. Turn the canoe over, dump out the water and try again, only you've got to do some fast work with the paddle.
This time it was better. Homer dug choppily with his paddle, and managed to keep headed across the wind-torn waves. The spume streaked past him. The sun had gone out, and it was raining. Before he knew it the gale and the gale-driven water had carried him as far as the middle of the bay. Chop, chop, quick now, the other side, chop, chop. Nearly had him that time. Homer blinked the deluge out of his eyelashes and tried to see ahead. It was impossible to do anything but try to keep abreast of the waves. Any other kind of steering was out of the question. He was being carried to the east side of the island. The little boat was nowhere in sight. Homer glanced to right and left, fearfully, half expecting to see Mary's poor drowned face floating above the water. Why had she come out in this, the crazy fool girl? Then something caught Homer a terrible blow across the left shoulder, and he cried out and nearly lost control. A giant object hurtled past him, turning end over end, and foundered in the river a few yards away. It was the wooden slat-backed swing from Miss Herpitude's place, torn from the ground by the savage strength of the tempest. Branches went scudding past him. On the island the cracking trees sounded like tiny snaps of a scissors above the locomotive roar of the storm.
Suddenly the water quieted a little. He was in the lee of the island, and he could stop plowing at the water for a minute and look around. Water streamed from his hair down across his face. His shirt clung to him. His lap was full of water. If he didn't bail the water out of the bottom of the canoe it would sink. There was nothing to bail with. He had better try to land. Homer looked over his shoulder at the island.
There she was! She was running along the shore of the island, bowed over, stooping, racing, looking like a child, her hair loose and blowing in front of her, her feet bare. Oh, thank God, thank God. What was the matter with her foot? Homer shouted at her, but his words were blown back in his mouth. He lifted his paddle and tried to turn the canoe, but it wouldn't budge. It was those buttonbushes, damn them. The water between the island and the mainland was thick with them, and what had looked like a clear channel was a sunken morass of bushes. Homer looked for Mary again. Where was she? And who was that? Someone with a great heavy spade in his hand was struggling from one tree to another, moving in pouncing rushes, ducking across the point to cut her off. It was Howard! Oh, God, it was Howard! Homer clawed with his hands at the bushes, tearing at them, inching forward. Too slow, too slow! Why in the name of God didn't he have a gun?
The storm had passed its height, and the force of the wind was abating slightly. For a moment the squalling winds died. But deep down in the muddy roots of the giant pine that stood in the clearing the thickened clods supporting the last clinging root-strands began to be waterlogged by the rising watertable, and slowly—slowly—the old tree began to tremble loose. It leaned a little way toward the clearing, where there was nothing to stay its fall, and began to topple.
Mary stopped in the clearing. She dropped the notebooks and put her face in her hands, breathing in great sobs. In snatches between her indrawn breaths she began to mumble and pray ... Homer saw her. He stood up in his canoe and roared at her, with a shriek that tore his throat—"Jump, Mary, jump!"
She heard it, and looked at him, her white face blank. Then she looked up and stood frozen for a second. Then she jumped. The pine tree caught her a glancing, scraping blow, and she fell. But it caught something else, too, and destroyed it...
And the thing that it killed had once been worthy and good (one of those dependable people that everyone turns to and relies on)—the best fellow in all the world.
*59*
... And we went on to heaven the long way round. —Henry Thoreau
"Hoy there." It was a tiny sound. Homer, dazed, turned toward it. Someone was pulling strongly across the water, looking back over his s
houlder at him, pulling with his oars and heading his prow firmly across the churning waters of the bay. It was Teddy Staples. He was nearly at the island. Homer stared at him vaguely and started scrabbling at the bushes again. But then Teddy maneuvered carefully among them and pulled Homer's canoe free by stretching an oar to him. Then they landed together on the shore. Homer, his knees weak and nearly folding under him, struggled to the place where Mary lay. Teddy strained at the limbs of the tree, and Homer lifted her tenderly. She was unconscious. "I think she'll be all right," said Teddy. "The trunk just missed her."
The triumphal arch was founded on the sea, and through it, looking far away, Mary could see her distant blue peninsula. There was someone standing on it, and her eyes were so miraculous that she could see right past the columns and the arches and the moldings and the coffered barrel vaults, way across the water, with its dolphin-drawn shells and seagods, to the very texture of the cloth on the person's sleeve. There were long telescopic feelings in her fingers, too, and she could reach out through the arch, far away, and feel the cloth. And her ears were like conch shells that amplified the sound, so that she could hear what the person was saying. He was saying her name, and cursing.
She woke up and smiled at Homer. He stopped cursing. But he went on saying, "Mary, Mary." He was kneeling beside her bed with his arms around her. How lovely, how lovely.