Fitcher's Brides

by Gregory Frost

  This is Heaven, she thought, I’m in the clouds.

  Nothing condensed, no form appeared, no specter. She saw no more than milky whiteness, which seemed to press itself to her, its touch bittersweet, arousing. She shifted her hips against the pressure, and a soft moan escaped her, muffled in the mist. She spoke his name again, and he answered, “I’m here, Vern,” his voice coming from everywhere at once, but so close that it filled her head, leaving no room for thoughts of her own. His voice made her fingers move, her toes curl, its sound was like strings upon her; it kissed her throat with pleasure. He told her, “I’ll guide you to do what you need to do. But this time you tell no one. I am the way.” She could only answer that he was. Her eyes rolled up and her tongue licked the sweet air. He laughed and she pursued the sound.

  When, an hour later, Kate entered the room, she found her sister curled up in bed with the book that Amy had been reading. The last thing Kate wanted to do was wake Vern. She would have to be very quiet, but at the same time had to try to communicate, which meant asking questions. Would a ghost hear her if she whispered?

  She sat on her bed, facing the wall, then thought awhile about what she wanted to ask. She placed her palm against the wall. “Hello?” she said softly, and glanced at her sister to make sure Vern didn’t stir. As she twisted, something tapped against the wall beneath her palm. She jerked her hand away, then chided herself. This was what she’d hoped for, after all. She put her hand to the wall again.

  “Samuel?” she asked.

  Nothing happened.

  “Are you there?” Another tap.

  Not Samuel, then, she concluded, and wondered, How many ghosts are there in this house? She spent a moment deciding if she wanted to take the time to try to identify the entity. She didn’t know how long she would have, if Vern might awaken or Amy come looking for her. She didn’t want a reenactment of the previous night.

  “Did you know the people who lived here before?”

  Tap.

  “The Pulaskis.”

  Tap.

  “What happened to—oh, wait, that’s not the way to ask it. Are they—are they alive?”

  Tap.

  She opened her mouth to ask if they were close by when the second tap came. Did that mean “no” or was that “yes” for each of them? A “no” had been much quicker the night before, but this wasn’t necessarily the same spirit, or even any spirit—after all, it hadn’t said anything so far that meant anything.

  “One of them left this house first. Was it Mr. Pulaski?”

  Tap. Tap. Quickly this time.

  “It was his wife.”

  Tap.

  That was right, or at least it agreed with what Mr. Jasper had said.

  “Did you see her go?”

  Tap.

  “Did she go far?”

  Tap. Tap.

  She wished there were a way to get other kinds of answers out of the wall, have it name things and places.

  “Is she at Harbinger?”

  Tap.

  “Is her husband there, too?”

  Tap. Tap.

  “No. Where is he? I wonder. Only, you can’t tell me that. So, Mrs. Pulaski is safely at Harbinger?”

  Tap.

  “We’ll see her there?”

  Tap. Louder this time.

  “That means we’re going there, too.”

  Tap.

  Of course, she’d known that, too. It was why they’d come here.

  “The Judgment Day—is it truly close? Are we, is our world ending soon?”

  Tap.

  “Oh.” She withdrew her hand. She had wanted it to be a lie. Instead, here was apparent corroboration from beyond the grave of what the Reverend Fitcher preached and what her father believed. She touched the wall again. “Will we be with our mother again on that day?”

  At that moment Vern muttered and rolled onto her side. Kate instinctively hunched forward, as if to conceal something; she looked back at her sister, but Vern was still asleep. Facing the wall again, she realized there had been no tap. No reply.

  “Hello. Aren’t you there?”

  The wall remained still.

  “Oh, please, don’t go now. Won’t we see our mother again?”

  Another ten minutes she must have sat, waiting for the answer. Now and then she whispered, “Samuel?” “Spirit?” but got no reply. She tried to convince herself that, distracted at the critical moment, she had felt and heard a tap, but she knew it wasn’t true. Why had the ghost left her at that moment? Why hadn’t it answered? Here was the question she most wanted an answer to, and the wall, as if toying with her, withheld it. She glanced at her sister again.

  Vern slept wrapped around the book. One bare leg dangled off the bed as if any moment now she was going to stand and sleepwalk out of the room.

  Kate recalled what she had thought the night before: that Vern was the victim of some huge japery, some cruel trick played at her expense.

  Kate knew now that it was more than a simple trick. The spirit knew things that only she and her father knew. It had revealed that much. If this was a trick, it was of a different sort—one full of treachery.

  She got up and left the room.

  Seven

  SOMETHING WAS GOING ON BETWEEN her sisters.

  Despite Vern’s apology, and Kate’s denials that they kept anything from her, Amy knew they were up to something. The matter of the ghost or whatever it was knocking in the walls was not done.

  Lavinia had banished Vern to their room, which seemed not a very wise thing to do, given that it put her together with the ghost. After last night, Amy would never have stayed in that room by herself, even for a minute, even if it meant she had to sit on a stool in a corner, but she was sure Vern would use the opportunity to talk to the spirit.

  Her resentment festered even more when Lavinia told her, “You can prepare the dinner later, right now we’re going to make the candles.”

  “But, Vern’s supposed to—”

  “Vern has been sent to her room for her behavior. I’ve a like mind to send you, too, for your part in last night’s shenanigans, but your father convinced me otherwise, and I need someone to help me haul the spermaceti from the stove to the molds out back.”

  “Kate isn’t—”

  “Young lady,” Lavinia said sternly, “I have already decided who is helping me.”

  And that was that. For three hours, they heated the whale fat, poured molds, reheated the fat, soaked the molds to release the candles, then poured another batch. And when that was done, there was still the salted beef and onions and carrots for dinner that she had to prepare, by which time the kitchen stank something awful. Amy was furious with Lavinia, but far more so with her two sisters who didn’t have to do this extra and accursed chore.

  The minute the dinner was simmering, she went looking for Kate. No one was in the parlor, which looked nice all arranged. Upstairs, Vern lay asleep with the copy of Wieland open on her breast. Even though Amy had given up on the book she resented that Vern had simply taken it without asking.

  Kate had disappeared. She might have been wandering in the woods; she might even have been sitting with their father in his sentry box beside the road. Rather than inquire, Amy decided Kate had gone to the third floor, into that tiny room where no one would think to look for her, and where Amy would not dare go by herself. Obviously she’d gone there to hide from Lavinia.

  Both her sisters were angry with Amy for last night. They were so angry that they wouldn’t listen to her when she said Vern’s bed had moved into the middle of the room and then back again. But it had. She had the bruised foot to prove it. Letting Lavinia pile on the agony was just their way of getting their own back at her.

  The rest of the time until the food was cooked, Amy spent in the parlor. She looked at the lamps, the pieces of glass on the shelves, the books of Mr. Charter’s modest library, all of which had been part of their life in Boston. Amy thought she should feel homesickness, but instead as she touched the fam
iliar things she started humming a tune under her breath, just a nonsense singsong tune that she was making up as she went. She’d felt homesick on that hill from the lake. Now she couldn’t find it, as if the part of her that reacted to change had been pulled out like a baby tooth and put away in a box somewhere, still to be unpacked. Today was like yesterday, would be like tomorrow and the day after, right up until the days all stopped. And then—

  What would the Next Life really be like? How would it be any different from this? Would she no longer be afraid of her own soul? She must know forgiveness firsthand then. She would know she was saved and taken up and wouldn’t that prove she was worthy of God’s love? Would they live in houses again? On Earth again? Would they have bodies? She couldn’t imagine life without a body. Like Vern’s ghost, who watched without eyes, spoke without lips, tapped on a wall from inside it without hands. How did he exist? Was that his soul then, and did it match the body so closely? “I bet he doesn’t have to make candles,” Amy muttered.

  In the new life would there be chores? She could imagine being with her mother again. She could picture the world after Judgment as a paradise where the weather was always perfect and her mother was with them. But Lavinia would be with them, too. How could she have two mothers, and to whom would Papa be married then? Could he be married to both women? She didn’t think her mother would much care for Lavinia. For one thing, Lavinia never laughed, and Amy could remember her mother laughing. Her mother had been happy. None of Lavinia’s friends seemed to be happy, either. And Papa rarely smiled anymore. It was as if joy had been pushed aside to make room for the sermons and constant reminders of Judgment Day. As if Lavinia had moved inside him as well as into their home.

  Amy looked up, and started. Lavinia’s face hung before her in the shadows. It stared at her. She realized then that dusk had fallen without her noticing. Lavinia’s black hair and dress blended into the encroaching dark, making her pale face a floating skull in the doorway.

  “Where are your sisters?” Lavinia asked. Amy could not find her voice. “What is the matter with you, girl. Daydreaming? There’s no time for daydreaming here. There’s too much work to be done. Now, come along—if we can’t find your sisters, then you’ll set table.”

  Amy got up, exaggerating the effort this took. As she stood, Amy saw Mr. Charter walking toward the house in the half-light like some empurpled shade himself. Kate was not with him.

  She nodded to herself as she followed her stepmother. She did know where Kate had been after all.

  During the meal, neither Kate nor Vern spoke much. Vern seemed to Amy to be half asleep still. She complied with everything Lavinia asked of her, as if she lacked the energy to argue.

  Amy watched Kate watching Vern, too.

  When the meal was finished, Kate and Vern cleared away the dishes and went to clean up. Amy remained seated between her father and stepmother. He read from Isaiah, loud as a preacher, so that the girls would hear in the kitchen. Lavinia nodded every so often, as if confirming the words, as if the possibility existed that he might read some false ones at some point and she would know it.

  Then Vern retired. She emerged from the kitchen, wandered through the room from person to person, bidding each a good night, and went up the stairs to bed. Amy could see that her father found this odd. He stopped his recitation in midsentence, and his gaze lingered on the doorway to the hall long after Vern had gone. Lavinia paid it no mind, and finally, Mr. Charter returned to his reading.

  Amy excused herself as if to use the privy. She found Kate in the hall doorway to the kitchen. Kate seemed to be listening to sounds from upstairs. She told Amy, “You should go to bed, too. And I’ll follow momentarily.”

  “Come down and sit in the dust. O virgin daughter of Babylon,” cried Mr. Charter.

  “What?” asked Amy.

  “We shouldn’t leave Vern alone.”

  “There is no throne!”

  Amy shrugged. “Why, what’s the matter with her?”

  “You saw her at dinner.”

  “She’s sleepy.”

  “I’m sleepy, Amy,” Kate replied. “Vern’s in a daze. Remember when I was little and she used to sleepwalk around the room? She looks that way now. As if she isn’t here.”

  “Thy nakedness shall be uncovered!”

  “You think it’s the ghost?”

  “I think—” Kate began. “I don’t know what I think. There’s something going on.”

  “Where were you this afternoon?”

  Kate said, “I went upstairs. To see if that clock was still going.”

  “You were gone long.”

  “It was warm and I fell asleep. What difference does it make? The something going on’s to do with Vern.”

  “Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness. O daughter…”

  Amy asked, “What could it be more than the ghost?”

  “I wish I knew.” She acted like she wanted to say more, but stopped herself.

  “…Thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.”

  After that the dining room was silent. The two adults would be praying. They would expect the girls to be praying as well.

  “All right,” Amy whispered. She went out through the spring room. When she came back from the privy, Kate had gone.

  She felt she couldn’t leave abruptly without raising suspicion, so she returned to her chair. Both Mr. Charter and Lavinia had their heads bowed in silent prayer. Amy closed her eyes and bowed her head, too, but only seconds later Papa said, “Amen.” She repeated it, though it was obvious she could not have made a prayer in so brief a moment. He and Lavinia smiled at each other with a kind of shared pride. Amy got up and exited before either of them could ask her about her sisters.

  Somewhere in the deep of the night, she came wide awake.

  The fire in the hearth had burned to hot embers and ash, and the air was cool on her face though she snuggled warmly in her blankets. There must have been a moon, because enough light entered through the window that she could make out the two other beds. She could see Kate’s head, her hair spread across her pillow.

  Vern’s bed was empty.

  Amy sat up.

  They each had a chamber pot so there was no cause to leave the bedroom during the night. A few times in Boston, Vern had sneaked off at night to meet with Henri, but here they didn’t know anybody. Amy thought she should probably wake Kate. Before she could move, the ceiling creaked.

  She knew then where her sister was as if she could see through the beams and floorboards.

  She tiptoed to Kate’s bed, still amazed that Kate could sleep so close to the source of the spirit knocking. She touched her sister’s shoulder.

  Kate rolled onto her back. Her eyes opened, dully at first, but focusing on Amy she came alert. “Where’s Vern?” she asked. Instinct told her why she’d been awakened.

  “I think she’s in the attic. Up there.”

  “Light us a candle, Amy,” said Kate. She threw back the quilt.

  Amy hurried to the mantel and took down the big square candle. She knelt by the hearth and blew on the embers. Small flames soon appeared. She held the candle to them until the wick lit. It dripped wax, hissing, into the ashes as she got up.

  Now she and Kate could see each other in their nightclothes, and they shivered as if the light drew off all the warmth from the room.

  The floorboards were cold underfoot as they crept to the door, then into the hall. They expected the boards to creak and give them away, but the floor accommodated their need for silence all the way to the cramped stairwell.

  Kate reached for the candle. She whispered, “Here, let me go ahead.” Amy let her take it. Kate took one step up, then stopped with a gasp. Amy leaned around her to see.

  There on the third step, the candle revealed a drop of blood, gleaming darkly. Kate carefully avoided the spot, and Amy did likewise, following as close behind as if they were joined together. She dreaded falling outside the small envelope of light.

 
; The steps creaked, almost every one, but there was nothing to be done about that. They had to go up.

  The attic was colder than their room or the hall. The candlelight revealed their breaths and, at the very edge of its influence, a motionless figure in white.

  “Vern,” Kate whispered. Amy hastily climbed out of the stairwell behind her to see.

  Vern stood before the mahogany dresser, facing the swivel mirror, and slowly, rhythmically, combed a hard bristle brush through her unplaited hair. She was muttering something under her breath, a wordless tune. Kate repeated her name but she didn’t seem to hear.

  With the chairs moved out, there was room for her sisters to crowd in beside her. The mirror was tilted, reflecting the tops of their heads. Yet Vern stared straight ahead, as if at her reflection. She didn’t seem to be injured.

  Kate touched her shoulder, and Vern didn’t respond. She continued muttering words to her tune—words from a poem the three of them knew: “‘My love is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June.’” She half sang, half breathed the words. When they turned her about, she didn’t resist. She continued to brush her hair for a moment, then slowly lowered her hands. Amy followed the hairbrush in its descent.

  “Oh, Kate,” she cried, “look!”

  Kate lowered the candle. A great stain of blood was spread across Vern’s nightgown. Her period had come. Her feet, and the floor where she stood, were spattered with it. It seemed like a lot—more than it should have been, as if a cycle’s worth of blood had all poured out at once. Amy couldn’t be sure, but she thought Vern’s period was early, too—usually it just preceded her own, and hers was at least another few days away. She wasn’t even having cramps yet, and she always did.

  Kate said, “We can’t take her back to the room like this—she’ll leave footprints all over. You stay here with her. I’ll go down to the pump and get some water. And try not to make any sound.”

  Amy nodded, and Vern, as if movement were contagious, pensively nodded, too, singing softly, “I will love you still, my dear.” Before leaving, Kate took the top off a lamp on the dresser and lit the wick from her candle. The lamp was dry, but the wick still greasy enough to flame. “It’s a good thing you made these,” she told Amy, and they traded a brief smile before she descended. The glow in the stairwell faded.