I See You So Close

by M Dressler

  She doesn’t want to talk truth anymore.

  “Will it tell me about the history of the buildings?” I ask easily, and to be kind again. “Any damage or repairs to them?”

  “Yeah. Things break and then people fix them.”

  She walks me to the door, and with her shoulders turned away from her museum, she hangs her head and says, “I’m sorry about snapping like that. I’m feeling a little out of it today. Touchy. It’s just life, you know. Work. Just trying to make enough room even to walk around in here.”

  “Ruth, did Martha tell you I might stay on and help?” I put my hand out. An old habit. My job was to tidy and clean.

  “No!” She straightens, suddenly. “You shouldn’t have to do that! You shouldn’t be bothered with anything like that right now. I’m serious. Just take care of yourself, Rose. Let us help you. We want you to feel safe and happy here, and in control of things. Do you know,” she says, sagging again, opening the door with the jangling bells, “I think it’s just when you’ve been around for a long time, sometimes people think you’ll go on and on and on, without any complaint or exhaustion. But you do get exhausted.” She looks down at her boots. “You just don’t have anyone to complain to. Thank you for being so nice, Rose. I like you. I hope you like it here.” She holds the door open, wide. I’ve cut too close to something, I think. She clearly wants me to go. “I hope you’ll stay with us here in the Bar for a while. Maybe longer. We could use some fresh blood around here. And you’ll see we’re a special little town. We just need a lot of keeping up. It’s a responsibility. But then it gives you so much that’s special and unique in return.” She seems to be trying to console herself. “The specialness is why we all stay on here. You have a wonderful walk.” She waves, and starts to close the door, shivering against the cold. “Be careful around the river. It can get icy along the bank, even with just a little bit of snow like this.”

  “Ruth, is there something more I can do for you?” I know a look of struggle when I see it, and how a soul feels when it wants to speak freely but can’t.

  “Not really.” She pulls away. “Just keep your eyes open. There’s so much here that’s interesting to see.”

  7

  There’s no simple map to a stranger’s soul. No arrow that will point out one heart’s way to another.

  All I can do is look down at the map Ruth Huellet has given to me.

  If you want to know what truly haunts a place, I once heard Philip Pratt say, then you must seek out what a place is, and where the pain lodges in it.

  Am I a hunter now?

  No. Not that. No matter what, I must be careful not to become like him. Never a cold heart only interested in finding the pain, the haunt, and not what it means, or what you might do when you find it.

  I once saw him blast a ghost to ashes and insist it wasn’t human suffering crying out as the soul broke, because his victim was already dead.

  As though when you cry matters more than why.

  The thin snow is stiffer, louder now under my shoes. The buildings around the square are gray, not brightly lit, though the hour’s creeping toward midday. It’s gotten colder, not warmer. The sun’s face is missing behind the marble of the clouds.

  No one else walks with me in the cold and stillness. I go slowly, marking on the guide what I see around me. That building, there, with the fringe of wind chimes, that was once the livery stables. And that tidy, shingled building there would be the general store, with its fresh-scrubbed windows. A muscular man works inside, I see, wiping them with a cloth. Several closed shops come next. Now here is the Berringer Inn, dressed with window boxes tilted forward under its sills. Across from it is another mansion, marked on the map as Huellet House, its gingerbread needing paint, its porch sagging, though a metal plaque marks it like a general’s tomb.

  The mayor’s hotel is still the best-looking house in town, I decide, along with the White Bar Café. After the restaurant, at the top of the square, I pass more shuttered shops as a bit of wind whips past, tossing up fits of snow against their dangling signs.

  PHOTOGRAPHY STUDIO!

  GET IN COSTUME, TRAVEL THROUGH TIME,

  SEE HOW YOU WOULD HAVE LOOKED IN THE

  GOLD RUSH DAYS!

  At the corner, another chiseled wooden announcement, with a painted direction below it.

  WHITE BAR FALLS AHEAD

  No one stirs on the somber road leading away from the square. The townspeople of White Bar, it seems, are staying indoors, quiet and at home, on this day of the first snow. Nothing but the fresh wind mutters as I leave the village and pass again under piney woods, laced in green and white, with cabins tucked in here and there, some shuttered, others with chimneys smoking and porches swept clean of scruff.

  As a clearing opens, rimmed with gold trees and white-tipped pines, the wind skitters away into a shallow meadow filled with deeper snow and scattered leaves and limbs, as though everything loose has been tossed into it. At its edge a whitened hill rises.

  The map in these gloved hands reads, Future Home of Viewscape! Enjoy a Panorama of the High Range!

  So this must be where the summer tram was meant to rise, a chance for the living to enjoy the feeling of flight—who, when ghosts fly, call us lawless, for not keeping to the dirt we’re buried under.

  I follow the sound of water tumbling close at hand. You’ll come next, I read, to the Eno River. A wide stream flashes between the trees, a blue-gray course jumbled with iced rocks, the largest jutting into the current, churning the surface into a white ridge that foams and tumbles down into a blue hole beneath. The falls sound strangely soft, as though the pool below them is deep and welcoming. The path ends at a fence of crossed logs and at the marker Ruth Huellet spoke of:

  WHITE BAR FALLS

  IN MEMORY OF FOUR BRAVE MEN WHO DIED HERE IN 1852

  BRINKS, TANHEUSER, COLLUM, SMITH

  IN ALL THEIR HOPES THEY PERISHED

  No other prayer left above the falling water. Only the rush of the froth tumbling. I put the map away and lift my chin and say aloud to the dead:

  “I stand here and honor you—Brinks, Tanheuser, Collum, and Smith. My name is Emma Rose Finnis. My soul was once laid low, like yours. I know what it means to lie at the bottom of a pit. I’ve been where you are. Accident is the name we give to a fate we didn’t ask to meet. I know how hard it is to crawl ashore, afterward, and how few of us manage it. Take heart, if you can hear me. There is at least one here who still walks, who has the will to walk, who the hunters haven’t found yet and sunk. The water hasn’t taken us all. Not yet. It never will, if I can help it. I’ll stay true. Though it’s a lonely walk, here, by the river. Unless you’ll join me?”

  I wait. But no one rises.

  Not all who die linger.

  I turn away and look for signs of a fire. There are none. It was too long ago, certainly. The trees are fresh and young, some green with a bright moss. A tall dressed cedar to my left shakes and sways, quivering as though something heavy rests on top of it. A bit of light comes rippling through its webbed branches. The light turns into a shadow, then into spotted black pads on the ground, breaking into footsteps, feet coming for my own, as my back presses to the fence and the falls churn behind.

  The shadow steps keep padding toward me.

  “Who is it?” I whisper, alert. “Is it you?”

  I feel no answer. Only the rising breeze.

  This moving shadow. It’s not the same presence as the ghost of the flowered sleeves.

  The shadow doesn’t burn. It hovers, it sways from side to side. It swings, circling me.

  “Who are you?” I say. “I’m one of you. I’m no hunter.”

  My back is pressing hard into the fence, with the falls below.

  “Hey!” a voice calls. “Hey there! Watch out!”

  The shadow halts. Then, as silently as it climbed down from the tree, it climbs up again, and vanishes.

  “Hey!” I hear a woman’s voice calling out again. “Watch out, that fen
ce behind you isn’t all that strong!”

  I turn, calmly—to convince the living and the dead, and myself, I wasn’t frightened.

  Yet even a ghost can shake.

  A rusting truck with an empty bed has stopped at the edge of the road. A woman’s head leans from its lowered window. Her bright, jacketed sleeve stretches out and waves to me.

  “That log fence! Behind you!”

  I move away from it.

  The door of the truck opens. The woman leaps down from it, her black hair swinging to one side—long and straight locks. The way mine once hung.

  “Whoa, you had me worried there for a minute,” she calls, her words clear as a chime. “Seemed like you weren’t exactly aware of what you were doing. You okay? You look okay. Hi. I’m Su Kwon. I live in town. You must be Rose.”

  The living person standing in front of me is tall and sharp-boned. Her smiling face is friendly, even with that bit of a frown in it. Around her is a dashing scarf, woven around her neck.

  I say, “I was just startled. I didn’t expect anyone.”

  “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Martha told me you were staying in town and Ruth said you were out and about and I should keep an eye out for you. Not that I’m stalking you or anything!” She makes another friendly grimace while pulling her thick gloves tighter on her long fingers. “I’m just out on my rounds. Saw you between the trees, and wanted to be sure you were okay. Because I heard, I know about—listen, people talk here, you might as well know. It’s a small town, so you have to get used to that, and people finding out that . . . that, well, you’ve had a rough time, recently, Rose. I just wanted to be sure you weren’t, you know, contemplating anything rash, or feeling too sorry for yourself?”

  No. A ghost only feels sorry for herself till she remembers there are others who should feel sorrier still. Are you there, ghost?

  “Am I being too forward?” she asks when I don’t answer. “Sorry. You stay up here long enough, you sort of forget all the protocols of the rest of the world.” She smiles, her teeth very white. “Sometimes I even start talking to myself, out loud, and don’t even know it. You’re feeling all right, though, I can see that now. Good! I guess you must have walked over here from Ruth’s. Doing the walking tour? I can give you a ride back if you like. My pickup is warm. Or warm-ish, anyways.”

  I look back toward the shadowy, swaying cedar. No name, yet, for what crawled out of it and stalked me. Though its shadow might still be watching. Able to give us both away.

  “A ride would be wonderful, Miss Kwon. And it’s so nice to meet you.” I smile brightly back at her, as I’ve smiled at others I’ve ridden with. “I’m just out today learning about White Bar.”

  “Cool. You can call me Su. And I’ll bet you’re looking for more than what’s on that map, am I right? Yeah, it’s pretty bare-bones. Come on. I can give you more of the real lowdown. Oops, my truck here is a bit of a mess.” She opens the door and slides papers and scraps of metal from the wagon seat so I can climb aboard.

  I glance back to see if we’re being followed.

  “I’m a bit of a scavenger,” she says. “A hoarder, really. I was about to hit Miner’s Basin when I saw you. That was the meadow you passed on the way in. I’ve been digging out”—she starts the rasping engine—“all the scrap left there from the screwed-up tram-build. I’m a metal artist.” She jerks the wheel. “I have a gallery on the square. The one with all the chimes out front.”

  We seem to be alone now. For the time being.

  “Yes, I’ve heard them,” I say.

  “They’re mostly for the tourist trade. Inside, and in my studio, is my large-scale work. Lots of inspiration around here for starting fresh, for thinking big.” She nods at me, encouragingly. “The Bar is small, but the mountains aren’t. Lots of material here for reinventing what’s been broken. Rock, old glass, copper, metal. In fact, you mind if I still stop for just a minute at the Basin? It’s what I was on my way to do when I saw you. I’ve had my eye on a scrap of steel buried over there. And honestly, your timing is perfect. I could use the help—the piece is too long and unwieldy for me to carry by myself. Now you’re here, do you mind giving me a hand and getting it into the truck bed? If you can stand a few more minutes of cold?”

  If this Su Kwon digs for buried things, well, perhaps she might be useful to me.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Great. We call this Miner’s Basin because”—she stops at the clearing filled with snow and branches—“it was where a lot of the prospectors used to camp, back in the day. Sometimes we just call it the Basin. Or the Meadow. Right now, it’s a sort of boondoggle. A failed experiment, you could say. This was the spot where they were going to put in the lift. The town had an investor all lined up, and the investor called in a contractor, but turns out the ground is a mess and the contractor didn’t ameliorate the site and one of the workers fell into a hole and nearly died, so then the investor goes bankrupt, and presto, we’re left with all the cleanup. I told the town council I’d be happy to haul the metal away, and use it—so that’s what I’ve been doing since the summer. I’m just getting to some of the good stuff now. You be careful.” She opens the door again. “Those shoes you have on look like they belong to someone working in a nice office building.”

  “It’s salvage you’re doing?” I say as I get out. I remember what Martha said. We save things here.

  “Yep. Exactly. Okay, just step where I step, keep your shoes more or less dry.”

  In the wake of living footprints I tread now, on the light snow. I match Su Kwon, step for step, to the center of the scrap-cluttered meadow. And for a moment I feel more alive than dead, because I don’t walk alone, among shadows.

  She stops at what looks like a buried fin. Then lifts out the end of a long gleaming sawblade, tugging it from its white drift.

  “This was going to be some kind of metal stripping in the wheelhouse. If you could grab onto this end”—she hands the blade’s smooth edge to me—“I’ll go to the other end and dig it out. It’ll be heavy and wobbly. But I think together we can get it to my truck. Ready?”

  I am. We lift and carry it like a body. I step carefully, leading the way to the road.

  “Rose, you’re stronger than you look! Swing it around, will you, so I can drop the tailgate down. Okay. Now we coil it in as best we can. There! Perfect.”

  She steps back and takes a deep breath, licking her lips. How easily the living take in the world, in that way, taste it, blow it out, and then breathe it in again. And they don’t even think about the luck of having life’s bright candle in your chest, lit over and over again.

  “What are you thinking?” She tilts her head at me and swings her hair back. “You’re looking serious.”

  “I was thinking, if I’m strong, it must be because of where I’ve come from.”

  “You’re Irish, Martha told me. I wouldn’t have guessed it from your coloring.”

  “Irish American.”

  “Cool. Let’s get back in the truck before our noses freeze off.”

  We do, and as she sits back she says, “My family’s Korean American. With all the trimmings. Hard workers. Family comes first. Succeed or die trying.”

  “Same here.” We died trying. We Finnises.

  “But I’m a serious disappointment to my elders.” She shrugs and stares out the windshield. “You?”

  I don’t know and never will. “My mother died bringing me into this world,” I say. “All my brothers died as babies. My father died when I was young. I was alone after that, except for the work I had to go out and do, housekeeping. I was sixteen.”

  Her sharp face turns sad and kind. “That’s awful, Rose. You had to work to support yourself when you were that young? I’m so sorry to hear that. I don’t know if it helps you at all to hear this,” she says, turning her wheel, “but hard stories aren’t uncommon around here. Broken hearts. Disasters. Failures. Rebellions. Just so you’re aware, you’ve come to a place that’s beautiful and
peaceful, but it’s mostly because the people who live here didn’t find peace anywhere else. They’ve come here and built it. Or rebuilt it. Look around. See all the pines?” I’ve been watching them for shadows, yes. “They look old, but they aren’t. None of this is old-growth. Everything here, except the buildings on the square, has been cut down and built up again. Controlled, reshaped. I like that. I bend metal for a living, so I feel right at home. But some people are surprised when they come here. They think everything around here is original. It isn’t; how could it be? I’ll take you down some of our back lanes and show you what I mean.”

  She takes me past modern cabins hidden from the road, with slate porches and slanted metal roofs. “Waiting for newcomers, like me. I’ve been here just a little less than a year. The Berringers and Ruth are old stock, but the rest of us are all outsiders. But what’s wonderful is, the Bar totally welcomes that. If the fit is good, I mean.” She looks to the right. “Those are all empty houses. Some people have moved out. The Bar doesn’t have easy access to medical care. And you have to like the solitude when the tourists leave. On the upside, if you become a citizen of the Bar you’re greeted with open arms and have dozens of friends overnight. I’ve never felt more at home—and I’m a weird arty chick escaped from Silicon Valley. And look at Martha. Not from here at all, but now she’s mayor, and everyone loves and trusts her. I guess what I’m saying is, sometimes you find treasure just lying on the ground, you know? I want you to know you can feel good about where you’ve landed, Rose. No matter what’s happened to you in the past.”

  So anxious all the good people of White Bar are for a new body to join their village . . . while they have shapes unseen walking among them.

  “I do wonder, Su,” I say smoothly, “what it might be like to stay here. I don’t mind lonely places, myself. But old ones do have their quirks.” I pretend to shiver, and go on. “Ghosts, for example. They’re all gone from the cities, they say, but I hear they still linger in the countryside.” It’s why I’ve been traveling through it, since I left the coast. “They can be so frightening. I hope these woods are clean.”