by M Dressler
At first I liked Mr. Longhurst, too, because he had been a prospector as our fathers were and he put on no airs, though he was one of those people who when words come out of their mouths they sound like a newspaper or the Bible. His coat wasn’t the best, and his trousers had seen mending he’d done himself or that maybe a woman had done. Every day he made us stand by our desks and say our names and the word “present.” He did this when we were alive and then later when we were dead. When we were alive, he said it was to remind us that no matter where we find ourselves or what might happen on the journey to knowledge, we must always stand awake and straight, look ahead, be good-mannered, and do or say nothing that would bring shame on us or sorrow to others. And we should not be proud or arrogant, but praise persistence and the weathering of storms. And so we said,
“I’m William, and I am present.”
“I’m Adelaide, and I am present.”
“I’m Jack, and I am present.”
“I’m Anton, and I am present.”
I stood in the back, the oldest, the last.
“I am Ola, and I am present.”
I wanted schooling as much as some want gold. Even when I was alive, and had a choice in the matter and could have stayed away, I came to school every day. I never wanted to fall behind Anton and Addy. It isn’t only numbers and spelling and history and drawing and manners that you learn at school. My favorite lesson, even if it was for the little ones, was when Mr. Longhurst, who hadn’t fought with the men of the town yet, would bring to class a penny, a clear glass bowl, and a pitcher of water. He would put the penny in the bottom of the bowl and fill it from the pitcher, and then he would show us how, if you looked at it from above, the penny seemed to be in one place—but if you looked through the side of the bowl, it seemed to be in a different place entirely, or even that there were two pennies in two different places.
“Are there two pennies?” Willie would always ask, wanting to be sure.
“Are there two pennies, sir,” Anton would correct him. He’s the rule-follower.
And Mr. Longhurst would say, “No, William, it looks as though there are two pennies, but there is only one. Because water bends light. The water is not without its effect. The water might be clear, invisible. But it is not without presence, without force. Neither is the penny. The water and the penny act together with the light coming through.”
Once Jack asked which we thought was stronger, the penny or the water. Anton said the penny, because you can buy a thing with it. I said the water, because water can push metal around in a sluice. Jack said it was neither. He said it was a trick, like when you thought you saw gold in the Eno and you bent down to grab it and no, it was nothing, just the light.
That’s as far as we got in our learning when we died, in 1852. That winter was called the Lean Winter. There wasn’t enough money left, nor supplies, and the wild game had all been hunted, and the prices were too high. Papa had managed to put a wood roof over our cabin, but it was still cold and the fireplace smoked. He was weak, too, and many people in town were getting sick with a strange fever and some were dying. The undertaker kept coffins lined up outside his door. My mother nursed Papa with Doctor Huellet’s Tonic and said I must go to school so at least there would be more air in the stuffy cabin for Papa to breathe. I wrapped myself in my shawl and a blanket and walked through the snow, afraid to leave my father but glad to go, because the blue-jarred window in the schoolhouse let in some colorful light, and because Mr. Longhurst had taken the rope and bell down and stuffed the belfry with a quilt so the snow and wind and pine needles wouldn’t get in, and the iron stove warmed nicely, and there were lessons to learn and biscuits to eat because Mr. Longhurst was using his own pay, he said with a strange heat in his eyes, to be sure that what we ate wasn’t tainted by the quackery of powders and tonics. Mr. Longhurst was every day more feverish himself, until finally he bolted the schoolhouse door and wouldn’t let us go out again. He said it was for our own good. After we died there, my parents went away, quickly, and my heart was broken. I think they couldn’t bear to lose me so soon after Karl, and I didn’t know how to stop them. I didn’t know, as I know only now, that I can both move and be still, like the penny.
I’ve been still for so long. I am the oldest in school, and after we were dead Mr. Longhurst said the best work for my soul would be to protect the others and make sure they didn’t stray. “If we all behave and keep to the bargain,” he told me, “we can go on. But if any one of us betrays it, they will tear the new schoolhouse down and we’ll have nothing, no home, no place in heaven or on earth to bide in. Remember that.” On one anniversary, not so long ago, we learned about the hunters, men who’d tear our souls apart and drive us into the ground if we made even the slightest trouble. But how can we be any less trouble than we are now? I wanted to know.
Mr. Longhurst said for me to be quieter still. And then we saw what the hunters could do. In front of the schoolhouse, we saw one chase an Indian woman with a baby in her arms. I won’t say what happened next. I don’t speak of terrible things. When I try, my thoughts go shut and dark.
Jack was always shut like that. Until this summer past, when he started whining he was hurting, he was being stepped on and kicked, we all were, he said, he said he could feel the living bruising us, walking all over our ashes. They were walking on our ashes in our meadow, which they should have left alone, he cried. Before we knew it, he was throwing himself against the tall windows of the new schoolhouse and Will and Addy were clinging to the ceiling, and while Mr. Longhurst was trying to settle Jack before he screamed so loud that all would be lost, all of a sudden I could stand the madness no more. I flew up and out the steeple and to where I knew the meadow was, and Jack was right, there was a man in a hard yellow hat there pointing and kicking at things, and he pointed at a big hole being dug for I know not what reason, where our ashes had lain. From behind him where I couldn’t be seen I pushed him down into that hole. I didn’t cause him to die. I only wanted someone else to feel what it was like to fall into the pit.
And then I looked around and realized I was out. I’d broken the bargain. I was free.
Now Mr. Longhurst thinks he’ll find me and bring me back. But we’ve been still for so long, so long, while all around us everything moves. Not just the living, but machines, new things, full of freedom and excitement and promise. I can hold still no more. It’s so dull being dead. Learning the same lessons over and over, day after day after day. And if you must only behave, and never speak out, what does learning matter at all?
I’ll never go back. I only worry about the others. I’m the oldest, I’m supposed to watch over them. But why do I have to be the one to keep them still, a stillness that’s death inside death?
Her face wavers in the heat of her anger. Even as I press my fingers in the mirror hard against hers, she starts to go, unwilling to stay still.
I understand.
“The others, the children, they aren’t still,” I whisper into the glass. “They’re moving, too. They’re trying to find you before he does. Can you find them? Can you find them and bring them to the old stables behind this place? I can show you how to be free. Do you want that? If you do, stay cold, and make the others stay cold, Ola, and let no one see you. I have a plan.”
Not a flicker in the glass left nor a sound anywhere.
I hope she’s heard me.
And more: I hope the escape I imagine will be possible.
21
Out of the Jailhouse Museum the hunter comes with his notes in his hands. He’s wrapped himself in his heavy coat and wears stiff black boots that seem to help his limping body keep upright.
I’ve had to leave the weight of a body behind again, in the cold. I need to be a free spirit to follow Pratt and learn what he’s found.
Su has come out of the museum, too, and points across the square. Pratt nods and follows the line of her arm and walks ahead of her, sinking into the snow, while she puts on her snowshoes and then tramps easi
ly over it.
I flit across, reaching the porch of the Huellet House before they do. Gone are the rocking chairs where the doctor-brothers once sat and surveyed White Bar. The gingerbread carpentry that was once so fine is cracked, so frail-looking the ice might pull it down. The plaque on the house is a small one and says nothing about the men or their medicines.
HUELLET HOUSE
1852
HUELLET FAMILY RESIDENCE
FIRST PLUMBED AND ELECTRIFIED BUILDING IN WHITE BAR, 1896
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Pratt beats the knocker on the peeling door while Su frees her feet again. I keep close to her shoulder, so that Pratt, with his extra sense, will think any quiver or pulse coming from my soul is hers.
She says, as their breaths fall in quick puffs against the door, “Harry’s probably still here with Seth, keeping him company.”
Pratt makes a note. “Harold Dubois. The former marine.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I do my homework at night.”
“Harry doesn’t have anything to do with what you saw in the museum, does he?”
Pratt wipes some ice from the plaque. “The clues aren’t just in the dead, Ms. Kwon. They’re in the living. The ones being haunted. Your museum yielded so little because there’s no one left there to haunt. The action”—he taps his chest—“is where the beating hearts are.”
“How interesting.” She smiles pleasantly at him.
The door is opened by Seth. Harold stands close beside him.
“Uh, sorry,” the young man says and squints, “it took me a minute to come down. I was upstairs . . . um”—he looks at Harold—“napping.”
“May we come in?” Pratt smiles his flattering smile.
“Been expecting you. Mr. Pratt.” Harold swings the door wider for them. “Come right in. Handling the cold okay?”
“With some able assistance, yes.”
Su comes into the foyer with them, looking behind her, toward the Berringers’ house. She’s anxious to put her plan into motion, I see.
“You want me to take off now, Mr. Pratt?” she asks him. “I don’t want to be in the way.”
Pratt, handing Harold his coat and muffler, shakes his head. “You aren’t in the way, Ms. Kwon. If you don’t mind, can you stay? I welcome your recent knowledge of the town.”
“Of course. I’m here to help.” A smooth one she is. Steady. “Harry, anything warm to drink for all of us? It’s bitter out there.”
“Coming right up.”
“Late riser?” Pratt smiles at Ruth’s son.
“Usually.”
“But things aren’t usual for you right now, are they?” He pats the boy’s shoulder. “I can tell. Don’t worry. All will be put right soon. I have just a few questions for you. And also”—Pratt peers into the great musty darkness of the house—“if I sense anything in this house, I need you to know I’ll be taking some readings. Since it’s your mother’s residence, and she was the target of the recent assault.”
“If it even was that,” Seth says, quietly.
“Yes,” Pratt says, tilting his head at him, “there are always ‘ifs’ when it comes to a haunting.”
“Must make the work interesting,” Harold says, coming back with the coffees. “This should hold you for a bit.”
“If I sense anything here, it will be a longer visit, Mr. Dubois.”
“No problem. Right, Seth? Ruth would want you to be thorough and complete.” Harold leads them into a half-empty room with velvet paper curling on the walls. “Discover anything at the museum, Mr. Pratt?”
“Nothing at all. It was quite dead.”
“That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?” Harold invites them to sit on the two sagging couches. I rise into a damaged chandelier above them.
“Not at all, Mr. Dubois. Spirits move. When they do, they take their anger with them.”
“Like we do,” Su says.
“No, not exactly like us. Their anger is all they carry. Like a flag of a single stripe. While we’re three-dimensional.”
“A flag has three dimensions,” Su says and stirs her coffee.
“Well noted.” Pratt smiles again. “The dead, in point of fact, lack any dimension at all.”
She smiles back at him flatteringly, yet from above I see the tightness in her shoulders.
Harold goes to open the curtains, heavy moth wings over the windows.
“Thank you, that’s better,” Pratt says. “Not so gloomy. An interesting house. It looks largely original.”
Seth shakes his head. “Pretty much a dump now. You can hardly see what it used to be. It’s mostly empty. I’ve been through the whole place. With Harold.”
Harold says stiffly, “Your mother just lived in a few rooms, to save on heating.”
“Well, I don’t see what she saved.” The boy slouches beside him. “There’s hardly any furniture left or anything valuable. The plaster’s coming down, and the whole place smells of soap. She made, makes, perfumed soap. Smell it?”
“I did notice.” Pratt sips his coffee, watching him.
Su rises and goes to the windows. “She always kept these drapes closed. No matter the time of year. Like she didn’t want to see out. I wonder why.”
Harold says, “We always tried to get Ruth to turn this into a bed-and-breakfast and make some money from it, but she never would. Inns are a staple business here, Mr. Pratt. We live and die by our visitors.”
“Ms. Kwon was just telling me about a visitor who came through town right before Ruth’s—accident—and then disappeared right after.”
“Well, we’re sort of a one-night town this time of year.”
“Are you going to see my mother?” Seth interrupts, turning to Pratt.
“Yes, I’ve been cleared by the hospital to see her this evening. You should accompany me. Alone, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, uh.” He looks at Harold. “I don’t know. There’s a lot to tend to here. I mean, I didn’t know my mother was living in this crappy way. There’s a bunch of decisions I should be making.”
“What decisions are those, son?”
“Harold says—I guess I have to agree now—that things around here go a long way to showing her mental state, and why she might have been confused about what she saw. The way she was living, Mom must’ve been having trouble in the head even before she hit it. I need to decide what to do about the property. Harold’s been helping me clean up a bit.”
“Least I could do,” Harold offers. “I really care so much about Ruthie.”
“How about a tour?” Pratt stands, leaving his cup. “So I can see if anything else needs to be . . . tidied.”
They move slowly, following Pratt. I keep close to Su, whose neck stays taut.
“This”—she stops, surprised—“was her soap manufactory?”
Harold nods somberly. “Used to be the dining room.”
“Mom left a mess.” The young man curls his nose. “But it’s not as bad as before Harold and me started on it.”
Harold points. “See, she was bringing the butter and oil in from the kitchen there, and looks like she added all the herbs and flowers on the table here, then did the cooling and wrapping over there.” He shakes his head. “Some of it was actually rotting when Seth and I got to it. We threw a lot away, so it’s a bit better now.”
“I didn’t know,” Su says, lowering her voice, “she was struggling this badly, Harry.”
“I guess it was hard keeping the Huellet legacy up.”
“Tell me about the Huellet legacy, please, Mr. Dubois,” Pratt asks, making his scribbling notes.
“Sure. So . . . her ancestors were a big deal in this place back in the 1850s and all the way to the middle of the last century. They got rich with their tonics and tinctures and powders and whatnot. Over the generations, though, the family didn’t keep up with the times and sort of lost their fortunes. I don’t know, but I always thought it made Ruth feel ashamed and anxious, and that’s
why she worked so hard in the museum and at this soap stuff, trying to get back some of that Huellet magic. I think you can feel guilty when you can’t keep things up. This house was a lot of upkeep. Once upon a time, the two doctors, they were the brothers who started it all, both lived in and raised their families here, which is why it’s such a huge house. It was real plush—you’ll see in the photos upstairs, in Ruth’s room. Follow me.”
They reach a bannister and a grand staircase with spindles missing. I float above them along the high, stained ceiling, and looking down at them I have the feeling, as I sometimes do, that the living are so poor and earthbound, always straining for something just out of their reach.
“Why didn’t Ruth turn this place into an inn?” Su asks, clearly upset by the poor state of the landing, the threadbare carpets. “It would have been perfect.”
Seth shrugs. “My father says Huellets never apologize, even if they admit a mistake. He said that’s why they’re hell to live with.”
Pratt lays a hand across his chest, the way he does when he’s trying to sense something.
Careful now, everyone, I think.
“Where are the Huellet family buried? Dutch Gap?”
Harold answers. “That’s right. It’s a bigger town. Nice church there. Fancy cemetery. All that. We don’t have any dead here.”
“You can see how my mother lived, just in her room,” her son says, turning. “It gives you a sense of how mixed up she was.”
It was clearly once a fine room, with a marble fireplace and a carved bedstead still something to wonder at, heavy mahogany and four-posted, though the embroidered canopy above the posts droops sadly.