Chapelwood

by Cherie Priest

  For a last thing I don’t like, and the worst thing of all . . . I objected to the way the old men in the jury box looked at me, their eyes all narrow and hateful, like maybe they’d had bad daughters of their own—girls they’d like to beat or lock away, or send the police chasing after. I didn’t like the way they shook their heads when Hugo Black talked about me being a disobedient, ungrateful person (and I didn’t like those words either). If they had daughters of their own, I’m sure those daughters were never obedient enough, and never grateful enough, either. And I really, really didn’t like the way they sneered when he called Pedro a Puerto Rican. Who cares if he’s from Puerto Rico? Hugo Black said it like an insult, and it’s not an insult: It’s just a place people come from.

  Ah, but not white people. Not as far as these men know or care.

  It’s not like Pedro’s even very dark, so I don’t see what the big deal is. When I get a suntan on my arms, my skin’s browner than his, not like it matters to twelve ignorant Alabamans in a jury box. I guess I’m an ignorant Alabaman, too, but Lord knows I’m not an idiot. I just don’t know what’s wrong with those men up there.

  • • •

  So I sat there getting mad, thinking about all the things that were wrong with all the things Hugo Black was saying, and it got warmer and warmer in there. My hands started feeling all tingly, and the tingling went up my wrists, past my elbows, up my neck, and into my eyes—where it settled in like silver fireworks, and that’s when I realized I was having another spell.

  I started to panic, because I’d never had one in front of people before—except for my mother, that one time—and here I was, in a crowded courtroom, and the edges of everything were going black. I had an awful thought: that if I did anything crazy it’d hurt Mr. Mayhew’s case when he called me to testify. As it was, nobody was likely to take me too seriously, and if I was some kind of lunatic who had fits and spells, then that just made everything worse.

  I reached for Chief Eagan’s hand and grabbed it, and squeezed it.

  He squeezed it back. I just hoped and prayed that whatever came next wouldn’t be too loud, too crazy. I hoped and prayed that the old chief would help keep my feet on the ground, and give me something to hang on to.

  There was nothing else I could do. Like it or not, the spell was coming.

  It started up at the front of the room, behind the judge. Or maybe it started with the judge, I can’t say for sure. It poured out from behind him, a cloud of darkness that didn’t really move like a cloud, it moved more like fog spilling down a hill, swallowing up tree trunks and hedges, moving almost like water, so very thick, and so very black. It coiled and curled, and billowed sometimes like a giant was blowing on it, fanning it, so it’d fill the whole room.

  It spilled. Maybe that’s a better way to say it. It spilled out from some spot behind the judge and it collected around Hugo Black, and wound between the old men on the jury, snagging up against them. I thought of cotton candy at the fair, gathering itself into fluff around the spool; but this wasn’t pink, and it wasn’t sweet. It was a shadow spun out of glass and needles, instead of sugar.

  I watched it move like it was alive, a living fog shadow, sharp and delicate, too—a frothy thing as sharp as nettles. I wondered if it would prick and sting my skin when it reached me; I wondered if it would stuff itself down my throat and smother me; I wondered if it would touch me at all.

  It wasn’t touching me.

  Or I should say, it hadn’t reached me.

  But, oh, it was filling the courtroom, drifting about like snow blown into the corners. I’ve never seen snow for myself, but I’ve seen pictures in books, the way it’s thick and the way it covers everything, piling up against fences and walls like a big blanket shook open and left to drop. This was like that, and it was like water, and it was like smoke. This was like nothing at all, if nothing was evil and it had a shape to it.

  The room was almost full, but it still hadn’t touched me.

  It still kept its distance, only a little. Only a few inches, though it had consumed Chief Eagan by then. He looked straight ahead, not feeling it at all, not noticing it. I could see his shape, all sharp posture and crisp uniform facing forward, and I knew he was looking straight ahead, daring those awful men to call him out. Daring them to let my daddy go. But not seeing the creeping darkness, even as it pushed itself up his nose and around his neck, wrapping there tight like a pair of hands.

  He squeezed my fingers, and the darkness pulled away from me, it pulsed like a heartbeat, like it wanted to be up against me. But he squeezed my hand and it wobbled. It gave me another inch.

  I couldn’t see anything anymore. Just myself: my dress, my lap with my handbag in it, my right arm and hand, the curve of my knees, my feet if I looked down—I could just see the top of my brown button heels, the pointed toes.

  Everything else was dark as night, all the lights turned out except for one that was shining on me. Or shining inside of me. Maybe it was the light that pushed it away, and not the squeeze of the chief’s hand. I almost felt a tiny swell of hope to think it, but I didn’t want to get ahead of myself . . . not when the room was dark, and the whole world was full of spun black glass, of prickly cobwebs and fog.

  • • •

  Then I heard his voice.

  Not the chief’s. The father’s.

  • • •

  Not my father, but Coyle, who was dead because my daddy shot him in the face for seeing me married off. The priest was there, and here I was at his funeral. No, not his funeral. His trial. Or, I mean . . . it was my daddy’s trial.

  Father Coyle sat before me, facing me, in the black cassock with the little white collar tucked inside it—so this time I could talk to him directly instead of writing little confessions to him in my journal. Only that didn’t make any sense, because if he was sitting facing me, he’d have to be in the middle of the bench in front of me, straddling the lap of the lady whose hat I’d been staring at this whole time.

  That wasn’t the only reason it didn’t make sense, of course. That was just the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw him, and there was a light inside him so I could see him, even though everything else was dark. (Everything except for me, and except for him.) I don’t think we were even inside the courtroom anymore. I don’t think we were even on earth. We could’ve been anywhere.

  Father Coyle looked tired, but he smiled at me. That same gentle smile he always wore, the one that said the world was big and full of bad things, bad people, but there were good things, too—and good people could make a difference. Eventually. If they lived long enough.

  He said, “Ruthie, there you are. I’m glad to see you’re all right.” His voice was a million miles away, and I could barely hear it.

  “But you’re not,” I told him like he wasn’t aware, and I felt my eyes filling up with tears, and I hoped I wasn’t crying back in the real world, back on earth where I squeezed Chief Eagan’s hand. “You’re supposed to be dead, and in heaven. Am I dead, too?”

  I think he said, “No, you’re not dead. You’re brave, and strong, and alive.”

  “Can anyone else see you?”

  “No. Just you. I’m not in the courtroom, any more than you are.”

  I was definitely crying, wherever I was. “I don’t care, I’m just glad you’re here. You’re pushing the dark away.”

  He shook his head. His mouth moved again, and he might’ve said something like, “That’s not what’s happening,” but I couldn’t be sure. I heard the next part more clearly: “Now listen to me, girl: You must stay away from Chapelwood, always and forever. Stay away from anyone who wants to bring you there, anyone who tries to talk you into visiting. They want you, Ruthie. They will feed you to the night.”

  “I don’t understand . . .” I strained to listen, but it felt weird. It looked like he was right in front of me, but it sounded like he was hollerin
g through a tin can on the other side of the city.

  “You understand they mean to harm you. I know you understand that much. You should stay away from the courthouse, too. The Americans have contaminated this place, you can see it for yourself.”

  “I can’t see anything at all, except for you.”

  “That’s what I mean. You and Chief Eagan and everyone else with a droppa good left in you: Leave this place. Leave it, and don’t return.”

  “But I’m a witness,” I insisted. “I’m going to help them convict my daddy, for what he did to you.”

  He told me, in that stretched-thin voice that faded in and faded out, “No, you won’t. And it doesn’t matter anyway. What’s done is done, and what comes next is set in stone. You’ll be a drop in the ocean, Ruthie Gussman. I appreciate your faith, your determination. More than you know, dear girl. But it can only hurt you now, and it can’t help me.”

  “Are we in purgatory? Is that what this is right now?” I asked suddenly. I remembered him telling me stories about purgatory.

  “No. This is only a place. Ruthie,” he said sternly, and the light flickered and came back, but not quite as strong. “Ruthie, there is darkness coming. I want you to leave before it gets here. Leave Birmingham, leave Alabama.”

  My cheeks were wet, and my voice hardly worked at all. I wondered if he could hear me, any better than I could hear him. “How can I stop them if I leave?”

  “You can’t stop them anyway.”

  “It can’t end like that,” I argued. “Not like this, without any justice, not without a fight. I can’t do much, but I can fight.”

  He sighed, or his ghost sighed—if ghosts even breathe at all. “Justice is for the living, dear girl. Don’t stay for me. Find some other old spirits to comfort you, but find them somewhere else.”

  I wanted to argue some more, but there came a sound that wasn’t a sound—it was something I felt, not something I heard. My ears popped so hard that it hurt, and my hand hurt, too, and the darkness was unspooling away from me . . . back to the judge, or behind him, or underneath him. Father Coyle was gone and the darkness was leaving, and Chief Eagan was holding my hand, and I was crying like a baby.

  Someone handed me a handkerchief and I took it. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes and wondered what I was supposed to do, because I thought I was supposed to stay here and fight—but what if I was wrong? I didn’t want to be wrong. I didn’t want to believe Father Coyle, or his whispering ghost, because it was easy . . . when all I had to do was show up for court and answer the lawyer, and say my piece even if it didn’t mean anything in the long run.

  I second-guessed everything.

  The devil reads the Bible too, and that old serpent is everywhere, under every rock and up every tree.

  Through my tears I wondered if that wasn’t Father Coyle, or his ghost, or his not-purgatory . . . and maybe the advice to leave is just what something, somewhere, wants me to think is the good priest’s friendly direction, helping me find my way along this crooked path. Maybe that ghost was just a piece of the darkness, just a trick of the spell that ate my vision and flooded the room with nothing at all, a night sky without any stars, brought down from heaven and dropped inside the courthouse.

  I couldn’t trust anything, anyone. Not even myself, and the spells are mine alone. They come from my own damn head, as far as I know—nobody else can see them, nobody else can feel them, or knows what they sound like, what they say, what they mean. Nobody else knows why I run from them, and nobody else saw Father Coyle’s ghost in the pitch-black room that wasn’t in the courthouse.

  Nobody can see this but me.

  And just like Hugo Black will tell you, and just like the old men in the jury box believe without even wondering . . . you can’t trust me for shit.

  Just ask them.

  Lizbeth Andrew (Borden)

  BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA SEPTEMBER 29, 1921

  From the time I hung up the phone, concluding my conversation with Inspector Wolf, I had three hours to make my preparations before I would be compelled to leave for the train station.

  I had no idea how long I’d be gone, no idea what weather I’d find, and on a whimsically morbid note, no idea if I’d ever return. I didn’t much care, until I considered the cats—but it wasn’t quite the dilemma it might’ve been. Strange as it felt to me, I used the phone; I tried several numbers and several addresses, and eventually I reached Miranda Closely at the Boston Humane Society—who assured me that one of their Fall River affiliates would be happy to keep watch over the colony of felines in my absence. It was a great relief to hear it, especially since the little tin-bucket kitten was growing stronger. I thought he had an honest chance of making his way in the world, if someone would just feed him and make sure he came in from the cold.

  I am very glad for the Humane Society. It makes me feel less like I watch over these small things alone.

  • • •

  (The Fall River office had no phone, thus my roundabout dealings, and lest you wonder, I cemented Mrs. Closely’s assurances with a sizable grant. I did not mention to that fine woman that, should I fail to return, what remains of my fortune is entirely theirs. You’re no longer in need of care, Emma—indeed, you’re well beyond it. I have no one else to leave it to, and at least it can do some good in the Humane Society’s hands.)

  • • •

  After my phone calls, I packed up my trunk and waited for the car to collect me. It was a nice car, not so rattling and loud as some others I’d ridden in, and the young man who drove it made minimal polite conversation—in the fashion of a professional who speaks only enough to earn his tip, and not bother his passenger.

  I tipped him well, not least of all because he honestly seemed to have no idea who I was. He must have been new in town, or new to the car service at least. Either way, it was a refreshing change of pace, and it set a good tone for the journey to follow.

  I left Fall River, and I became anonymous.

  I was no longer the round-faced girl of thirty years ago, wearing high-necked dresses and nervous smiles. I was not the defendant, the axe murderess exonerated by the courts—but not her fellow citizens. Outside the city limits, no one recognized or thought twice about me: sixty-something years of age, my hair gone nearly white.

  (It went that way suddenly, not long after Nance disappeared. It went white long before you died, Emma, but you know that already. For a long time, I thought it was almost funny; I thought I looked too young to have such hair. These days, my face is catching up to it.)

  No one knew me as anything but Miss Lizbeth Andrew, lone spinster riding the rails on spinster business. Heading for warmer climes, I hinted to the few fellow passengers who chitchatted enough to require an answer. Needed to heat up these old bones, lest the arthritis make me slow and infirm.

  I’ve gotten bad at chitchatting. I feel stilted and rude, but I try. And I have money, so I’m usually forgiven the lapse in etiquette. Thank heaven for grandmother’s jewelry, and for silk. I was rich and anonymous, and the farther I traveled from Fall River, the more powerful I felt.

  I cannot remember the last time I felt powerful.

  I want to say that it was uncomfortable, but it was not. It was only normal, or how normal should have looked . . . how normal might have looked for me, if I’d left thirty years ago and found some other place to haunt.

  I could not catch the very first train out of Fall River, so I had to catch the next one, later that evening. It ran through the evening to Providence, and then I took another train to Boston. A roundabout journey, yes, but Boston was the closest place from whence I could get a more or less direct rail line to Birmingham, Alabama.

  I say more or less because I had to change trains twice, and the journey took a full day and a half, but it was only a day and a half. Due to the arcane rituals of train schedules, it would’ve been two days or more before I arrived,
if I’d tried to be more direct about it.

  A day and a half was plenty, though. A day and a half of trying to get comfortable in a single seat that scarcely reclines, subsisting on galley food, enduring awkward conversations with strangers . . . I’m not looking forward to the return trip, I’ll say that much. If I make it at all.

  But as mentioned above, I shouldn’t really have thought of it as some kind of odious burden to interact with my fellow passengers. I ought to have considered it practice. It’s been years since I’ve had any regular social interaction, but you’d think it’d be the kind of thing that’s difficult to forget—that the patterns of speech and behavior should come naturally, and be easily remembered. Not for me. Unless I’m being too hard on myself, and I’ve been guilty of such personal unkindness before. For all I know, I’m doing quite well. I have nothing to compare my progress to, so I must assume that any and all progress is to be lauded.

  That’s how I’ll come at the matter: with optimism, rather than self-flagellation. I’m too old to beat up on myself like that anymore.

  I’m also too old to travel comfortably for more than a few hours at a time. It was hell on my back and shoulders, trying to sleep with a little pillow—my head leaned against the space between the seatback and the window, rattling in that rumbling rhythm of the tracks. By the time I arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, I had a headache of immense proportions . . . combined with an intense desire to bathe and change clothes.

  First, I needed to find my hotel.

  No, first I needed to retrieve my trunk and find transportation, then the hotel. And then, to locate the Boston inspector who had so suddenly roused me from my isolation.

  No, that wasn’t true, either—as it turned out. The inspector found me first, and thereby upended my half-formed plans.