Bewere the Night (38 page)

SNOW ON SUGAR MOUNTAIN

ELIZABETH HAND

When Andrew was seven, his mother turned into a fox. Snow freed the children from school at lunchtime, the bus skating down the hill to release cheering gangs at each sleety corner. Andrew got off last, nearly falling from the curb as he turned to wave good-bye to the driver. He ran to the front door of the house, battering at the screen and yelling, “Mom! Mom!” He tugged the scarf from his face, the better to peer through frost-clouded windows. Inside it looked dark; but he heard the television chattering to itself, heard the chimes of the old ship’s clock counting half past one. She would be downstairs, then, doing the laundry. He dashed around the house, sliding on the iced flagstones.

“Mom . . . I’m home, it snowed, I’m—”

He saw the bird first. He thought it was the cardinal that had nested in the box tree last spring: a brilliant slash of crimson in the snow, like his own lost mitten. Andrew held his breath, teetering as he leaned forward to see.

A blue jay: no longer blue, somber as tarnished silver, its scattered quills already gray and pale crest quivering erect like an accusing finger. The snow beneath it glowed red as paint, and threads of steam rose from its mauled breast. Andrew tugged at his scarf, glancing across the white slope of lawn for the neighbor’s cat.

That was when he saw the fox, mincing up the steps to the open back door, its mouth drooped to show wet white teeth, the curved blade of the jay’s wing hanging from its jaw. Andrew gasped. The fox mirrored his surprise, opening its mouth so that the wing fell and broke apart like the spinning seeds of a maple. For a moment they regarded each other, blue eyes and black. Then the fox stretched its forelegs as if yawning, stretched its mouth wide, too wide, until it seemed that its jaw would split like the broken quills. Andrew saw red gums and tongue, teeth like an ivory stair spiraling into black, black that was his mothers hair, his mothers eyes, his mother crouched naked, retching on the top step in the snow.

After that she had to show it to him. Not that day, not even that winter; but later, in the summer, when cardinals nested once more in the box tree and shrieking jays chased goldfinches from the birdbath.

“Someday you can have it, Andrew,” she said as she drew her jewelry box from the kitchen hidey-hole. “When you’re older. There’s no one else,” she added. His father had died before he was born. “And it’s mine, anyway.”

Inside the box were loops of pearls, jade turtles, a pendant made of butterfly’s wings that formed a sunset and palm trees. And a small ugly thing, as long as her thumb and the same color: marbled cream, nut brown in the creases. At first he thought it was a bug. It was the locust year, and everywhere their husks stared at him from trees and cracks in the wall.

But it wasn’t a locust. His mother placed it in his hand, and he held it right before his face. Some sort of stone, smooth as skin. Cool at first, after a few moments in his palm it grew warm, and he glanced at his mother for reassurance.

“Don’t worry,” she laughed wryly. “It won’t bite.” And she sipped her drink.

It was an animal, all slanted eyes and grinning mouth, paws tucked beneath its sharp chin like a dog playing Beg. A tiny hole had been drilled in the stone so that it could be tied onto a string.

“How does it work?” Andrew asked. His mother shook her head·

“Not yet,” she said, swishing the ice in her glass. “It’s mine still; but someday—someday I’ll show you how.” And she took the little carving and replaced it, and locked the jewelry box back in the hidey-hole.

That had been seven years ago. The bus that stopped at the foot of the hill would soon take Andrew to the public high school. Another locust summer was passing. The seven-year cicadas woke in the August night and crept from their split skins like a phantom army. The night they began to sing, Andrew woke to find his mother dead, bright pills spilling from one hand when he forced it open. In the other was the amulet, her palm blistered where she clenched the stone.

He refused the sedatives the doctor offered him, refused awkward offers of comfort from relatives and friends suddenly turned to strangers. At the wake he slouched before the casket, tearing petals from carnations. He nodded stiffly at his mother’s sister when she arrived to take him to the funeral.

“Colin leaves for Brockport in three weeks,” his aunt said later in the car. “When he goes, you can have the room to yourself. It’s either that or the couch—”

“I don’t care,” Andrew replied. He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so harsh. “I mean, it doesn’t matter. Anywhere’s okay. Really.”

And it was, really.

Because the next day he was gone.

North of the city, in Kamensic Village, the cicadas formed heavy curtains of singing green and copper, covering oaks and beeches, houses and hedges and bicycles left out overnight. On Sugar Mountain they rippled across an ancient Volkswagen Beetle that hadn’t moved in months. Their song was loud enough to wake the old astronaut in the middle of the night, and nearly drown out the sound of the telephone when it rang in the morning.

“I no longer do interviews,” the old astronaut said wearily. He started to hang up. Then, “How the hell did you get this number, anyway?” he demanded; but the reporter was gone. Howell glared at Festus. The spaniel cringed, tail vibrating over the flagstones, and moaned softly. “You giving out this new number?” Howell croaked, and slapped his thigh. “Come on—”

The dog waddled over and lay his head upon the man’s knee. Howell stroked the old bony skull, worn as flannel, and noted a hole in the knee of his pajamas.

Eleven o’clock and still not dressed. Christ, Festus, you should’ve said something.

He caught himself talking aloud and stood, gripping the mantel and waiting until his heart slowed. Sometimes now he didn’t know if he was talking or thinking; if he had taken his medicine and slipped into the dreamy hold that hid him from the pain or if he was indeed dreaming. Once he had drifted, and thought he was addressing another class of eager children. He woke to find himself mumbling to an afternoon soap opera, Festus staring up at him intently That day he put the television in a closet.

But later he dragged it back into the bedroom once more. The news helped remind him of things. Reminded him to call Lancaster, the oncologist; to call his son Peter, and the Kamensic Village Pharmacy.

“Festus,” he whispered, hugging the dog close to his knee. “Oh, Festus.” And when he finally glanced at the spaniel again was surprised to see the gentle sloping snout matted and dark with tears.

From the western Palisades, the radio tower blazed across the Hudson as Andrew left the city that dawn. He stood at the top of the road until the sun crept above the New York side, waiting until the beacon flashed and died. The first jet shimmered into sight over bridges linking the island to the foothills of the northern ranges. Andrew sighed. No tears left; but grief feathered his eyes so that the river swam, blurred, and finally disappeared in the burst of sunrise. He turned and walked down the hill, faster and faster, past bus stops and parked cars, past the high school and the cemetery Only when he reached the Parkway did he stop to catch his breath, then slowly crossed the road to the northbound lane.

Two rides brought him to Valhalla. He walked backward along the side of the road, shifting his backpack from shoulder to shoulder as he held his thumb out. A businessman in a BMW finally pulled over and unlocked the passenger door. He regarded Andrew with a sour expression.

“If you were my kid, I’d put your lights out,” he growled as Andrew hopped in, grinning his best late-for-class smile. “But I’d wish a guy like me picked you up instead of some pervert.”

‘Thanks,” Andrew nodded seriously “I mean, you’re right. I missed the last train out last night. I got to get to school.”

The man stared straight ahead, then glanced at his watch. “I’m going to Manchester Hills. Where do you go to school?”

“John Jay.”

“In Mount Lopac?”

“Kamensic Village.”

The man nodded. “Is 684 close enough?”

Andrew shrugged. “Sure. Thanks a lot.”

After several miles, they veered onto the highway’s northern hook. Andrew sat forward in the seat, damp hands sticking to his knapsack as he watched for the exit sign. When he saw it he dropped his knapsack in nervous excitement. The businessman scowled.

“This is it . . . I mean, please, if it’s okay—” The seat belt caught Andrew’s sneaker as he grabbed the door handle. “Thanks—thanks a lot—”

“Next time don’t miss the train,” the man yelled as Andrew stumbled onto the road. Before he could slam the door shut, the lock clicked back into place. Andrew waved. The man lifted a finger in farewell, and the BMW roared north.

From the Parkway, Kamensic Village drifted into sight like a dream of distant towns. White steeples, stone walls, granite turrets rising from hills already rusted with the first of autumn. To the north the hills arched like a deer’s long spine, melting golden into the Mohank Mountains. Andrew nodded slowly and shrugged the knapsack to his shoulder. He scuffed down the embankment to where a stream flowed townward. He followed it, stopping to drink and wash his face, slicking his hair back into a dark wave. Sunfish floated in the water above sandy nests, slipping fearlessly through his fingers when he tried to snatch them. His stomach ached from hunger, raw and cold as though he’d swallowed a handful of cinders. He thought of the stone around his neck. That smooth pellet under his tongue, and how easy it would be then to find food . . . 

He swore softly, shaking damp hair from his eyes. Against his chest the amulet bounced, and he steadied it, grimacing, before heading upstream.

The bug-ridden sign swayed at the railroad station: K
AMENSIC
V
ILLAGE
. Beneath it stood a single bench, straddled by the same kid Andrew remembered from childhood: misshapen helmet protecting his head, starry topaz eyes widening when he saw Andrew pass the station.

“Hey,” the boy yelled, just as if he remembered Andrew from years back. “HEY!”

“Hey, Buster.” Andrew waved without stopping.

He passed the Kamensic Village Pharmacy, where Mr. Weinstein still doled out egg creams; Hayden’s Delicatessen with its great vat of iced tea, lemons bobbing like toy turtles in the amber liquid. The library, open four days a week (C
LOSED
T
ODAY
). That was where he had seen puppet shows, and heard an astronaut talk once, years ago when he and his mother still came up in the summer to rent the cottage. And, next to the library, the seventeenth-century courthouse, now a museum.

“Fifty cents for students.” The same old lady peered suspiciously at Andrew’s damp hair and red-rimmed eyes. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Visiting,” Andrew mumbled as she dropped the quarters into a little tin box. “I got relatives here.”

He shook his head at her offer to walk him through the rooms.

“I been here before,” he explained. He tried to smile. “On vacation.”

The courtroom smelled the same, of lemon polish and the old lady’s Chanel No.5. The Indian Display waited where it always had, in a whitewashed corner of the courtroom where dead bluebottles drifted like lapis beads. Andrew’s chest tightened when he saw it. His hand closed around the amulet on its string.

A frayed map of the northern county starred with arrowheads indicated where the tribes had settled. Ax blades and skin scrapers marked their battles. A deer hide frayed with moth holes provided a backdrop for the dusty case. From beneath the doeskin winked a vole’s skull.

At the bottom of the case rested a small printed board. Andrew leaned his head against the glass and closed his eyes, mouthing the words without reading them as he fingered the stone.

. . . members of the Tankiteke tribe of the Wappinger Confederacy of Mohicans: Iroquois warriors of the Algonquin Nation . . .

When he opened his eyes they fixed upon an object at the bottom of the case: a carved gray stone in the image of a tiny animal with long eyes and smooth sharp teeth.

Shaman’s Talisman [Animistic Figure]

The Tankiteke believed their shamans could change shape at will

and worshipped animal spirits.

From the narrow hallway leading to the front room came the creak of a door opening, the answering hiss of women’s laughter.

“Some boy,” Andrew heard the old lady reply. He bit his lip. “Said he had relatives, but I think he’s just skipping school . . . ”

Andrew glanced around the courtroom, looking for new exhibits, tools, books. There was nothing. No more artifacts; no other talisman. He slipped through a door leading to an anteroom and found there another door leading outside. Unlocked; there would be no locked doors in Kamensic Village. In the orchard behind the courthouse, he scooped up an early apple and ate it, wincing at the bitter flesh. Then he headed for the road that led to The Fallows.”

In the dreams, Howell walked on the moon . . .

The air he breathed was the same stale air, redolent of urine and refrigeration, that had always filled the capsules. Yet he was conscious in the dreams that it tasted different on the moon, filtered through the spare silver ducts coiled on his back. Above him the sky loomed sable, so cold that his hands tingled inside heated gloves at the sight of it: as he had always known it would be, algid, black, speared with stars that pulsed and sang as they never did inside the capsule. He lifted his eyes then and saw the orbiter passing overhead. He raised one hand to wave, so slowly it seemed he might start to drift into the stark air in the pattern of that wave. And then the voice crackled in his ears, clipped words echoing phrases from memoranda and newscasts. His own voice, calling to Howell that it was time to return.