Fire (32 page)

Which still left her on the thin strip of land between the cemetery and the street, naked and embarrassed. Unable to go forward and expose her nakedness any further to the light of day. Unable to go back, because it could leave her naked forever. And she might have stayed there forever, stuck permanently between progress and retreat. If it hadn’t been for the bag lady.

Christine didn’t think of her as a bag lady. In her time there had been no such thing — not by any such name, at least. There’d been beggar-women. Even beggar-women as old as time, as this one was. And often they’d smelled as foul as this woman did. But the woman dressed in layers and layers of fine clothes turned to rags, carrying three great sacks filled what were so obviously all her mortal possessions — she was a new thing to Christine. Fascinating at the same moment she was disgusting.

The bag lady rounded a corner and spotted Christine; crossed the street and walked toward her as Christine stood paralyzed there at the edge of the cemetery.

“I’ve brought the word,” the old woman said, puffing and out of breath from hurrying and from the weight of her load. “I’ve brought the word to you.”

Word? Christine couldn’t begin to imagine what she meant by that. Which word? And how?

The old woman was stooped over, now, fishing down through her great sacks of filth and ephemera. “Here,” she said. Stood, held out a leaflet. “This is it. This is the word I’ve brought you.”

I’m supposed to take that from her, Christine thought. That’s what she wants, isn’t it? Yes, it was. Christine was still powerfully confused from her resurrection, but she wasn’t stupid.

There was no reason for Christine not to take that leaflet. None that she could even begin to imagine. Still she hesitated; began to raise her hand to take the leaflet — and stopped.

That was just as well, because in that instant the beggar-woman hesitated, too. And changed herself completely.

“No,” the old woman said. “It isn’t the word you need to hear. There’s no need for you to hear the word — not this one nor any other. No reason. It’s something else you need.” And she held out her hand, and Christine took it without thinking. And the beggar lady led her away into the afternoon.

They’d gone three blocks before Christine realized that she’d forgot about her nakedness. And for just an instant she felt the embarrassment coming over her again. Only for an instant: somehow the presence of the beggar woman who did not beg made it hard to care whether she was dressed or clothed.

“Where are we going?” Christine asked. She felt no more concern for the answer to the question than she felt for the sensation of the sun on her bare thighs.

“Soon,” the woman said, “soon.”

Which wasn’t an answer, precisely. And wasn’t the absence of an answer, either.

They were blocks from the cemetery, now — on a road paved with crumbling cobblestones, lined with broken brownstones and lots vacant of anything but garbage and debris. The old woman turned and led Christine out across one of those lots. There were sharp things on the ground, there — broken glass and rusted nails and other shards of sharp, corroded metal. Christine felt them as she walked, felt their edges rasp against the skin of her bare feet, but they didn’t cause her any pain, nor did even the sharpest knife of glass break the skin of her soles.

Strange. Was there some unknowable magic surrounding the old woman? Magic that sheltered Christine too? It was a hard thing to accept. For all that the miracle of life had recovered her from death, Christine wasn’t inclined to believe in miracles or sorcery. No, Christine decided. It was just dumb luck that kept her feet from harm.

They were half-way to the street on the far end of the waste when the old woman suddenly stopped. “Here,” she said, “this is the place. Help me.”

And she bent down and started digging through the rubble. At first Christine thought she was seeking out new clutter to add to her sacks, and wondered how she could possibly help, since she couldn’t begin to tell what the old woman might value in that rubbish. No; she wasn’t adding anything to her bags. She digging away the rubble, digging down toward something buried down below. That, at least, was something she could understand. Christine stooped, began lifting the loose bricks and trash, tossing them aside.

After just a few minutes the cellar door appeared. A few more and it was cleared enough to open.

A cellar door that led into the foundation of a building that had long since been demolished.

The old woman pulled away the broken, rusted padlock. Lifted open the door.

And began to climb down the stone steps that led into the cellar.

Christine watched her, frightened that the old woman would stumble on a broken step or fall into a nest of rabid vermin. Not that any such thing happened.

“Come on,” the old woman said. “You need to come down here too. There isn’t much point to this if you don’t.”

Christine set her teeth. Braced herself against a fear of rats. And followed the old woman down into the dark. By the time she set foot on the bottom step it was clear that the basement was neither as dank nor as dark as Christine had imagined it: the floor beneath her feet was powder-dry with dust, and the light that streamed in through the open door was more than enough to illuminate this part of the cellar.

The old woman was over there, by the wall — sifting through great mounds of junk. Christine followed her, waited to be told what help the woman wanted from her. She said nothing for the longest while, and Christine began to feel uneasy that the old woman had forgot about her completely.

“Can I help you with that?” Christine asked when she saw the woman begin to lift the great cracked vase that was near as large as she was.

“No,” she answered. “This is the last of it.” And set the vase down on the basement floor, effortless as though it were an empty sack. Slid the brass-hinged wooden trunk out of the corner where it had sat beneath the vase. Unhooked its latches, thumbed open its lock, and lifted its wide clamshell lid. “This was her hope chest,” the old woman said.

Whose hope chest? Christine wanted to ask — but didn’t ask, for no reason she could name.

“Don’t bother asking who,” the old woman said. “She left here long ago, lived a long life, and died continents away from this place. Her story isn’t yours.” The old woman lifted out a wrinkled white-cotton dress; held it up in front of Christine, measuring the size. “It’ll fit you well, I think. Go ahead — take it. Put it on. Do you hesitate because you fear she’ll soon return to claim her hope? Don’t worry there. She’s buried far from here, and anyway her hopes changed a thousand times after she left these behind.”

Was that the reason for her reluctance? Christine wasn’t sure. She was still too confused, too unsure of all the things that give a body reason to be alive. Anyway, she took the dress, pulled it over her head. She needed clothes, and damn the place they came from.

“These shoes,” the woman said, “Such fine shoes. Her mother spent enough for them to feed the family for a month.” And threw them on the floor, not far from Christine’s feet. She rummaged in among the linens and the gown for several moments, but nothing else came forth. When she finally stood upright again — carefully wiping her hands on the filthy hem of her skirt — Christine was already dressed and shod. She closed the chest, sat on top of it.

Christine stared at her dumbly, uncertain what the woman would do next.

“Sit, sit,” she said, pointing Christine at a filthy parlor chair on the far side of the room. “Bring the chair over here and sit. We need to talk.”

“Talk?”

“Yes, talk. There are things you need to say. No, not there — bring the chair here, into the light. Where I can see you.”

I need to say? “What do you mean?”

The old woman frowned. “You already know.”

Christine didn’t. Really didn’t. She shook her head. “No,” she told the woman. “I don’t have anything to say.”

A sigh.

“You do, though. Sit quiet, sit tight, and listen to yourself for a while. You’ll hear.”

And they did exactly that — both of them sat quiet as church mice for a good five minutes. Christine heard nothing. Then, finally, the old woman spoke.

“What do you want from life? What did you want, when you were alive before?”

“I —” but there was no answer for that question, either, because Christine could find no desire in her heart. “I’m not sure. I’d like to be happy, I think.”

“Yes,” the woman said. The answer didn’t seem to please her. For a moment she seemed distant, distracted — as though she were concentrating on something far, far away. “Last night. . . . Last night, why did. . . ?” She paused, waiting for Christine to answer. But the question was so vague that she could find no way to approach it. “You weren’t alone last night.”

Christine felt her cheeks flush again; she felt violated, as though the woman had intruded on something that was none of her concern.

“No,” she said. “I wasn’t.” and didn’t say another word.

Maybe the old woman could see that she was angry; certainly she hesitated a long while before she said anything else. After a while she did ask the next question:

“You didn’t love him, did you? How could you? — you hardly knew that man.”

“No,” she said, “I didn’t.” And it surprised Christine twice when she said that. First because it was a question that didn’t deserve the dignity of an answer. Second — and infinitely more unsettling — because when she heard herself say those words she knew that they were a lie.

“Then why. . . ?”

Christine frowned, ignoring the intuition she wasn’t ready to cope with yet. “Old habits die hard,” she said. “I needed someone close. I needed the warmth.”

The old woman shook her head. “You’re lying to me. It doesn’t matter: you know what you need to know.” She lifted up the larger of her great sacks, sifted through it. Took out three one-dollar bills and set the sack down again. Held the bills out to Christine. “Take these,” she said. “They’re all I have, but you need them more than I do.”

Before she understood what she was doing, Christine had the money in her hand. “I can’t take —”

“You can. You will. This isn’t any fortune. The money is worth so little now, much less than when last you were alive.” She nodded toward the open cellar door. “Walk the city. Learn to know the world again. If you see a man selling flowers on a street corner, buy yourself a rose.”

Christine looked down at the money in her hands. The bills were nothing like green backs, but still there was no mistaking what they were.

“One last thing,” the old woman said, “before we go.” She was stooped again, fishing deep down into her smaller bag. Christine caught a glimpse down into it over the woman’s shoulder, and for just a moment she thought that she could see the infinities of heaven inside it. That had to be an illusion. Then the woman stood quite suddenly, and she held out her hand.

In that hand she held a pendant, a silvery chain that was brighter and more silvery than silver could ever be. And from the chain there hung a stone like like an opal, and more brilliant. A stone that shimmered and shone with the fiery light of a star.

“Wear this near your heart,” the woman told her. “One day soon it will mean your life — and much, much more than that.”

Christine took the pendant; she was too transfixed and encircled by its beauty to even begin to refuse it. After a moment she lifted the chain over her head, set it around her neck. And tucked it under her blouse, because she was afraid that if anyone else saw that gem they’d covet it, and try to take it from her.

When she looked up again, not ten seconds later, the old woman was gone.

Late that afternoon, when Christine found herself again at the edge of the cemetery that she’d risen from, she walked quickly and deliberately into it. And tossed the rose she’d bought herself with the old woman’s money into her own open grave.

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Luke woke a lifetime later in an apartment that was almost entirely dark, and he woke feeling . . . wholer than he had in all the hours since his rebirth. Andy was kneeling beside him, holding a candle, and he was saying, “C’mon, Mr. Luke Munsen, c’mon and wake up now.” As he spoke he shook Luke’s shoulder not too gently with his free hand.

Luke sat up — slowly, afraid he’d jostle the candle — and rubbed his eyes. They were gritty and irritated from the dust that the boy hadn’t cleaned too thoroughly off the floor and the blanket.

“I brought my Momma and my Daddy with me,” he said. “I hope that’s okay. They wanted to see you. And we brought you some dinner.”

“Uh,” Luke said. He could see the Harrisons over their son’s shoulder; they stood reverently with their hands folded in front of them. “Great. Good to see you people again. Sorry I can’t be much of a host.”

Barbara Harrison smiled meekly; her husband shook his head as if to say the surroundings weren’t important.

“Go ahead and sit down, if that’ll make you more comfortable; there aren’t any chairs, but if you don’t mind the floor, you’re welcome to it.”

“That’s very gracious of you,” the woman said, and both she and her husband sat almost as if they’d been commanded to.

Luke frowned. “And it’s gracious of you to say so, but really — I’m the one who’s in debt to you. There isn’t any need for you to act so uncomfortable.”

Robert Harrison coughed, in a way that seemed very pointed.

“The dead out there are rising from their graves,” Andy said. “Did you do that while you were sleeping? Are you really Jesus, Mr. Luke Munsen? Or at least some kind of a Saint, anyhow?”

Luke shook his head, trying to clear it. “What? Dead people rising?”

“Climbing right up out of their graves. Go take a look out the window if you want, and see for yourself. They’re a lot like you were when I first saw you yesterday — real confused. Even more shook up than you were, in fact.”

Luke stood, crossed the room. Leaned out the window and looked . . .

“Just like I said —” the boy’s voice, from just behind Luke’s elbow, startled Luke half out of his wits “— you got that gorgeous cemetery so full of craters that it looks worse than the moon. Honest, Luke Munsen, why’d you have to go and do a thing like that?”