The Marbury Lens

  I’m lying down in the tub. In a bath.

  Ice.

  Jack doesn’t take baths. Ever.

  The water is freezing cold; and the light I see coming from beyond the open door shows the color of morning. Traffic sounds from the street, through the open window.

  I close my eyes tightly. There are images burned into them: people I’ve never seen, but I know who they are—Hannah and Davey, laughing at me while Ma bathes me in the well house. Freddie Horvath, forcing Griffin’s face down into a pool of Conner’s blood, making him drink it.

  Conner.

  Freddie Horvath.

  Seth.

  “Fuck!” I throw my arms out in front of me and pull myself upright, my knees breaking the surface of the water. “Goddamnit!”

  I slap my fists down into the icy water.

  I’m freezing, shuddering, muscles locked in protest against the cold, but I can feel the sweat coming. The sickness.

  Nausea.

  Nickie grabs a towel, tries to wrap it around my shoulders, and my wet feet slip on the floor when I attempt to get myself out of the tub.

  Just like being born.

  You’re going down, asshole.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Nothing matters when you’re puking everything that’s alive out of you, watching it drown in a goddamned toilet.

  Shivering.

  “Jack?”

  I’m collapsing. Every layer, imploding, compacting into that black, painful piece of scabrous nothing that makes a perfect heart for Jack Whitmore. And she’s rubbing my back with the towel, making me warm, and it feels so good—like Hannah’s hand.

  But I give up.

  I’m tired.

  Jack begins crying.

  First time in his fucked-up life.

  “I am so tired, Nickie,” I said. “I am so tired of this shit.”

  I couldn’t understand it at all. I never felt like this once in my life, and I couldn’t control the flashbulb images of all my messed-up thoughts machine-gunning through my brain: Conner dying in Marbury; worrying about Griffin and Ben; thinking why the fuck Nickie would put up with my shit for even one minute, but I loved her so much. I loved her so much. My stomach was tightening by itself, my throat locking up, and tears—goddamned tears—were coming out of my eyes.

  “Shhh…” She rubbed the towel into my hair, all down my back, making me feel so small. “It’s going to be better, Jack. You’re going to be okay, now.”

  She stood. I heard the sink running, and Nickie held a glass of water out for me.

  “Here. Drink some,” she said.

  When I set the glass down on the floor, Nickie gently put her arm around me and said, “Come on, now.”

  She helped me stand and led me back into the bedroom. She dried my body with the towel, and I stood there numbly, like a patient. Then she covered me with blankets and sat down in a chair beside the bed, stroking my hair, her voice, like a song, as she said, “It’s going to be all right, Jack. It’s going to be all right.”

  I didn’t believe her.

  As I lay there, sensing her touch on me, I felt so stupid about the wetness on my eyes. But I didn’t want to wipe it away, either, because I didn’t want Nickie to notice it, even though I knew she did.

  I told myself that I wouldn’t go back to Marbury again, but that made me feel stupid, too.

  You’re a fucking liar, Jack.

  I felt so sad about Conner. He knew who I was, I was certain of it, and I was afraid to go back and see the waste of it all.

  But more than that, I was afraid to not go back, to always wonder about Griffin and Ben, or to ask myself, constantly, if there was some reason, like Henry believed, for me—for us—to be there, as though I could make some kind of difference and help those boys.

  I was an idiot to think I wouldn’t go back again.

  I’d die here if I didn’t go back to Marbury.

  Fuck you, Jack.

  Nickie’s fingers ran through my hair.

  I closed my eyes.

  Nickie sat by my side while I slept. She never took her hand away from me. It made me safe.

  I woke before noon.

  She kissed my forehead and smiled. “You look better.”

  I was embarrassed, felt so weak. I combed my hair back out of my face with a hand. “Thank you for staying, Nickie.”

  “I can ring down for breakfast if you’d like.”

  I sat up, realized I still didn’t have anything on. “What happened last night? What happened to me after we heard Seth?”

  “We went to sleep. I woke up and you were gone. You’d gone into the bath. I thought you were sleeping. You were so cold.”

  The lens.

  I jolted, suddenly awake, and glanced over at the clock.

  “My phone.” I looked on both nightstands. Nickie reached down and grabbed it from the floor, where it had fallen among our clothes.

  I had two missed calls from Conner, and one from Henry.

  I got up from the bed, holding the blanket in front of my waist. I don’t know why I acted so dumb and fragile, standing there in front of her, could feel myself turning red.

  “Conner’s probably at King’s Cross,” I said. “I forgot all about it.”

  I looked away from her, dropping my covers and quickly pulling on the jeans I’d borrowed from her brother. I should have worn something else, but I didn’t want Nickie to see that I was most concerned about making sure the lens was still in my pocket. I felt it there as I buttoned the jeans. I looked at her then. She had been watching me get dressed, and that made me feel renewed embarrassment.

  It was good to get out. The rain had stopped, and the city was clean and smelled like the sea. On our way to the Underground, I called Conner. His train was ninety minutes out, so Nickie and I ate breakfast and had coffee at the station.

  “I don’t want to go home tomorrow, Nickie.”

  She sipped her coffee, dabbed her lips with a napkin. “I wish you could stay.”

  I held her hand. She said, “Promise me that you will fix that angry and scared boy inside here.”

  She smiled and rubbed my chest.

  “I promise.”

  And we kissed.

  “Then perhaps before you come back to England for school, I can come to California for a visit.”

  I looked into her eyes to see if she was joking.

  “You could move into my bedroom and Wynn and Stella wouldn’t even notice.”

  She laughed.

  “Jack,” she said. “Tell me about this.”

  She reached across my lap, clearly making no effort to avoid brushing her fingers slowly over me. Her hand closed around the lens inside my pocket.

  I was stupid to have fooled myself into thinking she didn’t know what I was trying to hide.

  “It’s a lens,” I said.

  “It was from those glasses, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. They broke that day Conner and I got into a fight at Blackpool.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It shows me things in another place. Most people can’t see it, though, I think.”

  Because most people are dead there, like you, Nickie.

  “Is it a good place?”

  “No.”

  Nickie took another drink. “I can’t see it, but Conner can, right? Is that why you fought over it?”

  I took a deep breath, sighed. “I guess so. He didn’t want me to see it, and I needed to keep him away from it.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a terrible place for Conner. That’s all. I guess I was trying to protect him, or protect our friendship. But he didn’t understand.” I shifted. I was uncomfortable, and I was so distracted by her touch at that moment. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “I don’t think that, Jack. I saw what it did to you last night.”

  “And you heard the sounds. You know I’m not just imagining this.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she said.

  “
I’m sorry. Neither do I.” I cleared my throat, and nervously, hurrying the words out of my mouth, said, “Will you spend the night with me again tonight?”

  “I think Conner would be very jealous if I did.” She blushed, smiling.

  “Please?”

  She rubbed against my leg. I wished we hadn’t left the hotel so early.

  Don’t hurt her, Jack.

  Don’t be Mike Heath.

  But I wanted her so badly at that moment, and I was so caught up in being disgusted with myself for how weak and unreasonable I felt.

  Nickie leaned against me, put her head down on my shoulder so her hair fell against my face and spilled, coolly, inside the neck of my T-shirt.

  “Okay. So tell me the rest of it,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want me to.”

  “Tell me the rest of the story. About the boy.”

  But I didn’t want to do that.

  Seth didn’t want me to.

  “There isn’t much to it, Nickie. And it’s not nice.”

  “I want to hear it. I want to hear it like the boy who made that horse, and played with it under our bed last night, was telling it to me and nobody else.”

  Fifty-Three

  SETH’S STORY [5]

  I came to find out from Pa that it was he who’d sent Uncle Teddy over from Davey’s house to fetch me and Hannah so we might come to supper there. And Pa felt sorely terrible for doing that, so blamed himself for everything that happened after. He told me that, in the darkness of the barn, before we left with the preacher’s body.

  I only saw my beautiful Hannah one more time after that morning when Pa and I dragged Uncle Teddy out into the ditch and burned him. I believe we both felt sick about what we did, but we also knew we had to do it for Hannah’s sake, and that’s all there was to it. And Pa was mad enough at me, and rightfully so, but we swore to each other we would never mention Hannah and what had happened to her, no matter what.

  On our way back home, Pa stopped alongside the river, and I used a bucket of water and a brush with lye to try and get all that preacher’s black blood out of the wagon bed, but it hardly faded at all. At least, not to me it didn’t; and every time I looked down at those splintered and dismal boards, I could see by how the stain had taken shape exactly where Uncle Teddy had stretched out to die.

  So I couldn’t help but think that he was following me around, making some kind of telltale mark to illuminate my wickedness and lead anyone with a pure soul to me, so he might kill me and do God’s just work.

  “It ain’t coming clean,” I said.

  Pa sat by the river, smoking. “I didn’t believe it would, Seth.”

  He rolled up another cigarette and handed it to me. “Here,” he said. “I been meaning to ask you one day if you’d care to sit and smoke with me, and I reckon today’s a proper time for it.”

  So I sat down next to him and watched the river rush past us while we had our cigarettes.

  The house was deathly quiet when we got back, and I felt so terrible for the suffering I had brought into everyone’s lives there. I went into the kitchen first, and kissed Ma; but she didn’t say anything to me, and kept her eyes fixed downward on the dinner she was fixing. I figure it was too much for her to take in all at once, and I couldn’t expect that she would ever forgive me for what I’d done to her daughter.

  I left Pa there and went upstairs. He knew I was going to see Hannah.

  She sat on her bed, admiring that horse I’d made for her one Christmas before. It seemed like such a long time ago to me.

  I left the door standing open. Hannah understood that I swore no more disrespect to Ma and Pa.

  “Hello, Hannah.”

  She raised her eyes. I could see she’d been crying, so I went over and sat down beside her. I combed her beautiful hair with my hand and she said, “You smell like smoke, Seth.”

  She put the toy horse down in her lap.

  “Pa and me smoked some cigarettes.”

  She smiled. “Pa don’t mind your wickedness any more than I do, I reckon.”

  “I want you to know that everything I ever did in my life, I did because of how overcome I am by loving you, Hannah. And now I believe things are going to be the way we always dreamed.”

  We embraced and kissed.

  “Does it hurt much?” I asked.

  “The baby?” she said. “No. He regular don’t hurt.”

  “I meant your arms and legs.”

  “Oh. That’ll heal.” Then she put her hands around mine and said, “And I want you to know that everything I ever did in this life, I did because I am so taken by loving you, Seth.”

  We kissed again, and during that kiss I heard the urgent knocking against the door below of the men who’d come looking to take Pa and me away.

  The women cried.

  There was nothing we could do; Pa and I weren’t about to fight, and there wasn’t any sense in trying to run, either.

  When they took us outside, they put irons on our wrists. I was scared so bad I was shaking, but Pa didn’t show any feelings at all. I turned back only one time and Ma and Hannah were holding one another on the porch.

  That was the last time we’d ever see each other.

  They were vigilantes from Necker’s Mill: five of them, men we knew by little more than name, because we’d see them at church and Davey worked at the mill alongside them, too. They drove us away from home in a wagon, three of them following on horseback.

  The big man, Mr. Russ, drove the wagon, and he was irritable enough.

  “Dumb sons of bitches, the both of you are,” he said. “Alvin Hanrion sat there and watched the whole murderous deed from start to finish.”

  Hanrion was on horseback, so I saw him nodding like a puppet while Russ spoke.

  “What you could possibly been thinking defies my reckoning,” Russ said.

  And Pa said, “I suppose it does, Russ.”

  “Ain’t no sense in taking you two all the way, thirty mile, into Napa City for what’ll be done.”

  “Ain’t none,” Hanrion said. The other riders stared at us with grim, unshaven faces.

  “This’ll be good right up here,” Russ said.

  Ten miles away from our home was the spot they chose to hang Pa and me.

  Russ brought the wagon around under a redwood tree, looking up and back, alternately, to judge the height of the wagon bed to a suitable branch.

  He stopped the wagon just there, and set the brake.

  Then the men took me down. I couldn’t stand anymore I was so scared. They left Pa in the wagon and Russ said, “Let’s put the boy up after his pa.”

  “Ain’t no need for you to harm the boy,” Pa said. “It was my doing.”

  “Hanrion saw different, I reckon,” Russ said.

  Two of the riders grabbed me and made me stand between them. I was shaking so hard, like I was freezing from cold, only I knew it was summer.

  Hanrion tossed a rope over the tree branch. The loose end spilled down into the wagon bed.

  Russ said, “Put it in closer to the trunk, so there’s room out that-away for the boy.”

  Then Russ tied a simple slipknot on the end and put it around Pa’s neck. He and the other driver made Pa stand. Pa looked at my eyes, but I couldn’t stand it and looked down. He didn’t say anything at all. I watched his legs. He wasn’t shaking or knee-buckled at all. I just watched his feet.

  He went up on his tiptoes when Hanrion secured the rope tight to a second tree.

  I heard the brakes unlock.

  The wagon lurched forward.

  I watched Pa’s feet.

  He didn’t struggle at all when the wagon went out from under him, but I heard the heavy creak inside Pa’s body just at the moment when he died.

  I can’t move on my own.

  Three of the men lift me into the wagon.

  Pa’s feet hang weightless, dragging along the bed boards.

  Everything is so loud. My breathing becomes a screaming gale
in my head; I feel as though I’m underwater. It seems the universe has reduced down to nothing that isn’t within five feet of me.

  The men hold me up next to Pa.

  I still don’t look at him. I’m ashamed because what happened to him was all my doing.

  I realize my hands are clasped behind me. I think about a prayer, but no words come to me, outside of my own voice telling me, Why would God care to listen to me after what I’d done on His world?

  When the men let go of my arms I fall down.

  They say something, and cuss at me, but I can’t hear over the roaring in my ears.

  With angry hands, two of them prop me back up to my feet.

  Russ tosses the rope up over the branch, and I feel the soft weight of the end hit me between my shoulders where it comes down. They hold me.

  I see Hanrion ahead of me with both his hands at the rope’s end.

  The other man stands beside him, looking at me while he pisses on the same sapling they use to anchor me and Pa.

  Russ forces the loop down over my ears. It scrapes them, and I can feel the needle end of every single whiskered burr of that hemp jabbing my skin as he tightens the knot.

  It makes me dizzy even before Hanrion begins to secure his end.

  When he tightens it to the tree, I do like Pa did. I am forced, stretched out as far as I can go, up on the narrowest tips of my feet.

  The men get down, the sounds their boots make on the wagon boards is like a thousand simultaneous eruptions of thunder. The brake lets go. Wheels loosen, and the wagon moves forward.

  I fix my eyes off in the distance through the trees.

  I have never seen colors as spectacular.

  I imagine my Hannah, and how she smells, but there is no more air, and I am floating in it, besides.

  I feel myself kicking and kicking at the empty air.

  My shoes come off.

  Kicking.

  My britches are even slipping down my waist, I am kicking so hard.

  I keep my eyes fixed on the distance.

  I have never seen anything so perfect.

  I hurt.

  It made me sick again.

  “Fuck.” It was all I could say, that one word. I pressed my head down, so the heels of my palms squeezed my eyes shut. There were tears in them for the second time that day, and again, I said, “Fuck.”