I know it’s a leap. I know it’s crazy. But I don’t think it’s safe to believe in coincidence anymore. Too many places are burning, and too many people are burning right along with them.
Lord Almighty. I might as well have been a witch.
• • •
WE’D strolled past the pavilion on our earlier jaunt through town, but now we walked down the gentle slope toward the lakes together more slowly, more reluctantly, though neither one of us could’ve said exactly why. Or maybe neither one of us would’ve been willing to say why.
That’s probably closer to the truth.
All the way, Felipe trotted between us in a businesslike fashion, ears alert and eyes darting from side to side. I suppose I’d be alert, too, if I were the size of a hatbox and lived my life at ankle level. I wonder how often he gets kicked by accident or tripped over? I’m glad he’s a wary little beast. He’ll live longer that way.
Men occasionally tipped their hats toward us, and ladies bent double to coo baby talk at the dog, and before long we reached the open-air structure with the billowing roof made of canvas, and pews organized like they’d be in any ordinary place of worship, laid out in an angular horseshoe pattern. It was only five thirty, but the rows were already filling up with the eager, the curious, and the skeptical.
David Fine was down front, beside the pulpit, chatting with Dr. Floyd. He saw me out of the corner of his eye, winked, and nodded. He gave Tomás a more appraising look, then went back to business.
I waved to Dr. Floyd, but I don’t think she saw me.
“Do you mind if we . . .” Tomás looked around uncertainly. He picked up Felipe and hugged him, and I thought of the way a child holds a doll in the dark.
“If we what?”
“Could we stay toward the back? Over here, maybe?” He sidled to a pew on the very last row and slotted himself into place before I could suggest an alternative. Not that I’d been planning to. The back row was fine with me.
I slipped in beside him and sat down. “This works.” I put my hand on his arm to reassure him, and I swear, I felt him trembling. I did not know if it was hunger, exhaustion, or fear. It could have been any one of these things. I pulled my hand away quickly, before I could pick up anything private or upsetting.
I’d felt a sharp little jolt of something when I touched him. Sympathy? Pity? No, I don’t think so. At the risk of suggesting something silly and inappropriate, I think it might have been admiration. Or even affection.
Ridiculous, of course. I hardly knew the man. Besides, he’s a bit older than me.
Not that much older. Ten or twelve years, I think? Hardly any older at all, not that I’m thinking of him like that. (Really, I’m not.) I feel protective of him; I think that’s it. I mustn’t misunderstand my own feelings. Protectiveness is a good thing. That’s all he needs right now, and all I’m in a position to offer him. He has been through so much, and he is trying so hard to be strong.
But oh, his arm was thin inside that sleeve. I wanted to leap up, run across the tracks, and come back with another sandwich—and make him eat it, then and there. Right in front of me.
Obviously, I did no such thing.
I sat there quietly beside him. Together, we waited for the audience to filter in and for Dr. Floyd and David to come to some agreement about how the services would be conducted and which hymns would be sung. We watched as Mabel had a word with the piano player, then went to the song boards to change out the numbers.
And then, the lights dimmed as the sun dropped behind the hills. Everything went doubly dark, in half the time you’d expect.
It was Edella Holligoss on the piano. I’m not sure why I hadn’t recognized her at first, but there she was, cracking her knuckles and shuffling her feet on the pedals. She began to play quietly, signaling that the service was about to begin.
Felipe settled down on the seat between us, wedging himself in tight. I couldn’t tell if he was scared or if he was just the most comfortable when he was being squeezed. I patted his head, and he didn’t protest—he only shivered. But as far as I could tell, he always shivered. Tomás told me it was normal, when they’re small like that. Even when the weather is warm.
I’ll have to take his word for it. I don’t know much about dogs.
But the service began, and Dr. Floyd gave the announcements and welcomes, and we all stood up to sing “Lord! May the Inward Grace Abound.” I didn’t know that one, so I didn’t sing it very well. Tomás didn’t sing at all, but he apologized quietly and said that in Catholic churches, they don’t do such things.
He quickly added, “It’s not that I disapprove; I am only unfamiliar with the ritual of it. Please, sing if it makes you happy, and if it is part of your faith.”
He’s such a gracious man. His wife was a lucky woman.
I’m not a bad singer, but when the hymn was finished and I’d fumbled through it badly, I whispered, “I’ve never heard that one before.”
“You did beautifully,” he whispered back, a lovely untruth.
Finally it was time for David to take his position. The pavilion went quiet, and so did we.
He closed his eyes and folded his hands, performing a tiny, silent prayer, then opened his eyes again and looked out over the crowd. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“It’s . . . I’m getting a young man. He had trouble with his chest—no, with his breathing. It was consumption. He died before he turned eighteen. The same week. Yes, the very same week. He’s here to speak with . . . to see . . .”
A man three rows down from us sobbed out loud.
“His father?”
He nodded.
“Hello, sir, yes. He says it’s you.”
The reading went on in this fashion for another few minutes, when two more spirits came forward. One was a child who had been run over by a car—“The first car in the town, about five years ago . . . a big black car, and the driver just kept going”—and one was an elderly woman who wished to speak with her grandchildren. Several victims of the influenza came forward and were welcomed. Dr. Floyd had told me that there were almost always a few. It was always very sad.
But then things took a turn.
David fell silent and stared forward, toward the back of the breezy church. His eyes were wide and black, or else it was only the light. His face was pale and lean, even cadaverous, unless that was the light, too.
(I was not sure it was the light.)
“Who?” he asked. “Who,” he said. “This isn’t . . . you aren’t . . .”
Dr. Floyd looked concerned. She exchanged a few words with Oscar Fine, who was seated beside her on the platform behind David.
Before either of them could come forward to give him any guidance or assurance, he held out one hand to point forward. “It’s not you,” he breathed. He swung his hand back and forth slowly, like a compass needle searching for true north. “You’re not . . . you aren’t . . . no. You’re not who you say you are.”
I had a terrible feeling that I knew which north the needle of his index finger would find, and I was right. The arm tipped toward Tomás and me—but we were so far in the back, I could also argue that it tipped toward a dozen other people at the same time. No one singled us out as if we were the target.
But somehow I knew: He was pointing at Tomás.
“No, it isn’t him,” David said. His voice wobbled. “Tell me who you are.”
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp.
Felipe trembled and began a low, soft, guttural growl that could not be heard more than a foot or two away. I felt it when I put one hand upon his back. He was not threatening me or anyone else. He was complaining about something. He was worried. He hunkered down deeper between the two of us on the pew.
Tomás breathed, “Me. He means me.”
But David said, “It’s with you. It’s . .
. it’s behind you. It followed you here.” He lowered his arm until it hung at his side like a stone. He went very, very pale—even paler than before, and I would’ve sworn it wasn’t possible. He stood still, so still I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He was as immobile as a corpse.
Tomás was frozen beside me. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was slightly ajar.
“It chose you, you know.” His next words were so soft, I did not quite hear them—but I could read his lips. “He chose you. He saw you holding the fire.”
“He chose you . . . ,” I echoed, and I don’t know why. I didn’t know what it meant, and if Tomás did, I couldn’t read it on his face.
I did something rash then—while David stood there ghostlike on the stage. I reached for Tomás’s bare hand (not his arm, protected by a shirt and by the sleeve of his jacket) and I grasped it hard before he had time to realize what I was doing. It surprised him. He looked at me with confusion, but he did not draw it away.
His hand was warm, almost feverish. It was dry and his fingers were thin, but strong—like a man who plays an instrument.
I closed my eyes, squinting and breathing steady, by force. I wanted to see what David saw. I wanted to hear what David heard. I wanted to know what Tomás thought. I would settle for some portion of any of those things, but I needed more information and I did not know how else to gain it.
“Alice?” he asked quietly.
“Shush,” I told him.
I listened. I looked, with my eyes closed.
The pavilion was different when I looked this way. The world opened in shadow, but in light, too. There was a red tinge to everything, and I could detect outlines—crimson and gold. I saw the spirits near the stage, the old woman and the young man who had died before his birthday. I saw the influenza victims wobble and shift, withdrawing in the face of something else.
Something in front of them . . . something behind us.
I looked around, keeping my eyes shut tight, but turning my head toward the rear entrance. I could not “see” it. Something was in the way—some hulking black pit of a presence that was only roughly shaped like a human.
I recognized it. I’d seen it once before, in my own open reading: a looming shadow that had not been able to hear me. I understood now that it’d been too far away. It hadn’t been senseless and mute; I’d only seen it at a very far distance, observing as it observed someone else. Now it was right here, right now. Now it could reach out and lay a hand on my shoulder.
It was watching Tomás, stationed behind him. I could’ve swatted it if I’d had the courage, but I didn’t. I lost track of my steady breathing and snorted in the world’s least graceful fashion, but I wasn’t worried about being graceful anymore.
When I sat there in the shadow of this shadow, within grasping range of this horrible shape, I was worried that it might reach out for me and put a hand on my shoulder—and immediately, completely, without any warning, I would surely burst into flames. The thing behind us was almost unbearably hot; I believed with all my soul that if I opened my eyes I would see the air shimmering with heat, like the air you find cooking above a hot road on a summer day. My forehead was warm, my cheeks were burning, and I could feel my eyebrows sizzling right off my face.
I was still holding Tomás’s hand. I’d completely forgotten, but then he put his free hand atop mine and I jumped like I’d been stung.
Down on the stage, David was still staring right at us. I was looking around again, really looking, with my eyes open like a normal, sane person who needs to see things. There was nothing standing behind me. There was no weird, radiating heat pouring off a monstrous, man-sized thing that was neither dead nor alive but knew how to hate.
The pavilion had gone utterly silent. It was so quiet I could hear my own blood pumping in my ears.
“Hate, yes. That’s what it is,” David breathed. “This is the scourge. This is the hammer.” And then he collapsed.
His father and Dr. Floyd dashed forward, and so did half of the front row. Edella shouted for her husband, who ran down the aisle from somewhere off to our left; he reached David and rolled him onto his back, checking his breathing and pulse and beginning chest compressions that looked like they must have hurt—but nobody stopped him, and I was forced to conclude that he knew what he was doing.
I stood. I don’t remember standing, but I was on my feet with my hand over my mouth.
Tomás rose beside me. Everybody rose, all around, and soon I couldn’t see anything anymore. “Do you know him? The young man down there?”
“He’s a friend. Oh God, what happened?” I asked, but it was nonsense and I think Tomás knew it.
“He was looking us. At me. But I think he was talking to you.”
“Yes, he was. I didn’t understand . . .”
Edella Holligoss was hollering her head off, demanding that all the curious and concerned onlookers back away and give her husband room to work. Dr. Floyd took up the cause, went to the podium, and called out in a booming, strong voice: “Everyone please take your leave. Dolores, where are you?”
“Here!” she called from someplace I couldn’t see.
“Get to the phone! Call for the hospital in DeLand!” Dolores agreed, so Dr. Floyd continued, “Everyone else, out, please! We need breathing room! Everyone return to your tents, your rooms, or your . . . homes. Wherever, I beg you.”
Slowly, the crowd oozed out the aisle and along the main thoroughfares, emptying reluctantly into the night. People chattered anxiously and gossiped wildly. No one knew what had happened. No one had seen anything except for me—and David, I assumed.
Tomás and I stood there, with Felipe still on the pew, still shivering.
I turned sideways and shuffled out, never taking my eyes off the stage. Enough people had left that I could see the doctor working, breathing down into David’s mouth. I said a little prayer to the sky, and to Spirit. I said, “We should go.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere but here.” He was gazing down at the stage, wanting to stay. (Wanting to hear more, I believe.) But I was getting panicky. “We could go . . . we could go to the hotel, and I’ll treat you to supper. The restaurant there is really quite good—or if you’d rather have a drink, we can go back to Candy’s and do that, or have a smoke, or if you want we could just go down to the pier on Spirit Lake and talk. I could read your cards, or we could talk about the fires . . .”
He shuddered, just like Felipe. He collected the dog in his arms. “Why do you say that? Why talk about the fire? Do you smell it?”
“Smell what? A fire?”
“Right now, yes. Do you?” he asked.
I scanned the pavilion with a frown. I didn’t smell anything except the thick night air, the azaleas, and the magnolias with their big, leathery blooms. “No, I don’t.” But I still felt a sting in my cheeks from the flaring warmth that had blasted me when I’d looked at the creature.
No, not a creature. Not exactly a spirit, either—or no spirit like I’d ever seen or heard of. It was real; that was all I would have sworn to. It was real, and it was hot, and it was full of hate.
Tomás followed behind me with Felipe, still asking, “Are you sure? You smell nothing at all?”
“Nothing like fire.” I flashed one final look at the stage, and I could’ve sworn I saw David’s hand open and close. I paused, then let Tomás nudge me forward again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t smell anything.”
We withdrew from the tent and stood on the sidewalk, joining the rest of the audience members, who mostly milled about, wondering what to do, whispering about whether David would be all right, and discussing what had happened to him. I wished I had some answers. Any answers, really. I would’ve settled for some hints, or even a portent or two.
I thought about following through on my threat to drag him to the hotel for food or coffee, but Tomás stopped me befo
re I could bring it up again. He put his hands on my upper arms, compelling me to meet his eyes. “Alice, I must know: What happened when you held my hand? What did you see?”
“My . . . my eyes . . . they were shut. I didn’t see anything.”
“I know you were watching. Please, tell me.”
So I told him, “Look, it’s not as simple as ‘seeing,’ but I . . . I sensed that there was something behind us.”
“Behind me?”
“Yes. David was trying to say that you’d brought it with you.”
Tomás looked sick, like I might have punched him in the stomach. “The only thing I brought with me . . . is this dog.”
“You know that isn’t what he meant.”
He swallowed and adjusted his grip on Felipe. “But . . . David spoke like . . . he was talking about a man. He was not speaking of a woman’s spirit.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Do you think what you saw . . . could it have been a woman?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Is it”—he looked around, over my shoulder, then over his own—“still with me?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I can’t see it anymore.”
“Close your eyes.”
“It doesn’t always work that way.”
Impatiently, he asked, “Then how does it work?”
“That’s what I’m here to learn!” I had to plead with him now, because he was pleading with me, and I didn’t know how else to respond. “But you want me to say that it’s your wife, and I can only tell you that it’s not. It’s something else.”
“Someone?”
“You heard me the first time.”
I didn’t mean to be harsh with him, but I guess I was. He withdrew, clutching that dog like a purse. He said, “I am sorry. I did not mean . . .”
“No, I’m sorry. Because I did mean. I think we should part company for the night. Let me go and think, and pray. I’ll pull out my cards and see if Spirit is willing to guide me. You should . . .” It was a bluff. I didn’t have the faintest idea what either one of us should do.