A Natural History of Hell: Stories (11 page)

She fell back into the corner of the bench, her face turned toward the window. It was night, no stars visible. Only the bumping of the carriage and the sound of the horses’ hooves gave any indication they were moving. They traveled on for what seemed hours and hours, and then she blinked and it was as if they’d arrived in a moment. In the carriage lantern’s glow, she could see they’d halted in front of the Amherst Town Tomb, a stone structure built into the earth with a grassy hill of a roof and its cornice in the ground, like a sinking house.

“You are Death,” said Emily.

Her fellow traveler sat in shadow. “Call me Quill.” He leaned forward so that she could see his face and nodded. “Go ahead. I know you have questions.”

Emily knew there was no point in trying to escape or cry out. Although she was terrified, her curiosity was intact. “Which direction am I heading once I’m interred?”

“That’s the thing,” said Quill, lighting a thin cigar. He swung open the carriage door to blow the smoke out. “I’ve got nothing to do with that. I don’t know what happens after. That will always remain a mystery to me. My specialty is the moment
of
, so to speak, an entire life squeezed down into a flyspeck on the windowpane of the universe. I wish I could tell you more.”

“I’ve done bold things in my life, as quiet as it might have seemed.”

“You don’t have to convince me, Emily,” he said. “I know everything you’ve done and thought. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Even the falling sickness you tried to hide. It was nothing more than some twisted little knot in your brain work. You and Julius Caesar, my dear. Two emperors, one of men and one of words.”

“My secret afternoons?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “I just deliver the spent to their rest.”

“But why am I being put into the Town Tomb? It’s only for the bodies of those who die in winter when the ground is too hard to dig a grave.”

The gentleman clasped the cigar between his teeth and then removed his left glove with his right hand. He snapped his fingers. “There, look now,” he said as he pulled the glove back on his hand.

She peered out the carriage window at a snowy scene, the wind howling, drifts having instantaneously formed around the entrance to the tomb.

Quill took a drag on his cigar and tossed it out the door of the cab. As he spoke his words traveled on curling smoke.

The brain is just the weight of God,

For, lift them, pound for pound,

And they will differ, if they do,

As syllable from sound.

“You see what I mean?” he asked. “It’s metaphorical.”

“What is?” she said.

“Everything. The world,” he told her. “Come now, let’s get to it.” He reached his gloved hand out.

She appreciated his gentleness, his friendly manner, but still she pressed her back against the seat and didn’t reach to meet his touch. “I’m only thirty-one. A dozen unfinished poems right now await me in my dresser drawer.” Her breathing grew frantic.

“Unlike you, Emily, I never tell it slantwise.”

“Is there nothing?”

He sat silently for a moment, and then reached out, grabbed the carriage door by the handle, and swung it shut. The sound of it latching brought a change to the scene outside the window. They were no longer in front of the tomb. It was early autumn again, twilight, and the carriage was moving along Russell Street, west, through Hadley, harvest fields to either side.

“Are you much for deals, Miss Dickinson?” asked Quill.

“Deals?” she asked.

“Yes, it so happens I’m in need of a poet. If you’ll help me, I’ll erase this evening and not bother you again until, uh . . .” He paused and reached into his jacket pocket for a small notebook. Flipping the pages, he finally landed on one and stopped. Running his finger down a list of names, he said, “You’ll have another quarter century. It’s the best I can do.”

“You’re saying I can go home?”

“Yes, when we’re finished with my errand. It’s somewhat dangerous and there’s a chance you still might wind up in the tomb if things go awry, but this is the only way.”

Emily remembered from her reading of fairy tales the dangers of deals with Death, but she was flattered that he knew her as a poet. “What do I have to do?”

“I want you to help me kill a child,” he said.

She shook her head vehemently.

“Hear me out, Miss Dickinson, hear me out,” said Quill, and tapped his stick twice on the carriage floor.

“Speak,” she said.

“First, keep in mind what I told you about the world being made of metaphor. I know you’re an adherent of reality, a devotee of science. ‘Microscopes are prudent in an emergency,’ you write. Yes, sound advice, but there are those moments of—shall I call it magic? Sorcery? The supernatural, let us say . . . .”

“You mean something like a coach carrying Death, pulling up to take you hither and yon?”

“Well put,” he said. “Now, this is where things stand—there’s a child, a boy, who has for all intents and purposes died, succumbed to scarlet fever. But his mother has cast a spell upon him to keep him living.”

“Can this be real?” she asked.

“It’s real. I’m speaking of the power of words. Your father, a devout preacher, would be disappointed in you, not to mention what Reverend Wadsworth might think. In Genesis, God spoke the world and all that’s in it. He said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was.”

“Sophistry,” she said. “But go on.”

“The fact that I’m prevented from taking the child has caused all manner of problems. In fact, I’d not have had to come for you so early if it wasn’t for this one boy—you, and a dozen more whose times were not nigh. I’ve got to compensate for the aberration. It’s not right.”

“Why a poet?”

“The spell has to be undone. I’m not sure how, but word magic, I’m guessing, can best be subdued with words. You know, I almost decided to snatch Walt Whitman instead.”

Emily winced. “The man’s pen has dysentery.”

“For me, there’s a method to his madness,” said Quill. “Like you, he writes about my work quite a bit. He writes that the grass is ‘the beautiful uncut hair of graves.’ Now that’s the spirit. He writes, ‘And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier
.’ You can see why I appreciate the gentleman.”

“Please, allow Mr. Whitman the honor.”

“For this task, though, I need a surgeon not a dervish.”

She turned again to look out the window and noticed the road was lined with trees. “Where are we?”

“Just beyond Holyoke, heading toward the Horse Caves. The woman in question, the Widow Cremint, has a fine old home there in a clearing just a few hundred yards off the road. It’s recently come to my attention that she’s been advertising for domestic help in town. We will apply for the positions—a governess for the child and a laborer. No one else will dare to apply. They’ve all heard rumors and know what she is. I spread those rumors myself in the guise of a traveling preacher. She’ll have to take us on.”

“You’re sure?”

“Nothing’s a certainty, but I’ve been doing this for millions of years.”

“Oh, my,” said Emily, and brought her open palm to her mouth. “I just remembered one time when a very old woman came to the door of my father’s house inquiring where she might find lodging in Amherst. This was when I still answered the door. I gave her directions that would eventually lead her to the cemetery, and told myself, this way she wouldn’t have to move more than once in a year.” She shook her head. “How I laughed at that mischief. I was laughing at myself.”

She looked up for his reaction and noticed some commotion on his shadowed side of the compartment. There was a sound like the flapping of wings, and then something flew toward her. She closed her eyes and brought her arms up.

“Gather yourself,” said Quill.

Emily lowered her arms and opened her eyes to morning sunlight. She blinked and then focused on a set of steps before her. When her gaze widened, she took in what she could see of a large, sprawling house that seemed to surpass the Homestead in size but not in upkeep. White paint was peeling, porch railing supports were missing, and one of the front windows had a meandering crack traversing its pane.

The suddenness of day forced her to adjust her balance, and she took a step back and then one forward. Quill, somehow she knew it was Quill, although he was no longer the gentleman of the brougham, stood next to her in front of the door. He was older, tired-looking, with a puffy, wrinkled face and white hair. His drab jacket and trousers were on the verge of tattered. She looked down and saw that she was now wearing a dark blue day dress, but thankfully her walking boots were her own.

“I wear white,” she said.

“Not for this,” he said, and stepped forward to rap on the door. “All that white you wear; I have a theory that it’s symbolic of the blank page.”

“Think again, Mr. Quill,” she said.

“I hope you don’t mind, I’ve supplied you with undergarments. White, by the way.”

“I’ll treat them like a blank page,” she said, and noticed now that he was carrying a large sack over his shoulder.

The door opened and a tall young woman stood before them. Quill stepped forward and said, “Good day, Mrs. Cremint. I heard in town that you were looking for a laborer and a woman to watch your child. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m John Gullen, and this is my daughter, Dagmar.”

Emily wondered if the witch would know there was treachery behind Quill’s smile. She averted her gaze, but not before noticing the woman’s voluminous hair and the inordinate length of her neck. When Emily looked down, she realized that she was wearing the very same blue day dress that Mrs. Cremint wore.

“You, there,” said the woman. Emily looked up. “Do you have any experience with children? Have you cared for them before?” Her tone was demanding, and the poet was too nervous to answer. She merely nodded.

“We have a letter of recommendation from our last employer, Jessup Halstone, Albany, New York. A very wealthy and well-respected gentleman,” said Quill. He handed Mrs. Cremint a piece of paper, folded in half. The woman took it and read through it quickly. She handed it back to Quill.

“You can see the place needs work,” she said, her voice softening. “I’ll take you on. But I want the young lady here—Dagmar, is it?—to know that my child is very frail. He has a serious condition that the doctors cannot diagnose. I should say, those from outside might think his demeanor something strange. If she thinks she can bring herself to treat him as she would any other child, she can have the position.”

“I understand,” said Emily.

Mrs. Cremint stepped beyond the doorway, approached Quill, leaned forward, and sniffed. She paused for a long spell as if contemplating his aroma while the breeze, laced with pine, played in the surrounding oaks and a chime sounded in the corner of the porch. Then it was Emily’s turn, and the woman drew closer than the poet could tolerate. A lump formed in her throat but she dared not swallow. She feared that at any second, she’d tremble and give herself away. A few more moments of deep thought and the lady said, “Come in. I’ll show you to your rooms.”

She led them down a hallway, Quill directly behind Mrs. Cremint and Emily following. The hall they traversed was lined with the most magnificent paneling, a butterscotch wood with a thousand dark knots visible. There were daguerreotypes lining the walls; sienna portraits of an older gentleman with prodigious mutton chops and dressed in a military uniform. “The pictures are of my late husband, General Cremint,” the woman called back. “You may call me Sabille.”

“Sabille, very good,” said Quill, and the party turned left into a large parlor. The furniture was plush, and the books and figurines were arranged neatly on the shelves, but all was cast with an indefinable dinginess, as if the very atmosphere and light had been corrupted. Emily wondered if nature itself might be in revolt against a child denied his death.

After Sabille had shown them to their separate rooms, and she’d briefly haggled with Quill over the terms of employment, she came to Emily and said, “Come and meet Arthur.” Her tone was far more pleasant than before, almost conspiratorial. She led Emily back toward the front of the house and then mounted the steps leading to the second floor. “As you can see, there’s a lot that needs to be done here. I just haven’t had the strength to do everything since my husband died, and also watch the child. The accounts alone—my husband was a well-to-do gentleman—have been neglected, and I need to give them attention before I lose money. Your father will be a godsend in reviving the house.”

At the end of the upstairs hallway, there was a door that Sabille waited at as Emily caught up to her. The woman reached out and gently touched the poet’s shoulder to draw her near. She whispered, “The boy is very frail, very frail. He likes to hear stories and to play with his wooden soldiers. You’ll see that his vitality diminishes with the day. By late afternoon, you’ll not recognize him as the child of the morning.” She opened the door.

The room was circular, no doubt a turret Emily had not caught a glimpse of in front of the house. There were five windows evenly spaced along the circumference. There was a small bed, a bookcase, a dresser, and a play table with a child’s chair, all resting upon a large braided rug. In the miniature chair, there was a boy with his back to Emily. The first things that drew her eye were the intermittent clumps and strands of brown hair on the otherwise bald head. The sight of it depleted her.

He wore a red flannel shirt and a pair of overalls; moccasins on his feet. There must have been a hundred wooden soldiers, each the size of a thumb, arranged on the table as if on a parade ground, readied for inspection. The boy held one in each hand and mumbled to himself. Sabille cleared her throat and spoke. “Arthur, I want you to meet someone.”

The boy turned at the sound of his mother’s voice, and Emily desperately tried to stifle her astonishment, knowing her life depended on it. Still, an expression of awe escaped her lips, and she instantly recovered by turning the sound into the boy’s name. “Arthur, I’m Emily, and I’ve come to keep you company.”

His complexion was tinged green, and there were scabs and oozing scrapes across his cheeks and forehead. The whites of his eyes were yellowed and the pupils faded to white. Behind his crusted lips, his teeth were brown pegs. He looked to his mother and grunted. Cautiously, he left his chair and stepped across the room to hug Sabille’s legs.

Emily lowered herself on her haunches to the child’s height. The boy smelled like a muddy streambed, and there was something shiny dribbling from the side of his mouth. “I’m Emily,” she said again. She reached out to take the child’s scabbed hand, but at the last second he drew it quickly away. His sudden movement frightened her and she reared backward, nearly falling over. As she stood, he opened his horrid mouth at her. A second later, she realized he was laughing.

“A joke?”

Arthur nodded.

“Well,” said Sabille, “I see you’ve got an understanding. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.” The boy went back to his chair and soldiers. When the door closed, Emily took a seat on the bed and watched as if she were watching a neighbor through wavy glass on Main Street. The child seemed some kind of little beast sprung up from the forest floor. She worked to reconcile this with the fact that she could detect a child’s spirit within the rotting husk. As horrid a figure as the boy cut, something about him reminded her of Austin and Susan’s Ned, just born in June.
And I’m to kill him with words
, she thought.