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Chapter 16
It was midday Sunday and the sky was flat and overcast, promising neither sun nor snow. In a few short hours it would be time to head back to town and all the mundanities of groceries, laundry, social obligations, and professional responsibilities. A month ago, she’d have called it reality, a not-unpleasant state of affairs: sufficiently interesting, reasonably fulfilling and challenging enough. Not perfect. Not without disappointments. Some expectations went unmet. Some hopes failed to realize. But she understood the parameters of her world and accepted her place within those boundaries. By and large, life was good enough.
She’d never suspected the astonishing truth of powers: Lijah’s, her own, possibly everyone’s. She’d never suspected that her reality was a surface veneer made up of layer upon layer of secrets and half-truths. She’d never suspected. And why would she? Protected, lied to, raised on an ethos of self-sacrifice, and inured to the status quo, she’d accepted that good enough was plenty, the full extent of her due. No wonder her aging had accelerated. Resigned to flat and overcast, why linger in wait for sun or snow.
Lijah knew why. What’s more, he’d perched himself at 37 to study the sky in awe. She wondered why he waited so long to clue her in. Not until the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Not until her rapid aging; sixty by summer, or so he said. Maybe that had been his plan; meticulous to a fault, she could almost believe it took him a decade to be satisfied the time was right. More likely though, he’d only just realized time might run out. Fair enough; she could forgive him, if only because without him she’d still be in that overcast place of good enough.
Since his outburst, Lijih had gone silent, sullen, and sulky. He did this whenever he faced an impasse, the unexpected, something he didn’t understand, or, as in this case, all three. She supposed it was an improvement over an overwhelmed and distraught Lijah, a state she had little to no experience with, but still, she felt the minutes ticking by. She wanted to dispense with this errant distraction and with it his dread.
“Do you regret, Lijah, what you started? Bringing me here, revealing…” She looked around herself. God, everything. His cottage, experiments, wives, years. His powers. His desire for her. His part of the veneer, peeled back, had revealed more layers, more secrets, the whole miasma of subtle fictions maintained by family and society at large. Stripping away all those layers of good enough left her with potential and possibility, her powers and desires, her reasons to linger. Reasons he and she shared.
“Do you regret revealing to me what could be?”
“Regrets are pointless,” he said sourly. “There’s no undoing what’s been done.”
Elsa ground her teeth; how he quibbled with words to avoid her point. “But if you could,” she pressed. “Knowing what you know now, would you rescind the invite, leave me in the dark.”
“Maybe.”
“Fuck you.” She gave him a hard look. “You’re lying, by the way. At least you better be.”
“Yes,” he said, temper rising. “I’m lying. No matter the cost to you, your family, your values and beliefs, I would drag you down this path. The other lie being that this course of action is my great favor to you.” He shook his head. “I’ve been selfish and shortsighted, Elsa. A better man would have left you in the dark.”
“Right. Because ignorance is bliss. You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
“I believe it more today than before. But no matter. I am not a better man. I would lay my mother, your grandmother, and anything else you hold dear on the sacrificial altar if only for the hope that you realize your powers. I want it for you. Even more, I want it for me. And unwilling to miss my chance, I decided when and how. I decided, thinking I knew the outcome. I can regret this or not, it changes neither my motives nor actions. You, however, have a choice. See me, Elsa, for the man I am.”
“I see that you’re afraid. And,” she held up her hand to silence him. “And, that you’ve taken responsibility for something you don’t own. First because we don’t know the truth of what you read in the mirror. That’s the whole point of talking it through. Second, whatever that truth turns out to be, it’s mine to know. Yes, you opened the door. Yes, there’s no going back. But understand this, I don’t want to. Go on. See me for the woman I am.”
Lijah stared at her, then sighed heavily. He opened his arms, and she stepped in his embrace. Holding her tight he spoke into her hair. “I am frightened. My mother. Your grandmother…”
“Are a piece of work,” said Elsa. “No question about it.” She pushed back from his hold, held his face in her hands. “They’re looming over us larger than life. I think we need to take a giant step back. Set aside for now whatever you saw in the mirror and tell me what you know for sure, what you’ve known all along.”
“You mean about the crash. I wasn’t there.”
“You weren’t in the car, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Remember I have zero context. You at least know the people involved, who was where, and why, their personalities the overall circumstance. Paint the picture. Tell me, I don’t know, about Peter’s parents. Where were they going? What were they like? Were they the types to wear seatbelts?”
Lijah chuffed a laugh. He tried to rein it back, but his laughter broke through clean and clear. “Ah, no. They were not the type to wear seatbelts, not that there were any at the time.”
“Good. That’s good,” she said, grateful to see release of tension from his shoulders and strain from his face.
He dropped to the couch, picked up a pillow, and toyed with it, remembering, smiling, shaking his head. Elsa took her seat opposite the couch.
“Go on, what else can you tell me about them.”
Lijah assembled his thoughts. “Peter’s parents, Uncle Gregory and Aunt Greta, were, in my experience, unique. They didn’t concern themselves with convention, causes, status or gain. They lived for joy.”
“Hedonists, you mean. Like Peter.”
“No. Peter lost his parents too young. That loss left him chasing joy, which he mistook for pleasure, and, thanks to Nona, came to believe was his right and due. But his parents lived for joy not as a pursuit but a lens. And as such, they found it in simple, elemental ways: warmth, beauty, rhythm, connection.” Lijah paused, shook his head. “Aunt Greta yodeled. Topless if she could get away with it, although given how often she was caught, I doubt she cared. Possibly it was the point. And Uncle Gregory, there’s no forgetting his naked corpulent body swinging out over the river, whooping at the top of his lungs as he cannonballed into the water. He reigned undefeated for the largest splash.”
“They sound a riot.”
“Riotous is a good word for them. Uninhibited and full of excess, the world be damned. Which was just as well because the world did damn them. By WWII they were openly shunned as depraved good-for-nothings: living hand to mouth, growing weed – the pot you tried is a cultivar of theirs – but worst of all pacifists; conscientious objectors to WWII were not regarded kindly.”
“What about your family?” she asked.
“Were we shunned? No, not for that, we played our part. But on the whole, we were considered outsiders: eccentric, anti-establishment and full of ourselves.”
“I meant, what did your family think of Peter’s family?”
“Ah. Outwardly, Nona made a principle of defending their nonconformity. But within the ranks she was neither tolerant nor forgiving. She abhorred their bohemian live-and-let-live attitude. In their contentment she saw ignorance. In their desire to keep themselves to themselves she saw lazy indifference. She cared nothing for their so-called depravities – it was their humility that galled her most.”
“And the rest of you?”
“Remember them like folk-heroes, daring to live outrageously and authentically in a manner humble, happy and free that the rest of us can only aspire to.” Lijah paused. “Or so I’m told.”
Elsa cracked up. “God, Lijah. You look like you just swallowed rancid meat. Is living at peace with the world really so distasteful?”
“No, but glamorizing them is. Understand, Elsa, Peter’s parents were stunningly irresponsible. Take the war. They didn’t have to fight, but they behaved as if Nazi Germany and the Holocaust had nothing to do with them, they turned a blind eye. And as parents, driving drunk and stoned and always too fast? It was only a matter of time. Peter suffered for it. We all did.”
“Sounds like you agree with Nona. Or the townspeople.”
Lijah looked at her sharply. “No and no. Nona believed them too humble, the townspeople not humble enough. I fall in neither camp.”
“I see,” she said, although clearly, she didn’t.
“The townspeople disapproved of Peter’s family in the same way they disapproved of us, only more so. We lived differently, which to the properly Enlightened translated to selfishly and pridefully, never mind their own intolerance.”
“Or yours…” said Elsa.
Lijah continued without pause. “Nona believes that those with powers like ours are special, better, more important and therefore have license to behave according to their whim and will.”
“Which, it sounds like, Peter’s parents did.”
“According to whim perhaps, but they had no interest in exerting their will, in taking their place among the power-elite. Gregory and Greta considered themselves nothing special, humans among humans, living their lives, minding their side of the street. But to Nona, we are apex predators, top of the food chain, and have an obligation to behave accordingly. You either dominate or are dominated. Their humility was an embarrassment to her, unbefitting to our superior station. Worse. To Nona, humility made them weak.”
“And you?”
“I respect their attempt to live humbly and regret that they did so imperfectly. Instead of abdicating responsibility, in humility they should have looked toward the role they had to play.”
Elsa regarded Lijah for a long moment. “They let you down.”
“Not just me. Peter most of all. But yes.”
“By being irresponsible. By dying. You’ve blamed them for the crash all this time.”
“Yes.”
“Only now you realize, you might have to let that go. If the mirror thing pans out. If they turn out to be victims. I don’t know, Lijah, relinquishing judgement, sounds like a growth opportunity to me.”
He grunted, threw the pillow at her.
She laughed, but not without compassion. “Poor you.”
“I’ll survive.”
“Possibly. Probably,” she said tilting her head, first one way, then the other. “Remains to be seen. Humility is not your best trick.”
Lijah dropped his head to the sofa back seemingly deflated by an awareness of his own part in getting the story wrong.
Elsa got up, walked over to Lijah and kissed him on the lips. “I take that back. The scientist in you is as humble as they come. You follow the data wherever it leads.”
Lijah sighed heavily and his eyes slid shut, as if this trait that so thoroughly defined him was a terrible burden to bear. Elsa returned to her chair opposite him, sat as if at the office, a coffee table between them instead of a desk.
“So tell me what you know about this accident/not-accident. It happened in the late 40’s, right? Post-World War II? God, you lived it, but I can’t even picture the kind of cars people drove back then.”
Lijah remained as he was and spoke to the ceiling. “Greta only drove motorbikes, which after the war were ubiquitous, although mostly driven by men. She loved to tinker and dote on her ‘wrecks’ as she called them, but a few months before the accident, and probably to apologize for some misdeed, Gregor bought her one of the first Royal Enfield Bullets to come off the line, and a maniacal hellion on wheels was born.” He waved an arm in the general direction of the bookshelves. “There’s a picture of it over there.”
“God, is that Peter sitting on it? He’s a child!”
“Nona permitted it the day his parent’s died. After that there was no stopping him. He totaled it at 16.”
Elsa was at a loss; a boy who’d just lost his parents to a car crash, given free license to self-destruct. “He, um, survived. Obviously.”
Lijah raised his head to look at her. “He has the knack.” He sat up straighter and scrubbed at his face. “Aunt Greta drove motorbikes. Uncle Gregory drove a 1934 Oldsmobile Eight convertible coupe. In her heyday, she was a shiny Bonita-blue, complete with running boards, rumble seat, 4 bug eye headlights and an art deco Goddess hood ornament. By ’48, though, the cloth top was torn, the v-grille bashed-in and the rest of her body battered and bruised.”
His gaze drifted to the window. “Gregor adored her. We all adored her. Never mind that she was unreliable. And unsafe in a way difficult to imagine in these modern times. Never mind that he drove her as recklessly as a derby car. It was the enjoyment of the car more than the car itself that mattered most to him.”
Lijah paused again and Elsa waited. Spellbound, she would hold her breath indefinitely if she had too. Partly it was the minutia, the Bonita blue in the picture he drew. Nothing new there, Lijah dwelled in details. But he never walked down memory lane with her. All those years just the opposite, private as a vault. It had been painful to her, but so clearly his preference, she’d had no choice but to respect it. Except it hadn’t been preference, but the consequence of his secret life and of having accrued too many memories over too many years, at least for a man in his thirties. At a guess, he was savoring the telling as much as she the listening. She hoped so, anyway, despite where this memory was leading.
The fire popped, accentuating the silence. Lijah dragged his eyes from the window, looked at Elsa, crossed his legs.
“He always brought the Olds 8 to family gatherings like a party favor. We’d load up, hanging off the back and sides, and go careening around the back fields, dust flying, until inevitably one or more of us would get bounced off and tumbled into the dirt. We still tell the tales, how half-concussed, scraped and bleeding, we laughed until we wept, Gregor most of all. Hard to imagine, I suppose, but even Nona approved the tradition. Morrison’s were rambunctious, which to her was a point of pride, proof of our mettle.”
“Ironic, given what happened.”
“Hmm, yes. I suppose. Like any crooning over the good-ole-days, we gloss over the bitter, elevate the sweet. But the times were different, Elsa, and safety was not yet a goal unto itself. Uncle Gregory would have appreciated the poetic irony, dying the way he lived, and in the company of his wife and the Olds 8, his two favorite women.”
Lijah took a moment, let the grief swell as he inhaled, then resettle deep in his chest on a long breath out.
“The car couldn’t be salvaged, but Peter mounts a Goddess hood ornament on every car he’s owned since.”
“The original? From the Oldsmobile?”
“Peter owns more than one car, but yes, I read each of them to satisfy my curiosity and discovered that one is indeed from the Olds 8. I suspect it marks his favorite car, or his most sentimental, the car he thinks his parents would approve. Currently it graces a 1974 Volkswagen Thing, or Trekker as it’s called here.” He caught her eye, curious how she’d react. “His favorite car to drive, though, that would be the Porsche Carrera.”
As if she’d be impressed. “Of course it is. Pure playboy – especially with a goddess mounted to the hood. So what actually happened, with the crash I mean. You said Peter wasn’t there, nor were you, so I’m guessing the crash didn’t happen at a family gathering.”
Lijah started to answer but stopped. His eyes narrowed and he rubbed at his lip.
“What, Lijah?”
“We were gathered. Not for the holidays but housed under one roof.”
“Peter’s family too?”
“What? No. They lived in the Eastlands, as I said. Not far though. And on that particular day Nona decided to host a hootenanny and expected us all to chip in.”
“Hootenanny? That dates you.”
“A cookout with music,” said Lijah. “Not here on the property because outsiders were included, but on a hilltop clearing. The location she chose was unusual, inconvenient, and in retrospect much too close to town, but provided a gorgeous 360 view: the entirety of the Eastlands, the channel and moors to south and west, Tapply which was little more than a crossroads at the time, and in the other direction, town.” Lijah paused. “The Wrights’ property, your grandmother’s home, was in that direction; it sat like a buffer between town to the north and the southern wilds.”
“Sure, Halsbury. It’s been pointed it out to me more than once although it’s so built up now it looks like any other city neighborhood.”
“Even then, the city was encroaching which might explain the move to the Eastlands.”
“Granny’s move. We stayed town. I loved to visit but can count on one hand the number of times Mom visited gran. Aside from Mom’s preference for streetlights and pavement, I think she resented Granny for giving up the place just as it was getting good and citified.”
Lijah had gone quiet.
“Which is neither here nor there, sorry. You were telling me about the hootenanny – a cookout with music,” she parroted. “Which was Nona’s idea but required the whole family to pull off given it’s lovely but inconvenient location. Presumably that included Peter’s family.”
“Uncle Gregory was famous for his slow-roasted pig-on-a-spit. I met the three of them up there early, to help dig the pit and get the fire going, then left with Peter while Gregor and Greta stayed to tend the spit. The roasting would take 8 hours or more which suited them just fine. They’d be well into the merrymaking by the time the rest of us would arrive.”
“You brought Peter home with you?”
“No. Dropped him in town. Mary and I, we had so little time just the two of us we contrived an excuse to go separately, planning to go late, if at all. We never made it.”
“And Peter?”
“He arrived with the fire brigade.”
“Oh my God.”
“No. You misunderstand. The accident was later. Folks in town saw the smoke from the pig-roast and sounded the alarm.”
“By folks you mean Granny. She sounded the alarm.”
Lijah shrugged. “Peter heard the claxon and raced over to the fire-station. He explained about the pig roast, but he was a child and regardless they were inclined to make sure the fire hadn’t spread. That’s one explanation. The other is that as soon as they learned who was up there, the authorities had an excuse to harass the area’s least favorite peaceniks. The war was over, but the grudge was not – if anything they were more harshly judged as soldiers returned and the lasting toll became known. Word spread rapidly and more than 30 people: firefighters, police, and ‘concerned citizens’ ascended to the scene.
“But why Peter?”
“Peter would have wanted to go for the thrill and even at 12 had the ability to weasel his way, although again, a more cynical take was that bringing him was intended to shame the family further.”
“So let me get this straight. Your uncle and aunt are innocently roasting a pig and an angry mob of 30 shows up to harass them. Granny too.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“A fine.”
“That’s it?” asked Elsa.
“No. Two people died, Elsa. But at that point, yes, just a fine. Thanks to rationing, the glowing reputation of Gregor’s pulled pork. And… your grandmother.”
“What?!”
“The last I’ve only just realized.”
Elsa waited, wide eyed and expectant but Lijah seemed to have nothing more to add.
“Really?” said Elsa. “This is when you go cryptic?”
Starting with his thumb, Lijah counted off each pedantic point. “We were fined because the hilltop was within the town boundary, or so they claimed, and a permit had not been obtained. Rationing from the war was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and, in case of meat, still ongoing. Dismantling the pig roast midway would have wasted an entire sow – a sin too great to countenance for a generation steeped in the depression, then the war. And, although Gregor the man was viewed with scorn, his pulled pork was not. Their BBQ was known and prized. They used it like currency; it could be bartered for gold.”
“None of which are the points I’m interested in, and you know it.”
“But therein is the salient point. Peter’s parents would have had the situation in hand. There’d been no reason for your grandmother to intervene. And yet she did.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. I believe I am, even though it took reading my reflection to make the realization.”
She waited, not long, then gestured impatiently. “And…”
“Your grandmother’s property abutted the hilltop.”
“Yes, you said, and…”
“She was on the town council, held a position of prominence in the community.”
“Yes, and..” She hated when he did this. Like pulling teeth.
“You’re familiar with how phones worked in the 40’s?”
“Oh for the love of God, Lijah. Candlesticks? Cranks?”
“No. That was earlier. Dial phones had arrived, a single black Bakelite model, with a handset corded to a base. Many homes had one, but just the one, located in a common space. Ours sat on the kitchen table. Also common, and true for us, the phone line was shared between households; if your neighbor was using it, you waited your turn. Needless to say, there was not a lot of privacy and news traveled fast.”
“News of the illegal pig roast, for example.”
“News that the affected neighbor, a councilwoman no less, had not been petitioned and an apology was owed.”
“Let me guess. Nona doesn’t apologize to anyone.”
“Of course not. Which everyone knew; the Morrison’s thought they were better than everyone else. Which, in Nona’s case, was absolutely true. Think about it. Your grandmother had been slighted by Nona, and, with the roast allowed to proceed, outmaneuvered.”
“I’d like to say Granny was above pissing contests, but I don’t think I can. Not between those two, I’ve seen them spar firsthand. Ideologically, they may be polar opposites, but otherwise, they’re quite alike. Stubborn. Proud. Still, what could she do? And regardless, I can’t see what this could possibly have to do with Peter’s parent’s death.”
“Escalation, Elsa. And don’t forget the phones. Your grandmother couldn’t stop the pig roast, but she could, with a few well-placed and overheard phone calls, recast herself in a more favorable light. Just imagine,” he said, holding his hand to his ear like a telephone receiver. “Of course, this was the sort of extravagant and ill-mannered behavior to be expected from the likes of us. Of course, as the afflicted but forbearing neighbor, she would allow the event to proceed – just this once.”
Elsa had covered her mouth, in laughter and horror, able to imagine all too easily the Granny’s barbs and the gall with which they’d be received.
Lijah dropped his hand. “All of this trickled to Nona’s ears by word of mouth. But the coup de grace was the officious phone call placed directly to Nona informing her the party must end by dusk, but, and this is the inspired part, thanks to the benevolence of the council chair, we’d been granted permission to start the party one hour early on account of the shortening days.”
“The council chair. You mean Granny. She was the chairperson, like, forever.”
“I was present for that call and the aftermath. The Bakelite did not survive.”
Elsa cracked up, she couldn’t help herself, and Lijah smiled too.
“Nona was fit to be tied,” he said. “Humiliated by the council. At the time, which particular council member hadn’t made an impression. Not on me, anyway. But now…” He shook his head and his smile drained. He took up the pillow and hugged it to his chest.
Elsa sobered too, reminded again where this story was going. “Nona responded?”
He nodded. “She started the party not 1 but 2 hours early, long before there would be anything to eat. Put the word out, anyone could come, so long as they brought drink to share. Added a second band for competition, who could outplay the other. She did everything she could think of, which included adding a treasured case of Morrison hooch, to ensure a soused, loud, and rowdy crowd, all to thumb her nose at the nearest neighbor.”
“Granny responded in kind.”
“She didn’t have to. Nona set the stage. Peter’s parents rose to the moment. Not out of spite, mind you, but entirely predictable. Uncle Gregory’s wild rides, tearing up the field, doing 180s in the dirt. Aunt Greta’s homemade firecrackers passed around to all the kids. There was so much dust and smoke and noise kicked up, the authorities showed up a second time. If there’d been fewer people and further away, more food and less drink, more tolerance, less spite. If there had been a single level head in the crowd…”
“Yours, you mean. If you hadn’t stayed home, if you had been there… what, Lijah? Peter’s parents wouldn’t have died? Is that really what you believe?”
“No. Not anymore.”
Elsa hated the desolation she saw in his eyes. Wished she could console him. But couldn’t quite grasp why he was so upset. If anything, shouldn’t he feel relieved? He no longer believed the accident was his fault.
“My mother set the stage,” he said. “Hosting the hootenanny on that hilltop had nothing to do with the view.”
“Sure. She was needling for a reaction, I get that. Petty. Regrettable. Maybe even shameful. But hardly…”
“My mother set the stage,” he interrupted. “Your grandmother fired the killing shot.”
It took a moment for Elsa to react. “Oh, please. Do you hear yourself? Can Granny be spiteful? Yes. Competitive? Always. Could she put interests ahead of others? Absolutely. So long as it aligned with the greater good. But she doesn’t shoot people, Lijah. It’s completely preposterous. For God sakes, she doesn’t own a gun.”
“Are you sure?” snapped Lijah.
“Hey,” said Elsa, cut to the quick. It was a low blow, shaming her for everything she hadn’t known or cause to suspect.
Lijah dismissed his own comment with a wave of his hand. “In any event, I was speaking metaphorically.”
“Yeah, well, so was I. Look. I won’t apologize for Granny’s behavior toward your family – goading Nona, snapping up the Eastlands, that stunt to get you unseated at University. Pretty damned conniving, I’ll grant you that. But Granny raised me, far more than my mother did; what you see in me comes from the lessons she taught and the values she instilled. I promise you, she’s not capable of what you’re accusing her of.”
“Heartfelt, Elsa. And a solid argument. But what I see in you are your extraordinary powers. Let’s not forget your grandmother would have you deny them, worse, not even know they existed.”
“No more so than anyone else. It’s called Enlightenment.”
“Your grandmother is not anyone else. She knew better and kept them from you anyway.”
True. And upsetting. But it didn’t negate all the love and support she’d received. She could hold the contradictions side by side the same way she held her own and Lijah’s; no person was ever just one thing.
“God you exhaust me. Why won’t you just trust me and accept this line in the sand. Granny’s not a killer, and by extension, neither is your mother.”
“I wish I could. I mean that. But if anything, talking about it, resurrecting the old memories, I feel more sure of what I read of my reflection, not less.”
“Tell me, then, Lijah. Tell me what happened. Tell me what changed your mind.”
“What happened?” said Lijah. “According to everyone in attendance sober enough to recall, what happened was a brief and lop-sided stand-off between a drunk mob of a crowd eager to eat and party, versus the fire chief and a handful and council minions sent to ruin everyone’s good time. Nona ignored them, walked off, got the bands playing again. When that didn’t work, Greta used her yodeling skills to rally the crowd and Gregory, backed by cheers and laughter, used the Olds 8 to nose the fire truck right off the hilltop. For Peter’s parents it was a crowning moment, for once the champions, they basked in the approval of the townspeople.”
“Wow. Then what?”
Lijah shrugged. “People ate. Families trickled home. Peter, I guess, went with a friend. When the bands packed up, just about everyone else left, including Nona and the whole Morrison clan. Except Greta and Gregory. They stayed into the night with a few other pickled diehards. I can’t be sure of the rest. Rumor has it a posse showed up to chase away the stragglers. All we know for sure was that Gregory and Greta left the back way off the hilltop, at speed, and were killed when they drove headlong into a ditch.”
“God, that’s awful, Lijah. I’m so sorry.”
“Hmm, yes,” he said. Then after a time. “Thank you.”
It felt rude to pick at the wound, but Elsa had too many thoughts banging in her head not to voice them.
“I can, um, see why you’d think accident. It had all the ingredients, right: nighttime, backroads, speed, alcohol. I mean, there’s the rumor. I suppose the authorities were made fools of. It’s not inconceivable they came back for retribution. But it’s a leap. And hardly necessary, you know, given how impaired they were.”
“It’s not a leap I intended to make.”
“Right. But you have, after reading your reflection. So line it up for me. What changed your mind?”
Lijah glared at her.
“Christ, Lijah, you know what I mean. Just tell me the pieces. I get they don’t line up into a nice, neat, proof.”
“The pieces, they’re feelings, a stray phrase, random snapshots.”
Elsa waited.
“The smashed Bakelite, for example. Nona’s rant over the ‘benevolence of the council chair’. The dusty case of hooch packed in hay loaded onto the car.”
His eyes closed and his voice trailed off. He sat unnaturally still, elbows on his knees, and his hands spread wide as if against the mirror.
“Well there’s this,” he said, opening his eyes. “A court summons for sedition burning in the hearth. This was a week or two before the hootenanny, mind you.”
“Sedition? Nona?”
“Peter’s parents, and by association, all of us. It was Greta who passed the summons on to Nona, worried I guess. Gregory treated it like a joke.”
“Jeezum, sedition. On what basis?”
“Opposition to the draft. That’s the explanation I remember, but I never saw for myself. None of us did. As soon as Nona read it, she exploded. The summons she sent to the fire, watched it turn to ash. Gregory and Greta hardly fared better. Nona was irate they dragged us all into this.”
“Draft dodging is a far cry from sedition. Besides, the war had come and gone.”
“Quite.” He held her eye for a long time. “At the time it didn’t seem so farfetched. Nor did Nona’s reaction. In retrospect, I wonder at both. Uncle Gregory alone had refused the draft, the rest of us registered voluntarily as soon as we had sufficient years. If that was the basis, there’d been no merit and no threat. And there’s this too. Reading myself in the mirror, I noted what I’d missed before. The summons bore the purple stamp of the IEC. It was unmistakable. I knew nothing of such things back then – even now it’s not exactly common knowledge.”
The IEC was the International Enlightenment Court. They prosecuted offenses against Enlightenment, like fringe movements touting the supremacy of one power over another. Most people considered it a necessary evil. It had the reputation of being secretive, limitless in reach and draconian. Elsa had never seen a summons, of course, nor knew they were stamped in purple. It was just the sort of esoteric detail that Lijah would come across and commit to memory.
“Jesus – the IEC? How’d they get wind of your Uncle and Aunt?”
“Can you not guess?”
“Granny? You’re joking.” Although, thought Elsa, not impossible. Granny had worked for the state department in support of Enlightenment. Some of that work had been clandestine. And some of that, could have been on behalf of the IEC. “Even if you’re not, seriously, what could they have possibly done to draw that level of attention.”
“Nothing, as far as I know. Other than to be unapologetic in their beliefs and to sit on coveted land.”
“Ah, I see. So Granny used the power of her office to go after a piece of real estate. And when a charge of sedition didn’t work, she killed Peter’s parents by way of automobile misadventure. Do you hear yourself?”
“Bulldozers.”
“What?”
“You asked for pieces. I’m giving them to you. One of them, a purple stamp. Another bulldozers. Two pieces, in fact.”
“There were bulldozers in 1948?”
“Yes. Caterpillar bulldozers were an important part of the Allied war effort.”
Elsa rubbed her temples, then gestured for him to continue, resigned to the absurdity of the conversation.
“There were two bulldozers parked at a dead-end dirt track, a half mile or so past the turnoff to the back way off the hilltop. I would never have seen them except I missed the turn that next morning when my brothers and I headed to the crash site to pay our respects and retrieve anything that might be salvageable. As it was, we were turned back. They’d already started towing the wreck the rest of the way off the mount and needed the entire width of the roadway to accomplish the task. We returned that afternoon but there was nothing to see, not even the ditch. Just rutted and torn up earth, broken tree limbs and one smashed headlamp that had rolled into the underbrush.”
“Oh God, I’m sorry.” She hated what had happened, so fucking tragic. Hated too to ask, but what was the significance of the bulldozers.
“Again, at the time, no significance whatsoever. I’d forgotten them completely if ever they’d been consciously registered. We were dazed, going through the motions.”
“And their significance now?”
“There was no reason for them to be there. The spot was out of the way, practically the middle of the woods, there were no projects anywhere nearby.”
“Okay, why were they there?”
“I don’t know. But I have a suspicion. You see, I saw bulldozers again a few days later. In the Eastlands. On what’s now your grandmother’s estate.
“Lij…” Elsa did not like where this was going.
“It was a week or so after the crash. Nona and I drove Peter over to his house to pick up his possessions. By then we’d discovered the lack of legal claim to the property and in any event, we’d made the decision for Peter to come live here with us. Nona asked Peter about the bulldozers. He knew nothing about them, and in his state of mind, didn’t care. A few more questions from Nona though revealed his family had been having dire issues with the water supply, severe enough to consider moving. They hadn’t told her. She let it drop, but seemed distracted, and sent Peter and I into the house while she took a moment to collect herself. It’s clear to me now, though, she used the time to go read the bulldozers.”
“Read. You mean as Crafter. Why?”
“In retrospect I can think of three reasons. Peter’s parents lived simply; they believed in ingenuity to solve problems, not heavy machinery. Reliable water was the property’s greatest asset; the Honey Brook ran strong and swift, no matter the season. And the property was still contested. Just like at the hilltop, there was no reason for the bulldozers to be there.”
Elsa’s thoughts raced. Water problems and irrigation ditches, the Culfer brook was the first of Granny’s many land improvements. Had the work started before the crash? The implication was devastating; diverting the flow of water, forcing Peter’s family off the land. An age-old tactic of land appropriation.
“You’re insinuating… God, Lijah, what exactly are you insinuating? That it was Granny using those bulldozers. In the Eastlands to steal the land. And on that hilltop? What?”
“To dig the ditch Gregory and Greta crashed into and then to cover it up.”
Elsa sat back in her seat, aghast, dumbfounded.
“Insinuation is too strong a word,” said Lijah. “A possible explanation. One that feels right.”
“Right?!?”
“Correct. A possibility that feels correct. It would explain why Nona kept us all here together, wagons circled.”
“The hell it does. To what end? No. If she learned a crime had been committed, she’d have gone to the police.”
“On what basis? Knowledge gained through powers is inadmissible. Simply admitting she’d used powers would cast shame and doubt, you know this.”
“She could have demanded an investigation. Don’t you see, Lij, there’s nothing tangible linking my grandmother to this fantastical series of events except for the fact that Granny ended up living on the plot of land where Peter’s home had been.”
“There’s one more piece.”
Of course there is, she said softly to herself. She dropped her head to her hands, dug her fingers into her hair, massaged her temples. She hated this. She had to seriously consider that Lijah had lost touch with reality. Or that reality was too appalling to bear. With a giant exhale she sat upright. “And is this piece any more tangible than the rest?”
“To me. Although you’ve already rejected it out of hand.”
Elsa had no words. All she could do was wait.
“Your grandmother’s been here, Elsa. Just the once. Not quite dawn, the morning after Peter died.”
“If she’d been here, she’d know where here is. Which she doesn’t.”
“Nevertheless. I saw her here on the property, outside, the three oaks silhouetted behind her.”
“Come on, Lij.”
“What’s true now was true then; you cannot stumble upon the cottage. To be here, you had to be brought. That being said, we were not as protective then as we are now. There were more comings and goings, especially with so many of us living here. There were also more points of access. I spotted her heading toward the one in the back reaches of the property. She may never have come to the house or even seen it. That point of egress no longer exists. In fact,” said Lijah rubbing his chin, “I should have thought of this sooner. One by one, without fuss or explanation, Nona had us seal and secure all gates within weeks of the crash. Only two remained open, the same two as today.”
Elsa set aside the bit about the gates, could be pure coincidence. “You spotted someone on the property in the wee hours of the night. Surely you would have been suspicious, especially after what just happened.”
“A tragedy just happened. I was wrapped up in my own guilt and grief. And besides, there were plausible explanations. Arrangements, for example. Consolations sought and received. Nona may have admitted someone. Or any one of us. My sister Rae in particular was known to bend the rules; she was universally liked, had legions of friends, she could have …”
“Hang on,” interrupted Elsa. “You saw a person. A woman. But didn’t know who.”
Lijah nodded.
“But now it’s Granny. Since the mirror.” She didn’t bother to keep the skepticism from her voice.
“At the time I didn’t know, nor did I care. But now I’m certain it was your grandmother.”
“How?” She waved toward the bathroom, toward the hocus pocus of the mirror. “You’re saying you saw her face? In there? Just now?”
“She was cloaked, Elsa. Like you were. Hooded and cloaked in red.”
It was too much. Much too much to take in. Granny had given her the cloak and mitts. The family heirloom that bypassed her mother altogether because she wouldn’t have appreciated it. Elsa was special. Elsa was like Granny. That’s why it had been passed to her.
Lijah continued. “I think,” he paused, looked to the distance, shook his head. “I think Nona needed to protect the family. The Eastlands were annexed and the IEC at the door. Charges of sedition don’t just go away, not with the IEC involved, and yet they did.”
“Gregory and Greta were dead.”
“True, but not enough for the IEC, what of their family and associates The Morrison’s had come to the IEC’s attention; they could crush us and our way of life. Any yet, they didn’t. What’s more, from the crash until you matriculated at university, hostilities between our families ceased. No friendship, of course. More like a cold war détente. I think, armed with what Nona had discovered, she negotiated a ceasefire. Nona would not go after your grandmother for her role in Peter’s parent’s death, so long as she and the IEC left the Morrison’s alone.
Elsa got up and walked away from Lijah. She ended up in the kitchen looking out the window at the three enormous oaks, the cemetery, and the green glow of the perimeter alert mounted to the fence.
Lijah came in and stood behind her. When she kept staring motionless, he took her hands from her sides, wrapped them in front of her and pulled her in close.
“You know how this sounds?” said Elsa.
“Paranoid. Unhinged. Like I’ve misremembered, made some sort of transference, mixed past with present, let my imagination run wild. Yes, I know exactly how this sounds. And yet, like you, I feel the experience in the mirror to be true.”
Yes. She knew the gut certainty over what she’d read in her reflection. Except in her case the revelation had been abstract, an ominous feeling, an idea that Granny’s purpose was contrary to her own. What Lijah described was so much more specific. A sighting of a particular person, recognized without a face. On a particular night, from decades ago. In a particular place, that couldn’t be found and hadn’t been remembered. Specific and certain, but in no way concrete. “You warned me,” said Elsa. “Granny laid out on the sacrificial alter, and anything else I hold dear.” She wiped the tears from her face. “I guess I should have believed you.”