A Certain Slant of Light (9 page)

  
"Good." Mr. Brown almost laughed this syllable. "What else?"

  
Now James had slid down in his seat as if shy of the attention,
though Mr. Brown had made no reference to him. I leaned to
ward him with every intention of merely whispering in his ear,
but when my lips neared his temple, I could not stop myself.
With one hand on his chest, I pressed a brief kiss to his brow.

  
To my surprise he gasped, arching in his chair, his left hand
flying to his chest where I had touched him. I jumped back, un
able to tell whether his expression was one of pain, fear, or ec
stasy. I retreated to the back wall. I knew he had turned to find me, but I was ashamed and would not meet his gaze. Instead, I
hurried out of the room and hid just outside the open door. I
could hear Mr. Brown's voice, and I tried to let the familiar sound
soothe me.

  
"So we have sight, sound, smell, detail, simile, metaphor, and
feelings. Good."

  
"Who wrote it?" one boy called.

  
"If the author wants to tell you after class, he or she may
choose to do so," said Mr. Brown.

  
I did a most childish thing then. I hid when the students left
Mr. Brown's class, not behind or under the tree where James
would seek me out but high in the branches. I needed to think. I shadowed Mr. Brown so closely when he left that no light could
have slipped between us if I'd been solid flesh. I held to him like
a baby to its mother's skirts until he was in his car. Then I sat be
side him, something I never did. I always sat in the seat behind.
As he started the engine, I saw James mounting his bicycle. I
touched Mr. Brown's arm.

  
"Follow him," I said. I couldn't tell whether Mr. Brown had
obeyed my command, until he turned the car south instead of
north. We drove behind the bicycle, now a block ahead of us. As James came to a red light, one foot touching the curb for balance,
his hair blowing and his green bag on his back, we caught up to
him. After we turned on Rosewood, we passed a small park with a
swing set and a statue of a deer. At the corner of Amelia, James's
bicycle swooped left, and a moment later Mr. Brown's car rolled
dreamily after him onto the tiny residential lane. The houses were
small, wooden, and worn. James stopped in the driveway of the third one, both feet on the ground, his black shirt blowing in the wind as he turned toward us. Mr. Brown stopped his car right in
the middle of the street and looked perplexed. He turned and saw James staring at him. The window rolled down with a soft hum.

  
"Mr. Blake," he said.

  
"Yes, sir," said James, who brushed the hair out of his face. I
stayed hidden behind Mr, Brown.

  
"Good writing," he told him.

  
"Thanks." I could feel James searching for me.

  
"See you tomorrow." Mr. Brown raised the window. "How the hell did I get on this street?" I looked back, as we glided away, to
see James walk his bicycle toward the garage. It was a light blue house, peeling, with ivy growing up one side and a fig tree in the lawn. The number over the door was 723. The side mirror on the
bike flashed as he rolled it into the darkness of the garage. I made
a wish as if I had just seen a falling star. I wished that James were
my host. A thrill burned through me like a fast wick. Seven
twenty-three. I repeated it over and over like an incantation.

  
When we arrived at Mr. Brown's house a few minutes later, a
dreadful thing happened. When he entered the house, I could
not. I was as barred from moving through the doorway (or the
wall, for that matter) as a leaf would be when blown up against a
solid pane of glass. Instead of flowing through the door as he
closed it behind him, I bobbed against it. I floated to the window
where I could hear faint sounds from the kitchen. I could touch
the outer walls in my benign way, but I could not enter. I didn't
mean to, but I cried out, like a child fallen down a well. My spec
tral voice frightened the crows in the oak nearby, and this sobered
me, for a while. I paced round and round the small house, looking
in at every window. As when I wished to be one of the actors I watched on a stage far below, I had made a grave error in judg
ment.

  
I tried to thrust my arms through the wall and cleave to Mr.
Brown again, as I had with my Knight, but I couldn't. If you love
me, I thought at him, invite me in. But I knew better. It wasn't a
matter of love. It was only nature. I hadn't so much broken the
rule of proximity as the mysterious rule of devotion. I had
wished for another host. My spirit had wandered off, and this had
severed our tie like a blossom cut from the vine. The old pain
would be returning soon. Stubbornly I bumped against the same
window time and again, like a moth with no memory. I found
that the bedroom window was half open, but still I could not enter. I waited there, my face at the brink of the opening, my hands
gripping the window frame like prison bars, waiting for my hell
to come for me.

  
Mr. Brown came in and sat on the bed, looking troubled. His
wife followed and went to the mirror, taking a clip from the
dressing table and looking at herself in the glass as she twisted
and fastened up her hair. She saw Mr. Brown in the reflection and asked, "What's wrong?"

  
"Nothing," he said, but when he tried to smile, she turned
and looked at him.

  
He shrugged. Mrs. Brown came over and sat beside him.
"Really," she said.

  
He lay down on his back, gazing at the ceiling. "I don't know."

  
She lay on her side by him, raised up on her elbow so she
could observe his expression. "Tell me."

  
He looked so worried, but he played absently with the fingers
of her right hand as he spoke. "It's like I have the feeling I lost
something or I forgot something. It keeps bugging me."

  
Mrs. Brown leaned over and gave him a short kiss on the
shoulder. "It'll come back to you." Then she said, "Did you mail
that package to my sister?"

  
"Yes."

  
"Well, that was probably it."

  
"It doesn't feel like that," he said. "It's like when you know
you dreamed about someone, but you can't remember what hap
pened in the dream. I feel as if I can't remember...." He stopped.
Mrs. Brown stroked his chest, drawing soft circles over his heart.

  
After a moment he said, "What if I've forgotten a person?"

  
"Like your first grade teacher, you mean? Someone like that?"

  
"Is there a moment when you'll never be able to remember
something again?"

  
"No," said his wife. "Your mind will never lose anything for
ever that's worth keeping." She gave his temple a playful push,
and he let his head fall to one side. "It's all in there."

  
Something happened then. Any other night, he would have
put his arms about her or tickled her. This time he simply looked
back at the ceiling. His wife stood up and said, "Snap out of it,
Babe." But he didn't laugh. She paused as she unbuttoned her
jeans, frowning.

  
"Maybe I lost my muse," he said. "I wonder what I did
wrong."

  
Her eyes flashed at him, a ripple went through the gentle
stream of her nature. A shock wave she hid by turning her back on him as she got undressed. She was shaken, and I knew why.
He had broken the illusion that
she
was his muse. She knew that
he was smitten with her, but now she feared that she was not
enough. Mrs. Brown slowly folded her T-shirt and laid it over her
jeans on the dressing table chair.

  
"I think I'll take a shower," she said. And on any other night,
he would have followed her into the water, but tonight he lay
staring at the ceiling.

  
It was my fault. I had stepped off one stone in the river before
finding another. He sat up as the water started running in the
next room and looked toward the open window. He stood and
walked to me now. Leaning a hand on the wall on each side of
the frame, he studied the darkness, the breeze that wafted
through me, stirring his hair. I was inches away, but he was alone.
It was not like talking to him when I had touched his shoulder
alone in our classroom. He couldn't feel me anymore. If only I could appear to him like the ghosts in stories. The soles of my
feet began to feel like ice.

  
I backed away, willing his eyes to eventually lock with my own, but of course he was blind to me, and I couldn't bear it. I
had never left a host who wasn't dying. I was losing my beloved
friend, and he wasn't going to heaven without me. He was going
to live his life without me. I turned my back on him and fled.
Once I had run from my hell and managed to make my way back
to my host's doorstep. I began walking in what I hoped was the
right direction. As I felt the pain crack through my bones, I held
the number I had memorized in my mind like a compass. Seven
twenty-three.

  
I was in the freezing waters again, being pulled down in the
dark, the demons roaring above and mud flooding my throat. I
reached out, trying to tear down the dirt wall, but it was a plank,
like the side of a rough coffin. I clawed at the wood, and it started
to crumble in little rotting chunks. Water shot between the
boards with a scream.

  
An animal, a black deer, loomed over me. It stood so still even
as the wind was blowing leaves and sticks around in a wild maypole dance. I realized then, it was only a statue of a deer. I could
see, behind it, two swings flapping in a crazy jig. I was too fragile
to move. I felt as if I would be blown to pieces if I tried to rise, so
I stayed close to the ground and let everything else riot over my head. My hell and a storm were strangely mingled.