Rosethorn (37 page)

“Is the owner here?”

He shrugged. “Just us."

The way he was staring at her was eroding much of the stern resolve she had built up on the drive over.

"So, what'd you find?” she asked brusquely.

"Right." He stepped out onto the porch. "I should have shown you this earlier, but it completely slipped my mind." He started walking down around towards the back without putting on shoes. "I didn't expect to see you."

She followed him from a wary distance with her arms crossed. Stopping by his truck, still parked in the same place by the carriage house, he pulled out a flashlight from the glove compartment.

"Getting dark out there."

She saw that he had not finished putting up the new roof on the other side of the house and had covered the top with tarp.

The once brambly yard, full of tree-high weeds and wild bushes had been somewhat tamed so that there was now a clearing and a path she could barely make out in the dusky light. She could smell wild, sun-drenched blackberries cooling on the briar.

"My brother and I took machetes out here a couple months ago."

After a few minutes of trudging and dodging prickly berry brambles, Andrew stopped by the great oak tree that grew by the wooden fence.

"I think I know what happened to the sea captain's wife," he said as he turned on the flashlight and shone its beam by the base of the tree.

"A rosebush was hiding it before. I doubt it’s been seen by anyone for over a century."

Rampant ivy and dark moss covered the barely discernible mound, from which rose a freshly-cut stump. One half of a broken marble headstone slanted upright from the ground. The other half lay fallen beside it.

"She didn't run away.” Andrew’s voice was hushed and grave. “She died. That's why the sea captain didn't want to live here anymore."

Sera knelt and gently ran her hand in reverence over the half of the slab that was upright and felt the faint engraving on its time-worn surface, then did the same to the one that had fallen. A small carving, which had also been broken in half, was on top of each piece, so eroded as to be almost unrecognizable. She sighed.

"It's not her. A child's buried here." She stood up but did not look at him.

"There's no name, no born date and no died date, just the year, 1894. And there's a figure of a lamb on top. Only dead children have lambs on their headstones. It was probably stillborn or died very soon after it was born."

She started to shake, but kept her arms firmly crossed against her chest. When the shaking subsided, and she was sure her voice wouldn’t have the tell-tale quiver, she continued.

"She probably still did run away, who knows why. But he couldn't let her go, not her memory, not this house, not their child that might have lived. Some people don't ever let go."

"Yes, I suppose you're right." Her ears pricked at the change in his voice. A slight hardening. “I was hoping for a different ending. I was hoping she didn't leave him, that only death could have taken her from him, but that's my sentimental nature talking."

She turned to look at him but couldn't see his face.

"I guess we'll never know," she countered, swiftly finding her other voice, the one that was sharp and merciless she had kept honed for the day when she would need it.

"I don't suppose you found letters or a diary in a hidden room explaining just exactly why she left? I'm sure she didn't just turn her back on him without an explanation or a goodbye. She would have at least owed him a 'Sorry, I'm not in love with you anymore. I've found someone else,' - that is if she ever loved him to begin with. It would have been cruel and unforgivable to do otherwise."

He turned to her so that his shoulders blocked the house, his outline darker than the twilight sky. She did not realize when he had turned off the flashlight.

"Who cares about the reasons why? The fact is she left when she could have stayed. How long do you think he waited for her before realizing she was never going to return? A year? Five? How long, Sera?"

"One night of being alone in this empty house would have been enough, I would think. But he would have held on longer than a night, longer than a year, longer than he should have, and then would have come the day when he would have to shut the door, lock the gate, and just walk away because there is nothing that is worth that much pain."

Her anger blazed bright enough to light the deepening dusk, hot enough to match the absent sun, so that at last she saw his dense shadow flinch just a little.

"You said some things." She continued without waiting for him to reply. "Buried? Forgotten? By all means, let's have at it."

A curt laugh and then he turned around on his heels to walk back to the house. He did not light the way for her and she did not ask him to slow down to keep from stumbling in the unfamiliar path. She followed him back to the house and they entered the front door, all in heavy silence.

"We have to go back up," he said gruffly over his shoulder as he started to go up the stairs.

Once they reached the landing, he turned off the pendant light hanging from the second story ceiling, without explanation, leaving the house in darkness. He turned on the flashlight and headed down the hall towards the door to the attic. Mounting another set of narrow stairs, they reached the attic floor with its low, sloping ceilings. He bent down and moved to the large dormer window facing south, which he opened. Without hesitation, he stepped outside to the platform-like broad ledge and waited for her.

"Careful," he said, his hand out. Ignoring it, she held onto the window frame and stepped out next to him.

"Let me guess. Your second theory--he pushed her to her death."

In a voice less accusing than the one by the forlorn grave, as though he was trying to soften all the hard, accusatory things that they had already flung at each other that night - "I think that this was meant to be what they would call a widow's walk back east. If you look out, you can see the road from here. Back then you could have seen for miles clear across town, so that there was a place the captain's wife could stand to see if he was on his way home. I'm guessing he never got around to putting up the railing."

She looked out over the dark valley, past the fields and what used to be Mrs. Haviland's farm, to the some lights twinkling in the far distance. "Fascinating. Another mystery illuminated. Thank you."

"That's not why I brought you up here." He pointed the flashlight to the western horizon, then turned it off. "Be careful
,” he again, his hand on her arm without her permission. The entire valley was in darkness. "Do you see them?"

Her eyes swept over and over the patch of sky he had pointed to, a wash of indigo seeping into black, not seeing anything but vestiges of dying rays sinking into the horizon. He stayed silent, expectant, his hand firmly hanging on to her.

She looked again and was about to turn to him, when she saw it, or rather, them, and drew in her breath.

A crescent moon of silver was rising above the earth. Below it, shining just as brightly was a glowing orb and above, another orb, massive and pale, then a reddish object beyond that and a pale sphere, all forming a spectacular arc set against the twilight sky.

"You'd have to wait another hundred years to see something like this." Quietly said, not looking at her.

Blinking in disbelief, she looked again, and found another tiny sphere sparkling just above the horizon, not unlike a star, a diamond next to luminous jewels. Five planets and the moon on an invisible
string necklace had been flung out into space.

"They're all moving on the same path called an ecliptic, on the same plane, but at different speeds. For instance, Mercury-that's the lowest one, the one closest to the horizon, orbits the sun every 88 days, while Venus, the brightest one, just above the moon, has an orbit of 225 days. The bigger ones, like Jupiter, takes almost 12 years, and Saturn takes 29 and a half years. And because they're moving, tomorrow, they'll be in a different order. So to see them like this, all together, in this particular configuration from earth is---"

"Once in a lifetime." She finished as she faced the darkening horizon, her arm burning where he touched her.

They watched as Mercury sank lower and lower, until it disappeared. Only four planets and the moon remained.

Once again, he had done it. She shook her head. How, she didn’t know. She had been to the pyramids, spent the night in the Sahara, stomped grapes at a Tuscan vineyard. But no matter where she went or what she saw, Andrew always had a one-of-a-kind surprise that managed to surpass it all. 

"I'll take that beer now."

To make room for him, she scooted back, almost stumbling as he brushed against her to enter the attic.

"Here," he said as his hand ran down her arm. She felt him place the flashlight in her hand, before stepping down. After he left the attic, she sank down to her knees, hanging to the window for support.

"Shut the door, lock the gate, walk away," she whispered, eyes riveted to the spectacular sky, where night had fallen and the planets and the moon were no longer alone.

As if mocking her, the universe at that moment had chosen to unveil countless brilliant stars.

By the time he returned, handing her an ice cold bottle, she had recollected herself. She was sitting down, legs swinging off the ledge. She took a long sip, the bitter brew warming her instantly. He sat down next to her with a bottle in his hands.

Becoming bolder in the dark, she watched his lean shadow. She could smell the detergent from his freshly laundered clothes and knew that if she were to touch his bare skin, it would still be warm from being in the sun all day.

Like a night from some other lifetime of the girl she used to be, they perched on the edge of a precipice. 

"So what's up with the other four planets? You couldn't get them to show up for tonight?"

"You mean the other three? Because we're on one already."

"That's what I said, three."

"They'll show up eventually, if you wait long enough. If you've got nothing else to do at three a.m., you can probably catch the others making an appearance."

Always a lightweight, the beer had hit her and she started to feel slightly dizzy, watching the shadowy man beside her and not the unusual and breathtaking display beyond them.

"A few days ago," he continued, his voice low and soothing, "three of them, Mars, Venus, and Saturn, formed a triangle. If you had been looking at them from somewhere in the Middle East, the triangle would have been set just above Bethlehem in the West Bank, just as it did about two thousand years ago. Some believe that this configuration might have been the Star of Bethlehem."

"A few days ago I was in Paris," she said gaily as she turned her eyes back to the sky, "in my boyfriend's apartment. I'm moving there actually." She felt him shift suddenly and smiled to herself. "I just came home for a few days to let my grandmother know. So I'll be doing my planet-gazing from a Paris rooftop from now on.

He considered this with long, quiet sips.

"If you were in Paris, you wouldn't have been able to see them
,” he after awhile. "Or any big city. Too many lights, too many buildings to block the horizon."

"General contractor, astronomer." She could hear the derision in her voice and despised herself for it, but could not stop nor did she want to. "Able to conjure dead infants and align the moon and planets -just five of them, but who am I to quibble-in one night. Any more secrets up your---" 

She stopped abruptly as her eyes caught his bare feet and the images of him opening the door that night, the way he had shown her with restrained pride what he had done with the old house, and what he had planned to do, the way he had looked at her, even now when she could not see his face sliced through her, just as sharp and pitiless as her anger.

A deep sigh shuddered in her, bloated with her own foolishness.

Not knowing what else to do, though she felt the world starting to spin, she took a long swig of beer, grimacing as she swallowed. She drew up her legs and addressed the stars cautiously.

"If you don't mind a personal question, just exactly how much did you make flipping houses?"

A long silence, during which neither of them moved.

"Enough," he said finally.

"And are you going to flip this one too? Pardon me, it's none of my business what you do with your property," She said quickly as she realized she was not ready nor will she ever be. She was dizzy with the beer and the stars and the way he smelled. She was dizzy with all the ways he was familiar when he shouldn’t have been. Dizzy with all the feelings - the anger, the sadness, the longing - which should have died a long time ago but hadn't. 

"Sera-," he started.

"Why," she interrupted, "Why this house?" She dared not say any more. It outraged her, that he owned the house and would live in it, make plans and grow old with someone other than her.

"Still the same, aren't you? Different clothes, different hair, but underneath it all, still the same angry queen of the wounded."
             

"Oh, hardly the same, Andrew. Not quite so gullible or naive. And if I am wounded, you should know a little something about that."