The Cartographer of No Man's Land: A Novel (27 page)

“But you do have a little rowboat down there,” Simon said.

“I do. I take it out when it’s calm. Even then, I keep it tied by a long line to the wharf. And,” he patted his chest with both hands, “I wear my life vest.”

Simon laughed gently with Mr. Heist.

“I like to see the bottom at some depth, and especially at night with my lanterns. The starfish and sea urchins lurking in their own universe. And what is better than the green gleam of phosphorus disturbed on a night sea?”

“Nothing. But you can’t see phosphorous with a light,” Simon said.

“No, of course. I turn my lamps off on those nights and throw stones in the water and watch the green tail follow them all the way down.”

“Me, too!”

“We have that in common, then, Simon.” He poured out the tea. “Sailing is not for me, but when I hear the call of gulls or the curlew, or see the tiny beating wings of the Acadian Hairstreak on an oak leaf, or watch a starfish stretch out a single arm on the wharf pilings, I feel more alive than I did the minute before.”

Simon hadn’t considered birds or butterflies, and especially not starfish, as something to make you feel more alive. He turned the page back to the iridescent blue
Morpho
.

Mr. Heist took the muffins from the oven. “You like that one,” he said as he arranged them on a platter. “He’s a very clever fellow. His wings are blue on top but mottled brown underneath, so he cannot be seen from below. Note the name, the
Morph
o. Do you make the connection?
Metamorphosis
. Changing. Like all moths and butterflies, he’s not beautiful to start, and in his case, only beautiful from above. He is ugly and attractive both. But think of it—from caterpillar to chrysalis to the bursting out of the butterfly, so light on its wing—that is pure beauty. Would it be so if it had never been a caterpillar? Think of it! Crawling on the ground, then locked in darkness, and suddenly
airborne
!
But does the butterfly remember he once was not?”

“I, I don’t know,” Simon said.

“I was fortunate enough once to watch a black swallowtail do just that, break out of its cocoon. It was a good five minutes before it took off. And all the while, it opened and closed its wings, so slowly, as if considering the magnitude of transformation. Can I really use these wings to lift above the world, he seemed to ask. How I envied the moment when he trusted that he could.”

Simon put his chin on his hand. He could listen to Mr. Heist all day.

Mr. Heist cleared his throat and took a sip of tea. “But now, you didn’t come here to discuss butterflies. Ever the professor, I’m afraid. You mentioned a question, a concern.”

Simon sat up and without mentioning the letter, asked if Mr. Heist knew what “breaking through the veil” meant and if it was connected to witchcraft.

Mr. Heist stirred his tea a moment, and insisted on context. Simon looked down and shook his head.

“You want to contact your uncle? Is that it?”

“No! Not me. Ma—” Simon stopped himself and sat back. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“
Ach
. Of course. I myself have had three cousins killed in the war. Two at the Somme . . . Death diminishes the living, if they let it. But your poor mother. I’ve been teaching here for seventeen years, and I can still remember the first time I saw Ebbin Hant and Angus MacGrath. A pair of scoundrels, those two. Hard to believe Ebbin is gone. So tragic. Of course she wants to contact him. Perfectly natural.”

“It is? But do they throw people in prison for that? Or asylums?”

“What?” It was Mr. Heist’s turn to be alarmed. “For trying to contact the dead?”

Simon revealed the contents of the letter, and from there Mr. Heist launched into a treatise on what he called the Spiritualism movement, sweeping the British Isles with so many lost to the war and even so great a mind as William James investigating it to find the “demarcation between science and magic.” It might once have been considered witchcraft, perhaps, or the mark of the insane. President Lincoln’s wife for example, poor woman, and yes, there were tricksters and hucksters, perhaps even this Mrs. Nicodemus, whom Simon Peter now conjured in the garb of a gypsy with a crystal ball. But, Mr. Heist added, holding up his finger, one had to weigh the comfort of those left behind against indeterminate scientific proof.

This talk, peppered with words like “occult,” “séances” and “mediums,” was a little hard to follow. “Do you believe it? That people can get messages from the dead?” Simon asked when Mr. Heist paused for breath.

Mr. Heist considered this. “ ‘Belief’ is the word, isn’t it, Simon? We believe in many things that are unseen and for which we have no evidence. I have no experience on which to base belief. Or disbelief, for that matter. What is our evidence for life after death or for the Resurrection itself except the belief of others in whom we place our faith? Or perhaps the faith of others in whom we place our belief. Very different things.”

Mr. Heist caught Simon’s eye and said, “I think of it this way. Suppose you had a collection of metal filings on a piece of paper. Under it, a magnet. What would happen to the filings?”

“They’d all collect to where the magnet was, I guess.”

“Just so. I believe while we are here, our spirits collect, like the filings, into the shape of our beings. When death comes, the magnet is removed and the spirit scatters back out. Just like the filings—the shape is gone, our individual beings, but the filings remain—part of the greater whole.”

Simon jumped when Mr. Heist leaned forward and patted his arm. “You’ve asked a question, and I’ve given you a lecture. The truth is, I cannot tell you if these things are real, but I can give you this advice regarding your mother—consider the limits of your responsibility. Hmm?” He squeezed Simon’s arm and sat back, a kindly look in his eyes.

“What?”

“Consider it. That’s all I’m saying. And, Simon? Be kind to George.”

“Thanks,” Simon said uncertainly. “I’d better be going.” He carried his mug to the sink, where another mug hung on a hook and two plates were neatly washed and stacked. Before leaving, he glanced again at the brilliant
Morpho didius
.

A
S HE PASSED
by the Mather cottage, Simon saw George in the field, a silhouette against a violet sky. He sped Peg on faster and faster. “
Morpho didius!
” he shouted. He thought about the unfurling leaves and the spring offensive everyone said was coming. He thought about riding Peg right out of Snag Harbor and on beyond Chester and galloping up to the top of Haddon Hill on the other side of the bay where he could look out over the tips of the fir trees to the great beyond and send a message to his father just by letting his spirit fly to the wind. “It doesn’t matter whether you saved Uncle Ebbin. Save yourself! Come back! We’ll fix up the
Lauralee
and take her out beyond Ironbound to the edge of the earth! Just hold the line and don’t die.” He had Peg at a fast clip by then.
Don’t die. Don’t die
. It wasn’t until he was nearly home that Simon realized those cousins of Mr. Heist must have died on the other side of the line.

T
HIRTEEN

April 1
^st
, 1917

Snag Harbor, Nova Scotia

“ Y
ou don’t mind, do you, Cottnam?” Lady Bromley asked as she positioned herself and a Miss Plante beside Reverend Dimmock, forming a kind of receiving line under the arched door of St. Andrew’s after the service. The reverend followed her gaze to the freshly repaired steeple and said, “Not at all,” and continued to greet his parishioners filing out. As Lady Bromley introduced her as Lord Bromley’s great-niece, Miss Plante extended a plump hand, gloved tight as a sausage in its skin, to one and all. She was surprisingly cheerful, Simon thought, for one who had lost her mother at an early age and whose father was too ill to care for her. A man who had been rejected by the army, it was said. “No doubt a n’er-do-well,” Duncan noted as they’d walked up the hill to St. Andrew’s that morning. “A drinker’s my guess,” Ida had added.

“Goodness,” Miss Plante said, shaking Simon’s hand. “Call me Charlotte. I only just turned sixteen.” Her gray eyes, so light as to seem transparent, were set in a round face with dimples on both cheeks that grew pronounced when she smiled. She made him feel strangely happy.

His attention was diverted by the brief hesitation of his moth
er’s laced shoe above the step. She was nearly devoid of color, but elegant in her black hat and cape. Underneath the outer mourning, she was wearing a dress of robin’s-egg blue. Taking his hand, she barely acknowledged Lady Bromley, who explained to Charlotte that Mrs. MacGrath hadn’t intended to be rude, but had recently lost her brother to the war. “Not,” Lady Bromley said pointedly, “that that should be any of
your
concern.”

Simon wandered over to Maisie and Zenus under the pin oak. Not far from them, Lord Bromley was poking at gravestones with his stick. “Lawrence Mader Putnam,
1823
!” he shouted. “John Blakely Jollymore,
1877
! What have you got to say for yourselves?”

“My mum says that Miss Plante was talking to the dead, and
that’s
why she was sent over here. For her own good,” Maisie was saying to Zenus.

“Talking to the
dead
?
Are you sure? Is she a medium?” Simon asked.

“I’d say she’s a large,” Zenus responded, as solemnly as Maisie.

Maisie giggled. “Zenus, you’re horrid. She has lovely eyes.”

“Lovely eyes.” Zenus fluttered his lids. “That’s what they say when a girl is as fat as a barrel.”

Maisie turned to Simon and said, “Anyway, she gets
messages . . .
from dead soldiers.”

“Bunk! Nuts-o-nuts!” Zenus said.

Simon looked back at Charlotte. True, she was a bit of a barrel, but with the gay little feather on her soft gray hat, she was no sideshow gypsy. She was a breath of fresh air. Or maybe, he thought, a soft mourning dove. Maisie must have got it wrong. But what if she hadn’t? Had God brought Charlotte to Snag Harbor to give his mother peace?

“Simon Peter! Let’s weigh anchor!” Duncan shouted out across the churchyard.

“I have to go. You sure about this stuff . . . ?” Simon narrowed his eyes at Maisie.

“The whole town knows. Ask your grandfather,” was her response.

“So nice to see you out and about again, Hettie,” Lady Bromley said as she passed by. “We won’t keep you, not in this raw weather. And poor Charlotte, still tired from her long journey. Good day to you all.” She collected Charlotte and marched on. Lord Bromley straightened, momentarily energized. “Suppose I should catch up to that lot. That girl might get my dinner!” He touched his cap and was off, swiping at the air at his feet with his stick.

Duncan held out a hand for Young Fred. Simon walked beside his mother, a plan hatching. “Do you think she really gets messages from the dead?”

“Who knows? It’s a whole movement. Mags is part of it. I don’t know if it’s legitimate or . . .”

“If what’s legitimate?” Duncan turned to say. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not.” He lit his pipe with raised eyebrows, amused at himself.

“Spiritualism,” Hettie answered, chin up.

Duncan looked up sharply. “Spiritualism! That girl was sent over here to get away from that cockamamie cult. No one contacts the dead. They’re in God’s hands.”

“How can you be so sure, Duncan?” Hettie replied. “Maybe people like Miss Plante can break through the mystery, hear things, see things the rest of us can’t.”

“
Mystery
. That’s the point, Hettie. Not for us mortals to understand,” Duncan said sternly. “The resurrection of the dead is about
faith
. And as Cottnam so rightly put it for once, faith is the maintenance of hope in the face of the unknown. The
unknown.
If the mystery were known to us, we wouldn’t have much use for God, now would we?”

“Perhaps
you
miss the point, Duncan—the maintenance of
hope
?”

“Good God, woman. Hope for the world, for mankind, not for—never mind. You leave that girl in peace.” He walked a few more paces and stopped abruptly. He pulled at his ear. His tone softened. “Perhaps I do miss the point,” he said. “Are you thinking of contacting Ebbin?”