Light Boxes (5 page)

Pull me by string and horse.

Tell me everything won't end in death. That everything doesn't end with February. Dead wildflowers wrapped around a crying baby's throat.

I've slowed my heartbeat to three beats a minute. I've redrawn the clouds into birds, a fox chasing them into the mountains.

I'm going to move my hand today.

I vomit ice cubes.

There's a ghost next to me.

Get up, Dad.

 

He thinks about the senseless deaths of Selah and Bianca and the ongoing war against him. He creates ten different shades of gray in the sky and then starts over again. The girl who smells of honey and smoke calls for him to come inside. He thinks, She has a light in her throat when she speaks. She has strings of light draped inside her body.

There's a terrible war against me, he says over his shoulder.

I know, she says. You can stop it anytime you want.

The girl who smells of honey and smoke can't hear him cry but can see the curled shoulders. She can see his black shake.

Bianca's ghost appears in town. She wears red shorts and a white blouse and has long black hair. I watch her buy mint leaves and talk to shop owners about how soon until we will only experience summer. She walks through the streets passing out tulips whose petals have veins that spell out the word July. A bar-keep tells everyone that Bianca's ghost has a War Plan involving the town children who have been kidnapped by February. An apprentice of mine says that when Bianca cupped her hands together it showed an entire sky of kites.

Thaddeus hadn't spoken in a week. But when Bianca's ghost whispered in his ear, he stood up. He pointed at the sky. He went to his home, where Caldor Clemens had taken over the War Effort. Bianca's ghost disappeared into the woods.

Since Thaddeus's solitude it's never been so cold or dark in the town. My owl statues became brittle with frost and cracked and crumbled to dust, and I'm lucky I haven't any children left to feed. That's a horrible thing to say, but it's true.

 

OWL STATUES—HALF PRICE.

 

 

speech under the two holes in the sky. The War Effort sat in a circle around Clemens, who pumped his fists and spit into snowbanks.

Thaddeus came up the hill carrying a scythe over his shoulder. He swung it across the snow tops, causing the War Effort to cheer and Clemens to tilt his head back and shout insults at the sky.

I'd like to add something, said Thaddeus, who moved into the center of the group and, in a gesture of respect to Clemens, took off his shirt.

As the snow fell on his skin, Thaddeus thought it didn't feel like snow. He prepared his mind to feel snow on skin. But that isn't what he felt, because the snow was torn parchment with letters scribbled in lead. In a fury Thaddeus collected the pieces of parchment from his shoulders and arms and every scrap from the hairy back of Clemens. The War Effort helped, too. They crawled on their hands and knees and gathered the parchment into a small pile.

 

 

the next week deciphering the fallen parchment. They sat at a wooden table in Thaddeus's kitchen where they could move the letters around. They took turns wearing the light box. War members brought them mint tea and tended to the fire.

There were over two hundred pieces of torn parchment. The Professor smacked the side of the light box, and the light flickered inside as they shuffled the letters.

What about this, said Thaddeus, and he moved the letters into a long row that stretched the length of the table.

But it could be wrong, said the Professor. Look.

See all the fruit, said Thaddeus.

Fruit, asked the Professor.

Yes, fruit, Thaddeus said, and spelled out more names of fruit grown during warm months.

The Professor continued moving the letters around. AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN appeared dozens of times.

And then the Professor began moving the pieces again and came up with something entirely different. He handed the light box to Thaddeus. He rubbed his face. Thaddeus said that AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN was where he should go. He told the Professor about the scroll of parchment left on the tree where three children once sat twisting the heads of owls. He told him about the tracks in the snow leading from the oak tree, the concentric circles, the animal prints, the human prints that might lead to February.

Very well, then, said the Professor. At the edge of the town.

If not, we'll go back to moving the parchment, and we'll find another answer, said Thaddeus.

Very well indeed, said the Professor. He put the light box back on.

 

1. Valerian root and vitamin C tablets taken in the dark.

2. Yoga and meditation.

3. The melting of snow in children's palms.

4. Light boxes?

5. Hot bath taken with mint extract.

6. Touching the moon in places the moon doesn't know exist.

7. Consumption of St. John's wort.

8. Feeding the garden inside.

9. Giving Bianca back.

10. Twisting your fears into desires.

11. Mood diary.

12. Hydrating the body.

13. Paying attention to the girl who smells of honey and smoke.

 

 

around his neck, looked at the picture the old man had given him of Selah and left home. Tree branches bowed with snow, their tips tied to the ground by invisible ropes. Thaddeus imagined standing behind February, running his knife in a half moon from ear to ear. He saw the blood wash the ropes away and the snow shake from the tress and the sky click to blue.

As Thaddeus walked through town, a few shopkeepers shook his hand. A butcher gave him a pork loin wrapped in twine. The old man appeared again, hobbled up to Thaddeus and handed him another folded parchment. Thaddeus unfolded it carefully. It showed himself standing behind a bearded man, running his knife around the man's throat.

Why would you draw this, asked Thaddeus.

But the old man was gone. Thaddeus thought through the yellowing candle at the inn window he saw him drinking from a beer stein. He thought the beer stein was decorated with balloons.

 

FEBRUARY WAS KIDNAPPING THE
children and burying them at the edge of town. Anytime he looked into the town and felt sadness he sent a group of priests armed with shovels to dig a new hole. What February didn't know was that not all the children were dead. Some were learning to survive underground, had built an elaborate series of underground tunnels. Someone was helping them. They snuck out at night and gathered firewood and stole lanterns. February couldn't see what the children were planning underground. He couldn't see their cold faces illuminated in the fire and lantern light, and he couldn't hear them discussing the war against him. The children dreamed the same dream the War Effort in town dreamed. Flocks of birds tearing through a new blue sky. They dug tunnels that snaked beneath the town and placed notes inside homes informing the people of their own War Movement. Some children weren't so lucky. February would watch their fingers break a crust of snow, twitch a little, and then seize in the wind as the wolves moved in. It pleased February when that happened. He went HAHAHAHAHA and felt guilty for doing so. On more than one occasion, February looked under a roof for a child to kidnap and would see people wrapped in wool blankets and scarves and sweaters standing in a tight circle.

He would watch them undress after they unfolded parchment with words he couldn't make out.

 

FEBRUARY TRIED TO UNDERSTAND
the town. The girl who smelled of honey and smoke told him he should drink more tea with mint leaves. She placed her hand around his bicep. Her thumb and pointer finger touched. February looked back on the town and saw the War Effort resume the water-trough attacks. He saw Thaddeus Lowe, and he saw the butcher's knife hidden inside his coat pocket.

It wasn't my choice to do terrible things to this town, said February to the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. I didn't want this to happen.

I pray each night for it to stop, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. I've had dreams of a woman helping us. Thaddeus Lowe is coming with a knife, said February.

Thaddeus Lowe is coming to kill me.

Maybe I can help, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. It's the dream I've had and what the woman has told me to do.

I don't want to die, said February.

This is what is going to happen, said the girl who smelled of honey and smoke. She walked over to February and whispered something in his ear.

I hope that works, said February. I really do.

I'd do it for you. I'd change our entire story if I could, she said.

Our story, said February, is all wrong.

 

 

and carpenters are building a steel ship large enough to carry the population of the town. Caldor asks why build a ship and a blacksmith laughs and slams two iron planks against a dimpled metal block.

What do you think is going to happen when all this snow melts, the blacksmith says.

The blacksmith turns to a group of workers who are above him, constructing what will become the bow.

Is it too ridiculous to think we can sail away on the rivers that will flood our town. That we could end up in a New Town.

The blacksmiths raise their glowing tips of metal and shout no. Caldor tells one of the blacksmiths that Thaddeus Lowe will save them. The blacksmith laughs.

Thaddeus Lowe is an idiot, says the blacksmith. A fool.

Come here, says Caldor.

The blacksmith is about the same size as Caldor. Caldor spits in his face and simultaneously a bucket of frozen tree sap crashes into the side of the blacksmith's skull.

Caldor dangles the bucket over the body of the blacksmith.

Thaddeus Lowe is going to save this town, he says.

Caldor walks to where he can see the beekeepers standing on the hill. From this distance, he thinks, the bees look like plumes of smoke around their hooded heads.

One possibility is to attack with bees, I said. I could send thousands. The stings would force February to peel the clouds away. It's an idea. It could work.

I told this to Caldor Clemens while we sat in a balloon basket staring up at the sky, under where the two holes were rumored to be. The balloon itself rippled, was deflated around us on the snowy plains like a gown.

Go ahead and send them, Clemens said. Thaddeus would try it.

I tapped my head. A swarm of bees moved up my neck and formed a funnel extending skyward. The bees disappeared through the clouds, and there was a terrible buzzing sound. Then, seconds later, the funnel collapsed and thousands of my dead bees rained from the sky and filled the basket. Their little bodies were hard and cold. Clemens stood there staring at me while I shielded myself from the falling, dying bees.

The sadness was overwhelming.

What the shit, said Clemens, shifting his legs out of the dead-bee basket.

I watched him walk back into town, swatting dead bees from the nape of his neck.

 

 

a dream in which Thaddeus stood in a field with three owls. February was on his knees. The owls nodded the way owls nod. Thaddeus had his knife drawn.

I'm sorry for your daughter and your wife, but—you have the wrong guy, said February.

I don't care what you have to say. I only care about what you've done, said Thaddeus.

I can't help it. Really, I can't, February said.

I'm going to open your throat and fill you with tulips, Thaddeus said, grabbing February by the shoulder.

Wait, said February, there is someone I want you to meet first.

Running from the horizon and down the plains was a girl who smelled of honey and smoke.

Let me introduce you to my wife, said February.

 

1. Italo Calvino

2. Gabriel García Márquez

3. Jim Henson and Jorge Luis Borges—Labyrinths

4. The creator of MySpace

5. Richard Brautigan

6. J. K. Rowling

7. The inventor of the children's toy Lite-Brite

8. Ann Sexton

9. David Foster Wallace

10. Gauguin and the Caribbean

11. Charles Schulz

12. Liam Rector

 

 

town, Caldor Clemens's received a folded square of parchment from a group of children who came up from underneath his floor. There were dozens of them down there leaning against the sides of the tunnel. They raised their lanterns for the smallest to climb up over them and hand Clemens the parchment paper.