The Visionist: A Novel (28 page)

Simon Pryor

IT WAS AS
cold and dreary a ride as ever I’d taken the evening I left Tanner’s barn. Flecks of dried blood peppered my hands, and as I gazed out over the snow-covered fields, I felt winter to be endless and unforgiving, a season to stunt the heart. May Kimball gone in an instant, her horse shot dead, all hope of resolution trampled.

I’d stuffed the mysterious packet into my pocket. The manner in which she’d played with the straw, the persistence with which she’d passed it in and out of the flame—at the time, they had seemed the actions of an addled woman, one who was more than capable of setting a fire out of pure madness. But no. Could she have foreseen that she would need the burnt stalk to write me a message? And how had she known about Trask?

The sight of home gave little comfort, save to remind me that it offered a cave in which I could hide from my failures. A drink, a chair by the fire, a pile of miseries yet to be exploited—these were the crude tools I would use to put the events of the day behind me. Then, I would go back to work.

Sitting down at my writing desk, I placed several sheets of clean paper before me. I am not quite sure what it is I initially planned to write, but I discovered that one is not always in control of the message that spills forth from one’s quill. Indeed, the mere act of sitting quietly brought on many of the thoughts I am accustomed to pushing away, my parents appearing foremost in my mind at that moment. May Kimball and I had not behaved so differently in the face of shame. We had sacrificed everything at the altar of a God intent on convincing us that we must pay for our alleged sins by depriving ourselves of the one thing that might save us: love.

I had lost years of the past, but I was suddenly filled with the urge to recapture my future. The words did not come easily, for how does one go about trying to mend so great an undoing? Hour upon hour, I composed and then destroyed each attempt until I came full circle to the missive I had penned on my very first try.

Fresh ink blotted and seal stamped firm, I placed the envelope in my coat pocket, intent on finding an errand boy to deliver it come first light. The Hurlbuts had already caused my family the greatest misery possible—they had splintered us apart in a world that demands devotion if loneliness, bitterness, and despair are to be kept at bay. May Kimball, curled up at the feet of the last living creature that could give her comfort, broken, guilt-ridden, alone—she was me. And just as I could not let James Hurlbut get away with stealing her from her children, I could no longer allow him to deprive me of my mother and father. Our fates, May Kimball’s and mine, were well and truly wed.

It had finally dawned upon me that our time on this earth is limited, and we are fortunate souls indeed if we can hold even one person close to our hearts, let alone two. Now, though I knew I had to finish what I had started and take May Kimball home, I could barely trudge through another hour without wanting to run back to my own.

It was late, but I could not help myself, reaching into my other coat pocket for the envelope that had been left in the stall. Its broken seal was a pair of interlocking Bs. Benjamin Briggs. I took the papers out of the packet—they were dirty and worn. Someone had read them many times, but I would wait to study their meaning. Instead, my eye sped down the page to the signature at the bottom, and I saw that it belonged to none other than Barnabas Trask. If I could have re-saddled my mount and gone in search of him that instant, I would have. But that would have been unfair to my horse, for it had been a hard day for both of us.

Next morning, with the parcel burning a hole in one pocket and my letter hot in the other, I cannot say that I was happy to open my door to the sight of a twisted and broken soul limping up the walk. Elwyn Cramby, the embodiment of our mutual misery, and worse still, James Hurlbut’s messenger.

“Can I have a word, sir?” he asked in a quiet voice. He had traveled on foot, and his bony face was gray with exhaustion. “I’ve come a good way with news you’ll be wanting to hear. And…well, the news’ll be plenty enough for now.”

I thought with some distress about the delay this surprise visit was costing me, but then I remembered that it had been a day and night full of surprises, and that this one had every possibility of being as important as the rest. Waving him in, I took his coat and showed him to a chair.

“Something I’ve to say first,” he said before he’d even had a chance to catch his breath. “Your permitting, of course.”

“Say your piece, Cramby.” I was loath to listen long if all he was here to do was parrot James Hurlbut’s orders.

“It be about you. About you and that little girl. A long ways back.” He peered at me, knotting his hands while my heart began to thrum in my chest. “Owe you an apology, I do. Never coming forth, never telling the town what it was you tried to do. I was there, see. I knew. Knew he ran. Knew she was dying of cold and that no one but you had the guts to try…to try and save her.”

He stopped talking, and though the content of his confession was confounding to me, equally so was the fact that he suffered none of his usual awkwardness. He twitched once or twice but otherwise seemed squarely in control of his faculties, mental and physical.

“I can tell what you be thinking,” he said. “Remembering that I gimp around an’ don’t say much. Did that a long while. Had to. Scared not to. Master Hurlbut, he’s not one to leave a man alone. Works you ’til you break. Then you’re free. Been trying just to be free, but been broken just the same. Things he asks of a person…and all in the way of breakin’ down someone else. It’s misery unending, that’s what I calls it.”

He looked at me, wondering if I understood, unaware that I understood all too well. About being broken and doing the breaking. About pretending to be someone you’re not simply to stay safe—or, in my case, to keep from harm those I loved. Cramby and I seemed to have grown tired of our bondage at just about the same time, and I wondered what it was that had turned him.

“You mean that, all this time,” I started to say, “you’ve been…”

“Pretending,” he said. “Acting fool. Bowing and making like I was an idiot. Can’t take it. Through’s what I am.”

He went on to tell me that he could stand no more of James Hurlbut’s cruelty, that he was ready to abandon all duties, and that, if I’d take his word, he had a lot to tell me regarding May Kimball.

If Cramby had been anyone else, I would not have trusted him. But years of abuse had so beaten him down, I did not think it possible for him to possess the wiles necessary to fool me. One needs fortitude to perform believably in a scoundrel’s scheme—I can attest personally to that. He knew I had been witness to his public humiliation since we were boys and, what’s more, he to mine. This bond was what gave him the courage he showed now, and I was grateful for it.

“She shivers,” he said. “Cries in a dark room at the back of an office Mister Scales has rented in Burns’ Hollow. Fed her my rations before I left—as well as what little they give me to toss down to her like she was a dog. She talks about papers—all the time,
papers
—and now that’s all Master Hurlbut can think about.”

“What exactly does he say about the papers?” I asked, eager to glean just what James Hurlbut thought he might find.

“Doesn’t know what they’re about—and she won’t say. But he wants to ‘take care of’—that’s the phrase he uses—anything what might stand between him and that land. Got two friends. One’s a constable who’s crook as crook can be. Other’s a miller and a gambler Master Hurlbut’s got himself in debt with. The three of ’em are in the stew together. Johnny Constable’s ready to make sure the land don’t go to anyone but Master Hurlbut. Then Master Hurlbut turns around and doubles the price on Johnny Miller, paying off his debt from the overcharge and tossing some scraps Johnny Constable’s way. Everyone walks away whistling, right? ’Cept the woman. Be dead most likely by then. He don’t care. Just wants to know,
What’s in the papers, what’s in the papers?
Wants to know if there’s some such he hasn’t thought of. I don’t know what, sir, but he told Mister Scales he needs to know there’s neither man nor woman who’ll stand in his way once that farm’s been put up. Now that he’s been told about those papers, he’s full of worry, like they held the power of the Lord in ’em.”

“But if he never knew about them before now, why would he have cared about May Kimball?”

“Same reason he wants them papers—so he could make sure she didn’t know nothing that might mess him up.”

“That’s the only reason he went after her?” I asked cautiously. I wanted to be certain his interest did not extend to Polly and the boy. “Hurlbut wants the assurance that neither she nor any legal documents stand in his way?”

“Well, just none Mister Scales can’t fix, sir,” said Cramby. He shrugged and gave me a knowing smile.

Was Barnabas Trask to be trusted, or was his stake in the outcome of my investigation bigger than he’d let on? Could he be “Johnny Solicitor”? To be sure, he had seemed as upright as they come, yet he’d done me a crooked turn, hiding his relationship to Benjamin Briggs and thus to May Kimball. Why, he had to have known that she carried his name in her very pocket. What was he up to?

“Can you help May Kimball just a little bit longer?” I asked Cramby. A plan had begun to come together in my head and I needed more time.

“I can and I will, sir,” he answered. “Think quick, though. She’s not long for it.”

“I know,” I said, grasping him by the shoulder. “And I know, too, that I’m asking you to go on playing fool—can you do that? You’ll be helping her, and when it’s all over, you and I—well, we’ll talk about something more hopeful than the past. I promise you that.”

Cramby nodded and pulled on his worn black coat. As he stood in my doorway, he did not cringe. Rather, his eyes and the set of his jaw showed him to be almost steady as he bade me farewell.

“Tell Hurlbut,” I said, “that I have the packet. He’ll want a meeting with me soon as can be—make sure that you’re the one to carry word of his wishes to me. By then, I’ll be able to tell you what we’ll do to make this right.”

He nodded solemnly, offered me a bony claw, then turned and walked away. At great risk, he’d come to me, and for what in return? I closed the door with a sigh.

Then, I smiled, for there was a time when I’d have thought,
Better his dreams should rest on quicksand than depend upon the likes of me.
Now, with May Kimball’s envelope in my pocket, I felt that Cramby and I might have found in each other something akin to salvation.

Polly

THE STRIP OF
black ash slipped and cut her finger.

Though finer and easier to bend than the shaved wood used by the elder brethren, the prickly form Elder Sister Agnes handed to her was stiff and sharp. She knew how it should be woven, for their meetings often took place over the same activity. Even so, this time she was more frightened than before, dropping the tangle, loosening her earlier efforts, forcing her to go back and tighten the weave.

Elder Sister Agnes did not look up. “With time, you will learn. Perhaps you will learn many things.” The eldress’s fingers, strong and bent from years of difficult labor, moved gracefully, the strips dipping under, over, under, over—hypnotic, regular, a dance of thin shafts bowing and rising, humble and rejoicing like believers.

“Always keep your hands busy,” she said, eyes on the task before her. “Idleness leads to sin and sin to a great fall, even for the gifted among us.” She lifted her face, tilted her head, and stared at Polly.

What can she see?
Polly wondered as she struggled to concentrate.
Everything.

Charity had hardly spoken or even looked at her in the days since their time in the healing room. She had caught Polly once, when her legs buckled under the strain of a spasm in her gut, and for that Polly had thanked her, reaching out to pat her friend’s arm. Charity pulled away and nodded briskly. They dressed and undressed in silence in the chamber that had once been so much more than a place for two sisters to rest between the days of hard and tedious work. The red book lay untouched beneath Polly’s mattress. Charity hated everything that had to do with their old life, it seemed. She was not trying to be cruel. Indeed, Polly could see her confusion. She imagined her friend clinging to her bonnet, pulling tight her cape, smoothing her skirts, pushing away loose strands of hair, wiping dust from her eyes, clutching the strings of a dozen windblown packages—nothing about either girl’s life stood still and calm. Polly felt sure it never would.

And then there was The Narrow Path. How Polly had despised the sight of her friend subjecting herself to such humiliation in front of the other believers! It was all she could do to keep from exclaiming as she watched through the window of the meetinghouse while Charity tortured her body into strange positions, balancing herself all the while on a crack between floorboards. Polly had never been to a circus, but she had read of the tightrope walker’s perilous traverse. What was this if not a hateful mockery of such clown’s play?

In the end, she could not keep quiet, and as a result, she made things worse. Bursting through the door (for no one had invited her to attend this strange rite), crying out above the chanting, telling the believers to feel ashamed of themselves—all she had done was to distract Charity from her purpose. Polly watched her fall and only when she’d hit the ground did their eyes meet. Charity’s glare had been dark with disbelief.
How much more hatred could she feel?
Polly wondered. It was as though she was convinced Polly meant to hurt her at every turn.

A day later, Polly had been called to Elder Sister Agnes’s chambers without explanation. Sitting before her now, she had yet another reason to be on her guard. Had Charity told the eldress that Polly was pregnant? Was it the fire that still agitated her curiosity? She took as deep a breath as she was able and refocused determinedly on her basket form, grateful to have something to keep her hands from shaking.

“You had a Vision the other day,” the eldress said casually, and Polly felt dizzy with relief. This was not the subject she imagined would be of interest, at least not to the eldress. Indeed, Polly barely remembered that it had happened, so full had she been with the misery of losing her friend. And ever since the ministers from other settlements had ceased coming to question Polly, Elder Sister Agnes had made a show of industry when she heard one of the believers asking “the Visionist” about something of a holy nature. Now, it appeared, she was suddenly curious. “Tell me what you saw when you circled the tree outside the dwelling house,” she said. “For though I am certain your speech would have been of a foreign nature to me, I understand from those who know better that your utterances remain filled with meaning.”

The great tree outside the dwelling house. The day after Charity and she had snuck into the healing room, the day after their friendship had ended, Polly found herself drawn to the tree. Round and round it she circled, the icy wind blowing her skirts tight to her legs as she trod through the snow. She had been on her way to the sisters’ workshop, the week having been given over to spinning, dyeing, and spooling a new lot of wool. On that day, there were skeins of freshly tinted yarn to wrap and hang in their rightful place. The blue of indigo, the yellows and reds of Nicaragua chips, the blacks and purples of sorrel and logwood, the orange of madder root—these were colors nothing like the faded hues she knew from home. Their intensity in this gray place seemed miraculous.

Despite the pleasure she took in working with the skeins, she had allowed the tree to pull her in, tracing her bare hand over its rough bark. Elder Sister Agnes had been right: Polly had started to sing as she walked, a song she’d never before heard, words she’d never before uttered, her footfalls in perfect time with the rhythm. She was surprised to feel such elation, for nothing about the last several weeks had given her reason to rejoice. Indeed, she had been shaken by so many disturbances. She wished that she could have explained her shameful condition to Charity, but to speak of her father was to allow him into the world that had saved her. For her friend to think her a common slut was bad enough, but for her to know Polly as a girl degraded over months and years—that was a humiliation she could not abide.

Touching the tree made Polly feel as though she had come upon a great source of life and light, grace and truth. She remembered the bark turning into hands, thousands of hands reaching towards her own but never grasping it, only brushing lightly her fingertips as she passed. Whether or not Elder Sister Agnes would have understood the words, Polly had sung of love and friendship. She had spoken of hope. She had spun songs of thanks as she walked, losing track of all time.

Her thoughts veered like racing pigeons in the sky, and like the play of light and shadow on the tilting birds, she found herself transported to another time and place just as suddenly as she had reflected on the tree: the kitchens on a recent wintry morning, where she could still feel the cool counter at which she stood, see the young brethren laughing as they played in the snow just outside, recall the log cart piled high with wood as yet unsplit. She remembered watching as Brother Andrew climbed atop the logs and whistled in the boys. They tumbled over one another with such abandon that Polly had put her flour-dusted hand to her mouth to hide her smile. Joining the pups in their game, Brother Andrew leapt time and again from the cart and fell, ambushed by his charges. The joyful chaos charmed Polly. Was he someone she could talk to about Ben? She banished the thought from her mind. No devout brother would hold a private conversation with a sister, not even if she was a Visionist.

She watched as Brother Andrew heaved himself out of the snow, brushed off his coat, and told the strongest of the young brethren to unload the logs and pass them to where he would split them. Then he lined up the smaller ones and showed them how to toss the wood to one another until they reached the shed, where another band was in charge of stacking it. Polly felt lulled by the roll of each log, the fall of the axe, the arc of the toss, and the puzzling together of all the bits and pieces so that none in the stack stood out from the whole. She was alone in the kitchens, and it had been easy to forget herself in the brethren’s industriousness. Then, she caught sight of Ben laughing as he put all his might into throwing a piece of small kindling. He wore a brown coat, dark-green mittens, and a wool cap, but enough of his face peeked out that Polly could see his sweet smile and bright black eyes. The picture filled her with longing and made her stomach seize with such violence that she had to pull away, dropping to her knees. It was of some comfort that she was alone and owed no one an explanation as she lay on her back, breathing slowly and steadily. Now that Silas lived inside her, he had found a way to plague her at will.

The sight of Ben smiling—Polly could not let it go. She raised herself up, wiped clean her hands, and walked towards the door. Who cared what anyone thought of her now that she had lost Charity’s love? It was true that when she spoke out during her friend’s dance, the believers had listened, thinking it a Vision. They did not hold Charity to her failure to stay on The Narrow Path. They reasoned that Mother Ann had, through Polly, defended her, and thus she was immune from reproach.

But that was in Meeting. What would they say if they saw Polly talking to Brother Andrew? She doubted they would find holiness at work in such a blatant breach of the rules. Polly lifted her head high and opened the door. She wore no cloak as she blazed a path through the snow headed directly for the brother.

It was as if the boys suddenly turned into ice, for they stopped their play immediately and stood stock-still as they watched her.

“Brother Andrew,” she said when she had gotten close enough not to shout. “Please don’t turn away. I need to speak to you. Please. It’s about Ben.”

But the brother looked around nervously, then stared down at his feet and said nothing.

“I…I…,” Polly stammered. “I want to know how my brother is. I cannot speak to him, as you are well aware. I just want to know that he is…all right. Does he mention me ever? Or his home? His Mama?”

Brother Andrew shifted uncomfortably and remained silent.

“If you will not answer then can you allow me to talk to him myself?” She leaned in and whispered, “I know it is irregular, but it could be in secret if you like. I wouldn’t be long. I just need to know…is he happy here?”

The boys had begun to exchange nervous glances. Polly turned and looked at them beseechingly. It was then her gaze finally locked with little Ben’s. Her heart fluttered. She smiled shyly and held out her hand.

“Ben?” she said. “Will you come to me? Just for a moment?”

He stood still. She wondered if he mightn’t walk towards her. She hoped… But then he reached into the snow, packed a handful with angry force, and threw it at her. The look on his face was one of pure hatred.

“Go away!” he cried. “Get away from Brother Andrew!” He stamped his foot as he spoke. “
He’s
mine! I hate you!
He’s
mine!”

Then he turned and ran for the woodshed.

Brother Andrew watched him flee, darting round Polly to follow. All the boys were reaching down now, making snowballs and hurling them at her.

“Go away,” they screamed. “Leave us!”

Polly could not move, such was her horror. She had only meant to speak quietly to her brother. She would never have put her hand on him; she wanted just to be within touching distance, to be close for a moment.

She shielded her head in her arms, turned and ran back towards the kitchen door. The sisters were at the window now—a crowd of them—and they looked at each other in anguish as she hurled herself onto the floor and began to cry.

No one moved. They had never known a sister to break ranks and approach a brother. Polly imagined that they were trying to decide whether or not to shun her.

Then one believer stepped forward and bent down to put her arms around Polly. It was Sister Lavinia.

“There, there, child,” she said. “It’s all right now. We all make mistakes, and I doubt you’ll be making that one again.” Polly sobbed into her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said. “I was only trying…he’s my brother and he’s so young… I just wanted…” But she could not finish what she had started, so forcefully did her crying come upon her.

In the room with Elder Sister Agnes, her mind flickered back to the tree. Circling, circling, suddenly she felt a sharp bite and withdrew her hand, pulling it to her breast and walking faster, her feet now beating a changed time in the well-worn track. The sounds she made were no longer joyful but frightened, frenzied as they tumbled from her mouth. She could not feel the kindness of others but found her fingertips touched by small, leaping flames as, in her mind, fire engulfed the tree until it roared heat and smoke such that she had to step back into the deep, untrodden snow.

How to explain all of this to the eldress.

“The tree called to me,” she said quietly. “It called with a gentle voice like none I can describe, and I circled round it and started to sing because it filled me with peace and happiness to do so. My song was one of union, not simply here in The City of Hope, but everywhere. It was as though I could touch the hand of every person in the world as they reached out from within the trunk of that tree.”

She stopped and looked up from her struggle to tame the basket that twisted and turned in her lap. Straining to catch the cast of Elder Sister Agnes’s expression, she saw that it remained hidden to her. Polly’s gaze fell back on her work as she told of the sudden turning to flames, of the burning form of the giant tree as it fanned into the Heavens.