The Weight of Memory Read online

  “I’ll get you a real one soon as I can,” I whispered at the end of the “with this ring, I thee wed” portion.

  “I don’t want another one,” she whispered back.

  When it was her turn to put my ring on my finger, Shirley handed her a small cloth bag, an inch square. Mary turned it upside down, and out of it fell a small gold band. My eyes must have bulged out of my head.

  “Shirley picked it up for me,” she explained. “It’s probably too big, so I got you a chain so you can wear it around your neck.”

  I started crying. It was embarrassing. Tom put his hand on my shoulder, and I reached up and grabbed it. Shirley was crying too, and Mary.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the preacher said, his face red from the heat. “Go ahead, give her a kiss.”

  We kissed, and it was salty from sweat. Her lips were cool, and the ring clung loosely to my finger. We must have gone on for too long, because Tom pulled me away, chuckling with embarrassment.

  “Easy there,” the preacher mumbled.

  The four of us laughed and cried together, and in some ways it felt like something about our friendship had also been consecrated, as if we had all been officially joined to each other. Tom was better now that the deed was done and there was nothing he could do to persuade us otherwise. He was going along with it in his normally chipper way. Shirley kept putting her arm around Mary and hugging her. At one point, Shirley put my face between her hands, pulled me down to her, and kissed me square on the mouth.

  I was shocked.

  “Whoa!” Tom shouted.

  “This girl is practically my sister,” Shirley said earnestly, not letting go of my face. “That means you’re practically my brother-in-law.” She paused, and tears rose in her eyes again. “Take care of her.” Her voice choked up, and she shook her head. “Take good care of her.”

  We drove back to Nysa, crossing the bridge only nine or ten hours after we had first made the crossing that day, but I felt like a completely new person, like decades had passed. As we reached the apex of the bridge and I stared out over the island, the river, and the trees, it felt like the four of us were arriving as completely different people. Tom seemed larger somehow, transformed into an adult during the drive. Shirley hummed to herself, tapping one of her fingers on the edge of her door. Mary rolled down her window and sat there with her eyes closed, her dark hair blowing chaotically around her face, floating.

  Dreams and Open Windows

  I checked on you last night, and all was well. Now it’s the morning after, and I can’t stop thinking about how Tom didn’t answer my question about taking those photos of Mary. His lack of an answer was a good enough answer, as far as I’m concerned. It makes me feel strange, the idea that he paid such close attention to her during those summers. I’m not sure how to feel about it.

  I slept a fitful sleep. I did not dream. Now I stand here, outside your room. I should wake you. I wonder if Tom will still want to give you those swimming lessons, or perhaps, after the way I grilled him last night, if he might possibly come out and ask us to leave. And of course there’s the rug, which we still haven’t told him about.

  The knot is throbbing. I can no longer sleep on that side of my head, and there is an ache that spreads all the way down behind my ear, halfway to my shoulder. I’ve had no nausea recently, so hopefully that was a passing thing. It feels very real this morning: the end. What will I do if Tom sends us away?

  I ease the door open to your room and immediately sense a change. The air smells like the outside—like the woods, like the swiftly arriving fall—and it’s much colder than the rest of the house. I can hear the morning breeze in the trees through the wide-open window. I walk past the rolled-up carpet, all the way across the room, and gaze at the forest. I even peek my head out and glance to the right, toward the lake.

  It is a gorgeous, crisp fall morning. Geese fly overhead in a lopsided V, honking, and the sunlight hits the water at a shallow angle. I slide the window closed, and I notice leaves and dirt on the hardwood floors we cleaned the day before. They lead in a trail all the way across the room, to you.

  “Pearl,” I say, turning and standing over your bed. “Pearl.”

  You are so deep in sleep that you don’t even move. I reach down and pull the comforter back, gently hold your shoulder, and give you a subtle shake. Your nightgown is damp, as though you had a fever that broke in the night. But the small patch of your nightgown that I can see has dirt smudges on it, and there are leaves in your hair.

  “Pearl, wake up,” I say, sounding stern. What have you been doing?

  You moan and roll away from me, licking your lips.

  “Pearl. Where were you?” I ask.

  You take a deep breath, roll back to face me, and smile. “Good morning, Grampy.”

  “Pearl, your window was open.”

  “It was?”

  “And there’s dirt on the floor and leaves in your hair. Where have you been?”

  A flash of memory moves across your face. “I thought it was a dream,” you whisper.

  “What was a dream?”

  “She came again last night.” You look at me, clearly nervous at what my reaction will be.

  “Who?”

  “The woman. The one who told me to cut squares in the carpet.”

  I sit down on the edge of the bed and take you in. You’re so little under the covers, your face so innocent.

  “Pearl,” I begin, not knowing what to say after that.

  “It’s not my fault, Grampy. I can’t stop her from coming.”

  “The window was locked, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s true, but it seemed very important.”

  “So you let her in.”

  You nod reluctantly.

  At this point, I’m at a loss as to what I should do next. Give you a good talking-to? Go find Tom and see if he’ll give you a psychiatric examination on the spot? Pack everything up and leave? Instead, I do what I’ve always done.

  “What happened, Pearl? What did she tell you?”

  A subtle relief relaxes your face. This is what you tell me.

  New Developments

  At first, when I opened the window, she looked like a shadow, and I thought it had only been my imagination. Had I really seen her through the glass? Had I really heard her tapping? But she shifted from side to side, and I knew it was really her, and it made me scared and glad at the same time. I told her she got me in a lot of trouble, and why shouldn’t I close the window on her right there and go back to bed? I was very stern with her, Grampy. You would have been proud of me.

  But she said there were “new developments.” That’s what she called them. “New developments.” She said there were pressing issues. Her words, not mine, Grampy. Pressing issues. She asked if I had the map with me, the one I had drawn.

  I said that was fine, but why couldn’t we do all of this during the day? She laughed at that, not a nice laugh, and said that she didn’t do things during the day. That was no time at all to do the kinds of things she needed to do.

  When she laughed like that, it was the first time I was afraid of her. I told her, fine, come in, but if she started making a mess like last time, I was going to run and get you, Grampy, and that would be the end of all this. She nodded and acted sad about it, but I knew she didn’t really care.

  That’s what scares me the most about her, Grampy. She doesn’t seem to care at all about the things we care about. When I saw her in the city, she seemed nothing but kind, but now I’m not so sure. Here, closer to this thing she needs to find, she seems kind of desperate.

  I pointed at the small table not far from the window. My map was there—I had been working on it after you said good night to me. She bent over and stared at it like she was looking for something, and she laughed a loud “Ha!” and pointed at the cabin and the red X. She asked me in a quiet voice when I had added that, and I told her I thought she had added it yesterday.

  She leaned in over the map. �
��Interesting,” she said in a whisper. “Maybe I did.”

  She told me again that she needed my help, that there was something she had lost a long time ago. I told her I wasn’t so sure that I could help, that I’m only a girl and most people call me flighty. A lot of people don’t believe I see the things I see. I told her all of this.

  “Well,” she said, “you sound like the kind of person who can do what needs to be done.”

  She made a quiet sound kind of like a laugh and said she had “enlisted” many people to try to help her through the years, but none of them had been successful. She was sure I could do it though, and again she told me that if I helped her and we were successful, she might even be able to help you.

  You, Grampy.

  Anyway, when she said that, I knew I had to at least hear her out. I told her I couldn’t commit to anything. I think you call that playing hardball, right, Grampy? I played hardball. I told her to tell me what was going on and after that I’d decide. But I really only agreed to listen because I needed to know how I could help you.

  She said the island of Nysa is a very old island, older than almost any other place, and that there is a door that goes to some other place, an ancient door. A door that isn’t always in the same place. Sometimes it’s here and sometimes it’s there. Someone who went through the door a long time ago took something of hers along with them. She doesn’t think it was intentional—she was standing there helping them along, and they got scared and reached out and grabbed this thing of hers, and now it’s gone. She can’t follow—she’s not allowed to go in there—so she’s been trying to find someone who can go through that door, find what she lost, and bring it back.

  I know it’s hard to believe, Grampy. But this is what she told me. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’m just telling you.

  I asked her again what was taken from her, and this look of incredible sadness passed over her face.

  “You’ll know when you see it,” she said.

  “How?”

  “You’ll know.”

  I asked her, “What about the door, the one we tore up the carpet to find?” I told her I had gotten in a lot of trouble for that and she shouldn’t go around destroying things that weren’t hers. I started to cry. She bent down closer to me, and for the first time I could really see into her eyes, and they were kind. They were also sparking with life. I couldn’t decide whether to look away or look deeper in.

  She said she had thought the door would be here in the house, for a few different reasons—something to do with Shirley. But she was wrong, and she said she was sorry. I believed her, Grampy. She was very sorry about it. And she said the door was almost certainly in the cabin where I had marked the X. She said I didn’t have to make up my mind right now about whether or not I would help. I could wait until I saw the door, and after that I would have to decide if I was willing to go through it or not. And that if I wanted to save you, I would have to go through it.

  So I went, Grampy. I went with her. I asked her if I could please go tell you first, but she turned away and asked me what I thought you would say. She asked me if I thought you would give me permission to go. And I knew she was right. Sorry, Grampy. I knew you would say no.

  She helped me crawl out through the window, and when I took her hand it was so, so cold, like ice. When I felt how cold it was, I looked up at her quickly, surprised and scared, but her face was turned away from me, looking out at the lake. She asked me if I wanted to swim the lake or walk through the woods. The lake would be colder but quicker, and the woods would be dirtier and more difficult but not nearly as wet. She laughed when she said this. I said I didn’t know how to swim, so I’d prefer the woods.

  She paused. “You’re going to need to learn how to swim before this is over.” She seemed bothered that I didn’t know how to swim. She started walking with long, even steps, and she didn’t hike through the woods so much as flow through them. I had to run but still couldn’t keep up, and soon she was far ahead of me. I think she forgot I was even with her. I shouted out to her to come back for me, and she did. She even apologized.

  “If I’m so important,” I asked, “why do you keep forgetting about me?”

  She asked if I wanted to ride on her shoulders. I said she’d forget about me, probably run me into every low limb in the woods. She laughed and said it was true, she might forget, but if I thought her mind wandered, I could always pinch her hard in the shoulder and that would help. I asked her how she could be so forgetful, and she said she had a million things on her mind, quite literally, and that she couldn’t be blamed if she occasionally forgot about one little girl in the middle of the woods.

  She crouched down low, which was still high to me, and I climbed up on her back. I felt like a squirrel inching its way up a tall oak tree. When she stood up all the way, it took my breath away, and I grabbed onto her neck. Before I could say anything, she was melting through the woods again, crouching just in time so I didn’t hit any branches, weaving in and out of the shadows. I felt like a shooting star.

  Faster and faster she went, until the trees were a blur and we were moving quicker than any normal person could move. It rained for a few moments, and the cold drops soaked me straight through. When we passed through a clearing in the woods, I could see the stars rushing along in their paths above us. I thought I could even hear animals talking to one another, and I could understand them. It was so strange, Grampy. So strange.

  She slowed down, and it felt like we had only been walking a few moments, but it also felt like a long time. I was cold, but she lifted me down from her shoulders and gave me something warm to drink. I started to walk forward, but she grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back into the shadows where we stood. It was the darkest part of the night, and even the sounds of the forest came to a rest. She told me to wait. Ahead of us was the cabin. The one where you and Grandma and Tom and Shirley spent those summers. I couldn’t believe it.

  I started asking her where the door was, but she stopped me, putting her hand over my mouth, and I pulled away—her hand was so cold. She stiffened, so I reached over and held on to her arm at the elbow, trying to prove that she wasn’t too cold for me. She softened when I did this, even reached up and patted my hand.

  “The door must be here,” she whispered to herself, and she sounded frustrated. “This door is always causing all sorts of mischief. Would you like to go inside and see?”

  A kind of fear boiled up in me so quickly I didn’t know what to say, but she told me it was okay, she knew I was afraid, and she would go with me. So I told her yes.

  “What will we do if we find it?” I asked.

  “Finding it is the first concern,” she said in a flat tone. “We’ll worry about what to do after that.”

  The Door

  From where we stood, the lake went on forever, shimmering in the night. We crept into the house real quiet and left the door open behind us, which I didn’t think was a great idea, but when I went to close it, she snapped her fingers and hissed to get my attention. She shook her head, so I left the door open.

  Inside the house, it was beautiful, mostly because of the pale light reflecting off the lake and in through the windows. It seemed like a completely different place than the one you and I had visited. It felt like a dream world. We crept through the house, through an even darker hallway with no windows. I wanted to ask the woman where we were going, but when I started to talk she held one of her icy fingers up.

  In that back room, it was so dark I felt like I was floating in space. It even felt like there were rooms and hallways that I hadn’t seen when we were there yesterday, like parts of the house were only visible in the moonlight when no one else was there. It was amazing. I heard the creaking of another door opening, and she whispered to me to watch my step. There were stairs, and we started walking down. We walked down the stairs for at least five minutes, not stopping. That’s a lot of steps, Grampy. At one point, she stopped and muttered that she could probably risk a match,
and I heard a quick scrape and a hiss and the match burst to life. I almost passed out when I saw where we were.

  We were standing on a long, unending flight of rickety wooden steps. Behind us, the light didn’t go all the way up to where we had started, and below us was a dark hole that the steps vanished down into. There were no walls, only an endless abyss on either side of us. I held on to the rail as tight as I could, because the steps were steeper than I had realized when we had been going down in the darkness. I leaned forward and blew out the match, and she asked me, kind of upset, why I had done such a thing. I told her it was too far down—I didn’t want to see. She could light a match when we got to the bottom.

  She laughed again, and it was louder than before. It made me start to feel once again that maybe she really did like me, that she really did care about me and you and what happened to us. Her laughter was kind, and it seemed like her own laughter even brought her back to this place, reminded her where she was and what she was doing.

  Another few minutes of walking down steps and she asked me in a sarcastic voice if I gave her permission to light another match. I mumbled something about not being a smart aleck. Another match spit to life, and she shielded it with her hands.

  In front of us were three doors.

  She took in a quick breath and froze, staring at the doors, a smile spreading across her face. “This is it,” she said.

  She asked me if I could find my way to that spot again, and I said I thought I could. She nodded and pointed at the first door on the left.

  “That’s the way,” she said. “That’s the way. You’ll have to come back on your own. I really shouldn’t go any further.”

  “Why can’t I go now?”

  “The night is almost over,” she said. “It wouldn’t be any good now. You need to come back at night.”

  I asked if this was the door we had been looking for when we cut up the carpet, and she stood there for a very long time, silent, staring at the door.