‘I once theorized,’ Yates began, a fully grown adult again. ‘That every time we blinked in life, and saw the lights left behind by the waking world. That we were glimpsing that place. The endless expanse you call the Edge. A nice idea at least.’
He stands by the sink, his hands either side as though to steady himself.
‘I do not thank you, taking me inside that place without your asking first.’ He talks steadily, as if trying to hold back tears again. ‘I have lived in fear of the darkness for my whole life. I keep it secret because every time I think of it, I feel myself slipping.’
I stay silent. I know this isn’t a time to interrupt.
‘I know that folding myself into the pages of books isn’t good for me. But no one cares. No one understands.’
Now it’s his turn to go silent.
‘No one understands because you don’t let them,’ I reply. ‘I wouldn’t dare suggest that I understand what you went through. My parents were a bit forgetful at times, wrapped up in themselves when they could have thought of other people, but they were the best parents. I was lonely, I was always lonely, but in the end I found someone who let me see that hiding away from the world wasn’t the answer.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ asks Yates, still looking out of the window. ‘Who’s going to love me?’
‘I know what you’re feeling,’ I say slowly, fearing another outburst. ‘You think that unless someone loves you, nothing will ever be good and happy, but there are different sorts of love. People can care for you in different ways. I care about you. I think I have more of a right than most people to have a glimpse into what you’re going through. All I have to do is close my eyes.’
‘What do you mean when you say that?’ he asks, turning for the first time. I see a spark of interest in his beady eyes.
‘Close your eyes,’ I say. ‘The first person I met when I died told me that you can close your eyes and reach out. You can sense everyone who’s ever died all at once, it’s amazing.’
He closed his eyes as soon as I said it. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ he whines. His hands ball into fists.
‘Do you feel anything different. I always feel a prickling at the tips of my fingers.’
He shakes his head. He’s getting upset again. The dark cloud on his mind is isolating him from the world. I know that though, so I reach out and hold the tips of his fingers.
‘Can you see me?’ I ask.
He lights up, as though someone’s flicked a switch. Without warning he clasps my hand like I’ve offered him a lifeline, adrift in a stormy ocean.
I’m taken aback but I know what it’s like to be the quiet kid who’s never touched. I can’t count how many times I wanted to hold hands with all the girls I used to fancy before Penny. I know a touch to Yates will feel like a physical spread of warmth all up his arm and into his chest. As I close my eyes, I see him clearer; I watch the cloud lift from his darkened body.
‘I see you!’ he says. ‘Just like Cecily says!’ Then he quotes. ‘”And the young boy appeared before her, like a picture in an old photograph, black and white, a little frayed around the edges.” This is amazing, Easton! You look so – so clear.’
‘Do I?’ I reply. ‘Don’t feel it a lot of the time. Reach further. Can you see anyone else?’
I watch him screw up his closed eyes as he concentrates. I feel the struggle in his fingers as he grips my hand still tighter.
‘I think – I think I do!’ he says. ‘Just a whisper. There’s so many.’
‘I think it’s everyone who ever died. I only died some hours ago and I’ve seen all this. I didn't think there was a point in sulking about being dead. Because I feel alive myself, we’ve just carried on in a different form. We've got a fresh start so why spend it like your old life?'
He opens his eyes, in many ways figuratively as well as literally. ‘So what do you suggest I do?’
‘Get out there, see the world. I find people work just as well as books when you need steadying.’
He looks to the hallway, I follow his line of sight and I know his books are calling to him. I can feel a pinch of fatigue in the corners of my eyes. Do I still get tired? I guess I must if I can remember the taste of tea strongly enough to believe I'm drinking.
‘The books aren’t going anywhere, Yates. You have an eternity to do whatever you want. I doubt a year even feels like a year anymore.’
He nods. ‘I don’t think you’ve cured me,’ he says, still glum. ‘A lot of people have tried.’
‘I’d never say an old book and a memory would ever cure something like that. I’ve seen it remember. We can try. I’m not going anywhere either.’
He smiles, genuinely for the first time. He looks relieved.
‘Thank you, Easton,’ he says. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try. You look tired.’
As he says it, I fully realise the extent of how tired I’ve become. I feel fatigued, like I’ve been moving around all day.
‘Let me put you up for the night,’ he offers. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘Well I wouldn’t be a good recipient of a gift if I didn’t spend some time with it.’ He looks at the manuscript of The Alchemist, still lying on the kitchen counter. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take it back before morning. We’ll be all over the papers you and me, well what we did will be. I have to say, that makes me feel rather good. And fitting with the text I think.’ He chuckles.
I smile, tiredness overwhelming me. It’s the sort of tiredness where keeping silent is a lot easier than anything else.
‘Up the stairs, and first door on the left,’ he says. ‘The spare bedroom’s not been used in about ten years.’ He pauses. ‘Easton, can I ask you a favour? I know it’s a horrible thing to ask of you, just, I’ve never been able to do it myself.’ He scratches his neck absent mindedly. ‘After that, I’ll let you go to bed.’
‘Anything, Yates,’ I say. ‘I feel like I owe you a bit after our journey down memory lane.’
He laughs. ‘I just wanted you to go to the last room on the right upstairs, and take down the…the thing that’s in there.’
I nod, I think I know what he means. ‘Apart from that, the house rules are unlimited tea at all hours and if we do get any visitors with blood in their veins, then rattle things around until they’re too scared to stay anymore. It’s how I’ve kept the place for so long, it’s the most haunted building in the area.’
I say my goodnights and start up the rickety old stairs in the hall. I realise how easy a place this would be to haunt. A knocked over tower of books here, a creak on the stair with no body on it. I’d be running for the hills in an instant.
The carpet is old and threadbare, and the landing has that quaint slant to it that all old English cottages tend to. I pause in front of the door at the end, clasp the latch and step inside.
The room is small and sparsely decorated. A modest collection of books sit on a small bookcase. I notice that these are the only books I’ve seen on the upper floor despite ample space on the landing. I wonder, does Yates even come up here?
The bed is single, and the rug is kicked up in the middle. A stool lies on its side in the middle of the room, and there, hanging from a beam across the old ceiling, is what Yates is asking me to take down.
I think it must haunt the house in its own way, to a far greater effect than Yates or I ever could. I imagine I’m an intruder; a wanderer in these hayfields looking for the source of the never-ending light coming from the cottage windows. They’d enter through the door, pass stacks of mysterious books, and find the house deserted. I imagine the tricks Yates would pull on them, maybe to take some sort of revenge on people who wronged him in his life by taking it out on others.
Stacks would fall down, lights flicker, lampshades rattle. Maybe even the rug would be pulled from under their feet. The brave would turn and venture up the stairs. They’d find it deserted just like me and then come to this end room. They’d open the door and find it.
A noose, sitting dead still, like it has always been there and has fossilised from lack of use and the slow pass of time. I’m almost scared to touch it, like it will shock my fingers on contact.
I touch it and it does move. It swings slowly and still silently, dust falling from it. Yates’s killer intimidates me like the worst bully. All tiredness is forgotten for a second. I seize the stool and climb onto it, reaching up for the ceiling. I can just reach it with my fingertips.
Slowly, after a few tries, I slip the noose from its knot and ease the deadly rope down. I had it defeated in my hands. I imagine what Yates must have felt like, scarcely being able to visit the room, but always having the dread of the thing hanging there, just a few rooms away. It would have been like living under the rule of a fearsome lord of the manor. No more though.
I take the noose with me, promising to dispose of it elsewhere tomorrow, wherever I go. The spare room is decorated in a chintzy style, with an old, ironwork double bed and a flowery duvet. There are doilies all over the place and even the lampshade is shaped like a tulip.
Not sparing a second thought for the décor, I slip between the sheets and fall asleep. The memory of sleep it may be, but whatever my body had become needed it, and I greet it like an old friend.
When I wake up, there’s a small tray of breakfast on a stool next to my bed. I open the lid of a silver-serving tray and find two boiled eggs and toast already cut into soldiers. Next to that sits a cup of tea on its own saucer.
I smile and relish in the childhood thrill of dipping soldiers in a runny egg. I suppose that’s what this all is really, extended memories based on stimulus I encounter. Some, like boiled eggs I used to eat every day as a child, are stronger. Robin Thacker is another strong memory. Penny is the strongest of all.
As I sit on the bed, the beams of morning light leaking through the curtains, I wonder where I’ll go next.
My first day being dead has taught me a lot. Looking back it doesn’t really feel like a day. I remember crashing in the daytime and then emerging in the night in the hayfield. I hadn’t really noticed at the time. Other things felt a lot more important.
Either Yates, with his English accent and decidedly English way of living, lives somewhere where day to England is night to him, or visiting memories and travelling enters me into a world where time doesn’t flow in the same way. Like I’ve jumped on a moving walkway at the airport next to weary travellers wheeling their cases.
I’m still puzzled about the eating and drinking. Clearly the food and drink doesn’t fall through me as I eat, so I have some sort of mass to me still. I’m not completely corporeal. I think I might write down my findings. The scientist in me can’t resist being excited.
The puzzle is still Penny. Working out the mysteries of the universe can wait. Where would she have gone?
She loved Thacker too but I didn’t see her at the museum. Penny loved a lot of things so that could place her in any number of places. She could be sat in the British Library, sneaked into the pre-1800 section with all the old books falling apart; damaged by a cocktail of love and time. She could be in Rome, she’d always wanted to visit there.
Rome. I say the word in my head and it resonates slightly, as though I’ve struck a tuning fork against the bedside table. She always talked about Rome. A place full of romance and history, that’s where she’ll be.
I can only hope Yates is alright to leave.
After my breakfast, I walk downstairs. Yates sits at the counter, a steaming mug of something set next to him. The manuscript of The Alchemist lies open in front of him.
He turns as I approach, a smile on his middle-aged features. I feel a lot closer to him than I should. I suppose I’ve seen him at all stages of his life, childhood, adolescence and now adult; a crash course in Yates.
‘Easton!’ he says, excited. ‘Come and see what I found.’
‘Thank you for breakfast,’ I say as I cross the kitchen.
‘It was my pleasure,’ he replies.
It’s good to see him full of life when I’ve seen him at his darkest. I resolve to visit here whenever I can.
‘I see you haven’t returned the book.’
He looks mischievous. My stomach plummets slightly. I realise I’ve given a priceless treasure to possibly the greatest book thief who ever lived.
‘There’s just so much here!’ he says. ‘In his annotations I mean. He was so so clever that man. Did you know Cecily was based on a girl he knew as a child?’
I shake my head. The fire of interest is lighting inside me but I know I have a mission.
‘Do you promise you’ll take it back?’ I ask, like a disapproving parent.
‘Of course,’ he says, looking down at the paper.
‘What else have you found then?’
‘Well I’ve been taking notes,’ he says, showing me the wad of paper next to him. ‘It’s so rare that you get a glimpse into what the author was doing when he wrote the book. Thacker wrote the time and place of each piece of writing at the top of the page. He started it in Switzerland, high in the alps. You know how he and his wife often visited there. He said he felt more whole in the mountains. I suppose I can see what he means.’
‘Why don’t you visit where he used to live?’
His eyes light up for a second. ‘Perhaps,’ he says. ‘There’s just so much work to do on this.’
‘You will go out won’t you?’ I ask, a little worried.
‘I will, Easton, I promise I will.’ He sounds like a child again. ‘After all you’ve done for me, I have to show you I can. My first mission will be bringing the book back. Later this afternoon I’ll go.’
I know I have to trust him. It’s difficult to, but I walk the line of beginning to irritate him. No grown adult wants to be lead and told what to do.
I know I have to trust him.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll be coming back, you know.’
‘You’re not staying?’ he asks, and I worry. ‘Oh right, your lady friend. That’s alright, you go and find her.’ He smiles. This is a new side of Yates, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. ‘Do you know where you’ll go next?’
‘I’m not sure really,’ I say, and I’m still thinking. ‘I know she always wanted to go to Rome, but Rome’s a big city.’
‘Well go, explore,’ he encourages. ‘It’s no use hanging around here.’
I have the distinct impression he’s trying to get rid of me. I resolve to revisit the house in a few days time. I remember Benjamin said he’d be on the bench by the lake in Central Park in New York ever Friday at noon. I wonder would he help me now I’ve been around for a bit longer.
I know yesterday was Wednesday, which means I have a day to waste before I can see him again.
‘Like I said, I’ll be back,’ I repeat.
‘I’ll have the chess board set up for you,’ he suggests. ‘I’ll see if you measure up to me. It’s so hard to find a good chess partner these days.’
‘I’d like that,’ I reply. I’d happily sit here and play chess with my new friend. Sometimes I think that’s all he needs: a person who’ll stay during the mood swings and let him be when he wants to be quiet. I know I have to get him out of this house but I have to see if he’ll do it by himself first.
‘Well I’ll see you, Yates.’
He’s turned back to his manuscript again. This is the test. If he returns the book to the Thacker museum then I know he’s put himself on a good path.
‘Farewell, Easton, and thank you,’ he says.
‘See you soon,’ I say, and start towards the door. In an instant I’m through it and out into the world again.
Would Penny be in Rome? I know all the places she wanted to see. She had a well-thumbed travel guide in her bedroom with all her future favourite places bent down at the corner.
I begin walking down the path. My detour with Yates has cost me time but it’s time I don’t mind spending. Sometimes a person will extend a hand, asking for help. Sometimes they’re reluctant to do so. I don’t want to be a person who ignores the people who don’t ask for it just because that’s the easy path.
I’ll be a better man than that. I close my eyes and count to ten, knowing my destination better than any other place.
