A Sudden Light: A Novel (15 page)

I open my canvas satchel and remove my leather gloves, my climbing
gaffs, and a length of chain. They are strangely familiar to me, as if I use them all the time. As if I know exactly what to do. We carry no axes, no saws. No, we are not here to cut this tree down. We are here to climb it.

And then we are ready. Harry asks the tree to protect us. And then we climb.

I hold the ends of my flip line, which encircles the massive trunk. With a whipping motion, I snake the chain up a foot or so and pull it tight. I dig in with my spikes and up I go. Higher and higher. I pause to rest and I look down. Harry is not far below me; the ground is much farther. It must be a hundred feet up to the first branch, maybe more. When I reach that branch, I pull myself up and climb onto it. It’s three feet in circumference, easily. I balance on it without effort or concern, and I remove my spikes. I tuck them into my bag along with the rope, and then I remove my boots and socks and gloves.

“What are you waiting for?” Harry asks, still holding on to his flip line, poised below the branch.

I look up into the crown of the tree and see the branches jutting from all sides, reaching out and weaving together with needle-covered spars, but near the trunk there is space, and I can see exactly how we will work from branch to branch, up into the tree. I reach up from where I stand and take hold of a higher branch with one hand, and, with a small hop, I grab on with my other hand so I am dangling. I push off the trunk with my feet and walk myself up to where I can sling my hip over, and then I am sitting on the branch above. I spy another branch to grab on to and I continue my ascent. I know Harry is following me; I don’t have to look for him.

Higher we go, and higher still into the tree’s bosom. The rush of adrenaline is so intense it is explosive. Nothing but our own muscles and strength keeping us alive. Rubbing pitch on our hands to grip through the sweat. The need to focus on one thing—the next branch—until the branches swallow us, and, soon, we can’t even see the forest floor. The higher we go, the denser the branches grow, until, perhaps three-quarters
of the way to the top of the tree, we find that it is like being in a room made of branches. There is no fear here, as almost nothing can be seen except brown branches covered with gray moss and lichens, and green and brown needles of the tree. So many branches are within easy grasp; the thicket is so dense, I believe that, if I fall, I will become tangled in the branches themselves. As if the tree would save me from my death.

Higher. I lose myself completely in the task. Where I stop and the tree begins is unclear to me; I have become a part of the tree. Up past the crown, into the very top, where the spread begins to taper and other tree-tops can be seen below us as we climb. Higher! Until only a few feet remain and the trunk narrows (as the trunk of a Douglas fir does, so close to the top), and is impossibly thin and sways with the weight of Harry and me without any consideration of the wind, which, when it blows, makes us sway that much more. Then the terrifying reality hits me: the tree that we have climbed is the tallest in all of the world, or at least of all the trees I can see in the world, which are many, as the sky is clear and the forest spreads out endlessly below. All around me, I can see the tops of other trees poking above the canopy, so thick and lush, like a cloud of pine needles. Two hundred feet—two hundred fifty—three hundred—more!—into the spire of a great living being. Above the canopy are birds and clouds and sun and heat and wind and a feeling that, if I were a giant, I could walk across the treetops. I could step out and walk for miles on the blanket of the forest. The rest of humanity, which is hidden so far below, is ignorant of all that Harry and I can do and see.

We stay there for a long time, feeling the sun and wind on our faces, existing as one with the tree and with each other. We don’t speak a word; there is nothing to say. The magnificence of that perch is singular and needs no words to mark it. I am transformed by the experience, swallowed by nature and digested and have become a part of nature. We linger in this feeling, which could last forever. And yet it cannot.

Reluctantly, we make our descent. And then we are on the ground again, which feels so wonderful and solid beneath our feet. Exhaustion
sets upon me suddenly, and I swoon. I open my eyes and I am by a campfire, our unsaddled horses nearby, chomping the grasses. A rabbit roasting on a spit above the leaping flames. And Harry carving at something, a block of wood; he holds a chisel and carves intently.

“What will it be?” I ask.

“The earth,” Harry says, looking up at me. “A globe. And a hand will hold it.”

“Whose hand is it? Is it yours?”

“No,” Harry says, breaking into a broad smile. “It’s yours.”

I close my eyes and try to remember: the trembling of my muscles racked with fatigue, my body limp, its energy fully spent; the feel and the scent of the earth, the soil in my hands, the taste of water on my lips; the depth of my sleep, filled with visions of soaring through the air, flying over the trees and mountains in the warm sun—such dreams!

I
woke up and it was night. My room was silent, and my heart, my soul were drenched with my dream, my vision. I was Ben. The spirit who occupied my thoughts now dreamed through me, and I saw those dreams. Ben showed them to me. Or maybe I showed them to Ben. Maybe Ben couldn’t see the things he missed so much. The things he loved. The trees, and Harry. If ghosts can’t dream, by my dreaming for him, perhaps Ben was allowed to see again.

The alarm clock read 2:03
A.M.
The door to my room was ajar; it hadn’t been ajar when I went to sleep.

I slipped out of bed and poked my head out into the hallway. Dark and silent. I closed the door and got back in bed.

The hand. The hand. I found the hand in the trunk, and then I heard the voice. Cause and effect. I found the hand and then I had the dream. The hand was tucked away safely beneath my bed, and yet it seemed to exude an aura; it was magnetic; it drew my thoughts.

Staring at the ceiling, listening to my fan, I heard a click. I turned toward the door and watched it open ever so slowly. I knew that any logical person would explain away this door-opening phenomenon. The logical person would say I hadn’t latched the door completely, and the hinges had recently been oiled and were slippery. He would say the door hung in a way that made it tend to swing open. He would refer to the barometric pressure, the discrepancy between high and low pressures in the room and the hallway. The moisture content of the air, which was saturated by my own wet carbon breath. Humidity causes wood to expand, anyone knows that, or it adds weight enough to create a pendulum effect. There were so many ways to explain it. And yet.

I got out of bed and closed the door again. I tugged on the doorknob to ensure it was indeed latched. I returned to my bed, but I didn’t lie down. I sat on the edge and waited; I didn’t have to wait long. Soon the knob turned. The latch clicked. The door opened.

A chill ran down my spine. With my heart pounding, I rose from the bed and looked out into the hallway once again. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard a click from the end of the hall and the creak of a hinge and the settling of weight on a floorboard. Someone wanted me to follow.

I made my way down the long, dark hallway, the old runner bristling under my feet, until I reached the servants’ stairs. The narrow spiral staircase twisted downward into an inky blackness, the totality of which made me afraid to continue on. But I heard a sound at the bottom of the stairs and I knew I had to follow the phantom.

It was so dark in the stairway, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. But I could feel the handrail, so I was okay. I continued down to the first floor, where the door was ajar and some light seeped in from the hallway. From there, I listened for the sighs. I listened for the groans and creaks and I followed them down one hallway and then another, around corners, through doors, until I was in a part of the house I had never been. In fact, it seemed few people had been in that part of the house in recent years. Decades, even. The runner in the corridor was dusty and
faded, and the wallpaper on the walls above the wood paneling was peeling at its seams. And then I got to a stretch of hallway that seemed to have nothing in it. No doors at all, though I did notice an anomaly: part of the wall seemed to have a seam.

I approached the seam, and saw it was a hidden door with the same wallpaper and paneling as the corridor, so, unless you knew to look, you wouldn’t see it. I opened it to reveal an empty linen closet with a dangling chain. I pulled the chain, and a light came on, but the closet shelves were empty. I noticed a small ring flush with the back wall, just about waist height. I flicked at it with my finger and it popped up. I lifted it and twisted and it clicked. It was a teeny door latch. I pulled, and the back wall of the closet swung toward me with a great, yawning, vacuous sound, as if I were opening a tomb.

I peered inside and saw a brief chamber, then a narrow staircase that spiraled up into the darkness.

I remembered Serena’s words:
There’s a secret stairway, Trevor, and if you find it and strike a match, you will see an apparition. The ghost of Riddell House.

I clearly couldn’t go any further without light, so I retraced my path back through the corridors until I arrived in the main hall, and then I hurried to the kitchen. Fortunately, Grandpa Samuel wasn’t sitting at the table with his medicine. I grabbed the box of matches from the stove and, as quickly as I could go without making noise, rushed back to the linen closet.

I started up the stairs. As soon as I rounded the first few steps, the light from the room below dropped out. I struck a match against the side of the box, and it flared to life. I climbed the stairs until the match was nearly out. I took out another match and lit it from the first, and I kept going until, in the tenuous light, I saw a narrow landing at the top of the stairs. As I curled around the stairs to the landing, I stopped short, frozen, because in the dim flicker I saw a man looking at me. And, in that moment, the flame burned to my fingers and I dropped the match. I licked my burnt fingertips, quickly grabbed a new match, and lit it.

The man was gone.

For a flash. For a moment. I had seen someone I recognized from the painting in the parlor: I had seen Ben.

My heart thudded in my chest. I blew out the match before it burned me again, and then I stood perfectly still in the blackness, listening to my own breathing. I sensed that Ben was with me, and, soon, I noticed something peculiar. My breath had fallen out of sync with itself. Or rather, what I heard as my breath was really two distinct breaths, slightly out of phase. It was a subtle shift, but I knew it. Two of us breathed in the darkness. I was standing in the dark, breathing alongside of a ghost. It was almost so frightening as to be assuring, as if my fear had gone so far over the edge, it had circled around again to calm.

I lit another match, and, from what I could see, the small room was empty. I felt sure there was more to this ghost chamber, but I wouldn’t be able to figure it out until I had more light. I needed to try again when I was better prepared.

I blew out the match, returned the matchbox to the kitchen, and went back to bed. As I tossed and turned, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep with my mind filled with the image of Ben lit by a match, I heard the click again. My door slowly opened.

“Seriously?” I said out loud, but Ben didn’t respond.

I looked at the clock. It was 2:30, and I was wide awake. And then a thought occurred to me: the middle of the night in Seattle is morning in England.

Again, I snuck downstairs and into the kitchen. I took the phone and huddled on the couch by the bay window. I called my mother.

“What’s wrong?” she said immediately.

“Nothing.”

“What are you doing up at this hour?”

“I miss you,” I said, which was true, but not the real truth.

“I miss you, too. I love you and I miss you. But go get your sleep and we can talk when it’s a proper time for you.”

I wanted to do what she asked, but I couldn’t hang up the phone just yet.

“I saw a ghost,” I said.

“A ghost?” she asked incredulously, and then she laughed. “What kind of ghost?”

“The kind of ghost who lives in a secret room behind a secret door in a linen closet in a part of the house people don’t really use, and if you light a match, you see him. Serena said Dad used to see him when he was a kid.”

“I think Serena is pulling your leg.”

“Dad never told you? He never said he and his mother used to light the match to see the ghost?”

“No,” she said. “Your father has never talked much about his mother. I know that she was into spiritual things, but I suspect that was because she knew she was dying and she was looking for something to give her hope. I’ve never heard of this ghost. And you should be asleep. Go to bed now.”

“I can’t sleep,” I said. “He opens my door.”

“Maybe the latch isn’t set properly. Tell Dad. He’s good with things like that; he can fix it for you.”

“Mom, there’s no way I can fall asleep. This house is creaky and dark and haunted.”

“So read yourself to sleep, like you’ve always done. You said there’s a library with books. Go find a good book to read. Did you ever find that John Muir book you were looking for?
The Mountains of California
?”

“Yes.”

“Well? Did you read it?”

“No.”

“Why on earth not? You read everything. I’m surprised.”

I didn’t think it would be smart to tell her that I’d found Ben’s love letter to Harry in the book, and that’s what I had read instead. She probably wouldn’t have believed that, either.

“Fetch that book and read some of it,” she said. “John Muir was a
wonderful writer. I’ve picked up one of his books at the library for myself. I think you’ll like him.”