Scott Nicholson - The Manor

"I'll bet the horses love it," Anna said.

"Yeah, and they's smart enough to know they get to eat the hay, come winter."

"You going to cut any while we're here?" she asked, thinking how much fun it would be to help. Hard physical labor did wonders for the depressed and self-pitying mind. "Some of those meadows around here are getting pretty high."

"We had to hold off for a while because the signs were in the heart."

"The heart?"

"Ain't a good time for cutting oats or wheat or any reaping crop. It's a time fit only for the harvest of dead things."

Mason cleared his throat and spat loudly. "Ugh. Hay dust choking me." He looked at Anna and said, "Sorry for being crude. That's the way we do it in Sawyer Creek."

"In case you ain't noticed, this ain't Sawyer Creek," Ransom said. He motioned them to go to the rear of the wagon and he picked up the tongue. "Throw your shoulders in, now."

They maneuvered the wagon out the door and under the shed. As Anna and Ransom hitched the team, Mason explored the barn. A few minutes later, he poked his head outside. "Hey, what's under the trapdoor?"

Ransom stroked the mane on the chestnut mare. "Taters, sweet taters, cabbage, apples, turnips. Root cellar for stuff that don't need to be kept so cold."

"Can I look?"

Ransom went to the bench and tugged on a pair of rough leather gloves. "Help yourself."

Anna followed Mason to the corner of the barn, where the trapdoor was set in the floor between two stacks of hay bales.

"Got doors on the bottom floor, where the barn's set against the hillside," Ransom said. "We can haul from the orchards and gardens straight up to here, save a lot of handling. Then there's a tunnel goes back to the Big House. Ephram Korban had it dug in case a blizzard struck or something. He was always going on about 'tunnels of the soul,' for some reason. I expect he was about half crazy, if some of them legends are true."

"Or maybe all the legends are true and he was all the way crazy," Anna said.

Mason knelt and lifted the heavy wooden door. The cellar smelled of sweet must and earth, with a faint scent of rotted fruit. The darkness beneath had a weight, like black oil. A makeshift ladder led down into the seemingly bottomless depths.

"Ain't much of interest down there," Ransom said. "Unless you like to sit and talk to the rats."

"Rats?" Mason let the door fall with a slam, knocking dust loose from the rafters. Anna fought a sneeze.

Ransom grinned, his sparse teeth yellow in the weak lamplight. "Rats as big around as your thigh."

"I hate rats," Mason said. "I grew up with them. Sounded like cavalry behind the walls of my bedroom. What I hate the most is those beady eyes, like they're sizing you up."

"Don't worry," Ransom said. "They get plenty to eat without having to gnaw on the guests."

"Miss Mamie would probably scold them for having bad manners."

Anna laughed. Maybe Mason wasn't so bad. At least he wasn't afraid to show weakness. Unlike her.

Mason stood and wiped his hands on his jeans. Something fluttered from the rafters and brushed Anna's face, and she wiped at it as if it were cobwebs.

"Jesus, don't tell me that was a bat," Mason said, ducking. "Bats are nothing but rats with wings."

"That was a bluebird," Ransom said. "Lucky for you, young lady. If a bluebird flies in your path, it means you're going to be kissed."

"Great," she said. "And I thought I earned my kisses by casting magic spells on unsuspecting men."

"Believe what you want," Ransom said. "I reckon you see through the signs better than anybody. Now, I'd best get on with the chores."

Mason wiped his hands on an old horse blanket hanging from the rafters. "So, Ransom, do you have time to help me find an overgrown log that's just right for statue-making?"

"Why do you think we hitched up the wagon? Miss Mamie always gets her way with things."

"So I'm starting to find out."

"Let's get on before dark. Might have to go below Beechy Gap, where we had a big windfall a few winters back. Want to come along, young lady?"

"No, thanks. I've got some chores of my own."

"I reckon some things got to be done alone," he said.

Anna wasn't sure what to make of Ransom. He kept dropping hints but a deep fear was hidden behind his eyes. Maybe he had secrets of his own. She waited until Mason and Ransom climbed up onto the buck-board seat, then she passed Ransom the reins.

"See you later tonight?" Mason asked her.

Anna felt the half smile on her face, and wasn't sure which way she wanted the corners of her mouth to point. "We'll see."

Ransom flipped the reins and the team headed up the road, where the wide sandy ribbon threaded between the trees into the forest. She slid the barn doors closed, then looked up at the horseshoe.

It was points-down again.

Dead things come in.

She looked at the forest.

Under the fringe of shadowed underbrush, amid the laurel and locust and briars, the woman in white stood, the bouquet held out in challenge. The ghost stared at Anna like a mirror, then turned and drifted among the trees.

"All right, damn you," Anna said. "I'll play hide-and-seek with you."

As she entered the forest, she wondered how you could ever catch up to your own ghost. And why it would hide from you in the first place. Ransom was right about one thing. A woman with secrets generally was bad news.

And the night spread, seeping like warm oil over the hills, expanding, filling the valleys, and rising up the gray Appalachian slopes. The night became an ocean, an ink-stained bloodbath. The night became the sky. The night became a mouth that swallowed the night before, all the previous nights, all the nights to come, the night Spence rattled on, ringers pounding the slick keys. He was an automaton now. There was no world, no room, no smell of lantern smoke and sweat and sweet Bridget nearby, only the glowing battlefield of the half-empty page. No outer night lurked beyond the window, only the night that came to life through words, the night that swelled and surged through his veins, that pumped darkness through his extremities, that burned in the ebony furnace of his heart.

He was dimly aware of the strand of drool running down one side of his cheek. He grinned, and the drool leaked onto his cotton shirt. The saliva was from another plane, a reality so flat and dull and senseless compared to the magical land unfolding beneath his keystrokes. His wrists ached and his fingers were stiff, eyes watering from strain, but those problems were of the flesh, and this work was of the Word.

The master, the paper, urged him on. Commanded him forward. Trumpeted reveille with a Joshua horn. Ordained him a god, albeit a lesser god.

Because he was a servant to the great god Word, the one true god. Word who giveth and taketh away, Word who gave his only begotten suffix so that Spence shall not perish but have everlasting metaphor, Word who spewed forth from burning bush and graven tablet and mighty cloud. In Word we trust.

A hand dropped on his shoulder, an intrusion from somewhere on that dreary plane of soil and substance. Ah, that must be the Muse, who was also slave to Word, made Word from dust and bit of bone, Muse who offered the fruit, Muse who served as adjective to his improper noun.

"Jeff," she sang, and lovely was her music. He wanted to weep, but the tears would blur the glorious page. His page. And Spence's moment of vanity broke the spell, angering the god who was Word.

He stopped typing and glanced around, blinking.

"Come to bed, honey," Muse said. "You haven't slept in thirty-six hours."

A thick ream of manuscript was piled on his desk. His eyes burned and he forced his dry eyelids to close. Muse was drawing him away from the world of Word, down from the soft high temple. Perhaps Muse was no friend after all, but an enemy. "What do you want?"