Ширли Мерфи - The Grass Tower

“When we were girls, but it was different then, the sand didn’t used to come in like that, it seems to me all I do now is sweep and sweep the sand—”

“—it’s not like spiritualism, you don’t even try to understand. It’s new, it’s a new, enlightened religion; it has nothing to do with that sort of thing.” Aunt Selma ceased her argument to light a cigarette.

“What else would you call it when you say you bring forth spirits?” Uncle Jimmie’s voice was edgy. “What do you—”

Bethany got up and went to the far corner of the fence to sit with Colin. They slumped, watching the others, removed from them and slightly incredulous. Aunt Selma, dressed in a black sunsuit, looked— “witching,” Bethany thought, watching her enviously. Like a model, her black hair done up high with that cerise scarf around it and everything else in black, her sunsuit and sandals, and her skin against the black like rich cream. She sat very close to Dr. Claybelle and was smiling at him in that way she had, and he, leaning back with his white patent shoes propped on Aunt Bett’s picnic table, was receiving looks from Aunt Bett that should have withered him. His striped pants and red sports shirt over that bulging stomach were something to contemplate. How could Selma like him! Bethany became engrossed in trying to winnow out some charm or attraction the man had. Even his eyes were small and cold.

Every morning on their way to school she and Colin would see Dr. Claybelle walking from the Inn to meet Aunt Selma at the drugstore for breakfast, or glance into the drugstore and see them already ensconced on the stools. Why didn’t they eat at the Inn? Maybe he was too cheap to buy breakfast there or maybe they thought it would look like they were having an affair. And if they were, where did they go? To Aunt Selma’s place in the dark hours? She couldn’t see Aunt Selma sneaking into the Inn. The argument had grown more heated now, and Uncle Jimmie, sweating over the barbeque, looked unhappily at Selma—as if he wished she’d leave off and go away.

Bethany shook her Coke bottle, making the liquid fizz. “Are they really supposed to call spirits, or the other half of your soul or whatever?” The idea both intrigued and repelled her.

Colin shrugged. He looked at her a minute rather sheepishly, then pulled a blue printed flier out of his pocket and handed it over. She unfolded it and read:

Communicate with the lonely, lost half of your soul. Become a whole person. Know joy for the first time. Join the Church of the Zagdesha.

The Reverend Dr. Barnham Claybelle

“The Reverend!” Bethany snorted. “What does it mean, a missing half of your soul? I don’t feel like anything’s missing in me.” She knew she was being nasty, but she didn’t care. The Church of the Zagdesha had begun to make a dark, prickling unease in her, an unease she couldn’t understand. She watched Aunt Selma and Dr. Claybelle with uncomfortable curiosity. “It’s got to be a put on,” she said. “Maybe to make money.”

Colin sighed. “It’s—I only know what the book says; Aunt Selma gave me their book. It says that once the world was split in two, like there was another dimension and it split away. That was when sin and crime began. It says that when Eve gave Adam the apple and he ate it, the world crashed with thunder and evil and it split, and our souls split in half. And the other half is there in that other dimension.”

“And we can only reach it through the Church of the Zagdesha,” Bethany said sarcastically.

“Well—” Colin began, not knowing how to argue with her. “Well it says that when Cain slew Abel that it was a kind of allegory, to show mankind what had happened, that half a soul had slain the other half.”

Bethany just looked at him.

“She’s—Aunt Selma’s serious about it. I don’t think it’s for money. You should hear her. She says this is why people go around doing things in the occult, because they feel that something’s missing, but they don’t know what. Like spiritualism, and that crystal ball she had. She says people want to find their Zagdesha, but they don’t know how. That they have this kind of need to find it.”

They watched Selma laughing and patting Dr. Claybelle on the shoulder. Aunt Bett said loudly, “It’s a sin, a place like that. And you confirmed in the church, Selma.” Bethany felt a quick stab of embarrassment for Aunt Bett, but she could not think why. Unless it was because behind that fetching smile, Aunt Selma was probably laughing at her.

“What one must understand,” Dr. Claybelle said, “is that we don’t conflict with the church in any way. We simply go beyond the church in interpreting the Bible.”

“Not my Bible,” Aunt Bett snapped, and turned away angrily. Bethany and Colin glanced at each other and couldn’t help but grin. There was a moment of silence when everyone stopped talking; it hung in the air while the sea crashed once, then the voices surged again, “—and he said if she didn’t it was the operating table for sure, but you know—” “It’s not yours, Mama gave it to me!” “—in the union hall and waited for three hours before—” Then suddenly the yard before Bethany faded and a feeling swept her, a feeling so overpowering that she almost cried out, a surge of dark excitement like a black wind. She was standing in the old mercantile store; half-dark it was with the dusty windows, and the pile of trash loomed— And then the trash faded abruptly; the room brightened with sunlight for an instant, then went darker still; now only a dark gray haze came through black curtains. And then there was a terrible, stomach-shaking guttering of light as candlelight flared and shapes moved strangely across the walls, and black robed figures—she thought she was seeing the future, seeing some awful ritual.

There was Selma, her face like a white moon, framed by the cowl of a long dark robe. She had never seen a future event, always it was something that was. Even her parents’ death was seen, as far as she knew, at the moment that they died. But this—she pushed the image back and back in her mind and rose to stand staring across at Selma with trembling confusion; but the scene clung to her, hazy and superimposed over the yard. Selma was completely unaware of her, she was— Oh! This was not the future at all, this was from Selma’s mind. This thing she saw was Selma imagining what she meant to do, she could feel the emotions now, of Selma’s planning, surrounding her. And yet it made a fear in Bethany so she turned away toward the fence and stood bracing herself against it. How could Selma’s imaginings make her so afraid? But then something bright flashed across the other scene, reflecting light in a dizzying pattern. She was staring into an ornate oval mirror, seeing her own image in a lurching moment, her dark eyes staring back at her so she drew in her breath sharply: her own face, her own expression, seemed so full of a secret, so full of some determined intent, that she shivered; a dark alertness seemed to touch her, terrifying her; then the vision vanished.

When she was in bed, alone at last, she couldn’t sleep and lay sweating and tossing. What had touched her in that dark moment in the yard? Selma’s thoughts, yes. But something more, something that beckoned to her, something that drew her though she did not know where. And then she realized that she had seen visions, seen pictures for the first time in years, for the first time since her parents died. She lay thinking of that almost with excitement, so her fear was dulled. What did it mean? Something was happening, something was going to happen—a cold thrill of anticipation made her shiver.

At last she rose, opened the dresser drawer, and took her parents’ picture in her hands. The heavy frame felt comforting, and even in the darkness she knew how the picture looked. She got into bed again and held it close to her.