Amber Sparks - The Unfinished World - And Other Stories

They attended what was billed as the greatest military spectacle in the history of the world — a reenactment of the Second Boer War — played out in an enormous, fifteen-acre arena. The whole battle took three hours and Set sat breathless until the final act, when the famous Boer General Christiaan de Wet “escaped” by diving thirty-five feet on horseback into a pool of water. After, Set was very tired and could hardly keep his eyes open as Cedric dragged him to the Japanese Pavilion. Which might explain why she seemed so indistinct, so soft and dreamlike, the pretty Japanese lady in the red silk kimono. She knelt so they were face to face.

You’re different, she said quietly. Aren’t you? You have a different kind of life inside you.

Set was speechless. What did this lady mean?

My grandfather was special like this, she said, and smiled. You are, too. I can tell. You are friendly with the spirits.

The lady had the blackest, straightest hair he had ever seen, and her skin shone like the surface of the moon. Her voice was so light, so musical, that it drove all thoughts of dashing soldiers and horseback and deeds of glory right out of his head. He didn’t know what she meant, but he would keep her words in his head like a lovely tune. He would keep them secret, his own small mystery to savor.

Before he left for France, Albert brought Inge a book of poems by Hopkins. Trust in goodness, he told her, cheerful as ever, sure of himself. The first and the last siblings stood together, bookends of a closed family dynasty. Dark and light, tall and short, thin and plump. But they both had the same open, cheerful face, the same honest blue eyes, the same love for one another.

Is the world a good place, Albert? she asked. She wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem, from her bleak vantage point here in the damp and the cold and the lonely, that it was.

I think so, said Albert. But don’t take my word for it, love. Go see for yourself. Go and find out what the world is.

And if you die? She swallowed the last word but still it came out a little, choked and cold.

Albert bent down, took her small hands. If I die, he said gravely, I’m still here. Aren’t I? All the things I am now, they’ll still be here, right? I’ll never leave you, not really.

She wondered then, if anyone really left you. Was the world crowded with ghosts? Was that the point of suffering: to understand, in some way, what you still had? To clarify it, to own it, to rip the stars from the sky and hold them in the hand like diamonds — to darken all the rest but the most glittering, glad memories? Was that the way to live a sunny life?

Curiosity #36: Square coin made of beaten gold, imprinted with a woman’s image. She holds both spear and shield .

For a long time after the bear, Set would wake with the feeling he’d forgotten something. He had strange dreams that felt like memories, like lost bits of other lives. For a long time after, before he got used to this hollow in himself, he would scream, would cry, would babble garbled dream descriptions to Pru: always such ordinary things like sailing or swimming or catching fireflies in jars, and yet they had the quality of nightmare because they seemed attached to someone else entirely. Pru told him not to worry. She told him he was different; she said he had lived another life and that he might remember it in sleep.

Am I a spirit? he asked.

Pru pursed her lips and shook her head. No, she said. You’re my son. And she refused to discuss it further. In time he grew used to the visions, but never to the sick feeling they gave him. He often woke, weak and drained, feeling he’d survived a small death.

At such moments, it was up to Cedric and Oliver to distract Set properly. Set would have liked to play with the children who lived on neighboring estates, some of whom were his own age. But Pru forbade it. He didn’t even attend school; instead Set had a series of tutors, an interchangeable set of dreary, dry men. He desperately wanted to attend school, to play sports, to join clubs. But Pru said he was special, fragile, and only his family would be able to protect him. Only your family can know you, she said, over and over, and Set had no idea what she meant but he usually sighed and settled for Cedric’s chatter or Oliver’s quiet company then.

Cedric liked to talk of gods and monsters; he spun tales for Set of what shaped the world eons ago, before man sailed its oceans and scaled its peaks. When Set was very small, Cedric told him about the last god to leave the earth. Once, said Cedric, there was a golden age, and men and gods lived peacefully together. There was great abundance of food and drink, and men lived long and wanted for nothing. The gods ruled well, and man in turn was obedient and loyal to his masters.

But then man grew complacent, and greedy, and ignoble, and one by one the gods abandoned him. And as they left, the lights went out on earth, leaving man in deep confusion and despair. Eventually, only one goddess was left: Astraea, the goddess of justice. She promised to stay with mankind unless he grew so wicked that she could no longer bear the sight of him; but in the way of things this too came to pass, and so the last goddess left us. She plunged us into darkness, and took our justice to the stars. And mankind was alone and lost.

The story made Set feel melancholy. Are we still alone? he asked. Will Astraea ever come back?

Cedric grinned at his solemn brother. Iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna, he said. Virgil wrote that, boy. With the Virgin, the Days of Old will return, too . Perhaps when man is worthy, she will be the first to return.

Set knew Cedric meant to be comforting. But somehow, he didn’t like the idea of the gods sweeping back in to take things over. That frightened him more than the idea of being alone.

He went to Oliver with his fears, and Oliver promised to cure him of gods. He collected Set and Desmond and loaded them onto the train to the city, and they walked the long blocks to a brightly colored building with gold crown moldings and loud, gaudy posters advertising something brand-new: a moving picture, Oliver called it. In large lights on the awning, a word Set tried to read, but didn’t know. Nickelodeon, said Desmond, and the big man grinned like a boy. Desmond loved new inventions, new toys and technological marvels. His fascination with newness was the perfect counterpoint to Oliver’s love of the old.

Oliver handed fifteen cents to the man in the booth, and they went inside. It was bare as a board, with hard seats and ugly white walls, but as soon as the picture started Set was lost onscreen. Satan gamboled and danced, the people onscreen ran herky-jerky away, fires burned and dissolved, dragons and demons sprang from nowhere and disappeared, and fantastic-looking people in paint and marvelous costumes filled the screen. And at the end, Set stood and applauded like he’d been taught, and waited for all the people and dragons to come take their bow.

It’s only light, said Oliver, smiling. A projection. You don’t have to applaud.

The spells the screen cast were the most marvelous sort of magic, flicker and shadow and sleight-of-hand on a grand scale. Watching these illusions play out, Set saw a world more fluid than his own, an enchanted otherworld. He often wondered after how he might slip inside it.

Photograph: A fine soft layer of dust over a scattered still life. A vanity table, topped with silver-backed hairbrush, golden hair pads, glass jars filled with perfume, powder, and paints. A lady’s tools of beauty, undisturbed since the night she died .