I caught sight of the river Goose, and saw a strange mist coming up off the water—a thin fog and now rain that echoed the day’s dark turn. And there it was, a blue mist coming up, obscuring the far end of the bridge. And then, and I remember this most directly, because we had been moving at a good clip, the steady and quick clopping of the horse’s shoes faded. I could see the horse right there before me pulling us along but without a sound, and I thought perhaps it was me, some temporary deafness, but I did not think much because I wanted to get home, I wanted to be free of Maynard, if only for what remained of that evening, and we were on the bridge, and the thin fog had suddenly parted, and that was the moment when I saw her, saw the woman, saw my mother water dancing on the bridge, water dancing out of the blackness of my mind, and I tried to slow the horse, I remember this, pulling at the reins, but the horse barreled on, though I wonder now if I was even pulling the reins, if I was even there in that space, on that bridge, because even now, having done the thing, I cannot say I truly understand the entirety of Conduction, save this essential thing—you have to remember.
5
I WAS IN THE WATER, and then falling into the light, guided by my dancing mother, until the light overwhelmed, and when it dimmed, and faded away, my mother was gone, and I felt the land under my feet. It was night. I saw the fog drawing back like a curtain, until the sky was clear and the stars blinked in and out above. When I turned back, looking for the mist-covered river out of which I had just emerged, all I saw was high grass waving black in the wind. I was leaning on a large stone and in the distance, past the field, I could see the forest, looming. I knew this place. I knew the distance from this stone to the trees, I knew this grass, that it was a field of fallow, my Lockless. And I knew that the stone was no random place-mark, but was the monument to the progenitor, Archibald Walker. My great-grandfather. The wind gusted through, shivering me, so that my waterlogged brogans were like ice against my feet. I took a step forward, wheeled, fell, and down there in that grass I became aware of a powerful desire to sleep. Perhaps I had entered a kind of purgatory, modeled after a world I knew, that must be endured before my reward was revealed to me. And so I lay there shivering, making no effort to move. I reached into my pocket for the coin I carried everywhere, feeling its rough edges, as darkness closed in around me.
But there was no reward. At least none of the sort the old ones spoke of down in the Street. I am here, telling this story, and not from the grave, not yet, but from the here and now, peering back into another time, when we were Tasked, and close to the earth, and close to a power that baffled the scholars and flummoxed the Quality, a power, like our music, like our dance, that they cannot grasp, because they cannot remember.
It was our music that I followed out from the darkness, out from three days, as I was later told, of straddling the line between life and death, of senseless murmuring and frightful fevers. My first note of consciousness was someone humming softly in what seemed to be the distance, and then the hummed melody repeating itself, trailing away for a minute or two, and then returning, and then came the dim realization that I knew the melody, and I began matching the words in my mind:
All the heavenly band a-churning
Aubrey spying and good girls turning.
There was the smell of vinegar and washing soda, so sharp I could taste it, the warmth of a blanket, the softness of a pillow under my head, and then, blinking open my eyes, I saw that I was in a room awash in sun. I could not move. My head was propped against a pillow and cocked to the side. I looked out from an alcove bed, the curtains drawn away. There was a bureau across the room, and on the bureau I saw the bust of the progenitor, and next to that a mahogany footstool, and seated there, her back straight, her neck long, I saw Sophia, working two needles between a spool of yarn, her arms winding back and forth. I tried to move, but my joints were locked. I panicked, for at that moment I feared I had suffered some injury and thus become a prisoner in my own body. I watched desperately, hoping for Sophia to look over at me; instead she stood, still humming the old melody, still knitting, and walked out the door.
How long did I lie there in that great terror, wondering if I was now entombed in my own body? I can’t say, but darkness came again, and this time when I awoke the paralysis had lifted some. I could move my toes. I could open my mouth and roll my tongue. I was able to turn my head and now my arms returned to me, so that pushing, with great effort, I was able to sit straight up in the bed. I looked around and, again seeing the sun, the bust, the light, I knew that I was in Maynard’s room. I looked past the footstool and saw his wardrobe, his bureau, the mirror where, only that last morning, I had him stand while dressing him. And then I remembered the water.
I sat there trying to speak, trying to call for someone, but the words were lodged inside me. Sophia walked back into the room, head down, still knitting, and hearing my heaving attempt to speak, looked up, dropped her yarn, ran over and caught me in her long spider arms. Then she pulled back and looked at me.
“Welcome back to us, Hi,” she said.
I remember trying to smile but my face must have twisted into some pitiful mask, because all the joy dropped from her. Sophia brought her hand to her face and covered her mouth. She put one hand on my shoulder and the other on my back and guided me back down into the bed.
“Don’t dare talk,” she said. “You may think yourself out of the Goose, but the Goose ain’t yet out of you.”
I lay back and the world faded in the same order it came to me—the light of the room disappearing, then the washing-soda smell, and finally Sophia, whose hand I could feel on my brow, whose gentle humming I could still hear. And then I fell asleep and into a dream of my plunge in the Goose. The whole scene now played out at a distance. I saw my head bursting out through the water, scanning the terrain, and deciding that I had found my doom. And Maynard was there, struggling against the water, struggling to save himself. And I saw the blue light part the sky and reach down for me, and this time I reached for Maynard, my only brother, tried to save him, but he yanked his arm away, cursed me, and then faded into the darkness of the depths.
When I next awoke, my arms still ached, but I felt my hands, limber and loose. The smell of vinegar lingered in the room, but fainter now. I sat up with little effort and saw the white curtains of the alcove drawn closed around me, and through them I could see the rough silhouette of someone seated on the footstool, in lonely vigil. I remembered that Sophia had last been there and felt my blood quicken at the possibility. I heard the song of morning birds and was suddenly filled with a great joy at the fact of having been alive. But then I pulled back the curtains and saw that the silhouette was my father, seated on the footstool with his elbows on his legs and hands cuffing his face, and when he looked up at me I saw that his small eyes were bloodshot and heavy.
“We have lost him,” he said, shaking his head. “My Little May is gone and the whole of this great house, the whole of Elm County, is grieving.” Then he stood, walked over, and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out and gripped my shoulder tight. My eyes wandered down to my own body and I saw someone had dressed me in a long nightgown, which I recognized as Maynard’s. I looked back up to my father and saw a kind of realization crawling over his face, and we were, in that moment, in a kind of secret communication that can only exist between a parent and child, no matter how monstrous the relation. I saw his small eyes, red with grief, squinting, as though straining to comprehend a message, straining to understand how it came to be that all that remained of him was here before him, was a slave. And when this realization was complete, he pulled back, buried his head in his hands, stood, weeping loudly, and walked out.