The Accident

When I step from my house, over the threshold that holds the fairy-tale magic to contain the spirit within, I take with me a lack of skin.

I lie open and vulnerable to every presence that comes up against me, or passes me on the street.

Today is a propitious day. Today I have to get something from a shop myself, in person. I have to walk on my own to that shop, over stones and gravel and dirt and concrete, and pick it up with my own hands.

It has been three months and three days, or 95 days to be precise, since I last left my hibernation.

On the phone the job had sounded basic enough – find and acquire, normal stuff. So, I told her I would take her on for my regular fee, and gave her my address.

I now utterly regret this.

She knocked on my door at 8:23 A.M. I quickly discovered that she had not been fully forthcoming on the call. In fact, this seemingly normal woman, Betty, believed that her friend, Todd, who was now dead, was trapped in her neighbor’s hamster.

(I know. Trust me, I know.)

Betty sat on my couch and I was in my easy chair, a coffee table separating us.

“My friend’s name is Todd and he jumped to the wrong body. An accident, of course.”

“Oh?” I work very hard to never sound judgmental, or even skeptical, to my clients. This “Oh”, with its pleasant, curious timbre, was some of my finest work.

“He was so sure how this was going to go. He must have overshot…” She sniffed. “…and ended up in that poor hamster.”

I nodded sagely and offered her a tissue.

“You were there when it happened?”

“Of course!” She broke down sobbing and I handed her the whole tissue box.

“He didn’t mean to die, you know. But the last time he got the meds, he had me flush them down the toilet. The doctors just didn’t understand how sensitive he was. I was worried, you know. But he said no, it just wasn’t for him.”

“What pills?” I asked.

“The epilepsy pills. He just never felt like himself when he was on them. And he needed the seizures for his work. He just lived for those seizures, you know.”

I did not know.

“He liked his seizures?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. He always had me write down what he did and saw right after. And sometimes I would record it.”

“You have a recording?”

“Of course.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a small voice recorder.

Static, then...

Her voice: “What did you see?”

A man’s voice, low and raspy: “There isn’t anyone in the dark this time. I’m in the same wide-open space, all black. I don’t have legs. The fog, the black, hides everything below my waist. I can’t feel my arms either, but I can see them, and my hands. And I am reaching with fingers that are too short, reaching into the dark.”

Betty: “You said you were all alone?”

Todd: “Yes, alone in the black. But there are persons all around me, just unseen. They are stuck in the light that surrounds the dark cloud I’m in. I can hear them like whispers circling me, confused and fast, some panicked. I can’t speak at first. Like my voice is consumed by the blackness, creeping down my throat and holding my tongue.

“But then I hear one voice come through. A woman. She says her name is Tracy and that she is there with her father. She tells me about a camping trip that she went on as a child, in a red metal trailer, into the desert, seeing the cactus flowers and getting stuck by cactus pins. She tells me that she was exploring up on the ridge over their campsite and ran after a rabbit who was cresting the hill. She fell and found herself in this same white space. She said she stayed there for longer and shorter than she knew, for all time and no time, until her father arrived. Now they share the vast lack of time together.”

Betty: “She didn’t choose to come back? Why?”

Todd: “She says she didn’t want to come back broken. The light was good. She wanted to stay and wait for her father. And she says he was there immediately, in five minutes, and in 5000 years. She tries to explain why it was both and neither. But she is eight, and she runs out of words.”

Betty: “Did she give you any clues?”

Todd: “She tells me there is an antique store on 6^th and Hapschord. There is a book, small and maroon, thin, linen cover. The title includes the word ‘light’. She says the book explains about the choices in the light.”

On the recording I heard a crashing sound, like metal falling to the floor.

Then Betty again: “You ok? What happened?

Todd: “I just can’t balance upright. I’m just trying to – “

The recording cut out.

I looked at Betty. She shook her head and placed her recorder back into her purse.

"What happened next? You record that?"

“This is it. This is all I have. The recorder must have turned off when I dropped it, trying to help him.”

I searched her face for a flicker of guilt or fear. There was nothing but sadness.

I thought she was going to cry again then, but she didn’t. She just continued to look pained and wistful.

“This recording happened right before. Like right before. That noise, that was him falling.”

“I get that.”

“And then there was the hamster…”

Lord give me strength, I thought.

“Why was there a hamster?” I asked.

“It belonged to the little girl next door, of course. Oh, no, it wasn’t Todd’s. He’d never have something like that. He hated animals. So, when he died, we were shocked to hear – “

“We?” I interjected.

“He and I,” she said. She suddenly sounded distracted. “I mean I - I heard screaming from the hallway. Tabitha, the girl next door, was chasing a hamster down the hall. It was screaming and running into walls.

“I asked Tabitha what had happened. Tabitha said that about ten minutes before (right when Todd had passed out), the hamster fell down on its side and started to shake, and it wouldn’t stop. She said she tried to find her mother, but couldn’t. Tabitha said she came back to the cage to see the hamster no longer shaking. But then it started screaming and bashing itself against the metal bars. She let it go, but the apartment door was open and got into the hall."

I nodded and motioned for Betty to go on.

“The mother told Tabitha that they needed to just let the animal loose outside. Let it go. They couldn’t afford a vet and the animal was clearly in pain. I offered to take the hamster. I thought I could help, you know? But now it hasn’t moved for two days."

“You think it’s him,” I said.

“I know it’s him.”

“But what do you need me for?” I asked.

“The book…”

“The red book?”

“Yes!” Her voice brightened. “It’s not at that store. At least, I looked everywhere. And I need it. We need it."

“But why does it matter now?”

“I think something in it can help Todd move on. He needs to either accept life as a hamster and live on, or he needs to be able to control what happens when the hamster dies.”

“Why not just ask the shop for help, finding the book I mean?”

“I can’t. Whenever I would go on these quests…”

“He sent you looking for stuff like this before?”

“Many times. He was like you. He didn’t leave the house hardly ever. He was terrified of having a seizure in public. I would go out for him and track down these clues. He thought he was being given messages that would allow him to understand what he was seeing and hearing, the truth about what was outside the dark cloud. The cloud was a common motif in his visions. But he believed that something would be lost if we asked anyone else for help. It had to be just me working on his behalf, no intermediary, otherwise the object would lose its power.”

“Then why ask me to help?”

“If he is dead, I’m the original now. I tell you this story and you help me. It works."

She gave me two hundred dollars to find the book and buy it, with no one else's help. She said she would pay me another hundred on delivery.

And this is why I am walking over this threshold into my own darkness, my own fear: three hundred dollars and an absurd request.

The antique store is only three blocks from my house. It might as well be a million miles. I am out of breath and sweating after half a block.

I am hot and cold. My arms and fingers tingle like the blood is rushing back into them. My face tingles in pinpricks and my tongue is numb. Every few feet I pause.

Two people have run into me so far. There is a white dog with a person walking ahead of me.

It keeps looking back at me. It looks like a white wolf or a coyote, with a long face, short fur, and something in its eyes like an emotion, but not quite. Soon it is too far ahead of me and I lose it in the crowd.

Then on the left there is the sign. Fine Antiques at the Market. When I walk in, a bell above the door, a real one, tinkles.

A woman with a little white dog, old and crotchety, the dog sleeping on a cushion on the counter, greets me and asks if she can help me find anything. I say no and begin to make a tour of the large warehouse-type space. I move counter-clockwise through cubicle after cubicle of piled items.

I am here for four hours. It is almost time for the store to close. I have gone through every single booth at least five times. I have looked in every container, under every object. I decide that’s it; I’m done. The book isn’t here. It probably never was here.

I walk back to the front of the store. The dog on the counter gets up and walks to the edge of the counter, to the lady’ s arms, his nails making click-click sounds.

I lean over the counter to look at a set of dishes. My grandmother had those dishes! They look like corn-on-the-cob. They are on a shelf about waist high, not easy to see unless you are right on top of the counter.

I start to back up and then see a small sliver of red peeking out from under the corn-on-the-cob tray. Gold lines run down the spine and the pages are that uneven cutting you see on really old books.

“Ma’am,” I say, feeling the tingle intensify in my lips and cheeks.

“Yes sir?”

“May I see that book?”

There is a shudder of some emotion I can’t place that vibrates across her face. “What book?

“That, right there, under the right side of that tray.”

She looks down to the shelf behind her and bends down to a crouch. She is old and slow and I can see her scalp through the gray hair where the balding is the worst. I tilt my head and see her lift the tray and pull the book out. Then she straightens and turns around.

“Well, I’ll be a coot in heat.”

“What?”

“I was just thinking of this book the other day and wondering where it had gotten to.”

“You know this book?”

“Well, yes,” she says. “It’s mine.”

“May I see it?” I ask.

She hesitates, but hands it to me. I turn it spine up. Conversations with Light, by Ruskin R. Peters. It feels like it is burning a hole through my palm. My heart is racing.

“How much?”

“Oh, it's not for sale.” She takes it back.

“This is my own personal copy. I just like to keep it here.”

“I want to buy it.”

“I’d really rather not.”

“No price would convince you?”

She peers at me with narrowed eyes.

“No.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Please don’t,” she says, but there is a smile on her face now.

“Hmmm,” I say.

I walk home, feeling light, wind whipping cool air around my neck and head. When I am back in my house, and I can finally breathe again, I call Betty.

“You have it?” she asks.

“Not quite yet,” I say. “But I found it. That’s the good news. Now I just have to get the woman to sell it to me.”

“What is it called?” her voice sounds a bit faint now.

“Conversations with Light.”

“Hmmm,” very faint.

“I will try again tomorrow,” I say. The faintness is giving me a bit of uneasiness.

“You have any more money I can offer her, to try to tempt her to sell? I had budgeted about twenty bucks”

“Just forget it,” she says. The voice is almost a whisper now.

“What did you say?” I feel heat in my ears and a warning tickling down my spine.

“I don’t need the book anymore,” she says, slightly louder now. “I decided I just need to give him options, that’s all. It’ll be fine. Keep the money.”

“The book is the whole reason you came to me.”

“The book was just an idea. I think I was making things too complicated.”

“What do you mean by options?” I ask.

“I have a sheep, a cat, a dog, a snake. I thought he had a monkey, but he didn’t. A small alligator though.”

“What?” My word echoes in my head.

“I found someone with a home menagerie. Options.”

“What are you doing?”

“You know, it’s hard to kill something on purpose, even an animal.”

I had not taken off my coat when I entered my house, and now I stand up and start to walk toward the door.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“Why does it matter?”

“Just give me an address.”

“My god, so reactive.”

I say nothing. My hand is on my doorknob.

A few seconds later she sighs theatrically.

“224 Hairspray Lane,” she says.

“Is that a real address? Let me Google it.” I place my phone on speaker and go to my browser.

Halfway through typing the address, the call dies.

This time, going over my threshold, I almost don’t notice when the barrier is crossed.

__

I don’t call the police until I am halfway there. I tell them that Betty is a danger to herself and others, which is true.

When I arrive, having walked over ten blocks to get there, a police car and an ambulance are already there.

They let me in to see her before she is placed onto the stretcher.

She is in the living room. There are several tent stakes nailed to the floor through a cream-colored high-pile carpet. Each animal not in a cage is tied to a stake with a leash. All the animals seem to be asleep.

There is a black cat, a small beagle, a grey rabbit, a sheep.

No alligator, but there is an aquarium, and a cage with a single duck. The discrepancy between what is here and what she told me was here bothers me for some reason.

And there is the hamster. It is lying on its side on the carpet, a circle of dark red originating from its neck.

Then I see Betty. She is also on her side, curled up tightly into a ball, as if afraid her legs will run away if she lets them go. She is shivering, and her bare skin is gooseflesh. She is slowly rocking back and forth.

Two paramedics lift her onto a stretcher and roll her onto her back.

They give her a shot in her arm, and only then does she release the grip on her legs.

Her eyes open briefly.

“I don’t recommend hamsters,” she says. “Anything but a hamster.”

And then her eyes close again, her breathing slows, and she is out.