twilight, when I walked with Percy Marsh through the gardens, I saw a figure out at the Tombs—a man who seemed to be crouched down and nearly crawling on his belly.
When Percy left to return to his cottage, I went out in the hazy light as the evening darkened.
Harvey lay there on the ground, his wounds unhealed, his face torn and bloodied. He had dug his way out of the earth—this was evident from the filth upon him.
He said nothing, for his tongue had been eaten away by fish and his teeth had been broken to nubs in the fall. Half of his scalp had been peeled back and was rotting.
But I understood, and I went with him along the path.
I sat with him in the doorway of the Tombs and remembered our childhood, and the swings and the window and the play of Isis and Osiris and the trunk he had been afraid to climb into one day when he was too old to be afraid of such things.
In my mind, he whispered, Death would not take me again. I cannot heal. I am neither living nor dead.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” I said.
Old Marsh went in my place. There is no room for me among the dead.
“Forever?” I asked.
He did not answer. I suppose he did not know. He seemed more like the little boy I had known when I was young—in our happiest times on the island, riding a tree swing, playing games near the water’s edge—than the corpse of a young man. He hugged me as a child might, and made sounds as if he were weeping.
At dawn, when he went to sleep in the Tombs, I dried all my tears as I helped him crawl into the coffin, with those dark sockets where his eyes had once rested staring up at me.
I drew the lid over his coffin and nailed it in place, and then sealed it again.
I slept several nights near him, and heard his tapping at the coffin. At first it was rapid. He moaned in pain. He made shrieking noises as if he were terrified of being trapped within that box.
I bit my lip to remain silent. I held my hands together as if in prayer to keep from wanting to open his coffin again.
I cried as he knocked against it, kicking at it from within, making guttural noises that must have been cries of torment.
You are Osiris, I thought. Trapped in your sarcophagus. I am Isis. But I will not release you. You have to die. If you can die, you will do so here. Please forgive me.
Gradually, after several nights, he stopped making any noise at all.
3
He did not speak in my mind, though I wished he would.
I did not open his tomb again, and when my mother died the following year, I took my inheritance and traveled overseas because I did not want to be near my brother’s tomb.
Some nights—whether in Paris or Cairo or New York—when I felt that window in my mind open, I thought I heard my brother Harvey’s voice. I could never understand what he was saying, for it was all whispering and strange utterances.
I hope that death has finally taken him, but even as I write this, he may be in that tomb, still, my beloved wonderful brother, buried alive but without the release of death, hunger without satisfaction, thirst without end, terror until the world itself might end.
Old Marsh had told us that the trick of calling the dead back to life was a one-way street, for no one in all of history had ever learned the way to send the dead back to Death again.
But the stone-hedges of the Tombs keep him in, and though my brother Spence and his wife Edyth now own Belerion Hall, I wonder if someone—someday—will hear him tap at the edge of his tomb.
I wonder if someone will break open that coffin and see what has become of my brother Harvey.
Will he be there with flesh and bones? Will he be dust, moving eternally, within a stone bier? Or will Death take pity on him, and on me? Will Death call him back, across the shores to that radiant journey? Or will he forever be there, trapped in a box until the world itself comes to an end?
I
When Percy left to return to his cottage, I went out in the hazy light as the evening darkened.
Harvey lay there on the ground, his wounds unhealed, his face torn and bloodied. He had dug his way out of the earth—this was evident from the filth upon him.
He said nothing, for his tongue had been eaten away by fish and his teeth had been broken to nubs in the fall. Half of his scalp had been peeled back and was rotting.
But I understood, and I went with him along the path.
I sat with him in the doorway of the Tombs and remembered our childhood, and the swings and the window and the play of Isis and Osiris and the trunk he had been afraid to climb into one day when he was too old to be afraid of such things.
In my mind, he whispered, Death would not take me again. I cannot heal. I am neither living nor dead.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” I said.
Old Marsh went in my place. There is no room for me among the dead.
“Forever?” I asked.
He did not answer. I suppose he did not know. He seemed more like the little boy I had known when I was young—in our happiest times on the island, riding a tree swing, playing games near the water’s edge—than the corpse of a young man. He hugged me as a child might, and made sounds as if he were weeping.
At dawn, when he went to sleep in the Tombs, I dried all my tears as I helped him crawl into the coffin, with those dark sockets where his eyes had once rested staring up at me.
I drew the lid over his coffin and nailed it in place, and then sealed it again.
I slept several nights near him, and heard his tapping at the coffin. At first it was rapid. He moaned in pain. He made shrieking noises as if he were terrified of being trapped within that box.
I bit my lip to remain silent. I held my hands together as if in prayer to keep from wanting to open his coffin again.
I cried as he knocked against it, kicking at it from within, making guttural noises that must have been cries of torment.
You are Osiris, I thought. Trapped in your sarcophagus. I am Isis. But I will not release you. You have to die. If you can die, you will do so here. Please forgive me.
Gradually, after several nights, he stopped making any noise at all.
3
He did not speak in my mind, though I wished he would.
I did not open his tomb again, and when my mother died the following year, I took my inheritance and traveled overseas because I did not want to be near my brother’s tomb.
Some nights—whether in Paris or Cairo or New York—when I felt that window in my mind open, I thought I heard my brother Harvey’s voice. I could never understand what he was saying, for it was all whispering and strange utterances.
I hope that death has finally taken him, but even as I write this, he may be in that tomb, still, my beloved wonderful brother, buried alive but without the release of death, hunger without satisfaction, thirst without end, terror until the world itself might end.
Old Marsh had told us that the trick of calling the dead back to life was a one-way street, for no one in all of history had ever learned the way to send the dead back to Death again.
But the stone-hedges of the Tombs keep him in, and though my brother Spence and his wife Edyth now own Belerion Hall, I wonder if someone—someday—will hear him tap at the edge of his tomb.
I wonder if someone will break open that coffin and see what has become of my brother Harvey.
Will he be there with flesh and bones? Will he be dust, moving eternally, within a stone bier? Or will Death take pity on him, and on me? Will Death call him back, across the shores to that radiant journey? Or will he forever be there, trapped in a box until the world itself comes to an end?
I
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