What the Dead Want(10)

Gretchen continued to follow her mother with the camera, snapping and snapping. She was getting proof. Her mother was not dead. She was interacting with people, people who could obviously see her. For one instant her mother even glanced in Gretchen’s direction and seemed to return her gaze.

The street was suddenly more crowded with vehicles and pedestrians, and several times Gretchen lost sight of her mother when a bus passed between them or a sea of businessmen blocked her view. And then, suddenly, she was being jostled on every side by other people on the sidewalk, who elbowed her and scowled. Groups of people refused to part to let her through.

She stopped, and then started again, walked quickly across the street, and then turned back a block later. Everything was familiar, but rearranged. She turned all the way around in a circle, bumping into a teenage boy in a baseball cap, who gave her a little shove but said nothing. With rising panic, Gretchen began to walk back in the direction she’d come from, and then she found herself crossing another street, and then another. And then she turned around yet again and began to run, glancing desperately at the doors and windows of every storefront she passed, camera slamming against her ribs, searching, frantically by then, but not one of these doors had, painted on it in the bright-orange letters she knew so well, Mona Axton Gallery. It was as if the buildings on this block had been picked up and shuffled around. She had absolutely no idea where she was.

The gallery was not there. Gretchen stood where she knew it should have been and, almost in one last desperate attempt to find it, looked up at the sky. Blue, and empty. She was standing in front of a door printed with the words GREEN CLEAN. Below that, a faded sign was taped to the glass. It said, Grand Opening! Eco-Friendly Dry Cleaning.

She stepped closer to the door, put her hands to her face, and peered inside. There was a woman shoving what appeared to be wadded-up shirts into a cloth bag. She kept glancing at Gretchen blankly, and then back down at her work.

Gretchen looked into the woman’s face. She had dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail. She was skinny—smoker skinny, caffeine skinny, wearing a black dress that clung to her skeleton.

It was the dress Gretchen’s mother had been wearing only moments ago on the street. And in front of the woman was a red purse, lying on the counter.

Gretchen turned and ran. And ran. And ran. Dodging the pedestrians and the little dogs and trash cans and cabs.

Later, in her bedroom with the door closed, sitting at her desk, she looked at the proof she collected that day.

She opened iPhoto, double-clicked, and an image began to slowly spread itself across her laptop screen in all of its digital brilliance, and when it was finally complete Gretchen saw in the arrangements of those pixels . . . a complete stranger crossing the street. Carrying a red purse. Holding a package. Wearing a black jersey dress. Glaring in Gretchen’s direction—that angry expression having been what Gretchen had mistaken for her mother’s smile. A stranger.

It was the pain of this that stopped Gretchen’s curiosity about where Mona might be. Whether she was wandering the city or wandering the afterlife, Mona had no plans to come back to her, even in pictures. If she was alive it seemed that she didn’t want to be found, and if she was dead she was dead. Dead people don’t walk the streets or go to work or kiss their husbands good-bye on the subway platform. They do not tuck you in bed anymore, or take you out to brunch, or show you secret pictures from their fabulous pasts.

Her mother had been playing her whole life at communing with the spirit world. It had been an aesthetic fascination. But Gretchen was left behind to contend with the reality of her absence. With the reality of her nonexistence. Every day. From now on.

Mona was gone. And she needed to accept it. Her camera had provided all the proof she needed. After that she stopped looking for signs.



MONA AXTON GALLERY

455 W. 26TH ST.

NEW YORK, NY

AUGUST 18

Dearest Auntie Esther,

My plan is to arrive at the Axton mansion in the last week of September. The gallery will be closed for one week with a new installation being prepared then. I considered bringing Gretchen with me this time, but Bill and I discussed it and have decided that eleven years old is too young to be introduced to these kinds of things. Next year you’ll meet your great-niece, I promise, and this year I’ll bring photos!

Until then I wanted to tell you that I have been doing extensive research on the area you have pinpointed here. I’m not sure if you would be familiar with Google Earth. I know you don’t have internet out there. But with this, one can download satellite views of any area on the earth—close up, or far away. I am sending you a print of the eight square miles above the mansion. I think this will make an excellent tool for us in isolating the triangle that you have speculated so long about.

I only wanted to let you know that I am with you in spirit, and that I, too, am anxiously awaiting our reunion, and the continuation of our search for the answers to these mysteries, and a chance to bring peace to those souls.

Your loving niece,

Mona





EIGHT


THE DARK MIRROR WAS ELEGANT, EXTRAVAGANT. ONCE Gretchen got close she could see that the frame was composed of wood carved into gilt vines and leaves, and also faces—cherubs, demons, little girls. Some of them were smiling happily, some of them weeping. Gretchen stared, awed by its intricacies. But on closer inspection, she could see the mirror was badly damaged. The frame had looked painted black, but really it seemed to have been charred in a fire. When she looked into the glass, the reflection that stared back seemed to have a double. Her own image haloed in another image of a girl. Or like there was a face behind her face. There were clear patches in the glass that weren’t reflective at all. It reminded her of looking into water—not looking at something solid, but looking at things submerged in water. For one irrational second she thought it was not a mirror but like a pond teeming with life that couldn’t be seen until it surfaced.