The Museum of Extraordinary Things(104)
A sheet of fire passed over them. It was only seconds, but they could feel the burst of heat as the world turned bright and red. If the air they breathed through the tube hadn’t been cooled by murky water, surely they would have burned their lungs. As it was, they huddled together while the water turned black until the roar of the fire moved farther away. Chunks of plaster fell from the charred wooden beams, walls caved in, windows stood alone in empty space. When Eddie climbed from the tank, the half-drowned pit bull under his arm, he found himself standing in a boiling soup, a mixture of spiders and crystals and shards of glass. Luckily he and Coralie had not had time to remove their shoes.
They found the wolf, shot, sprawled out in the blackened grass. They buried him beneath the pear tree, for it was the one thing in the garden to survive the blaze. Though the earth was hot with cinders, Eddie took a shovel from beside the trash heap. He dug until his hands were burning, and each breath burned as well, until Coralie stopped him, assuring him the grave was deep enough. Eddie set the wolf into the earth, knowing he was not made for the streets men built or for the cities they constructed. The hermit had been correct in his assessment. A city as great as New York grew without regard to men and beasts, and where it resided, certain creatures were no longer welcome. As they left, Coralie spied the tortoise. It had crawled under the porch to dig into the cooler earth, where green weeds were matted down. That was where they left the ancient beast, to enjoy its freedom.
On Surf Avenue people were sitting on the stoops of burned-out buildings and weeping. There were children who had seen wild animals on the rooftops, and women who had lost their husbands, and families who had been burned out of their homes and owned nothing, not a scrap of cloth or a cooking pot. There was a scrim of black clouds above them and the sidewalks were hot beneath their shoes. Coralie and Eddie had nothing but the soaking wet clothes they wore, which dried later in the day as they navigated through the marshes, for the sun was bright by then. Eddie knew the way. He and the liveryman had followed this very route, and had stopped nearby to view the body of Hannah Weiss, a young girl who had been robbed of her life.
Nothing was fair in this beautiful world. There were blackbirds settled on stalks of tall plumy grass, and the sky was blue and gold. Mitts walked soberly beside his master. The dog would never be as free-spirited again, and from that time forward he shied away from water, even when they moved outside the city and could see the Hudson from their porch. Eddie, on the other hand, was drawn to water after that night. He drank eight glasses every day, which he had come to believe was a tonic, good for the long life Hochman had promised he’d have. Each time he embraced the woman he loved, he thought of water, for he knew she longed for it, and, because of this, she had saved his life.
At night, when the window was open and his arms were around Coralie, he often dreamed he was fishing. As he slept he prayed that no one would wake him, for it was in dreams that a man found his truest desires. At last he came upon the trout he had been searching for, a slice of living light, darting through the shallows. He walked into the water after it, unafraid, still wearing his shoes, his black coat flowing out around him. It was there he found his father, waiting for him on the shoreline, as if they’d never been apart.
THE WORLD BEGINS AGAIN
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Dear Maureen,
I hope that you are finding Richmond, Virginia, a pleasant place to be. I was delighted to hear that Mr. Morris inherited all that his family owned, and I was so happy to receive the photograph of you standing beside him in your wedding dress outside the house where he grew up. With all its flourishes and the many balconies surrounded by white wrought iron, the house reminded me of a wedding cake.
I myself am married now, and happily so. Our service was small and I did not understand many of the customs, but I understood my husband’s love for me, and mine for him. For us, that is enough. Sometimes I dream I am back in the museum and there are flames and I can hear the tortoise crying, but I know it’s only a dream. I know a tortoise doesn’t have the capacity to weep, or so the scientists say. But I am less of a believer in what people say these days. I want to see the proof. Now I judge the world through my own eyes.
There are still rumors about a creature in the Hudson. They say it was caught, and for a little while it was kept in a tank in Brooklyn, before that world ended in fire. While the fires burned, the creature dragged itself over the low dunes, searching for water. But others say that water was not the element it needed, and that it was searching for love, for love changes everything, and forces us into lives we never imagined we might lead.
In the village where we now reside, in a valley beside the Hudson, there are rumors as well. People whisper about a woman who swims in the deepest channels, one who can hold her breath for so long she seems to disappear. Where we are, the river runs silver and it is wider than I would have ever imagined. It seems to go on forever; the current travels only one way, to the south and the harbor of New York City. When darkness falls, and the sky sifts down into the river, the woman who swims in its depths holds on to the side of a canoe that drifts toward her. She pulls herself into the boat, where a tall man is waiting in the fading light, for he is an expert in matters of light and darkness, a master of seeing through shadows. He spies her every time, even when the sky is murky and she is invisible to all other men’s eyes. The water here in the north Hudson is so cold that it’s common knowledge no human can withstand it, only creatures of the deep, miraculous things that cannot be categorized or kept under glass.