Quiet Haunts and Other Stories Read online

Quiet Haunts and Other Stories

  By Kristopher Reisz

  Copyright 2010 Kristopher Reisz

  Art by Constance Brewer and used with permission

  Table of Contents

  Quiet Haunts

  A Razor in an Apple

  The Children are Our Future

  The Moon and Stars Follow Their Courses

  Unleashed excerpt

  About the author and artist

  Quiet Haunts

  Grampa Louvin’s house was like him. Both were weather-beaten and full of creaks. Fading memories–snapshots and brittle sheet music–hid in cupboards and behind the couch.

  Spencer had only met Grampa Louvin twice before that summer. But in May, Spencer’s mom had sat on his bed. She told him they and Jeff, Spencer’s older brother, were flying down to stay with Grampa Louvin for awhile. She talked about the French Quarter, the Audubon Zoo, and everything else to see in New Orleans. Then, with her voice starting to shake, she’d explained that Grampa Louvin was sick and wouldn’t get better.

  Spencer knew more than that. He didn’t spy, exactly, but if he was quiet, keeping his face hidden behind a book, adults forgot about him. They’d start talking between themselves and say things they wouldn’t have said straight to Spencer.

  Years of drinking had scarred Grampa Louvin’s liver. It couldn’t clean toxins out of his body anymore. He was so full of poisons, they’d turned his eyes yellow. Spencer also knew Grampa Louvin had gone to City Park in April, even though it took him grim effort to get across the kitchen. He’d collapsed in the park, and a jogger called 911. Grampa Louvin spent two days in the hospital, but wouldn’t tell anybody why he’d gone to the park in the first place. That’s when Spencer’s mom decided to go look after him.

  So far, Spencer’s mom had spent the summer talking to the Medicare people, running to the doctor’s office and pharmacy and grocery store. She’d been too busy to visit the zoo or any of the other places she’d talked about. Finally, she’d snapped at Spencer to stop asking when they could go.

  Their second day in New Orleans, Jeff had made friends with some kids playing basketball. Now, he hung out with them most of the time, especially a girl named Sarah. And Mom was always off rushing somewhere, leaving Spencer alone in the old house with Grampa Louvin, his eyes full of poison.

  Grampa watched a lot of TV–court shows, game shows, whatever was on during the day. If Spencer walked into the living room, he’d smile a fluttering smile around false teeth and say, “Hey there, Spencer.” Spencer would nod and say hey back. Then, unable to think of anything to talk about, he’d leave Grampa on the couch and go read, or kick pine cones around the the alley behind the house, or poke through those cardboard boxes full of memories.

  Grampa had been a musician. From the dust and dead moths, Spencer pulled out snapshots of him and his friends goofing around on-stage and on tour busses. Women puffed cigarettes and sipped beer from cans, their eyes half-closed like hunting tigers.

  One day, Spencer found an old copy Billboard Magazine. Grampa stared out from an ad in the back, his hair gleaming black with some kind of oil. His guitar was decorated with rhinestones, and a little beaded charm dangled from the strap. Usually, Spencer couldn’t connect that grinning photograph with the man who shuffled through the present, watching Everybody Loves Raymond and waiting to die. But sometimes, if Spencer woke up super early, he’d hear Grampa playing his guitar on the porch. Grampa played mostly sad songs. One morning, though, the tune was as bright and steady as the dawn. Listening to that music, nobody could feel lonely. And Spencer, who’d felt plenty of loneliness in New Orleans, slipped out of bed, got dressed, and followed the music through the dark house.

  Spencer wasn’t the only one drawn to the music. Stray cats crept up the steps, jumped onto the railing, and gathered around Grampa. Some of them twitch their tails in time to the music.

  After Grampa had finished, the final notes fluttering out into the city, Spencer said, “That was really good.”

  Grampa nodded, “Appreciate it,” and sipped his coffee.

  The cats slipped off to hunt for breakfast. Grampa stared out at the street and toyed with the charm hanging from his guitar strap. It was an ancient wood knot, worn shiny from years of handling, dangling from a beaded string. Spencer recognized it from the magazine ad. After a minute, he said, “Gonna be a hot one today.”

  “Yeah.” Spencer fidgeted. He didn’t know if he should say something else or if Grampa wanted to be left alone.

  Then, Grampa sighed. “I’m dying, Spencer.”

  Spencer stiffened. He already knew, but nobody had said it so plain before. He managed to nod, mumbling, “Yeah.”

  “Not as scary as people think. Wish I’d done some things different. Wish I’d been around when your mom was little. But hell, I couldn’t make up for that if I lived another hundred years.”

  While Spencer’s grandmother had been raising Mom, Grampa Louvin had been making music and raising Cain across the country. Mom didn’t meet him until she was in college, and the distance between them had never closed completely. It’s why Spencer had only met Grampa Louvin a couple times. It was also another thing grown-ups didn’t think he should know, that Spencer had only stitched together from scraps of overheard conversation.

  “Another rotten thing I did was steal this. Long ago.” Grampa’s knobby, winter-twig fingers untied the charm and handed it to Spencer.

  “You stole an oak knot?”

  “Look at it, Spencer.”

  Spencer looked again. He stared into the knot’s age-grimed whorls until he could see a head and beak hidden there. A pressed-down wing. “It’s a bird,” he gasped.

  “That’s right,” Grampa smiled. “I hoped you could return it for me.”

  “To . . . To who?”

  “To a Houma Indian named Water-Moving-Under-Ice. See, the Houma used to be part of a bigger nation called the Choctaw out in Mississippi, and Water-Moving was a pretty girl meant to marry the chief. She fell in love with the chief’s brother, though. I guess he fell in love with her too, because one night they ran off together, along with a dozen or so other families, to start their own tribe.”

  “When?” Spencer asked, his eyebrows scrunching together.

  “Oh, long ago, hundreds of years ago.”

  “But then how did you steal–?”

  “Just listen. Water-Moving and her people had to leave everything they knew. They spent years wandering, getting run off one place then another by bigger tribes. Finally, they settled on the Bayou St. John. New Orleans didn’t reach that far north yet. And no other tribe wanted the swamp because it was full of haunts and sickness.

  “They did okay for awhile, but New Orleans kept growing. Settlers flooded in until the city sprawled from the Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain. Eventually there was a run-in between the Houma and the whites, and Water-Moving’s husband was killed.

  “After that, the Houma had to move again, try their luck further south. But Moving-Water–she was hardly a girl anymore–couldn’t bear moving again. So when her people left, she stayed. She knelt by her husband’s grave and just didn’t move. Moss grew on her. Roots and branches grew out of her skin, and she still didn’t move. Finally, Water-Moving turned into an oak tree. The birds–they’d always loved her and were sad when her husband died–sent their sweetest singers to perch in her branches to attend to her.

  “When I was your age, a Houma Indian worked with my daddy. I always liked listening to his stories, especially that one, because I loved fishing on the Bayou St. John. That was the last little piece of real wilderness left, of Water-Moving’s world left. The last place that kept its secrets.
Now, they’ve made it part of City Park. It’s all golf courses, now.”

  At the mention of City Park, Spencer stiffened but said nothing. Grampa Louvin moved his hot coffee mug from one hand to the other, warming his fingers.

  “One day, I was deep, deep back there, looking for a good catfish spot. It was almost winter and getting cold. And I always walked through the water since haunts can’t follow you across flowing water. But I was a lot tougher back then. I didn’t mind the cold or the haunts because I liked how quiet it was out there. Then I came up on a big oak tree full of birds singing the prettiest songs I’d ever heard.”

  “It was . . . Water-Moving?”

  Grampa Louvin nodded. “I hid behind some brush and listened to the birds. For a long, long time, I just listened. Then I decided to try and catch one. Didn’t know what I was going to do with it, put it in a cage and give it to my momma, maybe. I just couldn’t leave without one. So I climbed up Water-Moving’s trunk slow as molasses, slow as anything. Most of the birds saw me and flew up to higher branches, but one little sparrow didn’t know any better. He sat there singing his heart out. And while he was singing, I grabbed him.

  “Well, as soon as I snatched her sparrow, Water-Moving tried to snatch me. All her branches reached down and up and across for me.” Spreading his fingers, Grampa made a slow grab for one of the cats lingering on the porch. The scrawny, scabbed thing bolted for the tall grass.

  “Somehow, I made it to the ground without breaking my neck. I ran all the way home, holding that sparrow tight. When I got home, I’d squeezed that bird so hard, I’d squeezed it down into that charm. And while I held it, I wanted to sing. Hell, I couldn’t not sing and make music. And I could make music as pretty as that sparrow. No one ever taught me. I just knew. Just like a bird knows.”

  “That’s why you went to the park in spring? To give it back?”

  Grampa nodded. “That and apologize. I went looking for Water-Moving, but the place has changed so much since then. The heat got to me and well . . .” His voice drifted off. “Listen, Spencer, will you return it for me?”

  “Huh? I can’t. I mean . . .” Listening to the strange story was one thing; getting pulled into it was another. His skin felt stretched too tight across his bones and every nerve bristled. It was the feeling of being little and getting lost at the grocery store, of feeling sick at school and wanting to go home. Spencer tried to give the charm back, saying, “You should probably ask Mom to do it.” His tongue felt dry and stuck to his teeth.

  Grampa shook his head. “Your mom can’t find the quiet haunts like Water-Moving. But you’re one of those people that’s good at listening, at picking up on things most people can’t. Spencer, please. I can’t die with someone like Water-Moving mad at me.”

  Spencer couldn’t make himself say no even though he wanted to. When he nodded, slowly, Grampa sighed with relief, closing his dark-veined eyelids for a moment. Then, giving Spencer two folded dollars for bus fare, he told him which bus would take him to City Park.

  “But how do I find Water-Moving?” Spencer asked.

  “Just keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. You’ll find her, I’m sure.”

  Stuffing the money and sparrow into his pocket, Spencer slipped through the purple veil of morning. He walked briskly, heading for the bus stop three blocks down, hoping he could get to the park and get back before Mom woke up.

  Spencer had never ridden a bus before. Even when it was stopped, it wasn’t still. The seats and rubber floor trembled like an animal breathing. He watched the streets pass, first rows of clapboard houses like Grampa Louvin’s, painted cotton candy blues, pinks, and yellows, then brick buildings wreathed in curled iron fences and window grates.

  The lumbering bus threaded up narrow streets built for horse-drawn carriages. Spencer took the oak knot out of his pocket again. The longer he stared, the more details he saw–delicately veined feathers, a closed eye–a sparrow trapped within the wood, waiting to be freed.

  The bus hissed to a stop across from City Park. It wasn’t like a suburban park like Spencer had assumed, with some playground equipment and a few baseball diamonds. Miles of grass and water, a pale mist of daises, stretched over low hills. Giant spiders and men of pitted iron hung out in a sculpture garden. The Bayou St. John flickered the browns and yellows of beetles wings as it crept toward Lake Pontchartrain.

  Families and couples passed Spencer, heading into the granite-columned art museum or carrying fishing poles toward the bayou. Spencer scanned the trees. The cypresses and pines rose straight as soldiers. But the oaks were bent like old men. Branches clawed for the sky and for the people walking along pea gravel paths.

  Spencer stepped up to one of the oaks. A squirrel scrambled up into its maze of branches and green shadow. Making sure no one could hear him, Spencer mumbled, “Hello? Water-Moving?”

  Dogs yapped, people laughed, and fishing lines whizzed out over the water. The tree made no sign it was listening.

  “My grampa took something of yours years ago. I want to give it back.”

  A cell phone rang, a jogger rushed by, panting hard, but the tree stayed silent.

  Spencer started walking again. He whispered to the next oak, then the next, but there were hundreds. They shaded the paths and stood on distant slopes. Gazing at them all, shielding his eyes with his hand, Spencer realized how huge his errand was.

  By noon the heat had grown cruel, biting the back of Spencer’s neck and his shoulders. Gnats buzzed around his face no matter how much he swatted at them. Grampa said he could find the quiet haunts if he listened, but Spencer didn’t know what he was supposed to be listening for. He strained his ear toward each oak tree he passed, praying for something to set one apart from the others. Worry kept him distracted, though. His mom had to be awake by now. She’d be furious that he’d gone across town by himself.

  Spencer stopped at a drinking fountain near the soccer field. The water tasted like metal, but he didn’t care. A faded map of the park hung on the concession stand wall. Spencer had barely crossed a quarter of the park.

  Slumping down against the wall, he pulled his knees up, dropping his sweaty face onto his arms. Grampa Louvin shouldn’t have asked him to do something so important. Spencer couldn’t find Water-Moving, and now he was in trouble. His mom might even send him home because of this. Grampa was dying, and Spencer would never see him again.

  “Spence . . . er!”

  Spencer’s head jerked up. It was his mom. Looking between the bleacher seats, he saw the car creeping up the road. His mom stared around and shouted through the open window. “Spence . . . er!”

  He started toward the car, feeling queasy at how mad she’d be. Grampa sat in the passenger seat. Why had he told Mom where Spencer was? He’d been desperate to clear the theft from his soul; why hadn’t he just kept quiet until Spencer came home? But no, he was already eaten with guilt about going missing while Spencer’s mom had been a kid. He couldn’t let her think her own child was missing now.

  Spencer wondered if he’d told her everything, about Moving-Water and the stolen sparrow. But Grampa hadn’t explained why he’d gone out to the park himself, even after they took him to the hospital, even after everybody thought he was a fool and couldn’t take care of himself. That made Spencer stop. Grampa had kept his secret for decades until he’d told Spencer that morning because most people wouldn’t have believed him. They couldn’t find the quiet haunts.

  He and Grampa Louvin were a lot alike. They kept apart from the world’s rush and roar. When you did that, you heard its whispered secrets. Spencer looked at Grampa and, for the first time, didn’t see a stranger.

  “Spence . . . er!”

  Spencer touched the charm in his pocket. He couldn’t get in any more trouble than he was already in. Turning, he dashed into the thick underbrush, dusk-dark even in the afternoon. He didn’t have much time. His mom would talk to the park police if she hadn’t already, and they’d find him soon.
If she sent him back home, nobody would be left who could help Grampa.

  Spencer skirted the edges of golf course fairways, pushing and tugging his way through tangled scrub. The oaks wore clingy gowns of Spanish moss. Catkins and acorns dangled like jewelry. Spencer trusted that, if he listened close, he would find Moving-Water, just like Grampa had decades earlier.

  The sun peered through the leaves overhead, diamond-bright spots of light sprinkling the wild flowers around him. More than once, the glittering shadows dimmed, like something large and silent had walked up behind him. Spencer would whirl around but never saw anything. Just in case, he’d cross the bayou’s tea-colored water, because haunts couldn’t follow you across moving water.

  He mucked across a lagoon, duckweed clinging to his calves, when he heard a bird singing on the other side. It was the same happy tune Grampa had played that morning, a tune that could make anyone feel less lonely.

  There by the water, she’d grown ancient watching over her husband. Branches sprouted from her bowed spine. Birds fluttered through her leaves. Kneeling near the bank, Water-Moving-Under-Ice stretched one pollen-painted hand over the lagoon’s murky surface. If she still had a face, it was hidden by Spanish moss and yellow blossoms. Grampa had been right; the birds keeping Water-Moving company were the most beautiful singers Spencer ever heard.

  As Spencer approached, the birds stopped singing. The only sounds were the drilling buzz of insects and distant, muffled voices beyond the wild underbrush. Pulling the charm from his pocket, Spencer held it out. “Water-Moving-Under-Ice? My grampa stole this from you a long time ago.”

  The great tree didn’t move.

  “He’s sorry. And he sent me to give it back.” Spencer started to worry this was just another tree, but he raised the charm higher, yelling, “Please. All he wants–”

  A high branch dipped from the cloudless sky. Sap-sticky wood groaned. Acorns rained down around Spencer. It took all of his courage to stand still as the wide-lobed leaves came down and surrounded him.

  A twig hooked the charm’s waxed string and lifted it up. Spencer lost sight of it among the Water-Moving’s rustling body. Then a single sparrow called out. After a few notes, all of Water-Moving’s retinue joined in. The beaded string that had held the sparrow fell to the mud.

  Spencer picked it up and craned his head back again. “Grampa’s really sorry. Okay?”

  Water-Moving ignored him.

  “He tried to come himself, but he’s sick. He’s dying,” Spencer hadn’t spoken the words out loud before. It took effort to to form them in his mouth. “He just doesn’t want you to be mad at him anymore.”

  The top of the tree made a slight bow. Maybe it was just the wind, but Spencer decided to take it as his answer.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, and stood there for another minute, letting the birds’ bright song fill his chest. Then he began picking his way back through the brush. Thin scratches covered his arms and cheeks. Mud caked his sneakers. When he emerged back near the golf course, a stout woman in a brown uniform came loping up the path.

  “Spencer? Are you Spencer?” the policewoman asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Your momma’s been looking for you. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Spencer got to ride on her ATV to the tiny police station near the tennis courts. His mom hugged him, then demanded, “What were you thinking? I told you not to leave the yard without telling me.”

  Grampa Louvin stood up from one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. “Don’t blame him, Janey. I was the one who told him he needed some fresh air.”

  Spencer’s mom was mad, but she wasn’t going to shout in a police station. On the way to the car, she walked with quick, angry strides, not noticing Grampa shuffling behind and unable to keep up. Walking beside him, Spencer pressed the loop of string into Grampa’s palm. Grampa felt it was empty, squeezed Spencer’s hand, and they said nothing.

  Grampa took all the blame for Spencer’s adventure, never trying to explain what he’d really asked Spencer to do. Mom and Jeff both would think he’d gone insane. Mom yelled at Spencer for an hour, but he wasn’t sent home. Instead, he spent the mornings sitting on the porch with the ragged cats, listening to Grampa play. He was never as good without his magic charm, but still, he was ok.

  One evening after supper, Grampa asked Spencer’s mom to call an ambulance. The next day, a slumping puppet dangling from plastic tubes and EKG wires, he slipped away.

  Spencer’s dad flew down. They got to work gathering the stray pieces of Grampa’s life. The library at LSU wanted all of his old photos for their archives. That made Spencer’s mom a little happier, that somebody would remember her dad.

  With Grampa gone, the dusty boxes of memories cleared out, there wasn’t anything left in the old house except sadness. Spencer grew sullen. He spent a lot of time imagining how many other wonders like Water-Moving Grampa might have shown him if they’d had more time. But chewing on his lip, Spencer told himself the wonders were still out there. Generation after generation of human voices faded to silence, but the quiet haunts endured.

  In New Orleans, musicians formed a second line that follow funeral processions, walking behind the mourners in black clothes and eyes red from crying. Spencer and his family scattered Grampa Louvin’s ashes in the Mississippi River. As they floated toward sunset, just as the days of mourning felt too heavy to bear any more, his old friends raised a wild, bounding song. Trumpets and French horns frightened off heartbreak and sweep them back into the loud, laughing world of the living.