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One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted…

Ourself, behind ourself, concealed—should startle most

—Emily Dickinson, “One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted”

But I alhosts… It is not only e have inherited from our father and mother that “walks” in us It is all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs, and so forth They have no vitality, but they cling to us all the same, and we cannot shake theliding between the lines There hosts all the country over, as thick as the sands of the sea And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light

—Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts

The question, O ood amid these, O me, O life?

Answer

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse

—Walt Whitman, “Oh Me! Oh Life!”

IT BEGINS

Somewhere in America

On the last day that the town of Beckettsville would ever know, the weather was so fine you could see all the way to the soft blue skin of the horizon The land in this part of the country was beautiful Tall wheat tickled the spring air FatMain Street boasting a post office, a hardware store, a filling station with two gasoline purocery, a pharmacy, a small hotel with a downstairs cafe that served war red-white-and-blue pole thrilled the children, a daily ic trick

A round clock mounted to the front of City Hall’s doe of time, which, in Beckettsville, seemed to move slower than in other places The people worked hard and tried to be good neighbors They sang in church choirs and attended Rotary and Elks Club hts Held picnics near the bandstand under the July sun Canned su winter Got excited by the arrival of a new Philco radio, electric icebox, or autoress unloaded fro, sweaty men The people lived in neat rows of neat houses with indoor pluhts, attended one of the town’s four churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregationalist), sent their dead to the Perkins & Son Funeral Parlor over on Poplar Street for e, and buried those sae of town, far from the bustle of Main Street

As the clock counted down to the horrors awaiting Beckettsville, population four hundred five souls, Pastor Jacobs stepped out of First Methodist Church thinking of that apple pie over at the Blue Moon Cafe—so delicious the way Enola Gaylord served it, with a dollop of creaet to enjoy Beckettsville’s favorite pie today or any day thereafter The pastor nodded and said “Afternoon” to sweet Charlie Banks, wh

o swept the sidewalk free of spring blossoms in front of McNeill’s Hardware Charlie mooned over the approach of pretty schoolteacher Cora Nettles As Cora hts occupied by a silly but ument she’d had with her mother over the new pink hat Cora noore—itof a serious wo that tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, he would finally sue to ask her to the picture show over in Fairview and that she ht anseetly, Why, Charlie Banks, I would love to! so that the world of his heart, which Charlie held so tightly in his fist, would open into the bright, fresh bloo-desired future

Down that sae ten and with his mind firmly fixed on baseball, tossed the day’s Beckettsville Gazette over picket fences from a satchel stretched around his neck as if he were Waite Hoyt He could hear the i inside his head as he narrowlydolls under the leafy canopy of a sycaue out at the back of Mikey’s head but quickly aht of the Widow Winters, who had just come onto her front porch Ida did not care to be pulled into a long conversation about boring things from the past—cotillions, which were dances, apparently, and Tihborly It was never worth the butterscotch candies the old lady offered from the pocket of her apron, and so Ida kept well hidden From her perch on the porch, Mrs Euline Winters soothed herself with the gentle seesawing creak of her rocking chair and a lapful of knitting yarn as she watched the citizenry going about their busy business in the noonday sun (What a glorious afternoon it is! So warrant!) Her crepe myrtle had blossomed, and the flowers, planted in happier tione these eight years, and did those people out there, her neighbors, kno lonely she was, sitting alone at her supper table each night, listening to the randfather clock, with no one to ask, And hoas your day, my dear?

There were other citizens out and about on this beautiful day A athered around the butcher’s counter, giving the day’s order while scolding their unruly children The town crank, who complained under his breath about the unruly children and spat his tobacco into the bushes The young people restless to grow up and leave Beckettsville or restless to stay right there and fall in love, so people do

This town held many stories In a few minutes, none of them would matter

For weeks, sohosts had tried to warn the people of Beckettsville Neakened frohosts swept picture frames frohts to flicker until the fragile bulbs exploded with a pop They appeared briefly at s and in hosts ht, but who could hear such alarms over the noise of the radios in every house? The dead of Beckettsville had done what they could, but the people refused to see Anyway, it was much too late now

It was Johnny Barton, age twelve, who noticed first Johnny was upstairs in his bedroo to his model planes, far from the other boys at school who bullied hi,” his mother would say, as if that was supposed to be a comfort “Hit ’em back Be a man,” his father would say, which onlythings in general, things that suggested you could soar up and away anyti his balsa-wood flier past the hen he took note of the curious dark clouds gathering now along that pro horizon Plenty of stor different These clouds pulled together like filings drawn to asliced through that thickening dark, as if so to birth itself

Still gripping his plane, Johnny Barton raced down the stairs He pushed through the white picket gate of his parents’ foursquare and out into the street, not caring about the Model T that beeped its horn angrily as it swerved around him “Watch out!” the driver, Mr Tilsen, barked But that’s what Johnny was doing, watching out Every night, he read with relish stories of the Great War He’d read that, on the battlefields of Flanders and the Somme, fat clouds of smoke and dust announced the arrival of the Gere for army

Others were co in out of nowhere Wind whipped the leaves of thehat clean off her head and sent it rolling down the street, where Charlie picked it up, happy to touch soed to her at last Reluctantly, he handed it back, his fingers grazing hers for one charged moment Then he, too, turned his head in the direction of those foreboding clouds

Cora snugged on her cloche and held it in place with the palm of her hand “Mercy! I hope it’s not a twister!”

“Never seen a twister look that way,” Charlie answered, his mind more on Cora than the storm