It’s just a bridge, Trevor told himself, frozen and pallid, gazing upon the Stonekeep Bridge. Over his twenty-six years, he’d crossed it more times than could be counted, but that night something was wrong. The rapids were quicker, the forest line further back, a luminous halo of light shone above Midtown, and, most peculiar, what had yesterday been cobblestone and mortar was now asphalt and steel. High arches, painted lanes, and electric street lights. Trevor suddenly realized he couldn’t even remember how he’d come to this spot. You’re stalling, he thought. It’s just a bridge.
He took a small step, and in response, a set of goliath serpentine eyes opened within the shadows of the forest. He screamed and fell hard on his backside. A frigid shiver. Was that real? The outline of the creature’s face remained another moment, but he blinked and the shape dissolved among softly swaying pines. His hands trembled on the flat concrete. Are my clothes wet? he wondered. But he didn’t feel the winter chill. Your mind is playing tricks. This is the most important day of your life. Of course, you’re scared.
Trevor fished through his pocket for the token of courage and found it in the form of a ring. Its diamond wasn’t the largest, nor was the gold the highest carat, but Mary—regardless of family worth—wasn’t a woman of material. She’d love it… love it… He swallowed the fact that he had a habit of thinking mistruths twice and stood, straightened his pine-green jacket, adjusted his top hat, and—
“You look like death.”
Trevor gasped. He hadn’t even seen the man, a gray silhouette between two lights, dripping from his long hair and overcoat. A blue-lipped grin curled. Skin pale to the point of shining.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you,” the man said, in a voice like white fog.
“Sorry,” Trevor said, his heart hammering away. “I didn’t see you.”
“I could say the same about you.”
Untrustables were flowing out of Manhattan at an unprecedented rate nowadays. It was towns like Stonekeep that suffered.
The man said, “I just came to watch.”
“… The river’s something,” Trevor said, wringing his hands.
“No, Old Man, you. Crossing every night for heartache, armed with a chivalrous heart and discount ring.”
Iron weighed in his stomach. Old man? And how did he know what he was doing?
“Who are you?” Trevor asked.
“Oh, this is my favorite part,” he said, emptying a bucket’s worth of water from his hat. “How about the truth this time. I’m the one who caught your fall.”
Crazy indeed.
“Not crazy,” the man said. “And not a man.”
He should’ve brought a cane.
“Don’t worry, I won’t stop you,” the man said, casting a handful of small white pebbles from his pocket into the river. Caught in a ray of moonlight, Trevor noticed they were teeth. “Maybe your luck will change this time.”
In the crashing currents below, Trevor saw ghoulish hands grasping for freedom, contorted faces fighting for a moment’s air, all pulling at those above like lobsters in a pot, calling him home.
Maybe it would be best to do this tomorrow. What difference could one day make? But in gazing at the unrecognizable town behind, he found himself just as terrified. Then it struck him: what if Mary needs me? With all these changes, what if she was just as frightened? He couldn’t understand the changes, but he didn’t need to in order to be there for her.
To hell with fear, he said to himself. If he tries something, I’m no pushover. And why run from shadows? Poor impressions of reality. Afraid of the light. Trevor secured himself, white-knuckled, to the railing and walked.
Inch by inch, Trevor pulled himself onward while the man shook his head. Near halfway, Trevor noticed something down the forest’s road, two powerful yellow rings of light.
“Bad timing,” the man said.
All at once, Trevor’s fears solidified within those two devilish beams, closing in faster than any steam engine or mustang, large and blinding as the sun, unholy eyes, a hand to steal him from the earth. God! Not yet! He yanked and heaved, but his hand wouldn’t release the railing.
“Save yourself some trouble and jump,” the man said.
Through strangling panic, he screamed, and Hrrooom! A strange car ripped past, an impossible construction of chrome, crossing the entirety of the bridge within one thundering second. In that deathly moment, he saw from the corner of his eye the two in front: a dirty, half-dressed couple smoking—by the smell—hemp and blaring some terrible music.
What the hell was that? he asked himself. So far, Mary’s father was the only one in town who’d afforded a Model-T, and given how little Mr. Hill talked to him, he hadn’t learned much about automobiles. But he did know that thing was no Model-T. More a Jules Verne fabrication.
Wait, where did the man go? Left, right, nowhere. Temples pounding, Trevor looked at his trembling hands. What’s happening to me? More than ever, he had to get to her. Please, be the same.
The stranger’s misty voice echoed from below the bridge. “Don’t bother.”
With quickened steps and burning breaths, Trevor sprinted over the second half of the bridge. Upon reaching solid ground, he collapsed. Above him, a starless sky and a silver-rind moon. He set his sight on the forest. A hiss carried through the trees. But there was more to worry about than his imagination. A small shuffling in the gutter, a black beetle fighting against the weight of a dung ball at least five times its size. Keep pushing, you ugly son of a bitch. What does a beetle even do with dung?
On the frost-coated riverbank, drowned hands clawed for air. “Dead souls should rest,” the man’s voice rang.
Stop it, he thought. I’m not dead… I’m not. He gazed into the heart of fear within the forest and stepped onward.
“Don’t make the journey if you can’t take the fall,” the man sang.
As he marched down the wooded way, wincing at the sudden cracks and sweeping winds, Trevor was shocked to find how far this new road went. Nothing made sense, not the aged asphalt, the reflective signs, the luminous homes, nor the trash. Plastic packages, foam cups, broken furniture, and tattered clothing, all from another world. A haunting exhale shook the branches. Skin in pins, he froze under watchful eyes. Within the darkness, perched on the branches, spread across the forest floor, and blocking his escape on the road, stared an army of textureless shadows. Rabbits, owls, deer, bear, foxes, and wolves. No reflective twinkle in the eye. What’s happening out here? The drag of his tongue against the roof of his mouth was like sand over gravel. He stared in horror at the legion of midnight creatures… maybe if he waited long enough—
A rush of fluttering wings, cracking branches, and tossing leaves. Trevor turned in panicked and screaming flight. Leaping and soaring side by side, the surrounding shadows washed into a surging wave. God, what are you doing to me? he wondered. His hat flew back and disappeared into the swell. What if these things had gotten to Mary? What if he was running toward a tomb? He slid to a stop. Down the road, pinning him in, was a slithering constrictor thirty feet tall, the devourer of worlds. Death from all sides. His only thought: I should have stayed home.
The serpent’s mouth opened wide as it closed in, fangs like spears, a starless void for a throat. Trevor covered his face and prayed the pain wouldn’t be too bad.
A driving wind knocked him off his feet. That wasn’t so—
“I think you dropped this,” a tender voice said.
Trevor opened his eyes to a despondent maiden with hazel skin and a denim dress. She held his hat in one hand and a lantern in the other. A serenity lay in her presence, but it didn’t make him forget. The creatures? The serpent?
“Where are they?” Trevor asked, panic blending his words into one. “And where did you come from? Did you see them?”
“No.”
“No! How did you not see them?”
“If it means anything, what I saw and what you know have very little to do with each other. Dashing cap, by the way.”
Trevor drew a dizzying breath through his nostrils. “Why are you out here?”
“I like to walk when there’s something on my mind. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“…”
Little as he wanted to trust her, her dejectedness inevitably stirred some empathy. Trevor pushed himself up, dusted his coat, and took the hat. “Thank you.”
“It’s not safe,” she said.
“I make this walk all the time,” he said.
“I mean now. Memories belong in the past.”
He tried not to let anger win out and turned to leave.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Trevor,” she said. “It hurts to see you confused.”
He looked back in askance. “… You know me?”
“For nearly fifty years.”
It felt like his brain was misfiring. “Who are you?”
“You won’t remember.”
His brow furrowed. “How do you know?”
“Would you like some company for the rest of the way?”
“Do you know where I’m going?” Trevor asked, through constricting vocal cords.
“Of course. Tonight’s the night. And don’t worry, Mary’s alright.”
No more holding back. She was involved in all this, holding information that he needed. “I’m a peaceful man, but I don’t like people pressing into my business! Who are you? How do you know me?”
“I only want to help you find peace.”
“Then explain what’s happening! These changes, the creatures, you, the man on the bridge! Is this hell?”
“Ghosts are born of and into regret.”
“Why do people keep insinuating that? I’m here, aren’t I? We’re speaking!”
“We are,” she said somberly.
“… You’re not helping.”
“I like to soften the blow.”
“Then soften away.”
“Very well. The world moved on. It always does.”
The accusation was beginning to turn him rancorous. “I don’t think the world cares enough about any one person to have to ‘move on.’”
“Now you’re getting it. And I’m sorry about Finke. He’s a bit callous.”
“Who?”
“The river.”
Another moment of this conversation and his head would pop. “Thank you for my hat, but I have to be going,” Trevor said, starting off.
“Best of luck!” she said, making no attempt to follow. “Maybe things will be different this time.”
He looked back and noticed her face appeared much more skeletal. Perhaps just the angle of the lantern’s glow. A shudder ran down his spine, but he found fire in the form of a ring and thought of the question that had brought him here—unimportant now—and imagined the moment he’d dreamt of for months. As long as she was okay, he would be too.
Even with preparation, disappointment is always acrid. Mary’s house was similar, two stories of Victorian glory with green gable roofing and pointed towers, but the windows… they burned with an impossible luminance. Two cars similar to that on the bridge sat out front. Luxurious marvels shining in the moonlight, one red, one green. He hated them, not just for their strangeness, but because they represented all that—as a shopkeep—he’d never afford. Maybe Mr. Hill was right; maybe she should marry someone like him, any of those Manhattan buffoons. Enough! You’ve fought your way here; don’t trip over your own laces.
As he started up the porch stairs, Trevor was struck by the mental image of Mary at the canvas, untouched by all this madness, a warm smile upon seeing his unchanged face. Perhaps he could see the new painting today. She said she wanted it to be a surprise, but given she’d started it just after their picnic on her name day, he felt he already knew. She promised it would be his favorite, and it would be. They all were. Voices carried from inside. He reached to knock, but a strong gust pushed the door open.
“Mary?” he asked, nervously peeking inside. “Mrs. Hill? Mr. Hill?”
The walls were filled with new paintings and photographs, shots of strange streets and people. Fashions from the west, perhaps overseas. Too much to take in at once, all blurred. A new shag rug lay over the varnish-stripped floorboards. Luminous bulbs of what had to be electric light illuminated the house. He didn’t know much about the advent, but with this much in one place, it was sure to set the place ablaze.
“Did you hear that?” a woman called from the lounge.
Trevor cleared his throat at the sound of footsteps approaching from the right and, too afraid to embrace, waited for the woman he loved. She turned the corner and stopped, a once-in-a-lifetime beauty. Mary. Though she too seemed… off. The same hazel-green eyes, round cheeks, and button nose. But she was different, slightly older, hair longer. Much longer. Down to the waist and shaggy. Instead of one of her favorite dresses, she wore some casual farmer’s outfit of denim trousers, leather boots, and a short-sleeved undershirt that read ‘Nixon for Prison.’
“Mary?” Trevor asked.
She looked at him there in the doorway, hat clutched to his chest.
“What was it?” an elderly voice called from the lounge.
“Nothing,” Mary said, shaking her head as she passed. “MJ didn’t close the door.”
“Mary, wait,” Trevor said, following her into the lounge. “Something terrible is happening. The world’s changed. And the people out there, the things. I think it’s Revelation.”
Two other women sat waiting on the sofa, Mrs. Hill in the center, eyes glossy with bulging capillaries, webby hair, hunched, and trembling with new signs of shaking palsy. To her left sat a young girl of maybe seven or so years, the spitting image of his near-fiancé.
“MJ,” Mary said. The girl looked up. “Close the damn door behind you.”
The girl shrank, and Mrs. Hill batted her hand. “It’s fine, Em. No one’s out here.”
Em? Since when did she go by Em?
“Exactly, if someone breaks in, who are we going to go to for help?” ‘Em’ asked. “She does this back at our apartment too. Do you want to get murdered?”
Trevor felt himself falling into some bottomless ravine.
Mrs. Hill took MJ’s trembling hand and said, “She just forgot. Right, sweetheart?”
The girl nodded shyly and wrung her fingers.
“See,” the old woman said.
Em shook her head in exasperation and sat as far away as the sofa would permit. Trevor approached the side and ran his fingers over the rim of his hat. With so many questions, he couldn’t contemplate any single one for more than a second.
“Love?” Trevor asked. “Can you see me?”
They huddled around Mrs. Hill, looking over the worn pages of the photo album on her lap. Suddenly, Mrs. Hill looked up and surveyed the room in perturbation.
“Are you sure you closed the door?” Mrs. Hill asked. “It’s cold.”
“Yep,” Em said, sipping from a crème can titled ‘Coors.’
For a moment Mrs. Hill’s gaze stopped on Trevor before she shook her head. In a loud voice, she asked, “Would you like to see some more of your grandfather?”
“She’s seen them all, Mom,” Em said, grinding her eyes with her palms.
“When?” Mrs. Hill asked.
“Every time we visit.”
Mrs. Hill looked to the floor incredulously. The agitation within Em’s expression washed into regret, then near tears.
“Oh, here’s one of Henry and I just before we moved back to Stonekeep,” Mrs. Hill said.
Trevor turned in perplexity. Mr. Hill’s name is William, and Mrs. Hill had always boasted of the fact that he was the only man she ever said yes to. Trevor stepped forward to see the grainy shot of Mrs. Hill and this ‘Henry,’ stoic at her side, arm over her shoulder with a face like iron, watertight and anchored by a thick black mustache. A swaddled baby cried in her arms.
“Why is the city so different?” MJ asked.
“New York’s changed a lot. Much of it because of your grandfather,” Mrs. Hill said.
“You were ugly, Mommy,” MJ said.
Mommy?
“I know,” Em said, with a long sip.
“Oh hush, she was gorgeous.” Mrs. Hill said, squeezing Mary’s hand. “The camera just couldn’t capture it.”
Like a pressurized pipe too long neglected, Trevor’s anger welled beyond containment. He stormed forward and stood as tall as possible. “Mary!” he said, “Who is this girl?” His temples pounded towards delirium. “Stop ignoring me!”
They continued to the next page.
The sting at the back of his throat proved there was no stopping the tears. “Mary… please. Look at me.”
She examined the gunk under her nails.
All at once, his heart weighed more than his legs could bear. He dropped, teeth grinding, and throat sealed.
“What was this guy’s name again?” MJ asked, pointing to another.
Mrs. Hill sighed, alien tenderness in her gaze. She caressed the photo. “Trevor Chapman.”
His heart skipped a beat. In bereft disbelief, he looked at the old woman, crawled forward, and looked over the top of the album. Mary’s name day, a month ago, just before their picnic in the valley.
In the photo, both Trevor and Mary stood smiling in the Stonekeep town square, small shops and cobblestone roads frozen gray—alongside an ocean of colored photos that left his mind in near epileptic dissonance. Trevor stood tall, smiling, wearing the same jacket he had now. Mary leaned against his shoulder, glowing in her favorite violet dress and bonnet. The cramp in his throat released his voice momentarily. To the old woman, he whispered, “Mary?”
Mary—his Mary—swallowed dryly, her eyes lost in the portal through time. “He was a good man.”
“Did Grandpa like him?” MJ asked.
Mary grinned, wiped her eyes, and laughed. “Henry never met Trevor. But no, he didn’t.”
MJ scratched her butt and defiantly crossed her arms. “Me neither.”
Mary brushed the girl’s hair behind her ears. “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
A sudden explosion of white noise rendered him deaf. Weak and floored, he watched his only love with the family she’d made without him. Deep in those tired eyes, he searched for a hint of the promise that had once been his future. Instead, a pearl of lightning, a flash from the subconscious. He dove with a scream, two lights skidding towards him. When he opened his eyes, he found nothing but three smiling Hills.
“Here,” Mary said to MJ, “This one’s—”
On numb legs, Trevor stumbled to his feet. Air, he thought, air.
Trevor’s tongue ground aridly against the roof of his mouth as he spun to the next. Mary, in her wedding dress. Unblemished white and of a textured fabric he could never have afforded, boasting the largest diamond he’d ever seen, and at her side, the same mountain of iron and pomade. He wasn’t even smiling.
From one to the next down the hall, a lifetime of happy memories, all without him. With a heart of cracked lead, he watched her grow from a girl to a wife to a mother… to a relic. In the length of the corridor lay the length of Mary’s life. He tried not to think about how a thousand times this ‘Henry’ had kissed her lips, filled her dimples with a callous thumb, ran his hands up her legs and…
Trevor pounded the butt of his palms into his head. If God could have lifted him, thumb and forefinger, into Lucifer’s rings at that moment, he’d have happily taken the flames, anything to be gone—but then a painting in the study, a place.
Trevor entered the small library, nearly blind to the new maple furnishings, his attention too firmly set on this image. Two shadowed silhouettes sitting within a blue valley, hands interlocked on the picnic blanket, a distance between them. An orange glow lay beyond the horizon, just enough to illuminate fading time, to see each other for a final moment before an endless night. His chest shivered with the frozen agony of love lost, and love still held. He swallowed his pain and observed the rest. Mounted across the walls, a lifetime of work, all with her perfect signature at the bottom right corner. In each lay moments he never saw, passion that forced her heart onto a canvas. The photos had shown her face; here he saw her heart.
Unable to hold himself upright any longer, Trevor dropped to one knee. His hair stuck to the sweat of his face. If only he could die again. Anything to be free of the knowledge that he’d lost, and now, in the study that could have been his, he contemplated the fact that death without love is far worse than life without it.
“Can you take MJ to bed, Mom? I’ve got to get something from the car,” Emily said.
“I don’t want to go to bed!” MJ said, to the cry of bouncing sofa springs.
“It’s nine.”
Trevor wiped his eyes and started down the hallway, no longer hoping to be seen. Emily stood in the foyer, looking back into the lounge.
“It’s alright,” Mary said. “We’ll have plenty of time tomorrow.”
“Can we go to the river?” MJ asked.
“That river is freezing right now,” Mary said.
“I. Don’t. Care!” she said, with a particularly boisterous jump at the end.
“You will when it comes time to get in.”
“Please?” MJ asked, tilting her head and pressing her hands into a prayer position.
“I don’t know, love. The rapids are dangerous.”
“Please!” she pleaded.
Mary shook her head in defeat. “… Maybe we can find a calm spot to dip your toes.”
MJ’s face lit up as she began to jump and dance, all fists and flailing hair.
“But only if you listen to your mother,” Mary added.
MJ winked and jumped off the couch. Like a small Tasmanian devil, she rushed around the corner and dashed up the stairs on hands and feet.
“I’ll be in soon,” Emily said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
“… They’ll catch up to you,” Mary said solemnly.
“That’s why I’m quitting,” Emily said.
“That’s what your father used to say.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “No one lives forever.”
“Tell that to her,” Mary said.
Emily sighed and stepped into the cold. Mary mumbled something and started up the stairs, her old joints creaking in a similar pitch to the steps. Trevor watched her go with breathless sorrow. He glanced at the door, still open, his chance. But he realized, cursed though it was, this was the time he’d been allotted with her. For even a second more, it would be worth anything.
Up the stairs and into the guest room, he watched how Mary moved, how she winced, how her arms shook when she raised them too high, how she’d lose herself in space, how she saw little MJ into the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair, and how she tucked her into the old queen-sized bed—one of the few items from his time. What would our grandchild have looked like? he wondered. Would they be here at this very moment? Would I? In lieu of dreams, he pretended this reality was his.
“Good night, Sweetheart,” Mary said, with a light kiss.
“Night night, Grandma.”
Mary rose with a small grunt and shuffled towards the door. Trevor reached out, a dubious wish to hold her cheek one last—
“Grandma?”
Mary stopped. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry for what I said about your friend.”
“It’s okay.”
“… He’s in heaven, right?”
Trevor held his hat to his heart, a stake, a shield, the only thing holding him together. Mary looked down and, in a somber tone, said, “Of course. Good people always end up happy.”
The only thing that kept him together was the habits of his father.
“Will I go to heaven?” MJ asked.
“God’s waiting for you right now. He called and told me. But for the time being, he needs you here. He said the world is a much darker place without you.”
“But—”
“The only thing I want you to worry about is whether or not your pancakes tomorrow will have sprinkles.”
“Will they?”
“Go to bed and find out,” she said, flicking off the light.
Trevor stepped out of the way as she passed and followed her back to her room. Like a beaten stray, he watched from the foot of her bed as she tucked herself in. Knowing full well the futility of his words, it wasn’t an option to leave them unsaid. He settled at her side and said, “I’m sorry, Mary… I don’t want you to think that I’m jealous… I just wish I could have been there. You know, I saw the paintings. You really could have made a name for yourself… perhaps you did…”
He turned to the mirror. Of course, there was no reflection.
“… As long as you were happy… Just know that now and always, I love you, Mary. I hope that in the next life…” he stopped there. Hope had died somewhere in the last century, and if this is what awaited her should his hope become real, he’d kill it himself.
The ring box made no sound as he left it on her nightstand.
He brought his hand just over hers but didn’t touch it. It was better to wonder than to know he’d never feel it again. He waited, an unspoken prayer that she’d look one last time. Then she turned the page. That’s how it goes.
Upon soundless steps, Trevor retreated to the front porch. A thin cloud of smoke danced through the crack in the door. It blew ajar with the wind, and sitting there on the top step was Emily, a glowing orange cigarette between her fingers and a skyward-turned gaze. She wept softly, holding a half-folded letter which he could only read the first lines of. Sorry, Emily. It just wasn’t meant to be. Tell MJ whatever you want—
Why couldn’t he take her pain too? He sat and reached to embrace her, to be there for her when no one was—but she pulled away, stomped out her cigarette, and latched the lock. The moon had fallen. All was black. The wind blew, and he felt nothing.
•
The last cries of predator and prey died, the breeze wailed, the breath of a world that had forgotten him. Trevor found himself back on the bridge. There was no fear, no more shadows. In the crashing waters, he heard billions of voices just like his.
“It’s her love that brings you back,” that same, sorrowful voice said. The maiden stood at his side, looking down with him, hand atop his on the railing.
“When she passes, will I too?”
“Most likely. People, places, ways of life, all phantoms of memories.”
“Is that what you are?”
“… I’m just an idea, made real by need.”
“Then your strange idea.”
“Who isn’t?” the river said below.
Trevor sighed and noticed a beetle on the sidewalk, crushed beneath a heap of dung. He closed his eyes. The horror.
“Is this really all I was destined for?” he asked.
The maiden kissed his cheek, and the river smirked.
He asked, “Who promised you anything else?”
All he had was the song of all fallen before him, the wind of the forest, and the echo of his lost scream. It all came back, flashing images of that night. A Model-T skidding forward, a bone-shattering thud, and then the rapids.
Trevor jerked compulsively, shielding from the phantom lights, and in his spasm, toppled over the railing. A splashless impact. Lead pulled him below the turbulence. He realized it wasn’t so cold after all.
———
It’s just a bridge, Trevor told himself, frozen and pallid, gazing upon the Stonekeep Bridge. Over his twenty-six years, he’d crossed it more times than could be counted, but that night something was wrong. You’re stalling, he thought. It’s just a bridge.