The Book of Living and Dying (23 page)

As she neared the top, Sarah could see that the streets were also empty. Stopping at a crosswalk, she waited dutifully for the light to blink from red to green, then crossed into the town square. The shops were closed, their windows uninviting and dark. Walking past the familiar rows of red-brick buildings, Sarah searched for the alley. When it didn’t present itself she began to worry that she had the wrong street, that she’d remembered it incorrectly. But it soon came into view, a gap between two buildings. Sarah stood at the mouth of it, the alley stretching into the shadows. There was a small white light at the end, illuminating the way.

She stepped into the alley. She hardly knew what she would say to the old woman when she saw her. Her footsteps echoed softly against the buildings as she walked, counting out the numbers as she went: 15, 17, 19. Where was 17½? She turned, retraced her steps. She could not find the door.
Where was it?

Sarah lowered herself against the wall in defeat. She looked at the bundle of photos in her hand. They were all out of order. Who had done that? From somewhere in the
alley, the cries of the woman began to filter through the darkness. Sarah buried her face in her hands, the photos fluttering to the ground at her feet. She began to weep, in deep sobs that shook her body to its frame. She wept for her mother and her father and for John. She wept for Michael and Donna and Peter. And for all the people she had known and would never know. She wept for life, with all its beautiful intricacies, and for death, in all its mystery. Most of all she wept for the Fool, travelling alone and without direction in a desolate land.
Silly little fool.
She saw the faces of the masks around her, laughing, scowling, muttering prayers. She wept until she heard a soothing voice calling her name.

“Sarah. Sarah.”

It was Michael, standing in the alley.

“The Fool,” Sarah cried, her body wracked with sobs. “He meets a skeleton in black armour upon a white horse …”

“… Rising with the sun,” Michael said, completing her thought. He walked toward her, his voice steady and calm. “He knows that he is in the presence of Death. He fears for his own life and for the lives of those he loves. He thinks to flee, but knows in the vast stretch of barren land that he cannot possibly outrun Death, and so, faces him.”

“‘Am I dead?’” the Fool asks.

“‘You have left all you know behind,’ Death answers. ‘But this is not the end. It is but a new beginning. A transformation.’”

Michael reached for Sarah’s hands, pulling her gently to her feet. She clung to him like a newborn, her mind a pin-wheel of questions as they moved to the end of the alley, where the bricks gave way to soil and the town fell away to trees. The light in the alley burst, illuminating the way along the path that curved and snaked through the woods,
a ribbon of moonlight in the dark, though there was no moon in the sky. Her breath rattled, as if her lungs were filling with water instead of air, inhaling and exhaling in rhythm with Michael’s own; her body, heavy as clay.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

Michael squeezed her shoulders. They were walking toward the oak tree, the same one from her dream. Turning to face Michael, Sarah was met by her own countenance peering curiously back at her. It was the girl. She was the girl. Michael had been right about that. The cries of the woman rose up, filling the air before fading to the faintest mewling. And there was something else there. Another voice. John’s voice.

“Sarah
…
Sarah, I love you.”

Sarah laughed and lowered her eyes. She was surprised to find her blue sock feet outlined sharply against the earth. Had she forgotten to put her shoes on? Pulling off the socks, she began removing the rest of her clothes, scattering them carelessly along the path as she walked. She felt so free. Her naked body shimmered with a sparkling translucence. As she gazed at it in wonder, she understood at last. There was nothing left to fear. She moved toward the tree, its branches reaching out to her, a single exquisite leaf escaping and falling in gentle arcs to the ground. From somewhere far off in the distance, she heard the sound of a door quietly closing. The heaviness left her body and she began to rise toward the sky, like the kingfisher with wings like knives, up, up, into a pool of silver light.

Sarah lay on the bed, eyelids fluttering like pale butterflies, mouth gaping, her body shuddering with the memory of life. Mrs. Wagner clasped her daughter’s frail hand, her cries spilling over into the hallway and down to the nurses’ station. Cradling the pillow behind Sarah’s head, John supported her small frame until the convulsions finally stopped. He held her as the sun slowly blossomed in the window, and a street lamp burst, spreading phosphorous seeds over the sidewalk. When he was sure that it was finished, John eased himself free, careful not to jostle the body. Sitting delicately at the foot of the bed, he wept, a dry, fathomless grief beyond tears.

The nurses lurked outside the door of the room, hands in pockets, faces etched with rehearsed concern. It was a shame, they all agreed, to see this happen to someone so young. Breaching the sanctity of sorrow, Dr. Field offered condolences to the family, speaking haltingly about the afterlife and what natives believe happens in death, causing everyone to feel awkward, including himself, until he relented and left the room, bumping the bedside table clumsily and knocking a blue glass tumbler to the floor with an astonishing crash.

Beneath the oldest oak tree in the Terrace cemetery there stands a stone. It is black granite and almost always decorated with fresh flowers or pine cone offerings. There are words engraved there, under the thinnest crescent of moon.
“One under heaven.”
And in its corner, a small porcelain picture of
the girl, shaped in a neat oval, the suggestion of a smile on her lips—a Mona Lisa smile—as though she guards a secret that she will never tell. Perhaps she was amused by the words of the priest who boomed with breaking emotion,
“Who knows but life be that which men call death, and death what men call life?”
Or by the size of the funeral, the students pouring out the doors of the church when the pews were full. People paying their respects. Family. Teachers. Boys and girls that she had known and would never know. Hands in pockets, staring vacantly, absorbed with the notion of lives lived and lost. The impossible fabric of living and dying, the weft and warp of individual experience, strung out on the fragile loom of the human mind. The constant niggling of “what if”s.

Or perhaps it was the snow appearing magically after the rain, falling gently at first then whirling through the air, great deific shears snipping away at so much lace. And at the cemetery, the trees sighing in the emptiness, the absence of everything, even ghosts. But in the spring, through the urgent chatter of birds, the delicate mauve prayers of the crocus rise up, and later, the bright faces of forget-me-nots.

Sincere thanks and appreciation to the gang at HarperCollins Canada, especially Lynne Missen, Akka Janssen and Katie Hearn. Hearty thanks to the math people at Dr. Math for all their good advice. A huge salute and great admiration to Michio Takagi for his artistic stylings and tech wizardry. Warmest thanks to Laura Taylor for her talents and friendship, and to the Dixits for their kindness over the years. Gros becs to Lucie Pagé, the Francophone Goddess. Profound love and deepest gratitude to Wesley and Brian for their unwavering faith, and to my whole family for their enduring support: Mum, Mark, Rita, Cindy, Monika, Norman, Cassel, Hayden, Jasmine, Charlene and Jim. Hats off to Dom and Cath—same time next year? Thanks to Naomi and Doug for knowing what it’s all about, and to Marilyn and Ade. And special thanks to Chris and Richard for caring enough to share in this wild journey.

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