Servant of the Bones

Behave now as if you are living, and as if it matters to go on living. Be careful as the living. Take your time.

My own advice to myself amused me a little. But then I settled in, deep into the corner, beyond where the light fell, beyond where it might even touch my half-visible shoe or inevitably gleaming eye.

Old man, just try it! I was ready for him. I was ready for anyone or anything.

Gregory stepped anxiously into the light. He looked directly at the casket. The old man behaved as though Gregory were not there. Gregory might have been the spirit. The old man stared at the gold plating; he stared at the iron chains.

Gregory reached out, and without asking permission he put his hands on the casket. Then I did feel a shimmer, much as I loathed it, and I was stronger, instantly stronger.

The old man stared right at Gregory's hands. Then he sat back, sighing heavily as if for effect or punctuation, and he reached for a sheaf of papers-rather cheap and light paper, nothing as good as parchment-and he thrust this group of papers at Gregory, holding them up above the casket.

Gregory took the papers.

"What's this?"

"Everything written on the casket," said the old man in English. "Don't you see the letters?" His voice was full of despair. "The words are written in three tongues. Call the first Sumerian, the second Aramaic, and the last Hebrew, though they are ancient tongues."

"Ah! This was more than kind of you. I never expected such cooperation from you."

I thought so too. What had moved the old man to be so helpful? Gregory could barely hold the papers steady. He shuffled them, put them back in order, and started to speak.

"No!" said the old man. "Not here. It's yours now and you take it. And you say the words when and where you will, but not under my roof, and from you I exact one last promise, in exchange for these documents which I have prepared for you. You know what they are, don't you? They let you call the spirit. They tell you how."

Gregory made a soft laugh. "Once again, your kindness overwhelms me," he said. "I know your disinclination to touch even trifles which are not clean."

"This is no trifle," said the old man.

"Ah, then, when I say these words the Servant of the Bones will rise?"

"If you don't believe it, why do you want it?" asked the old man. The shock went through me. I was fully visible.

I cleaved to the wall, not daring even to try to see my own limbs. The cloth wound itself around me without a whisper. "Make the shoes to shine even brighter, give me the gold for my wrist, and make my face as clean of hair, yet give me the hair of my youth," I asked silently.

I felt my full weight, denser perhaps than it had even been the night before. I wanted to look down at myself but I dared not make myself known.

"You don't seriously think I believe in it," Gregory replied politely. He folded the sheaf of papers and put them carefully into the breast of his coat.

The old man made no reply.

"I want to know about it, I want to know what she was talking about, I want it. I covet it. I covet it because it's precious and it's unique and she spoke of it with her dying words."

"Yes, that does convey upon it an added value," said the old man, his voice harder and clearer than I had ever heard it before.

I could feel my hair against my shoulders. I could feel the dampness from the concrete wall as it chilled my neck. I made the scarf at my neck thicker. I made it fit higher. The lightbulb stirred. Things creaked in the room, but neither man appeared to notice, so intent were they on the casket and on each other.

"The chains are rusted, aren't they?" Gregory said, raising his right finger. "May I take them off?"

"Not here."

"All right, then I presume we have concluded our bargain. But you want something else, don't you? A final promise. I know. I can see it in you. Speak. I want to take home my treasure and open it. Speak.

What more do you want?"

"Promise me, you will not come back to this house. You'll never seek my company again. You'll never seek the company of your brother. You will never tell anyone of how you were born one of us. You will keep your world away as you have always done. If your brother calls you, you will not receive his call. If your brother visits you, you will not receive him. Promise all of this to me."

"You ask that of me every time I see you," said Gregory. He laughed. "It's always the final thing you ask, and I always promise."

He cocked his head and smiled affectionately at the old man, patronizingly, with maddening impudence.

"You won't see me again, Grandfather. Never, never again. When you die, I won't cross the bridge to come to your graveside. Is that what you want to hear? I won't come to Nathan to mourn with him. I won't risk exposing him, or any of you. Very well?"

The old man nodded.

"But I have one last demand of you," said Gregory, "if I am never to speak to or see Nathan again."

The old man made a little questing gesture with both hands.

"Tell my brother I love him. I insist you tell him."

"I'll tell him," said the old man.

Then Gregory moved swiftly, gathering up the casket, letting the chains scrape on the desk as he stood upright with it in his arms.

I felt again the tremors, the strengthening, moving down my arms and my legs. I felt my fingers moving, I felt a tingling as if tiny needles were being touched to me all over. I didn't like it, that it came from his touch. But maybe it came from all of us here, our sense of purpose, our concentration.

"Goodbye, Grandfather," said Gregory. "Someday, you know, they will come to write about you-my biographers, those who tell the story of the Temple of the Mind." He tightened his grip on the casket. The rusted chains left red dust on his lapels but he didn't care. "They'll write your epitaph because you are my grandfather. And you'll deserve that recognition."

"Get out of my house."

"Of course, you needn't worry for the moment. No record exists of the boy you mourned thirty years ago. On my deathbed I'll tell them."

The old man shook his head slowly, but resisted a reply. "But tell me, aren't you the least bit curious about this casket, about what's in it, about what may happen when I read the incantations?"

"No."

Gregory's smile faded. He studied the old man, and then he said:

"All right, Grandfather. Then we have nothing to talk about, do we? Nothing at all."

The old man nodded.

The anger beat in Gregory's cheeks, wet and red. But he had no time for this. He looked at the thing in his arms and he turned and hurried out the door, kicking it open with his knee and letting it slam behind him.