Spire in the Woods/9

Adolf Reifler slid through the crowd exchanging pleasantries with farmers and businessmen, neighbors and travelers alike. No one seemed to notice me following in his wake. They never looked at me, or reacted to anything Adolf and I said to one another. They also didn’t seem to notice any of the others that were, like me, stuck.

Most of the conversations Adolf had with his guests were brief. They’d offer him the sort of enthusiastic pleasantries I imagine you’d hear anytime a work of art is unveiled, and he’d respond graciously enough, until the man he addressed as Edwin inquired about Amy Lowell’s whereabouts. Something in Edwin’s tone made me think he was interested in more than paying his respects.

“I haven’t seen her all night,” Edwin said.

“Are you sure? I could have sworn she was out here around eleven.” Adolf’s voice dripped with condescension.

The couplet Rob left in his suicide note to Alina floated to the fore of my mind.

‘And every hour, I see her face, as she runs the endless race.’

When I’d first heard the story of the Widower’s Clock I had thought it was cruel that one could be damned just for laying eyes on Amy Lowell’s corpse; after all, we hadn’t killed her, we hadn’t put her on display. What I realized watching Edwin calling it a night was that the partygoers weren’t stuck watching the endless race. If they had been, they wouldn’t have been able to leave. No, only those of us who had heard the bells and followed them to the Spire were stuck.

But why? They’d heard the bells. They’d heard the real bells. Why weren’t they stuck with us?

Midnight marked the end of the automatons’ reenactment with Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox. Once Lee had signed the articles of surrender, the tent backdrop zipped out of view and dozens upon dozens of automatons took their curtain call, dancing behind the generals like something out of a Busby Berkeley musical.

The freed slaves came out in a chorus line, doing the cancan as if they were the Rockettes. The partygoers howled with laughter. I wanted to be disgusted, it was every bit as racist as a minstrel show, but no matter how much of Adolf Reifler's cruel indifference was reflected in his work, the Widower's Clock was still too fine a thing to look away from it.

When the Southern belle automaton returned, I couldn’t help but notice how sinuously its arms moved.

Her arms.

The bells tolled once more and I was alone again, freezing in the dark.

It was so cold the blood from my fingers froze before it could clot. The raft wasn't much of a blanket. I needed to make a fire or I was going to wind up with frostbite. Half of my mother's Bible was a chunk of ice, but the top half was dry. I began ripping the undamaged portions out. The delicate work was slow going with my fingers.

I twisted up the torn pages and set them in a small pile near the hole in the floor. I wasn't worried that the floorboards would catch; they'd absorbed far too much moisture over the years. Besides, paper burns fast and at a fairly low temperature, especially when each page is as thin as the Bible's.

After a few minutes, my hands weren't quite as numb, but it was clear my meager kindling wouldn’t hold out until morning. I needed more fuel if I wanted to survive. My ribs weren't thrilled to be moving again. It would have been so much easier if the bells were ringing.

I didn’t want to love their sound but they were like an ex you just can’t get over. As bad as they are for me, even today, I still crave them.

The automatons hung lifeless on their posts. Their clothes had largely disintegrated. Moisture had penetrated much of their lacquered finish, spotting them with mold. Even though the years hadn’t been kind, looking at them in the flickering glow of the lighter, they were still marvelous. I ran my hand down the arm of a rebel soldier, almost as lovingly as Adolf had done with the automaton that encased his wife’s remains.

If I wanted to survive, I’d have to burn it.

The area that had once been Adolf Reifler’s workspace was littered with rusty tools and ancient gears. I took up one of the wrenches from where it had fallen, my fingers ached just holding it, and set about dismembering the nearest automaton. The bolts were rusted; it was tough to get any of them to budge. Straining against the wrench made my ribs feel like they’d been replaced with broken glass and fishhooks, but eventually the bolts turned and the arm fell to the ground.

The wood portion of the arm was no more than a quarter of an inch thick, just enough to cover the clockworks inside and hold the paint and finish. It wouldn’t burn for much longer than the paper. I had to burn them all. The only upside was that I wouldn’t have to unscrew another bolt. The wood was brittle enough that I could smash it to pieces with the wrench, and if I used my off hand, well, it still hurt like hell, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

I smashed the Confederate and Union soldiers. I smashed Lee and Grant and Lincoln. I smashed women and children and slaves and then gathered up the pieces. I had already ripped apart and burnt the pages of my mother’s Bible, but somehow smashing the automatons felt worse. I felt like a small child watching the tide wash away a beautiful sandcastle.

There would never be another clock like this.

The rack that had once held Adolf’s wrenches on the wall made a decent grate and soon I had a sputtering fire. It wasn’t great, but it was warm enough that I’d live. I draped the raft over my shoulders and slowly laid myself back down. I was out of immediate danger and could feel my body shutting down.

I woke when the bells tolled one. The fire was gone, Adolf’s workshop was warm, but before I could so much as sit up, their call ended and I was back where I’d begun. I threw more splinters of wood on the fire and laid back down.

Sleep didn’t come easy. The automatons’ nude clockwork, exposed for the first time in decades, cast intricate shadows that seemed to dance in the firelight. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was bothering me about them.

I woke again at two o’clock. It was dark inside the workroom, but when the doors opened for the slave automatons to zip out, the electric lights illuminating the clock poured in. The Southern belle hung limp on her post. Her eyes stared blankly in my direction.

A large backdrop swung out through the door blocking the light. I was alone in the dark with Amy Lowell’s corpse.

Once the backdrop rotated out of the light, I saw the Southern belle slide out after it. For just a split second, I thought I saw the Southern belle’s head swivel on her neck, as if she were tracking me with her eyes, but it had to have been the clockwork getting her in position to perform. Right?

Then I realized what had been bothering me about the automatons. Fletch had told me Rob put his fingers inside the eye socket of a human skull, but all the automatons, before I’d smashed them up for fire wood, had their lacquered faces intact.

Amy Lowell’s corpse returned to its starting position. Its limbs swung forward like a rag doll’s when it came to an abrupt stop. She was looking at me again.

Could a sculpture have ubiquitous gaze, or was that only paintings?

My heart was racing as I waited for the bells to ring a second time.

Why had Adolf painted her face with such a creepy little grin?

It wouldn’t stop staring. I rose to my feet and turned her head away from me. I did it quick because I couldn’t stand to touch her.

The bells tolled once more. Was Amy Lowell’s body going to be waiting for me in the dark?

Amid the kindling, there were only a couple of pieces of wood large enough to use as a torch. It took a painfully long minute, my eyes straining to detect anything out of place in the darkness, to get one of them to catch.

I held the torch aloft in my left hand, and even though I doubted in my present condition that I could ever swing it, I held one of the larger wrenches in my right. The weight of it felt good. It reminded me of the rock I had used to attack Ryan Dorset.

The floorboards groaned beneath my feet as I moved from automaton to automaton, examining each in turn. The faces weren’t designed to move: beneath the wood each of them had a little metal knob that could never be mistaken for a skull.

There was a stairwell in the far corner going down to the room below. I had twice used it while the bells were ringing, but now there was nothing down there but ice. Had Rob gone that deep? I doubted the groundwater would’ve been lower in the summertime but I couldn’t say for sure. Cautiously, I went down, one creaking step at a time.

Dirt and other particulates made it impossible to see much of anything in the ice, although I thought I could make out some of the furniture I’d seen on my way out to view the clock. I was reluctant to venture too far into the room, lest I slip on the ice and break another bone, but I was sure there was nothing of interest to be found.

My heartbeat slowed. I was relieved not to have found Amy Lowell’s automaton. Rob could have touched anything in the dark. Maybe he was touching her automaton while the bells rang and then found himself alone in the dark after their last toll, or maybe Fletch got part of the story wrong. Who could say?

I can.

I crept back to my fire, wrapped the raft around me, and let my exhaustion overtake me.

My fire had burnt out while I was asleep and I awoke shivering violently. There was plenty of wood, but I was almost out of Bible pages. As I carefully arranged twists of paper beneath some of the thinner splinters, I heard a dreadful sound.

It was quiet, but impossible to miss; like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I froze. The fire could wait.

The noise stopped.

I held my breath and strained my ears to listen for even the faintest sound.

Nothing.

Maybe an animal had gotten in here with me and scratched its claws across a metal surface. A raccoon or a rat could live down here. Maybe an owl nested in the old gears. I wouldn’t exactly call myself an animal lover, but I found the idea of another living thing being nearby very comforting.

I returned to the work at hand. When you’re building a fire, airflow is key. If the wood presses down on the paper too much, you’ll smother the flame before the wood can catch. My hands were shaking from the cold and it was tough getting the wood to sit right, but I managed it after several tries.

Just as I flicked the lighter to light the paper, the noise came again.

It was a long, dry screech, the sort of sound a metal gate makes when its hinges need oil. There was no way an animal was making that noise.

Desperately I groped along the ground for the wrench, ignoring the cries of pain from my raw, still-bleeding nailbeds.

The sound grew closer in fits and starts.

I couldn’t find the wrench in the dark. I could use the lighter, but…

It was coming from the direction of the automatons. It couldn’t have been very far away. Ten feet, maybe fifteen.

I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see what could be making that noise. I gave up on the wrench and crawled backwards, trying to get away.

It drew closer.

My hand found nothing but air and I was momentarily filled with that sickening feeling of falling until my back slammed hard into the wood at the edge of the hole. With my shoulders stretched over the ledge, the strain on my ribs was unbearable. I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out in pain.

The lighter was my only chance to get around the pit.

I didn’t want to look.

I was shaking so badly I nearly dropped the lighter.

And then the noise stopped.

I sat in pitch black and total silence, my heart still racing, unsure of what to do. Light my way around the hole? Search in the dark for the wrench?

Whatever it was didn’t give me long to ponder. The small thud of something heavy hitting the wood echoed through the room, followed by a dragging sound.

I flicked the lighter once, and nothing.

The sound grew closer.

Twice, and it lit.

Standing over me was the Southern belle automaton. The polished wood veneer was badly burnt in places. The left half of its face was broken away, revealing the hollow eye socket of Amy Lowell Putnam’s skull.

I screamed until my broken ribs forced me to stop, but what remained of Amy Lowell’s wooden face just stared back at me, as blank as ever. Her head was still twisted around like I had left it at two o’clock.

She stepped unsteadily towards me. Her limbs were stiff, her movements spastic and unnatural. It was almost as if she wasn’t in complete control of her own body. The pole, which had once pulled her along the clock’s tracks, making her dance, hung down from between her legs and dragged on the floor behind her.

My eyes darted down, looking for the wrench. She was standing right over it.

For a moment, as slow as she moved, I thought I’d be able to outrun her, but as I stood, and turned to skirt the hole, she showed me I was mistaken. Her arms sprang forward with such force they almost knocked me to the floor. Her wooden fingers dug into my shoulders, pinching my flesh against the bone. Her face, all the while, remained as impassive as a porcelain doll’s.

I couldn’t bear her looking at me, so I dropped the lighter.

We struggled there in the dark, on the edge of the hole. Crying and sniveling I begged for my miserable life as she forced me down to my knees. I felt the heavy, metal pole that impaled her corpse brush against my leg as she continued to maneuver my body against my will.

She turned me around, forcing me first to my hands and knees before finally shoving me down onto my stomach. Her hands pinned my shoulders to the ground. I could feel her torso folding itself; the remains of her spine must have been bent at a right angle. The metal pole rose and fell, rose and fell, each time smacking the floorboards with a dull thunk. Her chest kept twisting, like a wasp moving its abdomen into position to sting. I didn’t fully process what was happening until the pole came down hard on my inner thigh. Amy Lowell Putnam intended to treat me to some of what she’d endured at her husband’s hands.

I stopped thinking. I stopped feeling. I was too terrified for that. I flailed my limbs. I scratched at the wood floor with my remaining fingernails. When my hand came down in the hole, I didn’t even consider the consequences. It was the only way I might possibly avoid being sodomized by the automaton and I took it.

I pulled with every last ounce of strength I could muster. My ribs screamed in agony, blood started gushing from my fingers once again, but I kept pulling, dragging myself and Amy Lowell right to the very edge.

The pole came down on my leg again; it felt like being hit by a hammer. When she raised the pole once more, I pulled my upper body over the edge and rolled my shoulders down. Amy Lowell’s weight must have been off-balance because she went spilling over the edge, landing on the ice below with a sickening crash.

I was back where I’d started. Lying in the pitch black, struggling for breath.

From the hole came a small sound. Almost a scratching noise. Then a thud. Followed by more scratching.

Amy Lowell was still moving.

I fumbled about on my hands and knees until I found the lighter. It lit on the third try.

I held it over the hole in the floor. Amy Lowell’s head had been twisted nearly 180 degrees in the fall. A chunk of her skull, from just over her eye socket, had been knocked out, along with more of the Southern belle veneer, but hadn’t slowed her spastic movements. Her wooden hands and feet struggled to gain purchase on the ice.

My feet started moving. I had no clue where to go. Where could I? There was no way out. I just had to get as far away from Amy Lowell Putnam as I could. I grabbed the wrench as I passed and took to the stairs.

The flame sputtered as I climbed. I had no idea how much lighter fluid I had left and found myself wishing I had grabbed another piece of wood I could have used as a torch. It held out, though, all the way to the topmost stair I could reach.

I sat down and quietly closed the lighter. My mistake became obvious the moment I heard her pole rise and fall on the first step of the staircase.

Thump.

I had nowhere to go.

Thump.

I was more trapped than I would have been in the wide-open room below.

Thump.

I had to get out of there, out of the Spire.

Thump.

I lit the zippo once more and held it aloft.

Thump.

Could I make that jump? How stable were the beams holding up the stairs?

Thump.

Beneath the gap in the stairs, Amy Lowell’s corpse continued its climb.

Thump.

It was only five feet, give or take, separating me from the surface. Nothing.

Thump.

Of course, the stairs were higher on the far side of the gap...

Thump.

...and the wood probably couldn’t support me landing on it...

Thump.

...and I was in no condition to jump.

Thump.

There was no way I could make it. I was stuck and she was coming for me.

Thump.

I slumped down on the top step. All I could think was, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

Thump.

Then I thought that dying might be preferable to what she had planned for me. I could just lean back and fall: splattering my brains all over the floor below.

Thump.

But what if I didn’t die? What if I only broke an arm or my legs? She’d turn around…

Thump.

...and come get me.

Thump.

There was no running. If I was going to survive, I’d have to fight. I had the wrench. I had the high ground. Maybe I could get lucky and toss her over the edge, or, worse-case, scenario take her with me.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

There were eighteen steps between each landing. The pole hanging down from between her legs prevented her from standing. She had to crawl on all fours. Her hands and feet sounded like hard-soled shoes against the wood steps. Each time she reached a landing, the pole would drag across the ground.

When she reached the landing below me, I sparked the lighter and set it against the wall, hoping that’d be enough to keep it from getting knocked over in the fight to come.

Amy Lowell didn’t react; she just kept climbing.

I stood and raised the wrench over my head. My breathing was rapid and shallow.

Her head was still twisted around on her neck, staring off into the darkness.

She stopped just outside my reach. Still as a stone, she appeared every bit as inanimate as all the other automatons.

Was she trying to lure me in, or draw me away from the edge? Why was she just sitting there?

My arm was beginning to shake. I couldn’t hold the wrench up for much longer. It was now or never.

Before my foot could hit the step below mine, her arms and legs uncoiled and she exploded forward. My wrench hit feebly on her back as her wooden hands latched onto my throat. Together, we began falling backwards towards the gap in the stairs.

Just before we slipped over the edge, the bells tolled.

My back slammed against the stairs. The automaton was gone.

My brain was still panicking. I couldn’t think of anything but her. Where was she? Where was Amy Lowell Putnam’s body?

She was running the endless race, down at the bottom of the stairs.

I scrambled to my feet, determined to put more distance between us.

The stairs were solid beneath me. It was a good feeling, one we take for granted most of the time.

The bells rang a second time just as I reached the slatted windows at the top of the Spire. A dizzying notion bubbled out of my subconsciousness. If I was standing here when the bells stopped ringing, what would happen? When the bells had finished tolling eleven, I had been shunted inside, but not back to where I had begun.

Could I leave? Could it be that simple?

I raised the wrench in my hand. It would make short work of thin wooden slats.

But I couldn’t do it.

This was the Spire. The real Spire and not it's decrepit remains. It housed the bells. The note they sang was beautiful beyond comprehension.

I knew it was crazy, I knew it was my life on the line, but I couldn’t destroy any part of the Widower’s Clock, not while the bells were ringing.

You can’t understand unless you’ve heard them ring. The vibrations penetrate you. Infuse you. Permeate you. You would do anything to hear the bells, sacrifice anything, no matter how much you’d regret it later. No matter how much they scared you, or made you question your humanity.

To hear their call is to be owned by them.

Gently, I laid the wrench on the ground and began removing the slats one at time, careful not to chip the paint. I felt like a fool, I knew I should have just bashed my way outside. I knew it, but I couldn’t do it. Instead I was treating the removal of each slat as if I was an artist restoring the Mona Lisa.

The bells would ring again any second and that’d be it. Maybe I’d be up here on the landing, maybe I’d be back on the stairs where I’d started. Maybe Amy Lowell’s automaton would be with me, or maybe I’d be alone in the cold and the dark.

Finally, I’d removed enough slats to squeeze through into the moonlight. Clinging to the Spire for dear life, I hazarded a downward glance. The party appeared to be over, but I could still make out those poor lost souls I’ll join one day, stuck watching the endless race for all eternity, and I could see some of the automatons illuminated by the harsh electric lights, two of them moving stiffly, zipping along their tracks.

The bells rang for the third and final time. I scrunched my eyes closed—if it hadn’t worked, I didn’t want to know—and stepped off the ledge.