✦ Overheard in Halloway

Alma stands at the plaza board the morning after it filled, and her job is to say the count out loud, the way she says the forecast, so it's said. Chalk dust in the nose. The iron frame is cold enough to ache through her sleeve. Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven, she says, and a dog two doors down starts and stops. No room is left on the board but one gap the width of a thumb. Alma reaches. Her hand stops a finger short and stays there in the cold. She says the count again, quieter, and takes the hand down.

Benny, nine, waits for the bus at the plaza stop the morning after the gate opened both ways, and every grown-up there is deciding what to say to a child. Frost on the bench, through his jeans. Coffee steam off somebody's cup. Nobody says the word. A man says the night was long. A woman says the crew looked tired coming down Kiln Street. Benny sets the toy lantern down, puts two fingers up beside his head, and looks at her. Her mouth opens and stays. The bus is on the hill, gears grinding. She folds the fingers down, one at a time, and hands him back the lantern.

Flint has the light on a Diablo just through the ofrenda gate and has to drive it back before it gets round to the blind side. The beam grinds red in the hands, low as a stone under a truck. It charges. Flint back-pedals, heel and heel, gravel loud. It lands a touch Flint never sees; the breath is gone, a third of the veladora dark, the candle at the boot down to a bead. Flint strikes a spark off the belt buckle and the bead takes. It streaks for the gate and through, and the gate's voice closes behind it. Flint stands breathing, the buckle hot on the thumb.

Slate walks the night's last muerto up the path to the ofrenda gate, past the one who stayed, and the light has to hold until the walker is through. Gravel gives under the boots. The blue under him gutters hard tonight, and near the arch, a sound like breathing behind a shut door. Slate waves hello to him, as Slate waves to every name, and doesn't get to finish. The gate flares with nobody in it. He takes one step back. The light under him stays where it was. The muerto goes up and through and doesn't look back, and Slate's hand is still up in the cold.

Maple is up the cottonwood at the edge of the Old Rows at first light, chasing a paper marigold the wind took off an ofrenda, and the woman below wants it back before the wind changes its mind. Bark under the palms, and the whole tree smelling of creek and dust. The flower is caught in a crook, and above it, older, a ribbon gone gray. Maple brings both down. The woman takes the flower and looks at the ribbon a long moment, and puts it in her coat without a word. Then Maple goes back up to see the sun come, because the tree is standing still.

Marlow has a crypt gate to shut under a marked stone before the sand runs out, tied open with a knot nobody on the crew ties. Sand hisses in the glass. The fingers stop, then read it the way a tongue reads a chipped tooth: a holding knot, pulled in a hurry. The cold comes to the back of the neck and settles, the way she settles; the sconces lean toward the bars. Marlow does not turn. One end under, one over, and the knot that held is the knot that lets go. The gate swings home on its own weight, a finger of sand still in the glass.

Norma has the Plaza Committee's ladder against the stage, four lamps to hang before the crew goes out, and a first-night hand in the lent coat, a boot on the bottom rung. Sawdust on the air; the ladder hums up the arms when she moves. Third lamp. From the top she can see to the low end of town, and she stops with the wire in her teeth and looks. She comes down without a word, moves the ladder a yard, goes up for the fourth. The one in the coat holds it steadier. The lamps come on together, and the ladder's shadow lies across the boards like a stair.

A girl of eleven is at the Morning Market Window with something dug out of the Wash, and the window pays one coin for a common find and three for a remembrance. The shutter is up on its chain; the whole street smells of bread. The clerk turns it over. One coin, cold, on the counter. Then the clerk turns it over again, reads the back, and doesn't read it out loud. Two more come down, warm from a pocket. The girl looks at the back of it, then at the clerk, then at nothing. It goes in yesterday's paper, and into the tray with the others going home.

Rowan has the low end of the Wash alone till the crew comes down, and the fence is two posts and a memory. The kiln is still on the coat, ash and hot clay; the creek bed smells of nothing, which is its own smell. The dead come up from the sides, one, then one, and the light walks each to the bank. Then something comes up the middle, where the water went, and she is not walking. Rowan watches her the way a kiln is watched and does not step back. She stops at the edge of the marigold light, and the gravel ticks as it cools.

Brim has a marked stone open in the churchyard on Market Night and three candles to keep lit in a crypt the size of a pantry while the Scatter comes for them. Violet ticks against the hat like sleet. Tallow, wet stone, a hum in the back teeth. The first gutters; a cupped hand brings it back and the knuckles take the heat. The second. The third, at the back, stands up straight on its own, and nobody in that crypt lit it. The grin gets wider by a tooth and stays till the last mote lets go. The stone gives up a ticket stub; it goes in the hatband.

Willow has one of the dead to walk up the aisle of the Sunken Chapel tonight before the candles somebody keeps burn down. Mud takes the boots to the ankle and lets go with a sound like a kiss. Wet plaster, wax, river. Willow sings the tree's song, the one that never had words, and the one in the light sings the words. Willow goes quiet for a step, then two, then comes back in underneath. The moon looks in through the one amber petal and lays a coin of light on the last dry flagstone, and the one in the light steps onto it first.

A widower in Halloway is setting his front-window ofrenda tonight so his wife's glasses can watch the street before the dead come walking. The match stinks of sulfur; the porch cold follows him in. Wire rims, one arm mended in green thread. The Waits found them by the gate; Pia kept them under the glass. The knot is rough under his thumb. He sets them folded and goes down to the road to check. From the street they're open, facing the road. Lenses full of candle. His hand finds the gatepost and stays. An ordinary dog barks, and the glow lies on the boards at his feet.

Alma is taping today's forecast card by the till of the Halloway diner at first light: the card the town reads to know how long tonight will be and whether to leave the porch light on. The griddle's warming. One regular on the end stool, waiting on four words. "Questions cost extra," Alma says. Her pen hovers. Sunset 6:41, she says. Moon, thin. Then nothing. The pen goes back in the apron. Tape tears off the roll; her thumb smooths the blank card against the chrome, cold where the sun hasn't reached. The regular sets the cup down without drinking. The door bell rings, and the morning comes in cold.

The show's sold out again tonight, the booth at Halloway's graveyard tells the tourist first in line, so he scratches the cat on the counter. The purr comes up through his palm. The fur's warm under the lamp; the night's turning cold. Gravel shifts under boots behind him. Past the low fence, down the rows of warm-glowing arches, one far arch flares, like a door opened and shut, and the purr stops. The cat looks. Then purrs on. Nobody says a thing. He zips his jacket one-handed, leaves the warm fur, and joins the few already at the fence. The rail's cold under both palms. The marigolds reach him.

Wick, smallest of the Waits, walks the candle row along the graveyard's chapel wall after dark, a new hand behind with matches; the row must be lit before the first of the dead come up. Wind hisses off the wall, has half the row out, cold on the neck. Behind Wick, a match scrapes, dies. Sulphur. The candles stand a full arm over Wick. Wick walks on, talking low, boots on gravel. The first flame comes down against the wind to the cloak and steadies. The row bends like a bow as Wick passes. The matchbox hits the gravel. The last candle leans to Wick's face, warm on the cheek.

Pia opens her stall at the morning market before dawn, one lamp lit, the coin jar and a spool of thread on the counter, hands on the cold glass over the night's found photographs, waiting for a face to come looking. The lamp warms one cheek. Bay comes off the graveyard smelling of coffee, with one more: a girl on a porch. "I know that porch. Not the girl." Three coins into Bay's palm; the photograph goes under the glass. Bay drops one back in the jar. It lands like the first coin ever dropped there. Pia doesn't look. Then both hands flat over the girl, like keeping something warm.

Benny O., nine, is up past bedtime at the desk in his room in Halloway, finishing tomorrow's essay. He writes: a glimjack, because you're up all night and everybody says hi. The paper's turned from the door; Mom says that's not a job. The lamp's hot on his cheek. Out the window, edge of town, a marigold glow. That's the crew, working. Cold glass under his palm; his breath fogs it. The glow goes out. The pencil stops. His breath stops. He clicks the toy lantern on, holds it up. The glow comes back. He sits, lantern still on at his elbow, writes the biggest Arc, underlines it twice.

— the night before "What I Want To Be" was due. Benny O., age nine

Nobody on the crew has ever caught Lark waking, so Reed sat up all night in the crew shed to be the first, and is waking now instead, in the good chair, blue hour at the window. The neck says the chair won around five. Boots off, paired at the door. Blanket tucked, still warm. On the sill, a cup, steaming. Reed's pot ran dry hours ago. Awake a full minute now, and heard nothing: no door, no boards, no pour. Sock feet on cold boards. The cup's too hot to hold. Out on the step the small one sweeps, straw scratching wood, and doesn't look up.

Sunrise on the plaza: the crew stands at the chalk board with coffee to mark one stroke for each soul walked home, but a grandmother has lifted a girl of six to the board first. Chalk squeaks. The girl drags one slow stroke, boot heel in her grandmother's hip, whose breath goes short. Sun warms the girl's one cheek; the other's still cold. The crew's strokes go up after hers. Bay's finger counts the fresh row. Sixty-seven. The crew walked home sixty-six. The grandmother looks at nobody. The girl says no name. Reed's hand stops on the warm cup. The rag comes half out of Reed's pocket, goes back.

Deep night in the mission graveyard, and Slate stands on the path, lantern low, calling a new hand back from rows where every stone looks like the next. A thin "Here!" comes from off toward the east wall. "Who'd I wave to?" Slate waves at the tall stone with the lamb, cold granite under the palm. "Left at the lamb. Straight on at the row I wave twice." Petals crush underfoot. Far down the lamb's row, nowhere near the east wall, a small figure lifts a hand and waves back. Slate's hand stays up longer than a hello needs. The lantern flame leans, ticks, and steadies.

A boy has brought his dead flashlight to Old Snast at the Glimmery after dark, and needs it working before the walk home. He holds it like a bird that might die. Snast lifts it under the lamp, hot on the boy's face; the open door breathes cold down his neck. One. The screwdriver ticks. Four. Solder, machine oil. Seven. The boy leans in; only Snast's thumb moves. Nine. It comes on in Snast's hand, still open; the boy's arms go to gooseflesh. Eleven. Snast snaps it shut, hands it down, barrel warm. "What was it?" "Flashlight." The boy goes out pointing it at everything: shelves, Snast's face, the street.

Dawn in the Halloway graveyard, and the crew's new hand is walking back down the row for the satchel dropped when the light went out; the finds in it go home to somebody. Collar up. The apology has four versions. Bobbin's already on the low wall, strap half stitched, finds piled neat beside. Thread rasps through leather. The marigolds are thawing. The torn end is still white with rime; the needle goes round it, never through. "Strap was the problem. You'd have spilled again by week's end." Knot bitten off. The new hand takes it by the warm side, and the collar comes down.

Norma is walking the dog home along the graveyard wall after supper when it stops mid-street and faces the wall. So do the Marchettis' shepherd and Benny's terrier, every dog on the block, same heartbeat, ears up, silent. This dog is never quiet. The crickets stop. The leash goes hard in Norma's fist. Cold finds the back of the neck; the houses smell of supper and woodsmoke. Past the wall she drifts, a violet shimmer, in no hurry. A screen door's spring. A porch light comes on. Then the next one down. The shimmer slides past the wall's end and the dogs sit, all at once. The leash goes slack.

Dusk, Halloway graveyard, rain just quit, fifteen gate candles to light before the dead start walking, and every match in three satchels gone soft, so Flint crouches over a boot nail. The crew huddles close, rain down every neck, wet wool and spent sulfur. "Not the teeth," Bobbin says. "Please." That grin. Thumbnail down the nail. Once. Twice: a spark, and the first wick takes with a pop. Past the gate one of the dead is already standing, watching the flame. No telling how long. Somebody sees, and the chattering stops. Hands pass the flame along, candle to candle, knuckles warming, and the wet stones go orange down the gate.

Past midnight, two old men sit outside the barber's while the crew is out walking the dead home; their fathers held the lantern for the crew before this, which nobody talks about. The slats are cold. Talc and the day's warmth leak under the door. 'Everybody's father did something, the town says.' 'Well. Somebody held the lantern.' 'You ever ask yours about the last one?' 'Once.' 'And?' 'Put his hat on. Washed the truck. Morning after the Day, the week the crew broke up.' 'Mm.' 'Washed it twice.' The bolt turns; the barber, closing late, steps out under his light: three long shadows down the pavement, toward the graveyard end.

Cole's first night with the Waits can't start until Old Snast fits a new wick to the Arc, so Cole waits at the bench under the work lamp. The shop smells of lamp oil and filings. The trimmer rasps. "What was it?" Snast doesn't look up. "Doorbell. Off the old hotel. Rang forty years." "Whose?" The rasp stops. Long enough to hear the shelf clocks. Cole's thumb finds the bench edge. Snast strikes a match instead. The wick catches, leans, stands straight. "Thursday," he says. "You've a night to walk." The brass comes back warm as a held hand. Cole opens the door onto the cold, and the flame holds.

The Fence Owl sits on the graveyard's crooked picket at dead of night, and the owl's job is to stay on that picket while a violet shape comes along the far wall. The cold reaches the fence before she does, up the dry wood, into the feathers. Halfway along the wall she comes apart, and puts herself back wrong-side-first. The owl's head goes the whole way round. Talons tighten; the picket creaks. She drifts past the gates' marigold glow, and a cricket starts up. Boots on the path. One of the Waits sets a strip of jerky on the rail. The owl takes it without a look.

Dear Ruth — Halloway's show is sold out, so Gary and I are at the graveyard fence in the dark, watching a family sweep a grave path by candlelight. Gary calls this poor planning. Brooms rasp on stone. Marigolds and wax. Candles go down the path toward the gate like a runway. The littlest one waves into the dark past the last candle. Nobody looks up. They just make room. My arms go cold. Gary's joke dies in his mouth. The grandmother's seen us. Wish you were here. — Deb P.S. The grandmother's handed me a candle over the rail. Wax warm on my fingers. They're back at their brooms.

Before sunrise, Sorrel lays out on the market felt what the dead dropped on last night's walk, for families to take home; one brass key has sat untouched most of an hour. Everybody knows which door it fits. Nobody says so. Sorrel prices the others and leaves it be. The lamp hisses. Tin cups steam in stiff fingers. The eldest Marchetti reaches, and her hand stops over the key and stays there, and the stall stops breathing. Brass stings when she lifts it. Kiln Street, she says. The blue one, shut since spring. Coins on the felt for coffee. Shoes on the grit, going. Sorrel pours again. It steams.

Moth has the light on one of the dead and has to keep it there for a count of forty, or lose it. Twelve. The candle at the boot gutters; the cold has come around behind, like she does, and the back of the neck knows first. Twenty. Past the last row the violet thing is circling, patient as a dog under a table. Moth hums, low and a little off. Thirty. She dives. A door slamming in the next house; the whole yard flinches, and the light doesn't. Forty. The one standing in the light hums back. The cold is just cold again, and the candle stands up straight.

Tuesday night in Halloway's plaza, Norma sweeps her walk bare before the dead come walking; a petal line is a family's road to its own gate, and nobody laid one for hers. Broom against the adobe wall. The committee notice, stiff with cold: Sweep your own; leave your neighbor's petals. The chapel's ladder, back by Sunday. The third item struck through: Supper at Norma's after, all four of us. Tamales for nothing. She turns for the broom. Petals. A line of them down her clean walk to the gate's warm gold. Crushed marigold, bitter in the cold. Norma pins the notice, adds nothing, walks home beside the line.

— posted at the plaza board, Tuesday