SUZANNE SELFORS
ON THE QUIET BIRCH-LINED STREET, something sparkles, gliding between raindrops. Night has descended. The familiar and soothing rhythm of rain beats against the windows and rooftops of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Sleep has enticed most into its depths. But not the girl who sits at the edge of a bed, shivering.
And not the shape, which lingers outside the Hotel Angeline, hanging in the mist like a whisper.
Why am I here?
Thoughts are scattered, difficult to grasp. The shape pulls its edges closer. Awareness gathers.
I am Edith.
And then she remembers. This is her hotel. Angeline. Named after the eldest daughter of Chief Sealth. She remembers the story of the daughter who refused to leave her land at the edge of the sea. Of the princess who chose a shack and a life as a laundress rather than a life on the reservation. Poverty and isolation became Angeline’s roommates, but she worked hard, supported herself, and kept her home.
Just as I have done, Edith thinks. I worked hard, supported myself, and this is my home. Her thoughts drift again, as hazy as her formless body. She looks down. What body? Where is my body? Panic surges and she twists and writhes, trying to find what is lost. Where is my body? It hadn’t been a perfect body. She’d always regretted her soft thighs and her wide feet. But an imperfect body is better than no body at all. She looks back at the building. A deep longing to be reunited with her physical self draws her forward. She moves, a mere essence, finding her way through the cellar doors and into the basement. City light follows, trickling after her like mercury. The light points with silvery fingers at the center of the room, where a plain dark coffin sits, a stool next to it. Is this the reason she’s been summoned to this place? She circles, then dives through the lid. A corpse’s face greets her, eyes closed, skin pale despite the heavy makeup. She shoots out of the lid and hovers below the ceiling.
My name is Edith and I’m dead.
A sudden rush of indignation hits her. Why had they stuck her in the plain coffin? Why not the fancy one in the corner, with its glossy veneer and red-satin lining? And why had no one given her a funeral? Maybe her life hadn’t been the most exciting on the planet, but it deserved some sort of ceremony. Stories are supposed to be told, prayers said. A priest, a rabbi, a shaman, a ferryman to take her across the river. Something, for God’s sake. Not stuck in the basement!
Edith sweeps through the room, a tornado of emotion. Where was the gratitude for all that she’d done? She’d kept the place spotless. She’d treated her tenants like family, letting them be late with the rent, listening to their tragic histories, holding their aged hands. She’d brought tradition to their weary lives with afternoon tea. These people are family, she’d often said. Treat them with love and respect. How many times had she spoken those words? She’d opened her home and her heart and they weren’t even going to give her the satisfaction of a funeral.
Stashed away in a coffin in the basement. Only one person could have come up with such a stupid idea.
Lynn, she thinks, hovering over her tomb. You’re behind this. You and your crazy ideas.
And to think she’d slept with him all those times, sneaking between bedrooms after the other tenants had turned off their lights. Whispering secret longings, secret regrets.
He was handsome in those days. His rebellious nature charming. But the years gradually soured him and paranoia scarred his features. Initially, she’d felt that motherly instinct to care for yet another lost soul, but when Lynn began to see conspiracy at every corner, when his whispers turned delusional, her desire for him died. She had more important things to focus on anyway.
She turns and looks toward the stairs. Something pulls at her, urges her forward. Someone is whispering her name.
Up the stairs she moves, without footsteps, to the second floor. A crow sits on the banister. It cocks its head and looks directly at her. You see me, she thinks. It clicks its beak. They are alone on this floor, the scent of sherry in the air. The others have gone to bed—the woman with the peg leg, the Greenpeace warrior, the snake charmer. Where is the girl? she asks the crow. Where is my daughter?
The crow takes flight and disappears up the stairs. She follows, up one flight, then the other, until she comes to the fourth-floor landing. The voice calls for her again and she flies into the room. There is pain in this room, sorrow as thick as the night. A girl sits at the edge of a bed, which has been stripped of its sheets and blankets.
“Mom,” the girl whispers, wringing her hands—a gesture much too old for one so young. Her shoulders are hunched and she is shivering. Her hair is a new color. Curly locks fall over her eyes. Though it’s night, she hasn’t changed into her pajamas. Hasn’t brushed her hair or teeth, all those rituals she’d been taught. A silver blouse clings to her skinny frame, a rain-soaked skirt of blue feathers is matted against her legs. Why is she dressed this way?
Alexis, I’m here. But the words have no sound and the girl continues wringing her hands.
Edith floats above the bed. No one has bothered to make it. The striped ticking of the mattress is stained from sweat and sickness. This is where my life ended. The memories wash through her.
She’d refused to see a doctor. When the symptoms began—the sweating, the aches, the pain in her gums and tongue—it was easy to tell herself that it was a bout of flu. She’d been sick off and on for years with assorted ailments. She’d been called a hypochondriac, and maybe there was some truth to that. So when the new illness came on, she’d decided to deal with it on her own. Why visit a doctor just to be told it was all in her head? Why add a doctor’s bill to the pile of unpaid bills that already littered her desk?
By the time she began to lose her balance and the tremors took over, the mercury had already poisoned her brain. The heavy metal had invaded her nervous system, every organ, every cell. She should have gone straight to the hospital, she should have asked for help, but her brain was muddled, starved of oxygen.
Lynn should have known. He should have taken her. But doctors were part of the system, part of the Establishment he distrusted. His own brain was as warped as her mercury-poisoned brain, from a lifetime of chemicals he’d chosen to ingest. So instead of doing the right thing, the rational thing, he’d carried her body to the basement.
Edith screams, a silent gust that shoots around the walls.
“Mom.”
The whisper draws Edith back to the moment, the reason she’s been summoned to this place. She settles on the bed next to her daughter.
I’m here. Alexis, I’m here.
Edith wants to hug her with arms that no longer exist, arms that are imprisoned in a plain coffin in the basement. I know you’re afraid.
“I don’t know what to do,” Alexis says. As she speaks, she stares at the crow that now stands across from her on the dresser. “We’re going to lose the hotel.”
The crow offers no words of advice. It gazes upon Edith with its black bead eyes. Tell Alexis that I’m here, Edith says to the crow. But it turns its attention to its once-broken wing, grooming the feathers. Time is running out. Edith feels herself evaporating like a puddle in the sun. But she isn’t ready to leave. She must help her daughter. The Hotel Angeline was supposed to shelter both of them. Edith had done everything humanly possible to hold on to the hotel, but it wasn’t worth this terrible price. If only she’d realized that and acted sooner, been able to prevent this. Instead she’d left a huge mess, the proof scattered atop her desk and all around the hotel. Debt and more debt. Crazy tenants who rarely paid rent. A father figure with a drug-soaked mind.
A small sob escapes her daughter’s lips. “I won’t let anyone take the hotel,” Alexis says, tightening her mouth in stubborn determination. Edith knows that look. She’s worn the exact expression for most of her life. We’re both so stubborn, Edith whispers.
Then Edith understands why she’s been summoned. She must guide her daughter. But in what direction? Alexis is alone. She has no one. If she gives up this fight to keep the hotel, her future could be bright. She could live with her uncle. He’s not so bad. At least he’d keep Alexis safe. Buy her whatever she desired. Send her to the doctor when she gets sick. She’d have the chance to make new friends, go to a good school. She could leave the burden of this place behind.
The crow clicks its beak, then flies from the dresser and lands on the bed. It curiously nips at one of the blue feathers. “I miss her,” Alexis tells the bird. “But even though she’s gone, I don’t want to leave. This is my home. I love it here. I don’t want to live with my uncle. But I don’t know what to do.”
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Edith thinks. These are her walls. This is her home. Alexis will not give up. The spirit of Angeline is alive and well.
“Mom? What should I do?”
Edith winds around Alexis’s shoulders, weaves between strands of hair. You must get help, she whispers, rippling down her daughter’s arms. Get help, Alexis. You can’t do it alone. Get help.
Alexis looks up. For a moment she stares right at her mother. Then her gaze travels through Edith, focusing on the open doorway. She stands. “There’s no one to help,” she says.
Edith sighs like a wind chime.
Then she is gone.