When the Hamilton Mountain Writers Guild announced that submissions were open for their Book Three anthology, I jumped at the opportunity to write something and send it in. What came about was this story, which I am pleased to say won the 2500-word category for short stories in the Guild’s 2019 contest. It is reprinted here with minor changes.
No one remembers it. Many can’t bear to think of it, because it was too wonderful for them. And then there are the others who have passed on, taking the memory with them.
But I remember. Oh, I remember it well. I was only knee-high, then.
I was playing on the cannons at Dundurn Castle across the cemetery. It was spring, and a warm, drenching rain came out of nowhere, lasting about a minute and a half. Came down so hard you couldn’t see beyond your nose.
Then nothing. The sun hung way up high and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Even the grass was dry.
Then it happened.
No flash of lightning. No sound of thunder. Headstones swayed back and forth as the ground split like torn fabric. Then the caskets were opened and their occupants got up—believe me! they got up, like waking from a deep sleep—and I recognized them.
Grandma and Grandpa! They were there. And our neighbours, and the folks who hung out by the post office. They laughed and hugged and danced as if they were kids. Babies kicked and squealed for their mothers.
I ran straight into Grandpa’s arms. He’d been dead three years from a stroke. He and Grandma operated the general store in town well over thirty years. Folks would stop in just to talk the day away with him.
“Hey there, whippersnapper,” he said, as he picked me up. “Did you grow an extra foot?”
“A whole foot, Grandpa,” I said, proudly, “I’m almost as big as you!”
He laughed that good, hearty laugh. How I missed it so. I hugged Grandma and cried. They were back. Everybody who had been gone came back. We started down Main Street, this marching parade of laughing, singing, living folks. Everyone went to their own homes to see their families again.
Aunt Martha was home. I couldn’t wait to see her surprise when Grandma and Grandpa walked in.
“Mom! Dad, is that you?” Aunt Martha cried, dropping her armful of dishes with an earth-shattering crash.
They each other in the tightest, longest hug I’d ever seen in my life. Tears on their faces and laughter in their throats.
“I’ve never felt better,” Grandpa said. “See? I can open and close my hands again. No stiffness at all. I feel like a million bucks. Why, I could build a house from scratch right now.”
“Dad, what was it like? On the other side, I mean?”
Grandpa paused for a second. “To tell the truth I don’t rightly know. It’s like I took a good long nap without dreaming and woke up full of pep and vinegar. God! I haven’t felt this good since I was a young man.”
The Dajkovics—an old Serbian couple who came to town the year my grandparents were married—lived next door to us. I remembered Grandma telling me Mrs. Dajkovic lost her baby to fever a month or so after giving birth. They never had any children after that. She always seemed so sad, especially when she saw us kids coming home from school. I could see right into their house from our window.
“They brought him to me, Gojko,” Mrs. Dajkovic said, holding a baby in her arms. “They found him at the grave, alive in the coffin. He’s alive, Gojko! He’s alive.”
Mr. Dajkovic nearly fell over from shock. His mouth hung open like he had swallowed some beef that got stuck in his throat. He made the sign of the cross and cried.
“Anya, can such things be? My Misha, my dear little Misha,” he said, now holding the cooing baby.
Mrs. Dajkovic wiped her tears with a handkerchief. “God be blessed forever. He has returned my son to me.”
“Bless him forever,” Mr. Dajkovic repeated, then covered his newborn with kisses.
How beautiful, that strange and wonderful day. Grandma and Grandpa talking and laughing with the family. We all cried. Everyone in our little town cried. We were happy, a happiness unlike any I have ever known since. Grandpa and I threw the ball outside, like we always used to. We walked the tracks where the old trains used to bring in folks from the city every Sunday. We sat by the lakes clear on the other side of town where everyone went cooled down during the hot summer afternoons.
“Don’t ever leave again, Grandpa,” I said, looking up at him with those big doe eyes of mine.
He patted my head and smiled. “C’mon, whippersnapper. We best be heading back.”
By the time we got home the sun was almost set. Grandma asked me to fetch some spices at the store, and to hurry. I ran down Main Street so fast, got the spices from Mr. Orlo, who was so happy his older brother had come back that he gave them to me free of charge, ran all the way back home and—
There was a man and a woman standing outside the doorway. I’d never seen them before. They wore identical robes with colours I didn’t understand, with scarfs that covered their heads and wrapped around their arms like sashes. I stopped dead in my tracks. The woman looked at me and smiled tenderly.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Phyllis,” the woman said to Grandma at the door. She had the sweetest voice I’d ever heard. “but I’m afraid we must speak with you and your husband, Rick.”
“What do you want? Do I know you?”
“May we come in? We’d be happy to explain everything.”
“Well,” Grandma said, then paused. “Well—oh, I suppose so.”
The door opened and in they walked with me right behind like a little puppy. Grandma closed the door behind her softly, latching it with a click. I didn’t know why. I must’ve had an inclination. I heard my own heart beating between my ears.
“Now,” Grandma said, “What’s this all about?”
“Ted, Martha,” the woman said, “I’m afraid there’s been a terrible mistake.”
“What sort of mistake?” Grandma asked.
“This event,” the man said, “It’s not supposed to be, yet.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You and Rick should not have returned,” the woman said.
“Who are you?” Grandma snapped.
“The fact is,” the woman said, “this is our doing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We are the architects of your universe and the realities that govern it.”
“Whatever are you talking about? Architects and such. What is this nonsense?”
A warm glow filled the room. And the music! My God, the music. I felt it in my body, in my stomach and in my fingertips, indiscernible music dancing in my body. I swear I could have flown to the moon and back in a snap. The strangers’ robes burned vividly blue, roaring like a million furnaces—the heat! I thought the house would go up in smoke. Nothing burned. Not the curtains and not the carpets. Every stick of furniture was perfectly fine. Grandma and Grandpa were unharmed too. But Lord were they terrified. They were on the floor, shaking, hiding their faces while the blue fire swallowed everything up.
“Peace to you,” the woman said, ever so gently, “We built this universe and everything in it. We pieced together the strands of your molecular structure. We made you.”
The glow disappeared and the blue fire faded. The music stopped. My feet were heavy as boulders. I kept my face pressed to the window.
“You’re—you’re angels,” Grandma said with a stammer, getting up.
The woman smiled. “No. You cannot see our true forms and live. This is why we came to you in disguise. We have lifted the veil only slightly, that you may believe us.”
“What are you, then?” Grandpa finally asked, a tremor in his voice.
“Our kind has learned and progressed throughout the eons. Your universe is the first of our creations. We have worked many millennia to undo death, an obstacle we did not foresee in our designs. Our corrections are not finished.”
“Not finished?” Grandpa said. “But we’re back. See? We’re right here. And those people, all those people from the cemetery, they’re back too.”
The woman shook her head, “If we do not bring you back to the grave within a few hours, your body will break down. You will rot but never die. Every ailment you had in life will follow you into unlife, pain without relief.”
The man added, “When the corrections are fully implemented the dead from every land, from every century, will be raised to life. Sicknesses will be obsolete. Your kind will explore the deepest seas and the farthest stars without need for machinery. You will live in constant euphoria, and all hostilities will be no more. Your universe will finally be free from the shackles of decay.”
“This—it’s impossible—” Aunt Martha jumped in.
“Until that time,” the woman said, “the dead cannot—they must not—be raised.”
“Then why! Why are they alive?” Aunt Martha shouted.
“We put it to the test,” the man said, quietly. “We had to be sure it would work. But it is not perfected yet. Your town alone has experienced this.”
Grandma and Grandpa remained quiet. My heart sank and sank and sank right to the bottom of my shoes. Mr. Kolisnyk slowly rubbed his hands together, bending his fingers.
“They’re getting stiff,” he mumbled.
“I know,” the woman said with a solemn look.
“My left knee is giving me trouble…” Grandma said, looking at the floor.
“Mom, Dad,” Aunt Martha said. She was about to cry.
“Martha,” Grandpa said, grimly, “Maybe it’s best we go with them.”
Me and Aunt Martha grabbed them both. “No,” Aunt Martha cried, “You can’t.”
“I’m very sorry,” the woman said. “Everything must happen in its own time.”
Whatever brief hope was alive in our eyes died in that moment. It was the kind of sadness that can’t be described with words.
“Don’t go,” I said, sobbing. “Please don’t. I’ll miss you.”
He picked me up and hugged me tighter than any hug I ever got from him. Grandma hugged us both.
“Don’t cry, whippersnapper,” Grandpa said to me, smiling. “I’ll see you again. And we’ll play along the train tracks like we used to. And Grandma will cook you her best dinners. It’ll be all right.”
As they got ready to leave I saw through the window another pair of strangers—both women—comfort the Dajkovics.
“I can’t give him up again,” Mrs. Dajkovic said in tears, holding her crying baby. He cried like he was in pain. I assumed the fever from so many years ago was returning.
One of the women embraced Mrs. Dajkovic. “Dear Anya. I promise, you will see your Misha again. And you will watch him grow just as you had longed all these years.”
“How? How can you take him away from me again?”
The woman took Mrs. Dajkovic’s hand into hers. “I will not take him, except that you give him freely. He must rest and wait until you join him in a better world.”
Mrs. Dajkovic held her baby to her face, her tears wetting his little cheeks. She said a prayer over him, and kissed him.
“If God has been so kind to return Misha to me,” she said, “I will do right by him, and return him to God, that we may see him again forever.”
Mr. Dajkovic made the sign of the cross over the baby, kissed him, and prayed. Together, they left their house, the baby in Mrs. Dajkovic’s arms, while the strangers walked on either side.
We headed to the cemetery, the whole town. Some wept, some were quiet, some prayed. The strangers escorted the recently dead back to their graves. Me and Aunt Martha kissed Grandma and Grandpa one last time.
Mrs. Dajkovic kissed her baby once more, “God be with you, my little love.”
One of the strangers, a tall woman with long hair black as a starless night, smiled and said, “There will be another downpour like the one earlier today. Do not be sad. One hour in our world is two thousand years in yours. In one hour your hope will be realized. The voiceless will sing. The crippled will run. The dead will rise. Peace to you, dear children. Farewell.”
Then came the rain, heavy and loud. We couldn’t see anything in front of us. When it stopped, the cemetery looked as if it had never been disturbed. The sun shone brightly, and the strangers were nowhere to be found.
The Dajkovics cried together, surrounded by friends crying with them. Martha’s friends stood by her side, comforting her. I tried to be brave. One by one folks walked away, silent, wiping their tears, longing for the promise. Some went to church to pray. Others went back home. I stayed at the cemetery, hoping against hope the ground would open again.
And I hoped, and I hoped.
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