University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 5-16-2008 Invitation of Echoes: Part One William Bain University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Bain, William, "Invitation of Echoes: Part One" (2008). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 649. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/649 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Invitation of Echoes: Part One A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Film, Theatre, & Communication Arts in Creative Writing by William Bain B.A. Wabash College, 1993 M.S. Indiana University, 1998 May, 2008 Copyright 2008, William Bain ii Dedication For Rachael, Gabriella, and Katya. Te amo sempre. With apologies to Anne, Ginni, Pete, and Kathy for whom I’ve often been little more than an echo. iii Acknowledgments I’m grateful to more people than I can remember. It’s a sad condition of mine, and I hope that if I haven’t thanked you here then I at least gave you my appreciation in the time we spent together. That said, my sincerest thanks to: Amanda Boyden, Joseph Boyden, and Gale Walden for their time and encouragement in class, in Spain, out of class, and on committee. Kathleen Veslany, Lee Gutkind, Bill Lavender, Joanna Wos, Michael Martone, Dan Barden, and all the other teachers, workshop leaders, and critical minds who read my work and told me where it sucked. Tawni, Dawn, Nate, Holly, Sean, Beth, Ricky, Jen, Tara, Val, Virginia, Scott and all the other UNO students who read my words and made me want to be worth your time. The Wellspring families—the greatest group of friends I could hope to someday deserve. iv Table of Contents Abstract...............................................................................................................................vi Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Gilley.............................................................................................................2 Chapter Two: Jesse............................................................................................................12 Chapter Three: Jason..........................................................................................................22 Chapter Four: August.........................................................................................................42 Chapter Five: Gilley...........................................................................................................61 Chapter Six: Jesse..............................................................................................................85 Chapter Seven: Jason.......................................................................................................108 Chapter Eight: August......................................................................................................114 Chapter Nine: Gilley........................................................................................................142 Chapter Ten: Jesse...........................................................................................................156 Chapter Eleven: Jason......................................................................................................160 Chapter Twelve: August..................................................................................................170 Vita...................................................................................................................................188 v Abstract Four strangers are stranded in an old farmhouse by a winter storm. Gilley lives on the farm. Shadows move of their own volition on the farm, and Gilley talks to echoes and sees the dead reflected in mirrors. Gilley’s husband, Frank, disappeared over forty years ago. Jason is a college student who seeks Gilley out for an interview. He agrees to help Gilley find Frank. Jesse is a young boy who finds his way to the house after an accident. August is a private investigator whom Jason calls for help in finding Frank. August does not have a shadow nor a reflection of his own, and he can’t remember how he lost them. Each wants something that only the others can provide, but each wants to keep their own secrets. Key words: fiction, invitation, ghosts, echoes, shadows, reflections, August LeVey, Grey Lands, winter, blizzard, stranded, Indianapolis, crows vi Introduction And all with pearl and ruby glowing Was the fair palace door; Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, And sparkling evermore, A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty Was but to sing In voices of surpassing beauty, The wit and wisdom of their king. Edgar Allen Poe, “The Haunted Palace” (1839) Long has paled that sunny sky: Echoes fade and memories die, Autumn frosts have slain July. Edmund Clarence Stedman, “Of Alice in Wonderland” (1895) IN the grey tumult of these after years Oft silence falls Rupert Brooke, “Hauntings” (1914) 1 Chapter One: Gilley Between the larger rotting structures on Gilley’s farm, blackberries twined their thorny vines through piles of hexagonal wire and splintered boards. She thought of it as a farm out of habit, but the silos and feedlot had collapsed in ’96 and no one had cut into the soil since that Mexican family rented the north field and stream bed in ’92. Gilley looked out over the porch railing and followed the rutted line of her drive out toward the county road. No, no one tends anything but the blackberries anymore, she thought, and to be honest, she preferred the scattered advance of sassafras and mulberry trees across the remaining fields to the regimented rows of corn and beans. Shadows make good neighbors, she thought. Quiet. Discrete. They asked nothing but to be allowed to grow and tend their wild crops: blackberries in the bones of the chicken coop outside her kitchen window; morel mushrooms in the deep ravines south of the creek; pine cones in the quiet grove above Nolen’s Hill Cemetery; mistletoe on the narrow finger of her property that pushed Mill Creek into a sharp curve, its wide, flat stones mute under a blanket of moss. The shadows did not consume their crops. They freely offered her the fruits of their efforts. Gilley visited the sites as often as the weather and her hip allowed. Any more, she could only make it to the pine grove. A narrow, rutted lane, maintained by the fire department and DNR, cut across the toes of Nolen’s Hill, and she could still find the faint bed of gravel that led up to the cemetery. 2 The pine trees rose like vaulted columns on the north end of the graveyard. Their needles lay deep and soft under the wide boughs, to the exclusion of all other plant life. When Gilley last visited, just after the winter’s first hard freeze, the shadows fell from the trees like heavy crows. The hillside cemetery had twenty-three plots but only seven headstones remained standing—all but one unreadable. She counted all of them every time she made the hike up the hill. In the transition months, when the undergrowth had died off or had yet to re-sprout, she felt with her feet for the fallen headstones or the depressions left by unmarked graves. The headstones and the farm were some of the last remnants of her father’s family. Only two life- spans were not complete in the graveyard. Gillian Curan Garvey Frank Wesley Garvey 1926 – 1920 – I come to collect pine cones, she says to herself. The quiet. The cemetery just happened to be there. An echo rolled across the driveway. Its voice brought her back to the ice-limned porch eaves and the press of cold against her as she stood just inside the screen door. Gilley raised her right hand. She thought to call out to it but hesitated. The echo was unfamiliar to her. Probably one from the edge of the quarry. She didn’t think it noticed her, as she stood silent behind the tattered screens and grey wood frame of the door. Her breath piled up around her head in the still air—grey and insubstantial as her hair. The echo seemed preoccupied. Happy. Humming to itself but moving with a purpose. She would ask about it tonight when the echoes from the orchard came over for the Candlemas. 3 Gilley turned from the orange sky and stepped into the permanent twilight of her house. Pretty silly, she thought, waving to an echo. Might as well sing to a stone for all the applause it will get you. As the door closed, she noticed the cicada drone by its absence. It hadn’t been there for months, but it was only in this cold silence that Gilley felt their insistent chant so acutely. It was February second. The cicadas had long been silent and dead. A strand of spider silk glowed golden in a weak shaft of light. Somewhere along