We sat there silently for some time.
Finally I broke the spell. “So then what happened?”
“Well, that was it, mostly. We wondered if the Rebs might make another go of it the next day, but it never happened. That next day we woke up and they were gone. We just let ‘em go too. Reckon everybody’d had enough of fightin’.”
“And how about you?” I asked. “What did you do after you…you know..”
“After I got blown t’smitereens?”
I gulped. “Well, yeah.” I was still feeling awkward about the concept, but Zach just grinned and went on.
“I stuck with Henry Clay and the regiment, just like I vowed I would.”
“Did he…um...make it through the war okay?”
“Well, most of him did. He took a minie’ ball in the knee at Cold Harbor and that about did him in. They had t’take his leg off but the rest of him recovered.”
Zach drifted over to the window and stared out at the darkness. “After he got shot… well it changed him some. He became quieter, reflective. I reckon that happened to a lot of them. Soldiers came home and took t’religion or drinkin’ or reflectin’ on the meanin’ of it all. Old Henry Clay came in the third group.”
“So you stayed with your brother; could you guys talk to each other, I mean like we are now?”
Zach turned away from the window. “Not like we are now, no. This is a curious thing, you and I communicatin’ like this. I’ve never seen the like before, and I can’t say as I understand it.”
He shook his head slowly. “To think on it, I can recall as how it seemed as though Henry Clay could hear me when he really needed to; like the time I warned him ‘bout those Rebs goin’ at him at Gettysburg. There were other instances like that, where I called out to him and he reacted. I reckoned I saved his life more’n once that way.
“I do think he felt that I was around though. I can recall one night the regiment was sittin’ around the fire he told some of the fellows, ‘Y’know boys, there’s times I feel like little Zachary never really left us. It’s a curious thing, but there’s times it’s like I can feel him marchin’ alongside me. That and I’m dreamin’ about the boy near every night.’”
Zach chuckled. “I don’t wonder at them dreams. See, I’d made it my practice to stay by at night and talk real low to him just as he was dozin’ off. Seemed like that was the only time he was sitting still enough t’really listen. Next day he’d be talking to the boys about some of the things I’d said. Sometimes when he was alone he’d commence t’talkin’ to me, but I don’t think he put much stock in me actually bein’ around t’hear him. We pretty much carried on like through the whole course of Henry Clay’s life.”
I thought about how strange and sad that sounded. The two brothers together all those years, talking past each other…
Zach continued. “Anyway, like I said, gettin’ shot put Henry Clay into a thoughtful frame of mind. When he came home, Pa told him he had some money saved and would be willin’ stake him in a business. I think he had a picture of Henry Clay opening some dry goods store or whatnot, but old Henry Clay was havin’ none of that. He talked Pa into sendin’ him off t’the university instead.
“As Henry Clay saw it, maybe if he took on enough book learnin’, he might come to understand how people could go so crazy as to set off on a killin’ spree like the one that took his leg, his brother, and his faith that the world made any kind of sense.
We sat silently and thought about that one awhile. “Did he find out?” I asked. “I mean, did he get his questions answered?”
“I can’t speak t’that. I don’t really know how he felt about it all in the end, but I do believe the search left him a better man that he would have been otherwise.
“I followed him too, right through the university,’ he continued. “At first, I didn’t take to it at all. I never did have much time for schoolin’ when I was on this earth. I spent most of my school days sittin’ in the punishment corner or gettin’ sent outside t’cut a willow switch so teacher could give me another lickin’.
“At the university with Henry Clay, though, it was different. There weren’t any other kids t’be prankin’ around with. Fact is, there wasn’t much t’do there at all except to sit in on Henry Clay’s classes. Before long those lectures started to catch my interest. Next thing I know I’m thinkin’ about what I’d learned, and of course that leads to wantin’ to know more and more, and next thing I know, I’m sittin’ up nights reading over Henry Clay’s shoulder.
“Four years later, Henry Clay and I both wound up with college educations. Him with a degree and me with an insatiable curiosity.
“Henry Clay started out teachin’, mostly ‘round New England, then when old man Gierman started up his college back in…that would be 1888, Henry took him up on an offer t’be the head of his library. He stayed on there ‘til a stroke took him. That was in 1913.”
“And you’ve been haunting the library ever since?”
“There y’go.”
I hadn’t unpacked my clock radio yet, so I don’t know how late I stayed up listening to Zach’s story, but it had to be well after midnight when I finally dozed off.
I still didn’t know the time when Mom woke me up. Whatever the clock said, though, it was way too early.
“Marcus!” she called from my doorway, “I’d like to suggest that you get your sorry butt moving and help me finish putting our new home together.”
I realized I was lying on top of my bed, fully dressed. The events of last night were just coming back to me. Had I really been up all night listening to life story of a guy who was killed in a Civil War battle?
“Had a sergeant like that back in the regiment.”
I startled, “Eep!”
Zach!?! “I reckon I was hearin’ about by sorry butt three times a day easy.”
Once my heart stopped thumping, I realized I was coming down with a severe case of the willies.
“What is this?” I asked. “Have you watching all night?” Was this what being haunted was going to be like? Having some weird dead guy around all the time waiting to pop up and go “Boo”?
Zach seemed abashed. “I haven’t been here all night. I just came by when I noticed you’d woke up. I’m truly sorry if I put the scare in you.”
“But how did you know I was awake if you weren’t spying on me?”
“I can’t say exactly, but you were thinkin’ about me weren’t you? I reckon it’s like things were back when Henry Clay was still with on this earth. He’d be thinkin about me and I just seemed to know .”
I tried to retrace my thoughts, but I hit a wall. Had I been thinking about him? I was too groggy to remember.
“I can’t think about this now; I’m starving. I’m going to get some breakfast, and I’ve got to help Mom and Dad with the unpacking.”
As if on cue, Mom called out, “Marcus!”
“Coming!” I answered. “Look Zach, if what you’re telling me is right, I’ll just call you up later. I can’t deal with you and Mom at the same time, okay?”
He looked disappointed, but he just shrugged, “Fair enough,” and vanished.
It was pushing ten AM when I stumbled to the breakfast table. I took a couple more shots from Mom about being such a slug-a-bed.
“He rises to greet the rosy-fingered dawn,” chirped Dad, quoting Homer.
“The rosy-fingered dawn is long gone,” groused Mom. “We’re pushing rosy-fingered noon here.”
“I couldn’t help it. It’s probably just jet lag.”
“Jet lag is not a common malady among people who travel in rented moving vans,” Dad pointed out.
“Hey, we may be making medical history here,” I suggested.
“Okay, then I’m prescribing a strict regimen of vacuuming, dusting, and window-washing for you. We should have you back up to speed in no time.”
I groaned. “I was thinking of something more in the line of bed rest…”
As if.
The advantage of living in tiny apartments is that it doesn’t take much time to get them cleaned up. I had my chores finished in just a couple hours, even though they also included hauling unholy quantities of boxes containing Dad’s books.
Mom didn’t warn me about that part, but I should have known. We’ve done this moving business often enough that Dad has figured out that he needs to load his books into the truck first so that they are the last thing that gets unloaded.
It’s keeps you from having to dig through two thousand years of Greek and Roman literature to find a can opener.
Once the place was near enough to ship-shape to satisfy Mom, she and Dad took off to do some exploring themselves. They asked me if I was inclined to serve as a guide, but I begged off.
I wanted to check in with Zach.
I stood awkwardly in my room, feeling just a little silly.
I mean, how do you call up a ghost?
Did I need to chant an incantation in some mysterious language? Hold a séance?
For lack of any better ideas, I just shrugged and thought, “Yo, Zach.”
And there he was.
Zach looked around the newly tidied living room. “The place is lookin’ right nice. You folks been busy I see.”
“Tell me about it.”
But while I’d been cleaning and hauling, I’d also been thinking. Where did Zach go last night after I went to sleep? The library? I asked him where he’d been.
Zach shrugged. “Nowhere, really. The library’s closed at night. Nobody’s readin’ so there’s not much point in bein’ there.”
“Then where were you?”
“Nowhere.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s where I was, I reckon: Nowhere.” Zach grinned. He was having way too much fun here for my taste.
“You know darn well I’m not getting any of this,” I said.
“It’s difficult to explain and I can’t say as I understand it myself. I’ve come t’the conclusion that time doesn’t function the same way for us spectral entities as it does in the land of the livin’.”
“Say what?”
“Some years ago I came to the realization that I wasn’t here on earth all of the time. Your living mortal is pretty well committed bein’ of this world all the time, but that’s not necessarily the case for us spirits. We tend to come and go as needed.”
“Come from where” Go where? This is really weird stuff you’re trying to tell me.”
“I can’t deny that. See, you nodded off last night so I just come back when you woke up. This morning I went by the library ‘cause I knew that there was a girl readin’ a volume of Winston Churchill’s that I hadn't yet had the opportunity to finish. She was done ‘round noon time so then I came here.”
I looked at the clock on the TV set. “But it’s 4:30 now. Where were you for those four hours?”
“Like I said, nowhere.”
Zach must have noted the bewildered look on my face.
“Look,” he said, “it’s like if you walked out of one room and into another, didn’t pass through any hallway or the like, just went from point A to point B without passin’ through anything t’get there. Near as I can figure, that’s how I’m movin’ through time.”
He shrugged. “It’s a curious thing, but there it is.”
I shook my head again. I thought I understood what he was saying, but… “That is so weird, I’m thinking Einstein would like to have a word with you. Maybe you could tell him a thing or two about relativity.”
Zach chuckled. “Oh, I reckon he’s figured most of it out for himself by now.”
Later, after I’d had some time to think about it, I realized that it was like Zach was only present for the interesting parts of his life (well maybe not ‘life’ exactly). Somehow, being a ghost exempted him from all the boring stuff that comes in between the good parts of existence. That sounded kind of cool, actually.
Except that you had to be dead to pull it off.
I had other questions. “You said your brother died in…”
“…1913.”
“Right. So you’ve been haunting the library since then.”
“Pretty much,” Zach replied.
“But is that it? I mean, did you ever go anywhere else? Or do anything else?”
Zach shook his head sadly. “No, I was pretty much bound to stay in the library once Henry Clay passed on.”
“But why?” I asked
Zach looked down at the floor. “I reckon bein’ a spirit puts a limit on a body’s freedom of movement. Anyway, the library was my place, our place, Henry’s and mine. It was where his did his work and where I kept up with my readin’. There’s so much t’know and the library is a good place t’find things out. Then come the day I find that I really couldn’t be anywhere else whether I want to or not.
“That is, ‘til you come along.”
I looked up. “Me?”
“There y’go. As I see the situation, Henry Clay and I had a blood connection, bein’ brothers and all. That and me choosin’ to stay by him back in ’63. You, now…well you’re somethin’ else, I can’t say what, but I wherever you are I can be too, and Lord, it’s a fine thing t’be out of that library after so many years.”
I thought about that a minute. He’d spent nearly a century in there! “What did you do all that time?”
“What else? Read.”
“For a hundred years?
“A hundred years. Has it been that long?” Zach shook his head. “Anyway, followin’ such a distinguished librarian and professor as Henry Clay around all those years gave me a pretty good start on an education. What with all those lectures, classes, seminars, I reckoned I learned I thing or two.
“Then came all those years of readin’ in the library. I came to be sensitive to what was goin’ on it the place ‘til it come to a point where anytime anybody’d crack open a book that peaked my interest, I’d just know it somehow. Next thing, there I was just reading over somebody’s shoulder—just like you found me.”
“So what kind of stuff did you read?” I asked.
“ Oh, History, literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, you name it. I’m proud t’say that I can read most anything I see in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Greek.”
My jaw dropped. “You speak all those languages?”
“Read not speak. I’ve never heard most of them languages spoke out loud all that much, and I can’t say as I’d understand much if I heard some French folks talkin’. I’m danged if I can pronounce that stuff out loud.”
So that was my new best friend. I was now best buds with ghost of a kid who was killed in the Civil War and went on to spend a century memorizing the contents of a library (in seven languages).
Life was getting way too interesting.