When the Night Bells Ring by Jo Kaplan

Author:Jo Kaplan [Kaplan, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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October 2, 1869

Very early this morning, before the sun crept over the desert’s fine edge, I heard a musical tinkling. At first, I drifted slowly out of sleep, unable to identify whether the sound was only in my dreams. Then all at once I came fully awake, my heart leaping into my throat with the realization that the bell above our door was ringing.

The cabin was dark, and I slid out of bed in a panic. I stumbled into a chair, nearly falling over myself; with all the shambling slowness of a fool, I grasped around in the dark for a candle and a match, and it took two tries to light the wick. It all seemed to take so long, I thought for sure an intruder would have had all the time in the world to come slit my throat or drain the blood from my body. And though I am ashamed now to admit it, my mind did alight on the notion that it was the Strange Lady, and she was stealing inside to prick our feet, or worse. These wild notions set my hands trembling, but when I lifted the candle to see—why, it was only Oscar standing beside the door, a mischievous smile on his face! The candlelight caught the gleam of his eye as he scampered back to bed.

He has taken to jingling the bell at odd hours, that little devil, but never in the middle of the night like this. I admonished the boy that he was not allowed to do that, keeping my voice low so as not to wake the others.

He threw the covers over his head and his muffled voice emerged: “It wasn’t me. It was Charles.”

That was it. The little devil thought he could get away with mischief by blaming it on Charles—on the child who couldn’t be disciplined. I pulled his blanket down so roughly his hair stood up in fine disheveled strands. Surprise stood out on his face. We gazed at one another for some long moments, and then I smoothed his downy hair.

I could hardly explain to him what I find difficult to articulate for myself. The terror for the fragility of their tiny bodies—their skin so soft and tender, their bones as thin as twigs, the way their thin chests rise and fall in sleep. The question of what my other son would look like now, had he ever had a chance to grow, had he not died from the sickness of my own womb—and the knowledge that I will never be good enough, even if I have six more children, that Charles will still be the one who never was, came to mind. How could I explain to him that there are strange and mysterious things in this world that we do not understand, and if the bell rings in the night, it might mean that we will be killed and bled dry by one of those strange and mysterious things?

So this is

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