strange feeling of not really needing to breathe, but doing so on instinct. “I... I'll never see them again, even after they die. Will I? Please tell me they won't end up here eventually... they won't be like these drones. You don't have friends and family here, right?”
“No. Thankfully, they've never fallen to this fate. I'm uncertain of how long I've been here. My wife might still be alive.”
Shannon hesitated. “Can I ask... when did you die?”
“1894. I've lost track of time after so long, but I'm assuming it's the 1920s at this point. Am I right?”
Sympathy sunk into Shannon's eyes. The man looked at her, face shining with hope. She knew what it was. He finally had an outsider – someone who could tell him what had happened in the world since his death. And that someone was supposed to tell him he hadn't been trapped in this place for well over a hundred years.
“It's been longer,” he frowned, looking at her with dread. “1940? 1950?”
“I don't know how to tell you this...”
“As quickly and painlessly as possible.”
“It's – it's 2015. I'm sorry.”
He leaned back on the bench and remained silent for a long moment. “One hundred and twenty-one years. How did I lose so much time?”
Shannon shrugged, unsure of how to answer. “Maybe... time passes differently here. Or maybe we're just not supposed to experience time in the same way – uh, living people do.”
The man with the wheelbarrow circled past them again.
“At least we're not like them,” she said.
“Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I envy them.”
Shannon didn't know what to say to that. She understood his point, certainly. The loneliness had to be overwhelming. People were social by nature, and going that long without conversation, without contact with another soul, had to have driven him mad. How this man had managed to go so long in solitude without losing his composition was beyond her understanding.
“I'm Shannon, by the way,” she offered the man a small smile. “Shannon Sullivan.”
“Benjamin Foster,” he said. “It might not be entirely proper for me to ask you to address me simply as 'Ben' at this point, but I assume we'll be spending a fair amount of time together, so I'll skip the usual formality.”
Shannon snickered. “Yeah, you're definitely a Victorian.”
“Victorian?” he scoffed. “What do you mean? I'm hardly an imperialist.”
“Well, you're English, right?”
“Born and raised in London.”
“That's what I thought. I guess you probably didn't have a name for your own age,” she thought aloud. “Victorian... It's, like, late nineteenth, early twentieth century. Typified by stiff upper lips, straight backs, tight bodices, and an obsession with all things morbid and proper. How am I doing?”
His eyes widened. “That's the most accurate and insulting way I've ever heard anyone put it. You have that Irish bluntness for a reason; don't you?”
He said it with a a sneaky smile, and Shannon had a feeling that if he'd come from a more modern age, he would have nudged her in the arm.
“I'm Irish American on my dad's side,” she said. “My ancestors came over... well, around the time you got trapped here, probably. My parents just really wanted to give me this name because it's so trendy to be Irish nowadays.”
A pang struck her empty chest. Her name was probably being carved on a headstone as she spoke.
“My, how the times have changed,” he laughed. “Good. I'm glad. And how is my motherland these days?”
“Less imperial, more islandy.”
“Well, that's the best news I've heard – the only news I've heard – in a very long time. I look forward to learning some recent world history from you. It's been so long since I've learned anything at all.”
“I'm guessing you've read everything at Odds and Ends?”
“If you look more closely, you'll notice their pages of those books are empty. I use them as journals, and I write the final drafts of my novels in them as well.”
“Oh, you're a writer!”
“In life I wasn't,” he admitted. “I was a lawyer, actually. I looked down at all of those holier-than-thou authors and poets. 'They should find real professions and support themselves!' I'd say. But in death, well... let's just say I understand them a bit more. What does your husband do?”
“I'm not – I wasn't married. And women nowadays can have careers of their own, thank you very much! I worked as a graphic designer,” she said, trying to think of a way to explain her job to someone who had died long before the digital age. “Basically... I designed logos and pictures for companies who wanted to advertise their products to the public.”
“So you're an artist.”
“Depends on who you ask. I'd like to think I am,” she shrugged. Shannon missed the watercolors and charcoals she'd used in college, and sometimes she longed to work with a purely physical form of art. Still, she loved working on the computer, and would defend her craft relentlessly.
“Odds and Ends has plenty of paints and pencils,” Ben seemed to have read her mind. “It'll be a good way to pass these lonely years. Well – they're quite a bit less lonely now; aren't they?”
Maybe for you, she thought, but kept it to herself. Shannon had lost everything and everyone she loved. It had all been replaced with this drab, little town and a single sentient man. Sure, they got along now, but what about in a few weeks, years, or centuries? No one was meant to spend that much time together.
She felt guilty for even thinking it. He had been here – completely alone – since her great-great grandparents emigrated from Ireland. For all that time, he'd had nothing and no one.
“So... who are all these people?” Shannon asked, trying to keep her mind from delving into such dark areas. “Have they ever tried to hurt you?”
“I know they're more than a bit off-putting, but you've nothing to fear,” he stood and offered her his hand. “They've become friends to me, in a way. I've given them names, though I doubt they're the ones they held in life. I'd be lying if I said I never talk to them. Shall I introduce you?”
“Uh... sure?”
It was an odd thing to ask, but she could hardly blame Ben for being a little eccentric.
He first led her to the woman folding laundry. “This is Martha. She appeared, oh I don't know... a little while after I stopped keeping track of the time. Every morning she comes out with her unfolded basket, folds it, puts it back in the basket, unfolds it, and folds it again. She'll do it hundreds of times in a day. I wonder if she was a laundress in life.
“Over there,” he pointed to the children jumping rope. “We have the twins, Annie and Charity. I call the boy Edward. The man pushing the wheelbarrow is George.”
“What about the people in Odds and Ends?”
“I call the woman Grace,” he said. “She hasn't been here as long as many of the others. The man who's always stacking his boxes is Davy.”
“Are they the only people in the town?”
Ben shook his head. “There are one hundred and seventeen, though when I came, there were only about fifty. Like I said, they just... appear sometimes. The fence extends quite a way in the other direction. There's a small field that people plow and till, but nothing grows, of course. We have a pond and fishermen, but no fish.”
“I think I'd like to see how far this fence extends.”
“Of course,” said Ben. “But there's someone else I'd like you to meet first. She's... puzzling, to say the least.”
He led her toward the stone church, heaving open the heavy wooden door and letting Shannon pass through first. The ceiling stretched high, and many of the slats had fallen and rotted away, exposing the cloudy, gray sky above. The mist that covered the forest seeped in through the top and danced down across the stained glass windows and onto the floor. The figures in the glass were beautiful. A dove with an oli
ve branch. Angels with harps. Saints with halos and outstretched arms.
A beautiful, haunting soprano voice echoed through the church. It was a melody Shannon recognized, though she couldn't recall the name. A woman stood in front of the altar, hands clasped in front of her as she sang:
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Remember me to the one who lives there
For once she was a true lover of mine.
“Isn't her voice gorgeous?” Ben took a seat in the front pew.
“I swear I've heard this song...” Shannon said.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Without any seam or needlework,
Then she shall be a true lover of mine.
“It's Scarborough Fair. My aunt used to sing it at Christmastime when I was a child,” Ben closed his eyes. “My mother would play the piano, and we would all sit and listen while we drank wassail.”
“Does she always sing this one?”
Tell her to wash them in yonder well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Where never sprung water or rain ever fell,
And she shall be a true lover of mine.
“Alma knows a lot of songs,” said Ben. “Her favorites seem to be this one, Barbara Allen, and Over the Hills and Far Away.”
Shannon raised her eyebrows. “The Zeppelin song?”
“The what?”
She shook her head. “This generational gap is kind of annoying; isn't it?”
Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,
Then