The déjà vu returned as Goodman Griggs gave me his furtive, grumbling look and drove me to the ferry. The ferryman once again ogled me and the boys once again splashed water at each other across the Charles. With a slight limp, trudging, shovel in hand, I again strode up Water Street, into the shop where Usher and Day were arguing about the quality of the printing. The same trick worked to steal the book again—remarkable, how at ease I felt, now that I knew I would accomplish it—and finally I approached the cooperage. I felt my pace slow. Even if I offered this unsettling fellow both of the wampum beads (one was intended for the ferry back to Muddy River), I suspected he would claim that it did not cover the fee. My real trouble was my want of a corset.
But at least I knew what I was in for, and that was oddly comforting. I presented myself to him with a slight brazenness, so that at least I avoided the unpleasantness of being groped—I came near to actually teasing him, promising future “generosity” before he even asked for it. I had his full attention and cooperation, and I was out of there sooner, and less grossed out, than last time.
So: déjà vu continued up the road to Watertown, and into the copse of trees where the creek was, and the boulder. I took off my apron, wrapped it around my hand while I was shoveling, and thereby saved myself the splinter of the last visit. My muscles were sore from all the digging yesterday—for my body knew that to have happened yesterday, even if I was now situated long, long before yesterday. Also, I was terribly hungry. And my leg was now throbbing like a motherfucker badly. So I was not in good humor.
I found the same Native American midden, and this time, when the hole was deep enough, tossed the shells in first and then put the bucket in atop them. I buried it, and then in a state of filthy exhaustion limped back to the ferry, where I paid my way and therefore had no need to even talk to the ferryman; miserably, I dragged my fatigued butt back to Goody Fitch’s, and barely had the energy to thank her or speak to her daughter. I had no energy at all to follow through on my earlier intention of interviewing her regarding the Strands of time. Still, she made the same offer she had the first time, which was heartening.
This time, her daughter did not say, “You already told me.” I took that as a good sign: this must be the visit she’d been referring to the other time. There need be no more. Two visits should suffice. Please, God, let two suffice.
Goody Fitch sent me forward to the ODEC, where I arrived shivering and naked, the superficial gash on my calf crusted and angry. I went through the decontamination procedure as before. Tristan, without the excited fanfare of the previous day, drove us back to the East-Oda homestead, where Rebecca tended my wound with a salve she had whipped up herself—a combination of modern antibiotics from the pharmacy and herbs from her garden. The menfolk once again dug up the backyard. Or rather, Tristan dug, while Frank Oda watched with the interest of a schoolboy who was illicitly attending a ballgame.
Early that morning, Tristan had “sent some men around” to fill in the hole. This had further torn up the yard and made a terrible noise, as it involved the kind of pounder that is used to smooth out new asphalt laid down over potholes. The neighbors were up in arms, Rebecca told us with a sigh, although mostly she was upset about her garden. Tristan of course was indifferent to the controversy.
Once I was sufficiently bandaged and plied with painkillers, we went downstairs and out the back to see how the digging was coming, ignoring the black and calico cats who were trying to trip us. Frank Oda was leaning against the boulder with a cup of tea; we three women stood on the small back deck of the house, staring over the railing. The midden of oyster and clam shells—which I had deliberately placed under the bucket this time—had been unearthed . . . yet still no bucket.
As I watched, it seemed to me that my exhaustion, or perhaps a side effect of the painkillers, was affecting my eyesight, for Tristan suddenly looked slightly blurred, as if I were looking at him across a lit BBQ grill.
“You see?” said Erszebet, sounding satisfied. She gestured casually toward Tristan. “It’s coming along.”
“Is he . . . wavy?” I asked.
“He’s not wavy,” she said in her usual being-derisive-about-Tristan voice.
“Something is wavy,” said Rebecca decisively.
Tristan stopped digging and leaned on the shovel, breathing harder than he had yesterday although the soil was looser and the hole was smaller (but then, this time, he was the only one digging it). “Ma’am, could I trouble you for some saline drops?” he asked Rebecca. “I’ve got something in my eyes.”
“No you don’t,” Erszebet informed him. “That’s just the glimmer.”
A childlike surge of excitement overrode my exhaustion, briefly: “Like in . . . like in old stories about witchcraft? You mean ‘glamour’?” I asked. For with her accent it was difficult to tell.
She shrugged. “I don’t know what it is called in old stories. We called it pislákoló, this is ‘glimmer’ or ‘glamour’ or something in English. I never knew the English term for it, magic was nearly gone by the time I was fluent in your language so there was no occasion to describe it. And now the word ‘glamour’ is ruined by that magazine.”
“What is it, exactly?” said Tristan. “What’s going on?”
“It happens because it is the spot . . .” Erszebet paused, then sighed noisily, as if put upon. “When magic existed, this was common knowledge and nobody ever had to explain it any more than you would have to explain why you sweat when you are hot or need air to breathe. But I will try.” She pressed her elbow upon the deck rail and leaned her chin into the back of one lithe hand, lips pursed—Lauren Bacall imitating Rodin’s Thinker. “This spot is where we are trying to make change. When there is no magic happening, things look normal. But when magic is happening, then what-could-be becomes . . . louder, or bigger, than whatever-currently-is. That causes the glimmer. So glimmer is a good sign.” She reached into her bag, pulled out the számológép, and began to finger certain strands with seemingly random dexterity. Then she put it away, looked directly at me, and declared, “I think seven more times back to this DTAP without complications, and we will find the bucket when we dig for it here.”
I heard myself groan before I could contain it. Seven more days of being ogled by the cooper. Of digging a deep hole in virgin soil with an unwieldy shovel. Of that long, swampy trudge back to Muddy River. “And it has to be me, correct?” I said. “We cannot swap me out for Tristan. That would be like resetting the counter to zero?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take the next DTAP,” said Tristan. “Scout’s honor.”
“What if the next one requires conversational Sumerian?” I asked.
WE WAITED A couple of days for my leg to heal, and then Erszebet sent me back again.
And then she sent me back again. And then again and again and again.