The Telegram, Chapter II. The Revisitation*
For as long as Sam can remember, the months of Winter have held an unrivalled allure for him. It is not due to some aversion to the other three Seasons-only a dour individual (or hypochondriac) could ignore the gaiety that Spring heralds, and only a melancholic soul (or albino) could resist soaking up the warmth of Summer. No, Sam’s love affair with the icy maiden of Winter stems from something else entirely.
Outside the west façade of Trinity Church15, Sam flips the lapel of his wool overcoat up to cover his bare neck-over the course of the week, the temperature has nose-dived from a brisk forties to a bone-cold fourteen degrees Fahrenheit. With severe weather comes severe attire-long overcoats and thick scarves, leather gloves and stiff felt derbies-and this is why Sam loves Winter.
No, not the apparel, of course; the layering. The subterfuge. Beneath piles of wools and tweeds, herringbone and pinstripe, he holds his cards close to his skin where his true self lurks-orphan and street urchin. Then, a lifetime of unintentional, but successful social climbing.
By contrast, during the warmer seasons the only defence Sam has for camouflage in Society is his long hair in his eyes and the hunch of his shoulders-flimsy indeed. His white-collar affectation is paper-thin and at times, Sam feels as if his colleagues and co-workers can peer through him and detect the true colour of his blood. Thus, when Winter dawns and the coats come on, his dirty secret becomes that much safer. No one will have to discover that he is root-less-retainer of only hazy memories, soft and fragile as translucent chiffon, of a mother, and a father; of something important, too, that Sam can never quite grasp…
A luxuriously-dressed couple streams past Sam, bumping him out of his reverie. Recovering quickly, he plunges gloved hands into his pockets and follows them up the steps of the cathedral, shrugging into the wide shoulders of his coat.
As he moves into the foyer, tendrils of chill float off his person and Sam shakes it off, embracing the warmth of the nave. Once inside, he walks up to the front pew and greets Mrs. Wilson awkwardly, bent at the waist as she half-rises for bisous. He then pauses, unsure of where to seat himself while the usher busily attends to another guest. On the one hand, he may be expected to join her, as he remains extremely close with the Wilson family-only natural, considering that after Sam and Ava proved inseparable at the tender ages of six, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson had treated him almost as if he were their own, despite Sam’s occupation of a vastly different rung on the social ladder (less polite company would call it “gutter-snipe”). On the other hand, Sam’s relationship with the Wilsons had never been so official as to have produced adoption papers or the like, and after riding upon their benevolence and hospitality until a mature sixteen years of age, Sam had promptly fled the borrowed nest and moved to Palo Alto to attend university.
This unsure delineation of his role in the bride’s life puts him in a mild conundrum, but soon he settles for sliding into the pew behind Mrs. Wilson, and she turns around with a smile and begins to chat amiably with him.
Before long, the first strains of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March can be heard from the organ and with an excitable gasp Mrs. Wilson’s gaze shifts behind Sam, tears in her eyes as she beholds her only daughter, whose slim, satin-gloved hand rests daintily upon the crux of her father’s elbow16. They proceed to walk down the aisle in slow, deliberate steps, and Sam settles back into his seat, allowing a surge of pride to course through him.
-----
The ceremony is a beautiful one-naturally, seeing as how neither the Wilson family nor groom’s can hardly be accused of falling victim to fiscal woes (a fact dutifully emphasized by the alarmingly sizeable diamond that crowns Ava’s new wedding band). Therefore, it is only suitable that the procession is grand, the dresses exquisite, and the orchestra magnificent-an hour later, Sam is still enthralled by the studied perfection of it all.
The bride and groom have since left the church, and most of the attendees are loitering out front, preparing to embark for the reception by either horse buggy or automobile. Only Sam, and the odd couple or two, remain seated in the emptying pews.
In his seat near the front, Sam non-committally observes the altar, tracing across shapes and furnishings with a practiced eye. Not much has changed since Sam was here last, some ten, twelve years ago, during the short while he was under the care of Pastor Jim Murphy…
After Mary Winchester had passed, his father vanishing soon after, Sam had run away from his shoddy orphanage at the age of six, determined to reclaim the family he had been denied-the simplistic logic of a child, admittedly. Asides from ephemeral dreams of a warm embrace and distant lullaby, Sam’s earliest memories consist of cold, sleepless nights in abandoned warehouses as he lived off scraps of leftover food, scavenged from piles of refuse in the manner of a mangy alley-cat. Luck would smile upon him, however; Sam quickly found a curious play-mate in the form of a young Ava Wilson, and consequently fell into the good graces of the magnanimous Wilson family.
The Wilsons attended Trinity Episcopal Church-located in their neighborhood of Pacific Heights-bringing with them one day a scabby-kneed Sam, on the first of what would become many outings together. Luck would strike him once again, as the elder of the church, Pastor Jim Murphy, immediately recognized the child, despite his convincing costume of a young gentleman.
So the story goes, Pastor Jim had been close friends with John Winchester. Regardless of John’s consummate failure to provide for Sam, it would bitterly be by the grace of him that Sam was ultimately invited to live and grow under the patronage of the church for the short time before the Wilsons took him under their wing.
Sam blinks up at the indomitable cross that oversees the altar-an enormous, brass construct donated by St. Mary’s Guild-and with a pang of sentimentality, Sam decides to re-visit his other childhood haunts.
He stands up, knees popping loudly in the vast cathedral. Swinging around, he is bewildered to find the pews entirely evacuated-he must have lingered in his day-dreams for longer than it seemed. Undeterred, Sam observes his pocket-watch to guarantee that he has time to spare before the reception begins, then gathers his coat and derby in hand as he makes his way towards the back exit of the church.
-----
Before Sam enters the parish house to visit his former living quarters, his arm is grabbed tight by an urgent hand.
It is Ashcroft McGinness-a sergeant of the San Francisco Police Department, and Sam’s old room-mate during college. Seeing as how Ashcroft, or simply “Ash”, as the young man prefers to be called, was as much a foreign specimen (hailing from all the way from Massachusetts) as Sam was (hailing all the way from the bottom of the great American caste-system), the two chaps got along magnificently, and have remained close cohorts over the years.
Ash was hired at the SFPD, where his sharp intelligence outweighed his eccentricities just enough to move him briskly through the ranks. Since then, he has been an invaluable resource for Sam in the several cases where police-classified information or dossiers, in exchange for perhaps an invitation to a genteel luncheon or afternoon tea with the more eligible ladies of San Francisco Society, proved to be an excellent business transaction.
The hold on his arm constricts, and Sam is forced to conceal a grimace. He swings his elbow out of the deathly grip and turns to face his friend.
“Must you always skulk so?”
“H’m! I don’t skulk, I sneak. Quite stealthily, too, I might add.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Sam humors him. “Now pray tell, to what do I owe the displeasure?”
Ash socks him in the bicep-quick-tempered, as always. Sam rubs at the sore spot as Ash recovers himself, straightening out the non-existent creases of his crisp charcoal uniform17 and adjusting the brim of his matching head-gear, before he fixes a stern eye upon Sam. “It concerns the matter in which you came to me with, a month or so ago. It’s been slow-going, I’m afraid. However, it seems to me you’re no longer in the market for such information, so I’d best be on my way-shouldn’t miss the reception, nor the complimentary food and drink-“
“Ash, you get back here!”
The young sergeant pays him no mind.
“All right, all right! I apologize, ” Sam loudly concedes. Ash pauses in mock deliberation, then returns.
“Hmm…I do immensely enjoy contrition on your part, my good Samuel.”
“Duly noted. Now, do you have some information for me or not?”
Ash’s expressive countenance stiffens like a board, as he turns to all seriousness. In an uncharacteristically business-like tone, Ash remarks, “I’ll say this again. The files you wanted-your late mother, Abigail Gunther, Caleb Joseph Warren-it was slow-going. I don’t know what it is you’re sniffing out, my friend, but I’d advise you to exercise some caution. It took me an especially long time to obtain these three dossiers, because they had been removed from the archives by someone who knew precisely what he was doing. Even Ruth hadn’t a clue as to where they’d gone, and you know old Ruthie-sharp as they come, with a memory like an elephant.”
“You eventually found them though, right?” Sam asks in a stricken tone.
“Yes, in a fashion. It took much finagling on my part. I had to speak with Jack O’Connell, the Inspector on the Winchester case, to see the personal notes he’d taken during the inquest back in ’91. When I met with him, he stressed how queer your mother’s case was-that the facts never added up quite right. Same story with Warren; the old Superintendent told me this: ‘the evidence is all-too conclusive. Thus told, I daren’t believe nary a scrap of it.’ Strange sort of fellow, easy to dismiss as loony-“ Sam arches an eyebrow at this, but uncharacteristically, Ash doesn’t rise to the bait- “Still, in all his years, his hunches have been right on the money.”
Sam nods encouragingly, though in truth his fingers are itching to grasp and peruse said dossiers. As unstoppable as a barrel rolling down a hill, however, Ash continues:
“And oh-hoh!-the Gunther file,” he exclaims, evidently much amused by his own tale-“Clever of our little archive-raider, truly, but not clever enough to foil Sgt. Ashcroft McGinness. The Gunther file was purportedly lost by one of the department interns-a convincing yarn, seeing as how the lot of them are outrageous imbeciles. Either way, I took it upon myself to re-create the file, foolishly believing it to be a simple task due to its recent nature. However, in my efforts, I came across obstacle after obstacle-random, incidental things, that aroused my suspicion the more they occurred.”
Ash savors the tension of his story, waiting until Sam looks prepared to take his head off in impatience before at length, he brandishes the three, hard-earned dossiers with a flourish. “Et wallah!” Ash cries, as the folders are promptly snatched from him. “I devoted my lunch hours to this cause for over a month, you know. Interviewing department secretaries, and nubile, lady interns. Profoundly nasty work, you know.”
“Yes, it must have been so difficult for you,” Sam remarks drily, even as his nose is firmly ensconced in the crease between the Winchester folder. He skims quickly though, and before long Ash has been lavished with the praise he is so fond of, along with firm promises of access to the country club in Burlingame to which Sam belongs. Content with this initial offering, Ash blithely totters off to find transport to the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, where Ava and Brady are holding their reception.
Good, Sam thinks. No, not just good-this is fantastic. Emboldened by the sudden deluge of fresh reconnaissance, it is with a bounce in his step that Sam traverses the garden and enters the parish house, precious files tucked neatly beneath his arm.
-----
His old bedroom-through the foyer and up a fold-out ladder-is smaller than Sam remembers. So much smaller, that he feels the attic fit for perhaps a mouse, but certainly not an adult; certainly not for an adult of his considerable stature. Sam is forced to double over nearly in half just to squeeze in beneath the low ceiling.
Against the far wall, a chest of drawers drowns in books and leaflets; it must have been brought in after his departure, as Sam harbours no recollection of it. But other than that, and if one ignores the time-tempered illusions of scale, the room looks precisely the same as how Sam left it, all those years ago (give or take a few harmless layers of dust and cobwebs). The primary fixtures of the sloped, wooden ceiling, small four-poster bed, and dingy lamp atop the nicked-up night-table seem to be lifted directly from the annals of Sam’s mind, unchanged as they are.
Stooped over, Sam scuffles to the bed and drops down upon it, waving off the ensuing billow of dust that threatens to overwhelm him. As the powder settles, he drinks in the view, allowing himself full cognizance of the negligible effect some two decades have pressed upon this small corner of the world. It is comforting, in a way, to know that not all things succumb to the fickleness of these fast-paced, modern times.
Sam absentmindedly runs a palm through his hair, jerking back when his knuckles bump into the wood above him. Though he has seated himself at the head of the bed where the ceiling is at its most accommodating, his hair nonetheless grazes the surface and sends an unpleasant, tickling sensation across his scalp. He huffs a breath, sets his files aside on the faded quilt, then curls all the way forward to rest between his legs, feeling a pull in his ham-strings that borders on the painful, albeit deliciously so. When he opens his eyes again, he’s peering upside-down into the deep space between the floor and bed.
The lighting is poor enough already in this single-window attic, and the far corners under the bed are utterly engulfed in darkness. From what he can see, however, the wooden floor-boards are inhabited by excitable packs of lint-yet beneath them, obscured by thick blankets of grey fluff…
With a stark feeling of horror, Sam scrambles up and summarily bangs the back of his skull into the ceiling. Disregarding the throb, he gets down to his knees, then his hands, and jams his face towards the floor, squinting into the floor-boards with both fascination and dread.
Carved into the slats in crude, capital letters, is as follows:
ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET
ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET
ARMARIOLUM AMBIALET…
…and it continues thusly, centered directly beneath the bed in a concentrated, but stuttered bloom of words. The hand of it is clumsy, likening it to the work of a child, or a facsimile thereof; or perhaps, it is simply due to the unwieldy nature of a blade against dense oak that gives it its organic quality.
Sam feels his heart stick somewhere in the vicinity of his throat, and he makes a conscious effort to swallow it down, to breathe. It proves difficult. This writing-these deep, angry gashes-are most certainly not the product of Sam’s efforts, by any right. He would remember committing something so pathological.
But if not Sam, then who shall claim ownership? It seems hardly within the nature of Pastor Jim Murphy, nor of any clergymen, for that matter, to produce such alarming defacement; and as far as Sam knows, there haven’t been any others to occupy this make-shift bedroom since his own presence. On the other hand-Sam frowns in thought-he has no guarantee of this detail outside of his own assumptions.
Sam clambers up from the dirty floor, making a mental note to research whether or not the church has taken in any other unfortunate children since his own residency. He pats himself off, taking care to dislodge the great patches of lint from his knees and elbows before glancing back to the scarred wood, when he quickly realizes that in all the excitement, Sam had almost disregarded the most vital part to the discovery-the words themselves.
Armariolum Ambialet. It is a natural conclusion that this is of relevance to his personal project; after all, the cryptic phrase slots in perfectly with the other two that Sam had uncovered during his investigation into the thorough enigma that surrounds his mother’s death. However, what is the significance of that puzzle appearing to him here, and now? What relationship does Mary Winchester have with this sad, lonely attic, off in the middle of Pacific Heights?
Comprehension swiftly descends upon Sam, and rightfully so; it is hardly one of the more complex riddles to plague him yet. He remembers-Of course, he thinks-with soaking awareness that Pastor Jim Murphy was a friend of the Winchesters, much like Mr. Warren had been; like Abigail Gunther must have been as well, though Sam still has yet to uncover the precise nature of her accord with his mother.
Not only is Pastor Jim’s telling friendship with Mary Winchester enough encouragement, there is a second morsel: he, too, had died by fire-furthermore, the case had concluded in a most unsatisfactory manner. The queerness lies in its contradicting facts-while the post-mortem categorically revealed that Pastor Jim had been burned to death, it had also been proven beyond a doubt that no such conflagration ravaged his surroundings-this very parish house, in fact.
If Sam could furrow his brow any further, it would obscure his vision. Instead, he rubs at his forehead, wincing at the soreness he feels there, then quickly decides on a change of tact. Sweeping a hand over his breast, he plucks out his fountain pen and deftly uncaps it, then falls back to the ground to re-examine the precise spelling of the coded words.
In his haste, Sam foregoes the hunt for spare paper. He balances himself on his elbows, pushing fabric up his left arm until his bare forearm is exposed as the most convenient writing surface available to him. Tongue determinedly stuck against his bottom lip, Sam carefully transcribes the words.
After the ink has dried, Sam packs his affairs away and leaves the parish house. He’ll have to stop by his own apartment before journeying to the top of Nob Hill, for as prudent as it is to be on time for his best friend’s wedding reception, it is more so that this crucial, newly-acquired information be kept at a safe distance from the careless hands of moneyed dipsos18 and flirtatious nymphs.
Sam hops aboard the closest trolley headed towards his neighborhood of Hayes Valley. At home he stows the precious dossiers away and copies the incomprehensible phrase from his arm onto a more permanent sheet of paper. Within minutes, he is back en route to the grand Fairmont Hotel19, which is gaily rumoured to be even more stunning and opulent after its re-opening. Sam supposes he will simply have to see for himself.
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15“Trinity Episcopalian Church.” Cave Music. 09 July 2008
16“Trinity Church interior shot.” Trinity Episcopal Church. 09 July 2008.
17“Police Department.” City and County of San Francisco: SFGOV. 09 July 2008.
18“Slang, A person who has a compulsion to drink alcohol; a dipsomaniac.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 09 July 2008.
19“History of the Fairmont San Francisco.” 27 Sept 2007. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts. 09 July 2008.