«Easy, easy,» said Aunt Tildy. «Put the wicker on the floor where I can step in it.»
She didn't look at the body much. Her only comment was, «Natural-lookin'.» She let herself fall back into the wicker.
A biting sensation of arctic coldness gripped her, followed by an unlikely nausea and a giddy whorling. She was two drops of matter fusing, water trying to seep into concrete. Slow to do. Hard. Like a butterfly trying to squirm back into a discarded husk of flinty chrysalis!
The vice-presidents watched Aunt Tildy with apprehension. Mr. Carrington wrung his fingers and tried to assist with boosting and pushing moves of his hands and arms. The mortician, frankly skeptical, watched with idle, amused eyes.
Seeping into cold, long granite. Seeping into a frozen and ancient statue. Squeezing all the way.
«Come alive, damn ye!» shouted Aunt Tildy to herself. «Raise up a bit.»
The body half-rose, rustling in the dry wicker.
«Fold your legs, woman!»
The body grabbled up, blindly groping.
«See!» shouted Aunt Tildy.
Light entered the webbed blind eyes.
«Feel!» urged Aunt Tildy.
The body felt the warmth of the room, the sudden reality of the preparations table on which to lean, panting.
«Move!»
The body took a creaking, slow step.
«Hear!» she snapped.
The noises of the place came into the dull ears. The harsh, expectant breath of the mortician, shaken; the whimpering Mr. Carrington; her own crackling voice.
«Walk!» she said.
The body walked.
«Think!» she said.
The old brain thought.
«Speak!» she said.
The body spoke, bowing to the morticians:
«Much obliged. Thank you.»
«Now,» she said, finally, «cry!»
And she began to cry tears of utter happiness.
And now, any afternoon about four, if you want to visit Aunt Tildy, you just walk around to her antique shop and rap. There's a big, black funeral wreath on the door. Don't mind that! Aunt Tildy left it there; that's how her humor runs. You rap on the door. It's double-barred and triple-locked, and when you rap her voice shrills out at you.
«Is that the man in black?»
And you laugh and say no, no, it's only me, Aunt Tildy.
And she laughs and says, «Come on in, quick!» and she whips the door open and slams it shut behind, so no man in black can ever slip in with you. Then she sets you down and pours your coffee and shows you her latest knitted sweater. She's not as fast as she used to be, and can't see as good, but she gets on.
«And if you're 'specially good,» Aunt Tildy declares, setting her coffee cup to one side, «I'll give you a little treat.»
«What's that?» visitors will ask.
«This,» says Auntie, pleased with her little uniqueness, her little joke.
Then with modest moves of her fingers she will unfasten the white lace at her neck and chest and for a brief moment show what lies beneath.
The long blue scar where the autopsy was neatly sewn together.
«Not bad sewin' for a man,» she allows. «Oh, some more coffee? _There!_»
