The Seary Line (47 page)

For months, she couldn't get that picture out of her head. Sometimes, when she'd be slipping into a hot bath or just dozing off, it would jump up and startle her. She couldn't help but imagine, in some crevice of her mind, what it might feel like. To be right in the middle of it all. Entities slithering over and under. Lost inside a tangle of identical bodies. In time she came to the conclusion that perhaps it was not so horrible after all. Might even be soothing. No individuals. Just a humming chaos. Common goal.

Elise could see a thin line of the ocean from her perch. Fog, like billowing chalk dust, was tumbling inland. The clouds had dropped lower, and to Elise, they reminded her of injured flesh. Enormously fat arms and legs and backsides, beaten beyond, draped over one another in a haphazard manner. “Lewis Hickey.” Spit it out this time. Offered it up to the brutish wind. Just to see if anything might happen.

More than anything else, she always wondered why her mother never tried to help her, never supported her. Looking back on it now, Elise had been nothing more than a young woman, innocent, naïve. But when she tried to tell her mother about Lewis, she was shut down. Told to let it
go. Her thighs still bloody, skin scoured from her knees and shins, and already the time had come to let it go. Elise remembered every word they exchanged as her mother stood in the doorway to her bedroom.

“Elise? I'd like to say something to you.”

“What's that, Mother. That this mess is my own fault? That you hopes to God I idn't pregnant?”

“No.” Silence for a moment. “I want to say. I want . . . Don't let this get the better of you, is all.”

“What do you mean, Mother?”

“Shape your life.”

“Stop, Mother.”

“This now, what went on 'tween you and Lewis. Idn't nothing every woman don't go through.”

“Stop, Mother.”

“In some shape or form, Elise. We all goes through it. 'Tis part of who we is.”

“I hardly think that's true.”

“Put it out of your mind,” her mother had said. As though it were that simple. “Decide to be done with it.”

Then, Elise scratched her nails in the moist cuts on her knees, and informed her mother that she was leaving Bended Knee. And never coming back. She remembered looking at her mother, leaning against the doorframe, eyes like shadows, body weary. Yes, she remembered looking at her mother, thinking, believing she had never brought that woman an ounce of joy. Not a single ounce of joy.

When she arrived in St. John's, she took her mother's advice, placed that evening with Lewis on a shelf far back in her mind. Allowed it to develop a substantial layer of dust, a cloak of stringy cobwebs. Lived her life, free of the mental kinks such an encounter might create.

Lately though, she wished she hadn't forced it back so
far. Wished she had of taken a week or nine days to feel some sadness over it. Then perhaps, she wouldn't be sitting there on that knoll, a grey-haired about-to-be grandmother, whispering the name of her worst childhood crush. She might be thinking of other more important things, like her bank account. And the fact that Arthur, her second ex-husband, was late once again with the spousal support payment. She would have to contact her lawyer, make an arrangement that was more secure.

Elise put her head into the knees of her jeans, felt the first pecks of rain, tiny shards of icy water on the back of her neck. She shivered, though she did not feel the chill on her skin. Sitting there, on the earth of her childhood, she could practically grasp the quantity of time that had passed. As though all of her adult years were the loop of a wide ribbon, and she was now resting at the knot near the ends.

She looked up, watched a man stride down the laneway ahead of her, salt-and-pepper cap hauled low on his forehead. He stopped, as though he sensed her watching him, made a sharp turn and walked halfway down the driveway towards the bed and breakfast. He hollered towards her. Something about a storm.

Elise leaned forward, wind whistling sharply in her ears. She could see his mouth moving, an arm waving towards the farmhouse, but his words were stolen by the gusts, driven elsewhere. “What's that?” she yelled back.

Another bout of mumbling. “Storm . . . good . . . fit . . . dog . . .” He pointed his finger towards the sky.

“What?” She scrunched up her face, trying to hear. She stood up, took several steps, resisted taking more. “I can barely catch a word.”

He removed his cap, wind immediately seizing the greased fingers of his comb over, making them dance atop
his skull. He said something else, “Works. . .grounds. . .” stepped towards her, smiled.

He wasn't an unattractive man, this stranger: stocky body, ruddy cheeks, clear eyes. Hands like hammers. Someone who obviously wasn't afraid of a good day's work, and this was a trait Elise valued even more as she grew older.

He smiled again, took another two steps towards her, yelled, “Rising. . .wicked. . .tea. . .”

“I'm sorry, sir.” She frowned, shook her head and shrugged. “The wind.”

She watched as he held his hair in place, jammed his cap back on, and waved in a somewhat embarrassed gesture, went on about his way. For a moment, she watched him stroll down the drive, lurching this way and that as the wind pressed down upon him. And she wondered who he was. Maybe he had recognized her. Somehow, after all these years. Maybe he was a widower with fully grown, uncomplicated children.

Elise shook her head, frowned at her own stupidity. In the van on the way to Bended Knee, she had the ridiculous fear that she would saunter onto this patch of grass and be gulped down. Devoured by a memory that she now realized had significantly faded. Like an old photo, edges chipped and tattered, image out of focus.

She lifted her face to the rain, let the plump drops strike her eyelids, cheeks. And for several moments, enjoyed the comfort of being alone in growing darkness.

“Read a little something, honey.” Jane nestled into Robert's side, head lying on his warm shoulder, soft blue cotton
sweater. “You know I love to listen.”

Robert reached up, let his hand cover her ear, her coarse hair. She was a decent woman, his wife. He never lacked for affection, never wondered if he were loved, never felt the brunt of a grudge held high. Jane seemed, and likely was, perfectly content to be seated on this musty furniture in the makeshift library of this old house, the firelight mellowing their wrinkles, hiding the dust in the corners.

“Anything in particular, dear?” He stood, began to peruse the shelves. “Mrs. Hilliard has quite the selection of poets.”

“Surprise me.”

“All right then.” He selected a book, settled back beside her, and loosely crossed one leg over the other. Glasses that dangled on a chain lifted to his nose, he flipped through, randomly selected. “Okay. Elizabeth Akers Allen.”

Cleared his throat, began to recite:

“BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, Make me a child again just for to-night!”

“Ohhh. Lovely,” Jane murmured, slid her arm across Robert's stomach, tucked her hand underneath the bend of his elbow.

“Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother,—rock me. . .”

He paused, looked up at his wife, leaned forward, and her arm fell away.

She clasped her hands together, sat up as well. “Why that's beautiful, darling. Um. Who was that again?”

“Shhh.”

“Shhh?”

“Shhh!”

He stared towards the door that opened on to the hallway, waited, listening. And after a second or two, he heard a solid thud, something falling from a short height onto the wooden floor. For a reason he could not explain, he had expected to hear that sound. Wanted silence as he listened for it.

“What do you suppose that was?” Jane whispered.

His face fell flat, mouth slightly open, voice cracked ever so slightly. “How long did you say Mom's been asleep?”

A young man, not older than eighteen or nineteen years, lingered near the edge of a cliff. He was wearing a long satin cloak, black top hat, and had a cane, carved bird's head handle, hooked over his right wrist. Raising his palms towards the starless heavens, cloak slapping in the wind, he said in a deadly serious tone, “The spirits is agitated. I feels it in the air.”

A tiny congregation of four females accompanied the young man. Summer had arrived on the cliffside with her daughter Gemma, and there were two additional teenaged girls. Summer guessed they were locals. It was difficult to determine their age in the hazy darkness that surrounded them. Street lights, wrapped in tendrils of fog, offered little light, and the windows of the many homes appeared farther away than they really were.

Gemma giggled nervously, gripped Summer's mittened hand, leaned against her shoulder. “Will we see anything?” she whispered.

“It's only some stories, Gemma,” Summer whispered back. “We can leave if you want.”

“I'll be all right.”

“Welcome,” he continued. “Welcome to what I likes to call ‘Weak in the Bended Knee.'” He took a step farther back on the cliff, giving himself some additional height. “This is not for the faint of heart, folks. Tonight, you'll hear stories, true stories, of the tormented souls that wander around our little village of Bended Knee. A history of murder.” He paused, stared out through widened eyes, leaned closer. “Stories of unrequited love, affairs of the heart, of the flesh.”

One of the two girls snorted, said, “I likes the sound of that, Jamie.”

“Shut up, will you?” Snapped back. Then, “I will be calling on these ghosts to have a word to us, to communicate. If you finds you's overwhelmed, folks, let me know and we can take a spell. The portal is open tonight, and they might have a lot to say.”

Summer unrolled the cuff of her sweater down over her mittens, silently wished it was a pleasant August evening. She had intended to visit Bended Knee late-summer, but time had gotten away from her. What with Gemma beginning middle school, Tim finishing his doctorate in physics, and her own mythology courses at the university, there just hadn't been a free weekend. First chance came in November, and now it was far too cold to be wandering about in the nighttime, discussing spirits. But her mother Elise had insisted. Jamie Barrett was her step-grandson, and the ghost walk was his latest venture to make a dollar from the tourists who passed through the small community. “He's a right sweet young man,” Elise had said. “But business hasn't been that good to him. And the poor feller spent an awful amount of time quizzing the old crowd about way back when.”

“I don't know,” Summer had replied. “You know how
sensitive Gemma is to that sort of thing. She's always been a little, you know,
in tune
.”

Elise, resolute then. “Well, she's almost thirteen. Time to get over that old garbage, if you asks me. Besides, I already paid him and you're going.”

They wandered northwards, until rock met road, Jamie leading the way. Winds tugged at his cape, and more than once his top hat lifted from his head, scuttled along the ground. The girls, in their matching cropped sweaters, bleached blue jeans, high-top sneakers, grabbed each other and guffawed each time Jamie chased his hat, popped it back on over his woolen toque, banged the top.

First stop was in front of a one and a half-storey salt-box home, five neat windows on the front, dark painted door neatly in the centre. Lights were on in the upper two outside rooms, blinds half tugged down, giving the home a sedated appearance.

Jamie shifted his feet, poked his hands into pockets of his jacket, pants, finally found a small spiral notepad, flipped it open, flashed a penlight for just a second.

Johnny O'Reilly.

Cards. Devil.

Cleared his throat. “Here, in this house, lives the spirit of a murdered man. One of only two men murdered in Bended Knee. The tale goes that they were playing cards on a winter's night, and the gentlemen's lantern kept going out. Not a window was open, and his wick and his oil was good. He blamed the devil, said he could feel the evil near him, tempting him. ‘Leave me, Devil,' he called out, but his fellow card players thought he was up to no good. Cheating, they figured, when the lights was out, he was winning every hand. Scraping all their bits of money towards him. Beat him right bad, they did, and the poor feller died of his
injuries. And now, folks say that whenever the current residents of the house is playing a game of cards, the man comes back, trying to blow out their lantern.”

“That don't make no sense.” One of the girls. “How'd he see to cheat if there weren't no light?”

“Don't people got electric lights now?” the other girl said. “Who uses a lantern?”

He looked nervously at Summer and Gemma, then smirked awkwardly, raised his eyebrows, deep voice. “Well, he probably tries to turn the lights out. Regular lights. Dims them anyways.”