Wolfhowl Mountain

by Dian Cronan

  “From half a mile?” Letta says incredulously.

  “He wanted to be home,” Mrs. Bauer says apologetically, which makes me feel terrible. I should be the one apologizing for Liam’s rude behavior. After all, I’m his role model, his example. Or at least, I used to be.

  “He couldn’t really get settled,” Mrs. Bauer explains. “I brought him up here and was planning to watch him inside. We were already here before I realized he didn’t have his own key. I figured we’d just wait a bit. A little fresh air never hurt anyone.”

  “Oh my gosh,” I say, knowing Mrs. Bauer is being a good bit kinder than the situation warrants. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bauer! I hope you weren’t outside long.” Mrs. Bauer is doing us a favor by babysitting Liam, and she shouldn’t have been stuck out here in the damp chill for any length of time.

  “Oh, it was only an hour or so, but it’s no problem,” Mrs. Bauer adds quickly. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll head back down the hill now, but before I forget, your canopy is over there, Rose.” She indicates a bag by the front door. “Are you coming with me, dear?” She asks Letta.

  “I’ll be down in a few minutes, Mom,” Letta says.

  Mrs. Bauer nods and gives Letta a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a bit then.” As she heads down the steps, she pops open her umbrella like a cheerful Mary Poppins and is on her way.

  “Rosie!” Liam shouts, hopping up and down impatiently at the door. “Let me in!”

  “Liam!” I scold him. “Liam, you look at me right now!” I kneel and grab his squirming shoulders, squeezing them until he glares into my eyes. “Liam, you made poor Mrs. Bauer sit out here for an hour in the cold. Why?”

  “Because I wanted to be home!” He reaches for the doorknob and I shake him again.

  “Why? No one’s here! The house is empty! You can’t behave like this,” I say sternly. “It isn’t fair to Mrs. Bauer and it’s very rude! She’s in charge of you, and you have to listen to her. Do you hear me?”

  “Why can’t I just come home after school?”

  “And be by yourself in this house? I don’t think so!”

  “I’m not alone,” he mumbles, staring at his feet.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.”

  I’m suddenly cold to the bone, and it has nothing to do with the weather. I shake Liam’s shoulders one more time. “Now you look at me – look at me! – and promise me you won’t do this again. You will stay with Mrs. Bauer until Mom or I come to get you. You will not come up here alone. You will not make Mrs. Bauer wait around up here with you. She is to be respected and obeyed. I don’t care how bad you want to come home. Am I clear?” When he only glares at the wall with angry eyes, I turn his chin roughly toward me. “Am I clear, Liam?”

  He nods, but refuses to look at me.

  “Fine. And tomorrow you’re going to apologize to Mrs. Bauer, do you hear me?”

  Another silent, angry nod.

  I take the skeleton key out of my pocket and Liam’s eyes glow intensely in the gloomy atmosphere.

  “I’ll do it!” He grabs the key from my hand without waiting for an answer, and twists it into the lock. He flings himself through the door with the kind of eagerness deserving of Disney World.

  “What’s his deal?” Letta asks. “What’s he so excited about?”

  “Search me,” I say, trying to hide how worried I am. I hear his tiny voice in my head again: I’m not alone.

  “Listen,” Letta says, her tone suddenly soft and confidential, “I know I’ve been weird and I want to apologize.” I look at her warily. When I don’t reply, she continues. “I can’t really explain right now what my problem is –”

  “It’s about Ronan,” I interrupt, “right?” I’m not sure how I know, but I’ve had this feeling there’s something between the two of them. It seems unlikely – the most popular kid in school and tiny, plain Letta, but the tension between them is palpable.

  Letta barely nods. “I’m just not prepared to explain it to you yet. I’m sorry. I know it’s weird and whatever, but allow me this one secret, at least for a while. It’s something I’ve never talked about – with anyone – and I’m just not ready yet.”

  I nod, relieved. “Sure. But you can trust me, you know, if you ever do want to talk about it. I mean it.” Letta doesn’t seem like the kind of person to hold anything back; she’s always been blunt and honest. If she wants to keep this secret, it must be pretty bad.

  “I know,” Letta says through a trembling lip. “Thanks… I’ll see you tomorrow okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Later.” Letta turns and heads down the hill, disappearing into the rainy mist.

  Liam is in the kitchen. I watch him from the doorway as he makes his own grilled cheese sandwich. He knows exactly where the pan is and sets it on the gas stove, lighting the burner, as if he’s been doing it since he learned to walk. He scoots a stool out of a corner so he can see into the pan as he slabs it with butter and tosses in two slices of bread and some cheese.

  I don’t interrupt as Liam expertly works the stovetop. I just watch, wondering who showed him how to use the stove. Certainly, it wasn’t Mother, who barely lets me use the microwave. I wonder why Liam’s so desperate to be home, in this hollow house, rather than anywhere else. I wonder whom it is he talks to when he’s alone. Who’s he playing with? Who, exactly, is keeping him company when he’s alone?

  ***

  I go through the next day in a daze, unable to get Enit’s words or Liam’s sudden disobedience out of my head. I hear the taunts from my classmates, various insults coupled with the moniker Ghost Girl, but worry fills every available crevice of my brain so that I don’t even process them. I zone out altogether in history, missing a lecture on gender roles of the Penobscot Indians, and study hall is wasted on analyzing everything I’ve noticed about my house since we arrived.

  “Hey,” Shane bursts my thought bubble at lunch. “You okay?”

  “Huh?” I reply, foggy-brained. “Oh. Yeah. I’m just thinking.”

  “Quite seriously from the looks of it,” Patty says.

  Letta stays quiet, her eyes burning a hole into Eileen’s backside as she once again sits amongst the popular kids. I remember what Letta said yesterday, about needing to keep her secret about Ronan. The drama queen inside me says it’s a juicy piece of gossip, and I’m torn between my desire to know and respecting my friend’s privacy. A girl like Letta is practically invisible to a guy like Ronan. How bad could it possibly be?

  “Well, stop bein’ so serious,” Shane says. “It’s stahtin’ tah bring me down. So let’s see… There’s this joke about a horse, a priest, and a policeman – no wait, that’s not right.”

  I find myself laughing anyway.

  “So what’s the plan tonight?” Patty asks while Shane digs up his punch line.

  I shrug. “Do you want to come over after dinner?”

  “What about your mom?” Letta finally joins the conversation, but her eyes remain dark and turbulent.

  “She said something this morning about having plans, so she won’t be around.”

  “Cool beans,” says Patty.

  ***

  “You coming, Rose?” Letta calls over the stair railing. My friends arrived around seven and I sent them ahead to my room while I make sure Liam’s set for the evening – not that I need to.

  “Yeah,” I reply, watching Liam sit at the kitchen table with his sandwich – another grilled cheese of his own making – and a tall glass of milk. He pulls a notebook from his backpack and begins reading as he chews, doing his homework without having to be told.

  I head upstairs where my friends are already paging through the diaries. Shane and Patty share the window seat and Barbara Olenev’s diary. Letta, determined to get to the bottom of things, has picked up E. L., leaving me with Alison Boyle. I pick up the diary and plop onto my bed.

  “Don’t forget to take notes,” Letta says without moving her eyes from the diary. “We’re going t
o figure this out. I can feel it!”

  Alison Boyle’s diary reads like an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel in the first person. The young couple was bitter, their own apathy for each other, and for life, leading their descent into hell. And alcohol, there was plenty of that too. Based on Alison’s account, I’m certain both were alcoholics, but Hagan was of the functioning variety whilst Alison soaked at the bottom of a bottle of vodka, only pouring herself out to swim into another bottle.

  The couple moved into the house in the summer of 1933, and Alison began the diary that September.

  This diary is the only thing that can compete with my endless boredom in this comically dark place. Well, this and that bulldog of a caretaker, O’Dwyre. At first, I found his accent absolutely appalling, insulting even – though it does go quite well with his backwoods rag-a-muffin attire and third grade education. Later, I came to find it a little amusing, and a few weeks ago, I decided I liked it – and him – alright. He, at least, pays me some attention.

  Not to worry. Hagan has no idea, not that he’d care if he did. He is constantly busy with meetings despite being in our ‘summer home.’ He was the one who said we were coming here for relaxation, to get away from the bright city lights. This was an adventure we were supposed to take together. But often he leaves me here all alone while he takes meetings back in New York. Or at least, that’s what he says he’s doing. I’m certain he goes into town to play some young thing’s Daddy, acting like some young lollygagger. He goes dancing with some flour-loving smarty. Some vamp who makes me seem like a smothering wet blanket. Oh Alison dear, why must you be such a drag?

  I used to have a pulse, you know. I used to care. I used to love life like all those other pretty young things ankling around New York City, living the fast life.

  I should have divorced Hagan back then, when I still cared, back when I believed one had a chance at being happy in this life. What a Dumb Dora idea.

  It’s sad from day one. Maybe they’d loved each other once, but it seems like the only thing keeping Alison and Hagan together is a shared laziness to actually file the divorce papers – and perhaps Hagan’s wealthy stake in Alison’s family business.

  Hagan is quite handsome you know. A real looker. The first time I saw him he was mopping the factory floor. He had a smudge of grease on his cheek and I boldly wiped it away for him when no one was looking. Very quickly, it felt as if we were one. I think, besides that cute little smudge on his face, what really drew me to him was that he was different. Daddy’s opposite, or so I thought.

  Hagan, you see, was poor. His parents had him later in life. After an accident, his father was unable to work and his mother had to quit her job to take care of him. Hagan went out into the workforce at fifteen to support his parents. I met him two years later, after Father hired him as a custodian. He was a hard worker, and very smart. Hagan figured things out quickly and was good with his hands. His work was physical, but he could have done the cerebral with Father just as well. That’s why I liked him.

  This was, unfortunately, why Father liked him too. Of course when Hagan and I married six months after that first adorable little smudge – a whirlwind romance my mother called it – it was only natural for Father to take him under his wing and train him in the family business. I was okay with it at first, because it meant I could spend more time with him (I worked as a secretary in Father’s office after school). He may have been working hard over numbers instead of mops, but he was still working hard. He still came home to me, still took me in his arms and loved me…

  But then he changed. He turned into Father, which despite what Freud says, I did not find appealing in the least. He became less and less passionate toward me, instead filling his mind with numbers, with jack.

  Perhaps we just grew apart… Here we are six years in (or is it seven?) and what are we? Strangers under the same roof, barely even passing in the night, sometimes spending those nights in the beds of other strangers.

  Perhaps you think me mad.

  I notice in Alison’s diary, like Alva’s, there’s a conversational tone, as if the diary is part of a conversation between Alison and someone else. It’s like reading a series of letters, only the pen pal’s words are missing. But unlike Alva, Alison arrived at Wolfhowl Mountain already depressed. Her descent into madness was faster than Alva’s because Alison had a healthy head start.

  We talked about children, you know. Before we fell out of love, we talked about children. We even tried for a while, and I quit my job at the factory, anticipating beginning my life as a mother with love and joy…

  Richard III, after Father, or Gracie Linda… Those were the names we talked about. It’s funny, now that Hagan and I have completely abandoned even the idea of a child, that I’ve realized how much I hate those names. So stiff and old-fashioned. If God chose to grace us with a child now, I should hope for a girl. What should I call her? Perhaps Emily. Yes, that is a nice name isn’t it?

  A chill races down my spine. Had the Boyle’s actually conceived a child? Is this the Emily Lenore of the box upstairs? Is it possible they’d chosen the same name as Eamonn and Alva so many years before?

  I skip a few months ahead, to December.

  It was lovely for our friends to come see us again. Despite the chilly drafts, the rats in the basement, and the general disrepair of this cave, they find it to be the “bee’s knees!” – At least O’Dwyre has fixed the hot water. Cold showers are not good for my skin. – Of course, they miss us in the city, but we have The Life out here! Social parties with the townies. Afternoons on the sea. Romantic walks on the shore… Yes, that’s certainly what they think.

  But now, our city guests have left, returning to New York to spend Christmas with their growing families, leaving Hagan and I alone. And that’s what we are now – alone. I can’t believe how much has changed. It wasn’t so many years ago that we spent Christmas and New Years with each other, feeling young and gorgeous, families be damned! Would our lives be so different if we had stayed in the city? Would we still be eggs – out late dancing, drinking brown-plaid and getting the bum’s rush come the witching hour? A girl can dream…

  Gertrude and John have a little child now, a girl. They left her at home for the week of course, with John’s parents, but they talked of her almost endlessly. She sounds precious. Strange how it feels like only yesterday we were making our martinis together and now they are parents. To think how much a mere child can change someone. Why Gertrude didn’t have a single drink the week they were here, and the child wasn’t even with them! Then, Judy and Simon just revealed to us they are expecting a child this summer. You should have seen their faces when they told us. They were the picture of joy. How I envy them that they can feel actual joy.

  We have nothing in common now, not even with our closest friends, whom I feel we weren’t actually very close to at all. It’s strange how a life lived on the juice can make it seem like the world is full of your friends.

  Speaking of which, thank you for the refill. It’s quite strong, but then you did that on purpose didn’t you, you little minx?

  The 1933 winter holidays were miserable. They managed to keep it together, though barely, in front of their guests, but as soon as they were gone, both Alison and Hagan found their way back to arguments over things petty and medicating their tempers with martinis and scotch.

  I feel bad for them. I wonder… Was it their stale marriage that made them miserable? Or was it because they found their unfortunate way to Wolfhowl Mountain?

  Alison’s diary becomes repetitive. No wonder the woman was miserable. She did nothing but drink and walk down to the caretaker’s – Beckan’s grandfather’s – cabin. When she wasn’t there, she was in the house fighting with Hagan. Though they were already strangers to each other, Alison did her best to alienate him even further. She practically dared him to leave, documenting all of these attempts in her diary.

  Their friends from the city continued to visit on and off, mostly in the summer months or fo
r holidays. But the summer of 1934, one year after they moved into Wolfhowl Manor, they’d given up trying to be nice to each other even in front of their friends, and the visits were clipped short. There was always an excuse to return to the city when Hagan and Alison became unbearable – a meeting Monday, the children missed them or had a slight cough. Alison wrote about her former friends with bitterness.

  They think they’re better than us, those dolled up high hats! Oh, they pretend alright, but I can see through their facades. And Hagan, he is on their side. “Alison, perhaps you shouldn’t refill your glass,” he says. “I think you’ve had quite enough already. Maybe you should have a lie down.” In front of all of our guests, he says this! How embarrassing. Yes, dear Alison, you hoary-eyed sot, go to bed and stop embarrassing your husband.

  He only stays with me for the business you know. Father would never let him keep his stake if I left him, and he knows it. It’s my family’s business after all.

  Oh, he’s made me feel so dreadful. And he will pay. We will make him pay.

  Alison’s torment took a different form than Alva’s. Where Alva was deeply sad, Alison was angry and bitter, and she blamed Hagan and his addiction to money for her misfortune rather than herself. She poisoned herself against him. He didn’t care for her. He cared only for her family’s business and the life of comfort it provided him. The children they had once talked about with love were only pawns he’d use to ensure inheritance when her parents died. He’d kill Alison in her sleep so he could have it all for himself. Eventually, she convinced herself money was all Hagan had ever been after, and he had never really loved her. This was the reason he allowed her to go down to the caretaker’s, and why he enjoyed transgressions of his own. I have a feeling this wasn’t the reality of their relationship at all, but simply how it looked through Alison’s angry, green-colored glasses.