Door County, Before You Die

by Mary Bowers

  “I’m sorry if I startled you,” I said quickly. “I guess it’s because you startled me. I didn’t see you. I’m Paige.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking disappointed. “I thought you were the lady.”

  “What lady?” I said, letting a more pleasurable little chill pass over me this time. I’d let myself get a little carried away by the atmosphere of the place. Unconsciously, I turned toward the bay, as if something supernatural might be walking towards us through the trees.

  “Henry’s lady. He’s waiting for her. She’s his friend.”

  She seemed to be only about 8 or 9, but she managed to look very sly as she said the word “friend.”

  While I thought about that, she told me, “My name is Faye. It’s an old-fashioned name. I’m not sure I feel like a Faye yet, but I think I’m going to when I grow up. It was my grandmother’s name, and my mom says I’m just like her, and I’ll grow into the name. My grandmother had the sight,” she added wisely.

  “The sight?”

  “Uh huh. Mom says things like that always skip a generation, so that means I have it. I bet I see way more than you do when I look at the trees. You were looking at them the right way, though, now that I think of it. The way you’re supposed to. Do you have the sight too?”

  “Uh, probably not, but who knows? You mean like, am I psychic?”

  “No. Psychic is knowing what’s going to happen. I don’t do that. At least not yet. I mean just seeing things. Seeing all the things. Most people don’t. Is that the lady?”

  I turned to see who she meant and saw Nettie coming back from the main house with a sturdy-looking woman of about 50 and an elderly black labrador retriever.

  “Yes, Faye, I think that’s the lady your friend Henry is waiting for.”

  The girl studied Nettie as she approached, nodding to herself once or twice. Then, sotto voce, she leaned in and told me, “I think you’re right. That’s the lady. She goes with him.”

  “She does, does she? I haven’t met Henry yet. Do you like him?” I asked suddenly, thinking I’d almost missed the opportunity for an objective opinion.

  “Yeah, I like him,” she said, as if she still hadn’t completely made up her mind. “He’s sad, though. Maybe the lady will make him happy.”

  “Not too happy, I hope,” I muttered. Then I put on a smile for my introduction to the sturdy woman, who had to be Evaline Klausen.

  * * * * *

  The dog got to us first, and since I was the newcomer, he approached me first and gave me a welcome. According to Faye, that was his job, and he excelled at it. “This is Loki,” she said. “Isn’t that a good name? Loki is a god who’s always doing mischief and stuff.”

  Hearing his name, the dog went to the girl and got less formal. They were old chums by now, and he gave her a gentle head-bump and then sat down in front of her and presented a paw. Apparently, he’d been trained not to slobber on the guests, but he seemed like a natural-born kisser. His wet pink tongue bounced loosely over the side of his jaw and he seemed to be falling more deeply in love by the moment, just for the price of a little attention.

  But he was an old boy, and he’d been overfed, so after he’d said a proper hello he decided to lay down on the ground and take a break. Faye knelt down beside him and stroked his back and haunches in all the wrong directions, but the dog didn’t mind at all. The misty eyes had their own kind of brightness as they looked at her, and the tongue stayed loose and bouncy around the smiley mouth.

  While Loki and Faye fussed over one another, the sturdy woman greeted me.

  “I see you’ve met Faye,” she said as she came closer with my aunt. “I’m Evaline. Welcome to Trollhaven.”

  She was pretty, in a weather-beaten way, or maybe it was more accurate to say she was handsome. She had short, light brown hair, dark blue eyes and well-formed features, nothing too large or too small, everything in the right place and properly spaced. Handsome. She looked muscular, rather than overweight, and her hands were chapped and strong. She seemed so glad to meet me I couldn’t help but like her.

  Ignoring me and Evaline, Faye told Nettie, “That’s Henry’s cabin.” She pointed at the first one next to the main house.

  “How nice,” Nettie said. “My niece and I will be staying right next door to him, in Cabin 2.”

  “Won’t that be handy?” Evaline said without a trace of coyness. When I inhaled sharply, she gave me a look and a trace of a smile. Her eyes were sparkling.

  As if Henry would be making booty calls. It irked me somehow, and I would have put my foot in my mouth right then and there, but before I could, Henry came out of Cabin 1 and I had a chance to look him over.

  Hmmm. I could see why Nettie preferred him to ol’ Duke, back in Sleepy Hollow – or any other men who came courting, for that matter. He wasn’t a big, impressive man, but there was something calm and steady about him. Maybe it was confidence. He seemed like the kind of guy you could count on.

  Henry was dark-complected, with brown hair that wasn’t graying too much yet. Just a touch about the temples, and a few silver strands that sparkled in the light. He was about Nettie’s age and looked well-knit and vigorous. He moved easily, and when he got closer, I saw that he had dark brown eyes. He spared me an expressionless look, then settled his gaze on Nettie. He didn’t look overjoyed to see her, but as he came closer, I noticed a growing energy about him. He wasn’t moving faster; he was moving with a purpose.

  I wondered if I was about to witness my aunt being gathered into this man’s arms and hungrily kissed. The last three steps he took toward us had something forceful about them, a sort of holding-back.

  He stopped within arm’s reach of Nettie but he didn’t touch her. His hands remained steady at his sides. Instead, he nodded to her formally and murmured, “Nice to see you again, Nettie.”

  “Nice to see you too, Henry,” she replied placidly.

  Evaline and I shared a moon-eyed look. These old guys! we thought together. What did they think this was, a cotillion?

  “And this is my niece, Paige,” she told him.

  He turned to me and said, “Another niece?”

  That caught me off-guard and I didn’t know what to say.

  Laughing it off, Nettie told me, “Your cousin Twyla went on the Paris tour with me, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember,” I said. “That’s where she met that guy she got tangled up with, right?”

  “That’s where she met that guy,” Nettie affirmed. “Now don’t be catty, Paige,” she added primly.

  “Hey, I was happy for her,” I said a little more acidly than I intended. “She needed a little action in her life.”

  Faye suddenly stood up again, and Loki struggled to his feet and went over to his mistress, Evaline.

  Reminded suddenly that there was a child present, I looked at Faye and explained, “Twyla is my cousin.”

  “And she doesn’t get any action?” the dear child asked.

  When the adults around her laughed, she pouted and blushed. Loki didn’t understand why we were laughing or why Faye was hurt, but he understood both and reacted with a subdued woof.

  I didn’t know what to do. Children are so sensitive, and I didn’t want her feelings hurt. I was about to pull out my cellphone and show her a picture of Twyla when she blurted, “Well anyway, I don’t care,” twirled away from us and ran off. She went up the steps to the biggest cabin in the row and disappeared inside, letting the screen door bang behind her.

  “Faye,” I called, but Evaline put a hand on my arm.

  “You can make it up to her later. Poor kid.”

  Loki was looking after Faye with worried eyes. He turned his gaze upward and looked a question at Evaline.

  “No, boy, you stay here,” she told the dog, patting him. “You know you’re not allowed inside the guest cabins.”

  “They’re so sensitive at that age,” I moaned.

  After that, I managed to remember to thank Evaline for offering us the cabins when the original b
ookings fell through. “I haven’t been to Door County in a long time. It was a wonderful surprise; like Christmas coming early.”

  “And the surprises keep on coming,” she said playfully, like a gameshow host. “The same people who had to cancel their reservations for the cabins asked me to cancel their reservations for fish boil tomorrow night, at the Weatherwood Inn. Billie, the manager there, owes me a favor, and I got her to substitute the three of you for the four of them. Totally against the rules – they always have a waitlist – so don’t say anything. You can go ahead and invite another guest to accompany you if you like, or just have the table to yourselves.”

  The Weatherwood Inn was the primo place on the peninsula for fish boil, the local specialty, and it was right across the street from Trollhaven. “Fish boil” doesn’t sound appetizing (the Chamber of Commerce needs to work on that name), but it’s fabulous, and there’s some showmanship involved. The cooking is done outdoors in a courtyard, and the “boil-over” is dramatic, where the flames under the kettle can go 25 feet in the air as the kettle overflows, taking off the scum (the Chamber can work on “scum,” too) and leaving boiled whitefish, potatoes and onions to be carried into the restaurant and served out, Army-style. This late in the day, we would never have gotten reservations for any night of the trip, especially not at Weatherwood.

  We thanked her profusely.

  “Do you think Faye would enjoy it? She could be our fourth. I’d like to be friends with her, and I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. Do you think her parents would mind?”

  “The O’Neils have their own reservations for fish boil,” Evaline told me, and she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “It may be the only thing those two do with their little girl on this trip. And Faye is such a great kid.”

  “She’s not having too much fun here, sad to say.” It was a new voice from behind us, and I turned to find myself looking at an old man in blue jeans and a red flannel jacket. He looked back at me with washed-out blue eyes as if he knew me and said, “Her folks are a couple of fools.”

  “Dad!” Evaline said. “We shouldn’t talk about our guests like that, either one of us. Sorry, guys, but the O’Neils have been unusually . . . unusual.”

  “If they’re fools, they’re fools,” he said with finality.

  “Paige, this is my father, Arnie Klausen.”

  “Hello, Mr. Klausen,” I said. He didn’t ask me to call him Arnie, and I had a sneaking suspicion he liked that I had called him by his last name. He didn’t exactly smile at me, but his overall complexion softened a bit. I hoped he’d seen my “Mistering” him as good manners, but I made a mental note to watch my mouth around him. He looked like the cranky sort.

  He was about my height, say five-foot-six, and made out of rawhide. You could see that he had worked hard all his life. Over his pale eyes were thick white eyebrows and a shock of white hair, short, thick, and inclined to stand up straight.

  Aside from the age and the hair color, Arnie and Henry were vaguely the same type, mostly because of a similar build and leanness.

  We had reached a moment of prolonged silence, and Evaline decided it was time to show us to our cabin.

  “I’ll take your bags,” Arnie Klausen said, quickening and moving toward our car, which was parked in a row behind the wide bark-mulch pathway that ran in front of the cabins. There were five other cars parked in the row, with room for maybe four more. I tried to tell Arnie we could handle the bags ourselves, but he cut me off with, “I’m here; I’ll take ‘em.”

  Sliding around behind her father, Evaline whispered, “Just let him. It’s okay.”

  There’s a beauty in the work ethic of Arnie’s generation. There’s pride, and the determination to pull their own weight for as long as they can manage to stand up on their own two feet. There was something awesome about Arnie Klausen, and despite his eighty-plus years, he hoisted up our weekenders and carried both of them up the four steps and into the cabins together, while Evaline held the door open.

  I went up after him, admiring the little suite of furniture on the porch as I went through. It was going to be lovely, sitting out there at night and having a glass of wine made from Door County cherries.

  The cabin itself was charming. You entered a small sitting room with corner windows on one side and a little window bay on the other with a table for two set inside it. In the sitting room was a gas fireplace, an entertainment center with a television, a loveseat, easy chair and coffee table. Very homey. In the next room were the twin beds, some bedroom furniture and an armoire. In a U-turn to the right was a longish bathroom that had been boxed into the wall of the bedroom. Originally, I suspected, the cabins had had other arrangements for showers and outhouses.

  The bedroom being in the back of the cabin, up against the woods, the windows of the room showed a haze of green outside, tipped with dots of sunshine and splashes of fall color. It became more and more unbelievable to me that we were so close to the shopping district in Fish Creek. We could have been deep in the woods.

  I immediately claimed the twin bed by the back wall, because there was a window beside it with cheerful curtains in a burgundy plaid. The panels didn’t quite hang together in the middle, but I was planning on keeping them pushed to the side anyway. There was nothing but brush behind the cabin, and looking out the window I could see that the ground dropped away from the cabin so that nobody standing on the ground would be able to see in anyway. On moonlit nights I could fall asleep looking at silvery branches reaching for the sky. Maybe I’d get lucky and the moon would rise in a part of the sky where I could see it from my bed.

  Arnie deposited our bags on the twin beds, indicated the bathroom by pointing at the doorway and saying, “The necessary,” and then he left us, muttering, “Enjoy your stay.”

  Evaline stayed with us, and when we came back out of the bedroom I noticed Henry standing up and hovering near the door, as if he wasn’t sure we wanted him there.

  I swept my arm toward the loveseat and said, “Have a seat. We’ll unpack later. Want a glass of wine? We made a little stop along the way.”

  “Algoma?” he said immediately. “I did too.”

  “Fabulous,” I said, “we won’t run dry. Let’s pop open a bottle and talk about where we want to go for dinner.”

  Without thinking about it, I had assumed he’d go along with us, and Nettie seemed pleased. The two of them were surprisingly comfortable together, like an old couple who had fought their battles long ago and gotten over that kind of thing. It was all a little fast for me, the way they were fitting in so neatly together, and I realized to my surprise that I’d done a little role-reversal with my aunt: I was feeling protective of her, wary about this man and what his intentions might be. Silly, but I couldn’t help it.

  It developed that Henry had already made plans for dinner with another guest, but without much discussion it was decided just to bring the fellow along. His name, Henry told us, was Logan. “First name Logan,” Henry added laconically. “Logan Wagner. He’s an interesting guy.”

  He said it without any particular emphasis, but I had already begun to understand that Henry was a man who didn’t emphasize anything. He would tell you that your hair was on fire exactly the same way he’d just said, “He’s an interesting guy.”

  I wondered if he was hoping that Logan would keep me occupied and leave him free to go after my aunt.

  Chapter 5 – Logan vs. Matthew

  Logan wasn’t my type. Shaggy, a bit older than me, a little too talkative and a boring academic. He was a man with a useless trajectory in life: digging out and analyzing the ancient folklore of some precise location in Denmark. Sort of Lord of the Rings territory, from what I could gather. I like my sexy elves and warrior wizards as much as the next guy, but I didn’t want to hear about them all night over dinner.

  “Are you here because of the troll story attached to Trollhaven?” I asked as we walked along Main Street.

  We were headed for a tavern that Henry and Logan
had decided they liked, near the intersection with Egg Harbor Road, the downhill road that had brought us into Fish Creek. It had a big stone patio with outdoor gas heaters, and since the evening was still mild we opted to sit at an outside table. Darkness was falling by then, and the heaters gave off a golden glow.

  “I’ve been coming to Trollhaven for years,” he said. “The legend was what attracted me at first, but I got to be good friends with Arnie and Bess Klausen – especially Bess, while she was alive – and I got into the habit of thinking of Trollhaven as a place of peace and healing. I try to get here at least once every few years. But the troll legend? Of course it was interesting, being right under my nose, so to speak, but over the years my field of interest has clarified. My current focus is on the politics of Asgard. It has intriguing psychological and familial parallels to the legends of the Greek god-family, and by extension, the Roman gods. I’m trying to trace any real, provable connections through the ancient epics and the fragments of remaining texts, though the task may seem hopeless. The earliest Old Norse compilations – both the Prose and the Poetic Eddas – date only to the 13th century, but their source material is much older. Greek legend dates to nearly 200 B.C.E., but the similarities are too striking to ignore. Of course, I’m hardly the first one to have noticed.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s nice to take a side-track every now and then into the legends carried here by the early Danish settlers. Come to think of it,” he said, getting energized, “Thor was known as a hunter of trolls. Thus, their reputed fear of lightning. Which is, of course, why trolls are said not to appear during thunderstorms. They remember the strike of Thor’s hammer.”

  “I see.”

  “And they can’t come out in the daytime, as you probably remember from fairytales you heard as a kid.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “So not to worry; we won’t be bothered by any trolls, unless we wander through the woods at nighttime.”