The Fog Maiden

by Jane Toombs

  At home, in her own room, she stopped her flurry of thrusting clothes in a suitcase and sat on the bed. Why the rush? Such a hurry after all these years of not hearing from her aunt, not knowing Toivi existed. But Helen was so pleased. And it wasn’t just the relief about money—be fair, Helen was happy Janella had found a relative, too. Her stepmother was not the fairy-tale wicked kind. But Arnie made up Helen’s whole life—such a waste of a life. Janella rose to her feet and turned with decision to snap the suitcase shut. Stop examining your chance to get away, she told herself. Take it.

  As she closed the door to her room she faltered, setting down the suitcase. Almost against her will she walked to the end of the hallway. She turned the knob and pushed a door open slowly, entering a small room. The yellows of the wall and the colorful drawn draperies should have made it cheerful, but she shivered a little, turning her eyes from the Mother Goose characters of the lighted lamp. A large crib stood against one wall.

  Goodbye, Arnie, she thought as she took the few steps across the room. Goodbye, I hope I won’t have to see you again. As she stood, finally, at the side of the crib looking at him, her eyes stung with unshed tears. The waste, oh, the waste of his life, of Helen’s.

  He lay there, unresponsive, not seeing her, probably not seeing anything, because the small head indicated lack of brain development. Helen thought he heard, but Janella couldn’t believe he had any senses except possibly one of hunger. He whimpered in a high distracting whine, the only sound he ever made, when his stomach was empty. No larger than a child of three, and thin as a skeleton, he lay there, twelve years old, with only a bud containing one finger where his right arm should have been and the right leg partly there except that the foot came much too soon, making him seem somehow obscenely put together because the left side was normal in appearance. He didn’t move himself at all and his joints had become rigidly fixed despite Helen’s daily ritual of care.

  If her father had lived to see this imperfect child he had sired, surely he would have been able to prevent the wasted lives. Janella sometimes thought how easy it would be to pick up the pillow and cover the wizened face, but she couldn’t. Life, any life, was too precious to destroy.

  Lucien waited in the living room listening to Helen. He hadn’t sat down, underlining his feeling of urgency, and Janella’s step quickened in response as she came into the room. She had a crazy urge to say to him, “There’s an idiot half brother of mine in the back room. Help me to get his mother to let him go, put him away, before I leave here.”

  But years of conditioning kept her quiet. “Never talk about your brother to outsiders, Janny.” And later, “I don’t want anyone to know he’s in that room.” Helen’s feeling about having borne Arnie belonged in the Dark Ages.

  Her stepmother broke off her conversation with Lucien. Her normally pale skin was tinged with pink and her eyes sparkled. She likes Lucien, Janella told herself, and wondered at her own irritation with the thought.

  “It’s like the answer to a prayer,” Helen said. “Lucien tells me they’re renting a house on Mt. Helix.”

  “In an avocado grove,” Lucien added.

  “So you won’t be all that far away,” Helen went on. “Just across the city. I’m so excited. Isn’t it wonderful to know your father had a sister and she’s found you after all these years of searching?”

  Janella glanced at Lucien and found the amber eyes watching her. He hadn’t mentioned a search. Not to her. She managed to smile at her stepmother as they said goodbye, not touching. Helen had never kissed her as far back as Janella could remember. But she’d never wanted her to.

  “I gather you support the two of you,” Lucien said as he started the car.

  “Yes.” She couldn’t explain why. Helen didn’t work without mentioning Arnie. “Does she—does Aunt Toivi know I’m coming?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said, but he had hesitated and she thought the words sounded false.

  “Do you have someone who helps her now?”

  “I take care of my wife.”

  “But I mean the house—meals and all?”

  “A woman comes in to cook and clean.”

  “But is Toivi alone? Like today, tonight—is she alone tonight?” Though she kept facing ahead, Janella knew Lucien had turned toward her. Then she heard the displeasure in his voice.

  “Toivi isn’t incompetent; she’s not crazy.”

  Janella thought she mustn’t be cowed by Lucien DuBois. “What do you mean, then, by an illness of the spirit?” she asked, looking at him.

  He turned away. “Will you be able to understand?” he muttered as if to himself. A silence fell and she watched the windshield wipers push aside the rain in the gathering darkness.

  “Toivi believes she can use certain powers,” he said at last, his voice harsh and abrupt. “You might say she believes she’s a witch.”

  “But…” Janella’s words trailed away as she realized she was going to say, “But that’s crazy.” Lucien didn’t think his wife was mentally ill. But how could you think yourself a witch and be entirely sane? Uneasiness raised the hair on her nape and trickled along her spine.

  She thought about the pictures Lucien had showed her of her father standing with Toivi. How old was she now, so many years later? Toivi was no longer young, and maybe she no longer laughed either. How did it feel to think yourself a witch? The words Janella had remembered when she saw the photographs came back—her father’s words—“old Louhi’s daughter…one of the so-called black Finns.” What was a black Finn? Was that what Arnie was with his sparse black hair and sallow skin?

  She was aware Lucien had spoken. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was thinking. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you spoke Finnish, understood the language.”

  “No.”

  The darkness was almost complete. They were still on the freeway, and Janella wondered if the ride had been as long as it seemed. The rain, the steady swish of the wipers, was endless, timeless.

  Lucien spoke. “She told me she’d taught you to count. And some words.”

  Janella was startled. “What?”

  “Toivi taught you Finn when she took care of you for those two years. It seems strange you’ve forgotten everything.”

  “Two years?” Janella’s voice quavered. “Aunt Toivi lived with Daddy and me for two years?”

  She sensed him looking at her.

  “Very odd you remember nothing of Toivi or what she taught you.”

  “I—I was young…” Janella felt a need to conceal her lost time from Lucien as she had always hidden it from Helen, from everybody. Not as a shameful deficiency but because she was afraid to talk about her inability to remember—there was something frightening about it.

  The Jaguar shot onto an off-ramp and turned to the left, then the right, then left again. She tried to see outside but there were no lights except the car headlights showing the slanting rain. Janella hadn’t been to Mt. Helix for years and then she had come in daylight, to drive to the top and see the city spread out all around her. Like the Tower at Villa Montezuma, she thought. But she and Helen lived across San Diego, near the bay, in a small house in an inexpensive neighborhood. The houses on Mt. Helix were hidden away from the street, were large—it took money to live on Mt. Helix. If her aunt rented a house here…

  Lucien slowed, turned, and the headlights showed a building ahead. A door opened and light appeared. The Jaguar slipped into the garage and the door shut behind them.

  She began to close the zipper on her raincoat.

  “No need—there’s a covered walkway.”

  Janella knew he was watching her and fumbled for her purse on the car floor, not wanting to look at him.

  “Janella—”

  She had to turn, but his eyes seemed darker, opaque, not frightening at all.

  “—be careful.”

  She stared. “Why? Do you mean with Aunt Toivi?”

  He didn’t answer, moving his hand up until his fingers barel
y touched her cheek. The light caress made her shiver and he took his hand away.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be all right.” He smiled, but she thought the smile was forced.

  She followed him along the lighted walkway, wondering about the warning he’d given. Be careful. Not to hurt—or not to be hurt? But surely he’d warn her if Aunt Toivi was really insane and dangerous to others. Wouldn’t he? Would she have come to help if he had? Her hand went up to her cheek, rubbing it gently until she realized what she was doing.

  Lucien opened a door “This is the lower level,” he said. “The house is built on a hill.”

  She followed him up a short flight of stairs into an entry hall. He was watching her again and she moved nervously, taking off her coat and scarf. He opened another door and she took a step forward, but it was only a coat closet.

  “Your room will be upstairs.”

  “But—Aunt Toivi?”

  “Tomorrow will be the time to meet Toivi—she retires early.”

  “Yes, I see. Well, of course…” Janella felt deflated. What had she expected—a moving scene in which a dark-haired woman held out her arms, a woman Janella would know immediately, know and love? Foolish. She was here to care for a sick woman—naturally Toivi would be in bed early.

  Again she trailed after Lucien up another flight of stairs. A door stood open to the left of the staircase. She saw him put her suitcase down and went into the room, looking about curiously.

  A luxurious room, money had been spent to make the room attractive. But cold. Not welcoming.

  “I hope you’ll be comfortable. There’s a small bath and here’s an individual thermostat so you can control the temperature.” He pushed the dial higher as though he, too, felt the negative quality of the room. “The cook usually leaves a cold supper if I’m not home in time. I'm sure you’re hungry. The dining room is on the second level if you’d like to join me in a few minutes.”

  She watched him go out and then turned to examine the room again. Coordinated—all soft tones of blues and lavenders, everything blended to fit, to match. But impersonal. No homey touches. Janella was reminded suddenly of the one motel she remembered staying in, the time Helen took Arnie to Los Angeles to the specialist. It had been a room like this. Lovely, but anyone’s. Not belonging to a person. Well, who was she? A guest, that’s all, and this was a room for a guest. A motel room for those who come and go…

  Nonsense. They were only renting this house. Perhaps it couldn’t be helped, with Toivi ill. Janella went to the windows where the draperies, pale-blue ones, were pulled against the rainy night. Yanking at the cords, Janella felt her breath catch in her throat—she was like a trapped bird in a pretty blue cage. The drapes swept all the way open but she could see no lights, no view of the city. Rain splashed unrelentingly against the glass. She closed the drapes once again and went to brush her hair before going down to eat with Uncle Lucien.

  “Your room looks on the avocado grove,” Lucien told her when they were seated at the table. “Toivi’s is across the hall. And…” he paused.

  Is he embarrassed to tell me they have different bedrooms? Janella wondered. Not unusual if Toivi’s been ill.

  “I sleep on this level,” he said, gesturing to his left.

  Janella bit into her cold roast beef sandwich and told herself it was none of her business why he had a bedroom so far from his sick wife. There’d been other doors upstairs—surely other bedrooms existed on the third level besides hers and Aunt Toivi’s.

  “The view from here is magnificent,” he said. “When the rain stops you’ll be able to appreciate it.”

  “Like the Tower.”

  “What? Oh, of course, at Jesse Shephard’s house. Yes, the Tower is fascinating. But the Music Room is by far the most unusual. I can see why Jesse thought he could summon spirits with his piano.”

  “I don’t like the Music Room,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  Janella wished she’d kept her mouth shut. How could she explain the shadows? “I feel uneasy when I go in the room.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, there are shadows behind the piano and they…” she broke off.

  He got up and came to her, lifting her face with his fingers so she had to look into his eyes. “Why do shadows frighten you?” His voice seemed to go into her head and not come out, the deep tone reverberating, making her weak.

  “They—they move and shift and there’s nothing to make shadows—I’ve looked. Yet the shadows are there and I see them.” Janella was afraid she would fall into his eyes and be a shadow herself, without a will of her own.

  With an effort Janella turned her head away, and Lucien’s hand dropped from her face. He didn’t resume his seat, but walked off, disappearing into another room. Janella stayed where she was, though she was no longer hungry.

  The music started so softly she couldn’t tell exactly when the sound had begun, the same haunting notes she had heard from the Tower. Loneliness, the music said. Sadness. Alone, alone, alone…

  But he wasn’t alone. And neither was she. They both had Toivi. Janella fought the urge to rise and go to Lucien. She got to her feet and started for the stairs. I’ll go to bed, she told herself. Tomorrow I’ll meet Toivi and everything will be all right. I’ll know I belong somewhere with an aunt of my own.

  Lonely, the piano insisted as the melody floated around her up the stairs to her room. All alone. She shut her door against it. He’s my uncle, she said silently. Uncle Lucien.

  Chapter Three

  Janella fell asleep quickly, although she hadn’t thought she would. Her door didn’t lock, and she considered this briefly, but why should a door in a private home lock? She wasn’t used to barricading herself anyway. And so she slept…

  Dark, dark, and the whispered words, the wrong words. For moments she thought she was reliving the scene she had during her blackouts, but then she knew she was in a bed, she had not fallen. Her eyes were open, looking at the darkness. Where was she? In Uncle Lucien’s house, yes, and Aunt Toivi’s. In the pretty blue room. Dreaming? The words began again and made no sense. They rose and fell in an alien cadence that frightened her.

  Someone was in the room with her, saying strange words softly, almost like a prayer, a chant. She was awake and there was a stranger in her room. Janella couldn’t move, her muscles stiff with terror. Was it Aunt Toivi? Toivi practicing an exotic witch rite? No, no, a dreadful idea. She must not think, she must reach over and find the little lamp beside her bed, one lamp on each side, matching. Shut the alien words away—don’t try to interpret them. Evil waits in the chanted words, waits for your understanding. No, don’t think of that, reach for the lamp. But what if her fingers reached out and felt something else instead of the lamp?

  Janella made a moaning sound in her throat and the whispers stopped. There was a small shuffling noise and suddenly she was able to sit up and turn on the bedside lamp.

  For a second she thought a bit of the darkness had gathered itself to form a human shape, but then it turned and she saw an ancient, wrinkled face with black, black eyes glaring so malevolently at her that she shrank back in her bed. Old, gnarled hands fumbled at the doorknob and then the woman was gone, the door shut, almost as though the whole episode had been a dream.

  Toivi? Had the woman been Toivi, was her aunt a withered hag? The frightening black-garbed figure had looked a hundred years old. Janella lay back on the bed, heart still beating rapidly. She left the light on.

  Had Lucien said there was anyone else in the house? She had asked him and he said someone came in to do the housework. She had asked who was with Toivi, was she alone, and he said, what did he say? “I take care of my wife.” Very final. But not actually telling Janella there was no one else in the household.

  She couldn’t sleep. What was she doing here anyway? Did she want to stay with a possibly deranged aunt? Her door didn’t lock against that horrible old crone. She didn’t have to stay. In the morning she could ask Lucien to take her
back home. In the morning…

  Janella got to her feet and found a chair to prop under the doorknob. There. But back in bed her eyes refused to stay closed, popping open to check on the chair—had it moved? Was she still alone in the room? At last she forced herself to lie quietly on her back, hands at her side. No harm in calling up the golden owl— Helen thought it was wrong, like Janny’s childhood spells, but the bird figure wasn’t scary and, anyway, Helen didn’t know everything…

  First Janella had to remember the feeling. She weighed nothing, so light her body floated up off the bed, and then the dot, a tiny golden ball. Her eyes closed. Yes, the dot was growing now, two circles forming, becoming the owl in the haze behind her eyelids. Larger and larger the owl grew, and she was drifting, flowing, into a golden limbo. Now the nonsense words: ick-see, kock-see, coal-me, nellia, vee-see…

  She awoke to the persistent buzz of the tiny alarm on the bedside stand. Her own clock—she had packed it, not wanting to be late, to have Lucien knock at her door, to keep a still-unknown aunt waiting.

  Janella moved first to the chair propped against the door and pulled it back near the window. Then she tugged the cord and the blue drapes slid aside to reveal pale sunshine filtering through thin, high clouds. A pine grew close to her window, and she looked past the green needles to the darker greens of the avocado trees. Suddenly she was eager to dress, to go out into a day without rain.

  But as she hurried through her morning routine, she realized she would have to wait. Meeting Aunt Toivi must come first, of course. Why did she push Toivi aside, not want to think about her? Why wasn’t she eager to see this sister of her father?

  Janella pulled on a pair of cream knit pants that flared modishly at the bottoms. The top had abstract designs in chartreuse and orange. Her best pants suit; she did want to make a good impression whether she stayed on here or not. But, face the fact, there was a definite reluctance to leave this room if it meant going to meet Aunt Toivi.

  What was the matter? Her blue-gray eyes stared back solemnly from the bathroom mirror, no answer within them. She brushed her straight fair hair and caught it together with a rubber band, twisting the strands into a French knot on the back of her head and pinning the chignon into place. Now she looked older than her twenty-one years.