The Fog Maiden

by Jane Toombs

  “I want to go back,” Janny said.

  “Wait. Don’t you think Terhen Neiti is here with us? Shall we call her?”

  “She’s not here.”

  “How do you know?”

  But Janny always knew, and she couldn’t understand why Aunt Toivi didn’t. “I don’t feel her.”

  “Call.”

  “I don’t have any wish.”

  “How about your mother?”

  But Fog Maiden couldn’t bring Mama back—Daddy said no one could. Still, he didn’t know about Fog Maiden and Toivi did. Maybe… “Do you think she can do that?”

  “Ask her.”

  So Janny called Terhen Neiti, called her to come and grant a wish, come where the mist clustered thick and gray. There was a sudden splash in the unseen water.

  “What’s that?” Aunt Toivi asked.

  Of course it was Terhen Neiti, rising from one of her homes—this one in the lake. It was funny that Aunt Toivi didn’t seem to remember the stories she’d told Janny.

  “My aunt wants you to come,” she told Fog Maiden. “And I have a wish.” She felt the clammy arms of Terhen Neiti around her. “My mother—” she began, but then Aunt Toivi started screaming.

  “No, no, I didn’t mean…no, no, Janny, help me…”

  And Janny realized Fog Maiden was taking Aunt Toivi off instead of bringing Mama back—but then she hadn’t really believed Mama could come back. So she banished Terhen Neiti, using the formula Toivi had taught her, and wondering all the while how come her aunt didn’t use it herself.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” Aunt Toivi told her when they were back home.

  “Is the game one like the Fog Maiden?” Janny asked Toivi. “You told me not to…”

  “No. Not a game like that. Will you play a new game with me, Janny?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the box? The little silver box with the golden owl?”

  Janny nodded. Daddy’s box.

  “Where is the silver chest, Janny, the silver box with the golden owl? Let’s play a game where we find the chest.”

  “All right.” She remembered the silver chest—Daddy called it a chest, too, not a box. There was a special way to open it, and her father had showed her, but he never let her touch the golden owl.

  “You’re not old enough, Janny. Maybe you’ll never be.”

  Mama didn’t hold the golden owl in her hands, either, but Mama did what Daddy asked. Always, except for their secret, hers and Mama’s.

  “Did your father show you the silver box, Janny?” Aunt Toivi sounded funny, her words all running together.

  She tried to nod, to play the game, but something was wrong inside her head.

  “En pida tasta—I don’t like it,” the other voice, the old voice said. Janny didn’t know who was speaking but she didn’t like it either, and she began to whimper.

  Daddy’s blue eyes came into her mind, ice blue and cold. The shadows in the corner thickened and began to surge toward her, growing larger and larger. She started to cry.

  “Hiisi,” Janny sobbed. “Daddy, help, the demons are coming for me!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The darkness surrounded Janny completely. The voices, Aunt Toivi, all were shut out by the shadows. The time of dread had come.

  “Daddy,” she begged. “Don’t leave me alone here, Daddy.” She could feel her body curling up, becoming a ball, trying to be smaller and smaller so the shadows might forget her—but the dark stayed. Janny felt if she gave in altogether it would invade even the part of her where Daddy was hidden, and then she would never see light again.

  “Daddy!” she screamed.

  Cold, cold in the darkness. She knew ice crystals were gathering, icy cold like Daddy’s mind when he let her in, and then she realized the chill was Daddy, he was here. Janny watched the shadows flow apart, leaving spaces between without blackness.

  “I didn’t tell, Daddy,” she said. “I’ll do what you say. I’m a good girl, Janny is a good girl. I won’t ever tell.”

  Then the voices came back, faint at first, gradually becoming clearer, telling her to sleep. “Sleep, Janny is so sleepy…” And she was.

  She thought someone was shaking her, back and forth, back and forth, slowly, as though she were suspended. A dream, she had been dreaming. Bad dreams, she didn’t want to recall them. Janella burrowed in her covers, searching for sleep, but something had roused her. She turned to push the button on the bedside lamp and sat up. Yes, of course she was in her own room—all a dream, dimly remembered, of Aunt Toivi and the shadows. She was safe in bed in her own room.

  Her head swiveled, eyes fixed on the door. The chair. Surely she had put the chair under the knob when she went to bed? But her mind was fuzzy. Had she? There was certainly no chair there now. She got up and pushed the chair under the doorknob, staggering as she made her way back to bed, drunk with the overwhelming urge to sleep. The next time she awoke the room was light with morning.

  Janella knew she should get up. How was Aunt Toivi this morning? She must go and see. But her right arm ached when she moved it and her head hurt. She tried to think about the situation she was involved in—hadn’t she resolved to leave? Or could she in good conscience go and leave Aunt Toivi sick of a mysterious illness both Akki and Lucien refused to talk about. Because Toivi was sick, it didn’t take a doctor to see that. But then why didn’t she have a doctor?

  Janella slid from the bed and found herself dizzy as she stood erect. A virus? She had no fever. After several moments the vertigo left her and she put the chair back where it belonged. Had she dreamed about getting up in the night to shove it under the doorknob? Or maybe to put it back under the knob? She couldn’t remember. She dressed slowly, achieving neatness but taking no pains with her appearance. Her head ached when she brushed her hair, and she found the brushing a tedious job with her arm stiff and sore. She knocked at her aunt’s door, but there was no answer.

  Akki was coming up the stairs with a covered tray. If Toivi was eating she must be better. Janella waited until the black-clad figure reached the top. “How is Toivi?” she asked her.

  Akki shrugged. “Paremmin,” she muttered without looking at Janella.

  Better. “What do you think…” Janella began, but the old woman pushed past her and put her hand on the knob.

  “Shall I come in?”

  Akki shook her head. “Ei, ei.”

  “Well, then, can we talk later, you and I?”

  The old woman gave her a quick glance. “En ymmarra,” she replied.

  Janella sighed and struggled to ask the question over again in Finnish. Akki had understood English yesterday, even spoken it—why the big deal about saying she didn’t understand now?

  When she repeated her question in Finn, Akki reluctantly nodded. “Missa?” she asked.

  “Where?” Janella echoed. “Well, my room…”

  Akki shook her head.

  “Downstairs somewhere?”

  “Ei.”

  “Outside, then?” Janella was irritated by Akki’s stubbornness.

  Akki said a word Janella didn’t know, and she said so.

  “Metsa,” Akki muttered, gesturing toward the back of the house. “Kello on koksi.” Then she slipped into Toivi’s room.

  Metsa? Woods. No woods here—oh, the grove. At two o’clock. Why all the secrecy?

  Breakfast alone and the coffee only lukewarm, the toast stone-cold. Ruth showing her opinion? Janella didn’t have the nerve to complain. Ruth had made her feel in the wrong.

  Back upstairs she looked at Toivi’s door but decided against knocking. She’d try later. At the end of the hall the drapes were pulled across the windows, and she opened them. If she kept her eyes straight ahead she could almost believe herself back in the Tower at Villa Montezuma, high up, above everything, everyone.

  She pressed her fingers to her temples where her head still hurt. The pretense wasn’t working, she was not Janella Maki, princess in the Tower. She didn’
t belong in the Tower, didn’t belong here either. What had Akki called the snake yesterday? Messenger from hell, from Tuonela? And the message had foretold doom. Janella stared out at the overcast and sullen sky. She felt gray and cheerless like the day.

  She’d only been here three days and yet the feeling of having stood before this window, gazing down at the mist-shrouded city, was a familiar one. Was this déjà vu—this feeling of having been here, the lowering sky, the sensation of being trapped in a situation not of her own making? Then she realized the music was a part of the atmosphere, the thin, minor sound of the kantele duplicating her first meeting with Lucien when he had played the haunting, plaintive melody on the piano in the Music Room of Villa Montezuma and she had heard it in the Tower and come down to meet him.

  Janella turned away from the windows and started for the stairs. The door to the art gallery was closed, and she wondered when the pictures had been taken from the walls. She wished she had never gone into the room, never seen the one painting.

  And inside Akki’s bedroom—did the music of the kantele mean the old woman was watching the snake writhe among the chips? Janella shivered and hurried downstairs.

  Lucien stood at the bottom of the stairs, blocking her way. She stopped, expecting him to move, to let her by, but he stayed where he was, amber eyes reaching for hers. Suddenly Janella felt as caged as the little snake—not liking what was behind her, afraid of what was ahead.

  “What’s the matter?” Lucien asked.

  “Matter?”

  “You look frightened.” He touched her, both hands on her upper arms, drawing her down the last step. “Surely not of me—not again.”

  Janella stared up at him. “So many strange things have happened here,” she said. “Aunt Toivi…”

  He broke in. “She’s better and planning to join us for lunch.”

  “Oh.”

  Lucien moved his hands down her arms, his fingers gently stroking until they rested in the inner angle of her elbows. His eyes held hers and she knew she was swaying toward him, melting, flowing against him. But his grip tightened and he held her away rather than embracing her.

  “I’m not being fair to you,” he said.

  Her body stiffened and she jerked free of his touch, turned and ran back up the stairs and into her room.

  In the bathroom mirror she watched herself put a trembling hand to her flushed face. How could she have thrown herself at Lucien as she had just now? She wasn’t able to meet her own eyes. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t remember he was married to Toivi, was her uncle?

  Toivi came down to the dining room late. Janella thought her aunt still looked sick, though her skin didn’t have the grayish pallor of yesterday. Her dark eyes with their large pupils examined Janella. “You didn’t come to see me this morning,” she said.

  “I—I knocked earlier. And then Akki…”

  “Oh, Akki—pay no attention to her. I missed you.” Toivi’s voice was shrill and querulous. “You may not realize how I look forward to seeing you each day. My own niece.”

  “I—I’m sorry.”

  Toivi’s black brows rose in an exaggerated arch, and Janella felt blood rising to her face, felt as guilty as though there had really been a love scene between Lucien and herself while Toivi languished alone in her room.

  Toivi sat with them through lunch but ate nothing, toying with her coffee cup until they were finished, saying no more. Janella felt the stiffness of the silence surround her like a fence, holding her own words back until she couldn’t think. Lucien was preoccupied. The meal over, they sat like three stringless puppets.

  “Shall I help you upstairs?” Janella said at last, looking at her aunt.

  To her surprise, Lucien rose and helped Toivi to her feet. “Not now, Janella,” he said. “Your aunt and I have matters to discuss. I’ll see her to her room.”

  Watching them, she noticed the gentleness of his touch, and Toivi leaned against his arm, her face turned to his. They care for each other, Janella thought, and felt like an intruder. She had to wait for them to leave the dining room and couldn’t help noticing Lucien was taking his wife toward his own rooms.

  The clock on the fireplace mantel said 1:30. Early, but Janella wanted to be free of the house, and so she got her coat out of the entry closet.

  The clouds still hung low, gray, and heavy with rain. A chill wind whipped around the house corner as she stepped onto the path, making her button her coat. She walked warily, afraid that Red might be out by the woodpile. She hoped to avoid him completely—forever, if possible.

  She was thoroughly chilled by the time she saw the black figure of Akki come into the grove.

  “Akki, you must tell me what’s wrong with Toivi. Is she sick enough to see a doctor? What medicine do you give her?”

  Akki’s black eyes narrowed until they nearly disappeared in the wrinkled face. She glanced around furtively. “Not medicine,” she half whispered in heavily accented English.

  “But those different-colored bottles…?”

  “Noita laaketta—witch medicine.”

  Janella’s eyes widened. Was her aunt taking drugs of her own concocting? Poisonous ones? “Is that why she’s sick?”

  The old woman switched to Finnish. “She is sick in the soul, not from her medicine. And there is no medicine for illness of the spirit.”

  Janella sighed in exasperation. More riddles. “Why must we come out into the avocado grove to talk? You haven’t told me any secrets.”

  Again Akki glanced behind her. “I came to warn you of the night. What Toivi would do is wrong and also dangerous. Last night…” She broke off and peered into Janella’s face. “Who is the spirit you call on, who comes and sweeps all before him?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Speak softly,” the old woman warned. “For even outside there is no safety. In the forest, yes, but with these paltry trees—pah!”

  “What about last night, Akki?” Janella lowered her voice.

  Akki spoke so low in answer that she had to bend her head down to hear the whisper. “Your mind is open to all.”

  There had been something last night—it wasn’t a dream. The chair under the knob…

  “How does she get into my room?” Janella asked, convinced now Toivi had been in her bedroom during the night.

  “By telling you to arise from bed and open the door.”

  “But I…” Janella’s words trailed away. She didn’t remember. “Why? What does Toivi want?”

  “Toivi is sick,” Akki replied.

  “Then why doesn’t Lucien take her to a doctor?” Janella burst out. “Why must there be this creeping around at night, this talk of witchcraft, this mystery?”

  “Ei laakari,” Akki said. “No doctor. For no doctor can prescribe for Toivi’s illness. She has always been the same and with the years has grown worse.”

  “Everyone acts so odd,” Janella cried. “I don’t want to stay here.”

  “It is far too late,” Akki said. “She will not let you go now.”

  “I…” She stopped as Akki held up a hand. Was that sound a twig snapping underfoot? Janella turned toward the noise but saw nothing in the dimness between the trees. When she turned back Akki had vanished.

  Janella hurried toward the house as the first drops of rain began to fall. How could Toivi stop her from leaving if she decided to? And why did her aunt invade Janella’s mind like this without permission. “Your mind is open to all,” Akki had said. How could that be true—was she some kind of freak?

  The roar of a motorcycle came from the road, and she wondered if it had been Red she heard in the avocado grove. Spying on me? she asked herself. More likely just watching the house. It didn’t seem likely she’d meet him again—certainly no one was anxious to tell her about Chris. Hints only, like all the information given by the people here. Insinuations.

  As she was taking her coat off in the entry, Ruth Barnes came through from the dining room.

  “
Some woman on the telephone for you,” she said.

  It was Doris.

  “I know you have a job now, Janella,” Doris said after they’d exchanged greetings, “but your stepmother thought maybe you’d be able to help out—she gave me your number. This emergency came up and I just can’t be here for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Janella glanced at the kitchen clock. Not quite two thirty.

  “I’d close early today,” Doris went on, “but there’s this school group coming down from Oceanside. It’s too late to call them, and I’d hate to have them arrive and find the place locked up.”

  “Have you tried Phyllis?”

  “Oh, Janella, I’ve tried everyone. You’re my last hope. Because I can’t stay—I have to leave here as soon as possible.”

  Janella hesitated, but the idea of getting away from the problems in this house was so attractive that she made up her mind if Lucien couldn’t drive her she’d ask him to advance part of her salary and take a taxi. She had to get away, even though just for the afternoon. Certainly they could spare her.

  “I’ll be at Villa Montezuma as soon as I can,” she promised Doris.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The rain was falling harder. Gusts of wind blew droplets of water against the windshield of the Jaguar as Lucien maneuvered the car down the driveway. Janella told herself they were winding time backwards, going down the hill in the rain so Lucien could leave her at Villa Montezuma, where he’d found her.