Ghosts in the Garden

by Judith Silverthorne

  Sam asked, “Could you maybe draw a diagram of where you think it was?”

  “I suppose I could give you a rough idea, but I doubt I can pinpoint it exactly.”

  “That’s all right.” Sam drew her notebook out of her backpack and flipped it open. J.J. handed her a pen from her hoodie pocket.

  “You already know where the foundation to the staff quarters was, or at least part of it,” Mrs. Goudy said, almost to herself.

  J.J. and Sam nodded.

  Deftly, Mrs. Goudy sketched the staff residence, the caragana hedge, and the wooden sidewalk. Then she drew a line for the edge of the grounds at Dewdney Avenue and added the current maintenance road and the large rose garden. She sat back in thought.

  “I’m almost certain that the northeast corner of the building was in line with the north edge of the parking lot, close to where we are now in Pioneer Village. So that should give you an idea of where the one edge of the residence was.”

  J.J. laughed. “See, your memory is just fine.”

  Mrs. Goudy chuckled. “I only recall that the edge of the servant’s quarters lined up with the edge of the parking lot. That’s because when I first came to live here twenty years ago, I walked over to see the bit of foundation where I once lived on the grounds. I noted the sightline. As I was drawing, I remembered.”

  She peered back down at the diagram. “I’m fairly certain it was forty feet square. I’m not sure how far the small flower bed was from the northeast corner of the staff building, but I know that it lay about halfway between it and the carriage road into the grounds.”

  She talked to herself. “Maybe about here. No, that’s not right,” she muttered. “I used to sit there and wait for the streetcar.”

  Mrs. Goudy glanced up at them. “You could see it coming from a long ways off, so it had to be farther to the northeast.”

  “Wow, what great detail,” Sam said.

  Mrs. Goudy sat with her eyes closed for a few moments. When she opened them again, she said, “My best guess, is that the small rose garden would be about here.” She marked it on the diagram. “That’s still a fairly large space to search.”

  “Was there anything else in the area we could use as a landmark?” Sam asked.

  “Not really.” Mrs. Goudy shook her head. “The only thing around there were the caragana hedges – long gone now – and some elm trees.” She started to smile. “There were two trees, each with a branch sticking out at right angles from their trunks. They were so odd looking, and scary at times. We used to joke that they were a young couple reaching out for one another.”

  “Were the trees close to the rose garden?” J.J. sat up with a brainwave. “They might still be there…just bigger now.”

  Mrs. Goudy laughed. “I’m sure they’re probably still growing.” She drew them where she thought they had been. “The bench was on a forty-five degree angle facing northeast towards Dewdney Avenue. When I sat there, I could see the gate posts to the carriage road between the two trees.”

  Sam gave J.J. the thumbs up. “We’re narrowing the location down.”

  “Any idea of the distance of the garden from the corner of the staff residence or from the gate?” J.J. asked.

  “No, but I know it was thirty steps from the bench to the tree on the left, with the odd branch sticking out. I purposely paced it out one day when I was waiting for a streetcar that was late.” Mrs. Goudy seemed pleased to have remembered that detail.

  “You’ve given us some great information to go on,” J.J. said. “We should be able to find the rose garden now.”

  “But where the watch might be buried, I have no idea.” Mrs. Goudy looked sad again.

  “Maybe we could figure it out from this.” Sam picked up the photograph again.

  “Was there something particular they could see from where they sat?” J.J. asked, peering over Sam’s shoulder.

  “What do you think, Mrs. Goudy?” Sam asked. “Was their anything interesting to notice at the rose garden, or anything you think would have been special for them there?”

  “Not a thing I can think of.” She studied the photograph.

  J.J. watched her face change expression several times over the next few minutes.

  At last she spoke. “I knew Lily fairly well, and I'm guessing she would have wanted the watch to be close to where they always sat. But not a place too obvious to others who might notice that the earth had been disturbed. I’d bet it had to be right around the bench somewhere.”

  “She probably wouldn’t have buried it where it was difficult to get to, so I’d say it wouldn’t be underneath the bench,” Sam said.

  “I agree,” Mrs. Goudy said.

  J.J. turned to her and asked, “Where would you put it, if you were her?”

  Without hesitation Mrs. Goudy spouted, “I’d dig right behind the bench, somewhere about the middle. Probably where they would have sat. No one else would see the spot when they sat there. The arbor vines and flowers would hide the spot too. Yet, it would be right there, where they spent so much time together.”

  “Then that’s the spot where we should start,” Sam said.

  J.J. said, “Great. Now all we have to do is find the exact spot where the bench used to be.”

  “That’s not all we have to do,” Sam hesitated. “I’m not sure anyone’s going to let us go digging around the grounds.”

  “Unless you start digging big holes everywhere, no one is likely to notice. Besides, if you find it, you would give it to the museum,” Mrs. Goudy said.

  “But wouldn’t it belong to you?” J.J. asked.

  Mrs. Goudy tilted her head and frowned. “I’m not sure. If you find it on the Government House grounds, it might belong to them. Besides, I have no use for it, and others might as well enjoy it, especially if it once belonged to the original landscaper – you know who – of the grounds.”

  J.J. grinned at Mrs. Goudy’s use of their term for George Watt.

  “If we find it,” Sam said. “We don’t even know if we’ve figured out the right place. Or if she even buried it. All we can do is try.”

  J.J. looked at Mrs. Goudy. “How deep do you think it would be buried?”

  “Probably just a little more than the length of a spade. The gardeners would have dug the soil by hand back then, and Lily wouldn’t need to go too much deeper. They probably didn’t have a need to dig around the bench that much, anyway.”

  “The ground is really packed now,” Sam said.

  J.J. remembered how hard it was to scrape away the soil from the foundation with her pencil. “What could we use to dig with?”

  “A shovel is too big and obvious, but my mom has a trowel,” Sam said. “I could get it.”

  “I have one from when I used to keep potted plants,” Mrs. Goudy said. “Take a look in the closet.” Mrs. Goudy motioned for her to search for it.

  •••

  As Sam dug around in the closet, the clock chimed five times. She and J.J. still had a bit of time before they had to be home for supper. She clattered through a box of old tools and spied the trowel.

  When she returned with it, Mrs. Goudy laughed. “That should do it. Finally it’s being used again, and for a good cause.”

  “Do you think it’s okay if we go dig right now?”

  “Why not?” Mrs. Goudy shrugged with an impish grin. “It’s after five, and the commissionaire will have gone home, and all the staff. If you don’t find anything, well then, no harm done, and if you do, there’s plenty of time to alert someone tomorrow.”

  Sam glanced at J.J. “Are you feeling okay enough to do this?”

  “Sure, let’s go,” she said.

  “Wish I was able to come with you,” Mrs. Goudy said, with a little sigh.

  “We could help you get there,” Sam said.

  “No, I’d just slow you down. You girls go ahead, but make sure you report back as soon as you find something. I haven’t had this much excitement in a long time.”

  “We will,” Sam promised, stick
ing the trowel and notebook into her backpack.

  J.J. put away her pen. “We’ll get your trowel back to you too.”

  “No hurry,” Mrs. Goudy laughed. “I don’t have any plants to repot these days.”

  Sam and J.J. headed straight west from the edge of the Pioneer Village parking lot. They crossed the Govern-ment House visitors parking area in as straight a line as they could, over the sidewalk and onto the grassy grounds.

  Once in a while, they dodged trees or bushes or a flower bed, but they always checked back to make sure they were still in alignment with their starting point. It helped that there was a white car parked right there, and they could see it easily through the fall-coloured foliage surrounding them.

  Near the west edge of the property, Sam stopped. “We better make sure no one can see us.” She peered in every direction.

  Traffic zoomed by on the street, but they seemed to be alone on the grounds. The sun slanted across the lawns, etching the trees and bushes in the long shadows.

  “No one seems to be at the Government House any more, either,” J.J. said.

  “So far, so good. How about I stand here until you find the foundation piece, and then we can mark the likely corner of the staff building?” Sam said.

  J.J. walked south, scanning the ground.

  “Found it,” she called over to Sam after a few minutes.

  Sam pulled out Mrs. Goudy’s diagram and studied it. She dropped her backpack on the ground where both sight lines intersected.

  “Now, let’s find those trees with the weird arms,” Sam said.

  They walked through the grounds on an angle towards Dewdney Avenue, checking each of the large elm trees.

  “There’s one.” J.J. ran over to the first one.

  Sam watched her friend touch the tree. The bent branch did look like an arm pointing to the side, as if reaching out for someone or something. She whirled around and scanned the area nearby.

  Within seconds, she called, “There’s the other one.” She walked over to it, and then turned to face the east. “And there’s the large rose garden. You stay where you are until I find the middle of it.”

  Sam lined up with where she thought the centre was. “Tell me when it looks like I’m halfway between the two trees,” she called to J.J.

  Sam walked straight west for several moments.

  “About there,” J.J. said.

  “You stay, and I’ll count the steps back to the tree.” Sam walked on an angle towards J.J. When she had gone thirty steps, she dropped her backpack.

  Sam walked straight back. “If we’ve figured this out right, then this is the centre of the small rose garden, and where you are standing should be where the bench was.”

  Sam joined J.J. “Not exact, but let’s pretend we’re sitting on a bench looking through the two trees, towards the entrance gate posts.”

  “What do you think about here?” J.J. asked, shuffling over a little.

  “The view is a little more centered between the gate posts over this way, I think,” Sam said, shuffling another foot to the north.

  When she was satisfied that the location matched the diagram and notes as closely as Mrs. Goudy had given them, Sam pulled the trowel from her backpack. She and J.J. checked to see if anyone was nearby, but all was quiet, and they were alone.

  “Okay, we’ll go with this, then.” Sam dropped to her knees.

  She dug the trowel into the hard ground, trying to cut segments of rooted grass, so she could set them back over the hole later. J.J. helped her pull up the section once she loosened it.

  As J.J. kept watch for intruders, Sam scraped the packed soil, scuffing up tufts of grass and bits of roots. As she got a little deeper, the dirt became powdery with little stones and came out easier.

  “I think we’ll have to make the hole wider,” J.J. said.

  “I wonder how big.” Sam sat back on her heels and surveyed her progress. “We don’t even know what Lily might have buried the watch in.”

  “Probably something not too big, but made out of tin. Wood would rot.” J.J. bent back down beside Sam.

  “True,” Sam said. She gritted her teeth and scratched harder around the edges. When her arm got tired, she switched hands. Gradually, she made a larger hole, but she hadn’t found anything yet.

  “Hot work,” she said, wiping the sweat off her face and flapping her hoodie to cool down.

  “Do you want me to work at it for a while?” J.J. moved close beside her.

  Sam sat back on her heels and handed the trowel to J.J. “The thing is,” she said, “We don’t even know if we have the right spot.”

  “We have nothing else to go on. Besides, I don’t think we’re down quite deep enough to give up yet.” J.J. gouged at the hole, plunging deeper with each quick scoop, flinging dirt and little stones into a pile beside her. After a frantic few minutes, she paused.

  “Maybe this isn’t the right place,” she said. “In fact, we don’t even know if she buried it anywhere near here. Or maybe someone else already found it and Lily doesn’t know.”

  Sam gave her a perturbed look. “It makes sense to be around here. We must be close.”

  J.J. glanced at the darkening landscape. “We’re almost out of light. Let’s just do a little more. If we can’t find it tonight, we can come back and try another place tomorrow.”

  Sam reached for the trowel. Blowing out a loud breath, she started scraping again, making the hole deeper and wider. She worked in a steady rhythm. Then she heard a clunk.

  “This might be it.” She pushed the trowel around the edge of something hard. She scraped at it. “Darn. It’s only a big old rock.”

  “Let’s stop now. We need to get home for supper.” J.J. began pushing the dirt back into the hole.

  Together they filled it back up and lay the grass segments over the top, tamping it down with their feet. Sam scuffed the trowel clean on the grass and tucked it into her backpack. She swung her backpack over her shoulder, and they sauntered towards the gate at Dewdney Avenue, bumping against each other's shoulders.

  Sam said, “It’s too bad that in later years Lily and Alice didn’t confide more.”

  Within a split second, they were back in the past, glimpsing a moonlit sky beside a caragana hedge.

  Sam looked at J.J. in horror.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Sam, you bonehead! Now look what you’ve done,” J.J. wailed.

  “I’m sooo sorry.” Sam stared at J.J.’s stricken face, partially in shadows created by the light of the moon. “I don’t know how I let myself say their names.” She slapped her hand against her forehead. “Wait a minute. How did that happen when they weren’t here with us?”

  “Nothing makes sense any more,” J.J. moaned.

  Sam started pacing back and forth about four steps across the damp lawn. “Maybe it’s because we are spending so much time with them. And this is where they once lived.”

  All at once, Sam heard J.J. laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Sam whirled around to glare at her.

  “Look where we are.” J.J. stood at the edge of the caragana hedge.

  Sam scampered over and stopped short. “The small rose garden!” She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Nice coincidence, isn’t it,” J.J. said, chuckling.

  Although it was night time, they were looking at the rose garden from the photo with Lily and Bert in it. The bench, the trellis, all of it was the same. Except that the trailing roses weren’t yet full grown.

  “There’s something else too,” J.J. said. “We don’t have to panic about getting back home. We know we just have to say their names again, and we’ll return.”

  “Yeah, I just realized that too.” Sam said with a grin. “So shall we go?”

  “Wait,” J.J. said, grabbing Sam’s arm. “Maybe we can find the watch here.” She headed for the bench and scoured the ground. “Doesn’t look like the ground has been disturbed.”

  Sam appeared at her side, unzipped her backpack
and took out the trowel. She poked around a little, but it was obvious nothing had been buried there yet.

  J.J. frowned. “At least we’ll have a better idea of where the rose garden was when we get back. Let’s sit for a few minutes to see how the bench lines up with the gate posts.”

  They strolled over to the bench and sat down. Although the grounds were shrouded in darkness made deeper by the shadows from the many trees and hedges, the air was still, and the night was inviting and warm.

  “I can see why Lily and Bert sat here so often,” J.J. said, staring at the night sky. “The moon and all the stars would have been so beautiful when there weren’t any city lights to hide them.”

  “One day I’m sure you’ll get a camera that will take the photos you want of the stars,” Sam said, settling against the back of the bench. “I can see why you want to capture the night sky.”

  J.J. sighed. “I suppose we should get back.”

  Sam leapt up. “Wait a minute. Before we go, there’s one more thing we need to do.”

  “Now what?” J.J. moaned.

  “We can take some exact measurements!” Sam dropped her backpack beside the bench and dug out her notebook and a pen.

  “I guess so,” J.J. said reluctantly, “Though it’s a little hard to see in the dark.”

  “It won’t be so bad. See over there.” Sam pointed. “The trees with the right-angled branches might be much smaller, but they aren’t hard to spot.” She hoped she’d convinced J.J. “We’ll just pace out the left one, because we already know the other one is thirty steps.”

  “Fine. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get to go home,” J.J. mumbled.

  “You measure to that tree, and I’ll sketch what’s behind both trees to match the angles that line up with the bench. That way, we’ll have the position of the bench right when we get back home. We’ll meet at the bench.” Sam headed off without a backward glance.

  Once this was accomplished, and the numbers written in Sam’s notebook, she paced the length of the bench, while J.J. walked through the middle of the rose garden to figure out how far across it was. Then they examined the area around the bench, where the trellis posts were, and how much space there was between the bench and the trellis and the bench and the rose garden. Where they couldn’t measure with their feet, they used the narrow edge of the notebook, marking down each calculation.