Missus Frances’s forehead creased. “Why, Child, whatever do you mean?”
“Nurse Smith told me that God bottles everyone’s tears,” Clarissa explained. He must be the only one who cares about the tears of orphans, she thought. She had cried so many tears that all the water draining out should have shrunk her. Instead, crying made her body feel heavier and heavier.
The mistress came into the room and put her hand on Clarissa’s shoulder. Impulsively, she said, “You left the safety of your mother’s body to be born, and the safety of your house to get help for your paralysis, but you did not leave your mother’s heart. You will find yourself in it when you go home.”
Clarissa looked up, her heart swelling with hope.
29
MYSTERY BOX ON
TEA HOUSE HILL
The next morning, Clarissa went outside to sit on the orphanage steps. I should tell Cora I’m going home, she thought reluctantly, I’ll have to tell her. She watched Ben and Johnny clumming around, locking arms with each other on the ground until Jakot came running with a mouse by the tail. The boys scattered, squealing. Jakot kept running until he got to the landwash, where he tossed the mouse into the water. Even though the boys were working in the mission barn, milking cows and doing other jobs the caretaker had for them, they still found time for mischief.
The sweet smell of the newly scythed grass the boys were raking and tossing hit Clarissa’s nose. She heard Uncle Aubrey calling sternly, “Boys! Be quick with the grass. ’Tis on for burning up in the sun, and when you put the hay in pooks, don’t round it too much before it’s high or you’ll have the boar’s back.” Clarissa knew that “the boar’s back” meant a job done poorly.
Just then a cloud came, wrapping the sun and cooling the air. Clarissa no longer needed to squint against bright sunlight. She looked towards Cora, high in the air on a swing, her lemon-coloured dress like a splash of sunshine. Clarissa drew a deep breath and called: “I’m going home – to my real home.”
The swing settled into a straight pull. Cora jumped off and ran towards Clarissa, her long, dark legs rushing like whips through the air. “You’re goin’ home where yer mother and father are. I knew you would someday,” she added in a resigned voice. She flounced down on the grass, gasping for a good breath. “You can go home, but I can’t; I can never go home. After Pappa died and Momma moved us here, someone else took to living in our house.” She smiled lamely. “We can always be sisters of the heart. That sounds poetic.”
“It is,” Clarissa said, relieved at Cora’s response. A thought jarred her. What if the mistresses send me away before Cora and I get to go back up on Tea House Hill?
Clarissa looked at Cora. “We have something to do before I go home. We have to sneak up to Tea House Hill.”
“Maybe today. It’s Wednesday – Woden’s Day,” Cora suggested impulsively.
“Woden’s Day?” Clarissa wrinkled her nose.
“Odin’s Day, then. The day the moon was created. ’Twas in a library book I just read – about Odin, a Norseman god.”
“Reverend Penny would call Odin godless, so don’t breathe that name into his ear,” Clarissa warned her. “Some things are best kept to ourselves.”
Cora’s eyes flashed. “Sure, you won’t catch me breathing that into Reverend Penny’s ear.”
Clarissa suddenly thought of Treffie. She had not told anyone – not even Cora – that she had heard Treffie call her name as plain as day the afternoon she died. She hoped Treffie was looking down on her from somewhere beyond the sunsets and sunrises. She knew that when someone you love dies, you have to carry the weight of their life inside your heart. It’s not so heavy if you let them dance there, Clarissa thought. She often imagined Treffie as one of the Merry Dancers.
Cora’s voice cut into her musings. “The mistresses won’t get ampery with you, but they’ll punish me if we’re caught goin’ up on the hill. Now that yer goin’ home, they’ll treat you easier.”
Clarissa grimaced. “I wouldn’t count on that.” Then she smiled broadly. “We want to go up to see if the box is still there, so what are we waiting for?”
Taking a deep breath, Cora said, “I’ve been not wanting to go up for fear ’tis a fairy box, but now that yer leaving I’m hauling up my courage. But,” she added, “I’m turning my sweater inside out for good luck.” She pulled her sweater over her head as she walked backwards.
“You and your fairies.” Clarissa shook her head and started towards the gates. Cora followed, pulling her sweater back on, inside out. She ducked to avoid a stick young Johnny was throwing into the air and catching.
“It could be Pandora’s box!” Cora said under her breath. They had both read about Pandora.
“It’s not.” Clarissa’s eyes narrowed. “Hers was already opened, and all the evil in the world let out. That’s why we have boys like Jake, The Great Big Snake.”
Cora added, “It can’t be St. Patrick’s box, the one the Irish saint threw into the sea after slammin’ the lid on the snakes. There’s no shamrocks on it.”
The girls chattered about the box until they started up Fox Farm Hill. They stopped to sniff the white flowers of Indian tea casting its dainty fragrance.
Cora, looking pale, went a ways, then stopped to lean against a big spruce tree, her breathing noisy. “By the time I finish climbing Tea House Hill, I’ll be looking for me breath.”
“I want you to be better of your influenza or bronchitis, or whatever it is you got,” Clarissa said impulsively.
“I will,” Cora promised, “when this bad spell goes away.” She pulled out a hair from the top of her head and pushed it up under the loose bark of the tree. “Here,” she said, putting her hand over Clarissa’s, “say with me ‘In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost – be gone.’”
“You are my best friend, Cora Payne, but I’m not sure we should be mixing magic cures with Christian prayers. Ask your mother to stir molasses and turpentine bladders in hot water. That might loosen your breath.”
“Come on,” Cora implored. “Let’s forget about everything but the box.”
The girls went on their way in silence, hoping no one had been up to the Tea House since their last visit.
When they reached the Tea House, their mouths dropped open at the sight of the place: it looked worse than it had the last time they were there. Now it was like a trapper’s squat. A windowpane was broken and leaves rustled against split steps leading to the broken door. Shards of dishes lay in the fading grass as if a prowler had taken them from the Tea House and strewn them around. The curtains had been torn down from the window and the chairs overturned, but the floorboards were still in place. The girls’ eyes bored into each other’s for only a moment. Then Cora set a chair back up on its legs for Clarissa to sit on. She got down on her knees to lift up the boards. She hesitated, then blurted, “For all we know, the devil, himself, could be in there with his hooves and his horns and a big prong.”
Clarissa reasoned, “What would the devil be doing shut up in a box? He’s out in the world stirring up mischief in the minds of people like Jake and Imogene. Likely all we’ve got is an old tea chest; there’s probably nothing in it but bugs. You don’t have to open it if you’re too scared.”
“But I want to open it.” Cora turned her head and looked up at Clarissa, her eyes as clear as saltwater crystal. “I’ve made up my mind.”
Clarissa leaned forward and lifted her crutch. She tapped the box. “There’s no one home,” she joked.
“I’ll get a sharp piece of rock,” Cora said. She hurried out of the Tea House, taking her time going down the ramshackle steps. Clarissa sat as still as the box until Cora came back, out of breath and holding a rock. She scrooched down on her knees and bent towards the lock, banging on it.
“Don’t wake the dead,” Clarissa said, laughing. She leaned back, recoiling against the back of the chair as one rusty hinge flew off with a ping. Tiny screws scattered along the floor. Cora banged on the other hinge.
It popped up, its screws dropping away. Cora’s eyes looked as big as pools with blue flowers floating in their centres as she bent back on her heels. “If I lift the cover, we could be looking at filthy clobber cast off from some rat-infested ship.”
The girls faced each other, locking eyes. Clarissa leaned forward, holding her breath. She stuck her crutch under the lid and it flew up. With one voice, they exclaimed, “Seaweed!”
“Seaweed as brittle as old leaves,” Cora said flatly.
“Seaweed can cover things,” said Clarissa. She grimaced at the sight of dead insects flattened inside the lid like pressed grey flowers. Cautiously she reached in and lifted out the dry, rusty-coloured seaweed. She fell back squealing as a large, round-bodied, black spider ran across her hand. Icy fear slithered down her spine.
The girls sat back shuddering, both afraid to reach their hands and grab the seaweed. Cora took a twig and pushed it timidly into the brittle covering, lifting it.
“An old sealskin coat and a beaver hat. And a hide of some kind,” Clarissa said. “We haven’t waited all this time not to see the bottom of the box.”
Cora went outside. Soon she was back with a large stick. She shifted it under the hat and tossed it on the floor. Then she pushed her stick under the mildewed and fousty-smelling coat and hoisted it out. She gasped as a gold coin flew into Clarissa’s lap.
Cora dropped the coat and grabbed the coin. Her hand closed over it. Without looking down, she muttered, “It’s the devil, himself, on it, I’m sure.”
“Look at it,” Clarissa said impatiently. “Find out if it’s the devil or a king.”
Cora opened her hand and squinted. She rubbed her sleeve over the rough and dirty coin in her palm. There’s 6p and an angel and a dragon on one side, and a man on the other. It’s probably too old to be worth anything. Still,” she brightened, “I could keep it – sort of as a good luck charm like a rabbit’s paw.”
“The rabbit wasn’t too lucky or it wouldn’t have lost its paw,” Clarissa retorted. “Look what happened to Ben. Maybe his mother carried a rabbit’s paw, and that’s why he was born with a harelip.” She turned to look at the coat. “There may be other things in the pockets.”
“I can’t put my hand in there,” Cora squealed. “There’s sure to be a mouse or some other frightful creature hiding – or dead.”
The girls faced each other; each wanted the other to go first.
“I’ll do it.” Clarissa’s face had a determined look. I might find enough gold coins to be able to hire a great surgeon to make me well, she thought. She slid off the chair to the floor and slipped her hand into the opening, closing her eyes as squeamishness filled her. Her hand went deep, filling the pocket. One finger went though a hole. She pulled back her hand, disappointed.
“Empty,” she said glumly.
“Sure, there’s another pocket. Since you ventured yer hand inside one, you may as well do the other one,” Cora said hopefully.
Clarissa slowly slipped her hand into the other pocket, praying that a mouse or some other furry creature wouldn’t squirm under her fingers. Her fingertips touched something smooth and hard between the cold, damp linings. Her hand closed over it and she pulled it out.
“Look! I put my hand into that old trapper’s coat for a piece of rock!” She threw it on the floor in disgust.
Cora picked it up. “Not just a piece of rock,” she said in awe. “’Tis the same kind of flint as Peter carried.”
“It can’t be,” Clarissa said in scorn. She stopped then, remembering her dream.
“Sure, there’s a hole in it,” Cora added, reaching around her neck and taking off a string of rawhide. A piece of flint hung from it. She laid the two pieces together.
“Exactly!” Cora screamed. She lowered her voice and said sadly, “Maybe Peter was right. He believed his people came from far away beyond the water’s reach. We should have gone up and opened the box before. We could have given Peter the missing piece of flint; then he would have had better luck.”
Realizing that something didn’t add up, Clarissa was blunt: “Where did you get the flint?”
Cora hung her head and sighed. “You know I was on the beach the day Peter died.” She took a deep breath and confessed in a guilty voice, “The boys were building a bough wiffen tilt. They had just come with a wheelbarrow of posts. I heard the dogs howling, and I dared Peter to hang from the kennel upside down.” Her voice fell until Clarissa could barely hear it. “The dogs grabbed him. I heard him scream. I wanted to run – to tell someone, but I couldn’t move at first; my legs were locked up. The next day after the dogs had been shot, I went down to the beach. That’s when I saw the flint on the rawhide string. It must have come off over Peter’s head when he was hanging upside down. I put it around my neck so I could pray for forgiveness.”
Clarissa’s eyes brightened in hope. “That’s why you’ve been so sad and tired. It’s not just your cough. But everyone has a choice on a dare. Peter made his.”
Cora seemed relieved. She smiled, and Clarissa was glad they had opened the box. She leaned over to look down into it. There was something white and round, like the base of a jug, among the seaweed left at the bottom.
“I’ll get it,” Cora said, laying the two strings of flint on the ground. She reached to lift up the object, grunting as her hands went around it, her fingers slipping into openings. “I should have pulled up extra floorboards. ’Tis hard to reach, but I think it’s a jug with holes in it.” She lifted the thing into the light.
As Cora pulled herself up on her knees with the object in her hands, Clarissa shrieked. Cora looked in horror at what she was holding. Her hands went weak and the object rolled from them and down on the trapper’s coat and into the beaver hat.
“It looks like someone’s head,” Clarissa said faintly, “without any skin.”
“Without any eyes,” Cora added with a shudder.
“Without a tongue to tell us who owned it,” Clarissa ended bleakly.
They sat looking into each other’s face, until Cora whispered, in a quavering voice, “It’s likely Peter’s father’s head in that box – got himself murdered by Indians or white trappers for stealing their furs and such. If ’tis so, then Peter’s and his father’s flints can settle into one piece in the box.”
“Why are you whispering?” Clarissa asked.
Cora stared through the door into the woods that surrounded the Tea House. Without turning her head, she said, “I forgot to bring some bread.”
“I’m not hungry,” Clarissa answered impatiently.
“For the fairies. Sure, I hear them blabbering in the trees. Listen!” Cora’s eyes stood still in her head. “You can’t see them, but they’re dancin’ in the woods.”
“Your ears must be keener than my eyes then. A bear is likely talking to itself about having us for supper.” Clarissa rolled her eyes.
“Maybe someone followed us. Jakot! Or Peter’s ghost!” Cora whimpered.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Clarissa said. “Drop everything back down in the box.”
“Even the coin?” Cora asked in a quivering voice.
“Even the coin.” Clarissa’s words pressed down on Cora’s.
Clarissa flinched as Cora slipped a stick into an eye socket and lifted the skull. She expected it to break apart like pieces of chainies, but it didn’t, and Cora dropped it back down into the box. The coat and beaver hat followed. Then she tossed in the coin and the pieces of flint. “This is where everything belongs,” she said, firmly pressing down the lid. “Too bad we don’t have some large nails to clint it.” She covered the box with branches, and fitted the floorboards back in place.
They started down Tea House Hill, passing the Grenfell castle without looking towards it, without speaking, as if some mystery had invaded their beings. Flowers, dancing in the breeze, made everything seem peaceful. But inside, Clarissa felt as if the daylights had been knocked out of her.
As they neared the orphanage, Cora said, “’Tis
best for us not to tell anyone about this.”
“Let’s not,” Clarissa agreed.
“I’d like to know where that box came from, all the same.”
Clarissa shook her head. “We can imagine what we like, but we can’t know everything. Life isn’t like books with an end to mysteries. It’s best that way. We can spend our lives thinking back and wondering . . . making our own endings, and changing them any way we want.”
“It’s good to no longer have to wonder what’s in the box,” Cora said in relief. “We don’t have to find the nerve to open it and it’s nice to have a secret that is still a mystery.”
Clarissa agreed. “One that will lead our minds off in all directions when we have nothing else to do but think.”
As they went towards the orphanage, Clarissa’s eyes got a faraway look. Soon, she thought, I’ll open a box of words in a house full of people. I’ll enter my family’s lives and my family will tell me why I have been here all this time.
30
ON HER WAY
The next day dawned at the dormitory window like a silver light shining from Heaven. Clarissa’s roommates surprised her this time by waiting until she was ready. Then they all made their way downstairs together.
Clarissa was finishing her breakfast when she felt tears surface. She squeezed her eyes tight; when she opened them, they were wet. As soon as the children were dismissed, she went outside and leaned on the veranda rails. A heavy feeling settled around her heart and rose in her throat, thick as the fog that was beginning to batten the harbour.
She turned around and went inside to her locker. She lifted the lid and looked at her treasures: books, a toy watch from her mother, her beaded necklace, the doll and cradle Miss Brown had given her, a piece of sparkling blue-green stone she had picked up near the beach. Fire rock, the Indians called it.
There were reminders of the caretakers. Clarissa still had the lucky rock Uncle Aubrey gave her. His voice was stronger than a whip, and worked as well as a lashing. Mr. Manuel, the caretaker before Uncle Aubrey, though kind to Clarissa, and the other girls, had often had a crack at the boys. More than once he had made their smiles disappear and their tight lips erupt in a cry. Clarissa had heard him defend himself to Dr. Grenfell. “With so many children to keep reined, we have to be tough.”
Far From Home Page 16
