I opened each one as it came, careful not to rip the paper, sitting on the floor in the attic. Maisie’s drawings were so funny, and the things she had knit were so adorable. But I couldn’t let her in. When I saw her handwriting and her drawings and those sweaters and hats and socks, I let all those old painful feelings rise up and then I pushed them all down again as I wrapped the present back up and put it in the trunk with the others. Someday maybe I would give them to Annie. Someday maybe I would tell her the whole story. But not yet.
When Annie found the painting, everything started to crumble. I couldn’t take it away from her. And it seemed to have a strange power over me. I’d never looked at any of Maisie’s paintings since I left Crooked Head, and now I couldn’t pass Annie’s room without looking at it. Then I found myself sitting on her bed, staring at it, with everything flooding back. The lighthouse. The ocean. The accident. The ghosts.
ANNIE
I OPENED MY DOOR and listened. I could hear the TV downstairs. I crept along the hall to Dad’s study, went in and quietly closed the door. I crossed the room to his desk and picked up the phone.
It was easy. Dialing 411 got me information and they gave me a phone number for M. King in Crooked Head, Newfoundland. I dialed it.
It rang seven times. Then someone picked it up and a husky voice said, “Hello?”
It was Maisie. All of a sudden I froze. I didn’t know what to say.
“Hello?” she repeated.
“Uh…hi. Umm…you don’t know me. This is Annie. Annie Jarvis.”
Silence.
Then, “Annie? Is that really you?”
“Yes! Yes, it’s me. I know all about you, but my mother doesn’t know I’m calling. Or my father.”
“I—I don’t understand. I’m so happy to hear from you but—”
“It’s Claire,” I blurted out. “She’s really sick. Maisie, you have to come.”
“Sick? What’s wrong with her?”
“She…she had a car accident. She was in a coma and now she’s had brain surgery and…and…” I stuttered to a stop. I felt the tears coming but I needed to tell her. “Maisie, she needs you. She’s been worrying, all this time, about Little Annie. About the accident. Because she wasn’t holding her hand and she never told you and she blames herself and please, please come. I don’t want her to die. I think if she knew you were there and don’t blame her for the accident…I think she might get better.”
Silence.
“Annie…I…I don’t know what to say. Did she tell you all this?”
“I can’t explain. I just know. And I know that you love her. She loves you too, and she needs you. She always needed you. I think if you could just be there with her and talk to her, she would know that she doesn’t have to keep punishing herself.”
“It was an accident,” said Maisie in a broken voice. “I know.”
CLAIRE
ALL MY LIFE I felt like something inside me was broken. Long before the accident. Maisie was like a ball of fire rolling through my life, big, overpowering, hard to resist. I felt insignificant beside her. Unimportant. I couldn’t be the daughter she wanted. I couldn’t be Annie.
Annie never was daunted by Maisie the way I was. She had her own fiery energy, and she and Maisie burned happily together. I was always the odd one out, standing on the sidelines. And then when Annie died, it felt like a dark shadow fell over the world that only I could see. It went with me everywhere, and my mouth tasted of ashes.
Over the years the shadow receded. I built a new life in Toronto and closed the door on everything that connected me to Newfoundland. I locked all the broken bits of myself away like the presents in that old trunk in the attic, and I thought they would never come to light.
Ron and I were happy together. I loved my job. When Annie was born, a light came into my life, and I thought it would keep the shadow away. I called her Annie because I thought she could take my sister’s place. I thought she would heal me.
But it didn’t happen like that. It was uncanny how much my Annie looked like Little Annie, but she wasn’t like her at all. Except for drawing. All Annie wanted to do was draw, and she was very good, the way Little Annie was. But my Annie was strange and quiet and hard to reach. Ron insisted there was something wrong with her and kept hauling her into the hospital for tests. None of them came to anything. She just lived in her own quiet world where she needed to draw all the time. I think I knew for a long time that something was broken in her the way it was with me. She didn’t fit with Ron and me. It was like she spoke a different language.
When Annie found the painting in the attic and hung it in her bedroom, I couldn’t stop thinking about the past. I found myself dreaming about my childhood, and my sister, Annie, and Maisie. It was as if that room where I locked everything away had a big crack in the wall, and things were starting to spill out.
The day I had the accident was a difficult one for me. Every June 10 since Annie died has been difficult. But this one was worse than ever, because so many things had started to come to the surface in the last few months. I could see Annie in my mind, the way I did when I was at Crooked Head and longed for her ghost. She was always laughing, and running, full of enthusiasm. I could never catch up with her.
When I got in the car to drive home after my class, I was so tired I didn’t think I could make it home. A heaviness descended upon me. I pulled myself together and began to drive. The streetlights picked out a winding path through the Don Valley. I followed them, trying not to think, and then they began to flicker.
One by one the lights went out, leaving the road in darkness. My car lights didn’t seem to be working. I was driving blind through a deep darkness as thick as the blackest Newfoundland night. It felt like I had driven into one of my nightmares. I felt the tires leaving the road and the car was jerking and bouncing over rough ground. There was a tremendous crash and broken glass rained down on my head.
ANNIE
I DON’T KNOW HOW I got to sleep that night. Maisie said she would get a flight as soon as she could, but she didn’t think she could be in Toronto before the evening of the next day. All I could think of was Mom, lying pale and still in the hospital bed. I tossed and turned.
I don’t remember sleeping, but somehow it was morning and light was pouring into my room. I went downstairs to find Magda asleep on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. She woke up when she heard me and we had a very quiet breakfast together. The whole world seemed to be hushed, waiting.
Time ticked slowly by. I couldn’t settle to anything, just wandered around the house. I kept coming back to my room and sitting on my bed, staring at the painting of the lighthouse. The painting that had started all of this. It still looked so alive. The colors jumped out at me, and I could almost smell the salt in the air, almost feel the breeze that ruffled the grasses. I closed my eyes and tried to focus all my energy on Mom.
“Claire,” I whispered. “Mom. Come back.”
Then I would get up and start pacing through the house again. I wondered when Maisie would get to Toronto. She had said she would go directly to the hospital.
After supper I stood in the living room, staring blankly out the window. Something blue moving outside caught my eye. It was Mrs. Silver, walking past our house, wearing a blue dress and a gray cardigan.
I went outside to speak to her. She looked at me kindly.
“Now how is your mother, Annie?” she asked.
“I don’t know. She’s had an operation, and we’re waiting to see how she’s doing.”
Mrs. Silver reached over and gave my hand a squeeze. “She’ll be fine, Annie. Is your grandmother coming?”
“Yes,” I said. “But how did you—?”
She laughed. Her laugh sounded like a handful of tiny bells ringing. “Annie, I know all kinds of things. Don’t you know who I am yet?”
“Umm…ummm…my fairy godmother?” I felt foolish saying it, but there was something fairylike about her and she did keep helping me.
Mr
s. Silver laughed again. “Not exactly. I’m just someone who will never be far away and who will always be watching out for you. Even if you don’t see me for a while, I’ll always be there when you need me.”
“Like a guardian angel?”
Mrs. Silver smiled the sweetest smile and touched my cheek gently with her finger. It felt like the touch of a feather. “Yes, sort of like that. Now go back into the house. I think you’re going to hear from the hospital soon.”
I went back up the porch stairs, turning at the top to wave good-bye. She stood in the dappled light under the big chestnut tree and smiled, waving back.
Magda was at the door.
“Who were you waving at?” she asked.
“Mrs. Silver.”
“Who?” Magda peered out into the street. “I don’t see anyone.”
“You know, Mrs. Silver. The old lady who lives down the street. She’s standing right there under the tree.”
Magda looked again, then shook her head and pulled me gently into the house.
“Are you okay, Annie? I saw you out there talking to yourself, and now you say there’s someone there but…”
“She’s right there,” I said, turning and pointing. “She’s walking away now.”
Magda looked where I was pointing, right at Mrs. Silver, but she shook her head.
“I don’t see anyone. Who is she?”
“Mrs. Silver? I see her nearly every day. She was there waiting with me at the library that time, when they called you to come get me. The day after the accident.”
Magda stared at me. “There was no old lady with you that day. Just the librarian.”
“But—”
“Never mind that now.” Magda brushed my hair off my forehead and looked into my face, frowning. “It’s been such a hard time for you, Annie.” There were tears in her eyes. “We’ll all be back to rights soon, don’t you worry. Now, listen. Your dad just called and we need to go to the hospital.”
My heart caught in my throat.
“Is Mom okay?”
“She’s fine. She hasn’t woken up yet but your dad thinks you should be there. He thinks it will help her.”
Before we left, I ran up to the attic and pulled the red woolen blanket out of the trunk to take to Mom.
CLAIRE
I WAS COLD. I struggled up through a dream of long white corridors and breaking glass into my freezing bedroom, which was filled with the white light of the full moon. An icy Atlantic breeze found its way through the gaps in the window frame and slithered around my bed.
I jumped up, ran to the trunk in the corner and hauled out a red woolen blanket. As I turned to get back in bed, the moon pulled at me, and I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and sat down in the big stuffed armchair. The glowing disc of the moon spilled light in a wide path across the water.
The beacon from the lighthouse flashed over the silver sea, a steady rhythm, every five seconds. Like a heartbeat. Like a drum.
“Annie,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
“I’m right here, Mom.”
I turned my head and there was Annie, smiling at me. “Wake up!” she said. “I’ve brought someone to see you.”
“I am awake,” I said.
Annie laughed. “Then open your eyes.”
My head felt light and strange. I gave it a shake and the moon, and the ocean, and my bedroom at Crooked Head, all disappeared.
I was in a room with green curtains around my bed. A hospital? The red woolen blanket was still there, covering me. And Annie was still there, smiling her head off. And behind her stood a tall woman with white curly hair and eyes the color of blueberries.
“Maisie?” I whispered.
She laughed and her eyes filled with tears. She came and took my hand.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
ANNIE
IT WAS ONE of those hot days in late August when the sun beat down out of a brilliant blue sky. There was very little wind, and the ocean stretched away to the horizon in three directions from the lighthouse at Crooked Head. Maisie had brought some blankets out and laid them on the grass, and we’d had a picnic. Lemonade, tuna fish sandwiches, potato chips, chocolate cake. We all ate until we were stuffed, then lay back and stared into the deep blue that went on and on above us.
Mom lay on one side of me. Maisie on the other. You could still see where they had shaved Mom’s hair away from her head when they did the operation. The hair was growing back but it looked funny. She was self-conscious about it and wore a hat when we went out. But she didn’t mind Maisie and me seeing it.
“Ron is going to love this,” said Mom.
“If it lasts,” said Maisie.
Mom laughed. “Don’t remind me. Newfoundland weather.”
“But he’ll be here in two days,” I said. “Won’t it still be summer?”
“Don’t count on it,” said Maisie.
We’d been at Crooked Head for a week, and the sun had been shining every day. I started to wonder if Mom had exaggerated about the rainy summers, but Maisie assured me that this was unusual weather, even for August, and the rain and the fog and the cold would return.
Mom was a lot better but still a little shaky, and she had a lot of headaches. Sometimes she couldn’t find her words, but mostly she was okay. Dad said that would go away in a few weeks. Dr. Minto said she should recover fully.
Dad was worried about her coming to Newfoundland, but Dr. Minto said it would do her good to get away completely. And Maisie promised to look after her. For some reason, Dad and Maisie got on really well, right from the beginning. When Maisie showed up at the hospital that night, the day after Mom’s operation, Dad was completely flabbergasted. He kept shaking his head and saying, “I don’t understand. I thought you were dead.” I tried not to laugh, but it was pretty funny to see him so confused. He didn’t seem like a doctor at all then, just my dad.
Maisie did laugh, and gave him a big hug. “Not dead,” she said. “Very much alive.”
Dad turned red, but then he laughed too. From then on they were the best of friends.
I wish I could have heard the conversation between Mom and Dad when she tried to explain why she told him her mother was dead all those years. If they’d had it at home, I could have hidden in the closet and listened, but it happened at the hospital. She took a long time to completely wake up, and they kept her there for a month till they were sure there weren’t going to be any complications.
It was fun to watch her and Maisie. The first few days, Mom kept forgetting why she was there, and we had to keep explaining it over and over. She and Maisie kept looking at each other, with exactly the same suspicious expression on their faces. They didn’t look a lot alike, except for expressions like that. And their eyes. But they gradually grew more comfortable with each other.
I think it was the third day when they talked about the accident. Mom had been able to sit up that day and eat her lunch, but then she got really tired and lay back down and started to drift away. Maisie and I got up to leave, but Mom pulled on her sleeve.
“Maisie,” she whispered. “I have to tell you something.”
“So tell me,” said Maisie, sitting down again.
Mom kept tight hold of her sleeve. “It’s about Annie,” she said.
Maisie glanced at me.
Mom shook her head. “No, about Little Annie. I need to tell you.”
I kept very still. Maisie looked steadily at her.
“I never told you. I couldn’t. But it was my fault. The accident. I wasn’t holding her hand,” and then tears started rolling down Mom’s cheeks.
Maisie swallowed and seemed to be struggling not to start crying herself. Mom just waited, watching her mother’s face. Finally Maisie reached out and smoothed the hair back from Claire’s forehead.
“I know,” she
said. “I’ve always known. I saw the whole thing happen from the window. I knew you weren’t holding her hand, no matter what you told me afterwards.”
“But, but—” said Mom. “Why didn’t you say anything? All those years? If you knew it was my fault?”
Maisie lost her battle with the tears. “Because it wasn’t your fault, Claire. It was mine. I shouldn’t have sent you out with Annie that day, when you were so fed up with her. I should have stopped working and taken you swimming like I said I would. It was my fault she died, not yours.”
“No,” said Mom. “I should have held her hand.”
“She would have run anyway,” said Maisie. “Even if you had been holding her hand, you couldn’t have stopped her. And I don’t know if even I could have stopped her.”
They both looked at each other, tears streaming down their faces.
“It was an accident,” said Mom.
Maisie nodded. “All this time we’ve both been blaming ourselves, but who knows why it happened or whether we could have stopped it. It was an accident and we’ve wasted all these years. I don’t want to waste any more.”
“No,” said Mom in a shaky voice. Maisie leaned over and put her arms around her. For a moment, watching Mom’s face, it seemed that twelve-year-old Claire was there, hugging her mother, finally at peace.
Maisie stayed with us, on the daybed in Dad’s study. Magda liked her. I would hear the two of them cackling away in the kitchen, laughing about some story or other. Maisie and I went through all the presents in the trunk, and she told me how she made the sweaters and mittens and socks thinking about me, and hoping that someday she would meet me. I showed her all my sketchbooks and she gave me some advice about drawing and we had some really good talks about painting. We even went to some galleries together.
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