Fog Magic

by Julia L. Sauer

  2.

  THE HOUSE AT THE FORK

  “PLEASE let there be a house today on the old cellar hole,” Greta kept saying to herself as she hurried along the Old Road. But how could there be? You could see things, perhaps, in the twilight that were never there at noon. That was it, of course. It was evening when she had gone after Rosie. Nothing like that could happen in the daytime. “Maybe there will be!” “There can’t be.” “Maybe there will be.” “There can’t be.” Back and forth, back and forth the two thoughts went ticking in her mind. Her heart was beginning to thump in time to them.

  “I’d better stop and get my breath at the sailors’ graves,” she thought. It was a spot where Father often stopped for a moment. Greta had never asked him why. On clear days the village looked its prettiest from there. But Greta thought it was Father’s way of paying respect to the shipwrecked sailors who had been washed ashore in the cove years and years ago. Just where the fences met at the corner of the Ezra Knoll, they had buried them. There was nothing to show who they were or where they’d come from—nothing, now, to mark the graves except Father’s care that that corner of the hay field was never mowed. Greta leaned on the fence and looked down at the unmowed corner.

  “I hope they didn’t come from a West Indies port,” she thought. “They’d hate even to be buried here if they loved steady sunshine.”

  When she came to the path to Little Cove, Greta drew a long breath and looked over toward the clump of spruces. What she saw set her heart thumping. It was there! Again through the gray mist she could trace the darker outline of a house! For a moment she was tempted to push closer—to explore. Something held her back—and she was always glad that it had. Because the dim shadow of a house there at the fork became, through all the strange months that followed, a sort of magic beacon. When she could see it, she went on. When it wasn’t there, she learned to turn back. It was always to be trusted. Disobey its message and there was a long walk, but nothing more. Only when its presence pointed the way was it wise to go full speed ahead.

  To avoid temptation, Greta turned quickly into the right hand fork that led to the high pasture. She didn’t look back until she came to the burned patch where the berries grew. There, standing in the middle of the road, just where she had stopped a moment before, was the blurred figure of a bent old man. Where had he come from and who was he? No one she knew; she was sure of that, somehow. As she looked down at him, his hand shot up in the friendly gesture that old people in the village always used. Greta took off her beret and waved to him. He seemed satisfied. He moved toward the house and out of sight.

  As she climbed on Greta realized suddenly that the words “Old Man Himion” were going over and over in her mind. “Where on earth did I ever hear of ‘Old Man Himion?’ ” she asked herself. “Why, of course. It was Old Man Himion who had found the shipwrecked sailors in the cove!” She had heard that name from her grandfather. “And that must be Old Man Himion’s house!” she thought. “The very house he had left when he had gone down to the cove on that morning after the big tempest so many years ago.”

  “I think I’ve seen Old Man Himion. And I think I know his house. And this fog is really truly magic,” she sang as she started across the open pasture. The berries were thick and she stopped to pick for a while. Her pail was a good third full when she reached the other side of the open space.

  The higher she climbed, the thicker the fog grew. Hurriedly, in great clouds it rolled over the top of the mountain. Then, its hurry spent, it spread out leisurely over the slopes below. Greta had to watch the ground closely to find her way. The rough foundation stones of the Old Road were the only guide. At the upper edge of the pasture the road plunged into the thick spruce woods that covered the top. The trees seemed to hold the gray curtain back. Here the road was like a narrow dim tunnel; gray blanket above, wet green side walls, no sound but the sound of fog dripping from the spruces.

  It was so very quiet in the spruces that Greta found herself picking her way cautiously as if she were afraid to turn a stone or make the slightest noise. Once she stopped to listen to the stillness. It was then that she heard the sound of trotting horses! Not the slow plod of oxen that she was used to, not the whir or rattle of a car on the highway, but the sharp rhythmic beat of horses’ feet. They were coming toward her! And coming the way she had come! Occasionally she could hear a grating sound as the metal rim of a wheel glanced off a stone. She stepped to the side of the road. Who could possibly be driving on the Old Road? And where had such horses come from? Surely there were none in the village or in the town thirty miles away capable of holding that steady pace up the mountain. Greta was too excited to be frightened. She could only peer down along the dim road she had come and wait. Louder and louder came the clipped “trot, trot!” Around the bend in the road below they came into sight—two smartly groomed horses and a surrey driven by a woman dressed in gorgeous plum colored silk. She was like a picture out of a book. Greta stared in amazement as the carriage came nearer. She hardly realized that the driver had noticed her when the horses were pulled up sharply and expertly swung to the right to cramp the wheels of the surrey.

  “Come, come, child!” said a sharp, impatient voice. “Don’t stand there dreaming in the fog. Climb in if you’re going over the mountain.” Greta climbed in. As she settled into the seat beside the driver, there was a billowing surge and rustle of taffeta, a flick of the whip and the horses were off.

  Greta clung to the side of the surrey and stole a glance at her companion. Stiff and straight and elegant she sat, her eyes on the winding road. But at each motion of her arms as she drove there was a swish of costly silk. Greta was conscious of it above the sound of the horses. Who had talked of silk so rich and elegant that it sounded this way? She tried to remember. Oh, now she knew. It was Earl Frosst—the one the children called “The Early Frost.” He had been telling old stories in the kitchen one night when she was doing her home-work. His grandmother had been born on the other side of the mountain in the village of Blue Cove. It had been a rich village once and its women had dressed as few women in that part of the province had dressed. Early had said, “When Blue Cove women came over the mountain, it sounded like a three-master coming up into the wind!” Well, surely this purple taffeta would sound like the sails of a three-master. Greta let a little chuckle escape her. The woman looked down at her sharply.

  “Few travel the road to Blue Cove afoot,” she said. “Why are you going?”

  “I like to walk in the fog,” Greta told her.

  “Walk in it, yes. But God help the men in boats on a day like this.”

  “But, but—as long as they can hear Tollerton blowing, they know where they are.” Greta tried to defend the fog.

  “Tollerton? Tollerton?” the woman looked puzzled.

  “Yes, Tollerton—the foghorn in the Passage, I mean,” Greta said.

  “Well, it’s time they had a foghorn in the Passage—with that treacherous current pulling between the Neck and the Islands. But you’re talking nonsense, child. I never heard tell of one.”

  Greta caught her breath sharply and listened. They were on the side of the mountain toward the open sea and the wind was blowing out of the southwest. Tollerton should have sounded more distinctly here than at home. But there was no sound of it. She had passed beyond the reach of Tollerton’s warning voice.

  The woman was silent. Her driving took all her attention as the road wound down from the level plateau. Greta was too excited to speak. She knew somehow with certainty that when the road swung down toward the sea she would not find the familiar empty beach. She would find instead the once prosperous village of Blue Cove.

  3.

  THE VILLAGE OVER THE MOUNTAIN

  TWO GIANT boulders stood where the old Post Road left the plateau and began to wind down toward the sea. The road had insisted on squeezing between them when it might just as easily have gone around. Greta had often traced the scorings on their inner surfaces, the straight lines that
marked the years of travel. The rocks loomed ahead in the fog. It was exciting to think of dashing between them behind these brisk horses. She gripped the side of the surrey and leaned forward. The woman beside her gave a short laugh and reached for the whip.

  “Never fear, child. We’ll make it,” she said. “They’re the sentinels that guard Blue Cove. None passes but has a right there.” She paused. “But they pass safely,” she added.

  “Have I a right there, do you think?” Somehow the question had to be asked. The woman turned to look down squarely into the girl’s face.

  “You’ve no cause to worry. You’ve the look of one that was always welcome there,” she said curtly. Then the horses took all her attention. The boulders were upon them, dark shadows in the mist. The horses lunged through, then settled quietly again to a steadier pace.

  Greta knew what this part of the mountain was like in clear weather. To the south of the road there was still unbroken forest—scarred here and there with burned patches, but otherwise dark, mysterious, treacherous, with unexpected chasms. Along the edge of the road to the north a high protective hedge of spruce and alder had been left, cut here and there with entrances. Beyond the hedge lay a clearing that sloped gently toward the sea. And dotting this clearing were cellar holes. Smooth little depressions they were; covered with the quick-springing growth of the pasture. It looked almost as if the homes of the departed inhabitants had sunk quietly into the earth.

  Greta had often played in these cellar holes. It was fun to imagine where each house had stood, where the doorways had been, where the single street had led. Sometimes the shape of the depressions gave a clue; often a flat stone marked a doorstep. Once she had dug up a tiny spoon in a cellar hole. A salt spoon it was, with a strange name engraved on the handle. Her father said it was the name of a packet that had gone down off the Islands, years and years ago. The little salt spoon was one of her most treasured possessions, kept carefully hidden under the handkerchiefs in her dresser drawer.

  Suddenly the woman pulled the team to a stop. They were opposite one of the entrances to the clearing. “You’d best get out here,” she said abruptly.

  Greta climbed quickly over the wheel. In front of her an archway, hung with its curtain of fog, opened into the clearing. But did it lead into the familiar pasture? Or did it lead to something very different? For the first time in all her wandering in the fog she hesitated. She turned back toward the surrey for reassurance. The woman was smiling at her now, kindly, all her grimness gone.

  “Go on,” she said gently. “In the second house you’ll find Retha Morrill. You two will pull well together.”

  She touched the horses with her whip. Greta watched the surrey disappear into the thicker mists below. Then, with a pounding heart, she stepped through the arch of spruces.

  Her feet crunched on gravel. She was walking on a neat path. At her right loomed a big barn. Beyond she traced the outlines of a house—small, neat, gray-shingled, —and another, and another. A smell of wood smoke was in the air. Something brushed against her ankle. She looked down. A gray cat, the largest she had ever seen, was looking at her pleasantly.

  “You beauty,” Greta said to her and stooped to stroke the long hair. But it was one thing to greet a guest and quite another to be touched. Without loss of dignity, without haste, the gray cat was simply beyond reach. But she was leading the way, her plume of a tail erect. Where the second neat path turned off toward a house the cat looked back to be sure that Greta was following. Suddenly a door banged. Around the side of the house and down the path a little girl came running. She stopped when she saw Greta and gathered the cat into her arms. The two girls stood looking at each other.

  “I’m Retha Morrill,” said the Blue Cove child slowly, “and I think that Princess must have brought you.” She smiled and took Greta’s hand. “I’m glad you’ve come. Let’s—let’s go in to Mother.”

  Greta could think of nothing to say. She could only smile back and follow. But she knew, and Retha knew, that as the woman had said, they would pull well together. At the doorway Retha dropped Princess on the wide stone before the steps.

  “Please wait here,” she said. “I’ll find Mother.” Greta nodded. She still wasn’t sure of her voice. She watched Princess curl into a graceful heap on the stone —gray stone, gray fur, gray mist, gray shingles, all softly blending and blurring before her eyes. She knew that stone well. It had strange markings on it. She had often traced them with her finger where it lay in the empty pasture beside her favorite cellar hole.

  There was a brisk step inside the house and a tall woman stood in the doorway. “Come in, child, come in,” she began. Then she stopped and looked long at her visitor. And Greta looked up at her. She had never seen such blue eyes in all her life before—nor such seeing eyes. They were eyes that would always see through and beyond—even through the close mist of the fog itself. The woman put out her hand and drew Greta inside before she spoke again. Her voice was a little unsteady but very gentle.

  “You are from over the mountain,” she said. “I can tell. And I’d know it even if this were the sunniest day in the year.”

  Greta didn’t quite know what the words meant but she knew somehow in her heart that she and this strange woman would understand each other without words. In just the flash of a moment they had traveled the longest road in the world—the road that leads from eye to eye.

  “I am Laura Morrill,” Retha’s mother continued quietly. “Retha shouldn’t have left you standing outside—not such a welcome guest. Now turn toward the light and let me look at you. Humph! Yes. You must be an Addington. Would your name be Greta, now? Yes?” She laughed. “So I guessed it right the very first time! Well, you have the Addington look and the Addington eyes, and there’s always a Greta among the Addingtons! Yes, and there’s always a child among the Addingtons that loves the fog it was born to. You’re that child, I take it, in your generation.” Her laughing face grew sober and she gave Greta a long, steady look. Then she smiled again quickly and smoothed back Greta’s hair with a quick stroke of her hand.

  “It’s the things you were born to that give you satisfaction in this world, Greta. Leastwise, that’s what I think. And maybe the fog’s one of them. Not happiness, mind! Satisfaction isn’t always happiness by a long sight; then again, it isn’t sorrow either. But the rocks and the spruces and the fogs of your own land are things that nourish you. You can always have them, no matter what else you find or what else you lose. Now run along and let Retha show you the village. You two must get acquainted.”

  “May I leave my pail here?” Greta asked her. “I picked quite a few berries for Mother, coming over.”

  “Of course you may,” Laura Morrill told her. “But that reminds me! You must be hungry. We’re through our dinner long since but I’ll get you something. I dare say you left home early.”

  “I brought a sandwich to eat on the way,” Greta told her. “Only there hasn’t been time.”

  “Sit right down and eat it here, then. Retha, you fetch a glass of milk and I’ll get you a piece of strawberry pie. Retha went berrying early this morning, too, and I made my first wild strawberry pie of the season.”

  After Greta had eaten she and Retha went out to explore the village. Its single street followed the curve of the shore line. There were houses on only one side, with patches of gardens behind white fences. Across the road in a narrow stretch of meadow, cows were grazing. Thick spruces hedged the meadow in at the lower side where there was a sharp drop, almost a precipice, to the shore. But the street was high enough so that Greta knew on a clear day you could look from the houses straight out to the open sea.

  It was pleasant walking slowly up the street with Retha, but Greta couldn’t find anything to say. To ask questions might break the spell. She might find herself back again in the empty clearing. And Retha knew that it would be impolite to question a stranger. They reached the end of the street before either spoke.

  “There’s our school, and there’
s our church,” Retha said. She pointed out the little white building across the end of the street next to the neat church with its steeple.

  “The shore curves in here, and there’s another bay down there where you can find all sorts of things to play with. Our church is nice. Sometime maybe you’ll be here on a Sunday so you can see it inside. There isn’t any burying ground,” she added. “It’s all rock here and we can’t have our own. When folks die they have to go over the mountain to be buried. Now let’s go back to the Post Road and I’ll show you the shore and the wharf and the fish houses and the stores.”

  In one of the door yards two very small children were playing. As they came near Greta saw that there was a man seated on the ground, his back against the fence. One child tripped and sat down heavily, jolting out an indignant wail. The man reached out a long arm. He set the small thing on its feet again as you would set a ninepin, and gave it a comforting pat. The wail died suddenly and the man slumped back. Greta laughed.

  “He must like children,” she said, “or they must like him. Why, he didn’t even have to speak to that one.”

  “Sss-h,” Retha warned her. “He can’t speak, but we —we don’t quite know—for sure—whether he can hear.”

  Whether he heard or only felt their approaching footsteps, the man turned suddenly and looked up at them between the pickets. A lean, dark, strange, and foreign face. The eyes were piercing, searching. Greta found she was standing quite still, giving this strange man a chance to look at her. Retha didn’t seem to think it unusual. She was smiling at him and saying slowly,

  “Anthony, this is my friend Greta Addington. She’s from over the mountain.” Then she pulled Greta gently away. The man turned to watch until they faded into the fog.

  “But, Retha, you said he couldn’t hear, and then you spoke to him. And he looks almost—almost savage. And still he was minding those babies.”