by Tim McGregor
“I don’t want company right now,” she said.
“Billie,” he said, frustration leaking out of him. “I had to go. I couldn’t just dismiss it.”
“I know. I get it. But it still sucks and I just want to be alone right now.”
“Okay,” he said. She needed space. That was perfectly understandable. He hated it but there was nothing to do about it now. “How was the rest of the party?”
“It blew up in my face.”
“What does that mean?”
“Watch the news,” she said. “You can see for yourself. Goodnight.”
The call ended, Mockler standing there in the falling snow with the dead phone in his hand. The news? What did that mean?
Standing inside the unpacked apartment on West Avenue, he still didn’t understand what she had meant. He did, however, know exactly where the laptop was packed. It was in a courier satchel sitting under the window that faced the street. Retrieving it, he plugged it into the socket and sat down on the bare wood floor. Whatever news she was referring to had to be local. He pulled up the sites for the Hamilton Spectator, the CBC and the Hamilton Bay News.
It didn’t take long to find it. A hatchet job on the HBN site, done by that obnoxious reporter, Amanda Troy. It was brutal, portraying Billie as some kind of trailer-trash con artist, linked to an underground occult network. He himself was named, painted like a gullible cop who believed in psychics. Gantry was named also, completing the news piece as the modern-day equivalent of tarring and feathering.
Someone at work was bound to see this and pass it up the chain to his superiors. They disliked bad press and this kind of axe-grinding pseudo-journalism painted the entire department in a bad light.
Mockler closed the laptop and set it aside, aligning his priorities for tomorrow. They were twofold; patch things up with Billie, and trying not to get suspended.
~
It wasn’t like Tom to ignore her calls. He was always there when she needed him. Even when she didn’t know that she needed him, he’d been there. Had something changed? Alone and beaten down, she realized that she had lied to Mockler earlier. She didn’t want to be alone right now, but she just wanted Tom here. Family. But the boy didn’t come.
So.
Fuck it.
She opened the bottle of red she’d been saving for a rainy day. It was her birthday and she was going to get sloppily shit-faced. The first glass went down fast as she cruised through channel after channel of crap on the idiot box. She stopped at a cornball movie starring Kurt Russel and Kate Hudson’s mom, the one where she loses her memory. She couldn’t remember the name of the movie but she dropped the remote and settled in. Having seen it three times before, it remained a shameless favourite. Comfort food.
On the screen, a disheartened Goldie Hawn said, “I didn’t marry very well, did I?”
The phone rang on her second glass of wine, the scene where Goldie regains her memory. Had to be Mockler. Checking in on her, worried or remorseful.
“Please,” she said instead of a greeting. “I just need some time.”
“Uh-oh,” said someone not Mockler. English. “Trouble in paradise, is it?”
“Gantry?” Her grin was immediate. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
“Couldn’t be better. Sounds like you aren’t though. What’s the score, Billie? Super cop in the doghouse, is he?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Are you back in town?”
“No. Still in miserable old England. It’s fucking cold out here in the countryside. I don’t know how people live out here.”
“What are you doing out in the country?”
“Running an errand.” There was a pause, the snap of a lighter before he came back on the line. “So tell me, what did Mockler do this time?”
Billie frowned, not wanting to go into it but needing to all the same. “His stupid ex called, saying she was going to top herself.”
“And he ran off to save her? That’s the problem with him, thinks he’s a hero or something.”
“No,” she countered. “He’s a decent man. I’m just a petty human being for letting it get to me.”
“She’s playing head-games. You have every right to be mad.”
“Can I ask you something? Is it possible I’m doing this to myself?”
“I don’t follow, luv.”
“This is gonna sound crazy but, like, she’s always intimidated me. The ex. She’s tall and beautiful and she’s an artist and she’s got this body most women would kill for.”
“She’s a looker, I get it. But what does that have to do with you?”
“I wonder sometimes if I’m summoning her. Like, psychically. If my fears about the ex, how intimidating she is, if that’s somehow keeping her in the loop. Pulling her back in to Mockler’s life. Or mine.” She paused, then said, “See? I told you it sounded crazy.”
“I can’t rule it out entirely. To be honest, I’m not sure what you’re capable of when it comes to the whole psychic field. It’s more than just seeing dead people.”
“It’d be funny if it wasn’t so flipping pathetic. Making my own fears come true. Manifesting them.”
“We’re all guilty of that one, Billie. Given an opportunity, everyone shoots themselves in the foot.” A pause as he dragged on the cigarette. “So, your first row with the beau, yeah?”
“No,” she said, puckering her lips sideways, thinking. “We’ve fought before. When he asked for help on that case with the bodies in the walls.”
“Ah, but that was before. This is your first fight as a couple.”
She hated when he was right. “Don’t be smug, Gantry.”
“What else is eating at you, Billie? And don’t blow it off as nothing. Out with it.”
Now she really hated him. Billie chewed her lip, reluctant to give him the satisfaction. Did it matter at this stage?
“It’s my birthday,” she relented.
His satisfied grin came through loud and clear, all the way across the Atlantic. “Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. Which one is this, then? Thirty-three?”
“Thirty!” she bellowed. Then added, “Asshole.”
“What is it with birds and their age?”
“How old are you?” she demanded. “You’ve never told me.”
“We’re not talking about me, luv,” he laughed, deflecting the query. “So you’re thirty? It’s just a number.”
“I’m officially older than my mom ever lived to be.”
Silence. He hadn’t seen that one coming.
“Fair enough,” he finally said. “Uncharted territory.”
“I guess.” She’d had enough but reached for the wine all the same. “I don’t want to talk about me anymore. Where are you?”
“England. Still blighty old England.”
“I know, but where are you right now? A pub? In some woman’s bed? Battling the forces of darkness?”
“Nothing so grand,” he said. “I’m parked by the roadside, lost in sheepshagger country.”
“On some secret mission, huh.” Billie sat up. “Hey, you said you were going to see family. What family? Names and relation, please.”
“A sister and a niece. I even ran into an in-law.”
“I have a hard time picturing you as someone’s uncle. Are they okay? It sounded like there was trouble when you left.”
“Aye, they’re fine. False alarm, I suppose.”
“Oh. Well that’s good news.” Billie thought for a moment. “So you flew off for nothing?”
“Turned out that way,” he said. “I came back to dig up some answers. Turns out, there aren’t any.”
Something in his voice sounded off. A faint crackle, hidden under the usual bravado. “Hey,” she said, soft as she could manage. “You all right?”
Silence. The phone crackled, splitting from the distance.
“I dunno, Billie. I think I’ve painted myself into me last corner.”
“I think it’s time to come home,” she said.
“I am home,” he replied. “Remember?”
“No,” Billie countered. “Home here.”
More silence on the other end. Just the hissing of the wind, somewhere in the wilds of the English countryside.
“Get on a plane,” Billie said. “And come home.”
The intermittent static on the line grew into a full hissing fuzz and then the line went dead. Connection lost.
Chapter 21
THE PHONE WOKE her up, its horrid chime drilling into her brain like an electric sting. Cousin Earl, asking if she wanted to meet for lunch. The thought of eating made her stomach roil but she lied and said that would be nice. Tatemono, King street, at noon.
Billie hung up and didn’t move. Just blinking provoked the throbbing agony in her head, the dry rasp of her tongue against the chalky interior of her mouth. Staggering to the kitchen for water took forever, the slow limp to the bathroom even longer. It had just gone ten which meant she had a couple hours to scrub away the boozy smell leaking from her pores and swallow handfuls of Advil to mitigate the torment in her skull. Looking at the waxy-skinned wretch in the bathroom mirror, she worried it might not be enough.
Earl was already there when she entered the restaurant, waving at her from a table near the wall. He looked a little out of place, the country gentleman surrounded by people half his age.
“Hi.” She leaned down to kiss his cheek, smiling the whole time, before settling into the chair. “I’m glad you called.”
“Sorry about the short notice. The trip into the city was last minute. How have you been?”
“Fine,” she fibbed, not wanting to get into it just now. Maybe later. She looked around the restaurant. “You like Japanese?”
“I can’t get enough of it,” he said. “But Barb doesn’t care for it, so whenever I get the chance to indulge, I do.”
He poured her a cup of green tea from the dainty pot on the table. “Do you want some sake?”
“God, no,” she said, waving it off like it was poison. “I indulged a wee bit too much last night. And I’m paying for it this morning.”
Earl smiled. “I hope you had fun, whatever you did.”
“It was okay,” she shrugged. Too early to bore him with the details of it. “So what brings you into town?”
“I was at the library, hunting through the archives again.”
“The genealogical stuff? Find anything?”
He shook his head. “Just a lot of dead ends, as usual. I had an idea that the land registry records might turn up a Culpepper or two but there was nothing. The mystery endures.”
“Must be frustrating.” She sipped at the tea. It helped clear her head. “Are you going back to the archives after lunch?”
“No. The research was really just an excuse to drive into the city. I wanted to see how you are.”
She looked up. “Me?”
“I saw that awful thing on the news about you,” Earl said. “What a nasty piece of work.”
“Oh.” Billie felt her cheeks flush with humiliation, the sudden blood rush reigniting her headache. Terrific, she thought. Now Earl would think her crazy, too.
He refilled her tea cup. “Sad state of affairs when a piece of trash like that passes for news these days. Does that awful Troy woman have an axe to grind against you?”
“Beats me. I don’t even know the woman.”
“She thinks she’s onto something big? That’s the problem with journalism these days. People think airing dirty laundry is news.”
The first dishes arrived, seaweed salad and edamame. The conversation paused until the server was gone.
Earl took up his chopsticks. “I wondered if you had the gleaning.”
Her eyes came up. “Gleaning?”
“Second sight,” he said. “A sixth sense, psychic ability. However you want to call it.”
Billie stalled, trying to clear her head. “Do you have it?”
“No. Well, maybe a little. I’ve had a few weird experiences here and there but nothing substantial. Nothing that couldn’t have been coincidence.”
She chewed slowly, disliking where the conversation had turned. She liked Earl, this newfound member of the family, and didn’t want the spooky part of her life to mess it up. But the weird stuff seemed determined to taint everything she had.
“What did you call it?” she asked. “The cleaning?”
“Gleaning. That’s what Aunt Elsie used to call it. She had it in spades.”
“I’ve seen pictures of Elsie,” Billie said.
“That was her nickname for it. Sort of a code word she used when others were around.” Earl tilted his nose down, looking at her over his glasses. “You know it runs in the family, right?”
“Maggie told me. She doesn’t like to talk about it, though.”
“Rightly so,” he said. “It divides people, those that believe and those that don’t. Like religion or politics, not a discussion for the dinner table.”
Billie attacked the salad, suddenly very hungry. “It’s why the family is so distant, isn’t it?”
All the way back to Poor Tom, she thought. It’s the reason why Earl came to a dead end in his genealogical search. Little, it seemed, ever changed.
Earl looked at her. “Have you always had it? The gleaning?”
“Yes and no,” she waffled. How to explain it. “I did but it kinda got suppressed. Or pushed down, if that makes sense.”
“Educated out of you,” he said flatly, as if he knew the story already. “Did that happen after you went to live with Maggie?”
“She tried to protect me from it. She saw what it did to mom. She wanted to spare me from that, thinking a lot of church would keep a lid on it.”
“Did it?”
Billie tilted her head, turning the question over in her mind. “It did. But it was still there, poking through in other ways. I had a hard time at school, unable to focus. Looking back on it now, I think that was the gleaning pushing through.”
Earl sat motionless, not even chewing as he listened. “But it came back?”
“An accident. When I woke up, I started seeing all kinds of crazy stuff. Thought I was losing my mind.”
He laid his sticks across the tiny plate. “An accident?”
“I’m not sure if it was the knock to the head or being dead for a minute or two. But after that, it was like the floodgates opened.”
She went silent when the server brought a platter of sushi for them to share. Earl looked out the picture window to the street outside. Crisp winter light flashing off the passing cars, banks of grey snow rising curbside.
“Looks like the sun’s trying to come out,” he said. “Are you wearing sturdy boots today?”
Odd question. She had to look down to see what she was wearing. “Sturdy enough. Why?”
“I want to take a hike in the snow when we’re done.”
“Where to?”
“I’d like you to show me your mother’s grave.”
~
The unexpected sunlight had formed a thin crust of ice over the field of snow. Their boots crunched through it as they left the cleared pathway of Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, cutting northeast toward the line of trees. Their breath vapoured before them, labouring each step.
“I should have brought sunglasses,” Earl said, squinting against the snowblind effect of sunlight on snow. “Is it far?”
Billie stopped. Shielding her eyes with her hand, she scanned the snow-capped headstones all around them. “I’m not sure. Everything looks different in the winter.”
He was breathing hard. “I had no idea this cemetery was so big.”
“This way.” She resumed her march, the snow deepening the further they got from the pathway. Moving past tall spires and elaborate headstones, the grave markers became smaller and simpler, ostentation giving way to practicality. “Here she is.”
Earl followed along to where the young woman had stopped before a simple headstone of unpolished granite. Coming alongside Billie, he heard
her say, very softly, “Hi mom.”
He made the sign of the cross. “It’s nice.”
“Nothing too fancy,” Billie said. “We couldn’t afford much.”
“After snagging a plot in this cemetery? I guess not.” Then he added, “No one likes garishness, anyway.”
Her eyebrow arched at him. “Did you meet my mom? She was all bangles and big hair.”
“The epitaph is sweet,” he said. Under the line Beloved sister and mother, the epitaph ended with Guide to those in need.
His phone came out, switching to the camera. “Do you mind if I take a picture?”
“As long as I’m not in it,” she smiled.
“Barb says I’m too fussy about details,” he said, framing the snow-topped headstone in the lens. “I just like my documentation to be thorough.”
Billie stepped out of the frame, severely allergic to cameras. Snow had tumbled into her ankle-high boots on the march over, soaking her socks.
“I have a lot of these,” he announced, looking at the photo he snapped. “Headstones with the Culpepper name. None of them older than 1912.”
She stomped her feet to keep warm. “Is that the earliest death?”
“Tis. A gravestone in your hometown. Cillian Culpepper, born 1904. The headstone is the only evidence of his existence though. There’s no other record of his death. Or his birth, for that matter.”
“He was eight when he died? Jesus, that’s young.”
He agreed. “Child mortality was high back then.”
Billie gazed out at the meadow of headstones, comparing the dates in her head. Cillian must have been a brother to Tom and Katie. Tom would have been six when Cillian was born. Katie died before the baby turned two.
“Earl,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you believe in the gleaning?”
“Of course,” he said, as if this was already understood. “I’ve seen too many weird things in my time to question it anymore. Why?”
The sunlight bouncing off the glazed snow was almost too much to bear. Billie squinted at him. “Because I know why you’ve hit a dead end researching the family history.”
