by Sheila Jecks
A Grave Too Small
By Sheila S. Jecks
Copyright 2012 Sheila S. Jecks
PROLOG
The shadows in the damp churchyard, clutched at the weary little girl. She was so tired of waiting. But she knew she mustn’t give up.
People came and went, they seemed to change and things weren’t familiar anymore.
Few people looked at her now, and when they did, they turned and hurried away.
“I have to find someone to listen to me, please God, let someone pay attention to me soon,” she prayed.
“Please God, please God…”
CHAPTER 1
This is the perfect home, privacy in the middle of the urban sprawl, right on the water and no neighbours.
It’s been three years now, since my husband Jim Fox and I and our three kids moved into this old heritage house at the foot of Gunderson’s Ravine.
My name is Sara Fox; we were living in Vancouver, BC in a two bedroom apartment in the West End. We loved it there. It was close to everything. We could walk to the heart of Robson Strauss to shop, or ride our bikes to Stanley Park. We bought the unit when we were first married and had no intention of ever moving out of the hustle and bustle of the big city.
But along came one small bundle of girl joy, and in quick succession two small boisterous boys.
We knew we had to have more room. Three children under the age of ten in this small condo was chaos.
I asked at work about a transfer to one of our subsidiaries in the Lower Fraser Valley but didn’t get it, but I did find a job in the small suburb of Annieville. It was on the south side of the Fraser River.
Jim, my husband of fifteen years was a cog in the giant wheel of finance. He decided he wanted to branch out on his own and found office space more reasonable in New Westminster. He opened his new one man office shortly after our decision to move to the suburbs.
So we started looking for acreage in the Fraser valley, somewhere in the Langley area would be fine.
After looking at several properties, we decided country life was not for us, mostly because we couldn’t afford it. So now we were in trouble.
My husband was already working in New Westminster and my new job in Annieville was starting in three months, our apartment had sold almost immediately and we had to be out in three months.
I just knew life was going to end in three months, we were going to be living out of our car, and it wasn’t very big. I was starting to have stress attacks, but Jim just kept saying, never mind, it’ll all work out.
Thank goodness our Real Estate Agent, Betty Solomon called one day and asked if we’d be interested in a heritage house on a half-acre of land by the Fraser River.
We fell all over ourselves to say YES, we were more than interested. I had to hold the phone away from Jim; he was going to tell her we would take it sight unseen. It was the first place that came anywhere near the money we had to spend.
The next night Jim and I were driving up and down River Road, in Annieville, trying to find the house the Real Estate agent had in mind.
It was late winter and the days still got dark early. After thinking about it, Jim was convinced that this was not a good idea. If this was such a good deal, how come it was being offered to us?
We never got a good deal. We always seemed to pay full price or a little more, whatever we bought.
I thought the chance to look at a real heritage house couldn’t be passed up. What if this was ‘the one’. How would we feel if we found out years later, we could have had the house, it was ‘the one’. But we chickened out and never actually saw it.
We drove up and down the road several times and still couldn’t make the house numbers make sense. River road didn’t have street lights and it was getting darker, I kept checking and checking and the numbers were in sequence and then they just stopped and down the road they started up again. The number we were looking for was in between. But try as might we could see there were no houses in between, just an empty lot that led to a drop off to the river.
The only lights we could see were coming from a small white church set back from the road. “Let’s go and ask at that church,” I said, as I checked for signs of life up and down the road. “I can’t see any other place to ask, and we’re so late already.”
Although I learned later, the small white church was the centre point of a hardy Norwegian settlement dating back to the late 1800’s it didn’t look too busy that night. But there were lights on and cars in the parking lot and that meant, ‘people’ who knew the area.
“I’m not going in there even if there is a light on. We don’t know anybody! Besides, whoever is in there probably doesn’t know where this address is either,” said my exasperated husband. Although he promised to come with me to look at the house, now that he had considered the area we were looking at he wasn’t too keen on living on the wrong side of the river.
I could understand why he felt that way. Jim was just getting his career as an Engineering Consultant off the ground in New Westminster. He worked long hours and wanted to be near his office.
This, he kept telling me was too hard to get to.
Besides, he didn’t like to ask directions.
But he did stop so I could go in and ask.
The outside of the church was not well lit. There was only a small outside lamp hanging over a basement door on the side of the building. As I walked around I glanced over and saw a small girl standing by some bushes looking at me. I couldn’t see her to well but she had an old fashioned white dress on and when I tried to get closer, she seemed to fade into the darkness.
Thoughts of addresses flew out of my head as I ran for the car, “Let’s get out of here,” I said breathlessly as I slammed the car door. “I think I just saw a ghost!”
My daughter Kaity and I walked around the old house the following Saturday morning.
So this is what a Heritage house looks like. Peeling paint, sagging back porch and only two bedrooms on the main floor, but there was that small one in the attic. This was turning out better than I expected.
Jim and the boys were walking around the yard looking up at the house too. But I could see Jim noticed the new roof; that was a plus, but he also saw the sagging porch and all the other small fixes that needed to be done.
He looked at me over the heads of the kids, and I smiled, I liked what I saw. I could see flowers all around the house. I already had a colour in mind to paint it and the small shed in the back.
The boys thought this was ‘boss’ but since I didn’t know what that meant, I just assumed it meant wonderful. Jim was not so sure. I could see he was thinking about the ride over the Pattullo Bridge, from New Westminster to Surrey, especially in the snow. But Kaity and I cinched the deal when we pointed out he could dock his beloved Parker 2520 MV sport craft in his own front yard, and maybe take it across the river to work in New Westminster during the summer.
Jim and I walked back to the bottom of the steps that led down to this bit of paradise and looked up. Who knew ravines had so many steps, and no garage for the cars.
But we took the house, repairs and all. It was one of the happiest days of my life. What a cliché, but it was really so.
I was invited to attend the meeting of Bethany Anglican’s Women of the Church’s monthly meeting a few Thursdays after we moved into the house. I wanted to attend and see what it was all about before I committed myself to another obligation.
I was standing in the kitchen waiting for Ellen Pederson, the person I came with.
Standing at the window I saw the same bush I saw the first time I was at the church.
There was the same little girl looking back at me!
What’s going on here?
“Who belongs to that little girl out there, shouldn’t she be in bed?” I said straining to see through the old window. I almost lost sight of the child in the growing dusk.
The two women in the room with me looked at each other and both turned away, one began to vigorously clean the big kitchen sink, while the other started a high pitched conversation with the hapless man that wandered into the kitchen looking for his wife.
I turned to look out the window again, expecting to see the little girl, but no one was there.
Jim and I were the new family in the community. Having bought the old heritage house in the ravine just off River Road, we knew the church on the hill would be a good place to make friends. After all, we had one beautiful daughter and two small sons that attended Sunday School, one big old black lab that thought he was a cat, and I was a mother that couldn’t say no to a committee meeting, what was not to like?
The women finished their cleaning up in the kitchen. My friend Ellen came to get me and we headed towards the basement door.
The woman who cleaned the sink came over to us and said, “Hi Ellen, I’m sorry, I guess I was a little rude to our guest, I’m Una, and that’s Helen over there, I didn’t mean to be impolite but things like that give me the creeps.”
“Hi Una,” I said, shaking her hand, “I’m Sara, What do you mean, ‘things like that’?”
“It usually takes people months before they see the little girl,” said Una, as she hung up the towel she was cleaning the sink with, “some people never do; you must be sensitive to things like that.”
“What things?” I asked again, not prepared for the answer I got.
“You know supernatural things, ghosts, things that go bump in the night!” Una said as she put on her coat, grabbed her purse and started for the side door. “No one usually goes out this basement door by themselves after dark,” she said over her shoulder, “You never know what you’re going to meet in the graveyard.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice raising another notch. “What do you mean graveyard? I didn’t see a graveyard out there when I came in?”
We were standing in the basement of the church by the side door that led to the old dirt parking lot and this conversation was making me very nervous.
Helen looked at Una and then at me. Finally she took pity on me and said gently, “Come on, Sara, let’s sit down at the table. We’ll tell you about the little girl in the white dress.”
Ellen and I sat down. I was apprehensive; I didn’t know what to expect. I just braced myself for whatever came.
“This little girl has been walking around the church yard for as long as anyone can remember,” said Una. “Some people say she was killed on the road in front of the church, but others say she’s been seen walking around since the graveyard was started in the early 1900’s.”
I sat up straighter and felt the hair on the back of my neck rise too.
“Some people say her grave didn’t get moved in 1959 when the municipality said we had to move our graveyard to the public cemetery on the other side of River Road, that’s why she’s walking around out there.” said Una, “she just kind of stands there and looks, it gives me the creeps.”
“I don’t think about it,” said Helen, “I make sure I don’t go out there by myself in the dark, not that I think she would hurt me, I just don’t want to give her the chance. Mind you, what could a little ghost do?”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from two grown women, in a church yet! The story sounded like a story teenagers told to scare each other on a camp out.
“Well, thank you for telling me this,” I said as I put my coat on, “I certainly will watch when I go out to the parking lot. I wouldn’t want to scare the little girl, or have her scare me,” I said with more bravado then I actually felt.
Ellen dropped me off at the top of the ravine and I walked down the steps. It gave me a moment to think about the story I heard at church. When I got to the bottom, I went into the house, took off my coat and went to check on the kids. I turned off the hall light and joined Jim in the family/living room.
“You’re never going to believe what I heard at church tonight,” I said plunking myself down on the couch beside him.
I told him the story about the little girl but he only listened with one ear as the hockey game between the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks was still on TV. “Sounds like someone is pulling your leg,” he said, with both eyes still glued to the game.
“Jim!” I said, “Stop watching and pay attention! This is serious stuff.”
The crowd on the TV stood and started cheering and I knew the game was finally over. Jim clicked the TV off and turned to me, “Now,” he said, “what’s all this nonsense about a little girl ghost?”
“The women at the church said it was true.”
“True what, a car accident that didn’t quite finish her off or a left-over from the old days. Come on, they’re pulling your leg. You’re the new kid in town you know, they want to see how gullible you are.”
“Well, I don’t think that’s very nice of them,” I said standing up and starting for the bedroom, “I’m going to bed.”
The following week there was a meeting at the church for the parents of the Sunday school children and since our kids attended, I was there doing my motherly duty.
After the meeting Una, brushing long dark hair out of her eyes, came over to me and said, “I’m sorry we told you that ghost story, you must think we’re a bunch of crazies out here. But most people don’t ever get to see her and you saw her your first night.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, “I didn’t take it seriously.”
“Well, I’m glad. I would hate to think Helen and I put you off and you never came back.”
“No problem,” I said, “Jim, that’s my husband, said you were probably just trying to see if I would swallow a ghost story. This is an old building and I’m sure it has a lot of stories to tell.”
“Right!”
“Una,” called Helen from the basement door, “If you’re ready, let’s go.”
“Just a moment,” I called, “I’m almost ready, I’ll get my coat and walk out with you.”
All the confidence I had at the beginning of the evening vanished as I glanced out the kitchen window and there stood the little girl, again. This time she was looking straight at me. I swallowed hard and put the sight firmly out of mind.
I went and stood by the side door with Helen. I saw Una quickly avert her eyes as she glanced out the same window.
I knew what she saw!
Jingling her car keys nervously in her coat pocket, she called, “Una, if you don’t hurry, we’ll leave you here!”
Una was still putting on her coat as she hurried over to us, “I heard the strangest thing today. I was talking to Mary Ann, the church secretary, and she said when the men came out of their council meeting the other night they saw the little girl again. That’s three times this year,” she said.
No, it’s not, I said to myself, that’s five times, and I’ve seen her two of them.
The women finally assembled, headed for the basement side door.
Una was last; she closed the door and hurried to her car in the front parking lot nearest River road. I kept up to the others but my car was parked at the other end of the last row of cars.
As I was putting the key in the lock, I glanced up and there stood the little girl.
So Close!
I couldn’t look away. My legs turned to jelly as I let out a muffled gurgle and dropped my car keys. I realized she was looking at me as though she expected me to do something.
With wobbly legs I begin to walk towards the small apparition but she backed away.
I stopped.
The yard looked different.
The steps to the church weren’t right, and there were no cars in the parking lot. I was standing in the middle of a very new graveyard with a few white crosses and a new granite grave stone set in an
orderly row.
The little girl was pointing to a patch of freshly dug earth at the foot of the young fir tree at the back of the graveyard. Although I was straining to see, I couldn’t tell what the printing on the small white cross said.
The next thing I knew I was sitting on the step of the door to the basement with Helen, Una and Mr. Fleming the caretaker, bending over me.
“You gave us quite a scare you know,” he said, “If you hadn’t called out, we never would have known you fell behind the cars.”
I looked at the caring faces around me and hadn’t the heart to tell them what really happened. I looked down to see the scrape on my jeans and the knee was dirty. My hand hurt where the road rash made my hand bleed.
I needed to go home!
“Are you alright,” asked Helen, “you look like you saw a ghost, no pun intended. Have some water,” she said handing me a cup. “It’ll help.”
“It’s O.K.” I said, grateful for the drink, “I need to go home, I’ll be alright, I just tripped.”
I got a Kleenex out of my purse and wiped the dirt and blood off my hand.
I didn’t want to get the car dirty.
I can’t believe I was worrying about a dirty car when I remembered what I saw.
There was no way I was going to tell them I almost talked to the ghost. And who would believe me if I told them I saw different steps on the church and a fresh grave over by the old tree. I shook my head to clear it but I felt so disjointed; I couldn’t even remember if I knew what the little girl wanted.
“It’s O.K.,” I told those caring faces, “I’m fine. It’s not that far, I can drive home myself. Thank you for offering the ride, but it’s O.K., I’m fine.”
I drove back home on autopilot, parked the car, and walked down the steps to the house. I didn’t feel my sore knee, or realize I was bleeding down my leg. I went inside and dropped my coat and keys on the floor and went to bed.
The next day everything was a blur, I couldn’t remember most of what happened the night before. There was something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It bothered me all day at work and when I came home I asked Jim if I said anything to him.
“Are you kidding,” he said, “I called to you a couple of times. That show you like was on but I thought you were asleep already because you didn’t answer.
“When I came up to bed I had to tell you to take your clothes off. How come there was blood and dirt on your jeans? Did you have a fender bender on your way home last night? I even had to tell you to wash the blood off your leg before you got into bed. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
“When I tried to talk to you, you just mumbled about how you had to do something. What is it you have to do, Sara? If those meetings at church are going to affect you this way, I think you should stop going.
“You scared me. I kept watching you, but you never closed your eyes. I guess I finally fell asleep and when you got up this morning you looked like you were run over by a 10 ton truck. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing’s going on,” I said, as I poured myself a cup of cold coffee from the coffee maker, how could I tell him when I didn’t know myself. I put the cup of stale coffee on the table and said, “I’m just tired; I’m going to bed now.”
“Just a moment honey, aren’t you going to make supper? The kids and I are famished.”
“That’s alright,” I said and went to bed.
