At Fear's Altar

by Richard Gavin

  He moved through the musty closet until he saw the knob of the chapel’s back door. Slamming his shoulder against it, Colin came spilling out into the blindingly bright woods. Through the splattering amoebas that clouded his vision Colin was able to discern the forms of Toni and Sara standing obediently on the footpath.

  He tore down the wooden steps, landing face-first in the shallow bog. Unfazed, Colin scrabbled up and out of the marsh, shouting for his granddaughters to follow. He went hobbling across the path, straight toward the incline.

  Colin climbed. Rocks and foliage and trash tumbled down with every frantic reach of his arthritic hands, each kick of his aching, rubbery legs. Like an inept mountaineer scaling his first great hill, Colin did whatever he could to ascend. He wrenched plants and clawed at the stony dirt. He used tree roots as towlines. All that mattered was getting up, getting out.

  Something was burning into his back; probably the rays of the midday sun, but maybe, just maybe, the eyes of the blasphemers, the ones who had ruined the strange church. Colin felt his backbone turning to ash.

  “Come on, girls!” he screamed, unable to bring himself to look back to ensure that they were still behind him. “Come on! Climb!”

  The road came into view. It was a sight so rife with the promise of relief that Colin dared not blink at the risk of making this mirage vanish. But then his palm slapped the hot asphalt, and Colin knew the road was there. It had always been there. Of course it had. The world does not change that drastically. Not his world at least.

  A pair of pathetic-looking bodies came squirming up to the edge of the forest behind him. When Colin saw their grubby tear-streaked faces, their bloodied hands, their ragged clothing, he was at a loss for words.

  Their exhausted homeward shamble down the service road was mute, save for the quiet whimpers and sniffles of the girls who refused to look at their grandfather.

  Even after he and the girls had limped around the bend in the gravel road and saw, at last, his little cottage slipping into view, Colin still somehow doubted that he had successfully led his group home.

  Paula was standing at the end of the driveway.

  As if on cue, both girls simultaneously erupted with sobs and bolted toward their mother, who reflexively opened her arms to catch them. It took Colin longer to hobble onto his property, and when he did he had just enough energy to perch himself on the bumper of his old Buick and free the damp handkerchief from his vest pocket. The chrome was hot beneath him. The air felt thin.

  “Grandpa got us lost!” blubbered one of the girls, Colin was unsure which.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right. You’re home now. No harm done. Why don’t you two go inside and splash some cold water on your faces. Your lunch is still on the table and there’s lemonade in the fridge, so pour yourselves two big glasses of it, okay?”

  Colin heard the screen door creak open and bang shut before he heard the rhythmic crunch of gravel as his daughter neared him with measured steps.

  “Warm one,” he remarked, using the handkerchief to push the sweat off his face and the back of his neck. Paula’s silence conveyed more sour energy than words ever could. Colin managed to avoid turning his head to look at her, but it took every speck of willpower he could muster.

  “What happened out there, Dad?”

  Colin sloppily returned the handkerchief to his vest pocket, muttering curses when the zipper refused to obey his trembling tugs at it.

  “I asked you a question.” Colin hadn’t heard his daughter’s voice so keened with insolence since she was a teenager, and even though her tone today was more sternly maternal than it was impertinent, he was offended by it all the same. A proper response—proper by his own ornery standards at least—leapt to Colin’s attention, but he found himself unable to comprehend the words he was trying to use.

  What leaked out of mouth was little more than a warbling noise. The apt reply seemed to skirt away, just out of Colin’s comprehension, like bits of a dream that sluice through the brain upon waking.

  “Do you know I was just a few minutes away from making calls, from having the local rangers go in there looking for you three?”

  “You’d best watch your tone, young lady.” Colin had remembered at last.

  She laughed at him, actually laughed. “No, Dad!” She was shouting now. “Not this time! You’re not going to turn this into a conversation about your being disrespected! Do you understand that you put my daughters’ lives in danger today? Do you get that?”

  Colin gesticulated, enforcing a statement he was unable to make. He peered across the road to Millie Fuerstein’s cottage. Judging by the pruning shears in her gloved hands, Millie had been outside tending her rosebushes, although now she was obviously eavesdropping.

  “N-n-no trouble,” Colin stammered loudly. He was unsure whether he was addressing Paula or Millie across the road. “There was no trouble. The . . . the path got a little loopy on me and I got turned around, that’s all.”

  “Bullshit!” Paula screamed.

  Colin saw Millie Fuerstein turn and creep inside her cottage.

  “You were gone for over three hours, Dad! When you didn’t come back after that first hour I went out to look for you. I walked the main path twice, calling out the whole time, so you weren’t even in earshot! How far off the track did you take them, Dad? Suppose Sara had fallen and broken her leg, or got bitten by a snake? What would you have done, Dad? Jesus Christ, I told you to just take them around the main path and then come back.”

  Colin didn’t even realize he was sobbing until he saw Paula’s expression instantly soften. She crouched down in front of him, placed her hand over his.

  “How long has this been happening?”

  “I think I want to go lie down.”

  She was silent for awhile. “Okay, Dad, let’s get you inside.” Paula tried to help him up. “Where’s your cane?”

  “Out there somewhere,” he mumbled, pointing to nowhere in particular. Colin felt his arm being draped across his daughter’s shoulders. She let out a grunt while attempting to hoist him to his feet. They lumbered conjoined up the driveway, into the cottage. The girls were stationed at the Formica table, lunching as wordlessly as vow-bound zealots.

  “Eh, everything’s okay,” Colin called as he was escorted past the kitchen. “It’s all okay, girls.”

  Paula laid him out on the bed. The aged mattress cradled him like a great sling.

  “I want you to lie here for a while,” said Paula. “I’m going to bring you your lunch. Make sure you drink the lemonade.”

  He grimaced. “Never cared for it. Too tart.”

  “I’ll bring you some ice water then. Rest.”

  She stranded him in his stuffy cell, with its alarm clock ticking like an endlessly clucking tongue, and all its shaming signs of his laziness such as the strands of cobweb that prospered on the upper walls, the ergs of dust piled against the floor moulding. Colin rested his hands upon his growling belly, did his utmost to rein in his breathing until his trunk became a bellows, cycling the airflow in a reassuringly steady rhythm. Colin hoped to maintain this calming exercise for a good long while, but the heat was becoming stifling. He realized that he had not freed himself from his puffer vest, and the standing fan in the corner was not on.

  It was just after he reluctantly listed himself up to peel off his vest and long-sleeved shirt that Colin noticed the alteration to the room.

  His nightstand was always kept clear of all but three items: his alarm clock with its punitive ticking, a small reading lamp, and his favourite photograph of Beverly, which was displayed in a special frame he’d made from cut reeds bolstered with shellac.

  Discovering that someone had switched Beverly’s picture stunned him initially, but then infuriated him.

  “What’s the matter?” Paula’s voice was unexpected, but Colin was too upset to be startled. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

  He lifted a bent finger to the frame and asked “Who is that?” When his question m
et with a protracted silence, Colin assumed Paula had not heard him. “Who changed this picture?”

  His daughter’s expression, when Colin finally looked to the doorway, was one of fear, with a soupçon of heartache. She was holding a plate in one hand, a water glass in the other. “You know who that is.” Her voice was thin and deadened. “That’s Mom.”

  “It’s not! It is not her! Look!” He jutted the frame toward Paula, wagging it as though it were a bone being used to tempt a dog. “Look!” he repeated.

  “I did look, Dad. Who do you see in that picture?”

  “A stranger, that’s who I see, a stranger!”

  “It’s Mom.” She was practically whispering now. She entered the room and handed Colin the glass of ice water without comment. Colin drank gratefully, greedily. He was only dimly aware of the picture frame being tugged from his grip. Paula set the plate down beside the photograph and helped Colin remove his vest and shirt. “You want the fan on?” she asked.

  “Please.”

  She snapped it on and departed.

  Colin exhaled when the manufactured breeze passed over him. He took up the plate and bit into the sandwich. The flavour exploded in his mouth. Colin closed his eyes, savouring the sense of rightness that was slowly being restored. He stopped chewing, questioning whether he had the courage to glance at the picture again.

  He did, furtively. When he noticed that the familiar delicate contours of Beverly’s face he stared intently at the picture, he sighed. It was her.

  ‘Of course it’s Bev. Of course it is. And my name is Colin Edward Best. And this is my home in the village of Shelford, Ontario. And I am eating Black Forest ham on wheat . . .’

  The silly naming of Black Forest flung Colin’s attention back to today’s dense and confusing forest. And the heat. And the unfamiliar church with those awful sights inside . . .

  Colin set the plate to one side and closed his eyes once more. For a long time his mind lingered in a semi-relaxed state. He could hear every chirping sparrow, each distorted voice from the yards beyond his window. Colin wondered how his neighbours could be so complacent, so assured of the trees and copses that had wreaked havoc with him.

  The illogic of it all, the sheer randomness, made his head swim. He drew in a long breath, held it, and when he finally released it Colin imagined his exhalation fanning out like great wings, ones that freighted his psyche to more tranquil climes.

  He saw himself lazing in a great meadow, his body domed by the gentle shade of a willow. Everywhere Colin looked he saw long and supple grass that had never known the taming hand of humanity. The wind that bullied them was cool and fresh. There were no sounds beyond the perennial gush of the willow boughs.

  All too swiftly, the dream began to sour and darken.

  Gone was the clean-smelling air, the pacific atmosphere. Now there was only the stinking cloister of a taboo chapel. Colin’s dreaming self looked about, grateful for the shadows that had congealed over the walls and pews, guising the pornographic tapestry. He was wrung with a raw hot fear when he discovered that he was not alone.

  The faceless bodies began to depict the acts he’d seen in those wrinkled magazine images. Colin bottomed out completely. He tried to turn away, but one of the crawling, slippery-skinned women was familiar to him. He’d know Beverly’s smile anywhere.

  He started awake, unaware of not only who he was, but indeed if he was. The house was silent, and for one icy moment Colin felt utterly marooned.

  A reflexive grunt slipped out as he pushed his trunk off the mattress. The air inside his mouth was sour. He stole a draught from the water glass, but it did nothing to rinse the taste from his palette. He rose and shambled out to the living room.

  His granddaughters were visible through the box window. Muted by distance and filtered by grimy glass (Colin just that moment remembered his plan to wash all the panes before Paula’s visit), the girls appeared as actresses in a silent movie. Colin found himself trying to read their lips, to interpret what every gesture insinuated. He was half waiting for explanatory subtitles to stain the air between them.

  He didn’t spot Paula until he entered the kitchen to fix himself a rye-and-ginger. She was standing where the front lawn hemmed the main road. She was talking with Millie Fuerstein. Whatever the spinster from across the road had to say, it was delivered with dramatic flair and was drawn out.

  Colin cowered behind the yellowing lace of the curtains Beverly had sewn the year they’d bought this house. He peeped as Millie used her pruning shears as a pointer, singling out his house of all things. She flattened a gloved hand across her chest, roughly where her heart would be. Was she offering Paula sympathy? His daughter had her back to the window, but Colin could see her nodding, nodding, slowly.

  He backed away and resumed mixing his drink, wondering why the fluid in his bottle of Crown Royal was so thick and gummy. His confusion worsened when he read the bottle’s label and discovered he’d taken a bottle of vegetable oil from the cupboard instead of his favourite whiskey.

  To avoid any embarrassing confrontations with Paula, Colin dumped both oil bottle and drinking glass into the trashcan.

  Any doubts he may have harboured about Paula and Millie’s conversation being about him were removed once Paula entered the house. She was pleasantly surprised to find her father awake and in the kitchen, too pleasantly surprised in fact.

  Colin informed her that he was going to watch TV for a while. She said that sounded like a good idea.

  The flickering images were an incoherent jumble, but Colin endured them until Paula called supper. The clam chowder she’d prepared was tasty, but Colin found his appetite was still lacking. It was an irksome meal that consisted of all four people doing their best not to look at one another. Colin was grateful when Paula broke up the party by ordering that the girls go finish packing for their morning departure.

  When Sara and Toni had left the kitchen, Paula said, “I wish I was able to stay a few more days, Dad, but the girls start back to school on Tuesday.”

  Her words were only faintly audible to Colin, who was staring raptly at the tablecloth pattern, lulled by a petit mal.

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you hear me? I said I spoke to Millie Fuerstein this afternoon.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes? Millie . . . from across the road.”

  “Right. She told me about what happened here last month, Dad. She told me.”

  “Last Monday?” he mumbled. Colin could again feel the words passing through his mind like lemmings plummeting off the cliff-edge of his memory. “Monday? Nothing happened on Monday . . . you were here . . . you and the girls . . . they have school soon . . . you probably have to leave . . . I’ll be sad to see you go.”

  “We’ll be sad too, Dad, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Do you remember what happened last month, with Millie?”

  “. . . Millie . . .”

  He watched Paula slowly close her eyes. Her lashes became dewy. “She said she saw you on the footpath. You were wandering aimlessly and screaming for Mom. Do you remember doing that, Dad?”

  “Your mother’s deceased, Paula . . . Don’t . . . don’t you speak of her that way . . . My Beverly is deceased . . . April fifth . . . it was a Tuesday . . . two years ago . . . pneumonia.”

  “That’s right, Dad. I know and you know. But Millie thinks you must have forgotten that day because she found you in a daze. She says you even mistook her for Mom.”

  “No!”

  “You did. You might not remember, but you did. Millie said you grabbed her by the arm, that you started to drag her down toward the marshes. Luckily her son was with her and he helped calm you down. Jesus, Dad, do you understand that you scared her half to death?”

  Colin said nothing.

  “Millie said that once you were back on the main road you were fine. It was like someone had flipped a switch. But her son practically had to drag you out of the woods first.”

  “She’s mistaken
. . . Millie . . . she’s old, you know.”

  “Why didn’t you let her phone me after that happened, Dad? She and her son tried to get my number, but you wouldn’t give it to her. You also refused to let her call a doctor.”

  Colin could feel his brow furrowing and was sure that this expression gave Paula the feeling that he was deeply pondering her words. But in truth his mind was a clean slate, a still pond.

  Paula reached over and took his hand. “I think it’s time we took another look at having you move . . . someplace else, somewhere closer to the city and where you would be with other people.”

  Colin was proud of himself for resisting the unsavoury response that twitched inside him. Instead he slid his hand out from underneath his daughter’s and took a few seconds to choose his words.

  “I hope,” he began, “I really hope that when you get old, Paula, your children won’t be so quick to ship you off. And you will get there, believe me. You will have your bad days, days when you feel just a few degrees off from the rest of the world. When that happens, I hope your girls will have a little bit more understanding.”

  He stood and exited the kitchen, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to look upon the fallout his words had wrought.

  Outside, the day was perishing in a slow burn that primed the entire hamlet in gloaming. Colin settled into his porch chair and tried to draw comfort from the façades and landmarks that had seemed, prior to today, immune to change. The yews and the sycamores stood in charcoal relief against the twilight. A slow-moving wind harassed their boughs to nod. They resembled shaggy behemoths all huddled together, all agreeing on some silent pact.

  Unbidden, the image of the chapel at night surfaced in Colin’s imagination. He pictured it swathed in shadows of the deepest blue, the pitch of its roof and the summit of its steeple knitting with the earthward darkness of the boughs. Cadres of fireflies transformed the lolling reeds into votives. The fetid air was bubbling with the sound of toads and crickets chorusing a chthonic hymn.

  Colin was perversely curious to see just how far down his mind would drag him. How deep into the tangled jungle of his id would his thoughts bore before the safeguarding gates came slamming down to spare him? Were the defamers, whoever they may be, moving up those rotting steps in procession this very moment? Would their animal hide vestments be shed at the nave? What would creatures like that deem to be the greatest sacraments?