by R. L. Holmes
‘What’s the matter Seth?’ I ask feeling afraid for him.
He doesn’t answer, which isn’t unusual for him. But what is unusual is the colour of his clothes and hairy skin are fading into transparency. Seth is leaving me. I’m not ready for this. I still need him. I still need somebody to vent my anger out onto, to help me solve mysteries and to teach me about nature. He cannot possibly leave me now.
Mum calls me in for tea but I’m too afraid to move in case I never see him again. He dopily raises his weary face, which has become soft and sad and mouths once again, ‘Aphids on roses.’
‘Seth! Don’t go,’ I beg.
His body fades some more. I can see the fruit trees and the pittosporum through him, but his eyes, those emerald green eyes remained piercing and bright. A powerful, sweet aroma of roses fills the air.
‘Please Seth,’ I plead. ‘Please don’t leave me!’ Seth fades some more and I beg with all my heart for him to stay just a little longer.
‘What’s the matter?’ mum asks wandering over with arms crossed feeling the autumn air.
‘Seth is leaving me,’ I snort with tears running down my cheeks.
‘He’s in prison,’ my mother reassures me.
‘No!’ I scream. ‘That was never Seth. I made that up, but he happened to be true and that’s not my fault. I keep telling you that and you don’t believe me. I said Seth lives here and throws stones at Brambles and you don’t listen, you never listen.’
‘Okaaay. I am a little confused at why you’re so upset.’
‘Seth is my friend. He lives here in the garden.’
‘Okaay. Where is he going?’
‘I don’t know he’s just fading away.’ I point to where Seth hovers, weightless, only emerald eyes glowing in the darkening sky. Then they drop to the ground and his body is gone.
‘Where did they come from?’ Mum asks lunging for Seth’s eyes.
‘You can see them?’ I ask.
She picks them up in her white bony fingers and looks over them carefully.
‘They’re Seth’s eyes,’ I say snatching one out of her hand.
Gran comes over and peers closely at them. ‘Where did they come from?’
‘Sara says they’re Seth’s eyes’
‘Why hasn’t Seth got his eyes in his head? Where is he?’
‘He’s gone,’ I say feeling like I’m in a state of mourning.
Silence.
‘Now, let’s talk about this Seth,’ Mary, my gran suddenly says.
¥
March 1999: Stranger
¥
There is an old spell. It was Mr Pope who told me about it. You use it to dispel unwanted ghosts, but it only works if you know who the ghost is. He said you had to imagine white light surrounding the lost soul and a big funnel dragging it up into space.
Pope said that ghosts are just lost souls, people dead and buried who don’t know where to go. He said they probably didn’t know where to go when they were alive, merely floating around like gypsies.
Pope was a man of few words, but when he did speak, it was in garden symbols, chants and mutterings. He looked after me and treated me with kindness. And in return I learnt his ways, became his garden apprentice - teaching me the trade of pruning, propagating, harvesting and weeding. All with his own style, his special magic and mastery.
There was a ghost that hung around the house. He said it was his mother, a soft lovely lady he said, but lonely. For some reason she didn’t take to me. Obviously, she saw me in a different light to her beloved son. So she began to haunt my room at night in attempts to scare me away from him. She started off gently at first - shaking the bed, flicking the lights and television and blowing icy winds over my face. When that didn’t work she showed me visions on the old flowery wall-paper of slaughtered victims and violence, beheadings and hangings. This did work. She terrified me. But she had not won.
When I told Pope, he sighed and reluctantly he set to work gathering ingredients for an old dispelling recipe, which funnily enough, his mother handed down to him.
1 clear quartz
2 thorns from the blackest rose
3 fat black slugs
4 aniseed drops
5 strands of blond hair
The ingredients laid in a spiral from lowest number of ingredients to highest - the clear quartz in the middle overseeing the rest. Then with a few chants and waving of symbols in the air, imagining the funnel dragging the old bag upwards - she was sucked right up into space. I even remember her angry sounds and the sucking winds taking her upwards, for good.
So I took to the task. It wasn’t difficult. The clear quartz I had already, I bought it from a crystal shop many years ago and the aniseed drops from the unusual woman at The Spice House. I know her from somewhere.
I had to get rid of him. I suspected he was trying to communicate with Saracen and I need to send him to space before my plans are ruined.
I think it worked. A few days passed before I was sure. But the smell of roses had gone and his quiet mutterings, faded. Sorry Saracen. If he had become your friend, then I apologise. But we can’t move forward with a pest like him hanging around to ruin everything.
¥
March 1999: Saracen
¥
It was never my intention to hide my experiences with Seth. In fact I mentioned him many times. It’s just that no one was interested in listening to the truth. Gran assumed he was an imaginary friend, which could be true. Mum was utterly confused and went off onto some tangent accusing him of perversions, yet she wasn’t even talking about the right person.
I begin by telling them about the day I met him. It was on the day of my birthday party, the one where nobody turned up - that’s when I met him.
‘What did you do when you saw him?’ Gran asks.
‘I screamed. Remember?’
‘Oh yes I remember you becoming absolutely hysterical. I just assumed it was some over-reaction to kids not turning up to your party.’
I’m stunned by this comment. I clearly remember telling Gran that there was a hairy, little man in the backyard. Yet she chose not to believe me.
‘What else?’ mum asks.
I told them all about things he told me in symbols of plants and how instinctively I knew what he meant, some of the time. I told them about Mrs Rennie’s melanoma coming back, how he told me what to do with your stabbing, my burning hand when I touched his shoulder and things about people like Moley.
‘Wait,’ mum interrupts. ‘Do you mean to tell me, it was Seth that burnt your hand?’
‘Well sort of. I touched his shoulder and had something on it that burnt my hand and then I went to sleep and saw Daniel Parker playing in the river on the Richardson’s farm. Then the burning went away.’ My mind immediately flickers to the person within the willows. The one Geoff was obviously collaborating with.
‘So if Seth is so smart, how come he can’t tell you who killed Daniel?’ mum asks interrupting my thoughts.
‘He did,’ I snap. ‘But he says things in symbols so you have to figure it out.’
Gran leans forward in interest as mum sits back in disbelief.
‘So who is it?’ Gran eyes wide in intrigue.
‘All he said was........ “aphids on roses.” Aphids on roses, over and over.’
‘Aphids on roses?’ Gran repeats. ‘Hmmmm I wonder who that could be?’ She sits back and rubs her aching arm. Her mind circles with possibilities.‘Sara,’ she suddenly says as if someone lit a flame of life under her. ‘Get some scrap paper, let’s work this out.’
Mum rolls her eyes and as I run to my room in great amount of excitement, I hear mum say, ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Of course I am. Didn’t you hear a word your daughter just said? She, through this little hairy man that apparently lived in our backyard, has predicted several things. I don’t know if she is psychic, or she is seeing someone who is, but I’m taking this seriously.’
¥
April 1999: Sar
acen
¥
The cool autumn breeze sails through Fenton, like a thief with a plan, bringing with it a sense of unease. The trees are turning green to gold. The summer flowers fading into the earth and after a long drought the ground has become damp and slippery.
There is plenty to do in this season. We have to prune the fruit trees and vines, rotate the soil and harvest the feijoas and autumn apples and citrus fruits. We make marmalades, chutneys and wines and Gran’s skincare is flying out the door.
Our little town became restless and gossipy after Geoff shot himself. They were bad enough before, with ol’ Moley in everyone’s business, clucking and fussing over people so he can extract important information. I guess this makes him feel superior, like he has a hold over people and if someone wants to be enlightened by some story of a new neighbour, or the cause of recent loud noises, he if he feels like it, may fill them in.
He has a few followers, ol’ Moley; the busy-bodies and bored people of the town, the retirees and the solo-mothers. All of which seem to need something to grasp onto, some drama, whether exaggerated or not, to take home and ponder on, or pass on to someone else - their version slightly different to the original.
Our little town had created plenty of its own drama without needing to make anything up. The problem is......... there’s still an unsolved double homicide, an unexplained suicide, and us unconventional lot who live in the pretty yellow house with the rambling garden.
I’m very aware that people talk about us, our household of women. People whisper about my mother abandoning her children and coming home to have an abortion.
One of my classmates announced this one day, to Mr Humphrey, on a Thursday afternoon. She then proceeded to say that we will go to hell for it. Gran always said there was no such thing as hell that was something made up by someone to control the masses. But I do also remember her saying that hell can be a state of mind, a worrying, angry, fearful mind is hell. So all of those people that came to see Gran for herbs were actually in hell and Gran’s herbs brought them into the light.
This classmate’s name is Cecelia, a red-headed snot, covered in thrush bird freckles. She’s in the popular group at my school, the know-it-alls and the pretty ones that sit on the left side of the classroom amongst the runners and netballers. Cecelia is a catholic. Her parents own several businesses around the City as well as rental properties. Money is abundant in this family. What Cecelia asks for, she got, whether it’s a pony, a television for her bedroom, another pony to keep the first pony company or a flash stereo. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t recognise the importance of personality. In her world, surrounding yourself with fancy stuff is enough to lure popularity and most of the time it works.
Then of course there are the shenanigans Gran had got up too. The wounded, aging Grandmother who became a drug dealer, and associated herself with people of the under-world, the dark devious ones, who according to Cecelia, only come out at night. What she and many others did not know, was that most of these so-called dark souls were in fact a mix of business men and women, farmers, lawyers, accountants and just your average hard working people who liked to smoke pot for a de-stressing release.
¥
Daniel and Geoff set up their dope growing business on the Richardson’s’ farm on a piece of waste land drowned in gorse. The Richardson’s land is so massive in size and so incredibly diverse - rugged, rolling hills stretching for miles, to fertile flat land near their house - that they didn’t suspect a thing.
Daniel had many contacts. He could charm the pants off anyone, man or woman, and as a result he acquired a list of clients who became loyal to him. They grew healthy plants naturally and tended to them with loving care. On Daniel’s days off he’d head in to Fenton and park up out the back of the post office where Moley works. This was his dealing station. Little packages of dried weed wrapped in tin foil and placed in shoe boxes.
They dried the herbs upside-down in an old disused sheep shearing shed. This shed is ancient and leaks. When the winds blow it sways from side to side, creaking and complaining. As the business grew, they began to get frustrated with the quality of product they were producing. If it rained, the drying plants grew mould and fungi. This was when Daniel made the executive decision to separate the crop. The plants that grow on the farm would stay at the same price. But if anyone wanted something stronger and much better quality, they would grow it elsewhere under the eyes of an expert. And that’s when Daniel approached Gran.
She pondered over this decision for many days, the money being the only thing to sway her decision. They offered her good money to set up a hydroponic system, to care and nurture the plants until they’re ready to harvest and hang them upside-down in a dry space. After many years of harvesting and growing herbs, she was an expert at this sort of thing, but she had never grown anything hydroponically, so this was something she had to do some research on.
After four days and nights, Gran finally succumbed to Daniel’s charms and set to work emptying out the room at the back of the shed. This space was Granddad’s work shed. This was where he stored all of his old mechanic’s tools, easels, drop sheets, and canvases. The room was dark and perfect for drying herbs. But it stunk of old paint and needed a spring clean. The floor was covered in empty paint cans and fence stain and the work bench covered in sand paper, tool boxes and cobwebs.
Every day when I was at school Gran cleaned out this shed and carefully discarded all the toxic bits and pieces. At this point I didn’t know that this part of the shed existed. She always had an old wooden bookcase leaning up against the door, which stored her tinctures and later on our preserves. All of this was done in secret. No one knew what was going on except three people. Only three people in the entire world were in on it. Until of course the plants grew and became saleable and suddenly there was a gentle night-time stream of clients after 11pm, after my bedtime and yet I still was none the wiser.
This went on for two years, and good money was made for all parties involved. This stock of weed grown in the pretty yellow house became well-known and demand increased quickly. That was until Daniel Parker was murdered. Then the supply came to a sudden halt. Geoff and Gran had meetings in private, while I was at school. Geoff wanted to continue trade, but Gran felt uneasy and wanted to pull the plug.
This left Geoff not only needing to find a new business partner, but he had to find an ideal place to grow the stuff. This created a conflict between the two, which looking back, he possibly took out on me. He was never nice to me. Always glaring and scowling and reading my thoughts. But after finding all this out now, everything finally makes sense. My mother decided to tell me the truth as my classmates seem to know so much more than me and I’d come home asking questions about hydroponics and some shed on the Richardson farm.
‘Was that the reason Geoff shot himself?’ I asked.
‘Perhaps,’ mum answers unconvincingly.
‘I always thought it had something to do with me.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because he was staring at me when he pulled the trigger.’
‘No he wasn’t. He was looking at your gran.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, positive. He dropped a note off in our mail box, saying he wanted to talk to her at the farmer’s market.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘We kept many things from you. He was very angry with her and accused her of ruining his life. Called her the most awful of names. She was very upset.’
‘At the market? Where was I?’
‘You were at the stall. This happened when your Gran said she was popping off to the bathroom. Then when they came back, he pretended to shoot himself to warn her. She ignored him, calling his bluff. That’s when he killed himself for real. Mum was devastated.’
¥
The symbolism of aphids on roses seems to eat away at my gran. She’s taking this seriously, which is important as I know Seth doesn’t lie. When I w
as at school Gran had awkwardly drawn a picture of a rose with holes in it, being devoured by the nuisance aphid insects. I arrive home to her attempting to drag out The Encyclopaedia of Roses, which is the thickness of a brick. We sit down together, and like detectives scour through every rose species there is.
Gran is looking for a name. She’s convinced a name of a rose would be the name of our killer and the aphids represent the damage they did to our quiet little farming town. I was not so sure, but I went along with it.
As she opens the enormous book, a flood of colour fills the room. My mind plays tricks as their sweet perfumes cram my senses. Each page she turns carefully, reading every name and running her hand over every photo.
We see banana lolly colours with names like Baby bio and Emily Gray - pretty, delicate pinks of Honourable Lady Lindsey and Pink Leda and the fruity apricots and peaches of Little Jackie, Laura and Joyce Northfield. Snowy creams and whites, their faces dancing under the moon’s beam in the darkening sky, of Grand Nord, Jeanne D’Arc and Frances Phoebe, and the blood reds, dangerous and dark - Concerto and Klaus Stortebeker.
Every colour imaginable is in this book. Every name imaginable is in this book. Even photos of stony cottages with rambling soft pink climbers and wooden trellised arches in Victorian gardens covered in a cream, old fashioned roses digging their hooks in and holding on tightly, even in the most vicious of English weather.
We finally arrive at the Z’s, golden, shiny Zambra and a bush, bright red Zinger with yellow stamens. It’s overwhelming, we feel overwhelmed. The names throughout the book lead us to no one or to everyone. We jump to conclusions about someone, somewhere who lived in our town several years ago.
There was a Lily who lived with her father a few doors down, or a Judy who worked part-time in the dairy, before I was born. Dawson is the surname of one of the brutes who murdered Sergei’s cattle, a rose too beautiful, too delicate and peaceful to be associated him. Salmon pink Sonia, carmine-red Molly McGredy and double butter yellow Diana.
