whither Willow?

by Peter Ponzo

  "Brubacher," stuttered Bryan. "Arnold Brubacher."

  The officer sat on the chair, placed his notebook on his lap and leaned forward.

  "Yes, that's right. How did you know that?"

  "He was her father ... uh, no, not her father. What am I thinking? Sorry. Don't know what I'm saying."

  Bryan shook his head. It was swimming, a dull ache. So was his left hand.

  "Her father? Is that what you said?"

  "Sorry. I was thinking of someone else. Sorry."

  "What do you know about Mr. Brubacher?"

  The officer opened his notebook again.

  "He's dead. I mean, he was killed - by the Friends of Willow."

  "The friends of what? What friends?"

  "How's my wife?" said Bryan.

  "Your wife? Do I know your wife?"

  "Look officer, my wife is a patient, here in this hospital. I'd like to go and see if she's all right. You can join me if you like. When we get back I'll tell you a story - a fantastic story. You won't believe it, but I'll tell you anyway."

  "What about these friends you were talking about?"

  "Yes ... I'll tell you about the Friends of Willow, or Friends of the Willow if you like."

  Bryan slipped out of the bed and walked briskly out the door. Constable Hendricks followed him, notebook in hand, staring at the slit down the back of Bryan's gown.

  When they reached room 419, Bryan sat on the bed beside his wife.

  "This is my wife. She's in a coma. She was pregnant you see and - and -"

  The tears came quickly and he put his face in his hands.

  "Sorry. We can go back now. I'll tell you everything."

  Bryan leaned over and kissed Liz gently on the cheek, then walked out, his gown swirling behind him. Constable Hendricks followed.

  ***

  "It all started with the History of New Bamberg. The short history. My father had started to write it and I intended to finish it."

  Bryan leaned back in his bed and Hendricks leaned back in his chair, leaving the notebook closed on his lap.

  "I noticed that the old Bourden house had been torn down and my apartment built on the same site. That's Willow Towers. I used to live there. Now I'm living at Laurentian Towers ... uh, Laurentian Tower - singular, you see. Anyway, they were all killed at the New Year's Eve party. The bodies were mangled, crushed. I went to see him at the nursing home, but he didn't make a lot of sense - kept talking about the willow tree."

  "Went to see who?" asked Hendricks, opening his notebook again.

  "Jaffre. Inspector Jaffre. He had willow woggles the nurse said and that's when -"

  "Willow woggles? Did you say willow woggles?"

  "Yes, and he wasn't the only one. Brubacher had it too. They both talked about the willow tree. Well, actually Brubacher didn't talk at all. Not till later. But Melissa Kumar talked about the willow tree. That's what the nurse said. Anyway, Liz had this theory - that the tree had a soul and -"

  "Tree? What tree?"

  Hendricks had his pencil poised above the open notebook.

  "The willow tree that used to stand by the Bourden ... uh, the Kumar house, before it was torn down to build the apartment building. Well, when Mrs. Perkins died - was killed by the tree you understand - we were quite sure that her theory was correct. Well, at least as far as it went. There's more - much more to it than just that. Then Sam disappeared and we went to his house -"

  "Sam? Sam who?"

  "Sam Jaffre. He was -"

  Hendricks stood up and looked down at Bryan who immediately stopped talking. Hendricks was frowning, then he sat down again.

  "Yes, I know who he was. Sam Jaffre was the inspector's grandson and I went to his house in response to a complaint by the neighbours and discovered that he was missing. Hasn't been seen for - what? Two years? Maybe three?"

  "No. I saw him recently, Liz and I -"

  Constable Hendricks rose to his feet again and stared at Bryan. "You saw Sam? Recently? Where? How? When?"

  Half-sentences again. Everybody spoke in half-sentences.

  "He said he had travelled - for two years. Italy and some other places. But that's not true. He was taken in by the Friends of Willow. He became a member of that evil cult -"

  "Where is Sam now? Do you know?"

  "Dune Road. He lives on Dune Road, with Cassandra."

  "Cassandra? Who in God's name is Cassandra!"

  Hendricks was still standing, shouting, frustrated. Bryan continued, calmly, slowly rolling his left hand across his stomach.

  "She's the witch, the cult leader, the evil sister who seeks unborn children to feed to the god ... uh, the God of Evil."

  "Unborn children? This Cassandra seeks unborn children?"

  Hendricks sat down again, collapsing in the chair and running his hand through his curly red hair. "God Jesus. Unborn children." He got up again and stared at Bryan who lay quietly with raised eyebrows. Then Bryan raised himself to a sitting position. He had clearly touched a nerve with this officer.

  "Do you know how many children were reported missing in the past few years?" said Hendricks, speaking loudly, agitated, his face twisted. "I don't mean just children ... I mean babies, aborted babies, taken right from the pregnant mother ... I mean unborn children!"

  "See?" said Bryan and fell back onto the bed, his head spinning, his hand throbbing.

  "So where did you say Sam was? Dune Road? Mr. Laker? Professor Laker? Are you still with me?"

  Doctor Fielding walked in. "Excuse me but I think it best if you left. Professor Laker seems to have fainted. He's been on drugs and hallucinates occasionally. His hand you know."

  Hendricks looked from Bryan to the doctor. "Hallucinates? You mean he talks gibberish? You mean that all he's been telling me .. it may be just hallucinations?"

  "Yes. But he should be okay in a day or two."

  "You mean he doesn't really know what he's saying?"

  "Well, you could say that, but sometimes he's quite lucid and -"

  Hendricks stared at the pages from his notebook. "Gibberish," he grunted, snapping the notebook closed. He turned to leave, wondering if there was any truth at all to what Laker had said.

  "Officer? Professor Laker will be ready to leave the hospital soon. If you want I can ask him to stop by the station. It's just that he's been through a lot. It's a miracle that he didn't kill himself. He was found in his car. It had driven off the road ... Dune Road."

  Hendricks took a deep breath, grinned and patted the notebook, then left.

  CHAPTER 32

  Michael Colby: June 1986

  Michael Colby looked out of the office tower and gazed at Tooly Peak. He had been successful, very successful. His office was in the penthouse and even the washroom was larger than a standard office. He had made it in real estate, a meat packers, a tool and die plant, investments, communications. Tooly Peak was the citadel upon which his success was emblazoned. The TV tower on the peak carried his name: Colby Communications Corporation - triple C. That was Michael Colby. He could walk into the mayor's office without an appointment. He had paid good money to place people in important positions and he could call on them at any time. His black Cadillac was recognized by everyone in New Bamberg. People would tip their hats when he walked by, even when he drove by. The girl in the donut shop always bowed when he walked in for his morning coffee - maybe that was because he owned the donut shop.

  Tooly Peak had started it all. The Tooly's lived in the shack at the bottom of the hill. Old lady Tooly must have had some money stashed away because when her husband died she tore down the old shack and built a bungalow, all brick with red shutters and a garage - even though she didn't have a car and couldn't drive even if she had one.

  That was when Michael Colby moved in. He was just a kid, but he mowed the lawn, cut wood, repaired the fence, did odd jobs and even went to town to buy her groceries - and he did that for more than four years. Old lady
Tooly really appreciated it and Michael knew that when she died - and that would be soon enough, she was that old - she would leave him something. The Toolys, they never had any kids and he never saw anyone coming for a visit so she was bound to leave him something. Who else was there? No family, no friends. But he didn't expect what he got.

  The day she got sick he was right there and he ran into town and got the doctor and he came right away, but she was already dead when they got back. The very next day he learned that she had left him the property that he had looked after all those years. Tooly Peak was his. He was nineteen years old and owned the whole place, the bungalow and the forty acres and Tooly Peak. He would call it Colby Peak, but they had called it Tooly Peak for a hundred years and wouldn't change, so he gave up. It was Tooly Peak, but it was his just the same.

  Before he got Tooly Peak, Colby had always dreamed of being rich. They would laugh at him, the other kids. Kooky Colby they called him. When he spoke of owning a car longer than any garage, they laughed at him. When he spoke of having the whole town working for him, they laughed. When he spoke of having a house with maids and swimming pool and 3-car garage and marble stairs, they laughed at him.

  Michael Colby remembered it all - all the laughter and derision and taunting.

  ***

  It was in the Fall of 1937. He was twelve and it was his birthday. His parents were poor and couldn't afford anything elaborate so only his closest friends were invited to the party: Ronnie, Cail, Willy and Philip. Just bologna sandwiches and cherry pop and they ate on the roof of the barn. Philip would pull out the thin slices of bologna and fling them across the field in back. Then they all did, flinging the slices, laughing and making fun of the meagre lunch. Michael swore then that he would never be poor. One day he would have them all on his payroll.

  He made the mistake of telling them his plan to get rich. He would start by buying Tooly Peak, he said. Of course, that was before old lady Tooly died and left him the place. They wouldn't listen to the rest. They just laughed. They laughed so hard that Willy slid down the roof and fell into the haystack.

  That was when he decided to teach them a lesson. They weren't interested in money, eh? They were his closest friends, but he would teach them a lesson anyway. They wouldn't know he planned it - but Michael would know and that was enough. He figured it out very carefully and by the week following his birthday, he was ready.

  It was Friday and they met in the halls at school as they usually did, gawking at the girls and chewing gum before the first class, English Lit. at 9:00.

  "Did you see the ducks fly into the bog this morning?" Michael asked.

  "Nah ... who cares?" said Phil, chomping hard on his gum and pushing his hair from his face. Nobody paid any attention to Michael, but that was what he expected. The only valid topic of conversation at this time of the morning was girls, so Michael leaned against the locker and whistled at Sue Lynn as she walked by with her nose in the air.

  "Hope them ducks don't find the money," Michael said casually. "Hid it pretty good."

  "Money?" asked Cail. "What money? Who'll find what money?"

  Michael saw Cail's face go slightly red. That always happened when he was excited.

  "Nothin' ... just look at Sue Lynn will you. What a snooty dame," said Michael.

  "Hey! You said somethin' about money in the bog. What about it?" Cail asked, looking intently at Michael and ignoring the traffic in the corridor. Cail was the most interested in money and big cars and fancy houses and Michael knew he would be the first to press him. His face was now pretty red and Michael knew that he had him.

  "It's nothin' - shouldn't have said nothin'. Just slipped out," said Michael, turning and walking to the class room. The others didn't follow. He knew they wouldn't. When he turned into the room he glanced back up the hall. They were talking to each other and he could imagine the conversation:

  "He said there was money, hidden in the bog."

  "He's nuts. You know Kooky, always talking 'bout money."

  "Yeah. Works at Fellow's Grocery on Saturdays and doesn't spend a cent of it. Just squirrels it away."

  "Yeah. Always moochin' gum from us. Never buys anythin' hisself."

  "But maybe he squirrels it away in the bog. Ever think of that?"

  "Hey! Maybe! You know his old man. If he found Mikey's money in the house he'd just take it and booze it away."

  They laughed, all except Cail who looked very serious.

  "Look, you guys," Cail said in a whisper. "Why don't we keep an eye on Mikey. If he heads for the bog, we'll follow. Okay?"

  "Sure. Why not? He gets paid tomorrow, right? When he gets off work, we follow him."

  "How do you know he'll head right for the bog?"

  "Are you kiddin'? If he comes home with the loot his old man will -"

  "Yeah, yeah. Right. Okay, let's meet at the Pop Shop across from Fellow's. What time?"

  "At 4. Mikey gets off at 4 and he don't work any extra."

  "Great!"

  "Okay!"

  "Right!"

  And they headed for English Lit, smiling.

  Sparrow Lake

  Michael saw them gathering at the Pop Shop, starting at 3:30 Saturday afternoon, but he didn't wave or anything. He just carried the cases of apples up from the basement and arranged the cabbage and carrots and swept the sidewalk in front of Fellow's Grocery. In the Fall there was always more vegetables than the store had room for and he kept having to make room, piling the cabbage high and keeping them from falling over with the bags of carrots. Then some stupid old dame would come along and pull out a bag of carrots. Not from the top, but from the bottom - and he would pick up the cabbages and rinse them off and pile them up again, then sweep the cabbage leaves from the sidewalk.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost 4 o'clock. He carried his last case of apples from the basement then went down and hung his overalls on the hook, pulled off his jacket and washed his hands. At 4 o'clock on the nose he left Fellow's Grocery and headed down the street, his pay in his pocket: $3.00 in one dollar bills. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Willy looking out the window of the Pop Shop so he started to trot up the street. When he turned the corner the four of them were scrambling down Coots Road to keep up. He ran across Moller field and hopped over old man Bishop's fence. The old man came out onto the back porch as usual and cursed, waving his arms, red in the face. That would slow up Cail and the other guys; they would have to go around Moller field.

  When he reached Drumbo Creek he stopped and looked back up the hill. They were nowhere in sight so he continued, hopping across the creek from rock to rock and on down the hill to the bog. There was only one good way into the bog and the other guys were sure to take that route. If you didn't follow the ridge you'd sink to your knees in the peat. Some said that Sparrow Lake had no bottom, just muck to the center of the earth. It was a pot hole they said. Scooped out of the ground by the ice - during the last ice age. But the ducks liked it there. In the Fall they'd drop onto the lake and find something good to eat. Maybe the weeds. Maybe the gunk that stuck up out of the murky water. The ducks never stayed too long though and they never ever had baby ducks there. The black shapes that moved through the dark water, fins or something, they were carp maybe - or suckers or turtles maybe. Anyway, some said that ducks were sometimes pulled under and eaten. Maybe that's why they never stayed too long and never had babies there. But they always came back the next year before heading farther North.

  The ridge ended abruptly and ran down among the cedar and tamarack and got mucky. That's where Michael stopped, reaching inside his jacket pocket and pulling out a one dollar bill. The tall boots were there, just where he had put them yesterday. He slipped them on, poked his shoes into his jacket pockets and headed down the hill, careful to keep to the line of cedar where the ground seemed to well up a bit. He had done this many times before and knew exactly where to walk. When he got to the bottom he could see Sparrow Lake in th
e clearing. The water looked still today and the afternoon sun glinted on the smooth surface. It looked like a great place to swim except that is was maybe two feet deep. Two feet of water and a thousand miles of muck. There were stories of dead bodies lying in the muck. Stories of witches, of demons, of ghosts … all rising from the mud at night. Old man Fellows, where he worked, he even talked about one of his relatives buried in the muck.

  Michael stopped at the edge and looked at the dollar bill. It was really a shame that he had to do it this way, but he had planned it all out and this was the only way. He threw the bill out onto the lake and waited to see that it wouldn't sink. No. It just stayed there, maybe three feet from the shore, still in the water. Then he ran back up the hill a way and grabbed the rope hanging from that big old tree and hauled himself up, pulling the rope up after him. Just in time too, because he could hear the other guys coming.

 

  "I didn't see him go down there," said Phil.

  "How else would Kooky go?" said Ronnie.

  "Yeah, where else? This here's the only way down," said Willy.

  "But what if he didn't even come this way?" groaned Phil. "My dad says it's dangerous - the bog - I should stay away and -"

  "If you kept away from everything your dad says, you'd spend the rest of your life in bed," said Ronnie.

  "Yeah," laughed Willy. "With his sister. Don't you sleep in the same bed, Philly boy?"

  "Hey ... not a bad idea Philly. Spend the rest of your life in bed with your sister."

  "Look guys," Phil said. "Bess is only ten years old. Are you crazy or something? She's a dummy, stupid."

  "Don't you know Philly boy? They're all the same upside down."

  They began to laugh until Cail raised his hand. Cail was the serious one and although no one admitted to being a leader or anything like that, somehow they always followed Cail.

  "C'mon. It'll only take a minute to get to the lake," said Cail.

  So they headed down the hill, single file, keeping to the line of cedars where the ground was a bit higher. Phil was the last and he complained all the way down. When they got to the muddy edge, Cail stopped and looked out over the lake. Their shoes were covered in muck, but they all paid no attention, just peered out over Sparrow Lake.

  "What are we lookin for anyway?" complained Phil." Are we lookin for Mikey or are we lookin for his money?"