by BoJenn
Eleanor would soon take her next position; and Tadhg would be advanced to Eleanor’s position; and “His Glove”, “Lovey”, so named by Catherine Dubois, would forever watch over Cat, and pray for her with the greatest of loyalty known to any human; and would always be just like God spelled backwards…dog, mankind’s best friend.
Dramatically, the day had turned to beautiful. The storms of winter's cold bleakness were gone.
The bone-chilling temperatures had melted into warm spring. Eleanor had successfully forwarded time; and Elizabeth Catherine Dubois awakened, center stage, to her new life.
When Catherine woke again, she sat upright. Things were very different. Foggy thoughts lingered just a little, but she felt much better, more refreshed and with more energy than earlier that day. Looking around the library, she was surprised to see the sun coming through the windows. She sat there, dumbfounded. “What a dream I must have had…” she thought. Her last memory was faint— “It had been raining, then snowing and quite cold,” she recalled. There were only vague ambiguities in her mind. She had no knowledge of Lovey and Eleanor, or even of the winter past.
She arose from floor. The triangle with the three candles was gone. No evidence of them or a ritual ceremony was present. No smoke, no scent of myrrh or frankincense, and so no aromatic memories were roused of the hours before, either. Stumbling to the window, Catherine threw it open. She looked to the open field and then to the forest, breathing in the sense of joy and peace. The freshness of spring entered the window and it rushed through the old ghostly manor.
“Spring?”, Catherine wondered. The weather outside was almost imaginary, so purely perfect it was! She let the unusually new freshness enter through the library window, then her bedroom window, and, then, opened all the windows and doors and even the dormers atop the roof of Dubois Manor.
The temperature made her smile as she took a deep breath, and then let it out. Her forehead and eyebrows scrunched up as flashes of brief memories from dreams flooded through her. She was almost certain that only a few hours ago it was winter and not spring.
“It was fall when I fell asleep; and when I got up, here it is spring!”, she mused to herself, quite enchanted by the thought. Uncertainty, unreality, and a question of validity vaguely demanded an answer. Everything had changed. And, without her knowing, it had happened in a single night.
“How long was I there on the floor? It’s Spring. It was Fall a little nap ago?”, Catherine thought, perplexed as she could be. Had she slept through an entire season? Shaking her head at the absurdity of it, she decided to enjoy the warm sunny day. “I choose not to analyze, question or tear apart this gift of a beautiful day. I accept it for what it is: a gift. YES!”, Catherine exclaimed. She was thrilled about life and living. Why so sullen and depressed had she been for years, she wondered. She couldn’t answer that either, and, suddenly, she didn’t even care.
She jumped around, all through the house, dancing, singing and laughing out loud. She danced like an Indian, giving thanks and giggling at the weather. It did not take long before she was outside and taking off her shoes to experience the feel of the brilliant green grass.
“I never remember the grass looking like this. Or, feeling like this. Huh?”, she thought. Then, a humongous bee flew by making a terrific noise like a helicopter. The butterflies were plentiful; and Catherine muttered to herself as her eyes tracked them in turn, “I've never seen fuchsia wings.” She looked everywhere. “I think I'm in Oz. Where has winter gone?”
The world looked different to Cat, with the minute patches of lingering white snow on the ground. There, poking through the dirt grew little pink flowers. Cat absolutely had to take a closer look. She bent over picking flowers and smelling their scents. “Ah-choo!”, she sneezed.
Safely out of sight, Tadhg smiled as he watched her. “Today is like a mother who has just given birth, like the wedding of a new bride, like mankind when he first met God, and like a box of delicious dark chocolate,” he said to himself, laughing at his comparisons. Tadhg watched her for a moment longer, lingering in a distant tree branch.
Despite all her many questions, Catherine decided to prepare a hot pot of tea and sit outside to appreciate life. She ignored the very odd change of the seasons, the way she felt, the way she thought, the way everything seemed so different. She couldn’t care less, because she loved the moment. She had a patter in her heart; she realized how much she loved God; and He was obviously loving her back this beautiful spring day. “Tremendous blessings of joy, in an indescribably strange world now surrounding her,” defined the glorious afternoon in the land of Catherine’s Oz.
At one point, she wondered if perhaps that she’d been drugged. “But by whom?”, she asked herself, dismissing the thought, her mind without protest, for the joy was too great to complain.
She left all questions and concerns behind. She was, naturally, higher than a kite and feeling lighter than air. All the burdens, dreads, fears, and daunting taunts were now gone, and she didn’t care where they had gone. As Catherine sat, basking in God’s almighty love, sitting there alone and smiling with her face upturned to the warming sun, Tadhg smiled too. He’d peeked in after he’d finished his round of golf.
Catherine’s eyes were closed when a shadow crossed in front of them. It interrupted the moment, and she opened her eyes to see what it was. To her surprise, a handsome man, dressed in a delivery service uniform, held out a package to her.
“Sorry to bother you, but I've tried to deliver this all winter,” the delivery man said. It was Tadhg, in disguise. “The snow prevented my car from making the turns on the hillside.”
“Oh, yes; thank you,” Catherine replied, reaching for the package with one hand, and shielding her movie-star sunshades with the other. Tadhg’s gaze held her own. His eyes were a mystical, inhuman blue, and they captured her attention. Catherine was taken aback as he seemed familiar, but she couldn't be certain. He had an odd twinkle in his eye, like a star that floated up and away in a slowed moment. That twinkle seemed familiar, too, like he did—and yet, like someone else.
She crinkled her forehead looking at him. Déjà vu, or something like it, had just occurred. “He is the most angelic, yet rugged-looking man, I've ever seen,” Catherine said, admiring him.
Tadhg noticed her as well, glad to see that her natural beauty had come forth. Her dark hair and plump pink lips complimented her mysteriousness. Catherine was definitely an older beauty, no doubt there.
“I know that I know him,” Catherine mused, but did not ask him.
“I'm sorry about the old woman,” Tadhg said.
Catherine smiled sweetly. “What old woman?”, she asked.
“Er…”, Tadhg paused. “The one who was coming to visit you…” He saw from Catherine’s expression that she was clueless, so he added, “…the one that was killed driving up here that winter night in November.”
A moment of silence passed between them, as Catherine stared at him in bewilderment.
“She went over the cliff,” Tadhg continued, bowing his head with reverence. He pointed in the direction of the accident. “I’m sorry; I hate to be the one to tell you that, but I thought you knew,” he said, realizing that he had troubled her, and that he had overstepped her boundaries.
He had made contact and broken the spiritual physical laws, just because he wanted to know if the remembered anything. Besides, he was on a mission for Lovey and had to come up with some ruse to see her, in person.
Had Eleanor known about this visit, she would have declined their proposition; but Tadhg was trying to be a good fairy godfather.
“What? What are you talking about?”, Catherine asked in panic. “What woman? Tell me. Please sit.” She offered to get him a cup of tea, but he refused; and so she insisted, “I don't know any older women killed on the road this winter. When? Where? How?”, Catherine stammered. “Please, sit down. I will get some tea.”
Catherine hurried inside to fix him a cup of tea. Her peace had a
pparently disappeared, and she continued to mumble to herself as she bustled through the kitchen. When she returned, to her surprise, she discovered that the mysterious delivery man had vanished. No car in the drive. No man in sight. No idea how anyone could have walked the distance. Plus, he would have had to get in a car, then leave without being noticed. He was definitely gone. Catherine shuffled around for a moment, and then looked down to see the package he’d delivered.
“Well, I guess he was in some kind of a hurry. Oh, well,” she figured. Holding the package, she paused as if she should know something. “I don't know anything. Everything is oddly strange again. The package is suggestive, and the delivery man was weird, too. Catherine shook her head; “No. No more messages, strange circumstances or peculiar people. No more!” Then, she looked upward, as if to another dimension, as if she’d remembered something.
The package remained wrapped. She didn’t want to see. “Reluctance” and “Fear” seemed to surround her. “Fear” and “Forebodings” gripped her, putting their long ugly talons around her head. “Fear” grabbed her throat, and for a moment she couldn’t talk.
Choking on nothing, she took a sip of her tea, unable to see them. The beautiful spring day was temporarily forgotten. The good feelings—gone.
The sun set, and the manor was quiet. Catherine sat alone on the outdoor settee. She picked up the package, then put it down, then picked it up and set it down again. She wrestled internally, repeating the motions several times, unable to bring herself to open the parcel. In between her musings, she tried to distract herself; she read a book. She didn't know where the book had come from, but it sparked her interest.
As she read, she discovered it was a sad tale that Catherine could identify with, through her own emotions. It was a story of a young boy and girl who lived by the sea, and a family of royal descent caught in turmoil by the loss of a child. The royal family had possessions of gold and large estates, and held rank and stature beyond just wealthy, yet despite their earthly treasures, they couldn’t save the boy named “Thomas”.
Catherine’s package still remained unopened. “Open Me!”, it seemed to beckon.
“All right,” Catherine muttered, picking the package up with great reservation. She unraveled the twine and unwrapped the plain brown paper. Using caution, her hands moved with deliberate delay. As she recalled the unexpected experiences of her past, she suspected only impending doom, -but noting that she really didn’t want to revert to those grey dark feelings; after all, it had been a day filled with unusual promise.
A note fell out from within the box. Written in Old English cursive, it was penned in gold leaf ink. Catherine read the words aloud.
“Old twigs, juniper, mugwort and thyme,
mixing together, making a rhyme,
Love and memories, music with chimes,
lead to a place somewhere in time.”
Halls that whisper,”Catherine”, may seem surreal,
Voices of children, appearing unreal,
All that is odd has forever set you free.
Seek answers from the Chrismal seer.
You're on track; trust in that,
a little black dog shall lead you back.
Now, don't delay; this is the way:
halt the memories that chased you each day.
Never stop believing.
Love, Eleanor; and,
Forever, Tadhg
“Huh?”, Catherine said. “That's one mysterious poem—and, another clue.” Jabbering to herself, Catherine reiterated, over and over, the series of events just recently experienced. “A man delivers a package. The man tells me a story about an old woman who dies on her way here—an old woman I have no knowledge of, and now, a poem with a mystery falls into my hand; and, there’s still a package to unwrap. “Oh, what is next?”
She unwrapped the package containing the unknown, and discovered an old, smelly, burlap tote with a book inside. It had photographs of people who seemed distantly familiar, and letters that smelled of lilac and lavender. The tote also contained a leather pouch that Catherine opened to find dried herbs. She sniffed at them and noted that the odor was, once again…familiar.
Inside the pouch, a note instructed her to make a cup of tea before bed. “Trust Eleanor,” Cat oddly whispered, not knowing where that came from, or who Eleanor was, except for the signature on the note.
Next, in the tote, Catherine found a rather delicate cardboard tube. Within it was a rolled up, old, yellowed document that had been folded, showing brown, flaky edges at the corners. She carefully began to open it, unfolding the corners. Bits and pieces of the cracking paper fell as she opened it. “Oh, careful,” Catherine said to herself.
Once opened, the paper revealed that it was a map. “A treasure map? But who is Eleanor? And, trust her? Why did I say that?”, Catherine wondered.
“Trust!”, the word jumped out at her from out of nowhere. The voice rang in her head, like it had been some kind of magic trick.
“All right. I'll trust, I guess. I must be going crazy. But, I don’t know what to do with this map.” So, she decided she’d just make another cup of tea. And, the tea was so delightful she drank a few more cups because it tasted so good.
It had been such a wonder of a day, filled with a contentment that she could used to, she thought. But, she was getting sleepy, and proceeded upstairs to her room to sleep. “Not on the couch or on the floor, tonight,” she told herself. She wanted to sleep all cozy in her own bed.
She undressed and put on a cotton nightgown; she wouldn’t need flannel until next year, as spring had arrived, and the house was warmer than the cold damp that chilled most nights. She turned down the coverlet, and on the nightstand beside her, Catherine picked up a gold necklace. “What's this?”, she wondered, as she couldn’t remember ever having seen it before. “How did it get here?”, she asked herself, silently, realizing what dangled from the chain was an old locket. Inside was a picture of two children—a little girl and a little boy.
“I’ve seen these two children before,” she said. Turning out the light, she held the locket in her hand, and fell asleep with it close to her heart.
Catherine awakened, and sat up with a start the next morning. An object swung from around her neck, then she remembered. “It’s a locket with a picture of Thomas in it!” She took it off to look at it. The inscription read, “Love, Thomas…1955”.
“Thomas!”, she exclaimed, so joyous she leapt out of the bed and landed her feet on the floor with a thud. “And he's holding a little black dog!” She didn’t have to think hard. “Lovey! Oh, my God! It's Thomas and Lovey!” Catherine smiled from ear to ear, and then laughed robustly out loud. She then knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that something magical had happened! Then, she stopped cold, quietly thinking, and whispered, “Will I ever see you again?”
Spring
The locket pictures had resurrected such joy in Catherine that she hurriedly got dressed, delighting, too, that she could put on something colorful, an outfit that would celebrate the coming of spring. “Yes, I will do something special today to welcome the season…and all the mysteries of yesterday, too. I will think of yesterday as having brought good things yet to be discovered, instead of foreboding all the negative scenarios that were the only surprises my past delivered.”
Catherine ran downstairs, like an eager child on Christmas morning, opened the kitchen door before she’d even made coffee, and discovered that the crisp spring weather was still as beautiful as the day before. The package the mystery man had delivered sat on the patio table, and she looked it over again, but did not find anything new. She decided she would go into Glory Town to buy a few things.
She had dressed perfectly for the day, and was glowing in her natural beauty. No one in the town would even say hello, she thought, brushing away that negative like a piece of lint on her sweater. On her way out, she grabbed the old map from the delivered package. “Funny, but it's leading me somewhere,” she thought, “and it starts out
on the way to Glory Town, and I had already decided I was going there. Hmm, I guess Spring is bringing more questions than answers,” and she laughed at herself again.
Still chuckling, Catherine followed the arrows on the dotted path. It led her to the market, where she smelled the fruits on the stand. “Gosh, What a lovely day,” she hummed to herself. A familiar bark drew her ear, and Cat turned at once to see where it had come from. “Surely this is not real?”, she said while reconsidering her thinking about trying to expect good things.
The bark repeated again. The sound of a dog. Cat couldn’t believe it…but the urge, the hunch, the voice inside her insisting “Go. There, now, over there”, was too strong to ignore. Catherine then heard a bunch of puppies yipping in the distance.
They were cries from a cage of puppies waiting to be adopted. She moved closer, walking faster to get a glimpse, as parents and their children gathered around the cage. Cat almost ran to them. She was sure there was one who was waiting, especially for her.
Getting close to the cage, she pushed her way in front of the pleading children. The children were, each, begging their parents for just one. Catherine slowed herself to a normal walk, not to cause a spectacle of herself with her own excitement, and, upon getting to the wire kennel, she saw a little black cockapoo all by himself. He seemed sad as if he was worried whether the right person would come to claim him. Catherine moved to stand as near to him as she could. “Lovey, Lovey is it, you?”, she asked.
In the corner of her mind lay distant memories of knowing a black dog. The hunch that had guided her there was then prompting her with the suggestion of the puppy’s name. So, she went with her intuition. “Lovey?”, she whispered. Then, she tried again, a little bit louder, “Lovey?”
The little black dog with the white chest immediately looked up. There was no doubt. “He's the one,” Catherine thought. Then, she saw the patch of white fur on his chest. It formed the Trinity.
