by Janet Lunn
Patty understood. She came the next morning as Mary was standing in the creek washing her clothes, her feet blue with cold, her face red from exertion. Henry was walking slowly around and around the house, running a stick up and down the logs, causing Mary’s aching head to jump with pain with every rattling sound.
Patty began to wring the clothes. “I’m right sorry about the young ’uns having to quit your school. Ma took Mose home on account of that silly Annie Heaton. She said stupid things about you putting marks on her children. She’s an Irisher and she’s always saying things like that. You’d think a woman as big as Ma would have more sense in her than to listen to the likes of Annie Heaton, but she don’t. Only Phoebe Morrissay’s willing to keep on, but of course those children ain’t gonna come without the others—they wanted a holiday, them others, if you ask me! And look how they got their elders hopping!”
“Did you … do you believe I would put spells on folk?” Mary’s voice was hesitant.
“Naw. I don’t believe no one can make spells, nor make the weather go bad neither. I know you ain’t had nothing to do with that.”
Mary straightened abruptly. “Do folk say I have?” She snatched up the shirt she had been pounding on a stone and hung onto it, dripping icy water down the front of her blouse. “How could I?” she cried.
“That’s what I said.”
“But do they believe that? Do they?” Mary threw her hair back from her face and jumped to the bank. She grabbed Patty by her arm. “What do they say, Patty? What do they say?”
“Whoa.” Patty stepped back. Henry’s shirt fell to the ground. “Well.…” She look embarrassed. “Well, they say that if you can do the things you tell the children you can do—turn them into sheep—and see when people are going to die—you might, you just might, mind you, have something to do with there being no summer. You did go round and say there wasn’t gonna be one. You know how people talk. They just talk and … oh, Mary, I wish you wouldn’t of told no one you seen the frozen gardens in your dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream and I thought folk would want to know,” said Mary miserably.
“Here, come on.” Patty picked up the pile of wet laundry. “You’re soaking wet. You’ll catch your death. I don’t see why you gotta wash clothes by trampling around on ’em in this freezing water. Why don’t you wash ’em in a tub like the rest of us? Ma says why do you have to … never mind, let’s get us something hot to drink, I’m like to die of cold standing here.”
Seated by the fire, drinking the hot coffee Patty had made, Mary was suddenly overcome by her kindness.
“When your mother said you were not home the day I came to see you, I thought you did not want to see me any more. You have not been here in weeks.”
“It wasn’t I didn’t want to see you.” Patty paused. “It was something else. It.…” She gulped. “I’m having a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yep. You know them little human beings that cries so much and makes so much mess but nuzzles up to you so’s you can’t never say no to them.”
“But I do not see … I mean I did not know.…”
“Simeon Anderson.”
“Simeon? Are you to marry Simeon? But I thought.…”
“You thought I was sweet on Luke on account of I told you that. Well, mebbe I was but it ain’t Luke helped make this baby I’m gonna have.” Patty’s cheeks had turned scarlet. “It was the night Luke and I come busting in when you was gonna take after Sim with your knife. I felt pretty low seeing Luke looking at you like you was his girl. I guess I didn’t much care when Sim got himself all over me and … and I guess we made a baby. Ma’s in a terrible state and Pa swears every time he looks at me. He says he’ll skin Sim alive if he ever catches him. Anyways I figure I done all the crying about it I’m gonna and,” she finished disconsolately, “it don’t much look like I’m gonna marry nobody. Sim’s run off.”
A vision of Patty in her blue dress cooking at the Anderson fire came to Mary. In the vision the cabin had become tidy and cheerful. Patty was smiling. John was coming through the door, Luke and Henry were sitting at the table. They looked like a family. The vision faded leaving Mary feeling bereft, left out. She did not want to tell Patty about it, but at the same time she wanted to comfort her friend. “Do not trouble yourself, Patty, it will come right for you.”
Patty’s big eyes grew bigger. Then she smiled. “I don’t believe you know that but, Mary, when you say it so nice, I do feel better.”
After she had left, Mary found Henry and went at once to the Collivers’. She needed to be busy. Although she knew it wasn’t reasonable, the thought of Patty and Luke getting married made her feel very alone.
Three days later Patty came to tell Mary she was going to marry John Anderson. “I’d as soon have John as Sim,” she said. “Sooner, I guess.”
“But you … but Luke,” Mary blurted out. She had been so sure the vision meant Luke.
“But but.” Patty poked her plump finger at Mary. “But Luke ain’t for me. Luke ain’t cared a fiddlestick for any but you since he first clapped eyes on you. Julia Colliver told me he was like someone with a rare treasure to be fixed the day he brung you to her when you first come to the Corners. I figured, when you told me you wasn’t fixing to marry, that I’d have a chance with Luke. The night Sim was offering to bother you and I seen the look on Luke’s face I knew I hadn’t. He ain’t for me, Mary Urkit. Whether you wants to know about it or whether you doesn’t, he’s yours.”
Mary could not respond to those words. She was doing her best to ignore the surge of relief she felt.
“Getting married is special and we must have something special to celebrate,” she cried. She went to the cupboard and took from it the packet of real tea Phoebe Morrissay had given her at Christmas, and a honeycomb left from last summer that Henry had found in the woods. “I expect it is not a marriage for you to rejoice in.” Mary put the tea in the kettle.
“Why not? John’s a good man. He’s had a hard time. Lydia Anderson was a sad woman and none too strong. It was powerful hard on her losing all them babies, but it was hard on John too, and with her taking to the drink like that. I like him. He likes me. He’ll be good to me and the baby. We’ll do well enough together. I … I’ve gone along up to the Andersons’ to live. We’ll get married when preacher comes in August.”
Mary was too astounded to be polite. “Patty, how can you be this way? You just let things happen to you, whatever comes along, and you do not seem to mind.”
“Mind? What’s the good of minding? This is how things turned out. I just got to make the best of them. What good would I do screaming and shouting or throwing myself every which way?” She smiled broadly, and Mary, who had been so cold and unhappy, felt warm.
After Patty had left Mary went to look for Henry. She could find him nowhere. He was not at the Openshaws’. He was not at the Pritchetts’. Mrs. Colliver told her he had gone fishing with Matthew. Matthew came back before Mary was finished with her work. Relieved, she hurried home to make supper for Henry, promising herself she would not scold him. But Henry had not come home.
Duncan
Mary waited until well after dark for Henry. But she knew he was not coming, she knew where he had gone—and she went there to bring him home. There was snow on the ground again; the road was firm and it was as cold as January under the bright stars. But Mary hardly noticed. Stolidly she tramped the five miles to the Anderson homestead.
She was afraid. The voice called to her unceasingly now and she could not bear to be alone. She needed Henry with her. She was afraid, too, that Dan might make her leave her house, and she was afraid of the neighbours who had seemed so warm and friendly in the winter. She pushed open the Andersons’ door without knocking and there was Patty standing by the fire. John was coming in the back door from the shed, Luke and Henry were sitting at the table. The room looked as she had already seen it—neat and inviting.
“Henry,” cried Mary, “it’s time yo
u were coming home!”
Henry stared down at the table. Mary crossed the room to stand over him. “Henry!” Her voice shook. “Henry, I was so worried. Do come away home now.”
Henry looked desperately at Luke from the corner of his eye. Luke glanced towards his father. “Didn’t you tell Mary you was coming home?” John demanded.
Henry shook his head.
“Henry, that ain’t right.”
Henry said nothing. Mary was desperate. “Tell him he must come, Luke.”
“Mary.…” Luke’s tone was without emotion. “It looks like Henry wants to come home.”
“But he lives with me. You brought him to live with me. He needs me.” A lump would come in Mary’s throat, though she swallowed hard against it.
“Do you want to go with Mary, Henry?” Luke looked at his young brother. Neither Patty nor John said anything. Henry shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“I guess he don’t.” Luke’s voice was softer. “Come along, Mary. Patty’ll fix you some coffee and grub.”
“I do not want coffee. I want only to take Henry home.”
“Mary, he don’t want to come.” He was beginning to sound angry. “Henry don’t want to come. He’s scared. He figures you’ve made bad things happen, no matter what we say.”
“What did you tell him? Did you say I made Sim disappear?”
“Don’t be stupid. I told him Sim run off, only he can’t figure it that way.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Mary whirled to confront Patty.
John moved forward. “Patty’s had enough trouble without we should get the children all riled up about it. Mary, it’s time Henry was coming home now that Patty’s here and we’ve got things in order.”
“But the children are riled up. They are riled up about me. They are riled up so that I may not teach them and I will have to give up my house and now even Henry has run to seek protection against me. Does that not count for anything?”
“I guess you might say the whole neighbourhood is riled up about you,” said Luke drily.
“Luke, don’t be mean.” Patty took a step towards Mary.
“Luke,” Mary pleaded, “Luke, if we were to marry could Henry come back to me?”
For almost a minute the only sound in the room was the crackling fire. Luke’s face went red. He slammed his fist on the table. “No!” he shouted; then, in barely lowered tones, he let loose his frustrations. “I guess there’s reasons the neighbourhood’s riled up about you, Mary Urkit. You stirred up a lot of things in these parts with your talk of ghosts and seeing things before they happen. Riled! You sure got me riled. You got us all going like a fife-and-drum marching band with your queer talk and your soft ways. You ain’t interested in marrying me. And Henry don’t need you now; you’re too dang-blasted proud to say it but you need Henry, though God in heaven knows the only person you got any room for is that useless dead cousin of yours. All he did last I seen him was mope around like a big black shadow. He got himself dead but he ain’t changed much. He’s still a black shadow. Henry’s well out of that place. I don’t want nothing to do with it and I don’t want nothing to do with you, neither. I wish you would go home, where you want to go so bad, and take the shadow with you—and I expect I might just help you do it. I got some money put by to get me a parcel of land, and maybe I’ll give it to you so’s you can buy your way.”
Luke stopped. He was breathing hard in an effort to control himself.
Mary recoiled as though she had been struck. She stumbled across the room and out the door. “Mary!” Patty called after her. She did not stop. She ran all the way home.
She sat through the night by the fire, getting up only to put another log on. She did not spin. She did not eat. She did not go to bed. Luke and Henry were both gone. As the night wore on there was only that voice that was Duncan but was not Duncan, like a wild song growing louder and louder, until it came at her from every corner of the house. “Come, Mairi, come. Mairi, come. Come, Mairi.”
She could fight it no longer. Towards dawn she got up and went down to the big grey rock by the edge of the black water. It was snowing lightly and ice had formed in winded ruffles along the shore. The marsh marigolds and bull-rushes that had been so bright in the brief warm spell early in May had all gone. The few birds had gone into the deep woods for shelter. All was cold and silent and strange.
“Mairi, come.” Duncan’s voice was soft, cajoling now. She sighed. Slowly she put off her shawl, pulled her shift over her head, untied her skirt and let it slip from her. She took off her moccasins and her stockings. She stood naked in the snow. She did not feel the cold. She reached around and unbraided her hair. It fell like a black mantle around her shoulders.
Softly she began to sing in Gaelic a song for the dying, and as she sang she stepped off the rock into the bay. She walked out until she stood waist-deep in the water.
“I am coming, mo gràdach. I am coming to be where you are.” She looked down into the black water and there she saw Duncan lying beneath the surface, his dead white face turned towards her, his black hair floating around him like the fronds of a fern. His eyes were open, his hands were outstretched, waiting.
Mary stared at the apparition. It was as real as though Duncan’s body itself floated there. She closed her eyes. She opened them. The apparition was still there. She understood, at last. And came to herself.
“Duncan, you did this!” she accused him. “You drowned yourself in this water, and you would take me too. But I will not follow you to the grave.” Frantically she turned and began to push her way through the water towards the shore. She stopped and turned back. The image was still there. She leaned down. She could see her own distraught reflection superimposed on the image of Duncan. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Duncan dubh, in death as in life you would have bound me to you. It cannot be. I will not come. I will do my best to forgive you and I wish you safe journey to the land of the dead.” She reached down and gently, as though Duncan were there in body, she put out her hands and closed his eyelids. She said for him the blessing of the dead and waded back to the shore.
The ends of her hair were stiff with ice, her teeth were clattering, she was blue and covered with goose-bumps. She grabbed her clothes and dashed into the house. She stirred up the fire, drank the hot water that was in the kettle, dried and dressed herself, and wrapped around her all the shawls and blankets she had.
When she had warmed to the point where she could begin to think, the thoughts charged at her like an assaulting army: “It is true, I have been as one daft since I came here—since before that. I knew. I did know that you were dead. Inside myself I knew that you had drowned yourself. It was on the ship, it was when Kirsty Mackay went under the sea. I knew it but I did not want to know, I would not let myself know—and now I have lost so much.” She saw again Henry’s frightened face by the light of the Andersons’ fire—and Luke’s angry one. Tears spilled down her cheeks and fell on her clenched hands. But the thoughts did not stop.
“We were as one, it is what we both thought—did we think about it at all? Reflections, our mams said, and we could not see, not you, not me, that life could be without the other. But—” Mary had a flash of understanding that made her gasp and spring to her feet. “But Duncan,” she cried aloud, “I did go on without you! Even at home after you had gone. But you could not go on without me. You turned from me for four years—four long years. When you wanted to die, then you called. You wanted me to die with you.” She sank back into her chair. “What you did was not my fault,” she whispered, “it was not. Luke was right. A shadow, he said.” Wonderingly she repeated it aloud. “A shadow. Alive and dead, you were like a shadow. And I thought I could not manage life without you. I thought you were so strong because you were beautiful and exciting. Time was I would follow you anywhere. When you called me I could not believe evil of you. I thought it must be a devil. Mam was right.”
The realization of what had happened struck her anew. “But not in
to that other world I would not follow. Duncan, it was not strong to drown yourself so, it was evil to come after me. It was evil that you would take Henry because he was my comfort. That was not love, Duncan.” She put her head into her hands and wept.
In time her tears ceased to flow and she sat, subdued but peaceful, wrapped in her old shawl, the blankets from her and Henry’s beds, and the fine wool shawl Mrs. Grant had given her the night she had left the glen. “To be married in,” the old woman had said.
“Better to warm myself in it today than be buried in it tomorrow,” Mary thought ruefully. “I will not be buried now for a long time, but I have taken a queer stitch in my life and the Lord knows what will become of me.” She stood and stretched her stiff legs and back.
Outside the snow had stopped falling. The day was cold and clear. Mary went down to stand again on the big grey rock. A breeze was moving along the water so that it lapped against the frozen shore, making little icy curls. The water itself was transparent, revealing every twig, every stone beneath. A school of minnows darted past under the surface. There was nothing else.
Mary smiled. She left the shore and walked up past the house and across the road. She stopped by Duncan’s grave.
“I am going into the forest now,” she said. Without hesitating she walked on until she could see nothing in any direction but trees. There she stopped. And stood. And wondered.
She had not expected silence. At the edge of the forest and in the clearings the sound of the wind soughing, sighing through the tops of the great pines, was everywhere and almost constant. Here, deep in the evergreen forest itself, there was no sound, the light was as dim as it must be under the sea. All around were the huge tree trunks, gigantic columns hundreds of years old, rising beyond where her eyes could find their tops, columns far enough apart for an ox-cart to pass between. There were no small trees, no underbrush this deep in the woods—not enough sunlight reached the forest floor for them to survive; only the giants growing out of a carpet of pine needles, soft and dry. There was no sign of the snow that clung to the ground outside. Nor of the cold.
