The Death of Annie the Water Witcher by Lightning

by Audrey J. Whitson

  Saint Terese de Lisieux, the Little Flower, had a crown of flowers surrounding her pale, sharp, and sweet face, full of good jokes. They said she was always teasing her sisters.

  All of them, mistresses of the sun.

  We never had money for pictures in the glass windows in Majestic. Just a tint or two of pastel in the top panes at St. Joseph’s. The stations every Lent. It was encouraged every Friday, some Sundays, after mass to do the stations, contemplate them and pray the rosary. The ladies in the CWL would lead.

  It’s been a long time since I was an altar boy, years since I was behind the altar even to make an announcement. I think all this as Buster and I lift and carry the images back and forth between us, until the walls are bare and all of the faces are gone. Swiftly and silently until we’ve helped Daisy remove the chalices and vestments, all except the ones we usually use. It’s as if we’re powered by unseen hands, familiar hands, I want to say to Buster, hands we’ve known but can’t place, until, on the last go, I dip my hand in the baptismal font to bless myself.

  ANNIE

  At the institution the boys worked in the fields, but they wouldn’t let the girls go outside. Only on special outings: a wiener roast, a picnic, a sports day, trips between the school, the gymnasium for physical education, an errand to fetch vegetables from the garden. When they did let us out, I made myself a bed of grass along the edge of the playground and lay on the earth and listened to the faint rumblings of flowing water. That was how I came to know I was different. I couldn’t be cut off from water for long.

  I stood in the shower long after others had finished, stood with my head under the tap, letting the water cradle me, my eyes closed, thinking of streams and rivers, of aquifers, and the pipes snaking through that old building. But the sheerest force of water in that place wasn’t to be found in the pipes. The sheerest force of water was to be found in human form.

  A ward full of water, swollen heads on pillows, twelve lined up against both walls, ventilators plugged into their throats and tubes running in and out of their noses and arms. Their open mouths like red flowers, their eyes, wells.

  Water on the brain, the housekeeping staff called it. Vegetables. Never moving, their stares fixed straight ahead, their bodies growing under them, still defecating. Their heads were wondrous. Oceans in those heads. How many rivers?

  It was easy to slip by the night aides, the wheel of keys on their waists. I hid in the shadows. The doors could be jigged to not quite close. Big doors, heavy, slow to swing. I was a skinny, slippery sliver of nothing in those days. I slipped through a crack, pulled back covers, slid down, and laid my ear by one of those heads, by the rushing of the waves. Sea sleep. The best sleeps I had in that place. Mornings they found me, bed clothes tangled with tubing.

  It did not last long.

  Deranged, delusional, they wrote.

  Admonished. You shouldn’t. You mustn’t. Till I would go there walking in my sleep. Then they started to restrain me at night, wrist straps, foot straps, bedding short shrift. The more they held me, the more I wanted to run.

  But the water never left me. I had oceans in my belly, lakes and the river so close. I could feel it rising in me whenever I got to open ground, through my feet, my open hands, it was the most natural feeling. No one wondered why except that they thought I was an imbecile. Wandering with my hands outstretched, following the rivers inside of me. The only concession, that they left me to wander barefoot in the grass in summer because we had to save our shoes for winter.

  For a long time I didn’t understand it, these feelings I would have under the strangest circumstances. When it rained, when I was near a river, like the sound of an old lullaby that I knew once and was trying to remember.

  “You’re a diviner,” an old German woman attendant told me when she saw me head down, pacing the grass or when she found me sitting by the river. “Don’t tell no one here. They’ll think you’re crazy. Lock you up forever.”

  And so I kept the ocean inside of me.

  VERA

  The pallbearers keep Father Pat busy at the hall until the last possible minute with all kinds of questions about the service and the procession afterwards. I can imagine the conversation, them playing the part of dumb country hicks, him taking up the role of Chief Enlightener. I am in the vestry waiting for him when he returns. He looks at his watch, glances at me, hurries to the table where his ceremonial robes are laid out and throws them on.

  I hand him the jar just as he pulls on his prayer stole. “It’s water, Father, just a little thimbleful from some of the wells she’s dug over the years.” Those waters we could gather in time, mingled now from all those places, I think. But I don’t say this.

  He stops fussing with his stole. “It’s not holy water.”

  “But Father, think about it. In this time of drought, every drop is holy. It’s a way for the people to give thanks.”

  “No, it’s a way for some to draw attention to this confounded woman’s gifts and deprive Him who is the rightful heir of any glory His due.”

  “Who created water if not God, Father? And isn’t God the source of such gifts?”

  “But it hasn’t been blessed by the church.”

  “You could sanction it, Father.” With the touch of your hand and the sign of the cross over it, I was going to say, or the tap of your wand. But I bite my tongue, take a deep breath, “With your blessing.”

  He sighs. “Oh, very well, just this one time. But there is a danger, Vera, of the people equating the gift with the life, of forgetting who is the true font of eternal life and all gifts, the Lord Jesus Christ. The sacraments are not some kind of superstitious mumbo jumbo.”

  “But we are the only hands God has, Father. Isn’t that true?”

  He grudgingly grants me that.

  “Vera, I know we have not always seen eye to eye. But let this be a gesture of my goodwill to you and the congregation, that I want to leave on good terms.”

  “And so do we all, Father — want to end well,” I say quickly.

  He fixes me with a funny look then but recovers himself.

  “You’ll use it today then? During the rites?”

  “I’ll use it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I won’t be drawing any special attention to it. It’s not the miracle of the witching we’re celebrating today. It’s the miracle of the resurrection.”

  “Yes, Father,” I understand.

  With that I pour the collected waters into the vessel he uses for the purpose, a large ice bucket, but pure brass, and hand it to him, with a fresh willow switch for the sprinkling.

  “Maybe today we should use the brass sprinkler,” he starts.

  I stop for a minute. “That would mark a departure for you, Father. You always ask for a branch when it’s in season.”

  “Well, yes, you’re right. Never mind.”

  I had sent Daisy and Kelsey to collect the roses from the hotel.

  “I’ve got to see to the flowers out front,” I say brightly, picking up the bucket and branch, wanting to exit before he can change his mind. “People are starting to arrive.”

  ANNIE

  I was the cook’s helper in the kitchen, chopping pots of carrots and parsnips and potatoes. She put me in charge of the other girls, plucking chickens and gutting fish. I was a dab hand, she said. It was hard times, Depression years, hard to get anything; even salt and pepper were scarce. We had to grow what we needed: cows for fresh milk and cream, chickens for roasting, beets and turnips for the cellars, pails of peas, green beans, and wild raspberries canned, put up on shelves. Apples stored in the root cellars. I was good at it, and I might have stayed forever but for the trip to Ponoka.

  All the month after my insides ached, my cramps were heavier, blood everywhere. Spotting, the aides called it. “You’re spotting,” as if it were a refinement. It was later, when I heard them talking amongst themselves, that I found out I could never get pregnant.

  That’s when I ran away to the
city. At first the kitchens of old hotels, then their backrooms washing dishes, prostituting myself when rent money was short, playing pickpocket, doing whatever I had to. That’s when the drinking started. Four years till I was of legal age, and I could go home of my own accord.

  It was only when I came back to these parts that I began to remember myself. And people who’d known my grandmother came by asking. I thought on all my nana had taught me — the dawn, the green willow, the marking of the streams, the pull. I practiced on nights when the moon was full and the currents rose strong in the ground, with my hands remembering, my nana’s spirit guiding me. I began to witch.

  13

  MIKE

  The people sit straight against the pews in their Sunday clothes and polished heels waiting for the Saturday afternoon service to begin. Others, with dirt under their nails and callouses on their hands, are shaking their heads, digging at the hard floor with their steel toe and rubber-soled boots. The men play with the brims of their hats, the women rearrange their skirts, impatient for this part of the burying to be over. Jack has joined the choir in the loft, one of the few tenors among them every Sunday. I don’t know how he puts up with Mrs. Cummins’ playing. Says he likes to sing and has an obligation to sing, especially today, to give Annie the best send-off.

  Some notice the stations gone, the saints’ pictures, and exchange indignant words back and forth. “The nerve of the bishop. They’ve already started the decommissioning!” But they keep their voices low and pleasant; it is Annie Gallagher’s funeral after all. Others feel the difference too, but they put it down to the roses, the pots of them on the windowsills and in the sanctuary. How they alter the appearance of this place.

  FLORENCE

  Before they bring the casket up from the back of the church, people stand out of respect. The pallbearers, Vera and the two Fathers form a circle around the coffin, where it sits on a small table, waiting. Vera welcomes the people and pronounces the greeting: a word of hope, a word of faith, a word of community as the rubrics proscribe and yet not as proscribed. Father Pat has agreed to this since Vera is the chair of the parish council, and as a concession, since he insisted on choosing all the readings and the music for Annie’s service today. Normally her family would do that, but since she has no family. . .

  At the foot of the church, at the join where the aisles meet east and west, north and south, Vera raises her voice above the crowd, turns as she speaks so that everyone front and back, inside and outside can hear:

  “Friends and neighbours, Annie Gallagher has passed from us. What shall we say of her? A woman of suffering, a woman of strength.” A murmur goes through the crowd as people pass the message down the stairs out the back of the little church, from lips to lips, to where people are lined up into the parking lot. “What shall we remember? A woman of considerable gifts. A woman with generous hands. How shall we go on? Together as she would have liked it, celebrating her life on earth and her life to be.”

  Vera always speaks so well. The young priest pulls a face, keeps trying to catch her eye. The old bishop starts to clap, awkwardly, against his hip, one hand still on his cane, bowing to her slightly, grinning and making strange utterings, something about her being a deaconess in the making. She gives him a big smile.

  Everyone else says “Amen.”

  Then the bishop picks up the willow branch from the bucket Kelsey has held out to him, flings water at the casket, throws it vigorously, almost drunken-like, swaying on one lame leg. Father Pat, the younger of the two, looks bewildered, tries to check the old man’s enthusiasm and take the branch from him. The old bishop dodges his reach, keeps walking in circles around the casket, three, five, seven, an irregular number of times, sprinkling the holy water on Annie until all of us are powerfully silent.

  We strain towards the action, start to breathe faster. I catch Vera’s eye, Daisy’s, Alex’s. Alex is sitting in the aisle seat, back pew, his usual spot, Mike is right across from him. Best friends and ushers for life; that’s the joke. Daisy and I are close to the front, owing to the reading we have to do. I can tell some want to jump out of their pews, out of their places, want to hold her last witching branch in their hands and join the old bishop in dancing the water. Bob found the wand by her side, somehow knew how important it was when he brought it to me, said even him an unbeliever, who did not worship things or in a church, could see that it must be preserved.

  I had passed it on to Vera who put it in a vase of water to keep till morning, and then passed it on to the young Father who isn’t any the wiser.

  ANNIE

  I hear the waters calling Come home. Stay with us. The call I’ve heard since a child. Abide by this earth. The waters in all their voices, their individual strands rising up in a single singing, at once a harmony and a dissonance of whistles and flutes below the earth, the gathering of streams, a chorusing of angels, yes, a chorusing in all the realms.

  FLORENCE

  At the back door, Kelsey unfolds the pall, the white cloth. And with his one free hand and the altar girl’s help, the old bishop lays it over the casket, fumbles over his shepherd’s crook to rearrange it carefully, gently, where the droplets of water have soaked through. Then the young priest signals to Mrs. Cummins and the choir up in the loft, where Jack is too, and the pallbearers. Hurry up, the young Father seems to say with his eyes, let’s get on with it, and Mrs. Cummins is sailing us up the aisle. People who haven’t sung in years open their mouths, know the words.

  Holy God we praise thy name.

  Lord of all we bow before thee.

  At “Infinite” all the sweetness of voices pooling from the low note to high, the contrast of men’s and women’s voices straining to come together and coursing on.

  Infinite thy vast domain.

  Everlasting is thy reign.

  Then in repetition:

  Infinite thy vast domain,

  Everlasting is thy reign.

  A verse and another chorus and we are up the aisle, in spirit if not in body, with Annie, all of us at the foot of that altar, waiting for our commendation. It was as if all our waters were going out to her, carrying her along the one great human river home to the mouth, towards which we all strain and long.

  They place her coffin a few steps from the six-foot Paschal candle and finish the ceremonial preparations. Kelsey brings the book of the gospels, then the cross. All of it they lay on top of the white pall on top of her box.

  VERA

  After the procession, Father Pat starts pacing up and down the aisle, wringing his hands, looking to the back door, motioning for people to come forward, astounded with all the mourners who have come, standing in the back on each side, milling in the foyer, spilling out on to the front steps.

  “Make room, make room,” he urges as firmly as his sense of decorum will allow. “Please slide down. Let’s seat as many as possible.”

  Why is he surprised? It’s the whole country she’s dug wells for, found water for, fed herbs to. The people have come to the Mount to pay their last respects. She’s a legend. For a priest, he’s surprisingly unpastoral.

  It takes the bishop to bring some levity to the situation:

  “A few loaves of bread and a few fishes,” he calls out from the altar steps, “and we can feed everyone.”

  People start to move in closer, cozy up with their neighbour. People in the choir loft and in the lobby, squeeze shoulder to shoulder, push forward, line the aisles on both sides of the church. Alex and Mike stand at each side of the main door, looking back over the crowd and waving people forward.

  “That’s right,” the bishop pronounces. “Come in out of the wind,” for even then it was threatening to blow. “And close the door behind you.”

  Kelsey opens the big red book and stands with it in front of the bishop. He bows his head and speaks without glancing at the page.

  “My dear people, let us pray. Oh Heavenly Father, we believe that even though we die, we will rise on the last day. Grant that through the my
stery of Annie Gallagher, our sister. . . .” He stops and looks around himself as if he’s surprised by what he’s about to say.

  “Our dear sister Annie, who has gone to her rest in Christ, will rise with him on the last day.”

  Father Pat starts to say, “Amen,” to hurry him along, but the bishop raises his hand and closes his eyes again.

  “We look to your glory, oh Heavenly Father, through your Son, Jesus the Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, Three in One, the Blessed Trinity, forever and ever, Amen.”

  Then it dawns on me: the altar table, the procession of giftbearers, the coffin just at the foot, Annie presiding over us all. Annie was and still is the Table of Truth in this place.

  14

  DAISY

  It’s Florence’s job to read the epistle, but the old bishop walks up to the podium, flips the book open, studies the page marked by the green ribbon, turns to the next leaf, studies some more till finally at the bottom he finds what he’s looking for. He lifts it slightly out of its place so that you can just see its green velvet cover. The one I embroidered the edges of with gold thread and Celtic knots. The Book of Infinity I call it.

  Florence stands to one side, at the bottom of the steps, waiting for him to call her, but he doesn’t. Father Pat clears his throat, tries to catch his eye, but the old man can’t be caught. It’s peculiar what takes place next and people would later say it was all part of God’s plan and the first sign that a miracle was about to occur.

  The old bishop removes his hat, sets it on a shelf under the podium, and starts to read from the Song of Songs. Arise my beloved, my beautiful one and come! There’s glee in his eyes. He lets his staff clatter to the floor.

  For see, the winter is past,

  Someone in the back titters. It is sweet to watch him, an old man excited about young love. It’s a reading you hear at a wedding not a funeral. For heaven sakes, we did read this at our wedding! I look for Buster in the crowd. He’s smiling too. Father Pat starts to crease his cassock with his hands, to bore a hole in the floor with his glare, trying to be patient, trying to keep the red heat from rising to his face, but too late.