JACK
Kelsey flips the pages of the big red book trying to find the right passage — all the pages and the ribbon markers blown aside in the gust. Finally Father Pat settles on a prayer from memory and inspiration.
“To you, O God of Mystery, we commend our sister, Annie.”
An old one rejigged.
“In the hope that we who have lived by the breath of your Word, manifest in this land, will join you in the presence of Wisdom at that feast of great peace.”
Another strange reference. And those of us who think that is the end of it, have already started to utter Amen, when the young priest goes on in spite of himself.
“We give thanks for the blessings which you gave us through Annie in her lifetime, for her gift of witching.”
Heads are nodding. I’m embarrassed for him.
“Urr — finding water. For her gifts of healing and gathering of community.”
The young priest takes a step back, looks down at his breath, starts to claw the air, his fists trying to push the words back into his mouth. But they keep on.
“We are truly grateful. Take our sister, Annie, to her place of rest.”
“A case of possession if I’ve ever seen one,” Buster comments in a loud voice.
Then the bishop starts to sing.
May the sun and moon and stars and all the angels and saints rise to meet her.
Oh yes, God, the angels, the wood nymphs, the tree spirits.
May this water,
Drawn from the river of life,
May this water speed her on her journey.
The bishop exchanges branch and water bucket for the incensor again.
May this fragrance of ancient wood and bloom
carry her into your garden!
The choir rises to attention, croaks the lines:
Holy saints journey with her!
Sing her passage, angels of God.
Surround her in beauty, Bright Morning Star!
And stand beside her in the presence of the Creator most holy.
FATHER PAT
“Yes, may the angels lead you.”
I look over. It is the bishop, fervent, on his knees, and on the other side, the choir accompanying him a cappella on the final farewell.
May the angels lead you to Wisdom’s feast.
Mrs. Cummins takes a stab at accompaniment of the chant, on the right hand, key of C, one note, D. And the choir knows the words and the melody to a chant that’s never been sung before.
ALEX
And guess what is standing on the threshold of the church when I go to close the door? A magpie. Maybe one of those in the schoolyard the other night. Or maybe someone I know?
“Annie?” I say quietly. The bird cocks its head and hops a ways away and takes off. I decide, right then and there, I’m going to put my mug up on an online dating site.
Only then I notice the guy with the Christopher medal hightailing it down to the shiny black SUV parked at the foot of the hill, every few steps looking back at me, his face white as a sheet. I let out a good belly laugh, get hold of the door handle and give it a good tug shut.
ANNIE
When my father made bricks, sometimes he used wood instead of coal, wood taken as its sap was rising, eight-foot cordwood, the smell of that wood, cured. When I would go to sleep, the smell all around me on my bed at night, when I would rise for school the next morning. Our house was next door to the brickworks, scove ovens, the shape of oversized bread loaves, always a stack, and sometimes a sweet smell, the smell of honey, I fancied. I knew my father was up off and on in the night checking the fire, watching the bricks turn colour and I felt protected.
Before the war, his father had been the town smithy. That was where he learned about the temperatures of fire and the heat needed to turn steel and iron; the colours of the coals and what to watch for; the right fuel for the right temperature. When to use bellows, when to turn the blade, when to hammer the birthing iron. Tongs for different-sized pieces. How to fix harrows and ploughshares, to shoe a horse, to mend a harness. That’s why they had him work with the horses.
I wasn’t allowed near the fires on my own. A week after my mother left, my father showed me the mouth of the furnace, the coals were like white crystal at the centre, hardly any orange or yellow, even at the edges.
“This is a vision of paradise,” he told me.
“The colour of fire?” I asked, uncertain.
“The wonder of things changing from one substance to another: from soft to firm, from green to matured. The force it takes to create anything. To grow a human being.”
I did not understand it then, but let the clear diamond of it rest in my eye and thought of it often when I was sent away. What the clay must endure to come out a useful building material, strong and lasting, able to survive even the fire that brought it into being. “That brick,” said my father, having survived hell once himself, “emptied of all its impurities, can never be destroyed.”
Later, when he was dying, he told me something changed for him, when he saw fire used to kill man and beast. There were days he would pray for snow. Or drink.
He looked forward to the winter on the front. Yes it was cold, but the snow would harden the earth, make the hauling smoother, the going easier. The snow made everything bearable, erased memory of broken bodies — human, horse, machine. Made a blank canvas. Made a dream canvas.
That and the whisky kept him sane. This is how it began: he gave the horse whisky for colic. It settled her. He took a nip; it settled him. Indigestion of any sort, of the body or the mind.
But what he pressed down, what he kept from thought, the weight that sank in the heart, rose double after the war. At first it was only at night, to keep the nightmares at bay, he said. A nip and a swallow. But then it grew, came unbidden, at any time, day or night, alone or in company. Each loss made it worse. The loss of his wife, my mother. The death of his own mother. The loss of his young daughter and the return of her, so changed. Most of all, the knowledge that he couldn’t protect me.
He begged my forgiveness.
BUSTER
The old fellow has the incensor — he sent the altar girl back for it — and he starts dancing around the casket with it. People cheer and clap. The old man starts to laugh.
That’s when the young priest rushes up to him.
“Your Grace. Get a hold of yourself,” he says.
The bishop doesn’t mince words. “You’re so much like me when I was your age. Righteous and scared to death.”
You should see the young priest’s face. But the old guy isn’t finished.
“With any luck and the grace of God, you’ll grow out of it.”
That’s when he hands Kelsey the incensor, waves his arms to quiet everyone down and makes the announcement.
“The deconsecration is off!”
“It’s a miracle!” someone exclaims.
Mrs. Cummins falls to her knees. And the choir starts to chant Lord have mercy, all of us following on. Christ have mercy, and we repeat. Lord have mercy, quite obediently. Vera starts to call out obscure names, women, all of them as near as I can figure. Daisy tells me they’re old saints and martyrs, not often feted, all women you only hear about in the middle of the night at Easter, if you hear about them at all.
Saint Mary Magdalene, watch over us.
Saint Agatha, watch over us.
Saint Lucy, watch over us.
Saint Agnes, watch over us.
Daisy says they’ve stared down lions, emperors, popes, religious orders (same thing when you think about it). Wrestled with beasts, resisted rape, lost their breasts for their convictions. Studied the scriptures. (Daisy’s used to translating for me after all these years so’s that I can follow the confusing rituals these Catholics have at times.)
Catherine of Alexandria, counsel us.
Saint Anastasia. . .
Saint Teresa of Avila. . .
Inspired music, poetry. Sailed ships and seas. Filled a lake wi
th beer (well, that sounds mighty good).
Saint Cecilia, journey with us.
Saint Ursula. . .
Saint Brighid. . .
A whole line of them, one after another and the choir singing in between. Just one of the schemes the women had gotten up to. A litany she called it. A kind of singing home. Pretty thing. I squeeze her shoulder affectionate-like.
MIKE
And then when the old bishop made that announcement that he was not going to close the church, we were all on our feet in a second. Clapping and cheering, people were whistling, throwing their hats in the air. It was a silly time. Pure nonsense, but wasn’t that what they taught us in catechism was a sign of the Spirit?
Thelma Cummins was so taken up that she sang a solo, a song no one knew in these parts and there just wasn’t any explanation other than divine intervention. No one knew she could even sing.
That’s when Florence revealed that she had been praying to Annie for a sign, an intervention, and God was great and the Virgin Mary Ever So Holy. And this was Annie’s first miracle on the road to sainthood.
DAISY
Florence said it was the gift of tongues but I understood every word.
ANNIE
Maman left my father a letter. I found it years later at the bottom of his chest of drawers, in an old cigar box. It was in childish script and in French; this is my best translation.
We were domestiques, my sister and I. Our master was the town administrator. His mistress was good to us. She let us grow the fève through the war and we had kept up the garden even after they were gone. It kept us alive during the war. I’d never been to school unless you count the time in Paris when I tried to teach myself by reading the newspapers. We were orphans. Our mother died when I was born. Our father was killed in a mining accident. We had no land. My sister raised me.
Almond trees grew on some estates, but I’d never seen an orange tree or a lemon. Only pictures in magazines some of the soldiers brought with them. Nor had I ever eaten olives, until I got to Paris. I had never been outside of my region before the war.
I was from Nancy, from Paris, from Marseilles, from everywhere, changing my identity to fit the need. That was the way it was during the war. We told lies, my sister and I. Place to place, before the war and through it. Survival depended on stories and the fève. The fève — my sister and I lived off the fève. It was our salvation. Wherever we lived we were allowed to plant a few rows for our own use. It was the only thing all those years that was ours.
We didn’t hide in a cellar and watch the village burn around us though I’d heard of others who did. When the village was taken by the Germans, we let ourselves be taken. When the Allies retook our village, I hid until I thought it was safe to come out. It is true my sister slept with a German officer and stayed with him as his mistress. I dreamed of going south, where there was no war. My sister did not want me to leave.
I crossed the line early that morning at Verdun. I was on the road to Paris, to the theatre, where I’d heard they took any girls who could sing or dance, especially girls from the provinces, and made them into chorus girls, and some, into courtesans for the soldiers. That there was a good living in it.
When I met you for the first time, I had just stood aside to let the convoys pass. I was standing in front of an estaminet. You thought I worked there as a serving girl; I never corrected you. That one brilliant evening made me forget for a few brief moments everything I had lost or had never had. I watched the troops move up the line, feeling ecstatic and grim in the same body. Longing for a home and the end of the war and my sister who I never saw again.
I almost left you twice before. Once on the docks at London before joining the queue with the other women. Soldiers and war brides were shipped then by separate passage, and you had already gone ahead. I went to brush my hair in the ladies lavatory. I had two pounds in my purse. I could lose myself in the crowds, catch the boat going back to the continent where I’d come from. But then I remembered. Whole cities, villages were in ruins. There was nothing to go back to.
The other time was on the other side of the ocean, alone, at the port in Montreal. I almost melted away into the crowds, carried along in the opposite direction by the strange but familiar language of the passersby, but I kept thinking about your goodness and how you had saved me from a life of dissolution. I still had hope in the future.
And pour ma fille. There were days you won’t remember, when you were walking already. I’d feed you and put us both back to bed. Sleep was my only escape. When you couldn’t sleep anymore, I took to sitting in the window. I had to save myself. I didn’t worry about you. You were a child of this place. The soil, already in you. You had your grandmother and your father. I had nothing left to give. My story was wearing thin.
VERA
The bishop has to do the dismissal, and he’s almost out of breath.
“May the One who is Mystery bless us.”
Everyone bows their heads, starts to make the sign on their forehead, on their heart, on their shoulders.
“Go in peace. In the friendship of our God, the Three-in-One.”
“Amen. Amen.” Everyone says it twice, without noticing, like the Evangelicals do all the time, echoing on itself, but it was that kind of service.
ANNIE
Florence gathers up the book and the cross, up they lift me, surprised some of them at how light I’ve become, how light this body feels, all the water gone out of me into the air, into the ground. People are looking up, pointing at the first soft patter on the roof. And now a roaring, a downpour.
For the procession out of the church, they shoulder me like they still do in the countryside sometimes where people are used to working with their bodies, still used to lifting dead weight. Down the steps and across the lawn to the cemetery on the eastern side. A few pull out their umbrellas, at least to keep the books dry. But most are so overcome by the taste of rain that they slosh like children again through the growing puddles.
The choir recites: May the angels lead you into the arms of Holy Wisdom; may the martyrs journey with you to that place of great peace!
Down the aisle we follow, all of us singing, Amazing Grace, in three parts.
That must be the Lutherans, Mrs. Cummins murmurs to the lady next to her. The only ones who can be counted on to carry a tune in these parts and sing all the verses.
“Well this is surely the best funeral this church has ever seen,” another lady says.
The choir continues its impromptu hymn: May the angels welcome you to Wisdom’s feast, where the lowly and the lofty eat and drink at the same table, where pain and sorrow shall be no more, where Love makes her home.
And the doors fly open again and the wind and the rain swallow us as we march to the cemetery.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I like to say it takes a community to write a book.
I spent many hours at the Provincial Archives of Alberta poring over original documents from the Red Deer Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives, which was transformed into Michener Centre in 1977. I interviewed two former staff of the Centre in 2009 and 2010: Norma Martin about her experience as a special education teacher at the training school starting in 1963 and Anita Jenkins about her summer job there in the early sixties. All of these sources helped me imagine some of the scenes in the book.
Local military historian Maurice Doll helped steer me in the right direction in my World War I research. J. Frank Henderson. liturgist and good friend, dissected the litany form for me.
Several people helped me understand the western grain elevator, among them Hans Huizinga of the Alberta Grain Elevator Society, my uncle Alfred Schermann who used to work on the railroad and witnessed at least one demolition, and Jim A. Pearson, author of Vanishing Sentinels.
Civil servants from Alberta Agriculture and Forestry answered my many questions about historical and contemporary crop rotation techniques, while Matt Haisan, family friend and farmer, was generous in sharing
his love and lore of the farming life.
Any factual errors that remain are my own.
I am grateful to Banff Centre (both the Leighton Studios and the former Self-directed Residency Program) and the Sage Hill Writing Experience for quiet places to retreat and to write and to each of Lawrence Hill and Helen Humphrey for their unique editorial expertise and encouragement. I remain indebted to the book’s first readers who were cheering and incisive in equal measure: Anita Jenkins, Astrid Blodgett, Fran Kimmel, and Julie Robinson. I first discussed the idea for this book with Jacqueline Baker, whose enthusiasm was unequivocal. I thank the Edmonton Arts Council and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for funding the retreats and editorial consultations for this book.
It has been a pleasure to work with the team at NeWest Press in Edmonton: Matt Bowes for his enthusiasm and support for the book from the outset; Claire Kelly for her editing, marketing and organizational skills; and Douglas Barbour for his editorial guidance, par excellence.
Thank you.
PERMISSIONS
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Psalm 62/63 © The Grail (England) 1963. Used with permission.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
The Death of Annie the Water Witcher by Lightning Page 18
