Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  SEVEN

  Easter Sunday dawned gray, but there were hopes the rain would hold off until after the Easter egg hunt. All through the church service parents ignored the minister and instead listened for drumming on the roof of St Thomas’s church.

  The church smelled of lily of the valley. Bunches of the tiny white bells and their vivid green leaves were placed in every pew. It was lovely.

  Until little Paulette Legault launched a bouquet at Timmy Benson. Then all hell broke loose. The minister, of course, ignored it.

  Kids ran up and down the short aisle, parents either trying to stop them or ignoring them. Either way the outcome was the same. The minister gave a little reading from the rite of exorcism. The congregation said Amen and everyone raced from the chapel.

  A lunch was organized by the Anglican Church Women, led by Gabri, in the basement and picnic tables with red check tablecloths had been set up around the green.

  ‘Happy hunting,’ the minister shouted and waved as his car mounted du Moulin, heading for the next chapel in his next parish. He was pretty certain his little service had saved no one. But then, no one had been lost either and that was good enough.

  Ruth stood on the top step of the church, balancing a plate of thick maple-cured ham sandwiches on Sarah’s bread still steaming from the boulangerie, home-made potato salad with eggs and mayo, and a huge slice of sugar pie. Myrna came up beside her wearing a plank on her head scattered with books and flowers and chocolate. Villagers wandered around the green or sat at picnic tables, women in massive exuberant Easter bonnets and men trying to pretend they weren’t.

  Myrna stood beside Ruth, her own plate sagging under an embarrassment of food, and together they watched the hunt. Children darted around the village, shrieking and screaming with delight as they discovered the wooden eggs. Little Rose Tremblay was knocked into the pond by one of her brothers and Timmy Benson stopped to help her out. While Madame Tremblay yelled at her son Paulette Legault whacked Timmy. A sure sign of love, thought Myrna, grateful she wasn’t ten any more.

  ‘Wanna sit together?’ Myrna asked.

  ‘No I don’t “wanna”,’ Ruth said. ‘Have to get home.’

  ‘How’re the chicks?’ Myrna took no offense from Ruth; to do that would be to live in permanent offense.

  ‘They’re not chicks, they’re ducks. Ducklings, I suppose.’

  ‘Where do we get the real eggs?’ Rose Tremblay stood in front of Ruth like CindyLou Who before the Grinch, holding three exquisite wooden eggs in her pudgy pink palms. For some reason the children of Three Pines always went straight to Ruth, like lemmings.

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘You’re the egg lady,’ said Rose, wearing a soggy blanket. She looked a little, Myrna thought, like one of Ruth’s precious duck eggs wrapped in her own flannel.

  ‘Well, my eggs are at home getting warm, where you should be. But if you insist on this foolishness, go ask her for the chocolate ones.’ Ruth waved her cane like a crooked wand at Clara, who was trying to make her way to a picnic table.

  ‘But Clara has nothing to do with giving the kids their chocolate eggs,’ said Myrna as little Rose took off, calling the other kids until it looked like a tornado descending on Clara.

  ‘I know,’ Ruth sneered and limped down the stairs. At the bottom she turned and looked up at the massive black woman popping a sandwich into her mouth. ‘Are you going tonight?’

  ‘To Clara and Peter’s for dinner, you mean? We all are, aren’t we?’

  ‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’ The old poet didn’t turn to look at the Hadley house, but Myrna knew what she meant. ‘Don’t do it.’

  ‘Why not? I do rituals all the time. Remember after Jane died? All the women came, including you, and we did a ritual cleansing.’

  Myrna would never forget walking round the village green with the women and the stick of smoking sage, wafting the smoke around Three Pines, to rid it of the fear and suspicions that had overtaken them.

  ‘This is different, Myrna Landers.’

  Myrna didn’t realize Ruth knew her last name, or even her first. For the most part Ruth just waved and commanded.

  ‘This isn’t a ritual. This is deliberately disturbing evil. This isn’t about God or the Goddess or spirits or spirituality. It’s about vengeance.

  ‘I was hanged for living alone,

  for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,

  tattered skirts, few buttons,

  a weedy farm in my own name,

  and a surefire cure for warts;

  ‘Oh, yes, and breasts,

  and a sweet pear hidden in my body.

  Whenever there’s talk of demons

  these come in handy.

  ‘Don’t do it, Myrna Landers. You know the difference between ritual and revenge. And so does whatever’s in that house.’

  ‘You think this is about revenge?’ asked Myrna, dumbfounded.

  ‘Of course it is. Let it be. Let whatever’s in that house be.’

  She jabbed her cane at it. Had it been a wand Myrna was certain a bolt would have shot from it and destroyed the brooding house on the hill. Then Ruth turned and limped home. To her eggs. To her life. And Myrna was left with the memory of Ruth’s keen blue eyes, her permanently sunburned skin, her tattered skirt with its missing buttons. She watched the old woman walk back to her home with its abundance of words and weeds.

  The rain held off and Easter Sunday moved along quick like a bunny. Timmy Benson found the most eggs and was awarded the giant chocolate rabbit, filled with toys. Paulette Legault stole it from him but Monsieur Béliveau made her give it back and apologize. Timmy, who could see into the future, opened the box, broke off the solid chocolate ears and gave the rest to Paulette, who punched him.

  That night Peter and Clara held their annual Easter Sunday dinner. Gilles and Odile arrived with baguettes and cheese. Myrna brought a flamboyant bouquet which she placed in the center of the pine table in the kitchen. Jeanne Chauvet, the psychic, brought a small bouquet of wild flowers, picked in the meadows around Three Pines.

  Sophie Smyth was there with her mother Hazel and Madeleine. She’d arrived home the day before, her small blue car filled with laundry. Now she chatted with the other guests while Hazel and Madeleine offered around their platter of shrimp.

  ‘So you’re the psychic.’ Sophie took a few shrimp from her mother and dipped them in sauce.

  ‘My name’s Jeanne.’

  ‘Like Jeanne D’Arc.’ Sophie laughed. ‘Joan of Arc.’ It wasn’t an altogether pleasant sound. ‘Better watch it. You know what happened to her.’

  Tall and slender, Sophie carried herself well, though with a slight slouch. Her hair was dirty blonde and shoulder length. She was, in fact, quite attractive. Still, there was something about Sophie. Something that made Jeanne back away slightly.

  Monsieur Béliveau arrived just then with blueberry tarts from Sarah’s Boulangerie.

  Candles were lit around the country kitchen and bottles of wine were opened.

  The house smelled of lamb roasting in garlic and rosemary, of new potatoes, and creamed leeks and something else.

  ‘For God’s sake, canned peas?’ Clara looked in the pot Gabri and Olivier had brought.

  ‘We took them out of the can,’ said Olivier. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘Look at them. They’re disgusting.’

  ‘I would take that as a personal insult, if I were you,’ Gabri said to Monsieur Béliveau, who’d wandered over carrying a glass of wine and a piece of creamy Brie on a baguette. ‘We got them at his shop.’

  ‘Madame,’ the grocer said somberly. ‘Those are the finest canned peas money can buy. Le Sieur. In fact, I believe that is how they grow, right in the can. It is only the military-industrial complex that has developed the ridiculous hybrid. Peas in a pod. As though anyone would believe that. Disgusting.’ Monsieur Béliveau said this with such sincerity Clara would almost have believed him, if it hadn’t been for the sparkl
e in his eye.

  Soon their plates were piled high with roasted lamb, mint sauce, and vegetables. Fresh-baked rolls steamed in baskets scattered down the table, along with butter and cheeses. The table groaned under the happy weight, as did the guests. Myrna’s massive bouquet sat in the center of the table, its arms of budding branches reaching for the ceiling. Apple boughs, pussy willows, forsythia with the gentlest of yellow blooms just showing, peony tulips of vibrant pink, were planted in the earth.

  ‘And,’ said Myrna, waving her napkin like a magician, ‘voilà.’ She reached into the bouquet and produced a chocolate egg. ‘Enough for all of us.’

  ‘Rebirth,’ said Clara.

  ‘But there needs to be a death first,’ said Sophie, looking around with feigned innocence. ‘Doesn’t there?’

  She sat between Madeleine and Monsieur Béliveau, taking the chair just as the grocer had reached for it. Sophie picked up the chocolate egg then placed it in front of her.

  ‘Birth, death, rebirth,’ she said wisely, as though she’d brought them a new thought, all the way from Queens University.

  There was something mesmerizing about Sophie Smyth, thought Clara. Always had been. Sophie would come home from university sometimes blonde, sometimes a brilliant redhead, sometimes plump, sometimes slim, sometimes pierced, sometimes without ornamentation. You never knew what you’d find. But one thing seemed constant, thought Clara, watching the girl with the egg in front of her. She always got what she wanted. But what does she want? Clara wondered, and knew it was probably more than an Easter egg.

  An hour later Peter, Ruth and Olivier watched their friends and lovers plod into the night, invisible except for their flashlights, each person a bobbing torch. At first they clumped together but as Peter watched the little orbs of light separated, became strung out, each person alone, trudging toward the dark house on the hill that seemed to be waiting for them.

  Don’t be such a wuss, he told himself. It’s just a stupid house. What could possibly happen?

  But Peter Morrow knew famous last words when he heard them.

  Clara hadn’t felt like this since she was a kid and would deliberately scare herself stupid by watching The Exorcist or going on the gargantuan roller coaster at La Ronde, slobbering and shrieking and once even wetting herself.

  It was exhilarating and terrifying and mystifying at the same time. As the house got closer Clara had the oddest feeling it was approaching them rather than the other way round. She couldn’t quite remember why they were doing this.

  She heard shuffling behind her and voices. Fortunately she remembered Madeleine and Odile were back there, the stragglers. Clara was also happy to remember in horror films it was always the stragglers who got it first. But, if they got it, she’d be the last. She speeded up. Then slowed down, battling between wanting to survive and wanting to hear what the two women were saying to each other. After what she’d overheard while hiding Easter eggs she’d assumed Odile didn’t like Mad. So what could they be talking about?

  ‘But it’s not fair,’ Odile was saying. Madeleine said something though Clara couldn’t make it out and if she slowed down more she’d have Madeleine’s flashlight where light doesn’t normally shine.

  ‘It’s taken a lot of courage for me to do this.’ Odile was speaking more loudly now.

  ‘For God’s sake, Odile, don’t be ridiculous,’ said Madeleine, clearly and not very kindly. It was a side to Madeleine Clara had never heard before.

  Clara was paying so much attention trying to eavesdrop she bumped right into a dark figure in front of her. Gilles. Then she looked up.

  They were there.

  EIGHT

  They huddled together in the cold and dark. Their flashlights bounced wildly over the decrepit house. The ‘For Sale’ sign had fallen over and lay like a tombstone, nose into the soft earth. As Clara swung her torch around more decay became apparent. The house was abandoned, she knew, but she didn’t think houses fell to ruin quite this fast. A few shutters were hanging loose and knocking gently against the brick. Some of the windows were broken, their glass jagged like sharpened teeth. Clara spotted something white curled up by the foundation of the house and her heart skipped a beat. Something dead, and skinned.

  Reluctantly she moved down the front walk, its paving stones heaved and uneven. As she got closer she stopped and looked behind her. The rest were clustered at the roadside still.

  ‘Come here,’ she hissed.

  ‘You talking to us?’ Myrna asked, frozen. She too was staring at the patch of white curled against the base of the house.

  ‘No one here but us chickens,’ said Gabri.

  ‘What is that?’ Myrna inched down the path until she was standing next to her friend. She pointed and noticed her finger was twitching. Was her body sending out a signal? A Morse code? If so, Myrna knew what it was saying. Run.

  Clara turned back to the house, took a deep breath, blessed her food, and walked off the path. The earth was squishy underfoot and seemed to hiss at her every step. Myrna couldn’t believe what Clara was doing and wanted to run forward and grab her friend back, and hold her and hug her and tell her never to do that again. Instead she just watched.

  Clara approached the house and bent down. Then straightening up she walked more swiftly back to the relative safety of the walk and Myrna.

  ‘You won’t believe it, but it’s snow.’

  ‘It can’t be. All the snow’s long gone.’

  ‘Not from here.’ Clara dug into her pocket and withdrew a huge old-fashioned key, long and thick and heavy.

  ‘And all this time I thought you were just glad to see me,’ said Myrna.

  ‘Har-dee-har,’ Clara smiled. It felt good and she blessed Myrna for bringing her humor down this dark path with her. ‘The real estate agent was all too happy to let me have it. I doubt she’s shown the house in months.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Madeleine asked. Since Clara and Myrna were still alive the others had decided to join them.

  ‘That we were going to summon all the demons and exorcise the house.’

  ‘And she gave you the key?’

  ‘Practically threw it at me.’

  Clara put the key into the lock, but the door swung open. She let go and watched as the key and the doorknob disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Why are we doing this again?’ Monsieur Béliveau whispered.

  ‘For fun,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Not all of us,’ said Jeanne and stepping around them the tiny, gray woman walked straight into the house.

  One by one they entered the old Hadley house. It was colder inside than out and smelled of mold. The electricity had long since been turned off and now the circles of torchlight played on the peeling floral wallpaper, stained with damp which they all hoped was water. Emboldened by the light, as though what they held were swords, they moved deeper into the house. The floors creaked under their weight and a flutter could be heard in the distance.

  ‘A bird, poor thing,’ said Gabri. ‘Trapped somewhere.’

  ‘We need to find it,’ said Madeleine.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Odile whispered.

  ‘She’s right,’ said Jeanne. ‘If nothing else, it’s a trapped soul. We can’t ignore it.’

  ‘But suppose it isn’t a bird,’ Gabri whispered to Hazel, who still couldn’t believe she was there.

  Now they stuck together like a giant crawling insect. Multi-ped and multi-feared they moved through the dank house, pausing now and then to get their bearings.

  ‘It’s upstairs,’ said Jeanne in a low voice.

  ‘It would be,’ said Gilles. ‘They’re never right by the door. Never in rose gardens in the summer or living in the ice cream man’s truck.’

  ‘This is like a game I used to play with Peter,’ said Clara to Myrna, who really didn’t care. She was trying to figure out whether, yet again, she’d be the slowest one out of there. Maybe Hazel would be slower, Myrna thought, brightening, and the demons would get her. But she’d
probably put on a burst of speed if only to save her daughter. Myrna, as a psychologist, knew that mothers found amazing resources when it came to their kids.

  Fucking maternal instinct, thought Myrna, screws up my life again. She stepped onto the stairs, the carpet runner worn and moth-eaten, and as she mounted one agonizing step at a time she heard the furious beating of the wings growing louder.

  ‘Whenever we watch scary movies and people walk into a haunted house –’ Clara was still talking. Good, thought Myrna. The demons will zero in on her. ‘– we’d play “When would you leave?” Disembodied heads floating around, screams of pain, friends disemboweled, and still they stay.’

  ‘Are you finished?’

  ‘I am actually.’ Clara had managed to scare herself even more and wondered, if this was a movie, would Peter be screaming at the screen for her to leave.

  ‘In there.’

  ‘It would be,’ muttered Gilles.

  Jeanne was standing in front of a closed door. The only one closed on the whole floor. Now there was silence.

  Suddenly there was a mad flapping of wings against the door as though the thing had flung itself against it.

  Jeanne reached out but Monsieur Béliveau laid his long, slender hand on her wrist, taking her hand off the knob. Then he stepped in front of her and put his own hand on the knob.

  And opened the door.

  They could see nothing. Stare as they might their eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness. But something in there found them. Not the bird, which was silent for the moment. But something else. The room produced waves of chill and riding on them was the slightest hint of perfume.

  The room smelled of flowers. Fresh, spring flowers.

  At the door Clara was overtaken by melancholy, a sadness that seeped from deep down into the very earth of her. She felt the sorrow of the room. The longing of the room.

  Clara gasped for breath and realized she’d been holding it.

  ‘Come on,’ Jeanne whispered, her voice seeming in Clara’s head, ‘let’s do what we came for.’