Summer unrolled the cuff of her sweater down over her mittens, silently wished it was a pleasant August evening. She had intended to visit Bended Knee late-summer, but time had gotten away from her. What with Gemma beginning middle school, Tim finishing his doctorate in physics, and her own mythology courses at the university, there just hadn’t been a free weekend. First chance came in November, and now it was far too cold to be wandering about in the nighttime, discussing spirits. But her mother Elise had insisted. Jamie Barrett was her step-grandson, and the ghost walk was his latest venture to make a dollar from the tourists who passed through the small community. “He’s a right sweet young man,” Elise had said. “But business hasn’t been that good to him. And the poor feller spent an awful amount of time quizzing the old crowd about way back when.”
“I don’t know,” Summer had replied. “You know how sensitive Gemma is to that sort of thing. She’s always been a little, you know, in tune.”
Elise, resolute then. “Well, she’s almost thirteen. Time to get over that old garbage, if you asks me. Besides, I already paid him and you’re going.”
They wandered northwards, until rock met road, Jamie leading the way. Winds tugged at his cape, and more than once his top hat lifted from his head, scuttled along the ground. The girls, in their matching cropped sweaters, bleached blue jeans, high-top sneakers, grabbed each other and guffawed each time Jamie chased his hat, popped it back on over his woolen toque, banged the top.
First stop was in front of a one and a half-storey salt-box home, five neat windows on the front, dark painted door neatly in the centre. Lights were on in the upper two outside rooms, blinds half tugged down, giving the home a sedated appearance.
Jamie shifted his feet, poked his hands into pockets of his jacket, pants, finally found a small spiral notepad, flipped it open, flashed a penlight for just a second.
Johnny O’Reilly.
Cards. Devil.
Cleared his throat. “Here, in this house, lives the spirit of a murdered man. One of only two men murdered in Bended Knee. The tale goes that they were playing cards on a winter’s night, and the gentlemen’s lantern kept going out. Not a window was open, and his wick and his oil was good. He blamed the devil, said he could feel the evil near him, tempting him. ‘Leave me, Devil,’ he called out, but his fellow card players thought he was up to no good. Cheating, they figured, when the lights was out, he was winning every hand. Scraping all their bits of money towards him. Beat him right bad, they did, and the poor feller died of his injuries. And now, folks say that whenever the current residents of the house is playing a game of cards, the man comes back, trying to blow out their lantern.”
“That don’t make no sense.” One of the girls. “How’d he see to cheat if there weren’t no light?”
“Don’t people got electric lights now?” the other girl said. “Who uses a lantern?”
He looked nervously at Summer and Gemma, then smirked awkwardly, raised his eyebrows, deep voice. “Well, he probably tries to turn the lights out. Regular lights. Dims them anyways.”
Someone hollered at them from the front door of the house, open now like an alarmed mouth. “That you, Jamie?” A stout woman, arms knotted across her chest. “Telling old garbage again?”
“God, Aunt Myrtle,” he hollered back. “Can you leave me be? I’s just trying to earn a buck.”
“Not in front of my house, you don’t. Get on with you ’fore I calls your mother. And don’t you people listen to him. He don’t even get the houses right. Got no idea who lived where. Who done what.” Muttering, words carted out courtesy of the wind. “Fool and his money is soon parted.”
He ushered the small group several steps forward. “Sensitive types,” he said in a hush. “Not wanting to admit they got spirits gliding through their walls.”
“I suppose so,” Summer offered.
They continued along the shoulder of the road, shoes and sneakers crunching over pebbles, slipping occasionally on patches of rotting leaves. They passed a row of painted houses, angled this way and that. From one of them, the faint sound of tinny country music emerged, weaving through the air. In the ditches, Summer could see the remains of old pumpkins, smashed, empty candy wrappers stuck in the mud. The sweet smell of compost turning into soil hovered just above the ground. She squeezed her daughter’s hand. “You okay, Gemma?”
“I’m fine, Mom. Really. It’s just made up stuff.”
Jamie stopped again. Another flick of the light to illuminate his scribbling. Blue pen.
Effie Hussey.
Babies.
Rattling.
“And here, folks, you’ve got another kind of haunting. Rumour has it, there’s no haunting more persistent or sad than that of a dead baby.”
“Oh my,” Summer whispered, automatically putting her hand to her stomach. She’d had so many miscarriages before Gemma arrived, and she found it unsettling even to think about it.
“This woman had thirteen children throughout her lifetime.”
“Shit,” one of the girls said. “Guess they didn’t have no rubbers back then.”
“They did, then,” the second girl announced. “They used sheep guts. In-tes-tins.”
“You’s joking.”
“I idn’t, then.”
Summer bit her bottom lip, glanced at Gemma.
“Did they tie the end in a knot? How’d they keep?”
“I got no idea, stupid! Sold ’em rolled and dried at the grocery store.”
“Hold on, honey. Don’t budge an inch. I got to soak my casing. Soften it up.”
Jamie scowled. “Come off it.” He nodded his head towards Summer and Gemma. “I got some real customers here, and they idn’t interested in your take on prehistoric birth control.”
He coughed. “So, she had these thirteen babies, and more than half of them died. Sickness. Measles. A couple born still. Her house is boarded up now, but on the nights of their birthdays, you can hear them crying up there. Howling like they was just arrived. Sounds like kittens, they says. Cuts right through your heart, it do.” Speaking slowly now. “And sometimes you hears a rattling. Someone shaking a baby rattle. Over and over and over again.”
“Ah, you’re just making this stuff up now, Jamie.”
“Embellishing the bejesus out of it.”
“Every time we comes on this walk with you, the stories gets longer.”
Ignoring them now, he continued, used his flashlight beneath his cloak to see the list of ghosts.
Leander Edgecombe.
Furniture.
Front Stoop.
“And straight across the street is our next haunting. Notice the shadows moving. This may just look like any regular old home, but there is a dead man who resides here, and he don’t like visitors. A long time ago, he spent his time keeping watch over the woman he loved. He’s been there for years and years, even though that woman is long gone. Buried.”
“What was her name?” Summer interjected.
“Can’t tell you that, ma’am,” he said with a wink. “Wouldn’t be right. Folks round here wouldn’t give me their blessing if they knowed I was handing out personal information.”
“Oh,” she responded. “All right, then.”
“What a load of bullshit he gets on with.”
“Should cart him off to St. John’s to join the politics.”
“Can you watch your mouth, please?”
The girl rolled her eyes, opened her mouth to crack her gum. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
“House of a furniture maker. Pieces he made likely in most old homes around here. By and by, as the village got more populated, he started building coffins for a few extra dollars. They says he cut himself one day, bled awful bad into one of the boxes, and then when it was used to bury a feller, someone from the other side was made aware of him. Took him in jig time. And he left behind his young wife, their whole brood.”
“So, he idn’t a ghost then. He just took off?”
“No, I
weren’t finished yet. He was a furniture maker.”
“You already said that, Jamie. You gone senile already?”
“And to let everyone know he made furniture, he’d nailed a chair to the roof over his back stoop.”
“A chair on the roof?” One pointed. “Dumbest thing I ever heard.”
“They used to do that.” Summer spoke politely. “As a matter of pride.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, right. Whatever do that got to do with pride?”
“That’s right,” Jamie said.
“Are you sure a furniture maker lived there?” She could see no stoop, no proper place to nail a chair. Besides, she recalled hearing that her great-grandfather had made furniture, but he had lived several houses up the lane, much farther back from the road. Maybe there were two who did the same work.
“Ah, yes,” he said, nodding. “According to my sources.” He coughed, voice less authoritative. “Umm, after he died, folks would always see a phantom shadow of him, perched in that chair, elbows on his knees, watching whoever come to the house. And if it were someone he didn’t like, their knock made no sound. Couldn’t be heard, no matter how hard they struck the door. Weren’t let in. And he’d be leaning over, jeering at them.”
“Speaking of leaning over, how was your time with Derrick last night?”
“Wicked. Real wicked. Though when we was, you know, he started poking his finger in my ear. Drove me nuts. What the hell was that?”
“The bugger was trying to ear-hump you.”
Jamie snapped his cloak together, struck the ground with the cane. “Christ Almighty, Nadine. If you hadn’t guessed, I’s trying to run a bloody business here. I asked youse to come along to make a bit more of a crowd. That’s it. But I don’t want you here no more. You hear me? No more.”
“Efff you, J.B.,” they said as they slunk away, arm in arm, free hands shoved upwards, middle fingers erect. “Looooser.”
“I’s real sorry,” he said, after they swaggered around a corner. “They was just trying to rile me up.”
“That’s all right,” Summer replied. “We’re still enjoying ourselves. Right, Gemma?”
“That sure looks haunted,” Gemma said, pointing to a drab tall flat-roofed house, windows boarded up. “Who lived there?”
“You got a good sense, miss,” Jamie said. “That place got a family of spirits residing together.”
Quick glance at his notepad.
Fuller Family.
Father, daughter, grandson.
Talk about the flour.
“Second murder in Bended Knee, though not much more than a shred of evidence on it. That was the old general store, used to sell everything from rubber boots to paint, nails, molasses. A woman lived there with her father, and rumour has it,” he lowered his voice considerably, “he used to. . .to. . .to interfere with her, shall we say. And this woman went on to have a son, though she never had a husband. No one knows the rights of it, but one day, the father was found stabbed, head jammed into a bag of flour. All kinds of flour sprinkled around him. Folks thought ’twas the devil done it, or else some robber. But the only thing stolen was cards and cards of buttons.”
“What happened to the woman and the boy?” Gemma.
“Years and years later, the son choked to death. And the woman died in her sleep.”
“And they’re ghosts now?”
“They says,” he continued, “that when they went to clean up the old woman’s room, they found a box filled with those stolen buttons. People say she was half cracked. And now, the ghost of her father wanders about trying to catch her, and the woman is trying to catch her son, and the son is trying to get out through the door. So there’s always a fight going on on the top floor of that old general store.”
“Fascinating,” Summer said, nodding. “God. We’re so rich in folklore, aren’t we? Greek mythology’s got nothing on Bended Knee.”
“There’s proof too.”
“Proof?”
“Yep. People who have gone into the store says they don’t see normal dust around. Everything, on both levels, is coated with a thin layer of flour.”
“Wow,” Gemma said. “Can we go in?”
“You’d want to?” Summer asked. “Are you sure? I’ll wait out here, if that’s the case.”
“Maybe not,” Gemma said, blinking. She zipped her coat all the way up to her neck, tied a knot in her scarf. “Maybe in the daylight.”
Next stop was the painted gate in front of the church. Ivy had nearly covered the front of the structure, and with all the leaves fallen, it appeared as though the earth had sent out dozens of criss-crossing fingers, claiming the church as its own.
Jamie consulted his notepad.
Delia Abbott.
Had fit.
“You guys religious?”
“Not particularly.”
“Best to ask,” he said, “before I tells you about the ghost in the church. Some don’t take kindly to the suggestion.”
“Go ahead.”
“Woman. Fairly young, but poor health. Had all kinds of doctors coming to see her, but she just continued to shrivel away. Some malevolent spirit took hold of her. I’m guessing she had some sort of illness, but you know how people were back in the day.
“Well, she hadn’t set foot inside the church for the longest time, and tongues started wagging. Until one day, she strolls in, for no reason whatsoever, and she gets to the middle of the church, falls over backwards. Starts to shake like fish on the wharf. Something’s trying to get out of her.”
“What was trying to get out of her?”
“Sounds like she just had a seizure, Gemma.”
“Likely. But that’s not what they believed all those years ago. Wasn’t strong enough to handle it, died right there as the devil tried to get free, haul himself out of the church. Folks says she sits in the pew now, right next to where she died. No one’ll take her spot. Reckons she needs all the praying she can get.”
“What a terrible way to think,” Summer said. “The poor woman was just ill.”
“Nevertheless, she sits there now. If anyone tries to take her spot, they comes away with a terrible chill. Skin right cold to the touch.”
“Well,” Summer said, “you might be right. I’m sure there’s plenty we know nothing about.”
“If we takes a cut through this property,” he said as they followed him behind a newer home, “we’ll arrive near the last ghost on our walk.”
“Do they mind?” Summer asked as they strolled across the frost-filled soil of someone’s backyard. Peering in the windows, sheer curtains open, she could see a family of three playing a board game at the kitchen table, the girl drinking from a magenta plastic cup.
“Nah. That’s my mom and dad there. And my sister. They don’t mind.”
They came to a long fence, two stretches of field on either side. On the lower half, belonging to a bed and breakfast, the expanse of lawn was well-kept, but on the higher side, everything had grown wild and snarled. As though the owner had long since given up.
“And now.” He lifted the arms of his cape again, peered at his notebook.
Williard May.
“On to our last ghost on tonight’s ghost walk. Our oldest and quietest ghost in Bended Knee. He lives right here, in this very spot. You got the May house to the one side and that modest home up there. The fence is new, of course, but he continues to loiter, our old ghost, torn between true love on that side up there and a moral obligation on the other.”
“Sounds romantic,” Summer said.
“His love for the local midwife festered for fifty years, they says. He pined for her every day, but could do nothing about it because he’d married the wrong woman. Married a woman who wouldn’t haul him off the stove.”
“Maybe tragic is a better word.”
“He lived a life without love, when the true desire of his heart was only a stone’s throw away. And when your heart don’t get what it wants, it gives out after a spell. An
d it did for this gentleman, right here on this very spot.”
“This very . . . spot?” Gemma’s voice caught.
“Yep. And people says you can see the gate opening and closing, not banging like ’twas wind or something, but gentle like. As he moves from one side to the other. Passing through, and turning back. Passing through and turning back. Lacking the courage to make a change. He’s still torn in two, I reckons, even in death. Likely tortured for all eternity.”
Summer bent down, one knee on the damp blades of grass, and she lifted some yellowed leaves near the flaking slats of the fence. “Look, Gemma,” she said, pointing to a tiny flower clinging to a stem. “A single bleeding heart.”
“Yep,” Jamie replied. “I idn’t surprised.”
“Well, thank you, Jamie. That was actually quite fun.” Summer pressed a ten-dollar bill into his hand. “Didn’t you think so, Gemma?”
Summer glanced at her daughter, saw her jaw agape, staring at the fence. Turning to see what had caught Gemma’s attention, she watched the gate slowly creak open, waver. Stopped, poised there, a gap just large enough for a heavyset man to slip through. At once, she was enveloped in a casing of icy air, as though she were reaching into an open deep-freeze. And then, Summer saw Gemma shudder visibly when, in a moment of absolute calm, the gate eased backwards, against the logical pull of gravity, and softly closed.
“Did you do that?” Summer exclaimed. “Is that some sort of trick to end this off? Come on. Tell the truth now, Mr. Barrett.”
“No, ma’am. ’Tis the old man. Out for his walk.”
“Well, that was something.” Summer shook her head, reached forward and shook the gate with her hand. Secure. “Quite a good ending. I’ll give you that.”
Jamie removed his top hat, tucked it underneath his bent arm, scratched near the edges of his woolen hat. “I didn’t do nothing. Honest.”
“Must’ve been a trick of the wind,” Summer replied, looking out towards the harbour. “I’ll tell Mom we really had a good time.”
The Seary Line Page 34
