Sword and Song

by Kate Story

  “She was about to murder her third husband!” Shakira bounces up and down.

  “They were in bed, and her slave Siobhan was hiding behind the curtain with a knife!”

  Christ, had she gone that far in the last storytelling session? Ophelia bites her lip. Time to kill off this White Witch; it’s all getting too gothic. And besides, this is one story she doesn’t want dovetailing with Antilia. Not after Pim’s ominous words.

  “Okay. It’s Christmas Eve. Siobhan the slave is hiding behind the curtains, listening to the White Witch and her poor third husband. The curtains are red like blood, and there’s a full moon. Siobhan can hear the owl hooting outside. Hoot . . . hoot . . . hoot.”

  The twins hoot with her.

  “Yes! That’s the signal. It’s not an owl at all, it’s Siobhan’s twin sister, Shakira. She’s outside in the garden.”

  “Is she alone?”

  “No. She’s been working in secret for weeks, gathering all the other slaves. Siobhan looks out the window into the huge formal gardens, and sees the slaves there, hundreds of them, like shadows.”

  Like shadows? Like spirits of the dead? This thought comes unbidden. The phalanx of slaves lurks amidst the maze of hedges and flowers, perfume intoxicating, so strong it hurts behind the eyes. Flowers that she’s never seen but might bloom in Jamaica, flowers with names like poems, like songs: night blooming cereus, oleander, frangipani. In Doctor Bay. No, that’s Antilia. Montego, she means, Montego Bay.

  “The White Witch is wearing her best dress because it’s Christmas. A black dress, all edged in rubies like drops of blood. They glitter in the candlelight. She has diamonds around her neck, dripping like ice, and diamonds and rubies on every finger. She’s tiny, but strong, far stronger than her husband.” Poor third husband; he doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t matter; the twins are enthralled.

  “Does she kill him?”

  Her power comes from her singing. “Not yet. She’s singing to him.”

  For some reason that old hippy song about the white rabbit comes into Ophelia’s head. Grace Slick, that’s the singer’s name. Big vibrato voice. Ophelia sings.

  She almost wants to laugh; there’s no way the White Witch of Rose Hall could know this song, except she’s from New York and was a teenager in the seventies, which explains it.

  New York? Where the hell did that come from?

  It has the feeling, though, of truth.

  The stories do that. Ophelia struggles with them, wanting them to make sense. It’s just that sometimes there’s this glimpse of something, like rock thrusting up through ground, through leaves and grass and you realize, that’s the truth, that’s the foundation, the spine of the thing.

  Making sense is the least of the story’s worries. It’s this—the undeniable hard truth of the thing—that needs to be expressed.

  So, okay, the White Witch of Rose Hall sings about the white rabbit to her husband.

  “And as she sings, the man’s breath comes slower, and slower. And he gazes up at her with such love, and he can’t move. Her hands begin to stroke his neck. Over and over, around and around. She tightens her grip just a little, once. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t move. Her nails scratch down his throat. He gasps, but he doesn’t move. She wraps her tiny hands around his neck, tiny hands strong as claws, as steel. He doesn’t move.”

  “Siobhan has to stop her!” gasps Siobhan.

  “Yes! She turns to her sister in the garden, and tilts the blade of the big knife she stole from the kitchen so that the light of the full moon flashes three times. One . . . two . . . three. And then she . . . What do you think she does?”

  “Bursts through the curtains!”

  “And Shakira and the other slaves start yelling and storm Rose Hall!” Shakira adds.

  “The Witch’s neck drips with diamonds and her hands drip with blood. It’s too late for Husband Number Three. But Shakira and Siobhan and the other slaves are going to make good and sure she never murders again.”

  This is some story her father told her. Ophelia has no idea if it’s true or not. Some white woman lived in Rose Hall and killed a bunch of husbands, took slaves to her bed and murdered those, too, and finally a slave uprising put an end to her. That crazy punk guy Henry Rollins owns the Rose Hall mansion in Montego Bay now and there are ghost tours through it.

  “The White Witch uses obeah. She chooses to use it for evil. She learned on the island where she grew up. She’s murdered three husbands and hundreds of slaves, and they’re not going to stand for it any longer. Siobhan slices through the blood red curtains with her knife, and she grabs the Witch and says, you are coming with me.”

  “And then all the other slaves come running into the bedroom!”

  “They all come running into the bedroom. And then the curtains go up in flames! The Witch is using her powers. The curtains, the bed, everything begins to burn. The formal gardens ignite, hedges like lines of power, of flame.”

  Yes, there’s something to that; Ophelia’s never seen this before but it’s right. The Witch uses singing somehow to make magic. It’s the singing that shapes energy. Singing is her power.

  Ophelia can see it clearly: formal hedges in flame, patterns of power burning in the night.

  “The slaves begin to panic, but not Siobhan and Shakira. ‘Come with me!’ they shout, and the other slaves get their heads together. Siobhan bravely cuts the burning curtains down with her knife and the slaves escape through the window, run through the burning gardens, down to the peaceful sea.”

  The full moon shines on the ocean. The house burns up behind.

  Seals play in the surf. . . .

  “What happens to the Witch?”

  Ophelia realizes she’s been sitting in silence for too long. She shakes off the image of the seals, the sick feeling in her stomach and mouth, a faint happy taste of fish.

  “Her house burns. And she . . .” Ophelia leans in. “She burns with it. And some people say you can still see her. The White Witch of Rose Hall. Walking through the gardens, her hands dripping with blood. They say she’ll never leave the estate.”

  The twins are disturbed about the Witch having been killed off. Ophelia wants her gone—she never liked the woman. But somehow she knows that the Witch isn’t dead. She’s still there. She’s . . . stuck, somehow. Ophelia knows it with the same certainty as the New York thing which jumped into her mind, or the white rabbit song, or the feeling that the hobby horse is going to get her.

  Christmas in Harbour Grace. A place as mysterious as Montego Bay; why had her mother brought her there? Meeting the family, you have to meet the family. It was Christmas, and the White Witch had been there. Tiny woman, barely as tall as Ophelia as a child. (Her father had said the Witch was small.) White, white face. (Her name was the White Witch of Rose Hall.) Never left the house. (She’ll never leave the Estate.)

  She’d told Pim about it, lying awake in the unfamiliar quiet of a Harbour Grace night, scared out of her mind. “Be careful,” Pim had said. “Keep your hairbrush hidden. People like her can do things with hair.”

  That hadn’t been very comforting.

  But really, the small woman in Harbour Grace had simply been her own grandmother. Grandma Quinn sat in a chair, yelling and ordering people around, smoke spouting out of her mouth like she was a small dragon.

  “Please, she’s not really dead, right?”

  “Fire can’t kill her, right?”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be back.”

  The twins are ecstatic, Darryl is asleep, and Ophelia is done.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Guided through a storm by a ghost

  That night Ophelia gets a text.

  Rowan.

  Does she want to meet him for coffee after school?

  She thinks her heart will burst.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  Just as she sends her reply, the land line rings. Her mother’s on the phone for a long time. She stands in the kitchen with her butt propped up on a corner of t
he counter, body curled away from Ophelia. She curves around the phone like a shell. Her voice raises and Ophelia wonders if she’s about to cry.

  A cold thread of fear winds through Ophelia’s heart; she doesn’t know why. She leaves the room, goes up to the bedroom and tries to finish her homework there, but the twins drive her crazy bugging her for another story. She flees, back down to the living room.

  Her mother’s sitting in her easy chair, and when she lifts her face Ophelia’s startled to see she has been crying.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That was your grandmother.”

  Ophelia sits. She shouldn’t have told that story, it brought something bad. “Everything okay?”

  Her mother stirs in her chair. There’s a bowl of chips balanced on the arm and she puts a handful in her mouth. Her eyes are dull. She finishes chewing and reaches for more. “Ophelia, you remember that trip home for Christmas after the twins were born? When you were ten or eleven, I guess . . .”

  “I was nine.” Her mother still calls Harbour Grace home.

  “It’s funny, you know.” Her mother is using that confiding tone again, that friend tone; it makes Ophelia want to back away screaming. “I always thought I’d raise you kids to know about where you come from. But you’ve only gone back that one time.” More chips. “You don’t know anything about where you come from.”

  “My home is here.” Something burns deep in Ophelia’s body. “I’m from here.”

  “Remember when I showed you that place where Amelia Earhart took off?” Her mother wants to reminisce; her mother is sad. “And remember that hockey game?” It had ended with a player being carried from the ice, bright red smearing the white, and the crowd yelling, chanting like they were part of a blood cult. “And how the pirate Peter Easton lived there? Back in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, I remember.” While Shakespeare had been writing plays in England, this pirate Easton ranged from Newfoundland to the Caribbean, robbing Spanish ships. He was in both places, too, maybe. Him and the White Witch. Harbour Grace and Montego Bay, and . . . no, not Antilia. She won’t think of it.

  “And the Kyle, remember?”

  Ophelia shudders. The Kyle was some ship they kept, still, in harbour. In the olden days it had been guided through a storm by a ghost. You were allowed to go on board and look around, but Ophelia had started crying (although she was too old to cry) and wouldn’t be dragged up there by any means. She’s sensitive, she remembers her mother saying to one of the aunties. She’s got some imagination, and the auntie clucked like a hen. Ophelia had sensed that the aunt felt sorry for her, and her mother was embarrassed. Having an imagination meant there was something wrong with you.

  “It wasn’t so bad, was it?” Her mother’s dragged the chip bowl into her lap and is steadily emptying it into herself. “They all loved you. Didn’t you feel at home there?”

  “Grandma Quinn didn’t love me.”

  Her mother stops eating, darts one scared glance at her. But then shakes her head, covering the one glimpse of fright. “That’s it, you see. You don’t have the sense of who you are.”

  Like I could go live in Harbour Grace, Ophelia thinks. She doesn’t belong there any more than she might belong in Montego Bay. . . . But then she wonders. Maybe Jamaica would feel like home.

  Will she ever get there? She remembers the house of her Harbour Grace grandmother—the army of loud, loving aunties, and the horrible janneys—and remembers being stared at. But also being loved. The kisses, the candies, the mountains of presents that still come every year. You’re family, one auntie had said before they left. You’re always welcome here. Take care of your mother now. Ophelia remembers wondering how she could take care of her mother. She was only a kid.

  But over in the corner, her tiny grandmother had sat in her chair and smoked. Hardly looked at Ophelia or the twins; she was angry, she hated them.

  No, maybe she was angry at Ophelia’s mother. Her mother had left home. Worse, she’d stayed away. Had strange kids with strange men.

  Suddenly the cold feeling that’s been coiling in Ophelia’s stomach rises up, wraps around her throat. “Mom, you aren’t thinking of taking us back there now, are you?”

  Her mother raises those sad eyes. “Would that be so bad?”

  “To live?”

  “Something needs to change, Ophelia. I need a change.”

  “You aren’t serious.” No, no, please no.

  “I can’t stay here forever.”

  This is horrible. “Why not?”

  “Hush, you’ll wake the baby.”

  There is no way her mother’s dragging her to some small town in Newfoundland. She’s meeting Rowan tomorrow afternoon. She can’t take off to Harbour Grace.

  The chip bowl’s empty; her mother shakes it regretfully. “It’s just that my mother’s not getting any younger. She needs someone to take care of her, and—”

  “Why can’t one of the aunties look after her?”

  “Look.” The steel is back in her mother’s voice. “I came here for myself. Long ago—you wouldn’t understand. But I did it, I got away. And here I’ve stayed. Why?” Mary points her finger in Ophelia’s face. “For you. And that’s fine. But maybe it’s time to do something for myself.” To Ophelia’s horror her mother’s face crumples up, and she’s crying again. “With this war, it’s too dangerous to stay in this city! And my mother wants me home.”

  Ophelia feels like there are two animals inside of her, tearing her apart.

  “And I’m so tired, Ophelia. I’m so tired of being alone.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Swimming The Wrong Way

  That night Ophelia lies on her bed and burns. Thinking of Rowan, her mother, the war. It’s too much.

  She longs to take the thrilling slide in.

  She would have, even a few days ago. Not now, not anymore, now that she’s going insane.

  She remembers the look of terror on Pim’s face, crouched wet and sandy at the foot of this bed. Never seen that before: not Pim afraid, and definitely not Pim here, in this world.

  She feels the longing tugging at her, the thrilling through her body.

  No.

  She feels, then sees Pim. She’s alone in a wide, wide ocean. No sight of land. Swimming and swimming, but which way is land? Ophelia sees it all as if from far above, and as if through mist. She’s holding back with every ounce of strength; she will not go through.

  She can see a smudge on the horizon that is the island.

  Pim’s swimming the wrong way.

  Suddenly she stops, looks up. Sees Ophelia, somehow.

  You’re going the wrong way. But it’s like talking with a mouth full of molasses. She’ll have to go in all the way to truly speak.

  No. She can’t go in, not again. She might never come back.

  And besides, Pim’s not real.

  Why do I feel so guilty and scared, then?

  Ophelia gives herself a stern talking to.

  Someone like you, who—what is it Candace always says?—“you’re so serious, you feel guilty about everything. . . .” Well, someone like that is probably going to find it correspondingly difficult to finally cut loose from her childish fantasy world. From her imaginary friend. Someone who feels guilty about everything is going to torture herself with scenarios like this one. She won’t be able to just grow out of it, saying, “it was nice, so long.” She’s going to imagine her friend lost and alone and drowning and needing her.

  So it’s going to be tough, but unless you want to lose your ever-loving mind entirely . . .

  Pim’s not real. None of this is real.

  It’s. Not. Real.

  Ophelia’s eyes fly open. She’s in Toronto on her bed. And everything is wrong.

  She hangs on to the thought that she’ll see Rowan tomorrow like it will keep her from drowning.

  Chapter Twenty

  A Part Of Him That Believed

  Rowan wakes with a gasp.

&nb
sp; He’d been dreaming of Antilia, and he hadn’t been able to breathe. He and Ophelia were on a pale, sandy beach, a place he’s never been. She was burying him in sand. Maybe some got up his nose—is that why it’s blocked?

  Then he remembers.

  The slide in. The boat. The storm.

  He’s always been told he has an intense imagination. In school, as a kid, he’d gotten in trouble for getting lost there so often. At one point a teacher had tried to bully his parents into putting him on ADHD medication because of his tendency to go off into what she called “la-la land.” The teacher hadn’t reckoned on his mother; she didn’t believe in ADHD, she said. Rowan needed to experience just how annoying his inability to concentrate was for adults and his peers, and then he would develop self-control and maturity, his mother said. Behavioural medication was a North American fetish and she’d have no part of it, she said. So no meds for Rowan, and a year of a teacher hating him because his mother had humiliated her on parent-teacher night.

  He wonders if he’d have still been able to go to Antilia on meds.

  He wonders if he’d have had that wonderful, terrifying boat ride.

  Joy swells inside his chest. It feels real—maybe it is real.

  And today, he’s going to see that girl again.

  When he washes his face he confirms that the dark, bruised crescents under each of his eyes, and his red swollen nose, are still there. Beautiful, really beautiful. He’s going to look a treat when he meets Ophelia.

  He can’t believe he actually played music for her. Can’t remember the last time he did that. . . . He always hates the sound of his own voice, and the lack of confidence that comes through in his singing, and his playing falls so short of what it’s supposed to be. But he felt like she wouldn’t judge him. More than that, something in him wanted her to hear that song. Wanted it enough that insecurities and hopelessly high standards didn’t stop him.