She regretted that she didn't tell him where she was going. Her breath was short for a moment. Afraid that she might transmit more anxiety to the tiny life inside her, she sat again. She thought of his face. A touch of concern and loneliness had crossed his features as she drove away. She did not take pleasure in the secrecy. But this was her search. It had to be done alone.
She walked back to the car and began to edge carefully along the eroded driveway, heading uphill toward the road. She did not look back. It was no longer necessary. The house that lived in her nightmares was real but powerless.
Once she found the pieces and placed the puzzle at her feet, her past would no longer hold her in its clutch. Seeing the ruined house did not give her peace, but it would no longer haunt her in nightmares. It was defunct, reduced to rubble and this at least was rewarding.
Though she did not relish the task ahead of her, she had to seek the answers elsewhere. It was something she was good at when other people were involved. She must try to remain objective for herself. Perhaps this emotional visit to the ruin was necessary simply for the liberation of all that secret pent-up emotion.
As she headed toward the village, she was unaware of the figure standing behind a clump of trees on the hill, eyes locked onto her progress with intense hatred.
Chapter 2: Emily
The principal was in her office. She was kind of tall, but she had a nice face. Sydney liked the principal's light hair and soft blue eyes. She remembered one time when Mrs. Reneaux was away and Mrs. Taylor put on her Band-Aid. And another time, Mrs. Taylor gave her a little holder for her tooth, which bled and bled when it fell out. Lots of times, she came and sat in their classroom and just talked or worked with everyone, just like a real teacher. Mrs. Taylor wasn't like the principals that Daddy and Mummy told her about. They said you should never go to the principal's office. But sometimes kids came and saw Mrs. Taylor just because, like when they had good work to show or when they were hurt. But this time wasn't like any of the other times. She wasn't the one who was hurt. Maybe she shouldn't tell on Meghan's dad. Meghan didn't want her to.
It was very quiet in the hallway. No other kids were around. They were all working in their classrooms. Her teacher would start to wonder why she was taking so long. She felt like crying, because she was supposed to be in the bathroom, not here outside the principal's office. Her heart thudded with fright.
Suddenly Mrs. Taylor turned around. She saw her staring! But the principal's smile was so bright and nice, even though she had papers in her hand. She must be busy. Still she turned and said, "Hi, Sydney, what can I do for you?"
She sounded so kind and so friendly that Sydney felt like her heart would burst. She couldn't help the tears coming and she started to cry.
I put my arms around the little girl and took her into my office, where I sat her in the big comfortable chair and brought her some tissues. I waited a few moments until she had calmed down and then I squatted in front of her, so she could see my eyes.
Sydney D'Aubigne was six years old, a beautiful little girl whose character and bright, animated response to life promised leadership and astuteness in the future. It was a wonderful treat to be the principal of a small-town school because you had the chance to get to know each of the little people in your care, at least by name if not by personality, and their families as well.
"What's the matter, honey? What's happened to make you so sad?"
It was another moment before she could stop the tears. Her voice was hesitant and gravelly when she finally spoke.
"You know my friend, Meghan?" she asked in reply.
"Yes, I do. You and Meghan came and you read me the story you wrote and illustrated together, didn't you?"
Having gotten the conversation started, I rose from sitting on my heels and plopped into the chair beside her. I was only a few months away from retirement. Sitting in a squat position for too long was now clearly out of my range.
"Yes, we did," she said, so prim and proper for her age, the tissue twisting in her small hands, her eyes cast down. "That was fun. It's nice of you to do that."
Off topic or buttering me up? I wasn't sure, so I gave her a prompt. "Are you and Meghan not friends anymore? Is that what's making you cry?"
She looked up at me then, her deep-brown eyes reflecting the influence of Native roots. Lovely black straight hair perfectly framed her moon-shaped face.
"Oh no, Mrs. Taylor, we are best, best friends. It's…I'm afraid to tell you because Meghan will be mad at me when she finds out." She fell silent again, her eyes downward once more.
"Is it a secret?" Sydney nodded yes. "Is it a secret that Meghan told you?" Once again a nod, this time more vigorous.
I was getting warm. I thought for a moment. "Is Meghan being hurt by the secret and you think she should tell someone?"
Sydney looked up with a face suffused with surprise and awe. "How did you know?"
"Just a good guess, sweetheart. You know, if it's something that's hurting Meghan, you can tell me. Then I can talk to Meghan and pretend that I guessed, just like I did right now with you. And then Meghan won't have to know and you can still be best, best friends."
"Really?" Sydney almost smiled through the tears, her face lighting up with the lifeline.
"Really. I'm very good at that sort of thing."
I smiled at her and she threw herself into my arms. I hugged her and then settled her back onto the chair. This time when she spoke, she was clear eyed and determined.
"It's Meghan's daddy. He hurts her. Very, very badly. Every day."
Chapter 3: Brynstan
Suddenly, without knowing how, she was in the kitchen. The room seemed long, cavernous. She could not reach the top of the counters, where silver things were laid out, all gleaming and clean. The tile beneath her feet was spotless. She herself had scrubbed it with the stiff-bristled brush that she used when she was bad. She couldn't remember what she did wrong, but now the tiles shone in the early morning sun. The scrapes of the brush looked like fingernail marks across glass, barely distinguishable, but evidence nonetheless of her labour. She was afraid once more, scrambling through her mind to see what she had done this time.
Her mother stood at the other end, a cipher in the shadows, her thin, hunched shoulders motionless and rigid. The little girl did not cry out for her mother. Instead she waited, trembling.
He lifted her tiny frame roughly off her feet, his arms strong and hard against her thin body. Her ribs stung and the breath squeezed out of her lungs like a balloon being popped. He pulled her arm above her head and held her hand over the stove. The burner was red and blue and she could feel the heat, hear the hiss of the gas and the flames licking the air, searching for her flesh.
"You feel the fires of hell," he said. "Only if you follow my way will you escape the agony."
Chapter 4: Jacob
The sun danced warmly on his cheek and he felt completely relaxed and contented. He reached over to her side of the bed, anticipating the feel of her silky skin, her soft fine hair and the answering sigh of her response to his touch. Instead, his hand met empty air and untouched pillow and his body went rigid with grief once more.
Unable to stop, the images came back. The baby limp and barely breathing in Adrienne's arms. Laura's stiff, cold body slumped in the frigid water, her mouth twisted as if in agony. Bits of vomit clung to her chin and neck. The terrible smell, lumps of floating waste, porcelain white skin, eyes vacant holes in her face. He touched her briefly, staggering back in horror.
He opened his eyes and sat up, his breath slamming back as though he'd been kicked in the stomach. His heart pounded. He waited until he could breathe normally and then he flung back the covers. He'd been doing this for too many guilt-infested years.
He headed for the bathroom, a converted closet that was now a tiny en-suite toilet and shower. The house was a beautiful old brick building designated an historical site with a construction date circa 1832. It had that sense of history in the squeak
y hardwood floors under his bare feet, yet its modern conveniences fit perfectly into the narrow hallways and tiny faultless rooms.
After he finished in the bathroom, he pulled on his pajamas and checked both the children's rooms, which were empty as expected. Throwing off the last vestiges of his misery, he ran down the stairs and pranced with happy anticipation into the kitchen. Adrienne sat at the table, gloriously chomping on cereal. Jordan gave him a porridge-smeared grin from his booster seat. Helen stood at the stove, frying something that smelled delicious. His heart swelled and he felt as though his smile might dissolve any moment into tears of gratitude.
"Good morning, champ," he said, kissing both of his son's sticky cheeks and getting a pair of wet hands clamped around his neck in return.
"Daddy, Daddy," the little boy chirped, his round face suffused with joy. He offered up a spoonful of clumpy milk and cereal, so Jacob pretended to eat it noisily.
Wiping himself off with a napkin, he bent over Adrienne, softly smoothing her long hair away from her face, and kissed her. She smiled up at him, her eyes shining with happiness and energy.
Jacob was still amazed at how much she resembled him. The feminine version of his deep-blue eyes and black wavy hair. A throwback to the "black Irish," his mother often said.
"Good morning, Daddy," Adrienne said in her lilting, mature little voice. "You sure slept in today."
"Your daddy works hard, Ennie," Helen said from the stove, turning to smile at him too. "He deserves a later mornin' now and then."
"You're right, Helen," Adrienne good-naturedly answered. "You do work too hard, Daddy." She leaned over, wrapped her arms around his waist and he felt as though he might burst.
"Got you some of that Canadian bacon you love, Mr. Jacob," Helen told him, placing a plate of meat, eggs and potatoes on the table in front of him.
He touched her shoulder appreciatively and sat with anticipation on his chair. "So, what's up for you three today? I know what I'm going to be up to. More sitting at that desk in there."
He waved in the direction of his home office, a workshop that had been added by the previous owners and connected to the house through the garage.
Helen answered for Jordan. "The little mister and I are going to walk Ennie to school and then we're headed to the park and then to pick up some things at the store." It was a long speech for Helen and she looked surprised, as though the words had tumbled out unbidden.
Jacob was smitten with Helen Lake the moment he met her and he'd hired her on the spot. A big, lumbering Native woman, she had been described to him for all the things she was not. Pretty, 'book learning smart,' married, articulate. Yet the qualities that she did have—her kindness, her instinct for children and their needs (and often adults too as Jacob discovered), her athletic prowess, her understated humour, her sparkling brown eyes and her spiritual solidity—all of these added up to one of the most amazing human beings he'd ever encountered.
Three years ago she moved in to become their housekeeper and nanny and quickly became their fourth family member, their missing piece. She handled Jordan's difficulties and Jacob's moods effortlessly. Even more, she was able to pry Adrienne's deeper feelings out from under the little girl's façade of cheerful strength and maturity. Jacob appreciated profoundly the fact that Adrienne had a confidante to whom she could confess the true effects of losing her mother, for he knew that his tearful responses to his daughter's distress were never helpful. Thus Adrienne, brilliant and older than her age might indicate, had actually formed a kind of friendship with Helen that defied the difference in years.
When Jacob worried about the future, which he tended to do a great deal, it was around the loss of Helen. At twenty-one, she might have appeared to be asexual to her family, but what would happen if she fell in love and went away to be married? How could he be so selfish as to hope that it might take ten years for her to do so, enough time for Adrienne to be twenty years old and for Jordan to be in high school?
Ennie began to speak, so he turned his thoughts toward her.
"I'm going to read to the kindergarten class today, Daddy," she said. "My friend Leslie and I wrote this book and we drew pictures and everything. So Mrs. Sullivan said we could go to the kindergarten classes and read it to the little ones. We practiced how we should sit and show them the pictures and go slowly so they understand the story."
"Wow, that's wonderful," he responded, genuinely proud of her creative abilities. She spent many hours writing and drawing and he could see that she got a great deal of pleasure out of the artistic process. "Can you bring the book home to read to us later?"
Her eyes danced. "That's a great idea. You would love that, wouldn't you, Jordie?"
Her little brother responded with a vigorous nodding of his head, which splattered bits of oatmeal all over them, accompanied by deep, rumbling laughter from Helen, which they all couldn't help but join.
As Jacob watched his youngest child open his small round mouth in laughter, he thought about how much he resembled his mother. His light-blue eyes and his fine blond hair bobbing in merriment, Jordan could've been a poster baby for a Pablum advertisement. You could not know from his outward, angelic appearance that his mind contained hidden valleys that no one had yet been able to reach or explain.
Chapter 5: Alain
May leaned over her husband and stroked his face, wondering if it had been his muttering or the moonlight that had awakened her. The soft filter of reflected light shone straight onto Alain's cheek, highlighting the curve of his face, the long lashes of his closed eyes and the turned-down pull and twitch on his mouth.
The Native woman didn't often think about their differences, because they were so alike in the important ways. But now, with his face defenceless and haunted, she could see how they would very shortly be showing the disparity in their ages. Alain was twelve years younger than May and up until now, no one could ever have guessed. Indeed, no one but May's best friend actually did know, because Alain had not grown up in Burchill.
As May approached her middle fifties, she had gained a little more weight and her hair was beginning to gray. Her skin was no longer completely wrinkle-free or as soft and silky as it had always been. Now she had to work to look younger. She had to apply creams and dyes and wear carefully selected clothes. In the past, she had never paid much attention to such things, being blessed with naturally pretty features, big brown eyes and straight, easily managed hair. She smiled a little at herself. If only Alain could know what she was thinking, he'd have given her hell for indulging in such negativity.
Right at this moment, though, as Alain gave another moan and shifted under her touch, his mouth pulling back and forth as though he were struggling to say something, May was worried about her husband. Over the last two years, his nightmares had become more frequent and fierce. Tonight, because she was awake and stroking his face, he hadn't erupted into the tortured shouts that had become common in their bedroom. They had both spent many nights awake, talking about his dreams, trying to analyze where they'd come from and when they'd started, to no avail. For when Alain finally woke up, he could remember nothing. The only detail he could hang onto was that the dreams emerged from a younger, immature and undeveloped Alain, the boy whose past had been buried for decades.
Most of his younger years had been spent in foster home after foster home. Although it was now difficult for May to believe, Alain had been rebellious, obnoxious and aggressive. He'd done everything from lighting fires to deliberately losing a family dog in the woods. His psychologist had worried that he might be a sociopath or even have psychotic tendencies, after which prognosis he had spent a couple of years in therapy. Over time, his ferocious anger had dissipated, replaced by a determination to accomplish something with his life.
School had not been kind to his tempestuous nature, but he'd always been good with his hands, so he learned on the job to tear apart any vehicle and put it back together in better shape than ever. He also taught himself to manage the computer
and various types of business software.
After four years of working in a large auto repair shop while living sparingly in a boarding house in Toronto, Alain was in a financial position to purchase his own business. By sheer chance, that was the year that Johnny Wilder decided to sell his garage in Burchill, which he promptly advertised in a Toronto newspaper.
Alain Reneaux, tall, big boned and broad shouldered, had appeared at Johnny's with a deposit check and a will to succeed. A rumour raced around Burchill that a true 'coureur de bois' had arrived to take over the only full-service garage in town and now what would they do? How could a man with such large hands be good at car mechanics?
Luckily for Alain, the townspeople hadn't much choice. When their cars broke down, they couldn't very well get towed all the way to Merrickville or Ottawa, so they headed off to 'Johnny's.'
Alain, being a wise and prudent businessman besides a talented mechanic, did not change the name of the garage nor did he make any changes to its outward appearance until the villagers had accepted him completely. Acceptance did not take long once he got those large hands on their cars or trucks or tractors and demonstrated his highly developed skills.
He looked so much older than his chronological age. His broad face and large body bestowed an ageless quality to Alain, as though he'd always been a mature man. In fact, minus his greying hair and some laugh lines, he looked pretty much the same now as he did then. Never once did he volunteer information about himself and most of the villagers didn't ask.
He spoke with a slight French Canadian accent and could converse intelligently in both official languages. He lived in the local boarding house-hotel, dated no one and was a fair-minded employer. No one who worked with him or for him would have guessed that he was less than thirty years old.
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