The Keening

by A. LaFaye

  “Mayra! Mayra!” Uncle Marl shouted as Mater clutched her cut and Pater drew her shawl around her and hugged her.

  Pater wanted to take her to Dr. Mansfield, but she insisted that he take her home. He sewed up the cut.

  That’s how Mater came back to Kingsley Cove after college, with a common-law husband, a baby in her belly, and a cut in the forehead—a lifelong reminder of just how dangerous her family could be.

  And now they threatened Pater with their ideas about shutting him away. I had to stand guard and keep him safe.

  The Wishes of the Dead

  As soon as he wiped the last dish dry, Pater took up his post on the bed behind the door. Wrapping him in a blanket, I left him watching for Mater and crawled into bed in the loft. I began praying for Mater to have a safe journey, asking God to keep Pater safe.

  Saw myself sitting on the center seat of that creaking old boat, my skirts tied in knots over my knees, the cello leaning heavy against me as waves crashed into the bow and sent up showers of spray. With no oars to take me to shore, I thought perhaps the music could carry me there. I tried to make music, but only screeches came out.

  Despite the distance, I could see Pater in his workshop, cutting down a big block with a chisel and a hammer. My screeching notes made him stop between blows. Each time I tried to bring out a note to soothe him, pull him out or pull me in, it turned sour and sharp, peeling out as a painful howl. Finally Pater turned to me, his face pale as wax, his eyes wild with a yellow fire, “Stop that racket before it carries us all to hell!”

  The door slammed shut.

  I yanked myself from the dream so fast I smacked my head on the eave of the loft as I sat up in bed.

  A deep thud from below spun me around. In the chilly darkness, I could see the door hanging open, rain lashing into the room. Pater’s bed sat empty. Pulling on my coat and grabbing the lantern, I lit it and headed out to find him. With the wind and the rain, calling out would do me no good. At the dock, I saw that the longboat was gone, lines and all, so I knew the storm hadn’t set it adrift. Pater had taken it. Sending a prayer to the selkies to keep him safe, I turned back. Mater always said selkies kept seamen safe from harm. I didn’t believe in selkies, but Pater surely did. And who knows, perhaps in Pater’s world, Mater would come back as a selkie, just as she had wished.

  Returning to the cabin, I built up the fire, then took up Pater’s post to wait for his return.

  A heaviness spilled over me as I sat there with my hands on my knees. A silent voice in my head asked, “Where to from here?”

  “Honor the dead by keeping their wishes.” Grampy left that note on the nightstand when he took the boat out the last day of his life. His heart failed him before the tide turned that evening. His crew brought him home.

  He’d left the note to force Granny to bury him on the island. Since she’d refused to bury him at sea, he’d bought the island hoping he could at least be surrounded by water. Being buried on church ground meant securing your seat in heaven by her reckoning, but that note turned Granny’s mind around.

  And Mater’s note to me, if she’d had time to write one, would have asked me to pass that exam to enter high school, do my two years in Portland, then go to college. But could I even go to Portland? Take the exam?

  No. Pater would dissolve. He wouldn’t eat. He’d carve and carve and carve until there was nothing left of him.

  But I didn’t have Mater’s talent for drawing him out. The weight of her worry hung over me. It sunk me down into the bed until I couldn’t even keep my eyes open.

  The birds woke me after dawn. I found no sign of Pater, so I headed outside. Seeing the longboat bobbing by the dock, I figured Pater had gone to visit Mater. I walked out to the point, but the closer I got the harder I found it to keep going. A chill caught me and shook me from the inside. Seeing Mater’s grave would mean she’d never wake me by yanking the covers off my bed and gripping my bare feet with snow-cold hands. We’d never make snickerdoodles at dawn and eat the first dozen at breakfast with raspberry jam. She couldn’t show me how to sew darts into a skirt or pleats into a pair of slacks, drive a carriage . . .

  All these thoughts had me so twisted up I got turned around in the woods. Off the path, I didn’t know which way was north. Using a trick Jake taught me, I searched for the moss on the tree trunks to get my bearings, then lit out for the point. When I reached the shore first, I realized I’d overshot Mater’s grave, so I made my way back. As I came out at the stone bench Granny had put in, I stopped. Mater’s grave should’ve been a mound of mud, but Pater had covered it with smooth slabs of stone that glistened with rainwater—a patchwork quilt of granite and marble.

  Mater wouldn’t want me lingering at her grave, so I kept my head high and walked on past. Once I reached the edge of the clearing, I called out for Pater. No answer. I called and called as I tromped through the woods. The smell of bacon caught me by surprise. Seeing smoke curl up into the sky, I realized Pater had gone back to the cabin.

  I came in just as he set breakfast on the table. Two proper-time meals in just as many days?

  Grief made most folks fade into strangeness. Had it brought Pater to the other side of normal?

  Sitting down in front of his plate, he patted an old piece of paper that had been folded and refolded enough times to look like a salesman’s map. No matter how long they sold trinkets from house to house up North, they always needed a map to get around.

  “What’s that paper, Pater?”

  He’d begun to mutter to himself, checking the clock behind him. “Breakfast before ten. Lunch after noon. Dinner before seven.”

  “Pater?”

  “Proper meal times help them grow.”

  “Pater?”

  He stared at me, surprised to find me sitting there. “You need to eat regular.” He got up and grabbed a stack of books he’d put on the bed. Bringing them to the table, he said, “And study. Study so you can go to college like Mayra.”

  I grabbed the paper to see what had him acting so strange, but he snatched it back. For an instant, I feared the wrath he’d once shown me for trying to read one of his letters, but he smiled and rubbed my head, “That’s a reminder for me, Lyza.”

  “Mater wrote you a list of things to do if she wasn’t here to do them?” I asked.

  Pater walked the edge of the floor, leaning toward the wall, “Study hard. Go to college. Wash the clothes and keep them clean. Don’t let the house get dirty. Illness sleeps in dirt. Buy food fresh. Cook it quick. Change your clothes every day.” He tugged at his shirt. He wore a clean one, but his pants and shoes were coated with mud.

  Muttering as he cased the walls, he looked like the workers from out on the farm after they’d been brought in from the fields. Uncle Garrett had taken me there one summer to show me where he thought Pater belonged.

  “See,” he’d said, pointing to a man twisting his arms around like he thought he must be pedaling something, his clothes caked in dirt, his eyes blank yet staring, his mouth stammering through some list. “Without your mater, that’s how your pater would be.”

  The truth of it struck me like a bolt of lightning.

  Jumping from my chair, I went to Pater. “It’s all right, Pater. I can help. I’ll cook. I’ll clean. I’ll remind you to change your clothes.”

  His head snapped up, his checks red with anger, his face reminding me of that cold cruel face from my dream. “I can do it!” He edged around me, then went back to his list as he moved about the room.

  I slumped to the floor. My dream had been a true tell. How could I help Pater if I only made him angry?

  Steam touched my face as Pater slipped my breakfast plate into my lap, spilling scrambled eggs on my legs. “Lyza eats breakfast before ten.”

  He smiled, looking like a kid who’d just learned to tie his own shoes.

  I nodded and ate. What else could I do?

  Pater went back to his wall skirting, edging around me whenever he came back to where I sat.
r />   To give him a clear path, I got up and sat at the table to eat. Seeing his full plate untouched, I crossed the room to stand in his way—a little trick Jake learned when Mater had gone to town and we needed Pater’s permission to go clamming.

  But this time, Pater just turned to move past me, so I kept pace with him, walking backwards. “What about you, Pater? Do you eat before ten?”

  “Me?” He stopped, rolling his eyes over in thought. “If Evan doesn’t eat, he gets sick.”

  He went right by me, sat down at the table, and started eating. I sighed, happy to see that he’d given in so easily. He ate in silence until his plate was empty, then carried the dishes to the sink.

  Breakfast out of the way, he took up his post. Before he slipped into his waiting trance, he looked up at me and said, “Shouldn’t you study?”

  “Okay, Pater.” I slipped a book off the top of the pile and opened it. Some musty old novel. Turning the book’s spine toward me, I realized Pater had brought me a pile of books from the B shelf in the study. He didn’t even know where I kept my schoolbooks.

  Pater always tried to do right by me. But, being hard-pressed to care for himself, he never seemed sure what to do where I was concerned. Mater taught me to read and add and cook and sew. Pater never even showed me how to use a chisel. I learned that from Uncle Fenton.

  I’d be hunched over a book, trying to understand some old dead man’s words, reading them aloud one by one to try and squeeze some sense out of them, when Pater would drift into the room to lay them out plain. He spoke as if the words told him what to say.

  He’d stop where he stood, and say, “Read that again.”

  One time I’d read, “When I have fears that I may cease to be / Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain, / Before high piled books, in charactry, / Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain . . .”

  Pater had sat in a windowsill, his head back, his eyes closed for a bit. Then, with a distant smile, he’d said, “John was afraid he’d die before he could write everything that was in his mind to say.”

  John. Pater spoke of Keats as if he knew him and had talked the poem over with him while they had tea. But the odd trimmings didn’t matter much to me. I just valued the time Pater took to help me unravel something.

  And now that he was trying to help me keep Mater’s wish, he needed my help. I had to be sure he was safe before I could turn my mind to schoolwork. But I had no direction. Might his list hold a clue? He’d left the paper on the table, so I slipped it into my book and pretended to be studying.

  In print so small I had to squint to read it, the paper laid out all the things Pater had to do to keep healthy, raise me, and manage the house. It talked about how to shop, how to clean, how to pay the bills.

  After each section, it said, “Remember these rules, Evan. Remember them. Say them to yourself until you can’t forget them.”

  I smiled, a little giddy with the thought that Uncle Garrett was wrong after all. Pater hadn’t paced like a crazed man. He’d walked the boards like a student studying for a test.

  Mater once told me about a friend she had at college named Carlie. I think that was his name. He used to take her to a park near the university to study. They’d have a picnic under a huge oak tree, then open their books. Carlie studied while pacing from the trunk of the oak to a maple just down the way. He paced that path so much that by their fourth year, he’d worn a rut ankle-deep between those trees.

  Feeling a little better, I examined that refrain. The letters in it marched across the page stiff and straight, not rounded and slanted like Mater’s. That’s when I noticed half the note was written in another person’s hand. I searched for a clue to who the other writer might have been. Down at the bottom, I found my answer. It read, “If you should ever need help, I’m on Kerry Island, north by northeast of Garrison Point, Havenswood. You can call the grocer. He’ll send someone out to get me.” Then a number.

  I’d never met Granny Layton. But I knew Granny had written that note. Mater always said she lived down near Havenswood.

  The words looked so crisp, abrupt even, written as an order perhaps. Still, a mater who wrote this note for a son like Pater cared about him. She might be willing to help.

  Jumping up from the table, I said, “I’ve got to get more books, Pater.”

  He hummed his response.

  After building up the fire, I rushed to change my clothes, then headed to the rowboat. Standing at the bow, I wondered if I could row clear to Havenswood. In my dreams, I couldn’t even find the oars.

  Now was not the time to be cowed by fears. Pater couldn’t be left alone for long. But I’d never piloted the longboat. Afraid I’d run it aground while skirting the shore, I set out in the rowboat.

  Granny Layton

  Keeping my eye out for rocky shadows under the water, I tacked my way down the shore, knowing Havenswood’s was the first town pier south of Kingsley Cove. I passed our pier before the sun hung noon high. Half of me wanted to tow ashore and find Jake. He’d have the strength to get us to Havenswood. But shame held me on course. What would I tell him about Pater? Would Jake still believe he played among the angels? I feared he’d join those who would pack Pater off to Elysian Fields—a turn that would crush our friendship.

  I had to finish this journey alone. Cutting crosstide stretched my muscles tight. By the time the sun had slid halfway to the horizon, they felt like overpulled taffy, but I kept my eye out for the pier. Each small dock in the distance sent a rush of energy into my veins and I rowed a little faster, but the sea had taken on the rosy cast of stained glass before I caught sight of the Havenswood pier.

  Kerry Island lay within sight of the shore. I reached the island dock before darkness closed in. Tying off, I climbed ashore. A post of wooden signs pointed to the different houses on the island. Midpost hung a weathered sign with faded black lettering that I could hardly read in the growing dark. “Layton Due South,” it said.

  I headed down a shoreline road just wide enough for a horse and a body to pass each other. Trees lined either side. As darkness filled the road with shadows, I cursed myself for forgetting a lantern. The moon pitied my foolishness and lit the way.

  I peered through the trunks on either side, searching for house lights. As the shoreline fell away, leaving me high up on a tree-lined ridge, I began to wonder if I’d have to walk all the way to the southern tip of the island. Then I saw an opening in the trees with a steep path down to the shore. At the end of the path, which was shrouded in darkness, sat a house. I could see a warm light through a window in a door.

  Turning sideways, I edged down the path. Skittering rocks kept me tense and my mind on staying upright. I’d walked clear to the door before it dawned on me that I’d come in the night to a complete stranger’s house. Would she even believe me to be her granddaughter? Pater had made her sound like she just might breathe fire. Would she turn me away?

  Before I had time to think of any answers, the door opened and the heat of a fire washed over me. An old woman stood as dark as a shadow on the doorstep, shouting, “Who’s that standing on my porch like a banshee?” Her voice sounded as stiff as the letters in her note.

  “I, I . . . I” swallowed every word that fell from my mind.

  She held the lantern to my face, blinding me.

  “Are you a Layton?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I shielded my eyes.

  The lantern clanked against her leg as she dropped her arm. “Lyza Layton?” she whispered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And your mater? Where’s your mater?” Her voice had the sharp edge of an accusation, almost as if she suspected me of harming Mater.

  Now my eyes stung with tears. “The influenza.”

  Backing into the house, she asked, “Are you sick?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’ve come about Pater.”

  She pulled her sweater close over her chest. “He’s ill then?”

  “No . . . ,” I stammered, unsure of
how to start.

  “Well,” she barked. “Come in then. I’m too old to be standing in drafts.”

  I stepped into a room filled with Pater’s touch. Stones lined the lower walls, each one bearing his mark—Celtic symbols, snakes, ships, shells, mountains. My eyes stumbled over them, searching, fascinated, but unsettled. Finally, I turned to Granny. She watched me, her thin face set in a frown.

  “No faces.” She looked away. “He made these as a child, before the faces started to haunt him.”

  Going to the deep stone fireplace, she grabbed a crook and pulled the cooking arm out of the flames to take off a teapot. Pouring steaming tea into a cup on a mantle shelf, she sat down. “Well don’t stand there like you’re here to sell me something. Sit. Sit.”

  Startled, I obeyed by taking the nearest chair—an old wooden rocker that sighed when I sat in it.

  “Your grandfather’s chair,” she said, with a sharp nod of her head as she handed me the cup of tea.

  If fatigue hadn’t weighted me down like a wet net, I might have gotten up, ashamed of sitting in the chair of a man who’d passed away. But I just hummed in recognition, warming my hand over the cup.

  “Died in winter.” She stared at the closed door. “That day was so cold it made the water on the eyes stiffen up.”

  I closed my eyes at the thought.

  Shaking her head as if to ward off a memory, she asked, “What do you know of your pater?”

  “Know?” She made it sound as if Pater had left us years back and I’d never even met him.

  “Of his sculptures?”

  “He carves them, then sends them out to sea.” I sipped the tea.

  “And?”

  I shrugged. What more did she want to know? “They’re carved of wood and stone.”

  She stiffened, then got up to stand behind her chair. Clutching the wood, she asked, “So they’re just carvings? Faces?”