by William Bell
“Not ghost-story spooks. Not movie ghosts. Presences. You know, some places are just creepy.”
“But that’s because our imaginations are working overtime. Like in a dark attic or basement in an old house. Whistling-in-the-dark stuff. You seem to be saying that there’s really something there, at the church.”
Raphaella took a deep breath. Her eyes strayed to the window and she seemed to be making a decision. “Yes,” she said.
“You believe in these spirits or presences, or whatever.”
“I think that there are reverent places, just like there are peaceful or beautiful or restful places.”
“And evil places.”
She nodded. “Yes. But not because there’s a troll under the bridge or a dragon in the cave. Because of events that went on there.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’m not making fun of you.”
“I know.”
Raphaella had given me her trust, shared something that, in another place, with other people, would bring ridicule down on her like a thundershower. We both knew that what we were talking about wasn’t a clown in a sewerpipe, like in the King novel, or a few thirteen-year-olds charged with manufactured excitement tittering over a Ouija board.
“When we walk around,” she said, choosing her words, working things out, “we leave our scent behind. It’s — to us — invisible, odorless. We’re not even aware of it. But a dog can track a human through a forest days after he passed by. And I’ve read that female moths give off whatchamacallits, phonemes —”
“Pheromones. Phonemes are —”
“Whatever. A few parts per million of those — things — and male moths can pick up the smell, the message if you want to call it that, from miles away.”
“But that’s a physical thing. You figure that, what, after we die something remains behind? What you call a presence?”
“I can’t really explain it. But, well, I’ve never been to one of those Nazi concentration camps in Europe, the ones with the ovens, but I’m sure I’d feel the presence of the dead — the children and their parents and grandparents. They say that’s true of old battlefields, too.”
“Not very scientific,” I said.
“No, but that doesn’t mean much.”
I got up from the table and put on the kettle for tea. Raphaella had brought me a few boxes of herbal teas of different flavors and blends, some fruity, others medicinal.
I glanced around my new place, at the stereo set in the living room, the little TV hooked up to a dish that pulled signals out of the air and descrambled them, at the telephone. Hightech, modern equipment. And here we were talking about spirits, whatever word we used.
“Do you think everybody who passes that old church gets the shivers?” I asked, using one of my father’s old expressions.
“No. Definitely not. Some people are more sensitive, the way a radio tunes in to a particular station. People like you and me,” she added, smiling.
“Lucky us,” I said.
chapter
We did the dishes and then I drove Raphaella home. Up until then, she would get out of the van a block or so away from where she lived, but to my surprise she directed me right to her house, a bungalow with a big silver birch on the front lawn. I got the impression she was making a statement, pushing things a little with her mother. When I pulled into the driveway I noticed a slender woman in the picture window, hands on her hips, looking at us. Even from that distance the scowl on her face was visible.
“Uh-oh,” Raphaella said in mock alarm. “The riot squad is waiting.”
“She looks peeved,” I said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Is it me, or males in general?”
“In general. She doesn’t want me to see anyone.”
“She’s training you to be a nun?”
“Dating isn’t part of the plan.”
“So she’s been like this with all the boys you’ve —”
“Yup.”
She planted a quick kiss on my mouth and jumped out of the van. As she walked up the flagstone path to her front door I plastered a smile on my face and waved at her mother. Garnet the smoothie.
She didn’t return the wave.
2
Back at the trailer, I turned on the miniature TV in the bedroom and took a shower, banging my elbows on the walls of the cramped shower stall, before pulling on my PJs and crawling under the blankets. I flipped through the channels looking for a movie, but had to settle for a courtroom drama.
On most evenings, before I fall asleep, I go over the day in my mind, reliving conversations, second-guessing things I had said or done, hoping I hadn’t made a fool of myself. But not tonight. I wanted no rehash of Raphaella’s speculations about the church. That whole topic was something to put aside, for a long time, if not for ever.
At some time during the cross-examination of the hero, I fell asleep. I drowsed fitfully, then woke again. The tiny bedroom pulsed and flickered with bluish TV light. On the screen, two long-haired Spandex-clad women with sincere looks and too much make-up were pitching exercise equipment. I used the remote to turn off the set and got a glass of water at the kitchen sink. The trailer was stuffy and warm. I opened the bedroom window a few inches and damp, cool, sweet-smelling air poured in. The rhythmic chee-eep of crickets came with it. A dog barked. I climbed back into bed, rolled over and dozed off.
This time I woke with a start, my eyes a foot from the illuminated numbers on the clock radio beside the bed: 12:00 A.M. The wind sighed in the bush behind the trailer. And then I heard what had awakened me.
A woman was crying, deep, urgent sobs fading in and out with the wind.
I hopped out of bed, turned on the light and ran to the door. Was it a domestic quarrel? Or partiers? I stepped outside into the cool, clammy air, wondering if there was 911 service this far away from town. I looked down the lane toward the cluster of mobile homes hidden behind evergreens. A few porch lights twinkled as the wind moved the spruce branches. I stepped out onto the path beside the van, arms crossed on my chest against the chill, ears cocked for human sounds. Nothing.
I went back inside. I locked the door this time, and leaving the outside light on, padded into the bedroom. I got back into bed and turned out the light.
The weeping returned, a profound, unearthly wail, rising and falling that made my skin crawl. I lay there, wondering who lived back there in the trees, because it was clear now that she was not in the trailer park. Lifted by the wind, the voice seemed to approach then pass by. Then it faded and was gone.
I punched up the pillows behind me and opened my book. I read for a while, until my eyes grew heavy, and the novel slid from my hands.
The clock read 3:00 A.M. when I heard her again, the same woman.
Help! she wailed. Joo-ball, help me!
Earlier, her cries had been enough to turn me cold, to creep into me like a damp chill. Now she called out in terror several times — Joo-ball, help me! — before her voice faded, leaving only the wind.
I picked up the phone, keyed in the emergency number. Nothing but an irritating electronic voice telling me I hadn’t put in enough numbers. Should I call the cops? I wondered. The night was quiet again. Maybe I hadn’t really heard anything. It was my first night in a strange place. Maybe it had been the wind. I imagined myself standing in the driveway, a cop car with lights blipping on the roof, neighbors in PJs and housecoats gawking while I pointed into the forest, telling a cop I had heard a woman there.
I decided to wait.
While I was waiting I fell asleep again.
3
In the morning, leaving for school, I saw a man on his knees in a patch of cleared ground beside his modular home, working the soil with a hand cultivator. Green shoots peeked out of the dirt in plant flats arranged around him. When I got out of the van, he looked up, wiping his brow on his sleeve.
“Morning,” I said.
“How are you today?”<
br />
“Fine, thanks. I’m Garnet Havelock, just moved into the unit back by the trees.”
“Yeah, Roy told me you’d be along. My name’s Trevor.”
“Nice to meet you. Sorry to interrupt your work.”
“Oh, that’s okay.”
He was in his fifties, I guessed, tall and fit, a bit of grey at his temples.
“I was wondering,” I began, “is there a house out there in the bush behind my trailer?”
“No, nothin’ there but trees.”
“I thought I heard somebody last night. A woman calling.”
“Strange,” he said. “I didn’t hear anything myself. ‘Course, Laura and me’re heavy sleepers.”
“Maybe someone was lost or something.”
“Nobody goes back there,” Trevor said, the friendly tone leaving his voice. “That’s all Maitland land.”
“Oh, well,” I said, taken aback by his abruptness. “Probably just the wind.”
He nodded. “Musta been. Nobody goes back there.”
chapter
Trevor was wrong. That night I heard her again, coming and going. At midnight she passed by going north, uttering the same heart-wrenching sobs. Hours later, she returned, going south, crying out for help and raising the hair on the back of my neck.
In the morning I had a quick coffee, laced on my hiking boots and walked into the trees. The open bush was brushed with the vivid green of new, unfurled leaves, and thousands of trilliums speckled the forest floor with white. Last year’s fall of leaves rustled softly underfoot. Squirrels skittered here and there, to and fro, and the air was alive with birdsong.
Soon I came across a path leading north and south. I was no woodsman, but I could tell it was not well traveled.
I elected to go left. After a hundred yards or so the terrain sloped, and spruce and cedar stood green against the grey trunks of the hardwoods. The ground underfoot was damp. I came upon a creek that intersected the path. A thick log that had fallen long ago formed a bridge across the stream. The moss on the log was undisturbed. I stepped along it carefully. After ten minutes I saw a clearing through the trees, and a small building. At the edge of the clearing, by a rail fence, I had an unrestricted view of green grass, a stone monument, and the African Methodist Church, lit by the slanting rays of morning sunlight.
I retraced my route, this time going past the spot where I had started following the path. The trail rose and fell with the terrain, twisting through the bush for about half a mile before turning into the sun. I climbed a steep hill and found myself at the edge of a small clearing, and I stopped.
I remained still, as if something had commanded me to stand unmoving. I scanned the clearing. It was carpeted with long dry grass and weeds. On one side a jumble of fallen and rotted logs enclosed the remains of a stone chimney. There was a strangeness about the place. An otherness.
On the edges of the clearing, branches stirred in the breeze, but the grass in the open area stood as motionless as it would on a sultry, windless July day, as still as a photograph. No birds flitted or soared overhead. No squirrel scampered across the ground.
And another thing. The ruin of decayed logs and mossy stones had fallen down long ago, but the surrounding forest had not reclaimed the open land. Not so much as a sapling grew there.
I took a breath and walked into the zone to the ruins of what had probably been a small cabin. It seemed a peaceful place, bathed in the yellow light of the morning sun, but there was a pervading chill there, a creeping, unwelcoming cold.
I wondered what Raphaella would think of the place. I decided to take her there.
2
It was late morning when I pulled into the driveway of our new house on Brant Street and parked in front of the detached double garage. It was run down, paint peeling off the ship-lap siding, shingles missing, and would need a lot of work. Just the thing Dad liked.
I walked around to the front of the house and onto the wide verandah and let myself in the front door. He was still at work, teaching music to the mites. I cruised the rooms, taking my time, noting the high ceilings, the wide baseboards and trim, the hardwood floors that creaked underfoot, the huge brick fireplace in the living room with the carved oak mantel. Inside, the place was in good shape. I could see why Mom and Dad had been so taken with it.
In the big kitchen at the back of the house I made some coffee and toast, and rummaged through the pile of newspapers Dad had left on the table. He’d clipped Mom’s first two articles. I read them, not at all happy about what I learned.
East Timor, she wrote, was in a real mess. Militia groups, mostly teenage boys with guns, roved at will, killing anyone they thought supported home rule. It looked like civil war might break out if the U.N. couldn’t keep both sides from each other’s throats. Many of the locals were heading for the hills — literally. Added to that was religious strife. Christian and Moslem. Some of the militia were ultraconservative Moslems who tried to enforce very strict Islamic rules, Mom had written. Her disapproval of their treatment of women was pretty obvious.
I stacked the papers again and put my cup and plate into the sink. I climbed the stairs from the kitchen to the second floor — they were narrow and steep and there was a half-moon depression worn into each one — walked down the hall and took the stairs to the third floor.
Here, everything was more compressed, built on a smaller scale. There were two wainscotted rooms. The one at the front of the house had a door that let onto a small balcony with a wrought-iron railing. From the balcony I could see Lake Couchiching. This, I decided, would be my bedroom. I only had to convince Mom and Dad.
Downstairs again, I picked up the phone. Luckily, Raphaella answered.
“I’ve got something I want to show you out at Silverwood,” I said mysteriously. “You’re not going to school today, are you?”
“Forget it, Garnet. Mom’s giving me a hard time. I have to lie low for a while. I’m working in the store today.”
“What’s her problem?”
“I told you. She doesn’t want me seeing anyone.”
“The plan you told me about.”
“Yeah. Listen, Garnet, you’d better not call here any more. It just makes things worse.”
My stomach fell. “Does this mean … Are you telling me …?”
“No, no. I just mean you have to let me call you. I should be able to sneak out tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said, relieved. “But at least let me tell you about what I —”
“Uh-oh. Got to go.” And she hung up.
chapter
I went to school in the afternoon, sat through two classes that were so tedious my brain turned to cement, and headed for the Olde Gold. Dad was in the office, bent over a ledger.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, kiddo. What’s new?”
“Not much.”
“How’re the new digs?”
“Digs?”
“Your place at Silverwood.”
I made up some stuff about how peaceful it was out there, then I asked if he’d heard from Mom.
“Yeah, she called yesterday morning. Said she was trekking inland with a camera and another pen in a jeep to find some of the refugees. She says hi.”
The way Dad talked, there were no people with Mom — just pens and cameras and tape recorders. Mom was a pen, too. He tried to make light of things, but I could tell he was worried.
I spent the next few hours taking inventory of all the loot from the Maitland estate, noting what should be cleaned and polished, refinished or repaired. Then I wrote up a schedule that prioritized the work. I showed the schedule to Dad.
“Great work,” he said. “Let me take a closer look at it tomorrow. Right now, what say we put on the old feed bag at the Chinese buffet?”
I figured he meant dinner. “Sounds good,” I said.
“Okay. Let’s pull up stakes, podnah.”
“Let’s do that.”
2
We caught a movie after we had eate
n — a remake of a movie from the fifties that had been based on a play written in the thirties — and I dropped Dad off at the house and headed out to the trailer. Once inside, I put on a Bill Evans CD and read for a while in the living room. It was hard to concentrate, though, with my mind jumping from the crying woman to Raphaella, to the men in my dreams and back to Raphaella again.
What was her mother’s problem? I wondered. I had met lots of controlling parents, but she turned overprotectiveness into sheer paranoia. Did she expect Raphaella to ignore males for the rest of her life? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. She seemed to want Raphaella under her thumb, yet Raphaella was working on the musical with OTG. I had nothing against theater types, but some of them weren’t the most conventional people in the world. And most protective parents were strict about attendance at school. Raphaella came and went as she pleased.
Maybe it was some sort of religious thing. There were lots of brands of religion in Orillia — statistically, we had a church for every two thousand people — and a few of them were pretty extreme. Raphaella hadn’t mentioned anything about her mother’s religion, but then again, she was close-mouthed about all family matters. She herself had never struck me as religious. Spiritual, yes, but not a rule follower. I concluded, not for the first time, that figuring out what made people tick wasn’t one of my strong points.
About eleven o’clock I put my book down, turned off the CD and called it a night. A soft spring rain began to fall just as I was crawling between the sheets. I lay there listening to it hissing on the flagstones of the patio, thinking about dreams. The nightmare with the men’s voices had scared me, but not in any deep, bottom-of-the-soul way, I reassured myself, not enough to make me afraid to sleep. And the woman calling and crying, well, that was not much more than a nagging mystery. It wasn’t exactly an added attraction for the neighborhood, but it seemed no one else in the park could hear it, so maybe it was a freak noise produced by the wind. That was probably the explanation.