by William Bell
I WOKE UP PANTING, breathing raggedly, my heart knocking at my ribs, my eyes frantically probing the gloom for faceless men in hooded robes. There was barely enough pre-dawn light in the bedroom to show the outline of the bedposts and the dresser. It was a dream, I told myself, lying back to stare at the ceiling. Just a nightmare. I forced myself to breathe evenly, repeating my words until my heart rate slowed almost to normal. I threw back the sheet and stood by the bedside, closing the bathrobe and tying the belt tightly. I looked around the room. The window curtains lifted and fell in a cool breeze. The house was silent.
I made my way on unsteady legs to the bathroom and gulped down two glasses of water, then splashed more on my face. I held my hand out. It was shaking. Tension knotted my stomach. I hadn’t had a nightmare that bad in a long time. I returned to the bedroom and looked out the window. A gold-red line, with a pastel blue band above it, marked the horizon.
“A normal day,” I said out loud. “I hope.”
On the dresser top a spent wick lay in a pool of wax on the candle holder.
I climbed back into bed. Raphaella had once advised me that you should always confront a nightmare right away. Lie back, tell the dream to yourself, analyze it, ask yourself what the dream is trying to tell you. That way you can put it in perspective. A fear faced is a fear defeated. Show your terror who’s boss, she told me. But I wasn’t ready to face the horrors I had witnessed. I had seen five men calmly torture a sixth, indifferent to his suffering.
I pushed the images away, reminding myself they were only that-images-and forced myself to concentrate on my plans for the day. I would return home for a change of clothes, call Raphaella, and see if she could come and begin to catalogue the books. I would work on the mantel while she got started in the library.
Fixing on normal, everyday things brought me back to reality. I rolled over, hoping to catch an hour or so of sleep. I dozed. A black rat scuttled into my mind. A candle flame flickered. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. I jumped up, jolted with adrenaline, looked frantically around the bedroom.
“What the-?” I yelped.
The overhead light had come on, as had the lamp by the bed. The electricity was back. I hadn’t switched the lights off when the power failed in the storm.
“Stupid fool,” I said into the empty room.
Five
I
MRS. STOPPINI HAD BREAKFAST READY when I came downstairs. She had dark circles under her eyes. For my part, I had managed an hour of fitful half-sleep that hadn’t relieved my fatigue one bit. And my head ached.
“Good morning, Mr. Havelock.”
“Morning, Mrs. Stoppini.”
“I would customarily enquire as to how you slept, but I expect no one for miles around managed a restful sleep last night.”
“You can say that again.”
The music of robins and starlings trickled in from the yard, and outside the patio door a hummingbird darted and hovered over flowers sagging from the night’s onslaught of wind and rain. Mrs. Stoppini rose from her chair and stepped over to the espresso machine on the counter. She wore the same type of long-sleeved black dress that fell past her knees-only this one had a velvet collar-and woollen stockings with black lace-up leather shoes.
“Cappuccino or straight espresso?” she asked. “Or perhaps you’d prefer a caffè macchiato.”
“Er… a-”
“Espresso marked with a little milk foam,” she explained. “It was the late professor’s preferred morning drink.”
“Sounds good.”
There was a plate of small pastries in the centre of the table alongside a bowl of warm rolls. Mrs. Stoppini placed a small cup of deliciously aromatic coffee in front of me and indicated the food with a turn of her hand. “Please,” she invited.
As I layered butter on a roll she sat down. “The patio chairs and umbrella seem to have disappeared during the storm. The gardener doesn’t come until Wednesday. I wonder if you’d be so kind…”
I took a sip of the coffee. It tasted as good as it smelled-hot and strong.
“Sure,” I replied. “Be glad to.”
Mrs. Stoppini nodded.
“If you’ll make me another macchiato,” I said.
I FETCHED MY PUSH BROOM from the workshop and swept the leaves, sticks, and dirt from the patio before tracking down the four chairs the storm had tossed across the lawn. I found the umbrella knee-deep in the lake, up the shore a bit, where the sandy beach gives way to gravel and shale. I waded in and hauled it onto the bank and allowed the water to run out of the canopy, still furled around the pole, secured by a bungee cord.
Something glinted at the waterline. Glass. I bent to pick it up, thinking glass on a beach is a danger to bare feet. It was a hand-held GPS with a camo finish, a waterproof variety, the same brand as the GPS on my motorcycle. The display screen was cracked, allowing water and sand in. I pushed the Power button, but the screen didn’t light up. Ruined, but too valuable to throw away, I thought, jamming it into my pocket. I’d check it out later. Maybe the batteries were dead.
Back at the house I erected the sodden umbrella and opened it to dry in the sun.
II
AFTER SAYING A TEMPORARY goodbye to Mrs. Stoppini and thanking her for putting me up for the night, I mounted my motorcycle and headed back into town. It was cool in the shaded roads along the lakefront, and the air, washed by the storm, was fresh and fragrant, coaxing the aftermath of my nightmare from my mind. I rode slowly, 650 cc’s of power rumbling serenely between my knees, along Bay Street, around the park, and up the hill on Brant to our house. I parked in back by the garage.
Mom was at the kitchen table reading a manuscript, a pencil in her hand, her favourite dictionary close by. She liked to edit her work on hard copy rather than the computer.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Dad at the store?”
She looked up and smiled. “He has a line on a nineteenth-century pine table. He’s trying to persuade Summerhill to sell it now rather than put it up for auction, but so far it’s no go. He’s as happy as a clam.”
“I’m going to change,” I said, heading for the stairs.
My room was on what Dad referred to as the third level and I called the attic. Accessed by a steep flight of narrow stairs, it was a good-sized, wainscotted room tucked up under the mansard roof, with two dormers looking out onto Brant Street-one a window and the other a glassed door to a small balcony. Another window overlooked Matchedash Street. It was the kind of place where, in a gothic novel, the family would lock up their mad auntie when company came over. In real life, a century or so ago, in the days when rich people owned the house, my room was where the servants had lived. I liked it. I had the balcony, lots of light, and if I craned my neck a little, a view of the lake.
I showered and changed into fresh jeans and shirt. I pulled a duffle bag out of my closet and tossed in a set of clothes, a flashlight, a novel, and the charger for my cell. I planned to leave the clothes at the shop in case I was ever soaked or stranded again.
In the kitchen I made some sandwiches and raided the fridge for a few cans of juice, making a mental note to find a small used fridge for my workshop, and put the food into my pack. Dropping into a chair, I sat back and keyed Raphaella’s number into my cell.
“Hello?” she answered.
“It’s your boyfriend.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The good-looking one.”
“That narrows the field to seven.”
“The one you love the best.”
“Oh. Hi, Steve.”
“Very funny,” I said. “Listen, can you make it out to the Corbizzi place today?”
I heard the muffled sound of Raphaella holding the phone against her body and telling her mother she’d be there in a minute. “I’m at the store,” she said to me. “I have to unpack and shelve a big shipment of Chinese herbs that came in this morning.”
Raphaella’s mother made up natural medicine prescriptions.
Lately she’d been teaching Raphaella to prepare some of the simpler ones.
“Can you mix me up a batch of frogs’ teeth and spiders’ tails?”
“Not today. I’ve got to get going.”
“How long will you be?”
“Probably all day. Maybe I could come by your place for dinner.”
I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Okay. Give me a call if you get the chance.”
“I promise. Gotta go.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Bye, Steve,” she said brightly.
III
BACK AT THE SHOP I cut pieces of dowel to make spindles for the decorative “fence” around the edge of the new mantel top. I fixed the first one between the spurs of the wood lathe, clamped the tool rest into position, and turned on the motor. Using one of the old urn-shaped spindles as a model, I meticulously shaped the wood until I had an accurate replica, finishing it with sandpaper. Then I turned off the motor.
The lathe had a feature that made the rest of the process easier, an electronic gizmo with a stainless-steel tip much like a ballpoint pen. I manoeuvred the tip to rest against the new spindle, turned on the device, and stood back as it silently travelled the length of the spindle, “reading” and memorizing its shape. I had only to remove the spindle, put a blank in its place, fix a cutting tool into the attachment, push a button, and watch as the lathe automatically shaped a new spindle exactly like the first.
It was slow tedious work as the lathe did all the thinking and cutting while I fed it blanks when the time came, but in less than an hour and a half the job was done. At the workbench I laid out the mantel top, the fence rail, and the spindles, then glued and clamped them, careful to keep the fence spindles perpendicular to the top. Then I made the decorative fences for the side panels. I was hanging up my apron when my cell rang. As usual, Mrs. Stoppini got right to the point.
“I shall be serving lunch on the patio in twelve minutes, if you’d care to join me.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Stoppini. Perfect timing, as always.”
“Indeed.”
After eating a plate of cold pasta salad with sparkling mineral water-a few notches up from the peanut butter sandwiches I had brought with me-I told Mrs. Stoppini I’d be working in the library for the afternoon.
“Splendid,” she commented, and began to clear the dishes.
I looked up into a perfect summer sky whose blue deepened as my eyes moved up from the horizon. There was a cool breeze off the lake, just enough to turn the leaves on the maples in the yard to show their pale undersides. I would have preferred to go swimming with Raphaella at Moose Park or lie on a blanket on the grassy shore and read-or doze off to the sound of kids playing in the sand at the edge of the water. I was beginning to feel the loss of sleep the night before, and the prospect of spending time in that unwelcoming room full of old books wasn’t exactly inspiring.
But about an hour later I banged the top back onto a paint can and surveyed the newly painted wall above the fireplace. Satisfied, I gathered the roller and brushes, folded the dropcloths, and took the stuff to the workshop. I decided to take a break and go for a ride on the Hawk while the paint in the library dried and the fumes cleared away. It was a soft summer day, and a motorcycle ride along quiet roads outside of town sounded like a good way to relax.
Then I noticed the broken GPS I had found on the shore lying on the workbench, pushed to the side. I had planned to try new batteries in the hope the unit hadn’t been destroyed in the lake. I might be able to find the owner’s house and return the device-giving me a destination for my ride.
I inserted the fresh batteries and pressed the Power button. Nothing.
“Oh, well,” I muttered.
Then a thought sparked. I powered up my laptop, connected the GPS to it, and launched the GPS software.
“Searching for devices” appeared on the laptop screen. “Device found” was my reward.
Because my own GPS was the same brand, my software could talk to the camo GPS and read its files. I searched around for information on the owner but came up empty. Not to worry. I might find his home by deduction.
A GPS like the camo one was pretty basic but powerful. It could memorize positions-longitude and latitude references-called waypoints, create a route linking selected waypoints, lead you to a specific waypoint using a compass rose, and record tracks. A track was a trip memorized and stored by the GPS. The tracks were usually filed in the unit’s memory by date, unless the user had given them titles. This unit was useless because the screen was broken, but I could read its files. And copy them.
The software displayed all the waypoints on a map. After a quick search, I found that almost all the activity was in an area northwest of town, and one spot in particular had a lot of tracks leading to and from it. I deduced that this place was the owner’s residence.
On my laptop I created a folder, naming it “Found Unit,” then uploaded the contents of the camo GPS into the folder. I slipped outside and removed my GPS from the motorcycle’s handlebars. I downloaded “Found Unit” into my GPS. I had now duplicated the contents of the camo GPS on my own.
I threw on my leather jacket and pocketed the camo GPS and my cell. I clipped my GPS back onto the Hawk’s handlebars and turned it on. Before long I was on Burnside Line at the edge of town. The houses lining the road fell away behind me as I rode away from town and into flat green farmland dotted with cattle and a few small stands of trees.
Motoring along under the speed limit-which was rare for me-I glided past an abandoned limestone quarry, a small herd of horses standing drowsily in the shade of an elm, a field striped with huge rolls of hay lined up under white plastic tarps. The new-mowed hay filled the air with a clean summery scent. The North River meandered lazily across the landscape, making its way to nowhere in particular. The tension from the last couple of days dissolved in the brilliant air.
Beyond the Maple Valley Crossroad the blacktop narrowed, the farmhouses took on a tired defeated look, the fields were blistered by protruding rocks. The road grew even more restricted, then played out completely. I turned onto a gravel side road, following the compass rose on the GPS with growing doubt that I was being taken to the owner’s residence. The gravel soon disappeared and I found myself bumping along a dirt track twisting its way over stony, rolling ground toward a forest in the northwest. A couple of pickup trucks hitched to flatbed trailers were parked along the verge. ATVers, I figured.
I stopped. I thought I knew where the track led, but I wanted to be sure. I pressed the zoom-out button on the GPS until the map showed a much wider area. The almost-road twisted and looped for miles and ended at Swift Rapids, a lock on the four-hundred-kilometre Trent canal system linking Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay by connecting dozens of rivers and lakes using humanmade canals and locks.
Did the owner of the camo GPS live around here? It seemed unlikely. And how far did my obligation to return the GPS to him go? I decided to poke along the rocky trail until the Hawk objected-it wasn’t a trail bike, and although the clearance was pretty good for a touring motorcycle, it was too unwieldy to handle rough travel.
Within fifteen minutes I had reached the forest, and soon after that the pointer on the compass rose indicated I should leave the track and take one that branched to the right. This one was narrower-but still wide enough for me to ride-fairly flat and covered with leaves that showed few signs of disturbance. I tooled along for a couple of klicks. The trees on either side of the path gradually squeezed in until the track ended.
Now what? I had not reached the destination I had been making for. I looked at my watch, deciding to walk for another few minutes, then give up on what was looking more and more like a wild goose chase. As a precaution, I entered a waypoint into the GPS and labelled it “mc.” If I got lost, I’d be able to find the Hawk.
I gulped down half a bottle of juice, then followed the footpath into a thickening forest of second-growth hardwoods. A couple of hundred metres fart
her, where it seemed that the trail was about to peter out, I found myself at the edge of a clearing.
IV
THE OPEN SPACE was half the size of a football field, sunlit and quiet. A small clapboard cabin sat off to one side, a stovepipe poking at an angle through the tarpapered roof. No doors or windows-I was looking at the back of the place. I watched for a while, standing motionless inside the treeline, but saw no activity beyond a pair of blue jays darting around and a black squirrel that seemed unable to make up its mind where it wanted to go.
I crossed the clearing. Shallow trenches and tent-peg holes made a pattern indicating that a few tents had been pitched opposite the cabin not so long ago. The building itself was a simple structure with one cracked window, a padlocked door, and a roofless verandah across the front. The shiny padlock looked new.
All around the window and door, yellow, red, and blue splotches streaked by rain marbled the bare wood, as if a half-dozen demented kindergarten children had been let loose with brushes and cans of paint. They were paintball hits. I stepped onto the creaking porch and peered through the window, letting my eyes adjust to the dark interior. I saw two bare bunks against the far wall, a wooden table, a few broken rail-back chairs, a small wood stove. Nothing else. No sign-a hat on a peg, a few dishes-that anyone used the place.
But outside, along the east wall, was a metre-high stack of firewood. The ground around the cabin was a mess of boot prints and ATV tracks leading to a trail heading northeast through the dense bush. If the direction held, the track would meet the Trent canal system near Morrison Landing.
I sat on the porch. Whoever used the place had left nothing behind that would identify them. It seemed clear that I had stumbled onto a paintball camp. I knew people in town who enjoyed an afternoon out in the woods, fighting a mock battle using paintball guns rather than the real thing. War games-and not for kids, either. The broken GPS in my pocket probably belonged to someone who had been out here, likely with a bunch of guys, probably more than once. He had lost the unit on Lake Couchiching-maybe last night, when I had heard a boat-and it had floated to the shore of the Corbizzi estate.