The Memento

by Christy Ann Conlin

“Go get some fresh air, Fancy. Your days of going barefoot will be over soon enough. Have fun with Art. He’s a special one. He’s a good man,” she said.

  Even in my bad mood I laughed at that. “He’s just a boy, Loretta.”

  “Oh, he might have a high squeaky voice but he’s got a sense of right and wrong. Art knows when to step up, that’s all I know. It’s not how you speak that makes a man, Fancy. You best learn that.”

  She pointed with her knife toward the table to a white envelope with my name on it, Fancy Mosher, in Grampie’s perfect penmanship in black ink. “That’s for you. I should have given it to you earlier. I wasn’t even going to give it to you for it might just make you more confused. But it would be wrong to conceal it. Your Grampie wanted you to have it when you were twelve. He wanted to tell you himself, my dear. I wish he had told me more. I’ll call you when supper’s ready. These onions are bothering my eyes.” She was still hulling strawberries but I didn’t point that out to her.

  I clutched the letter to my chest as I went barefoot over the walking path to the walled garden. It had just been worked on by the Briar Patch people, the grass trimmed up neat. I pulled the door to Evermore open and closed it behind me and turned around. It was a different world in here, dense and lush, the high stone walls sealing the garden off like it was a kingdom unto itself. And if there was a Princess of Evermore it was Jenny, but she was in exile in the city.

  I ran as fast as I could over the path, by the Water House where Marigold made her flower water and herbal remedies so long ago, by the kitchen and herb gardens, the cutting gardens, the rose gardens, the gazebo where Marigold once danced with her son. For a moment I was afraid I’d see Mr. Charlie dancing there, blue in the face, his arms dangling, dancing to music only he could hear. But there wasn’t no one there. Evermore stretched on for five acres, with formal gardens and statues as well as groves of trees and pathways, secret tangled corners and nooks. It was easy to get lost there, or to hide. I kept going, past the big fountain gurgling away, by the huge hedge labyrinth the Colonel had put in for Marigold when they got married, by the lily pond where Jenny’s swans were paddling along, the empty chairs on the deck of Margiold’s Atelier where no one sat any more, and along the path at the far west end of the walled garden to the tall cedar bushes growing in an oval surrounding the Wishing Pool. To the southeast was the path leading to the Parker Family Cemetery, where tombstones stood with curious carvings, the weeping willows and their cascading branches, the hand and fingers with one pointing up: “Gone Home,” the chiselled letters said. The only new stone was the one for Mr. Charlie, made of red granite. There was the no fear in me of a graveyard since it didn’t seem the dead who found the Moshers spent much time in the regular places where phantoms lurked. They was teatime spectres, and the thing to avoid was cups, I told myself as I kept going, slipping in through the cedar hedges to the small Wishing Pool at the centre where goldfish swam.

  There was a marble bench inside the cedar enclosure, with flowering dogwoods on either side. I sat there, crying finally. The sun was softer in the late afternoon and it sparkled on the polished gemstone border that encircled the pool. That was Charlie Parker’s passion as a child, gathering up the jasper and agate and amethyst and quartz from the beach, polishing them and placing them by the Wishing Pool. You could pick one up and make a wish and throw it in. When he died Marigold had some of them scattered on his grave.

  I opened my letter. The paper was smooth and unfolded without a sound.

  Dear Fancy,

  If you’re reading this then I have passed on and Loretta has given you my note because you have turned twelve. We all pass on, Fancy. Do not be sorrowful. But not everyone who turns twelve will have your experience. You are a twelfth-born Mosher. I suspect you knew I did not take tea alone and that my paintings were not simply from my imagination, although we Moshers do have fine imaginations. If you look back now perhaps it will make more sense. I do not know if you’ll have this family memento. I tried to protect you as best I could. If it has come to you, the only way you will know is if you believe. And perhaps you will not. But if you do there will be a visitation.

  It’s never the same in any of us, so the story has gone in the family. They found me through a teacup. I only saw them across a table after they were gone a short time. My grandfather, he needed their shoes, and he’d walk at low tide and draw their words in the sand, and he only saw them a long while after their time of parting. How it will be for you I am not sure. Perhaps you will never know. But there was that day not long ago when I sensed a stirring in you. You saw something in the maple trees, I am sure of it. But here’s the thing. The dead will find you, if they want you and you want them. And if they come, they come for truth.

  Your mother is a broken woman and does not understand. One does not go calling to the dead, for even if you could call them, sometimes the dead do not come back to forgive. She will ask you to do something and you must not. There are some secrets that best remain untold.

  It’s a quiet night as I sit writing this. I can hear your breathing up in the loft. Jake is restless. The moon is small and high as a night bird flies across the dark western sky. The night bloomers are strong this evening and the wisteria is almost growing through the open window. Live your life well among the living, Fancy Mosher, for that shapes the life you will have among the dead.

  Remember that I love you. Remember what I have taught you, for you have already learned so much if only you will remember.

  Grampie

  A big fat fish jumped up into the air and the sun glimmered on its golden body. It fell with a splash and I stood up, startled, the letter falling down on the polished stones. I didn’t know what Grampie taught me except for gardening and the names of trees and flowers and making my bed tidy. How could I remember what I didn’t know? He taught me how to call the birds. How to keep the house. How to read and write. How to sing. How to be still. They’d all played a terrible trick on me. Ma bringing me into the world to fix her mistake, and Grampie for not telling me none of this when he was alive. Loretta, for helping him keep the secret. But it wasn’t even that clear-cut, which made it all the worse. I had a gift, what my mother and grandfather referred to as a memento, like it was something collected on a horrible holiday a long time ago. Whatever happened to my first-born brother, which only my Grampie and Ma seemed to know, and concealed from me.

  The water in the Wishing Pool settled. Would Grampie appear in the water and tell me what to do? The Mosher eyes staring up at me were my own. I grabbed handfuls of the small gemstones and starting throwing them in, handful after handful bashing the water, getting more and more angry and yelling until my throat hurt and I lost my balance and fell right into the Wishing Pool. There I sat, quiet and wet, like some horrid little statue.

  4.

  The Tea House

  WHEN I came out of the garden Loretta had my birthday supper set on the verandah off the back of the house. She’d gone and made the table pretty with a lace cloth and a vase of flowers and a basket of fresh-baked rolls wrapped in white linen. She had china plates and what she called sassy lemonade, lemonade with strawberry syrup served up in pink Depression glass. My hate was skulking away, and trying to haul it back was wearing me out. Plus the idea of chucking questions at her when she didn’t want to talk made me feel ashamed. Loretta had told me more in one afternoon than in all the time I’d known her. If I pushed she might fall apart and that made me nervous, for she was all I had holding things together. She didn’t even ask me why I was wet. “Don’t drip on the floor, dear,” was all she said, and she went back to smashing berries and whipping cream for my cake. For now we could carry on like I’d never found out about my apparent kinship with the deceased, or, as it seemed, their affinity for me.

  I went up to my room and put the letter on my bed. In the bathroom I dried off and braided my hair. I came back downstairs in a smocked sundress. Loretta was waiting, relieved to see me tidied and proper. It was the time
when day and night come together, when the light is soft and you can catch a glimpse of the young in the elderly. The evening glow blurred the revelations—the memento, and what I had read in the letter, none of it seemed real.

  We made what Grampie always called idle natter as we ate supper. It was best that way for Loretta now looked pained, as though the delicious ham was giving her cramps. She needed a good sleep, she said, we both did. Where we sat we could see the grey flagstone walk leading around the corner of the house to the Annex, the northwest part of the house, the part they closed up after Charlie died. Grampie and Loretta remembered when it was used as a convalescent hospital long ago, during the war. They were overcrowded in the hospitals all over. The Colonel offered the Annex, as it hadn’t been in regular use for decades, not since before the other big war, when Lupin Cove was still a bustling place of importance. It found new life as a place for the war-weary to take respite and relief. Some of them were restored, some stayed crazy, and others died and were taken away in a long black hearse.

  Colonel Parker said it was the least he could do for the men. I guess it was from feeling guilty about whatever it was he did in the war. Of course he got some big tax break and they put up a huge statue of him down in the valley at the hospital and that statue is there to this day, although no one aside from me and the historians much remembers him no more. Nothing about him seemed like a warrior, more like a businessman, but he loved his parades and his uniform. When his mind started to go it was all he would wear as he marched about tending to his matters of consequence. The stories we heard about the Colonel and his war only made mention of chemicals, some factories, things made for the war, for the killing.

  Grampie said the soldiers’ souls were in a state of fatigue after what they had seen. He would visit at teatime during the week, and for some he made paintings, grisly paintings with crazy eyes, which he never gave them. I’d always wondered about those paintings, and as Loretta and I celebrated my birthday with a quiet ham dinner, all the stories Grampie told me, the things I had seen in my young life, all was taking on new meaning. I always thought he had listened to their stories and then gone back to the Tea House to draw out what they described to him, the artistic inspiration, if you will. But as I chewed on my fresh-baked roll and drank my strawberry lemonade, it was clear it was another thing entirely.

  It was supposed to be temporary, the Annex being a convalescent home, but after the war they brought them back every summer. It was more a holiday home for soldiers who never got better, the fresh shore air and its healing properties. Marigold made them all participate in a choir and they’d perform at the garden party, standing there on the gazebo singing like dippy old dogs. People referred to it as the Invalid Choir, and they were known for ballads and hymns. She would also take them to the Atelier in the walled garden and teach them still-life drawing. It kept Marigold busy. Charlie said the reason his father had the men there so long was for this exact reason.

  They finally stopped coming near the time Jenny was born. Estelle didn’t seem to worry at all when Pomeline was a child, nor did Marigold. Sometimes you would find young Pomeline, with her golden curls and her pretty dress, holding the hand of a stricken time-worn man as she guided him through Evermore, looking at the fountains and the statues. The small staff still at Petal’s End was the ones who looked out for Pomeline. Charlie was barely around then, off on travels with his friends, avoiding his wife and his mother. Estelle would just lounge around in a lawn chair with a book and a drink and a cigarette, and Pomeline could do as she pleased. When Charlie was at the estate he would usually find Pomeline off in the garden or lost in the house crying, and he’d fight with Estelle about it.

  When Jenny was born it was a different story. Estelle had a bad womb is what people said. Jenny was her miracle baby after all the lost ones. They all thought Estelle would prefer Pomeline, with her beauty and her music, but it was like it all got reversed. It seemed in Estelle’s mind Jenny had all of Pomeline’s graces, and Pomeline, she had all of Jenny’s jagged personality and sickly pall. Estelle had complained about the soldiers and finally Charlie had taken her side, telling Marigold it wasn’t safe with young children. He knew the men were harmless but it was disturbing for youngsters. It wasn’t healthy. Estelle had her way, even though she was a nurse who was supposed to have compassion. That’s how she had come to Petal’s End, working as a nurse in the Annex hospital.

  Loretta went into the house to get my cake. I never liked a birthday party and that was just as well considering we had almost no one to invite. I waited for her to come back out, fixing my gaze on a smattering of starlings collecting in the sky.

  We weren’t ever, ever supposed to go in the Annex. Even Grampie had told me never to set foot. That was on account of the one time we did go and the horror we found in the far room. When they closed the wing up after the sick soldiers stopped coming for the restorative country air, they locked the door and left it. They had no need for that much space and it was easy for the Parkers and everyone else to forget about it. Except for us kids, of course. Especially Jenny. And so that summer day came when Art and I went sneaking in the door. There was a painting of a landscape, all mists and blues, with a key hidden behind it, but we didn’t need that for the door was open a crack. That was what called us in. We crept down that long hall past all the cobwebs that were out of reach. There was a whirring sound, getting louder and louder as we went down. There was closed doors on either side of the hall and we opened them up one by one. The noise was coming from the last room, the patient salon that had once been a spacious drawing room. The door was open. There was a sudden scream and then a piercing wail. We peeked in. The curtains were pulled and the light was dim. A fan whirred, circulating a horrific odour. Marigold was restraining Jenny and Charlie was swinging from the chandelier, his toes just grazing the floor. His face was purple.

  Photographs were spread out on a nearby table like a deck of cards, as though Charlie had been playing a game of solitaire or blackjack with ghosts, drinking wine from a crystal glass. We ran in thinking we could do something but there was nothing to do except cry. Marigold backed up, hauling Jenny with her, and she crashed into the table. Nothing shatters as spectacular as a quality crystal glass. I was silent, a dark horrible shudder crawling up my limbs. Then there was a parade of adults coming in and hauling us away, Estelle righting the table, picking up the larger pieces of glass and the mess on the floor, screeching as though she had lost her senses, clasping all of those photos like they was the most important thing in the world, barely noticing the children.

  When I was a small child we’d tell ghost stories on the beach by the bonfire. I knew many from my mother, from the fishermen in the village. We’d tell stories of the pirates who’d roamed the bay, the pirate who’d left the beheaded sailor behind over on the island. We didn’t share as many ghost stories after Charlie died. Estelle wanted to tear the Annex off the house but Marigold refused. It seemed odd that she wanted to keep such an awful memory alive in there, but eventually I understood that she wanted Estelle to remember, never to move on. The door stayed locked, the Annex shut up, locking in its memories and ghosts. It was the place we was not to go, the long dusty wing, the last place Charlie Parker ever saw.

  I sat at the table, transfixed by the Annex. What if Charlie was in there waiting for me to come see him? I couldn’t ask Loretta about that. There was only one time later that anyone ever spoke of the Annex. Marigold had come into the kitchen to discuss the menu for a dinner party with very important people. Estelle come in behind her. Loretta turned to the cupboard and I just kept washing the dishes. They were fighting over the Annex. The argument went as it always did between them two no matter what they were quarrelling over, with Marigold’s voice ice-thin and Estelle blowing and thundering. She started hollering that Marigold should let that godforsaken mausoleum be torn down. Marigold slapped Estelle and said it might be the place Charlie died but it was also the place he and Estelle had fallen in
love. “You should show more respect, you gold-digging opportunist.” That’s what she called her, and it shut Estelle up for a long time. The Annex remained, vacant and avoided.

  Loretta came out with strawberry shortcake and a sparkler flaring in the middle. She normally just sang hymns and she approached “Happy Birthday” as though it were a selection from her hymnal. “Here’s to a hopeful year, Fancy,” she said. We ate and Loretta chit-chatted about making jams and picking berries, and her plans for the summer and how charming the gardens looked. She didn’t ask me about the letter and she didn’t eat her cake. We brought in the plates and she said I could go entertain myself while she finished cleaning up the kitchen.

  In my room, I put the letter in my backpack, tucking a flashlight in there as well.

  I went back into Evermore when the shadows were starting to fall. Vesper bats were just taking to the sky. Summer days trick you into forgetting night is coming. I walked through the garden to the east wall back by the gazebo. The forest pressed in on that door, and the only opening in the dense brush was the narrow trail to the Tea House. This had been the path for the woodcutter years before, and then we Moshers had used it. It was much darker in the woods. Soon Loretta would come out to call me in for bedtime so I planned to be quick.

  I’d been on that trail hundreds of times and could travel it with my eyes shut. It was quiet except for the flutter of the tree birds I was disturbing. Or the slumber of the wood spirits, for I was in such a state of sorrow and resentment it was sure to disturb them as they sang their twilight lullabies. When Art and I was little we made up a story of creatures living in the woodland. They weren’t people or animals, nor ghosts. If you came into that ancient woodland crying or breathing hard or stomping they’d see you, and you’d hear them if you listened proper. It was their breath that rustled the leaves, not the wind. And it wasn’t no proper rustle but the branches and foliage babbling, a susurration, as Grampie described it. We was sure the forest air held their moist breath, scented with emerald moss and dewdrops.