House of Darkness House of Light
Page 16
“I believe there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which,
if we consciously yield to it, will direct us aright.”
Henry David Thoreau
“There, don’t you hear it too?
Something is calling, although
The day is blank and gray.
The eye fastened on nothing,
The ear undistracted
And we with nothing to say.
But still that sense of calling,
Of something seeking attention
Beyond our consciousness.”
John Fuller
beneath the bell stone
“In my end is my beginning.”
T. S. Eliot
A recurring theme had begun to emerge. Mortals being drawn down into Earth; there was no escaping and no denying the allure of a cellar underneath the aged farmhouse or the old cellar hole set back on the property. There was another spot as well… a well. About twenty feet adjacent to their old exposed cellar hole lays a deep well, hand dug and expertly lined with stone. Its cover is a solid slab of granite in the shape of a bell. As a wonder to behold it was a fascinating discovery. Roger required assistance removing that cumbersome cover. Once its weight was shifted, it was lifted off, revealing the cylindrical shaft. Everyone peered down into the planet from above. Sweet water. Nectar of the gods: essence of life, pure and unspoiled. There was much speculation about the age of the well, certainly hundreds of years old. Roger warned kids away from the edge, explaining the inherent danger posed: any uncovered well is a death trap. Blunt and to the point. You will die. You will drown before anyone could ever rescue you. A message received. Heave ho! The granite bell stone went back into place over the mouth of an ancient well which could and would swallow any one of them whole. Spooky.
Standing beside it made Andrea queasy and uneasy. She stepped away, suffering the symptoms of vertigo. Then she noticed Cynthia, appearing to be struggling with her equilibrium, shaky on her feet and a bit green around the gills. Both of them felt the magnetic pull, a gravitational tug of war as the youngsters fought the effects. Nobody else seemed to be suffering from the same malaise. Andrea sought out her sister for some validation. She got it.
“Can you feel it?” Cynthia’s voice was pleading for some recognition of a sensation she was experiencing at that moment, a trembling, earth-shattering vibration from beneath her feet, traveling up into her torso. It was powerful.
“I do! Like an earthquake, but deep underground.” Andrea knew precisely how it felt. “The ground is shaking. I can feel it inside me!”
The family had moved on. Reaching for her sister’s hand, Andrea pulled Cindy up from a low spot of grass near the well. They stood there, shocked by electrical energy vibrating throughout their bodies. Neither of them could rationally process the intensity of tremors emanating from below the surface, causing both girls to quake to the core.
“It isn’t as strong here.” Cynthia had something to compare this sensation with, yet another well which blew her away in the cellar of their farmhouse.
Let’s try catching up to them.” One good tug pulled her little sister along, up the hill… then over the river and through the woods… another festive, if intrepid trek through time and space… at light speed. Lost for only a second, they found their family along a well-beaten path to the pond.
Neither of the girls mentioned this event to anyone else and nobody else seemed to notice the phenomenon occur, except them. Once they reached the rest of their family, an oddly disquieting incident was all but forgotten. There was so much more left to explore and so much merry to make in the woods. Distractions were as bountiful as the land. Future sublime excursions would yield other interesting encounters but on this particular journey, two cautious siblings took an alternate path around the well, thus avoiding it on their way home. No point in tempting fate any further. Heads up, not down the hatch.
***
A cryptic message was not well received. In fact, it made no sense at all; impossible to decipher this cosmic code. What was that odd woman saying? What could she have meant by it? “Your answer lies beneath the bell stone.” Carolyn wasn’t in a state-of-mind to consider or comprehend inner meaning, the underlying message obscured by an ongoing conflict. In no mood to play head games, not ever, Carolyn did not ask for clarification. She didn’t ask for anything because she could not speak at all. Instead, she ignored the mystical remark. Recovering from the ordeal she had just endured required all of her resources. Three of the children heard those words but did not know how to interpret them. Roger was preoccupied dismissing all present ghost hunters from his farmhouse, the space he considered had been invaded. Expulsion, including the medium who had uttered the statement in question, created the chaotic scene. In moments such as this, pearls of wisdom can fall as if manna from Heaven, into the saturated minds of unsuspecting souls. Andrea heard what this psychic had said to her mother. The solitary comment has intrigued her for decades since. On a fundamental level it makes sense, if intuitively. There remains no empirical evidence, no proof of the assertion made or the conclusion drawn. There is only a feeling that haunts her still… a sense of it. The woman was telling the truth. She did not have to pause above Carolyn, stopping to utter these few obscure words, in haste. The expression on her face revealed her sincerity, a genuine desire to help. The mysterious message was delivered more like a secret, as if the recipient was supposed to grasp its intrinsic meaning. Everything was happening so quickly, people coming and going at Light speed. Mary stopped dead in her tracks. She had something to say. If hyperbole or an authentic clue to solving the dilemma, no one knew. “Your answer lies beneath the bell stone.” Something dead in the water?
The concept of a well having something to do with a haunted house half a mile away is fodder for any decently engaged imagination. What could water have to do with it? Elemental reflections. Perplexed, the thought of it tugs at her mind like the current of a mighty river flowing along memory banks of a curiosity-driven-stream-of-consciousness; a tidal surge of inquiry comes crashing onto the shoreline whenever Andrea entertains this nebulous notion, prompting a series of pertinent questions: Why does Cindy still insist that the spirits in the farmhouse travel through the wells? What, if any, is the relative connection between the well in the house and the well at the old cellar hole? Are both tapping into the same subterranean source, an underground aquifer? Why do they vibrate? Why did ground surrounding them tremble whenever a mortal soul would step onto a stone? Was the sensation of suction caused by gravitational force? Is this phenomenon magnetic in nature? Are these wells a direct route to and from the netherworld as an underground superhighway to heaven or to hell and back again? What had she meant by the bizarre comment?
If Mr. McKeachern was correct and the folklore accurate, the local parish would not allow Bathsheba to be buried in consecrated ground. If not there, then where? How did a family dispose of her body in the end? Where is she, if not beneath her own gravestone? Is it even possible her stone cold corpse went down the hatch, entombed for eternity in a watery crypt beneath a bell stone within an ancient, abandoned well instead of a proper internment in the cemetery in the center of Harrisville? It was not long past the time when any woman presumed to be a witch got burned at the stake and drowned for good measure to be certain she was dead. Salem was just up the road, after all. It is incredulous by modern standards, yet women of ill repute were persecuted in her time and a reputation preceded her. If Bathsheba is somehow attached to the wells on the property, no matter how strange it might appear in theory, maybe a plausible, elemental explanation exists. According to one thoughtful soul who’d bothered to pause on her way out the door, risking further wrath, their answer lies beneath the bell stone. It is important for mortal souls to ask pertinent questions regarding life and death, the how, where, when and why of immortality, answered or not. There are significant historical implications. There are those throughout history who buried their dead in watery graves.
and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are
no certain answers.”
Martina Horner
the big dig
“Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman,
before which difficulties disappear and
obstacles vanish into air.”
John Quincy Adams
“Mother of God!” Click. Carolyn slammed the telephone receiver into its cradle, having received an unwelcome message from her wayward husband. Roger was in a lousy mood and on his way home. She would’ve preferred he keep his irascible disposition with him on the road. Though this mother was rarely tempted to raise her melodious voice, no residents present and accounted for missed this clarion call to arms on a snowbound afternoon. It reverberated, echoing throughout the farmhouse. Present arms! Troops at the ready.
“He’s coming home!” Carolyn knew what this meant. “Girls, get dressed. Get the shovels. Your father is already on the Mass Pike.” Their mother was frantic. Charge! The Light Brigade was marshaled into service. Even if he was, as she suspected, just crawling along through more than two feet of fresh-fallen snow, she likewise knew he would know enough to drive behind a plow and travel its wake. This would get him home in about two hours, if he was lucky. One glance out their windows proved they were on a tight schedule. Losing the light meant losing their battle with the elements. Space had to be made before dark. Daddy had to pull into the barn. It wasn’t a fair fight. Let’s go! It took all of them to shove the woodshed door. Work was required to shake off her mood; that’s just what Carolyn did. Heave Ho! The woodshed door gave way under pressure as the five foot high snowdrift collapsed, spilling inside and all over them. Shake it off! Best to begin any task with a good attitude and a hearty laugh, but time was of the essence.
Using shovels as weapons against Mother Nature was futile when she was busy having her way with the world. They all knew it. What they were about to do would not even scratch the surface but it had to be done. Winter storms were hard fought and winter lessons hard learned at the farm. The girls knew snow shovels were offensive as well as defensive weaponry, effective shields against the harsh, wind-driven squalls, attacking at will from every direction. Well! Blow me down again! Over and out of the fight, April took the plunge into a snowdrift that towered above her head and the snow kept on coming as the battle raged on. The women warriors began their assault from inside out, digging a path to the barn, a sled dog came to the rescue. Pooh Bear plowed right in, leading the charge, tunneling through the massive mounds of snow. It caved in from above. A path was cleared so they marched behind, trudging along, playing follow the leader of the pack all the way out to the barn. There was Pooh Bear, their champion, emerging from beneath another drift. There they were, attempting an insurmountable task. So began the cardio-workout session, the building of muscle mass… an exercise in futility.
Curses! Carolyn kept them under her breath as it flowed from her lungs, transforming into steam as it hit frosty air. She was resentful of the perceived intrusion. Beyond physical labor, being compelled by obligation to perform a duty with so little advance warning was what perturbed her most. She could not understand why he would foolishly risk his life to come home in a storm rather than taking a room for one more night until the roads could be cleared. Very few of Roger’s decisions made any sense to his wife. Carolyn would have much preferred to have an undisturbed snowstorm, spending quiet time with her kids, making hot chocolate, playing Parcheesi. It was never her intention to go slogging off into the snow to dig a hole for her husband, yet there were times when she wanted to dig one, about six feet down underground, just for him, and this was one of those times. Too bad the land was frozen as solid as a slab of granite, one as thick as her husband’s skull!
A sudden ghastly gust of wind blew all the girls back. In case complaint was forthcoming, Nancy interceded, reminding the troops they would have had to come on out to the barn anyway, to take care of their horses. The boys required fresh water and grain, as well as thermal blankets for the bitter night ahead. They needed to be comforted, groomed and stroked as Cynthia had done earlier in the day, calming them down at the height of the storm; purely a labor of love. These needs were only disguised as chores. Having them was a privilege. Cindy and Nancy were the bravest of the bunch, first to take the plunge that morning, stepping off the precipice of the porch into a thigh-high winter wonderland. They told their tale with good cheer as laughter erupted. Carolyn may have been a bit disgruntled but her kids were already having a winter blast. They didn’t mind it at all… any excuse to go play in the snow! Girls just wanna have fun! Everything is a grand adventure when kids create a grand adventure out of everything. This was wet, fluffy stuff, perfect for snowballs but heavy as hell. Digging in, Christine recalled a favorite line:
“It wath a blithard all the way but we had
to get that therum through!”
Nobody can remember precisely where that phrase comes from. Perhaps it was Snagglepuss or maybe it was Daffy Duck who said it, or one of those many fanciful and familiar cartoon characters from The Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Hour . . . a Saturday morning staple. Her fine line drawn in the snow certainly applied to the task at hand in glove. Chris giggled, admiring her own inimitable wit and yes, it was a blizzard! As soon as they’d clear a square foot, wind howling like a banshee lashed out, laughing at lowly mortals, blowing back what was shifted and shoveled off to the side, recovering the barren surface. It was useless, yet they persevered. Just fooling around, not a grimace to be found among the crowd, even their mother had to laugh at the utter futility of it all. The weather outside was frightful but the kids were so delightful and since they’d no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! Heave ho!
***
Sometime back in the 60’s the phrase “Dig it!” came into common usage as a rather uplifting, positive expression of sheer delight. “I dig rock ’n roll music” assimilated into the popular culture and even made it to the top of the charts. For the Perrons, the word “dig” was a working verb, an action word. Nothing passive about it. Whether they were shoveling the next snowfall or digging bottles from dumpsites they discovered on the prime property, someone was always up to the elbows in something. Digging rows in the garden for the planting of seeds or solemnly digging a grave for a lost cherished pet, it seemed as if there was no end to the drudgery and divinity of rooting down in the sacred ground. The biggest dig of all was yet to come.
Eventually it was determined to be sadly true. The spring was no longer a viable option, a reliable water source for the farm. It ran beneath Round Top Road from a hillside across the street. That line was crushed by heavy snow removal equipment the previous winter. Time to dig a well. It was obvious to Carolyn what move to make first. Most women would let their fingers do the walking, busy calling up one company or ten, posing questions and noting rates. Carolyn was even more sensible. The pragmatic approach to her quest for knowledge kept her closer to home. Calling upon old Mr. McKeachern instead, he invited her over to his farmhouse and when she came to call, they walked out on his land. The wise man paused at the door of a shed where he retrieved a blade from a toolbox. As they continued, the gentleman explained precisely what Carolyn should do to locate water on her property. It was a simple matter and an even simpler method: carve a divining rod. The way he could whittle a natural tool of the trade was practically magical.
“I’ve known of a few that knew how to find the water.” He winked at her. His heavy Yankee accent made words all the more appealing; a charming companion. Together they wandered through the woods until coming upon a huge bush trying its best to become a tree, as a member of the birch family. “Here’s what you do…” He examined the bush for a moment then reached in with both hands, deftly grasping then slicing off the chosen one. “Ya cut ya an alder branch about two feet long, shaped like a Y . . . like this.” Handing the branch out to Carolyn,
Mr. McKeachern extricated himself from the massive bush seeming to consume him, but he got the one he wanted. Placing it back in his calloused hands, he quickly and precisely trimmed the bark clean with his blade. “Well, there ya go.” Exchanging the wood once again, she studied what was in her hands then handed it back. “Ya hold it like this, upside down and strong. Hold onto it with both hands straight out in front and walk… slow and careful… and make sure ya don’t miss no places where ya might want a well. Listen to the land.” Mr. McKeachern began walking as he’d described, demonstrating the technique of a dowser, his long, slender fingers wrapped securely around both stems. Quick and nibble as he’d been while cutting and stripping an alder branch, he did an about face, deliberately lethargic in his movements. A thoughtful, almost prayerful approach to the Earth beneath his feet appeared to be a holy, divine endeavor. “If there’s water underground an alder will pull straight down to it.” And it did. Carolyn watched it happen. She felt it happening as he found a spot then placed the rod in her hands. It began to tremble. She could sense the gravitational tug from deep inside the planet, pulling it down, down… maybe not just an old wives tale, after all.
Once she received the message intended, another lesson learned, Carolyn thanked him for his time and many talents. Perhaps without thinking about it, Mr. McKeachern tossed the branch away, discarding it like a worthless twig. It didn’t even matter that he’d neglected to offer it to her. The woman had an inkling she was supposed to make her own divining rod, from her own land. She did so without delay, choosing an alder branch from a bush in their back pasture once she returned to the farm. While driving home, wondering what she’d just seen happen, intuition had told her to call on her neighbor, the man who knew everything. Carolyn wasn’t certain she had faith in the principle of divining rods or a confirmed belief in dowsers before going over to visit the gentleman sage. After an hour-long excursion, over the river and through the woods, she understood more about the land and the human connection to it, as information was absorbed by osmosis, by simply being in his presence. Once she’d carved out a place for herself in the holy process by carving her own tool, she likewise discovered a rapidly developing respect for its pure power. She gained faith in her role as the technique evolved. Carolyn could do this… a natural, perhaps as an intrinsic gift from her Cherokee ancestors.