The Ghost Road

by Charis Cotter

  I held a whispered conference with Ruby in the hall.

  “Why did you have to kick me?” said Ruby, rubbing her leg. “That hurt!”

  “I wanted to get out of there, and I didn’t want to get into anything with them. We need to go to Nan’s. She wants to tell us something. And she said to bring the box.”

  “What?” said Ruby. “How does she know about that?”

  “How does she know about anything?” I said. “Let’s go get it.”

  We listened to Uncle George and Aunt Doll talking for a moment, to make sure they were going to stay in the kitchen, then went upstairs, into the closet and opened the secret door.

  The room was stuffy. It seemed a little more ordinary than it had before, perhaps because we’d been through so much since the last time we were here. It just looked like a dusty, forgotten place. The red trunk sat against the wall, where it had stood for—how many years had it been there? Fifty? One hundred?

  Ruby crossed over to it and undid the green ribbon. She opened it and pulled out the little wooden box with the silver knots on the lid.

  We shut up the secret room again, went quietly down the stairs, grabbed our jackets and went out into the fresh air. Ruby persuaded me to leave a note in our room, saying we had gone for a walk, just in case Aunt Doll checked on us.

  “She’ll say no if we ask her, but at least this way she can’t get too cross.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I did as Ruby asked.

  It was warmer than it had been since I arrived, and a soft breeze was blowing down from the hills. There was that delicious smell of wild grass and salt water.

  As we passed different houses, people would come out and wave at us and ask us if we were okay and ask what had happened. It was all we could do to be polite and get away from them all without going into long explanations.

  We finally made it to the witch’s house and knocked. This time I wasn’t so apprehensive as we waited for her to answer the door.

  The door swung open into the dark hallway, and there she stood, looking as severe and forbidding as always. A tantalizing smell of fresh bread and cinnamon wafted out into the street.

  “Mmmmmm,” said Ruby. “What have you made for us, Nan?”

  “Cinnamon buns,” she said. “Not that you deserve them, running off like that and worrying us all to death.”

  Ruby gave a little skip over the threshold and went in. I followed, and soon we were in the kitchen, where a plate of buns and two glasses of milk stood ready for us.

  We sat down and ate a couple, which was quite an accomplishment, considering the breakfast we had just put away. The witch watched us silently.

  “There now,” she said, as we pushed our chairs back and groaned. “Maybe that will go some way to making up for a long hungry night in that godforsaken place.”

  “How did you find us, Nan?” I asked. “How did you know where we were?”

  She sniffed. “I told you. It was the Sight.”

  “Did you have a vision?” asked Ruby, her eyes big.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” said Nan with a noise that sounded very much like a snort.

  “Please tell us,” I said, putting my hand over her gnarled fingers and smiling at her. I was catching on to her. She liked to be thought of as a miserable old witch but she wasn’t really. At least—not completely.

  “Oh very well,” she said. “You’ll be pestering the life out of me if I don’t. Well, your Aunt Doll phoned me about seven to ask if I’d seen the two of you that afternoon, or if I knew where you’d gone, because you were late coming home. I didn’t have any idea, so I told her to let me know when you got in. An hour later she called back and said that you were still missing, and George was on his way to help look for you. I went over to sit with her. When he got there, it was late, so he insisted I go to bed and get some sleep and they put me in Clarence’s study on his old bed.

  “I couldn’t sleep; I was that worried about the two of you. And there was the storm, and I thought I heard the Old Hollies screaming in the wind—”

  “We heard them too, in Slippers Cove, didn’t we, Rue?” put in Ruby.

  “Well, I was lying there, tossing and turning, when I heard someone crying. It wasn’t the wind, just someone crying as if their heart would break. I sat up to listen, and then it came to me like a dream, the way it does. I saw you, Ruth, lying in a dark place with your arm around Ruby, who had her eyes closed and had blood on her face.”

  She stopped. She looked at Ruby. “I was afraid you were dead,” she said softly.

  Ruby’s mouth dropped open and she just stared at her. “You were worried about me?” she said in a squeak. “Me?”

  “Yes, of course I was,” snapped Nan. “And it was Ruth I had heard crying. There wasn’t much light, but I could see you were in a place made of stone. And then it was gone, and I was sitting in the dark in Clarence’s study and there was no light to switch on because that man was too bullheaded and stubborn to put—” She broke off and took a deep breath.

  “Anyway, there I was with no light. I got out of bed and found some matches by the kerosene lamp and lit it. The first thing I saw was that painting on the wall, one I’d had reason to take note of years before, a picture of high cliffs and stormy seas, with a narrow entrance to a harbor. Slippers Cove. And then I knew.”

  “Knew we were in Slippers Cove?” said Ruby, her eyes big.

  “Yes. As sure as you’re sitting at my kitchen table today, I knew that’s where you were last night. So I went out and found Doll and George still awake in the kitchen, and told George to get Ed Dunphy and his boat lined up for first light because I knew where you were. At first they didn’t believe me, but I soon had them persuaded,” she said grimly. “Both of them have reason to know I have the Sight, and it’s not to be taken lightly. Then I went back to bed and got what sleep I could before it was time to get up and go find you.”

  “Wow,” said Ruby. “You’re almost as good as Ruth.”

  Nan glared at her. “Enough of that,” she said. “Ruth, did you bring the box with the silver knots?”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  THE KEY

  I pulled it out of my knapsack and placed it on the table. The sunlight coming in the window reflected off the silver, making it gleam. We all sat looking at it for a moment.

  “How did you—?” I began, but the witch put up her hand to stop me.

  “I need to tell you this my own way,” she said. “It’s difficult.” She was silent for a moment.

  “I was brought up to hate the Finns,” she began. “My mother and her mother before her and her mother before her had passed it down through the generations. The Finns had done the Barretts wrong, back in Ireland. A deep wrong. Something that never could be fixed. We were never to have anything to do with the Finns, because they had dealings with the devil. And the way the story went, it was the twins that were responsible. Twins ran in that family, and they were unnatural, evil.”

  She was silent again for a moment. “There were whispers about a curse, and it was clear that the twins never seemed to live too long, and it seemed right that they didn’t, because they were wicked.” She sighed.

  “And then when George was a boy, he started playing with Meg and Molly. I did everything I could to keep them apart, but all it did was drive George away from me. I knew what was going on but I couldn’t stop it. His father just laughed at me and told me I was foolish. There was no one left of my family to remember the stories about the Finns, just me. It seemed that there was nothing I could do about it. But when they were thirteen, and I could tell that it was starting to be more than just childhood friends between Molly and George, I got even more worried about my boy, and finally I went to Clarence Duggan to have it out with him. Meg and Molly’s mother and father were gone by then, and Doll was caring for them, but I knew she wouldn’t listen to anything that she thought was superstition, so I went to Clarence.

  “He was a thoughtful man. He had more books in his
room than I’d ever seen in one place, and rumor had it he’d read them all. I sat there and told him that there was a curse on the Finns, and I wanted to keep George out of it. He listened and then he got up and opened up a little door in the wall, behind that picture of the cliffs at Slippers Cove, and brought out an old book.

  “I could see it was a Bible, falling apart with age, with gold lettering on the front. And a wooden box, covered with silver knots. Celtic knots they were, from Ireland. He told me he’d found that Bible and the box in that cupboard after his wife Lily died, and he’d kept it secret all this time. But now he thought I should see it, so I could understand about the curse.

  “He opened the Bible and showed me the record of the Finns’ family tree. There it was, all written down, how the long line of twins had all died young, tracing back to two in Ireland, Eva and Eileen. And it had Eileen’s husband written down as Robert Barrett. His death was recorded as 1832, the year my family and the Finns all came to Slippers Cove from Waterford, Ireland.

  “I always knew the curse went back to that time. That was the story in my family. That something had happened to Robert Barrett, so he never came to Newfoundland with his wife and children. They’d come on the boat without him, and that’s all that was known. But rumor had it that his wife, Eileen, and her twin sister, Eva Finn, had made away with him, and that’s why the Finns were cursed.

  “One minute I was sitting there with Clarence, looking at those names in that Bible, all those Finns down through the generations, twins, and how they all died young. The next minute Clarence and his room and his books and paintings had all disappeared, and I was back there. In Ireland. At the beginning. Robert Barrett lay dead on the floor in a dark old kitchen, with a fire burning all around him. Two women with blonde hair stood over him.

  “Just as sudden as it had come, it was gone, and I was back in Clarence’s room. He hadn’t noticed, but was talking on about the family all that time.

  “I was fuming. My great-great-great-great-uncle, Robert was. And the two Finns standing there, watching as he died. I felt a dark anger rise up in me then, against the Finns, and Clarence Duggan, and I felt the weight of my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother going back through the years, back to my great-great-great-great-uncle who was murdered by those women, I had no doubt. And I felt a whispering all around me and I wanted to scream, but Clarence was sitting there quietly, saying we must pray together for it to come to an end, and for the two families to put away their hatred and forgive each other.

  “I wanted to hit him. The room was turning red around me, I was so angry. I felt my uncle’s blood calling out for revenge. And then I felt something else. I was holding the Bible in my hand, gripping it tight, and there was something hard tucked inside the cover, where it was falling apart. I said something to Clarence to distract him—I don’t know what—and then I edged the little hard thing out of the cover and hid it in my hand. Then I handed the Bible back to Clarence and stood up to go. I told him he could pray all he liked, but God punished sinners and the Finns would have to live with the sins of their mothers. Then I left.”

  Ruby and I sat mesmerized.

  “What—what was it?” whispered Ruby.

  The witch reached into her apron pocket and drew something out, which she laid on the table beside the wooden box.

  A small silver key.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  TWISTED

  Ruby reached out her hand for the key, but the witch stopped her.

  “No. There’s something else.” She frowned and took a deep breath.

  “I overheard Meg and Molly talking a few days after that. I was out hanging laundry and they were waiting for George out behind the shed. They couldn’t see me. ‘If only we could find the key,’ said one of them, Molly I think.

  “‘It’s probably at the bottom of the ocean, in Michael Finn’s pocket,’ said the other.

  “‘Do you really think there could be anything in that box that would help?’ said Molly.

  “‘I don’t know,’ said Meg. ‘But unless we find the key, we’ll never know.’”

  The witch stopped speaking. I could see tears in her eyes.

  “I should have given it to them. I know it. I’ve always known it. But they were taking my boy from me, and winding their spells around him, and I hated them for it. Maybe if I hadn’t been so selfish, they would still be alive today.” A racking sob burst out of her and she covered her eyes.

  Ruby and I just stared at her.

  “You had it?” said Ruby finally. “All this time? You could have saved our mothers and you didn’t?” She stood up, shaking, and pointed her finger at the old woman. “You are a horrible old witch. You really are.”

  I stood up and touched her arm.

  “No, Ruby. No. We don’t know that. We don’t know what’s in the box. And we can’t break the curse unless we stop hating each other. That’s what started it.”

  “No,” said Ruby furiously. “What started it is her great-great-great-great-uncle beating his wife and nearly killing her. Eva only killed him to save her sister. It was self-defense. Ruth saw it happening, Nan. It was him, Robert Barrett, who was evil, not the twins. He was hurting her in front of their two little girls, Nan. And then when Eva hit him, he cursed them. He began all the hatred, and the Barretts have kept it alive. You’re the evil ones, not the Finns.”

  The witch just sat there, staring at Ruby. “Is this true?” she said, finally, in a hoarse voice, turning to me.

  I nodded. “I saw it, Nan. With the Sight. I saw it all.”

  The witch shook her head. “I don’t believe it. How could it all get twisted like that?”

  “Because you’re twisted,” yelled Ruby, pounding her fist on the table. “You’re twisted, and evil and bitter and—” She began to cry, laying her arms on the table and burying her head in them. “My mother,” she said. “My mother, Molly. Meg. All of them.”

  The witch looked like a balloon someone had sucked the air out of. She looked older than I’d ever seen her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, reaching out to Ruby and laying her hand on her head. “I’m so sorry. You’re right.”

  Ruby kept crying, and tears were rolling down Nan’s face. There was nothing I could do for either of them. I looked down at the table, where the silver key sat gleaming in the sunshine coming in the window.

  I picked up the key and took up the box. I found the little hidden slot and slipped the key into it.

  At first I couldn’t turn it. I gave it a wiggle. Something clicked, and a crack showed along one edge of the box. I put my fingernails in the crack and pried it open.

  Immediately a smell of sweet grasses and dried flowers filled the room, the same as when we had opened the red trunk. Ruby and the witch lifted their heads and sniffed the air.

  “What’s that smell?” said Ruby through her tears. “It’s so…sweet.”

  The witch was watching me.

  Inside the box lay some folded papers, sprinkled with bits of dried grass and dried lady slippers. I pulled them out and carefully unfolded them. There were several sheets of thin paper, covered in spidery handwriting.

  I began to read.

  “Read it out loud,” demanded Ruby. “I want to hear.”

  “Slippers Cove, July 5, 1858,” I began.

  Before I could read any further, there was a knock at the door. The witch got up with a heavy sigh and left the room. She was walking slowly, as if each step hurt.

  We heard her open the door and speak to someone, but their voices were low and we couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Her footsteps came slowly back down the hall, followed by someone with heavier steps. A man.

  She came into the kitchen, followed by Eldred.

  “I thought you might be here,” he said. He looked with concern at Ruby, whose eyes were red from crying. He went and sat on the chair beside her. Then his eyes rested on the plate of cinnamon buns on the table.

  “Wou
ld you like a cup of tea?” said the witch. “And a bun?”

  Eldred nodded with a faint smile, and the witch set about getting him a little plate and fetching another teacup from the cupboard.

  Ruby was beside herself with impatience.

  “We were just about to read a letter,” she said. “It was in the box we couldn’t open. Remember, Eldred?” She pushed the box toward him.

  “Oh. You got it open, then?” he asked, picking it up and examining it.

  “Yes. Nan had the key. All this time,” said Ruth with a scowl.

  “Fancy that,” said Eldred, looking sideways at Nan, who was pouring him a cup of tea.

  “And she could have given it to Meg and Molly years ago, and she didn’t, just out of spite, because she’s a horrible old witch, and I hate her,” said Ruby.

  “Now, Ruby,” said Eldred. “We’ve all been through a bad time of it this last twenty-four hours, including your Nan, and we’d be better to stay friends, don’t you think?”

  “Tell her that,” said Ruby.

  The witch opened her mouth to reply, but Eldred put up his hand.

  “I think you said you were going to read that letter?” he said to me. “Who is it from?”

  I looked to the last page of the letter.

  “Michael Finn,” I said.

  “Eva and Eileen’s brother!” said Ruby. “The one who did the paintings.”

  All of them were watching me now. I took a deep breath and began to read the letter out loud.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  MICHAEL FINN’S LETTER

  Slippers Cove

  Newfoundland

  July 5, 1858

  I am writing this letter one week after the deaths of my two nieces, Martha and Moira Finn. They both died on the same day, at the same time. They seemed to be taken by some kind of brain fever and died suddenly, without warning. Moira has left behind two children, Catriona and Caitlin Keegan.

  My wife Ann and I have brought up Martha and Moira as if they were our own. Their mother was my sister Eileen Barrett, and she died in the shipwreck of Cathleen, in 1832, along with her twin sister, Eva Finn. It seems that tragedy has followed our family from Ireland and afflicts us still.