by William Bell
“He’s also a freak.”
“You hardly know him. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted. “But who needs him?”
“I’m going to visit him right after Mom and Dad leave for Toronto airport. You can come or not come. It doesn’t matter.”
John raised himself up on his elbows and looked behind us, out over the lake. I knew what he was looking at.
“I’ll come,” he said. “But not because I agree with this ghost stuff. I still say it’s—”
“Yeah. I know. Preternatural.”
“Karen! John! We’re ready to go now!”
“Coming, Mom!”
I heard John answering from the back yard as I left my room and ran downstairs and out the front door.
Our old VW bus stood in the driveway in the shade of one of the big maples. With all the doors open—two front, side slider, trunk—it looked like some kind of crazy bug trying to take off and not quite making it.
Dad loved that bus. It had the original paint design, dark blue below the windows and white above, and at the front the white dropped in a deep V almost to the painted bumper. In the centre of the front panel was a big chrome circle with VW in the centre. Dad did the body work and paint job himself.
He did the inside modern, though—thick carpet, a digital sound system with six speakers, a CB, and a GPS.
Mom hated the old van. She said it looked like a blue and white loaf of bread. “It’s noisy in the summer and freezing in the winter,” was what she said about it.
Dad always added, “Well, you like old houses and I like old cars.”
She’d roll her eyes and they’d both laugh about it.
That day Dad looked gift-wrapped in pressed slacks, polished black shoes, shirt and tie. There was a film of sweat on his forehead and he had his I Hate Packing and Going on Trips look on his face.
Mom looked cool and composed. She wore white leather sandals, a flower print summer dress and a string of pearls. Smashing.
“Minnie won’t be over until supper,” Mom said after John and I arrived, “so you’ll be on your own until then.”
“Aw, Mom, couldn’t you get someone else?” John complained again.
John hated to have Minnie around. She was a cousin—three hundred and twenty-eighth removed or something—who was nineteen years old and hated the whole universe. Mom and Dad hired her to take care of us because, they said, she needed some positive input in her life, something to feel some achievement from.
John called her Skinny Minnie because she was tall and bony, with a long horse face and the worst case of acne I had ever seen. All she did when she took care of us was watch soap operas and eat, or read trashy Harlequin Romances and eat, or lie on the couch and soak up rock videos and eat, or rent movies from Movie Van and veg out and eat. She would eat anything that didn’t eat her first, but she never gained an ounce.
She was grouchy and cynical and criticized everybody and everything. That’s what bugged John.
I sort of liked it when she took care of us because she would leave us alone. She didn’t care where we were or what we did as long as we didn’t get in her hair. We didn’t tell Mom or Dad that, of course.
After John made his usual complaint about Skinny Minnie, Mom said, “Let’s not get caught in a loop.”
Sometimes computer talk slipped into Mom’s speech. She meant, Let’s not talk around in circles—we’ve been over all this before.
“Minnie is just fine if you’d give her half a chance. All she—”
“Yeah, yeah, all she needs is a little understanding,”
John laughed. “Let’s not get caught in that loop either.”
Mom laughed, too. “Touché,” she said. “Anyway, she’ll sleep in the guest room above the garage, so she’ll have her own TV and she won’t be in your way. All right? Now, you two co-operate with her, okay? Promise!” she added when we didn’t answer.
We promised, then kissed Mom goodbye. She climbed up into the van, hauling herself up with the handle on the dashboard. She rolled her eyes and shut the door.
Dad rammed the slider closed, then came around to the back and pulled down the trunk lid.
“Okay, guys, guess we’re ready. You sure you’ll be okay?”
He always worried more than Mom did.
“Come on, Dad, we’re practically ancient,” I answered.
“Oh, yes, forgive me. I keep forgetting about your advanced age and extreme sophistication.”
He gave each of us a hug and walked to the front of the van, climbing up behind the wheel. He stuck his head out and looked back.
“See you in four or five days. We’ll call you soon as we get to Vancouver.”
We both waved as the VW started up and rolled down the driveway, crunching on the gravel. Then it turned onto Bay Street and disappeared behind our hedge.
I didn’t feel too hot about my parents going away.
Sunday Afternoon
After lunch John and I walked over to Weird Noah’s house. He lived on Neywash Street, a block or so up the street from the pizza restaurant. It was sunny and hot so I had on green cotton shorts and a halter top and sandals. John wore his baggy bathing suit and a tank top. He looked like a piece of spaghetti with shoes.
I didn’t know much about Noah. His mother wasn’t around, his dad was the Baptist minister, and he lived in the manse—the house that the church owns and lets its minister live in. I wasn’t even sure why he had his nickname. I asked John to fill me in as we crossed Couchiching Park on our way to Noah’s.
“He’s not really what you’d call weird. He’s just different.”
“Well,” I said, “thanks a lot for clearing that up!”
“No, I mean, he’s a … an individual. A loner. He does things the way he wants. Like his clothes and his hair. He’s not too worried about what the other kids think. But he knows more about the occult and ghosts and werewolves and all that stuff than anyone in this town, I’ll bet.”
We were crossing the grassy baseball diamond. A few little kids were popping up flies and catching them for practice.
No wonder the other kids figured he was weird, I thought. At Hillcrest just about every girl I knew was paranoid about what the others would say about her. Most of my friends wouldn’t even take a breath without making sure they wouldn’t get put down for it. You always had to wear what was in. And if you were different they’d put their heads together like ducks and gabble about you. I had to admit I was a little that way myself. The boys may have been the same. I don’t know. Probably.
“I heard that his father is really mean,” John went on. “He and Noah fight all the time. Noah is really rebellious. And I also heard—don’t even think about this when we’re at Noah’s—that his mother ran off a few years ago with his father’s assistant minister.”
We reached Jimmy’s snack bar—a little white clapboard shack on the edge of the park—and my mouth started to water when I smelled the french fries. A few kids were sitting around painted metal tables, stuffing their faces with fries and burgs, or leaning against cars, sipping shakes through plastic straws and looking tough.
“Anyway, Noah flunked all his credits in grade nine last year, so I had a few classes with him this year. He’s not a bad guy, I guess. I don’t know him all that well.”
We walked across the railway tracks, past the feed store, and turned left on Laclie. The pizza restaurant was full, and more delicious smells teased my nose. We turned right on Neywash, walked uphill a block, and stopped in front of the big brick house where Noah lived.
“What are you going to say to him?”
Once John asked me that I realized I didn’t know what to say. But I wasn’t going to admit that to my Know-it-All brother.
“You’ll see,” I answered. “Let’s go.”
I banged on the door, using the big brass knocker. After a moment the door opened.
“Yes, children?”
The guy standing there was short and stocky, dressed
in a black suit with a white minister’s collar. He was almost bald and he had a scowl on his long face.
John and I looked at each other. We were both a little bugged at being called children.
I finally managed to say, “Uh, is Noah in?”
The scowl got scowlier. “Yes, come in.”
Behind him was a big living room. It had a brick fireplace with a picture above it. About seven women in go-to-church clothes were sitting on the fancy couches and chairs, balancing china tea cups on their laps. There was an empty armchair beside the fireplace with a tea cup resting on one of the arms.
Noah’s father closed the door behind us and yelled “NOAHHHHHH!” up the long staircase. He plastered a smile on his face and walked back into the living room. As he closed the door behind him we heard, “Yes, the spiritual life … .”
John and I were left standing in the hallway.
“Wonder what his problem is,” John said.
A kid appeared at the top of the stairs. It was hard to see him because the light was dim.
“Who’s that?” said the voice above us.
“Hi, Noah,” said John, “it’s John Stone. This is my sister, Karen.”
Noah came down the stairs. He was fairly tall and thin. His black hair was buzzed up on the sides and long on the top, so long that it hung down in a wedge that covered half his face and hung a little below his chin. But the half of his face that I could see showed me he was cute. His left ear was pierced three times. He wore two studs and a silver cross that hung on a long chain. He had deep blue eyes, with black, curling lashes and tanned skin. He had on black denim cut-offs and a black T-shirt with white writing on it that said, Fight Conformity! No wonder his dad fights with him, I thought.
Noah looked at us, a questioning expression on his face. I thought I might as well jump into it. If he decided I was an idiot, well, too bad.
“We’re here because we got a problem and you’re the only one we know who might be able to help us with it.”
He looked at John.
“Yeah, that’s about it,” John said.
“What kinda problem?” His voice was deep and smooth, an adult’s voice.
My courage was beginning to slip a little. I started to feel dumb.
“Um, well, it’s sort of about … a ghost.” I looked down at my sandals.
Noah talked like you’d talk if someone had said it might rain tomorrow.
“Yeah? Well, you might as well come up.”
He turned and started up the stairs. John and I followed him upstairs, down a dark hall and into a big room. Big and messy. I thought my room was messy. Noah’s would have won prizes. There was a big window, but the curtains were drawn and his ceiling light was on. The floor was covered with clothes, CDs and CD cases, open and closed books, empty pop cans. And in the middle of the mess was a battered keyboard with a set of earphones plugged into the back. On two walls he had rock concert posters and on the other two walls, books. Hundreds of them. His bed was a four-poster with a big wooden cross hanging on a nail above it. Beside the cross was a picture of a woman and a little boy standing on a lawn in front of a house. It was Noah’s house. Must be Noah and his mom, I thought.
“Want a drink?” asked Noah.
John and I said yes and Noah left the room.
My dad often told me that if you want to get to know somebody fast, you should look at his bookshelf. So that’s what I did while Noah was out of the room. I stepped over some balled-up clothing and checked out a couple of the shelves. Wow. He had a lot of the usual stuff— a few Stephen Kings, some spy thrillers, Sherlock Holmes, and other cops-and-robbers stuff. A big hardcover copy of The Exorcist. But I also saw Dracula, Frankenstein, A History of Witchcraft,Magic through the Ages. And ghost books. A Christmas Carol, Ghost Story, The Haunting of Hill House, and one called The Turn of the Screw.
“Karen! He’s coming back,” John hissed.
I heard Noah’s footsteps in the hall. I stepped away from the bookshelves, almost tripping on a pair of jeans as Noah came in with three glasses of juice on a tray.
“Here you go,” he said, pushing some junk out of the way on his desk top and putting down the tray. “Why don’t you sit down?”
John and I sat on the unmade bed and Noah sat on the chair at his desk. He said nothing. He took a sip of his orange juice and looked at me. He looked for so long I began to feel uncomfortable.
John spoke. “Ummm, your dad doesn’t seem to like us being here. Maybe we should—”
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” Noah cut in. “I don’t.”
He looked my way again.
“Well, I guess you want to know why we’re here,” I said.
Noah nodded and swept his long hair back on his head. I could see his whole face now. Yup, I said to myself, he is cute.
Both Noah and John were staring at me, waiting for me to talk. So I started in. I told everything—about what we had seen on Chiefs’ Island and about what had happened in our house. John fidgeted beside me as I spoke. When I had finished, Noah looked a little excited.
“Whose grave was it?” he asked.
“Ummm,” John stuffed his hand into the pocket of his bathing suit as he spoke. “Cope something. Just a minute.”
He pulled his hand out of his pocket again and unfolded a piece of paper.
“Yeah, Randall Copegog.”
“He was the chief of the Chippewas of Rama. Copegog means ‘fox’ in English. That’s what the newspaper said.”
Fox. I thought about the stuff in the leather bag—teeth, bones, a dried-up ear.
“He died a few days ago,” Noah went on, “But that probably wasn’t his ghost you saw.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Noah answered in his deep serious voice. “Well, the guy you saw was dressed in traditional clothes, right?” Without waiting for an answer he went on. “And he had a medicine bag. Modern chiefs, as far as I know, may not go in for that too much any—”
“A what?”
“A medicine bag. That’s what you found and took home—probably.”
“Oh, yeah, why didn’t I think of that?” John cut in. “I read something about them.”
Noah nodded and took a long swallow of juice.
“Well,” I said impatiently, “maybe you guys know what a medicine bag is but I don’t. Why would anyone carry pills around in a bag?”
John started in with his Lecturing Voice. “Medicine doesn’t mean like drugs. It means spiritual power. In the old days at a certain age a Native male had to go out into the bush alone and go without food and stuff like that. He hoped he’d have a vision and find out what his totem animal was. When he found out, he’d save sacred objects connected with his totem and with his experiences. Right, Noah?”
Noah nodded and his hair fell over his face.
“That’s about it. Except that the medicine bag was very powerful.”
I thought about the little leather bag in my room and the bones and dried-up ear and the coin. They didn’t seem so powerful to me. I said so.
“What?” Noah almost jumped off his chair. “You opened it?”
“Yeah,” I said. Then I added, “We wanted to see what was inside it.” And felt stupid as soon as I said it.
Noah swept his hair back with a quick motion. The cross hanging from his ear swung back and forth. He began to talk fast.
“That’s it! See, I couldn’t figure out what the ghost on the island had to do with what seems to be going on in your house. So, think before you answer this. Were there any other times when funny stuff like last night happened in your house?”
John looked at me. I shook my head.
“Okay,” Noah continued. “Don’t you see the coincidence?”
“No,” John said before I could.
“You opened the bag, right? You left the stuff you found in the bag in Karen’s room, right? The poltergeist was playing outside Karen’s room, right? What do you need, a ten-foot-high electric sign?”
>
“Polterwhat?” I said. I felt like things were getting out of control.
“Poltergeist. It’s German. It means playful spirit.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t think it was so playful. It scared the life out of me.”
“Poltergeists are scary,” Noah said calmly. “But they’re not harmful. Usually. Anyway, like I was saying. Here’s my theory. Opening the medicine bag released … um, let’s call it a Power … in your house. It set something off, something spiritual, that was in your house all along. See? It’s like, um … you tossed a pebble into a calm clear pool and the pebble set up ripples that spread across the surface.”
I understood what he was saying. And I didn’t like it one bit. But I had a thought.
“So if I put the stuff back into the bag, and maybe get rid of the bag, things will be back to normal?”
“Well, maybe. But it’s not that simple. When the spiritual activity starts it usually goes its own way. You know that old expression, Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it’s hard to get it back in again.”
“You mean it’s impossible.”
“Well, maybe. It’s hard to say. But I think so.”
“So what else can we do?”
“Did you ever see The Changeling?”
“Is that the one where the composer rents an old house where a long time before a father murdered his son to get his inheritance?”
Noah looked happy and surprised that I knew the movie.
“Yeah, that’s it! Well, remember the composer had to do a lot of research to find out about the house and who had lived there and stuff? I think you should find out as much as you can about your house. Is it new?”
“No,” John seemed to come awake. Probably because Noah used the word “research.” “It’s over a hundred years old.”
“Well, maybe something happened there a long time ago. An accident. Maybe even a murder. You need to find out if you want to understand what’s going on now.”
“Oh, great,” I moaned. “That’s all I need.”
Noah just sat there, looking at us.
“Well,” John said. “I might be able to do the research. Not because I go for all this ghost baloney, understand. Just for the fun of it. Mom and Dad might be interested in finding out about the history of our house. Mom would get off on that.”