by William Bell
“What do you know about it?” I snapped. “You’ve never lost anybody!”
Noah looked straight into my eyes. “Yes, I have,” he said quietly.
I thought of the picture in his room, hanging over his bed, and I felt bad for what I had said.
“Haven’t you seen her since she left?”
Noah looked at the floor again and sniffed.
“Nope. She calls every Sunday, though, when she knows he is in church, giving one of his stupid sermons. She’s in Edmonton. Someday,” he said in a hard, determined voice, “I’m going out there and not coming back.”
“I’m sorry, Noah, for what I said.”
He looked up and gave me a weak smile. “That’s okay. You’re right in a way. I guess I haven’t really lost her, but it feels like it at times—most of the time, actually. I don’t know what I’d do if she died, like Kenny.”
“You know it’s him, don’t you, Noah?”
Noah heaved a big sigh and nodded. “Yeah, Kenny’s here all right. At first I figured the Chief’s medicine bag released the power stored up inside the house by Bond. He was a really tough personality with a strong life force. When we found out about the murder, it all fit—or seemed to. The medicine bag belonged to the guy who killed Bond. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But, yeah—some of the noises you described, and the running and laughing, and the marks made with the charcoal—they don’t fit with Bond. They’re too playful.”
“Right. They’re all kid stuff.”
Noah ran his fingers through his hair and fiddled with the cross hanging from his ear for a moment. He turned and looked at the door.
“On the other hand, that pounding and banging on the door seems too angry, too violent. I don’t know, Karen, maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
Noah turned back and gave me a long look, then said, “Nothing. Nothing. We know Kenny’s here. That’s the main thing. Right?”
I sniffed and wiped the tears away for the millionth time.
“Do you think Kenny wants to get a message to us?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a possibility. He could be just playing, you know. Remember, that’s what poltergeist means. And another thing, Karen. You better realize that he could stop any time.”
“You mean he won’t stay?” John cut in.
“I don’t know. But ghosts are funny. Sometimes they turn up for a while and then all of a sudden they just stop appearing. Sometimes they hang around forever almost. We just don’t know.”
“I wonder why he didn’t appear to Mom and Dad,” John said, almost to himself. “They miss him too. I know they do.”
“That’s easy. Adults are too realistic—most of them, anyway. And besides, Karen is his twin. From what you told me, they were especially close.”
I shot a look at John. I was surprised he had talked to Noah about me.
“So what should we do?” asked John.
Noah let out a big yawn and pushed his hair back from his face. “I don’t know, John. To tell you the truth, I’m too tired to think. This has been some night.”
“I know what we should do. I know who we should talk to about this.”
John looked at me. “I don’t know about that, Karen. I think we should stay away from there.”
“No way. I’ll ask him to help us. John, I know he’s not a bad guy. I know it. I don’t care what you and Noah found out or didn’t find out in the library, I don’t think he’d hurt us.”
Noah said, “You remember the first time I went with you guys to see him? He said something to you, Karen. Do you remember?”
John and I nodded at the same time.
“Well, I think he’s got a special interest in you. And I agree—he wouldn’t hurt us.”
John shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it’s worth a try, I guess.”
John got up and went to the desk. His yellow polo pajamas were all wrinkled. He picked up Kenny’s watch and looked at it. Then he turned to me. The look on his face broke my heart.
“I wish he hadn’t come back,” he said in a shaky voice. Tears ran down his face.
“Why?” I shot back. “Why not?”
“Because when … if he goes, it’ll be like we lost him twice! I don’t think I could stand that.”
“He isn’t going to go away again,” I said softly. “I won’t let him.”
Before he left my bedroom Noah gave me a strange look.
After the boys left I lay back and covered my eyes with my arm. My mind started to replay pictures of my twin brother Kenny. The pictures were like short scenes cut from a movie.
I saw him on a hot summer day playing in the dark cool boathouse. He was five. He was wearing white shorts with blue stripes down the sides. He was barefoot and had tossed his T-shirt carelessly onto the dock. His short chubby body was a rash of freckles. He had caught a few spotted leopard frogs along the lakeshore where the reeds and lily pads were and put them in a bait bucket. The silver-coloured bucket hung below the water, tied to a ring bolt on the dock with a piece of the twine Mom used to tie her tomato plants.
Then I saw him playing pirates in there when he was seven, all by himself, jumping in and out of the rowboat with a wooden sword in his hand and a white hankie folded to make a headband to hold down his blazing red hair, shrieking orders to his imaginary crew and threats to the imaginary enemy. The boathouse was where he and I first tried smoking. We coughed a lot and then threw the cigarette into the water and forgot all about it.
In another picture, Kenny stood on the dock, holding a string with both hands. He was ten. He was wearing jeans and a Hillcrest T-shirt. His body was bent to the side from the weight of the big pike on the end of the string. The proud grin on his face was huge. Dad knelt on the dock, a camera held up to his eye.
All summer when we were little kids we used to play in the tree house in the weeping willow by the lake. The long hanging branches made a cave that shut out the rest of the world. We played school and we played house. Kenny played with my dolls without complaining. When we got older we’d act out scenes from Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang or Anne of Green Gables. The willow tree was where we always went if something was wrong or if we wanted to be alone together.
These mental pictures of the willow tree reminded me of the time Kenny and I and some kids from the neighbourhood were playing hide-and-go-seek and I was “It.” I guess we were about six. It was autumn, I remembered— the trees had turned. There were a few kids from the neighbourhood playing with us and I was counting, my forehead pressed against the rough bark of one of the maples on our front lawn, my eyes squeezed shut. “Eighty, ninety, a HUNDRED!” I counted and opened my eyes. I walked carefully along the cedar hedge that separated our front yard from the street, looking in and under the hedge. I turned and walked across the lawn, peered around the corner of the house, and headed for the back yard. Behind me I heard Jannie Baker shout, “Home Freeeeeee!” Suddenly I got an image in my mind of Kenny sitting on the big branch that jutted out of the willow tree a few feet from the ground. Even though the branch was low, the hanging branches and leaves hid it from view. But in my mind I could “see” Kenny sitting on it in the gloom, trying to peer through the yellowed leaves to see if I was coming. I ran back to the front of the house and slapped the maple “home” tree shouting, “One, two, three on Kenneeeee!”
After that day we found out that Kenny could see pictures in his head of me sometimes too. But we never told anyone, not even Mom or Dad.
A year or so later we discovered that, not only could we send each other messages when we weren’t together (which wasn’t very often), we could also sort of “talk” when we were in the same room without looking at each other and without saying anything. Like if I went into the kitchen to get a glass of milk I would know if Kenny wanted one too without asking him. One time in grade five we cheated on a test when I didn’t know how to do an arithmetic question and Kenny did. He “sent” me the answer and I got perfect on the test. We didn’
t do that too much, though. Only when we had to.
Another picture began to form in my mind, slowly, like a backwards dissolve. I tried to fight it down. I opened my eyes and looked over to the brass-covered box on my desk. The astrology figures on the brass glowed softly in the light—the Bear, the Scorpion.
The Gemini.
My mind drifted as my heavy eyelids began to close against my will. The picture began to backwards dissolve again. I fought it, pushed it down, but I couldn’t stop it.
Kenny stood in the pool of cool shade under the willow branches, holding his new street board by the front truck.
Karen! Karen! Lookit! I can do a Simon Sez …
Tuesday Afternoon:
Chiefs' Island
We got to the town docks at about noon. John had his back pack on, Noah was carrying his electronic gear in his bigger pack, and I had three boxes of cigars.
Noah had on his black denim cut-offs and a black T-shirt that had a picture of a plate with knife and fork on either side of it and EAT THE RICH in big white letters on top. John wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. He was convinced we’d be attacked by mosquitoes once we got to Chiefs’ Island and he wanted to be prepared. I was wearing my track suit again. I was hot, but if we found Chief Copegog it would get cold fast.
We were going to use Noah’s uncle’s little aluminum fishing boat, but Noah’s uncle didn’t know that. Noah had come up with the idea. He said the boat could get us to the island in ten minutes.
We left Skinny Minnie all set up in the front yard, sprawled in a lounge, with a pitcher of synthetic juice, a giant bag of cheese twists, two paperback novels, a scandal mag, and John’s boom box. Her wiry body glistened with suntan oil. When I told her we were going for a walk she just grunted and turned a page.
“There’s the boat, down at the end of the dock,” said Noah.
The little boat bobbed in the waves that rolled against the dock from a passing cabin cruiser. We stepped down into it and Noah hooked up the black gas hose to the motor and squeezed the bulb on the hose. Then he pulled out the choke and yanked on the starter cord. The little motor coughed a little, then started roaring.
John and I untied the ropes and we were on our way.
It was pretty hot out and a lot of boats were on the lake. Kids were water skiing, kicking up rooster tails behind the skis. A few canoes were slipping along. We chugged past the park where old Sammy Dee was perched on his hunk of stone.
When we got to Chiefs’ Island we landed at a different spot. John thought we should try to get to shore without anyone seeing us, so we sneaked into a little bay and turned off the motor and waited until things were quiet. Then we got out and waded in to shore. It was harder to pull the boat up than it was to beach our rowboat because of the motor, but it was no big deal.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said as soon as we had the boat out of sight in the trees.
“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses,” John answered.” We gotta get our gear.”
He dug the bug dope out of his pack and tossed it to me.
“Better put lots on, Miss Impatience. Bugs’ll be thick today.”
While I smeared the dope on, Noah was getting his gear ready. He hung the voice recorder around his neck and switched it on. He mumbled into the recorder while he got the video camera ready.
“Noah, how come you brought that again? It didn’t work before.”
He looked at me through the camera lens. “You never know. We got Kenny—or at least his hand—on video. So maybe Chief Copegog can let himself appear if he wants. This is new ground we’re breaking here. None of the stuff I’ve read about the supernatural mentions video.”
“Well, how about the cross? Want me to carry it?”
“Didn’t bring it this time.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think we’d need it.”
Finally we were ready. “Let’s get going,” I said.
“No, wait.” Noah looked embarrassed. “I forgot to put on any mosquito lotion.”
I groaned. Noah took off all his gear and stood there with it piled at his feet as he rubbed on the dope. Then he slung the equipment onto his body again and we started out.
Once we got moving it only took about twenty minutes to get to the graveyard.
It was hot in the clearing. The sun beat down on the gravestones and the long grass was dry and wilty. The leaves on the birches hung down, tired-looking. There was no breeze.
Chief Copegog was nowhere to be seen.
I heard John swear under his breath, so I knew he was as disappointed as I was. He let his pack slip off his back onto the ground and leaned on the gravestone with the new letters carved into it.
“You think it’s too early?” he said. “I mean, maybe he doesn’t like the bright sun.”
“Search me,” said Noah. “I got an idea, though. Karen, toss me one of those cigars.” He handed the camera to John. John started photographing everything. And I mean everything—the sky, his feet, everything.
I did what Noah asked. He pulled the thin red tape on the top of the box and stripped off the cellophane. He stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. He opened the box and drew out a fat brown cigar. It was wrapped in cellophane, too.
“You know, I got a theory,” he said as he unwrapped the cigar. “In our society we like wrapping better than what comes in it. I mean, look at—”
“Come on, Noah, get on with it!” I cut in.
“Okay, okay,” he said, lighting the cigar.
His face screwed up as he puffed a few times. The foul-smelling smoke rolled out of his mouth and sort of floated around us. The sunlight seemed to light it up, a blue-grey layer. it looked pretty and smelled terrible. We waited for a few minutes, looking around, peering into the quiet forest. We saw nothing and heard only birds.
“Where’s the wind when we need it?” John said.
“I guess this isn’t our day,” Noah sighed. “Let’s put the gear away, John. Might as well save the batteries.”
Noah put the cigar down on the gravestone and shrugged off his pack. While he and John put the gear into the pack I picked up the cigar and put the end in my mouth. I puffed hard. A horrible, bitter taste filled my mouth as the blue-grey smoke floated around my head and I started to cough like crazy. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt dizzy.
“Figured it was you kids.”
I don’t know what surprised me more—the rough, faraway voice—I knew right away whose it was—or the sudden cold. I mean, it was instant.
I waved the smoke away, trying to see. Sure enough, Chief Copegog was standing behind John and Noah.
He had on the same skin pants and vest, and his medicine bag dangled from his waist. His fierce eyes seemed to bore right through me, but he was smiling, his eyes almost closed. I wasn’t scared.
“I—we—were afraid you wouldn’t be here,” I said.
“Here all the time,” he answered. “Never wander far from this place.”
“What did you say, Karen?” John said.
“Hey! It’s cold,” Noah said excitedly. “Feel it? He must be close.”
Noah and John began to look around. John turned on the camera and panned back and forth.
“Did you smell the cigar smoke?” I asked.
“Yep. Knew you were here anyway, though.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess you did.”
“Karen, what are you talking about?” John sounded scared. He lowered the camera.
I shifted my eyes to the boys. John was staring at me with his mouth open and Noah kept looking back and forth between John and me, looking really confused.
“Can you let them see you?” I asked him.
“Don’t really want to talk to them.”
“Please,” I said. “John’s my brother and Noah’s my friend.”
“Noah, we gotta get her out of here. I think she’s flipped her lid. I knew we shouldn’t have—”
“Wait. There’s something weird going on, man.
Can’t you feel the cold?”
“Yeah, I can. Sure I can,” John answered. “But—”
“I think he’s here.” Noah interrupted. Then to me he said, “Karen, can you see him?”
“He’s here, Noah.”
“You still got lots troubles, don’t you girl?” said the Chief. He walked between the boys and came up to me and held out his hand. The palm was creased and wrinkled like tough leather. I knew what he wanted. I gave him the cigar. He took a long, deep drag and the smoke poured from his nostrils.
“You kids, you’re pretty kind,” he said as he hiked himself up onto the gravestone. “Yep, you’re good kids.”
“He’s where?” John cried out. Then, “I see him!”
“Me, too!” said Noah. “Hi, Chief Copegog.”
The Chief nodded to the boys and took another puff.
“Um,” Noah began, “how come you didn’t appear to all of us at once?”
The Chief shrugged and looked off into the trees. I was afraid when he did that. Every other time he’d done that he’d disappeared. I figured I’d better get down to why I had come.
“Chief Copegog,” I began, and my voice creaked. I cleared my throat and started again. “Chief Copegog, I came here to talk to you about something that’s very important and you’re the only one who can help me.”
“Yep, you got troubles all right. Too many troubles for little girl like you.”
I had a thought. “Did you … before … did you have any kids?”
He took the cigar out of his mouth and some of the fierce spookiness disappeared from his eyes.
“Had lots of kids,” he said in a low voice. “All gone now.”
“Where?” I said. “Where did they go?”
“Karen,” John broke in, “that’s a stupid quest—”
I shushed him. I could hear Noah rustling around in his pack as I said, “Can you tell me?”
Chief Copegog looked at me. I could see the sadness in his face, like last time. I imagined him as a grandpa sitting beside a fire, surrounded by five or six fat little kids shrieking and playing.