The Witch of Little Italy
Page 17
And as Elly, suddenly graceful, moved through the doorway, Liz gave her a hug. “I…”
Elly hugged back. “Oh, Liz. I know … I love you, too.”
* * *
“You drive, okay?” asked Liz as they slid into Georgie’s car. “I never learned. But I’ll be co-pilot. I know the way. Get on I-95. Take I-91 North to Route 84. Then get on Route 128. Fairview is just a few exits down after that. There’s a big sign. You be the Lone Ranger. I’m Tonto.”
“The Lone Ranger, huh? Wow. Didn’t you even have basic cable growing up? And how do you know how to get to Fairview? Do you have some sort of internal GPS I don’t know about?” asked Elly already driving, the windows down, happy to be on a grand adventure.
Liz looked serious for a moment. “I used to go there when I was little.”
“What is this odd connection between the Bronx and Fairview Mass?!” Elly exclaimed. “It’s so freaking strange.”
Liz opened the passenger side window and put her hand out to catch the breeze. “Maybe not so strange.”
“How do you mean?”
“Haha!” laughed Liz. “You’re starting to talk like Mimi!”
“Whatever. Just go on, explain thyself, woman!”
“Well … If you look really close, you can find a lot of Fairview in the Bronx. Or anywhere in New York City and her boroughs … really. Probably mostly in Far Rockaway.”
“Nice…” said Elly, a little distracted by the I-95 ramp. “You know what I’m really interested to find out? What their names are! Their real names. I mean, no one will tell me. Do you know?”
No answer came from the passenger seat. Liz was fast asleep.
“Some crappy Tonto you make, Liz.”
The drive was boring, but Uncle Georgie’s car made good time. Elly was comfortable, if squished. The air got cooler the farther north they went, and she was pumped full of adrenaline. The view though … felt faded. Stretch after stretch of East Coast summer foliage, wide swaths of uniform color. The artist in Elly tried to at least see the contrast of different shades of green, but in the end it was all a big mass of marginal, dull, deciduous green. Until she drove onto the smaller, Route 128, that is. Then the trees gave way to sweeping ocean vistas. A Yankee landscape for sure. Not unlike New Haven, but wilder. More magical.
The exit was clearly marked and the drive into town lovely—Rockwellian with a touch of Poe. Right after the ENTERING FAIRVIEW EST. 1672 sign there was a rotary at the center of which rose the hospital. You actually had to drive around the hospital to enter the town. It obscured Fairview completely. A Gothic structure with gaping orifices pretending to be doors and windows. A modern sign FAIRVIEW MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY, stood on the grass median of the rotary but did nothing to obscure the massive stone archway of the entrance to the hospital itself in which the older, less politically correct name SAINT SEBASTIAN LUNATIC ASYLUM was carved.
“Nice,” mumbled Elly as she entered the parking lot. “You think they could have positioned the place differently. I mean, it must kill the tourist trade.”
“I think that’s precisely why they did it,” answered Liz.
“Well … Heeeeeellllllo! What an amazing help you’ve been so far! Thank God we’re here, Liz, because I’ve got to pee. Something fierce.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been so tired lately. I feel like something’s catching up with me. I could sleep away my life.”
Elly parked the car and made a break for the entrance. “Well, we can talk about your problems on the ride back. Right now I have to find the ladies room and then figure out my whole existence. Okay?”
“You’re the boss,” answered Liz. “But why don’t you go ahead and I’ll catch up. I’m not feeling so well, Elly.”
Elly looked at her friend who did look quite pale and then ahead to the hospital. “Okay, but I don’t want to lose you. So why don’t you just wait in the car?”
“Sounds like an excellent plan. These old cars have exceptionally comfortable back seats.” Liz winked.
“You’re a naughty one,” laughed Elly as she made her way as fast as her belly would let her, up the steps into the hospital in a mad rush to find a restroom.
* * *
Elly stopped short in the massive lobby.
“I don’t want to stay here, Mama. Please. I can take care of you.”
Carmen was crying. Saying good-bye. Two nurses at the side and a doctor with a clipboard standing behind her, nodding his head and smiling. Little girl Eleanor wanted to bite him. Hard.
“You don’t have to stay here, Eleanor. I’ve sent for your Grandmother.”
“The one you hate? I won’t go.” Babygirl stomped a patent leather heel and the echo went on and on and on.
Carmen’s face twisted up into deeper grief. “Have I told you that? Have I burdened you with that as well? My God.” She looked at the ceiling.
* * *
Elly looked up at the domed painted ceiling, a crazy reproduction of the Sistine Chapel, only there were mermaids instead of saints.
“Can I help you?” A young, pretty nurse in an old-fashioned white uniform stood in front of her.
“Oh, yes. I need some information about my family,” and then blushing, realized how she must look. Pregnant, staring up at the ceiling and about to ask for a bathroom. “But first, do you have a public restroom? I’ve been driving for a while.”
The nurse smiled. Her teeth matched her uniform. “Of course, dear. Right this way.”
The marble bathroom was a blinding white. While Elly washed her hands in the sink she thought about Carmen. She looked in the mirror. “You were addicted, weren’t you?” Elly washed her face and looked into the mirror again. She saw Carmen staring back at her.
“Yes. It went from wonderful days of wine and roses to lost days full of heroin. I hurt you. I never meant to hurt you,” said the image of Carmen through the looking glass.
Elly touched the mirror. “I know, Mommy.”
There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Are you okay in there dear?” asked the nurse.
Great, thought Elly, now she hears me talking to myself.
* * *
Elly took a moment to let all the memories, bad and good sink in. She knew this couldn’t stop her. She had to absorb it all like a sponge, from one end of her to the other in even measure. She’d lost her mother a long time ago, and this was not an excursion to find Carmen anyway. It was a very different errand all together. Composing herself, Elly returned to the main lobby. At the desk she introduced herself and asked the nurse about her family.
“I can’t share any of their records with you, I’m so sorry.”
“No,” said Elly. “I don’t think you understand. I don’t need to see my mother’s records—wait, did you say ‘their records?’”
“Yes. I can’t open the records of Carmen Amore or those of Faith Green.”
“Faith Green?”
“Why yes—don’t you know?”
“She must have been my great-great grandmother,” said Elly.
“Well,” continued the efficient nurse, “I can’t show you their records, they’re sealed.”
“Do you know where I can go to find out more about the Greens?”
The nurse smiled again. “The library, of course!”
Elly wondered if there was such a thing as Stepford nurses.
“How do I get to the library from here?” she asked.
“The best way is to just walk through the hospital. The back entrance opens up to downtown Fairview and the library will be right ahead of you. You can leave your car where it is.”
The car. Liz. I can’t just leave Liz, thought Elly.
“I have a friend waiting for me, I’m just going to check on her, let her know where I’m going, okay?”
Elly went back to Georgie’s car. Liz was gone. “Where’d you go, Tonto?” she asked the breeze. Elly looked around. There was an eerie quiet to the whole place. The empty parking lot, the sound of crashing waves.
“No worries, dear, if she wanders in looking for you, I’ll tell her where you’ve gone.”
“Thank you,” said Elly. “You’ve been very helpful.”
* * *
Elly found herself in a long hallway lined with stained glass windows. The glass was covered with the same pagan, mythical designs as the ceiling of the hospital lobby. She tried to peek through the colored glass to see the town, but only saw the ocean in distorted jewel tones. Fairview is a peninsula … she remembered George telling her when she was little.
“Do you know how to spell peninsula? p e n i n s u l a. That’s a big word.”
And they’d jumped around the little cottage, Itsy, Anthony, George, and Liz spelling out peninsula.
The memories were flooding her now; she’d known they would. “This was a very good decision, Elly,” she said to herself.
The back entrance was just as grand as the front and the doors did open up to downtown Fairview. It was like opening the gates to a fairytale land. The gleaming afternoon sun shone down on architectural perfection. Cobblestone roads and a massive fountain in the middle of the plaza stood between Elly and the building that had to be the library.
Greco-Roman with Doric columns and lions on either side of the wooden doors, the building excited both Elly’s artistic mind and her treasure hunting spirit. She’d find answers in that building. It just looked like a place where all the answers in the world might be found. And next to it was a large willow tree, an exact match to the one she’d painted in her baby’s nursery. And next to that tree, a bench, not unlike the one in the garden in the Bronx.
More and more curious, thought Elly as she entered the dim, cool library. The information kiosk was in the middle of the first floor. The librarian looked to be about Elly’s age. She was disappointed. She’d assumed there’d be an old woman there with a raspy voice that would simply tell her everything she needed to know.
“Can I help you?” asked the bouncy, un-old, un-interesting librarian.
“I hope so. You see, I’m here to find out more about a member of my family.”
“Oh! Is your family from Fairview?”
“Yes, well, half of them. Anyway, do you have any information about a woman named Faith Green?”
The librarian’s eyes lit up. “Grandma Faith? Dear Lord, Yes! She’s famous around here. A local heroine of sorts.”
“She’s a relative of yours?” asked Elly.
“No, everyone used to call her that. She was like family to the people in our little town—until she went crazy, that is.” The librarian made the twirling loony motion with her hand next to her head.
“So she’s a local hero who was crazy?” This place gets stranger by the second, thought Elly.
The librarian just laughed. “Oh, you’ll understand. Come with me. A reporter did a whole story about her. You see, she lost her son, Ephraim, at sea and she lost her ability to speak. I’ll load the whole thing for you on the microfiche downstairs.”
Lost her voice? Like Itsy? thought Elly … and then wondered, What the hell is a microfiche?
* * *
The basement of the library was not dark and depressing like most. It was full of natural light from a garden room attached to the back and it smelled like good, loamy earth. The microfiche turned out to be a satisfying device that loaded old text documents onto film. It was like reading and watching a movie at the same time. She was scrolling through newspapers from 1920–1925—and then there it was:
Admired Local Woman Loses Voice
When her son Ephraim set out to win the Fairview Regatta last Saturday, his mother did not expect she’d never see her boy again. After an extensive search between the waters of Fairview and the Island of Fortunes Cove, Massachusetts, Ephraim was pronounced dead, or as the natives of the area say, “Lost at Sea.” A tragedy in its own right, Ephraim’s death was not the only blow to this community. Mrs. Faith Green, an admired pillar of Fairview, Massachusetts, was stricken with paralyzing arthritis, which curled her hands upon themselves and somehow closed her vocal chords as well. The affliction appeared on the very day her son went missing.
This is a devastating loss to the community as Mrs. Green runs the local gardens, supports the cultural programs in the town, and is also an avid art enthusiast.
Possibly the most interesting part of the whole event is what the locals themselves have to say. After interviewing many people from the town of Fairview there is a consensus that Faith Green is also looked at as a local Witch or Shaman. She’s a woman who descends from a long line of women who can foretell the future as well as heal the sick. Most of the interviews conducted during the course of this bizarre case mentioned that Faith Green helped almost all the people she knew in one way or another.
It is interesting to note, that in this odd, little village of Fairview the people readily accept the notion of magic. Magic for good and/or evil is not something to be feared or even tolerated. It seems to be a way of life.
There is a local consensus that Faith Green’s inability to speak or move her hands will end her days as the local “Healer.” This makes the town a sad and nervous place today.
Her one surviving child, Margaret Green, stated that she believes the only way her mother will be able to regain her voice, and thus regain her position in the community, is if the body of her brother is found.
“You find my brother Ephraim,” said Margaret Green. “When you find Ephraim my Mother will find her voice. Then you can ask her all you want about what we do here and why we do it,” said Margaret when interviewed.
To date, his body remains undiscovered and lies somewhere at the bottom of the sea. Faith Green no longer lives in her stately Victorian home, but has committed herself to Saint Sebastian’s Lunatic Asylum. Margaret Green has moved and is reportedly set to wed one Vincent Amore of the Bronx, NY, next June.
Engrossed, Elly hadn’t heard anyone come up behind her. The tap on her shoulder shot her up in the air, almost knocking over the microfiche.
“Excuse me, dear! I didn’t mean to startle you,” said the librarian. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes, I think I did. Thank you very much,” said Elly.
“You know,” said the librarian, whose eyes suddenly seemed deeper and oddly shimmery, “the Green family home is at the end of Main Street. Where the ocean meets the land. If you’d like to visit.”
All of a sudden there wasn’t anything Elly wanted to do more. No secret was more important than seeing that house.
“Thank you,” she whispered and the librarian raised her arm and pointed to the stairs that would lead Elly up and out of the library so she could find her way—home.
The sunlight sifted down on her as the streets grew quiet. All she could hear was the pounding of her heart keeping time with crashing waves. Her vision tunneled down Main Street toward the large Queen Anne at the end of the block, toward the garden gate—that led—to a beach all its own. Quietly, one step in front of the other, she walked as if she were on a balance beam. One block. Almost there, the porch within arms reach, the water waiting for her. She’d be a mermaid soon.
“Elly!” someone yelled from far, far away. She turned around and was face-to-face with Liz.
Liz whispered in Elly’s ear. “It’s time to go. This isn’t your place. Not yet. Let’s go, Elly.”
Elly looked around, stunned. She couldn’t remember leaving the library. She cleared her throat and focused on her friend. “You betcha, Tonto,” she said.
They made their way back up Main Street and through the hospital. They hurried past the nice Stepford nurse who tried to beckon them back. Once in the car they sped away so fast the tires screeched and Elly accidentally drove over a portion of the median, spitting dirt into the air. Elly felt like she escaped something she couldn’t understand.
“God, what is that place?” asked Elly.
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“Part of you,” said Liz. “Anyway, did it work? Are you remembering everything that’s left to remember?” Liz seemed edgy.
Elly laughed. “Yes, I sure am! It’s coming in these waves now.”
Liz shifted in her seat.
Elly’s brows furrowed with worry. “Liz, is there something I’m forgetting? You seem nervous. Is there something I’m supposed to remember about you?”
“Nope. Nothing. I’m just sleepy. Like a dormouse. Maybe I’m sick,” said Liz.
“Just rest, Liz. I’m running on adrenaline. I can’t wait to get back home.”
* * *
“Where’s Elly?” asked Mimi.
“She took Georgie’s car and went to Fairview,” said Anthony.
“Alone?” yelled Fee. “Or did Itsy go with her? I haven’t seen her all day.”
“No, she went with Liz,” said Anthony.
“She’s gone with Liz? I sure hope Liz isn’t driving!” said Mimi.
27
Itsy
Mama loved animals, though we weren’t allowed pets. It never bothered me. I’ve never been much of an animal person myself. But Georgie? Georgie was. He’d bring home strays on a regular basis, and Mama would have heated, hushed conversations with him in the back hall.
“George! You know Papa won’t allow it!” she’d say.
“But Mama, look at it! So sad and all alone. Please?”
It was hard on Mama. Animals were drawn to her like babies to breasts. I remember watching her once, alone in the garden with a sparrow right on her shoulder.
So sometimes, more often than not, the answer was “no,” but sometimes she conceded. In Mama fashion. With conditions.
No animals were to live inside. And if George wanted to keep one, he’d have to keep it out in the yard at the cottage. Papa wouldn’t notice it there.
George listened, of course … and most of those animals that Mama saw fit to allow ran away in the stretch of weeks (sometimes months) that elapsed between our infrequent visits to the cottage in the fall and winter seasons.
All of them except for one. A ginger kitten that George named Cat.