“My darling Eleanor: you have made a man out of me, and I don’t appreciate that,” he began, which was met with my nervous yet emotional laughter. “You have made your life to fit mine, and for that, I owe you this ring. I offer you this ring, dear Eleanor, as a symbol of my lifelong devotion to you, and a promise for all your tomorrows happy. My love, won’t you accept this ring and marry me?”
I did not hesitate, and immediately held out my left hand, and watched as the sparkling gold band and the mesmerizing cluster diamond glinted in the sunlight as it slid upon my ring finger. I was wordless and breathless but nodding frantically through my tears, shouting “Yes! Yes, you silly fool, be mine and forever be mine, always!” As he picked me up for a kiss, the ocean waves clapped and swooshed, scoring the scene, a moment I would never forget.
With a new degree of love in my heart, we walked back to our home off Bridge Street. He held my ringed hand, and as if with pride, rubbed my ring finger with his thumb. From a distance, an old woman stood, looking disheveled. I thought her homeless, but as we neared, she seemed like just another eccentric. One foggy blue eye fixed on us, and the other green one darted about wildly. She looked nervous.
“The Willows!” She shouted, startling me, causing me to turn myself inward to my fiancé. He pulled me furthest from her, so that he was on the inside, nearest her. “Don’t go into the Willows!” she continued, becoming worked up. My mouth was agape, but we kept walking, paying her no mind. Still, I looked behind us when we were far enough away, and peered at her frantic, agitated movement through my hair, that had become stringy from the ocean air.
“Donagh, is that the woman you said you dreamt of? The woman in black?”
“No, she’s just off her box. Pay her no mind, baby-doll.”
Still, his demeanor had changed, and he seemed dazed and lost in thought, almost dragging me home, like he couldn’t get there fast enough. I looked back once more at the harried woman, arms outstretched toward us, falling to her knees.
After haphazardly parking Donagh’s—well, my car, I all but hurtled into the house, the whining door slamming shut behind my back. I don’t remember breathing the whole way home. My hands were jittery when I fumbled with the locks—too many for the area we lived, but Donagh was a cautious and paranoid man. He’d spoken at great length of a woman concealed in black that haunted him; nightmares he’d had ever since he was a child.
I paced about the empty house, unaccustomed to its dreadful silence. I checked for windows ajar but found nothing. I sat in front of the vanity and looked at the day’s makeup that fell from my eyes and stained my skin. Wiping it away, I contemplated the experience at Harmony Grove. Had I really seen the woman? Or was I simply going harebrained? I shook the thought away. Shortly before his death, Donagh had begun to go mad. He followed through with putting the extra locks and latches on the door, barred the windows, and asked me to check him into McLean asylum, for his own protection, as he’d told me.
Suffice it to say, because of his declining state, Donagh and I were married in the Salem District Court, refusing family and various other’s offers to host. Besides, due to the war, rations were short and it made more economical sense to wed in a small ceremony hosted by the Court, where Donagh had a family connection. We had a party reception for close friends and family at a nearby swing joint, and though we went the non-traditional route, we still had our first dance: the jitterbug, which Donagh had been teaching me.
In truth, though, we kept our actual first dance to ourselves. After leaving the Courthouse, Donagh and I, Mrs. Eleanor Canavan, returned home and slow danced for hours to the gramophone, which as it spun, played to us the romantic songs of Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Shore. After a film we’d seen together that year, we’d decided our song would be “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” written beautifully by Cole Porter, and sung by Dinah.
Reminiscing about our wedding day, I placed the record on the record player, and listened as the needle brought it to life. Nosing through the closet, I picked a smart, charcoal gray dress jacket off a hanger, and held it to me, a tiny tear falling on its shoulder. As Dinah Shore sang our song, I turned and skittered about the bedroom, and I almost had myself fooled that it was enough—until the song ended, and I stood motionless, still clasping the jacket to my breast.
My legs were suddenly unsteady and I collapsed onto the floor, in utter disrepair, yet I did not weep. Instead, I found myself drowning in memories that flew at me like nuisance insects that I tried to swat away.
The record player scratched.
Once again, Dinah Shore sang our song.
I sat folded on the floor, unsure of what to do. Surely it was a fault with the ancient phonograph. The air in the house was heavy, though, adding to the already syrupy black sadness. The building that had been too quiet for more than a week now, too lonely, suddenly felt impregnated with an energy I did not know: a mournful energy that was nasty and spiteful.
The record skipped.
“Come home–come home–come home–come home–come home,” it continued. I felt as though a dark cloud hung in the air, unkind and dangerous. I stood slowly: first to my knees, then one foot at a time placed firmly on the ground, as I gathered the courage to turn around.
Nothing.
I was going mad! “Goddamn you, Donagh Canavan! How dare you leave me here, cursing your name! Wearing your clothes! I hate you! I regret the day I ever laid my eyes upon you, you bastard! You son of a bitch!” I screamed over the skipping record until eventually it stopped. I stared at it a moment, the agonizing cries escaping me, finally. My anger still shook me like a quake, but at last, a week’s pent up frustration was released. I hated him for killing himself, for leaving me in his wake. Was I not enough for him? He never complimented the dishes. Did they not shine as much as they should have? The last thing we did before he went off to end his life was make love. Was I to blame? Could he see no future with only me? None at all?
I wandered gracelessly throughout the house and found myself in the sitting room, where I sunk into Donagh’s favorite chair. The cherry wood rocker was upholstered with red and black gingham fabric cushions on the seat and backrest. I rocked slowly to and fro, closing my eyes and delighting in the familiar creaking of the wood and hinges. In the drawer of the end table next to his chair, I grabbed his bottle of brandy. I unscrewed the top and glugged several swallows, distorting my face in disdain of the sharp bitterness. I wasn’t much of a swigger, and neither was Donagh, but I thought we could both use a stiff one right then.
I began to pout in anger, my lips curling under in a deep-set frown. I wouldn’t buy for a second that Donagh Canavan had taken his own life, not for a lick. His father didn’t, either. He wasn’t the type! Why, we had plans coming! In the winter we were to honeymoon in California. He wanted babies—he did! I never thought myself much a mother, but I was eager to become one with Donagh as the father. I glanced over at a stack of leather-bound journals he had kept. I hadn’t the nerve to pry, but I needed answers. Surely if he was thinking of hanging himself, it’d be right there in those notebooks! Perhaps the thought of finding an answer kept me from them, though. Perhaps an answer I didn’t want to learn.
The record stopped and the house was silent once again. I was frightened, but the wear of the day had me finding my way to the bedroom, where I changed into my nightgown and slipped under the duvet, stroking the little nook in the bed Donagh’s weight had made, and holding his pillow to me tightly. Despite my fears and my loneliness, I was asleep in no time.
Creak-creak. Creak-creak. Creak-creak. If the dreadful silence weren’t enough to rouse me, the wooden groaning was. I sat up on an elbow, peering around, bleary eyed; the blue light of dawn pouring in. I sat up slowly, suspicious of the unnerving sound. I struck a match to life and burned the wick of a white candle that sat in an ornate golden chamber stick, and held it in front of me as I moved slowly to investigate.
I first checked the kitchen, s
upposing cabinets may be the culprit. But they weren’t moving and the sound continued. Creak-creak. Creak-creak. Creak-creak. My gut felt tight and my throat tensed, ready to scream. When I’d gathered the courage, I barged through the swing door into the living room.
Nothing.
“Hello?” I asked the room, knowing I’d not receive an answer. Shiver after shiver ran down my spine and my skin goosepimpled. The pile of Donagh’s diaries caught me by surprise: they lay in the stack I had placed them, except the top one was open. I knelt down and picked up the soft brown leather book. In the middle of the right page, in Donagh’s adolescent handwriting was a poem:
Be wary of the grieving trees
The ones that sweep the shore
The Widow hides among them
If thou believe the lore
She’ll come to thee in sadness
She’ll visit thee in brief
This Widow haunts All Hallows’
And kills you in your grief
Say thy holy prayers, and keep thee very well
This witch of the wood is waiting
To hang thee with her spell
The creaking was closer now. I looked up slowly, afraid of what I’d see. I froze, affright: there, upside down, rocking back and forth on the ceiling was Donagh’s chair. I shuddered and looked away, surely imagining it. But when I looked to where it should have been—on the floor, next to the end table by the lounge—indeed, it was not there. I looked up once more, and the rocking stopped. Time stood still a moment until finally, the chair obeyed gravity and fell unceremoniously to the floor, cracking and splintering into pieces. I’d slid out of the way and dropped onto my bottom, lest it fell, instead, on me. I screamed in horror and scrambled to my feet. I gathered the diary, Donagh’s winter coat, and a pair of boots and stampeded out the door, hearing the beginning notes of “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To” begin to play as I slammed the car door and sped away.
“Oh, my God! Oh, Donagh, what have you done!? What’s happening!?” I shouted to myself as I gripped the steering wheel and wept. I was absolutely petrified. Once I felt I was far enough away– not that I had any idea where far enough away was– I pulled over into a vacant lot and tried to gather my composure. I was a madwoman: running out of my home in the early morning hours in a nightgown, winter coat and boots. How was I to explain what had just happened? Who would believe me? Why, they’d surely lock me away!
But certainly, I would not blame myself for this. Not for one second! And I know that Donagh did not blame me, either, for we’d both suffered greatly.
Dancing before dinner, just after Donagh returned home from work, was one of our traditions. We danced all the time. Sometimes we’d hop or jive but mostly we danced slowly, two bodies engulfed in metaphorical flame—a tender heat, not quite sexual, but full of desire, full of love.
I loved the feeling of my skirt twirling about, and then spinning around my legs as it stilled. Fred Astaire would begin singing “The Way You Look Tonight,” and Donagh would hold my hand up for me to pirouette, and I’d pretend to be a beautiful ballerina from a music box. We were effortless; it was the Victrola that tired.
Donagh’s favorite song was “Night and Day” by Cole Porter. The night we came home from our wedding ceremony, we danced to it; he stood behind me, wrapping his arms under my belly, cradling the life we’d created. He caressed my stomach, singing to our unborn child. He couldn’t sing a lick, especially next to the likes of Cole Porter, but golly did he ever make me melt. The wee baby Canavan would settle itself inside me, though, when its daddy sang. It’d be restless all day, kicking incessantly at my innards, until the metal clunk of the doorknob would turn while I busied myself in the kitchen for dinner. “Good evening, darling,” he’d say, cheerily, kissing me on the cheek; and then, “You too, Eleanor.” Oh, he loved his baby so.
I’d spent the day roaming about aimlessly, pointless; too frightened to go home, too afraid to sleep. I wanted to return to Harmony Grove and lay with Donagh and our unborn daughter beneath me, in the space once meant for me. Never expecting to lose a child, we’d not prepared a burial plot for one. So, she now lay eternally next to her father, whom she never met; whom he never held.
I found myself in front of a mystic shop, not remembering how I’d gotten there. I placed the car in park and left the warmth of the vehicle to investigate. Something was calling me there. Was it Donagh? I’d never seek out such a place myself. A sign on the door read “OPEN,” with the phrase “Merry Meet” beneath it, so I proceeded.
I was barraged by a plethora of exotic fragrances that burned my nose, eliciting a sneeze. Notes of thyme, frankincense, sandalwood, and lavender created a robust aroma that I wasn’t fond of. The small shop was cramped: instead of it relying on width, it had several floors in a narrow building. Trinkets and ornaments were strung about, like wreaths of herbs and garlic, voodoo dolls, brambles of twig arranged into strange shapes, and, of course, brooms. I continued up the narrow stairwell, tucking my coat tightly to me, careful not to knock anything over. Mystical music drew me nearer and nearer, as I approached the second floor cautiously.
I gasped, alarmed, when I noticed the old batty woman from the day Donagh had proposed, sitting at a table with weathered cards laid before her, and an ornamental mortar holding a bundle of burning sage. I placed my hand over my mouth in an attempt to hide my surprise. Her eyes were still troubling, but I shouldn’t be unkind to a stranger, so I tried not to stare.
“I’ve been expecting you, dear. Please, sit.” Her voice was calming, yet had an influence of caution. Her presence was intimidating, and she noted that. “Do not be alarmed. I have foreseen all you have endured and I have called upon you on this day.” Her hand hovered over the tarot cards spread before her, shakily, perhaps from age.
“Why have you called me?” My voice was aquiver; unconfident.
“You are in danger.” She spoke matter-of-factly, so as not to frighten me further. “I warned you of the Willows, and your poor husband took himself to there, did he not?” I said nothing, but nodded. “He has met the fate of many, I’m afraid.” She scooted her chair to turn toward a bookshelf next to her, where she pulled out a tattered red-bound book with gold lettering. Her eyes kept looking about the ceiling, as if she were following a fly.
“Legend tells of the apparition of a woman from Salem’s dark history, earthbound, so she can do harm. She latches on to the deepest pain, and sends the sufferer to relief.”
“Suicide?” I queried. The woman nodded. “And what relief is that? To leave a wife, a family? To suffer an eternity in Hell?” I shed tears, then, and the woman cooed, and reached for my hand, but I pulled it away in defiance. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I shouted, accusatory. “You summoned me here; have you cursed me, too!?” I jumped back out of my seat, sending the chair crashing into a shelf. I shouted, “Leave me be! You awful, horrible woman! You Evil!”
She stood, seemingly trying to speak, but the more she tried, the larger her tongue swelled inside her mouth. The room was filling with smoke as I shrilled, and she coughed, and then the cards laid before us suddenly became ablaze. The woman threw her shawl over the table, snuffing out the fire. As if this weren’t enough, the mysterious foggy blue eye turned out to be fake: because of the pressure of the woman struggling to breathe, to my incredulity, it dislodged itself and fell onto the table, sounding like a marble. From the hole where her eye should have been, tiny black legs began appearing, until, to my extreme fright and disgust, a large black spider crawled out. On its back was a brilliant red hourglass.
A black widow.
Finally, the woman fell over, in a fit of coughing, but she was breathing again, muttering something.
Pop!
A light bulb on a chain hanging from the ceiling burst, and the room was dark, the afternoon sun barely penetrating the heavy curtains. But there was a complete absence of light in the center of the room, in the back, behind where the woman had sat. A black figure, hovering above
the floor, its hands in black gloves wrung around each other. Like at the cemetery, when all of this began, she started to weep.
As I backed away and before I turned to run, the old woman began to croak: “SAY, THY, HOLY, PRAYERS,” a line from Donagh’s poem.
I took each step as quickly as I could, turning the narrow corners of the stairwell. Once I was on the first floor, I leaned myself into a sprint, leaving a trail of debris behind me while I heard a mess crashing to the ground as I ran. Shoving myself out of the old door, and not bothering to close it, I, once again, all but leapt into the waiting New Yorker, running from the frightening black presence. The engine started after a couple of failed attempts, and I was on the narrow streets again, peeling around this corner and that. Halloween decorations were up, and several ornaments of skeletons draped in black fabric startled me.
Finally, I had to slow down, as children dressed as vampires and witches and clowns and ghosts began overtaking the streets of Salem, unwilling to let the candy drought the war had wrought ruin the festivities. I didn’t know where I was going; admittedly, I was a bit lost. I’d found myself in a part of Salem I wasn’t familiar with. But with being chased by a tormenting spirit, and a witch who may or may not have cursed me, I had nowhere to go. Where ever would be safe again? How could I continue to run from this?
I pulled the car into a wooded, seaside park and began to sob. I missed Donagh terribly—too much to fathom. There was no one to comfort me, to protect me. And robbing me of my grief, and perhaps even lavishing in it, was a wretched evil that had latched onto my sadness, drinking my tears like wine.
I’d been out of my home all day, somehow, and the sun was beginning to set behind me. Soon, the glimmer of the crescent moon would shine enchantingly in the night sky, twinkling blue stars joining it; eternal astral companions.
One Night in Salem Page 22