by Nathan Roden
My voice had changed over the last six months—the embarrassing adolescent warble finally started to smooth out.
I had not sung out loud since I was twelve years old—not since the short time that Duncan, Nate, and I formed a band and practiced in my parents’ garage. For a precious few weeks we believed that we were on our way to achieving our dreams. Soon after that—I found nothing to sing about.
But my singing voice seemed to have a mind of its own. I began to sing out loud when I was alone—almost as if I had no choice in the matter. I actually took some comfort in the fact that my free will wasn’t being put to the test during every waking hour. My voice was a close friend, yet a friend that I didn’t know at all. This voice formed a bond with my mother’s favorite song—”I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”.
I walked into our den one night. I was in my black leather garb, and I think I was even wearing black eyeliner. Mom was sitting in her rocker underneath a blanket and staring out the window at the snow. Her eyes were red and wet. I stood beside her. She looked up at me and smiled. We looked out the window together.
I began to sing “I’m So Lonesome”.
After a few lines, Mom started crying. She squeezed my hand. And then we were both crying. She looked at me, oddly— like I had a chicken leg growing out of my forehead.
Mom jumped up and called my Aunt Jessica. She showed up in fifteen minutes. They sat next to each other on the sofa, holding hands, and had me sing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” twice. Jessie brought a tape recorder in from her car and they had me sing it again. I was so proud—it was the first time I remember making anybody so happy.
My Aunt Jessie writes a syndicated advice column. Lots of people believe that she is a “psychic”, and knows things about the future. That may have had something to do with the brain mass that her doctors found. They said that the mass had likely been growing for most of her life, but this isn’t the time for that discussion. But I’ll tell you one thing. Aunt Jessie knows a bunch of people. Lots and lots of people.
‘Wylie Westerhouse sings Hank Williams’ made its way into the hands of one of the scouts for America’s Brand New Voice. When the next season began, I had an audition.
I need to catch you up on one other thing.
My brother Duncan.
Chunky Dunky.
I was thirteen. Duncan was almost fifteen. Duncan had always been kind of small. I was a little taller than he was. Duncan was going through puberty really late. Puberty came late for me too, but I thought he was going to skip it altogether. It hit him hard. I made fun of him a lot while he gained weight. His face broke out and he added a brand new chin and a little jelly roll around his middle. “Chunky Dunky” I started calling him. And he always laughed. Always.
Duncan had just started to become infatuated with the idea of being a grown-up. When Dad wasn’t watching, Duncan liked to pick up Dad’s pipe and pretend to smoke it. He used it to point at things just like Dad did. Duncan adopted one of Dad’s favorite phrases and he wore it out for a couple of years. After making a point he would say, “Am I right, or am I right, Little Brother?”
And he loved Dancing Monkey Day.
Stay with me, now.
As long as I remember, my Dad referred to “report card” day as “Dancing Monkey Day”.
“So, have you boys made your grades, or are you planning to grow up to be Dancing Monkeys?”
Man, Duncan loved that line. Of course, he would. Duncan never got anything on a report card other than an ‘A’. I wasn’t so lucky.
Years later, I ran across Duncan’s last report card in my Dad’s desk. It was hidden underneath the pistol safe.
Duncan had never seen this report card.
It was all ‘A’s of course.
Except for one.
During Duncan’s last days at school, one hopelessly clueless or thoughtless teacher dared to defile his Dancing Monkey Day card with a ‘B’.
After about a year-and-a-half, Duncan began losing weight—but then he just kept losing it. As the second chin disappeared so did some of the light from behind his eyes. Duncan lost weight. Then we lost Duncan. My parents lost their marriage. And the three of us lost…well, we just got lost.
Mom and Dad’s divorce became final without much fanfare. Two years later, Dad married Tina—a pleasant enough woman six years older than he was. Tina had six children spaced exactly one year apart.
Tina’s first husband disappeared one night. He checked in with his family ten months later from New York City. He was living at the YMCA and working at a soup kitchen—having discovered that he was a “Free Spirit”, which I guess is another way of saying that you want a “do-over”.
I wish Dad well but it seems like he’s still living on autopilot. It was like he felt so desperate to help someone that he was drawn to this lady who needed a lot of help.
I didn’t see much of Dad. He has his hands full with his new family. His wife can never remember my name, and she tries to hide it. I don’t say anything because the poor woman always looked like she was searching for either a bridge or a tall building to jump off of. She blinks constantly and her eyes jitter back and forth. She has frizzy hair that always looks like it’s trying to escape from her head.
My mother has followed a rather unusual pathway toward success. She went to work writing for a Christian greeting card company, and soon she made a name for herself and started her own company. She even had a spot on the Today Show. She got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago when some country music stars wore one of her t-shirts to a televised awards show. It reads,
Sean Connery is James Bond
Michael Keaton is Batman
Jesus Is Lord
Get Over It
Two
Holly McFadden
McIntyre Village, Scotland
Holly McFadden took a long look at the drawing that she had worked on for two weeks. She laid down her colored pencil and proclaimed—
“Ta-da!”
Charlotte and Nora McIntyre clapped their hands and cheered.
“Mother! Father!” they shouted. “You must come and see!”
Baron Dallas McIntyre and his wife, Elizabeth, floated into the room.
“This is beautiful, Holly!” Elizabeth said. “Your best yet!”
“Indeed!” Dallas McIntyre said. “What a magnificent gift you have, child!”
They all looked toward the wall, where Holly’s drawings of the McIntyre family were displayed. She had completed at least one such drawing every year since her family bought the Castle McIntyre. Holly was then six years old. She was now nineteen.
One month ago, Holly moved four of her favorite drawings from her bedroom wall to a wall in the downstairs great room. This included her very first drawing, which she completed at age seven. The McIntyre’s reaction to Holly’s first drawing had made her feel so proud—and loved—that the picture held a special place in her heart.
The McIntyre family continued to lavish Holly with praise for her artistic abilities. Her drawings became more refined with each passing year.
In the first drawing, Nora McIntyre was a girl of seventeen. She wore a high-collared, long dress with billowing sleeves. Charlotte McIntyre was a girl of eight, and wore a similar long dress, but with short sleeves.
The odd thing was, in every drawing, the girls wore the same dresses, and they did not age at all. Dallas and Elizabeth McIntyre also wore the same clothes in each picture.
The six members of the McIntyre family who inhabited the Castle McIntyre—were ghosts.
“Why have I once again been pictured to look as if I have just swallowed an insect?” asked Princess Arabella McIntyre, who had just entered the room along with her brother, Prince David.
David and Arabella McIntyre were the great-great aunt and uncle of Dallas McIntyre. They had been murdered inside of this very castle in the same instant, one hundred years before Dallas and his family lost their lives.
Prince David died at the age of twenty-two. Arabella
was twenty.
Holly’s drawing did indeed picture David and Arabella at its very edges, wearing sour expressions.
“Perhaps if you did not forever wear the expression of someone who has just bitten into an unripe apricot, Holly would have something better to work with,” Charlotte said.
“What has happened in the past six hundred years that we might be happy about?” Prince David asked.
Charlotte had no reply, and neither did her sister, or her mother or father.
The massive front door of the castle swung open, followed by a string of curses.
Seth Larrimore stomped into the entryway. A stream of mud flowed through the doorway behind him.
“What a bleedin’ mess!” Seth growled. “I’ve never seen such rains in all my life!”
Holly rushed to help her Uncle Seth close the door. She pressed her shoulder against it, as did Charlotte. The rest of the McIntyres stood by helplessly as the door finally latched.
“How are the roads, Uncle?” Holly asked.
“Ruined,” Seth said shaking his head. “I saw two trucks buried up to their axles. My four-wheeler was having a hard time of it. Old Man Blackwood from up the road says he’s worried about the bridge.”
“That little bridge isn’t good for much, anyway,” Holly said.
Seth Larrimore said nothing, but the look on his face frightened Holly.
“I’m talking about the main bridge, Holly,” he said.
“I’m going with you,” Holly said. “I’ll get my coat.”
“Look at Holly’s new drawing, Seth,” Charlotte said.
“Aye,” Seth said. “She’s a real talent, that girl is.”
“She makes us look so… so real,” Nora said.
“You are real, Nora,” Seth said. “This will all make sense, one day, sweet girl. Holly is able to see all of you for a bloody good reason. You mind my words.”
“Holy Mother of—” Holly muttered as she took in the sight in front of her. Her left foot slipped out from under her on the slick moss that covered a cropping of rock.
“Easy lass, easy you go there,” Seth Larrimore said. He grabbed her by the arm.
“It’s gone. The entire bloody bridge… gone,” Holly said as she let herself slide to a seated position.
“Aye, that it is,” Seth said, sitting down beside her. The raging roar of millions of liters of upstream rains tore away at the river’s banks.
“It’s been there…it’s been right there…forever. It can’t be, lassie. I just can’t believe it,” Seth continued to point his finger toward the spot where the ancient structure had stood, as if he was trying to hold time still. His voice fell to a whisper.
The river surged with an intensity unknown for a thousand years. It tossed aside pieces of the eight-hundred-year-old bridge as if it was made of paper.
“It’s twenty-five kilometers farther for the tour buses to take the south road to the castle, Uncle. Will they…do you think…?” Holly asked.
Seth closed his eyes and shook his head. He exhaled heavily.
“Holly,” he said, “I’ve been kicking back money to the tour company managers for the last three years as it is. I don’t… I don’t know how we survive this.”
“Might we at good, long last have peace and contentment in our own home?” Princess Arabella exclaimed, snapping open her fan with a fresh dose of attitude.
“Indeed, My Lady,” Prince David proclaimed with a jutted jaw. “My dear sister, I have stood perched on the very precipice of declaring the family castle off limits to these heathens for the final time—”
“Blow it out your backside, Davey,” Holly said, brushing the moss from the seat of her pants.
“Young lady, I have spoken to you time and again concerning the proper respect due to the Royal Family of this Grand—”
“Blow it out yer backside, Your Highness! Royal pains in the nether regions, is what you are,” Holly said. She walked straight through the Prince on her way to Seth’s four-wheeler.
Seth loosed one quick bark of laughter before the reality of their future regained his attention.
“Aye, are ye not aware of what will become of the castle without the wee bit of income from the tour buses, Prince?” Seth asked.
“Without that money, we’ll not be able to care for the castle or the grounds, and she’s nigh on eight hundred years old,” Seth said.
He stepped in front of Princess Arabella.
“And we know for certain that the Royal lot of you is not willing or able to swing either a hammer or a broom, now are you?” Seth pointed his finger toward Arabella, but thought better of it and dropped his hand.
“Brother, what dreadful nonsense is this commoner spewing? And how long must we remain out here in this awful weather? Just look at my hair!” Princess Arabella said.
“What do you imply, sir? Make yourself clear,” David said to Seth.
“What I am saying, Prince is that we cannot afford to keep up the castle without the income from the tourist buses. I’ve been kicking money back to them to keep us on their schedule as it is! And, as you can see,” Seth said, pointing toward the river, “It is most unlikely that they will be visiting in the near future.”
“Yes,” Prince David said. “A most welcome respite from those incredibly annoying people, I must say.”
“You’re not catching me drift, yer Highness. No tourists means no castle,” Seth said.
“Nonsense,” David said. “We are the nobility of this land, the heirs of—”
Holly stepped in front of Seth, and directly in front of David and Arabella.
“Get this through yer thick skulls, ye Highnesses. Yer noble backsides don’t mean diddly anymore. Without the money from the bloody tourists, we lose the castle. Who in their right mind will buy it, especially now? Stay if you will, but you know what? The castle will be filthy within one month’s time. The walls will crumble. The varmints will move in and take over the place. Arabella, do you remember the night you ran around screaming yer fool head off because of the bat in your room? Well, the whole bloody bat family is moving in—along with the squirrels, the spiders, and the rats.”
“Rats? Rats? David, tell me the child did not say r—” Arabella stammered.
“I said bloody rats, Arabella! Every son of a motherless rat for a hundred kilometers will be crawlin’ around yer dainty little feet,” Holly said.
“This is unacceptable, David! I am Princess of the Shire of—”
“What you are, Arabella,” Holly said, “is dead.”
“Young lady! You will hold your tongue when ye—” David began.
“Dead!” Holly said. “All six of you. Six hundred years dead. You might still be here, but squeezin’ out a dusty Royal fart isn’t paying the light bill, Sweetcakes.”
Arabella intensified the speed of her fan and wobbled, swooning as if she might faint.
“How many have died in this village in the last six hundred years, Arabella?” Holly asked in a lowered voice. “Has it ever occurred to you that you might remain here for a greater purpose than forcing the rest of us to listen to your constant complaining?”
“David,” Arabella leaned toward her brother and whispered, “Do you stand there and allow this—? I do not care for her tone whatsoever.”
“Will we really have to live with the rats, Holly?”
Charlotte McIntyre stood trembling, chewing on her finger.
Holly ran to the little girl, firing a brief angry look toward David and Arabella on the way. She dropped to one knee, trying to take the little girl’s quivering, dirty hands into her own.
“Of course not, Charlotte. You know your auntie and uncle and I bark at each other like this all the time, don’t you now?” Holly smiled at the girl, trying in vain to put her hand to the little girl’s cheek. “You know, there are a couple of bulls wandering around without their heads. Those two are wearing them on their own shoulders.”
Charlotte smiled.
“What about the bridge,
Holly? Will we not have visitors anymore? I do enjoy them so—especially the children.”
Charlotte looked toward the raging river—her large, faded blue eyes overflowing with sadness.
“I mean, they don’t see us, or hear us, but I believe they wish that they could…”
Holly would have loved nothing more than to be able to hug her sad little friend—she had known this sweet, little eight-year-old girl for twelve years.
“Let’s not give up, yet, Charlotte. Uncle Seth knows a lot of good people,” Holly said as she stood. She wished that she saw something other than defeat on her dear uncle’s weary, bearded face.
Dallas, Elizabeth, and Nora McIntyre stood silently behind Charlotte. Elizabeth McIntyre clutched the arm of her husband. Dallas had a hand on Nora’s shoulder. He pointed his chin into the stiff wind. Once again, he felt the burden of responsibility for his little family, as he had last done in life.
For five hundred years, the ghost of Dallas McIntyre had replayed in his mind the events of his family’s last day.
The riders came at dusk, bringing warning of the battalions of English just behind them. The mass of soldiers was too many to number. Dallas knew that a Scottish warship had set sail that day at noon after taking aboard provisions. Without hesitation, Dallas ran to the home of his sister and his brother-in-law, the sheriff of the Shire.
With few possessions, Dallas, his sister, and both of their families pushed away from shore in a small boat. They rowed in pairs and to exhaustion in the cold darkness—toward their only hope of survival…
Catching and boarding the warship.
Dallas McIntyre blinked hard and the memory receded—as it had every day for five hundred years.