by Webb, Wendy
As sleet continued to hit the windowpanes behind us, and I lifted a steaming spoonful of stew from its crock, Iris began to tell me a tale.
PART TWO
· 13
When Hannah and Simeon Hill, your great-grandparents, came to this island, it was just after the turn of the last century and they were newly married. Hannah was nothing more than a girl, just seventeen years old; Simeon was thirty, thirty-five, perhaps. Maybe more. They’re both buried in the cemetery on the other side of the island. Have you seen it?”
“I have indeed. We drove by it the other day.”
Iris went on. “Good. You can find the exact birth and death dates on their headstones, but he was a good deal older than his bride. By the time they married, Simeon was already quite a wealthy man. He had started a logging company with his brothers a decade earlier and now he owned the company outright. Much of what you have inherited was initially earned by Simeon Hill and invested wisely over time.”
I looked around the magnificent kitchen and gave silent thanks for my great-grandfather’s industrious nature. Iris took a sip of her tea and continued, her eyes hazy and unfocused, staring off into nothingness as she spoke.
“Simeon brought his new bride here to this island, which had been an important fur trading outpost for more than a hundred years. By 1900, most of the trappers had gone and Grand Manitou was fast becoming a playground for the wealthy from Chicago and Minneapolis and elsewhere. Simeon had been here several times on business, fell in love with the island, and built a fine house for his young wife.”
“What was the island like back then?” I asked.
“Much the same as it is now,” Iris replied. “Grand homes, wealthy people, horses and carriages. Not much has changed in a hundred years. The island is charmed in that way. Time passes here, of course, but not like it does elsewhere.”
She cleared her throat, took a long sip of tea, and continued.
“By all accounts, Simeon and Hannah had a good marriage, despite the difference in their ages. It is widely known how devoted they were to each other. He was very handsome—tall, dark-haired, eyes as inky as the lake on a November day—and although Hannah was no great beauty, she possessed a certain air about her that drew people in. It was youth and exuberance, certainly, but she also had the most magnificent head of hair on the island—thick, wavy, and auburn just like your mother’s—and she usually wore it long and free instead of piled on top of her head as was the style for most women of the day.”
Iris turned her eyes toward mine, squinting. “Can you see them, child? Can you see Hannah and Simeon?”
Could I see them? What was that supposed to mean? “I can imagine them, yes,” I said, not knowing exactly what she was after.
“Good, good.” Iris nodded. “Happy as they were, they didn’t have the one thing that would make their family complete: a child. One year passed with no children, then another, and another, and soon tongues began to wag around town, with women providing all sorts of advice for poor Hannah.
“ ‘Eat more salty foods,’ a woman whispered to her after church one Sunday.
“ ‘Make sure to go to him when the moon is full,’ said another.
“None of these silly remedies had any effect at all, of course, and Hannah was becoming desperate. She knew Simeon was eager to sire a new generation of Hills, a family to take over the house and the business someday. But as more and more time passed with no baby, Hannah grew afraid that Simeon would find another way to produce heirs to the family fortune—a new wife.
“She had seen it herself, right there on the island. Three years earlier she had watched in horror as Sandra Harrington boarded the ferry, bags in hand, a veil covering her face. She never returned. A few months later her husband brought a new young wife to live in the house he had built for Sandra, and they set about the business of starting a family.”
“That’s horrible!” I said, imagining the humiliation of poor barren Sandra, sent away.
“Believe me, worse has happened to women who couldn’t produce heirs.” Iris clucked. “Sandra was lucky to wind up with a generous stipend to live on instead of a mysterious death.”
I shuddered. “Why couldn’t they just adopt?”
“Oh, child, that wasn’t done in those days. Wealthy men wanted blood heirs and were not forgiving to women who could not produce them. Hannah wasn’t about to let that happen to her—she loved her husband too much—so she decided to take drastic measures.”
Iris’s tone became low and conspiratorial, as though she were telling me something she shouldn’t. “One afternoon when Simeon was away on the mainland, Hannah went to the other side of the island and knocked on the door of a local medicine woman, Martine Bertrand, a French Canadian who had come here fifty years earlier with her fur trader husband.
“According to local legend, Martine was a witch.” Iris’s eyes sparkled. “The Witch of Summer Glen, the children used to call her. Deep within the cedar forest on the other side of the island is a clearing with a small creek running through it that became known as Summer Glen. This fur trader, Jacques Bertrand, built a small cottage there for himself and his wife. But that was long, long ago, fifty years before Hannah herself came to the island. Martine was now an old woman who had been living alone in Summer Glen for decades.
“Plenty of tales exist about her, local legends made more exciting over time, no doubt. Children would sneak through the woods to get a look at the old woman, despite their terror that she would spirit them away. They say she was a vindictive, evil old witch, casting spells against the high society that had turned her rustic island home into an enclave for the wealthy.”
“A witch, Iris? Come on. You’re not about to tell me you think she actually was a witch.”
Iris smiled. “Of course not, child. All those rumors are nothing but hysterical nonsense. Martine was a healer, a medicine woman, someone who knew how to make potions and poultices with ingredients she found in the earth and the water. She possessed much knowledge, ancient knowledge. Though nobody would readily admit it, and certainly wouldn’t talk about it outright, many of the society ladies would steal across the island, wearing cloaks to disguise themselves, and knock on Martine’s back door. Some sought love potions for indifferent men, others a cure for a recurring cough. Some wanted the right combination of herbs to break a child’s fever; others wanted teas that would ease female complaints. Martine always gave them what they were looking for and never asked for anything in return—no payment, no acknowledgment on the street, not even a kind word.
“Rumor had it, however, that Martine exacted her own price. They say she sometimes laced her potions with malevolence and magic, curing and cursing at the same time. A man would recover from fever only to find his voice mysteriously gone. An always sickly child would become hale and hearty enough to play outside, only to die in a fall from the first tree he ever climbed.”
“But that can’t be true,” I murmured, feeling physically cold at the thought of my great-grandmother going to such a woman for help. This story was beginning to sound suspiciously dark and gloomy. Was it true or was Iris embellishing a local legend?
“I don’t know whether to believe those stories or not.” Iris eyed me suspiciously, as if reading my thoughts. “I only know what happened to Hannah.
“When all else had failed, when doctors could do nothing but encourage her to pray, and when hope of ever having a child was seeping away, Hannah wrapped her crimson cloak around her, stole out to the stable, saddled her horse—your great-grandmother was an accomplished horse woman in her day—rode to Summer Glen, and knocked on Martine’s back door.”
Iris’s eyes were deep and dark now, filled with excitement and thrill. “Martine was waiting in the kitchen. She ushered her visitor inside—the doorway was so small your great-grandmother had to stoop to make her way under the lintel. Hannah found herself in a tiny kitchen, dominated by a big cast-iron pot bubbling away on the stove.
“ ‘So you have
finally come to Summer Glen, Hannah Hill,’ the old woman said to her. ‘What is it you want of me?’
“ ‘Please,’ Hannah begged in a low whisper. ‘All I want is to give my husband a child.’
“ ‘Is that all you want? You want no more than that?’
“Hannah bowed her head. ‘Please. I’ve come to you because of what people say, and I believe you have the power to give me what I seek. I want to be able to give my husband a child.’
“ ‘You do not need me for that,’ Martine said to her. ‘You are fully capable of giving your husband a child. It is he who cannot give a child to you.’
“Hannah was speechless.
“ ‘But I can help you help him.’ Martine smiled slyly and crossed the room. She returned, holding a small cloth bag. She opened it and Hannah saw it contained dried leaves and herbs she could not identify.
“ ‘Your husband is a tea drinker, yes?’ she asked. Hannah nodded. Simeon liked freshly brewed tea in the mornings and afternoons, a habit he had picked up from his British mother.
“ ‘Mix a spoonful of this with his tea leaves for three mornings,’ Martine instructed. ‘He will not be able to smell it or taste it. On the third evening, go to him and you will conceive.’
“Hannah looked at this stooped, gnarled old woman, black shawl around her shoulders, bag of magical herbs in her hand, and suddenly had doubts. Should she be doing this? Wasn’t this against God and nature?
“ ‘Is this—witchcraft?’ Hannah wanted to know.
“The old woman smiled. ‘That depends. I know certain secrets about making cures from what I find here in the glen. If you want to call that witchcraft, so be it. I call it the knowledge to use what God has given us on this earth.’
“Hannah nodded, somewhat calmed by Martine’s words. Gingerly, she took the bag from the old woman’s hand. ‘Are you sure this will not harm my husband in any way?’
“ ‘The only thing these herbs will do for your husband is make it possible for him to father children—not just once but from now until his dying day,’ Martine said forcefully. ‘The tea will change him forever; he will be fertile like any other man. You will bear as many children as you desire. But it will not otherwise harm or damage or change your husband. On that you have my promise.’
“ ‘I’ve wished for a child for so long,’ Hannah murmured, eyeing the contents of the bag.
“ ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Martine warned. ‘And listen well to me, Hannah Hill. I said this tea will not harm your husband, and it will not, but you must know this: He is not meant to father children. His line should end with him. By using these herbs, you are calling forth certain powers to deliver children to you, against what nature itself has intended. This cannot be undone.’
“ ‘Yes.’ Hannah nodded anxiously. ‘That’s why I’ve come.’
“ ‘But you must understand.’ Martine tried again. ‘Any child conceived this way, out of—as you call it—witchcraft, can be unpredictable. You might get a demon or an angel or something in between; there is no way of knowing. Children conceived out of witchcraft are witches themselves, as are their children and their children’s children. Whether they are good or evil depends on their spirit. I cannot control the type of spirit that might come through. Your children, their children, and their children—all will be similarly cursed or gifted.’ “
“More talk about witches, Iris?” I said. “This is sounding like the stuff of Grimm’s tales.”
“And yet it’s the story of your own family.” She looked me square in the face. “Best listen, child.”
I nodded, drawing my arms around me as though I had felt a sudden chill. “I’m sorry. Please go on.”
“Hannah listened to what Martine was telling her about cursed or gifted children, but there, in that tiny kitchen, she reasoned that the same uncertainty would surround any child. No mother knew what kind of child she would have, sweet or rebellious, blond or brunette, strong or sickly. That was up to God, or so Hannah believed. Martine was really saying the same thing, wasn’t she? In her desperation, Hannah thought so. Hesitating only for a moment, she put the cloth bag in her pocket and got back on her horse.
“Over the next three days, Hannah brewed the herbs and leaves with her husband’s morning tea, and, just as Martine predicted, on the third day she did indeed conceive a child. Hannah knew it the moment it occurred, with a jolt that felt to her like an explosion deep within her body. And nine months later, Hannah and Simeon were the parents of triplet girls, Penelope, Persephone, and Patience.”
“I heard about them!” I told Iris. “Will Archer found their graves. They died so young. What happened to them?”
Iris smiled ruefully and shook her head. “This is where the story gets a little bit haunting,” she said slowly, sipping her tea. “You know what people said about Martine, how she always exacted her price for the cures she doled out? Well, in this case, it was true.
“Simeon and Hannah loved their daughters fiercely, but, truth be told, something about the girls just wasn’t right. From a very young age, they were devilish and mischievous, pinching one another in their cribs, pushing one another down the stairs, deliberately frightening their mother by pretending one or another of them was dead.”
A shudder crept up my spine.
“They were not like other children of the time, who were, for the most part, obedient and quiet. You never knew what those triplets might do. They gave Hannah and Simeon quite a time of it.
“They loved playing hide-and-seek in the house and around the grounds, and poor Hannah was forever looking for them.” At this, Iris actually chuckled. It was a gurgling, choking sound I didn’t care to hear again.
“It wasn’t just the disobedience,” Iris continued, shaking her head. “It was also their strangeness. It seemed as though the girls were not separate people at all. They never went anywhere alone. They spoke in the same monotone voice, came when you called any one of them, and would stand in front of you with identical looks on their faces. I know it sounds like a fantastic tale, but it seemed as though the girls shared one soul. Of course that could not have been the case.”
“Of course,” I mumbled.
“One more thing you should know about them,” Iris went on, her eyes shining. “They were almost transparent. Their skin was papery thin, so thin you could see blue rivulets of blood rushing through their veins just beneath the surface. Their eyes were the palest of blue, so pale it was nearly not a color at all. And their hair was stark white. It was as though Hannah had given birth to a trio of ghosts.”
“Will said the girls died young.”
“There was a freak storm when they were eight years old. The townspeople were certain Martine had caused it, but that was, of course, hysteria on their part. Storms brew up out of lake and water wind here on the island when you least expect them. This one happened on an early November day, a beautiful day. The girls were playing outside, right there on the cliff. Hannah was in this very kitchen making supper when the storm descended. Nobody knew it was coming. That’s how it was with storms and tornadoes and floods back in those days, with no modern weather forecasting.”
My mind sputtered, caught in a hazy fog of remembering. “Are you talking about the 1913 storm? I’ve heard about that somewhere.”
Iris nodded. “It was one of the worst disasters ever to happen here—or anywhere else on the Great Lakes, for that matter.” She gathered her thoughts and went on. “It was a relatively mild day, typical of early November, the type of day that lures sailors and fishermen onto the lakes with the promise of calm seas and balmy temperatures, only to turn ugly and murderous once the poor souls are too far from land to return.
“This was the time of year in which the leaves had long since fallen, their abandoned branches now spindly and gnarled, exposed and vulnerable—as, in a way, were the residents themselves—to the wind and snow that would surely come. But that particular day, no snow was on the ground, the sun was high and bright in the sky
, and the winds were calm.”
“It sounds like the weather now,” I offered.
“Exactly like now. People relished those rare November days, riding their bicycles one last time before the snowfall, hanging wash on the line to capture the air’s fresh scent, opening their windows to coax that freshness inside the house before closing them for six months of winter.
“That’s why Hannah Hill had no objection when her young daughters begged to go outside after school instead of doing their chores. Let the children play out of doors while they can, Hannah decided, glad to have them out of her hair for a few hours. Her husband was scheduled to return from a trip to the mainland that afternoon, and she wanted to make everything right in the house for his arrival.
“It was so balmy, the girls didn’t take their coats when they ran off to the cliff, some hundred yards away. Hannah, meanwhile, cleaned and fluff ed the living room and turned her attention to dinner. During the off -season, she and her husband gave the servants a liberal amount of free time to visit family on the mainland, and this was one of those days. Hannah was managing on her own—unlike many women of her station, she was a capable cook and housekeeper—and enjoyed the quiet pursuits of making just the right dinner for Simeon and creating a lovely atmosphere for him to find when he returned home. These were acts of love for Hannah.
“She was making a meat pie, a favorite dish of her husband’s, wanting him to find a kitchen smelling of care and attention when he got home. She had no idea, as she chopped the onions, potatoes, and carrots, that her life was about to take a horrifying turn. It always happens that way, doesn’t it? Destruction descends at a moment’s notice, without any warning, when one is caught up in the business of everyday living.”