The 45th Parallel

by Maureen Hands

  Aunt Mary smiled then turned to ring up the purchase. “Rose, have you met my niece, Katherine Collins? Kat, this is Rose Fellow.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Kat said. Rose smiled slightly and nodded at Kat. She was heavyset and wearing a light blue uniform. Her lips and eyes were sunken into her pale, puffy skin.

  “How is Mr. Crowley doing?” Aunt Mary asked Rose.

  “About the same. I’m getting him some tea to help him sleep. He says he is having bad dreams.”

  Must be something in the water.

  “Well, that tea should help,” Mary said.

  “It was nice to meet you,” Rose said to Kat as she headed back over to the old man and escorted him out the door.

  “That was Old Man Crowley?” Kat asked.

  “Yes, that’s him. Rose is his aid worker. He fell a month or so ago and broke his hip,” Mary said as she watched Rose help Crowley into her car.

  “Did they ever find that young woman…the migrant worker…who was missing the last summer I was here?” Kat asked.

  Aunt Mary looked up at Kat. “I’m surprised you remembered that. No they never found her. I still remember her picture in the paper…beautiful girl…long dark hair.” The front door opened and Mary looked up and smiled. “Hello Dora, can I help you with anything?”

  “I’d like to get some peppermint tea,” a tall, thin woman with short, curly, salt and pepper hair said. “I hear it’s supposed to give you energy.”

  “Have you met my niece?” Aunt Mary asked as she walked over to the tea section to get a box of peppermint tea for Dora.

  “No I haven’t, but I can certainly see the family resemblance. I’m Dora Samson.” Dora smiled and stuck out her hand. “Welcome to Northport.”

  “Thank you,” Kat said as she shook Dora’s hand.

  “Dora owns the bookstore on the corner,” Mary said.

  “Great, I need some summer reading.”

  “You come by and we will fix you up with some great books,” Dora said as she focused on a pendant Kat was wearing. “That’s a lovely necklace.”

  “Oh, thank you, it belonged to my mother.”

  “I have seen the same pendant worn by a few of the residents of Beaver Island. Did your ancestors settle there when they came to this country?”

  “Yes they did,” Mary answered for Kat. “My mother’s family came over from Ireland, settled on Beaver Island in the mid-1800s, and eventually moved to Leelanau Peninsula. Kat’s father’s people came from Ireland too, but I’m not sure if they ever lived on Beaver Island.”

  Dora nodded at Mary then turned back to Kat and said, “It is a Celtic symbol of protection.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

  Dora reached over and patted Kat’s hand and said, “You’ll have to take the ferry over to Beaver Island while you’re here. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  “Yes, maybe I’ll do that.”

  Aunt Mary rang up Dora’s purchase. Dora said good-bye and left with her tea.

  “She seemed nice. It’s good to see there are nice, normal people in Northport,” Kat said as she watched Dora walk across the street.

  “Depends how you define normal.” Aunt Mary laughed.

  Kat smiled and went in the back to help Carl with the inventory. Carl was a stocky man with a ruddy complexion. Since he was mostly bald, he shaved whatever hair he had left on his head. He had a white mustache and goatee. Kat thought the facial hair made him look a little like Colonel Sanders.

  “Hi there Kat,” Carl said as she entered the back room.

  “Hi Carl, do you need any help unpacking those boxes?”

  “I never turn down free help. Why don’t you grab those boxes over there and help me restock the shelves up front where needed?”

  “No problem. I think the tea shelves are getting bare,” Kat said.

  “I keep telling Mary she should sell her homemade herbal teas. That stuff would sell like crazy. She says it’s only for friends and family,” Carl said, shaking his head. “I hear you are going out with your cousins tonight.”

  “That’s what I hear too. They stopped by the house before I came down here. The last time we got together was Uncle Dennis’s funeral, seven years ago.”

  “Well, you will have all summer to catch up,” Carl said.

  Kat stocked shelves until closing at six o’clock then went home with Mary and cooked dinner. The cousins arrived, as promised, at about seven-thirty. Patrick sat with Mary on the porch and the girls went upstairs. Kat had on a pair of jeans, sandals, and a light cotton sweater. Anna had on a slinky white summer dress and Helene was wearing formfitting black pants and a black sleeveless top. Kat felt frumpy standing next to them.

  Helene eyed Kat skeptically. “Why are you wearing your father’s jeans?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those jeans are two sizes too large.” Even as a child, Helene was never one to filter her comments.

  “I guess I have lost a little weight. I didn’t have much of an appetite after Daniel and I broke up.”

  “Exercising like a maniac doesn’t help much either,” Helene said. Mary must have told her cousins Kat biked, swam, or ran every day.

  “Here,” Anna said as she tossed Kat a pair of jeans.

  Kat looked at the tag on the jeans. They were a size four, two sizes smaller than the jeans Kat was wearing. She slipped them on thinking she wouldn’t be able to button them. To her surprise, they fit perfectly, albeit a bit tighter than Kat was used to.

  “Now we have to get rid of that sweater,” Anna said.

  “Hey, I’m standing right here. I can hear you,” Kat protested.

  Helene handed Kat a silver halter top with sequined straps.

  “I don’t have a bra that will work with this top,” Kat said.

  “It has a built in bra. Don’t worry, you will be secure,” Helene said as she rolled her eyes.

  Kat tried the top on. It was much more revealing than she was used to. Kat’s cousins sat her in a chair while they did her hair and makeup. She was not allowed to look in the mirror until they were done.

  “What happened with you and Daniel? You guys had been dating for quite a while,” Helene said.

  “Daniel broke up with me just before Christmas. We had been dating since first semester of freshman year, three and a half years.”

  “That must be hard,” Anna said.

  “The hard part is that he is already engaged to someone else. He started dating Missy Holloway right after we broke up. They got engaged just before graduation,” Kat said.

  “We will do our best to help you forget all about him this summer,” Helene said.

  Kat gave Helene a rueful smile and said, “It probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway. His mother didn’t like me.”

  “How could she not like you?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t come from money, for one thing, and…when Mrs. Lawton found out Mom had been mentally ill, she was determined to break us up.” Talking about it dredged up the feelings of hurt and rejection anew for Kat.

  I even changed my major to accounting to please Daniel, Kat thought bitterly. She had wanted to major in psychology, but Daniel thought accounting was more practical. Changing her major had put her on a four and a half year track to graduation.

  “You are better off without him. If he was too weak to stand up to his mother, then he was certainly not good enough for you,” Helene said.

  “How about you, Helene?” Kat asked.

  “Helene doesn’t keep a boyfriend for more than a month,” Anna said.

  “I like variety,” Helene said wryly.

  “Speaking of graduation, when are you going to finish your degree?” Anna asked.

  “I figure I’ll go back when I can save enough cash to cover my costs. I don’t mind taking the time off. Since most of my friends graduated in May, it’s pretty depressing to go back to campus.”

  “Isn’t your dad helping you with tuition?” Helene asked.

&n
bsp; “He was for the first couple of years, but now he says he can’t help because they have to save money for Betty’s children’s college.”

  “Oh,” Helene paused for a moment and then continued, “So, what did you do today after we left?”

  “I grabbed lunch and went down to the store. I met this woman named Rose Fellow. She is apparently taking care of Old Man Crowley.”

  The room was quiet for a moment, and then Helene said, “Kat…what did you see in the barn window…when we dared you to look in? Was it Crowley who scared you so much, or was it something else? You seemed so upset, and you stopped coming for the summer after that.”

  “We all thought Crowley was working the fields or we would never have dared you to do that,” Anna said quickly.

  “I know,” Kat said, “I didn’t stop coming because of you. I stopped coming because of what this place does to me.” Anna and Helene looked at Kat with confused expressions, so Kat continued, “When that young woman was missing, we let our imaginations run wild and concluded Crowley had done something to her. I’m sure that was influencing my thought process when I approached the barn window. I wiped off a spot to see more clearly and looked inside. It took me a moment to focus, but then I could see the young woman lying in the middle of the barn, her long dark hair splayed out on the floor. I recognized her from her picture in the paper.”

  “Was she alive?” Helene gasped.

  “She was definitely dead. I can see her as if it were yesterday. Her face was gray and her neck was bruised and hung at an unnatural angle. There was a dark trickle of blood that ran from the corner of her mouth and formed a puddle on the floor.”

  “My God Kat, why didn’t you tell us?” Anna asked.

  “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure it was real. As I stood there in shock, the woman’s eyes popped open and she looked right at me. I was too terrified to even scream. She lifted her dead hand and pointed at the window. At first I thought she was pointing at me, but then I realized she was pointing behind me. I looked up and could see Crowley’s reflection in the glass. He was standing right behind me. I looked in the barn again and the woman was gone.”

  “What did Crowley say to you?” Anna asked.

  “He said, ‘You better run girl,’ so I did.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us that before. All this time I thought Crowley scared you by walking up behind you,” Helene said.

  “I think this place shifts my imagination into overdrive,” Kat said.

  “I think creepy Old Man Crowley put all our imaginations into overdrive that summer. Remember when Patrick was missing a couple weeks before the woman’s disappearance hit the paper? We were convinced Crowley had done something to him too,” Anna said.

  Kat remembered Patrick had gone off in the woods without telling anyone, fell out of a tree and broke his leg. He was missing for a day.

  “Helene found him…or told everyone where to find him,” Kat said. “I never did understand how you knew where to look for him. We had never played in those woods before.”

  Helene looked thoughtful, tilted her head, and then said, “I just have a knack for finding things. I can close my eyes, concentrate, and picture where things are. I remember seeing the park sign and Patrick lying on the ground close by.”

  “I think you are done,” Anna said as she finished putting lip gloss on Kat’s lips. “Close your eyes.” Anna pulled Kat over to the full length mirror. Anna and Helene stood on either side of her. When Kat opened her eyes, she felt like she was looking at a stranger. She normally wore loose fitting clothes with little or no makeup. Kat always felt so plain next to her cousins. Now, looking at the three of them in the mirror, she could see the strong family resemblance. Her light brown, shoulder length hair was close to the color of Helene’s and her gray eyes seemed to provide the perfect transition from Anna’s light blue eyes to Helene’s green eyes. Kat had the same full lips as her cousins, but her facial features were more angular.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Anna said as she reached in a bag she had brought and pulled out a pair of silver high-heeled sandals. “As I recall, we wear the same shoe size. Unless your feet have grown since last I saw you,” Anna said as she handed the sandals to Kat.

  “I can’t believe you remember. I’m still a size eight,” Kat said.

  Kat put the sandals on and looked in the mirror again. She didn’t realize just how much she had missed her cousins until now. They were the siblings she never had. All three of them looked in the mirror again.

  “Thank you both so much…for…for…dressing me like a hooker,” Kat said.

  Her cousins started laughing and Anna picked up a pillow and threw it at Kat.

  “You look gorgeous. It’s about time you stopped trying to hide in those baggy clothes,” Helene laughed.

  “Come on ladies,” they heard Patrick yell from downstairs. “Let’s go while the night is still young.”

  They went downstairs and said good night to Aunt Mary. Patrick insisted on driving even though Anna and Helene said his driving made them car sick.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Patrick asked Aunt Mary as they walked out onto the front porch.

  “I am going to a Great Lakes Conservation Group meeting with Carl. They are opening a new hiking trail this summer by the lighthouse.”

  “That sounds exciting,” Helene said sarcastically.

  “The Conservation Group has done a lot to preserve the ecology and natural beauty of this area,” Mary said.

  “Yes, yes…and we are very grateful,” Patrick said.

  “What time will you be home?” Aunt Mary asked.

  “That depends on how much fun we are having,” Patrick said as he put his arm around Mary. “There is going to be a full moon tonight, and we are on the 45th Parallel. There’s no telling what kind of evil spirits will be lurking.”

  “The only spirits you’ll be seeing are in the bottom of a bottle,” Helene said.

  Kat reached over, gave Mary a hug, and said, “I will call if it gets late.”

  •●•

  Mary watched them pull away in Patrick’s car. Seeing her nieces and nephew together again made her feel like she had done the right thing by asking Kat to come stay with her. Sometimes you have to go back to move forward.

  Chapter Three

  Rose Fellow stood in Crowley’s kitchen looking out the window above the kitchen sink. She glanced at her watch. It was a quarter past eight. The sun would be setting soon. Crowley sat at the small kitchen table and shoveled the dinner Rose had prepared into his mouth. The tea kettle heating up on the old stove began to whistle. Crowley startled, glared at Rose, and mumbled something under his breath. Rose turned the stove off and poured the hot water into a waiting mug.

  “This should help you sleep Mr. Crowley. Do you want to drink it here or would you like it in front of the TV?”

  “TV,” Crowley barked as he shoved his plate away, grabbed hold of his cane, and hoisted himself up. Crowley’s cane thunked along the old wood floors of his farm house as he made his way out to the front room to sit on the couch. Rose followed with the steaming mug of tea and placed it on a coaster on the coffee table in front of Crowley. The furniture in the house was old and mismatched as if it had been assembled from various garage sales.

  “I’m going to finish those dinner dishes and go home unless you need anything else,” Rose said cheerfully.

  “Remote,” Crowley said.

  Rose picked up the TV remote on the other end of the couch and handed it to Crowley.

  “Don’t forget you have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” Rose said as she headed out to the kitchen.

  “Bitch,” Crowley muttered. “They’re all bitches.” He clicked on the TV and began to sip his tea slowly. Rose finished up in the kitchen and left to go home.

  The tea did the trick. After thirty minutes or so, he was fast asleep on the couch. When he awoke an hour later, the house was dark except for the flickering light from the
TV. Crowley reached for his glasses on the coffee table and let his eyes adjust to the darkened room. He heard a small rustling noise in the corner. Then he saw the yellow, glowing eyes. Crowley thought a cat or possum must have gotten into the house.

  “Is there someone here?” he said in a shaky voice.

  There was the sound of soft footsteps as a figure slowly emerged from the shadows.

  “I am here,” a female voice said.

  “Who is it?” Crowley said, his voice rising in alarm.

  “You know who it is.”

  As the woman moved closer, the light from the TV illuminated her features and reflected off her eyes. Crowley pushed himself into sitting position.

  “No, it can’t be. You’re dead,” Crowley cried.

  The woman sat on the opposite end of the couch, her long dark hair flowing down her back. She was petite with delicate features. Her feet were bare and her pink cotton summer dress clung to her body. Her pale, young skin was luminescent in the artificial light.

  “I’m here, do you want to touch me?” she asked seductively.

  Crowley put his hand to his chest, his breath coming in and out in short gasps. “You’re dead. I…killed…you. This…is…another…bad…dream.”

  “If I were a dream, could I do this?” The woman reached out and put her hand on Crowley’s knee. She scooted up the couch toward him, sliding her hand up his leg as she went.

  Crowley’s eyes rolled back in his head. His breaths were short and labored. The woman leaned forward and put her mouth over Crowley’s. Crowley struggled silently underneath her as his eyes bulged in terror. When Crowley’s chest heaved for the last time, the woman released him from her deadly embrace.

  She smiled to herself and backed away from Crowley’s dead body into the shadows from which she had appeared, vanishing into the darkness.

  Chapter Four

  “So, where exactly does your friend live?” Kat asked as they pulled away from Mary’s house.