The Seeker: A Mystery at Walden Pond

by R. B. Chesterton

  “Exactly my reaction. An unhappy marriage of Concord history with the whaling industry. I put a couple of pieces in my cabinet but they never sold.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “He came by and picked them up. Said he was heading back to the sea, leaving Concord behind.”

  “Was he a local man? Maybe he’s still carving.”

  “Let me see. Let me see.” He went behind the counter and brought out a receipt book. “Sailors with nothing to do carved scrimshaw on those lengthy whaling voyages. Pretty much a lost art.”

  “Some of the work is beautiful.”

  “I never sold any of his, but I might have logged it into inventory.” Pages fluttered as he perused the book. “Let’s see. Here’s something.” He pointed.

  Leaning over the counter I read the name Roger Brent. “Is that him?”

  “Ayuh. Roger Brent. My memory’s coming back. Tall young man. Thin. Lived at the end of Yerby Lane. Well, the only building on Yerby. Roger Brent. He was sort of a history and nature enthusiast. Liked to hike.” He nodded as he talked. “A loner type. Said Thoreau had it all figured out. Man did best on his own, he said. Solitude brought wisdom and all that crap. Brent was all caught up in the talk about the new century. Polar fields shifting, Y2K, all of that foolishness. If he was here now, he’d be ranting about solar flares or some going-up-in-the-rapture foolishness.”

  “Is the invoice dated?”

  He pushed pages back to reveal a blurry date.

  “Would you recognize his style of scrimshaw?”

  “Nope. Never that interested. Put the pieces in the cabinet to shut him up. He was a kook. I wondered how he kept body and soul together, and now that I think about it, he surely didn’t eat regular. Musta been mental, you know.” He tapped his temple. “I should have tried to help him. Back then, though, he was just another person with a strange twist. We attract a few of them here. Folks who read Emerson and Thoreau and want to live in the woods. Danger now is they aren’t just recluses but those crazy survivalists. Any dern fool in the country can own an assault weapon or buy the goods to make bombs.”

  “Where did you say he lived?”

  “Yerby Lane. Not so far from Walden Pond. Never been paved. The lane goes back to an old shack.” He held out the pamphlet of scrimshaw history. “Take this. Might be of interest to you. Take it as a gift.”

  I thanked him and reached into my pocket. “Does this look like Roger Brent’s work?”

  He scrutinized the tooth. “The work is good. Whoever did this used a combination of needle and small blade. Depth of cut is used to give the image a three-dimensional quality. This could be quite valuable.”

  “Does it look like Brent’s work?” I asked again.

  “Can’t say for sure. Where’d you get it?”

  I wasn’t about to tell him that the ghost of a little girl left it for me. “I bought it at a junk shop in Rhode Island.”

  “You have quite an eye.” He took it to the light from his front door for a better view. “Unusual treatment of the child’s eyes. Never seen anything quite like it.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “It’s the only sign of amateur craftsmanship I can detect.” His finger gently tapped the carving. “If you want to sell it, I’ll put the word out.”

  “No, it’s not for sale. Can you tell how old it is?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have the experience. The substance used in the cuts seems to be gunpowder, which might date it, but you’d need an expert to tell for sure. Maybe someone at a university. The archeology departments should be able to help you.” He held it out to me.

  “Could the young girl depicted be local?” I asked. “Maybe she modeled for him or was a relative.”

  That stopped him. “I can’t say.”

  I pointed to the writing on the furled banner. Praeterita est numquam mortuum. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s Latin, I think, but I can’t say the meaning. Like I said, your best bet is a university.”

  I took the tooth and returned it to my pocket. “Is Yerby Lane in walking distance?”

  “Ayuh. But there’s nothing there. I doubt the shack is still standing.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I headed for the door.

  Snow hadn’t begun to fall, but the sky was leaden and heavy. The clouds looked ready to really cut loose, but the forecasts promised the weather would hold until tomorrow. I had plenty of time for a hike.

  I took the route toward Walden Pond. I wasn’t certain where Yerby Lane might be, but I needed to move. Whenever I stopped, images from the past two days caught up with me. Patrick’s body in the glow of the fire, Joe asleep in my bed, the thud of fist on flesh in the darkness, and the flash of red through the woods riding on the giggle of a child.

  I couldn’t really say how far I’d walked or how long it had taken me, but I stood at an intersection. The lane leading west wasn’t marked, but it fit the shopkeeper’s description of Yerby Lane.

  23

  The first flakes drifted down as I turned onto the trail. Thick and heavy, they stuck to leaves, limbs, and eyelashes, and accumulated immediately on the ground. The snow fell so dense and fast that visibility was only twenty yards. Looking down the rutted dirt trail, I guessed no one had recently traveled this path. It was isolated, as the shopkeeper said. The wisest move would be to head back to the inn and return another day when the weather was better.

  My impatience wouldn’t allow retreat, though. I’d be home in an hour. There was plenty of time to finish my exploration. I trudged down the lane wondering how far it was to artist Roger Brent’s former cabin. A shack ten years ago, according to the shopkeeper. Would anything of the structure remain?

  Instead of lightening the sky, the onslaught of snow seemed to pull the gray clouds lower until it felt as if they rested on the tops of the bare trees. Suffocating. I struggled for oxygen as I pushed on down the path.

  The trees pressed closer and closer the deeper I went. The path was not wide enough for a vehicle now, barely accommodating a human. The woods were alive with the sound of small limbs snapping beneath the weight of the snow. Scuffing through it, I realized how wet and heavy it was. Joe was right. If the temperatures fell another few degrees, the terrain would be layered with ice beneath the snow, a dangerous condition.

  Perhaps it was my imagination, but it seemed the temperature was dropping. Maybe it was only the damp snow. Still, my fingers, in warm gloves, and my toes, nested in heavy socks and leather boots, had numbed out. Even protected by a scarf, my ears ached from the cold.

  Pulling my collar higher, I pushed on. The adversities only made me more determined. Granny Siobhan called it the “bitch in the ditch” syndrome. It was a famous Cahill trait based on some distant relative who’d wrecked three cars trying to get a load of moonshine down the mountain to what turned out to be an under-cover revenuer.

  I could still hear Granny’s voice. “Providence stepped in three times to prevent Mare from delivering the ’shine. Three times she climbed out of the ditch, shook her fist in Fate’s face, borrowed or stole another vehicle, and continued. In the end, she was carted off to jail for her troubles.”

  Cahills were known for hardheadedness. Chances were, if Captain Ahab could trace his lineage, he would discover he had Cahill blood. No one but a Cahill, fictional or not, would chase a whale around the world just for the pleasure of trying to kill it.

  The thought of the Great White made me reach into my pocket for the whale’s tooth. My gloved fingers surrounded it, too numb to truly feel, but I knew it when I touched it. The canister of pepper spray was also there. I felt a little less vulnerable when I held it.

  At last a shack came into view. It stood, if one could call two timbers holding the whole thing upright standing, like the ghost of a house long dead. A good wind, or a heavy snow on the roof, would send it toppling. Today might be the day.

  I scrabbled onto the tiny roofed porch so I could shake the snow out of
my hair. Coming here had been a mistake. Admit it now or suffer later.

  My cell phone was fully charged, and I decided to use it. Joe would come and get me. Or Patrick. If I called the inn, Dorothea would send Patrick for me.

  “Shit.” I shook the phone. No reception. The damn thing was useless in Concord. It didn’t work at the cabin or in the woods. The first tingle of unease pricked my spine.

  The five-by-five-foot porch barely covered my head and shoulders, so I pushed at the front door. It swung open without complaint. A great reluctance tugged at my feet, warning me not to step inside. It wasn’t trespassing that worried me—it was something far more frightening, though I couldn’t put my finger on what.

  Falling snow obscured everything, even the tree line, which was no more than twenty feet away. The cabin might be my only chance at survival. I’d never make it back to the road around Walden, and it was another three miles home from there. I was stuck. Either the cabin or the woods. Not much of a choice.

  I crossed the threshold.

  The cabin was dark. No windows, but that also meant at least a bit of insulation from the wind. I couldn’t see much, and with each step inside, I wondered if my foot would go through the flooring. A gash or twisted ankle could prove fatal under these conditions.

  Feeling my way, I groped across the top of a table. As I patted the surface, I found an old oil lamp. Beside it was a book of matches. I stopped. I had the sense I’d stepped into some awful fairy tale where things had been put in place especially for me. As if someone knew I would come here.

  Granny Siobhan’s stories frequently featured malicious fairies and elves, changelings and gremlins. She’d read to me, and one story that never failed to frighten me was Vasilisa the Beautiful, about a young girl sent into the woods to find firewood. She stumbles upon a witch’s house and her life changes dramatically, and not for the better.

  I struck a match and lit the lamp’s wick. At first I didn’t see her sitting so quietly in the corner. When I did, I thought my heart might stop.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said. “I’ve been watching. And waiting.” She sat perfectly still, and in the dimness I couldn’t be certain if her lips were moving or if she was communicating telepathically. The urge to run consumed me, but my legs refused to work.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. Her lips twitched at the corners, but her eyes remained wide and black. “I’m just a little girl. I can’t hurt you.”

  How did one speak to a ghost? “Why are you watching me?”

  “Because you’ll listen. So few people will. You can see me, and so many can’t. Or won’t.”

  She sat so still that had the lamplight not caught in her eyes I’d have thought I was conversing with a shadow. “Are you Mischa Lobrano?” I asked. “You never told me your name. Back at Walden.”

  “Researcher that you are, I thought you’d dig it up. A joke, if you will.” Her smile was too cynical for such a young girl. “My name matters not. Call me whatever you wish.”

  “To me it does matter. What’s your name?”

  “Mischa will do. Where I live now, names aren’t so important. Understanding is.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  She didn’t seem to move, yet she was standing in front of me. “Not so very much. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

  In the lamplight, her eyes were as black and bottomless as those in the scrimshaw.

  24

  There wasn’t a fire in the tiny cabin, no method of heat, but strangely I began to warm. The walls blocked the wind, and the roof, though tenuous, kept out the snow. When I went to close the door more firmly, I noticed drifts piling high against tree trunks. The skies showed no signs of letting up.

  “Worried about the walk home?” the child asked. “It can be dangerous cutting through the woods, but that’s the fastest way. In the snow, the roots and holes are covered up and can’t be seen. You have to be very careful.”

  “Did you cut through the woods the day you disappeared?”

  She cocked her head to one side like a bird. “Little Miss Nancy Drew. You can’t stop gnawing on the mystery. Do you really care what happened to a little girl?”

  I did. “Who hurt you?”

  “That’s the crux of your worry. You suspect one of your lovers did something very, very bad.”

  She looked like a child, but she spoke like a much older woman. And she meant to tease me by withholding whatever I asked. “What do you know about lovers?”

  “I know most people think fucking two men is bad form. Some might call that promiscuous. Or desperate. Or maybe insane.”

  She shocked me, and also pissed me off. “Who are you to judge, flitting through the woods leaving dead birds and dolls?”

  “Just an observation. Social mores come and go. In the place where I live, such things aren’t of any significance. We understand that monogamy isn’t part of the human condition. In the natural world, animals pick the vibrant, strongest mate. The man who can provide and survive. That’s the way of nature. Who can fault a woman for being natural?”

  Such sentiments coming from the mouth of a child made me backpedal toward the door. This was very wrong. My fingers found the knob and I turned it slowly, praying it wouldn’t rattle or squeak.

  “Leaving so soon?” She never moved, but the latch slid home. “I don’t want you to go. Let’s play a game. I haven’t had a playmate in such a long time.”

  “Who are you?” I no longer felt certain this was the ghost of Mischa Lobrano. She wasn’t even a child. There was age-old intelligence in her gaze, a jadedness that scared me.

  “Mischa. You like to think of me as her.”

  “No child talks like you do.”

  A small hand slid down her face as if she meant to wipe her expression off. “I’m sorry.” Her voice remained childlike, but her entire bearing changed. Rounder shoulders, limber spine. “Being dead does strange things to you. Dead means lonely. You’re the only person who can see me. Think what it’s been like for the past days and nights. I’ve been here. Stuck, in-between. I’ve tried to tell people what happened. No one listens. Years have passed. It’s true, I’ve grown testy. I was once the princess. My parents loved me so much. Do you know how hard it is to watch them suffer?”

  “So you are Mischa.” It had been nearly a decade since the kid disappeared. Had she lived, she’d be a smart-mouthed teenager. It fit. She’d matured, but not physically. I thought of Ann Rice’s sorrowful creation, Claudia, the child vampire, doomed never to go through puberty or experience a sexual relationship.

  “Do you know why you can hear me?” she asked.

  “No, but I’d like to.” Because I felt sorry for her, I offered friendship. Not to mention my curiosity and the hope this child, who produced dolls and tintypes, might also help me with my primary quest. Aunt Bonnie.

  “You’re a Cahill. You aren’t the first of your blood with the gift of communicating with the dead.”

  “My aunt Bonnie had a gift. Predicting the future by dreams. Second sight. She hinted at communicating with the dead.”

  She clapped her hands. “Very good. You’re smart, too. I like that.”

  An awesome possibility presented itself. “Can I speak with Bonnie?”

  She shook her head and her blond hair shimmered in the lamplight. “I can’t answer, because I don’t know. Maybe you can. If she’ll talk with you. She may not want to.”

  My head was reeling, and I felt slightly nauseous. I put a hand on the table to steady myself. This was incredible. I was having a conversation with a long-dead child. A wave of heat washed over me, and I feared I might be sick.

  “Let me help you.” She was at my side. The door opened and a blast of frigid air brushed over me, bringing sweet relief from the nausea. I inhaled and closed my eyes, allowing my stomach and head to calm and settle.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I blinked and stared into the black depths of her eyes. They wer
en’t black, but a deep navy blue. I pushed the hood back from her face. Her blond hair was silky and a pure golden yellow, the color of childhood, of innocence, of summer sun. No bottle could duplicate that shade. “I’ll bet your mother’s heart broke when you didn’t come home.”

  She glanced down at her feet. “A lot of people hurt. Joe was one of them.”

  I found I couldn’t ask the question I most wanted an answer to. I couldn’t ask if Joe had hurt her.

  “Don’t ask if you can’t take the answer.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and went to close the door.

  I would forever berate myself as a coward if I didn’t try. “Do you know what happened to you?”

  “No.”

  I wondered if she was lying, and to what purpose. “What do you remember?”

  “What do I remember?” She spun like a child, arms wide. I grabbed the oil lamp for fear she’d knock it off the table.

  “I remember walking in the woods. Mr. Sinclair had taken us on a nature walk the first of the school year. We talked about ladybugs. They’re the state insect for Massachusetts, you know. The state called for ‘citizen biologists’ to help find and photograph all the ladybugs.” She spun again, her features gleeful. “Mr. Sinclair said if we could find any nine-spotted ladybugs—they called them C-9—and photograph them, he would give us each ten dollars.”

  “Did Joe mean for you to go into the woods alone?”

  She twirled, halting in front of me. “No. He had no idea I was going into the woods. He’d probably forgotten all about ladybugs and the money.” Her voice lowered. “But he didn’t tell me the C-9 was thought to be extinct. It’s not right to send children on a quest that hard.”

  My knees weakened. If Joe hadn’t tempted her into the woods, he wasn’t there waiting to take her. He hadn’t asked her to meet him. She’d gone on her own initiative. I might not be able to tackle this issue head on, but I could nibble away at it.

  “That makes you feel better, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You like Mr. Sinclair.”

  “I do.” She seemed able to read my mind, so why deny it?