The Gravesavers

by Sheree Fitch

  “John Hindley (12).

  “John Hoadley (26).

  “G.T.M. Hoadley (2).

  “Isabella Hoadley (infant).

  “Margaret Hoadley (23).

  “William Hogan …”

  At that point, my eyes felt as if they were bleeding. I realized I was crying. Whole entire families. Baby Isabella. A boy my age. His older brother, just fifteen. Thomas. It was my father’s middle name.

  I didn’t know I could feel so much for folks I never knew.

  Isabella never got a chance, I thought. Like Pippa.

  John—Did he live or die? Was he one of the weakest?

  “And who were you, Thomas?” I asked out loud. “A fine young man? Did you live or die? Were you handsome? Were you strong enough to swim to shore?” I pictured him for a second, a smiling, sandy-haired teenager. Strong.

  My grandmother had two other lists, Passengers Lost and Passengers Saved. I couldn’t bring myself to read them. I just couldn’t. I closed that box and pulled a black chocolate box onto my lap. It was crisscrossed with red elastic bands. It looked like a miniature coffin. I just sat there, holding it on my lap for a few minutes.

  I was afraid that if I opened it, I would find more bones.

  — YIKES! —

  Nana’s bedsprings squeaked. She was getting up! I grabbed my mess of articles, stuffed them back into their boxes, did a running tip-toe dash to the bone closet, crammed everything back in, closed the door, replaced the key, sprinted back and dove beneath my covers. Phew! She was still in her room, coughing and piddling and making other noises so loud, no way could she have heard me.

  I tucked the baby’s skull beneath my other pillow. I tossed and turned. Finally, I drifted off. I wouldn’t call it sleep exactly. And as for peaceful?

  The reading fuelled my O.I. Not the first time, I have to admit, and the reason I have the only parents in the world who do not encourage bedtime reading. Alice in Wonderland gave me night horrors. So did the wicked witch in the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. I was only allowed peaceful bedtime stories.

  The nightmare started out pretty cozy. I was in a small house with Dory and Corporal Ray. We were going on a trip. Corporal Ray was yodelling up a storm. Next thing I knew we were on the deck of a ship. A sinking ship. And I was sliding off. I watched my mother and father swallowed by a wave. I went underwater and grabbed a piece of wood. I came up sputtering for air, rocking on top of the waves. I was cold. Bone cold.

  I woke up shivering. I’d seen the movie Titanic one too many times. It was one of Carolina’s favourites and she was crazy over Leonardo DiCaprio. She shared my mother’s worship of celebrities. I thought instead of the Swiss Family Robinson. I’d float to an island and survive like they did. This made me think of snakes, however. So I closed my eyes and tried to think happy thoughts. My mother encouraged me to do this when I was overly agitated, as she put it.

  A picture of Gavin filled the screen inside my head. Not happy thoughts exactly, and not very calming either. My heart popped three wheelies in a row.

  — RIGBYISMS —

  Next morning, all thoughts of shipwrecks and Gavin were swept away like bits of dirt under a carpet.

  A letter from Coach Rigby arrived. It was my daily training schedule for the next five weeks along with his special brand of coaching from the sidelines.

  Dear Twinkletoes:

  Thought I’d give you a day or two off before I hit you with THE PROGRAM. It’s no doubt going to be tough to muster up the self-discipline that training by yourself requires. So along with the schedule, I’ve included some words of advice and creative visualization exercises. Remember, the mental aspect of training is what sometimes makes the difference between winners and losers. Attitude! The right attitude can get you over the hurdles ahead—no pun intended—Ha! Ha! So, I know you can do it! Paste my Rigbyism of the week on your mirror or the foot of your bed. Before you get up in the morning and last thing at night I’d like you to faithfully do these exercises like I know you will tackle the rest of your physical regimen.

  I’ll call in a week or so. I’ve enclosed a training diary for your convenience.

  Coach Rigby

  My first week’s training schedule looked fair enough. It was in a small black three-ring binder, and every day I had to fill out what I did, when, what the weather was like and what I felt like after I’d done it. On a scale of one to ten.

  His Rigbyism was another matter.

  Like the postal worker who delivers the mail through rain snow sleet or hail, so must the committed athlete endure all kinds of weather conditions—of climate and mind—your internal weather system, in order to deliver a most important message to yourself: I AM A WINNER! Picture yourself bursting through the finish line, coming first, the crowd cheering you to victory. See it, hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it. Rain or shine—get out there and train for the win!

  I tried. I really tried. But when I closed my eyes all I saw was a movie of disaster. There I was, all dressed up like a letter carrier, in the baggiest uniform you ever saw, staggering up the track in lane number five. Oh, I was trying my best, but the mail bag bumped against my knees, tangled me up and felt like a hunk of cement chained to my neck. On top of that, I was running in a blizzard. With every in breath, I swallowed snow. By the time I wobbled to the finish line, it was dark and everybody had gone home, but I still raised my arms in a victory salute and shouted: “I’m a sinner! I mean a whiner! No—a winner—that’s it!” Fade to black.

  Poor Coach Rigby. He had no idea what sort of seeds he planted in my overactive imagination.

  There was no sign of Nana at breakfast. She did leave me a note.

  Gone to a U-pick up the road for strawberries. Eat.

  P.S. Snooping is not polite.

  Great. What did that mean? I wasn’t tempted to open up that bone closet. The key was gone, and truthfully, even in the light of day, images of what I’d read the night before gave me a pain in my heart. So I studied my morning’s routine, laced up my sneakers and headed out.

  As I approached the hill near Poplar Grove, I spotted the limousine. I was a bit sweaty, but my nose was clean. I decided to face the car head on. Maybe there’d be a chance to see in the smoked-glass window. If it was some little old lady, I could forget about the foolishness of Hardly being around these parts.

  The chauffeur bodyguard saluted to me. He slowed down. I kept running on my side of the road but he stopped in front of me. He left the car idling, got out, folded his arms, leaned against the door and waited for me to reach him.

  My entire Mountie-daughter training told me to keep on going. He was, after all, a stranger. Limousine or no limousine, he could still be a pervert, a murderer, a thief or a kidnapper. Not that he would get much money from my folks seeing as they weren’t exactly rolling in dough.

  I stopped and eyed him up and down.

  “You lost or something?” I shouted over.

  “I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Yeah?” I was doing my tough voice. Carolina taught me that voice. It went with the don’t-mess-with-me look. I struck my boxer’s stance and clenched my fists by my side. Corporal Ray, despite my mother’s protests, had insisted on basic boxing lessons. When I was eight. My left hook wasn’t bad.

  “How old are you?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Long story.”

  “Why do you want to know my age?” I sniffed and started to run on the spot.

  “Are you Ida Hennigar’s granddaughter?”

  “I don’t talk to strangers.”

  He laughed. “You already are,” he said with a grin wider than a pumpkin’s. He certainly seemed friendly enough. Then again, that’s how they lure their victims, said a warning voice inside my head.

  If only he’d take off those sunglasses. They made him look sinister. Pervert or? Maybe he was Mafia or a Hells Angel, leader of a drug ring. Lots of drugs were
smuggled in along the coast. Just last summer Corporal Ray had pored over the newspapers when we were here. Not twenty miles away from Boulder Basin there was a big drug bust.

  “A little too close to home for comfort,” he said to my mother and grandmother. “Things weren’t like that when I was a kid.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” said Nana. “It’s always been like that! Haven’t I told you about your great-uncle Bob Countaway? Made a fortune as a rum-runner during Prohibition. Yes, everyone knew too, but even the police made the odd visit now and then to old Gordie, the bootlegger your uncle Bob kept well supplied. Yes. So now it’s drugs, and if you ask my opinion alcohol’s just as dangerous in the hands of those who’ve got the sickness.”

  My father nodded at her with a grin.

  “Did you ever make a trip to old Gordie’s yourself, Ma?”

  “Stop your foolishness. You know my blueberry wine’s about the strongest thing I’ve ever poured down my gullet. Even then, only on special occasions, you know that.”

  My father winked at me and went back to the paper. All this came rushing back to me as I stood face to face almost—but not in grabbing distance of—the man who could be a drug smuggler. Yes, my O.I. was working just fine that morning. “Get your head out of the clouds,” Corporal Ray always teased. Used to tease.

  “The thing is,” the chauffeur said, “I was wondering if I could take your picture?” He held up a camera.

  Pervert! “What for?” I asked.

  “The album.”

  Ohmygod. Had to be! He must be Hardly Whynot’s personal photographer! I took off like a skittish colt.

  I ran as far as Ludlow’s Lumberyard and ducked behind an old shed and made my way to the shoreline. I was sweating and my nose was running again. I had no tissue.

  Out at sea, a buoy clanged. Thoughts of the shipwreck surged up from where I thought I had tucked them safely away. The buoy clanged louder. And then I heard the voice.

  — STRANGER STRANGERS —

  “Looking for buried treasure?”

  I spun around. The sun hit me full in the face. I shaded my eyes as he stepped forward, then cantered, graceful as a sure-footed horse, over those rocks, the muscles in his legs rippling. That’s the part of him I saw first. Those strong legs. I stepped back a bit and stumbled.

  “Whoa!” he said and grabbed my arm. I pulled away and fell anyhow.

  “Cnicus benedictus!”

  “Excuse me?” He was laughing.

  I scowled up at him, rubbing my elbow. The sun had left spots in front of me, big purplish circles that still hid his face.

  “You think it’s funny? I could have sprained my ankle.”

  “Sorry. Here—”

  He held out his hand. I hesitated. He leaned forward. And then I saw his face. Well, not all of it at first because those eyes just cancelled out the rest of the details. They were a blue I’d never seen before—or since. A blue shot through with light dancing behind it. But not sky or ocean blue. Even my mother would be hard pressed to come up with a name for this sort of blue. Faded Denim? Not that it mattered, because whatever the colour they had the power to make me reach out my hand. To a total stranger. Corporal Ray’s warnings were pushed far to the back of my mind. His grip was tight. And warm. With as much dignity as I could muster, I wobbled up.

  I felt my nose running. I looked down at the ground and wiped my sleeve over my upper lip to catch any drippings. But I hoped I made it look as though I was just itchy.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled into my sleeve.

  “What’s that?”

  “Thanks,” I said again and looked up at him.

  “You’re welcome.”

  We just stood there like two total idiots for a few seconds until finally he let go of my hand.

  “To whom do I have the honour of speaking?”

  “Minn.” I giggled. The honour? What planet was he from?

  “Minn? That’s unusual. Short for Miniature?”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “Minerva?”

  “Yuck.”

  “Do tell!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Girl of mystery,” he said and grinned. His teeth were even and white against the tan of a wind-burned face, a sailor’s tan my mother called it. Windburnt Brown. But I could still make out the scattering of freckles across the bridge of his slightly crooked nose. Not unlike mine. His hair was streaked different shades of toffee. He wasn’t cute at all, I thought at once. He was probably what Carolina would consider a hunk.

  “Don’t you want to know my name?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Fine. But seeing as I’m the only one your age around here, you might want to at least be polite.”

  “How old are you?” I sniffed.

  “Fifteen.”

  He thought I was fifteen.

  “Well, see you around!” I said and didn’t move.

  “Well, I’ve been dismissed then?”

  I looked at the ground. He took the hint and slouched away.

  I watched until he disappeared around the bend. My heart was doing a drum roll.

  Eventually I looped back to Harvey’s Fuel-Up and General Store. Even though my money was back at the house, I figured Harvey would have some Gatorade he’d put on credit. At the very least, I could get a drink of water.

  In front of the store was a truck that made me stop in my tracks and almost jump out of my track-suit. “Cloud Nine Carpet Cleaners.” Why was it that clouds were everywhere? Even though I was overheated, I got cold to my bones and rushed past the truck. I flew through the door, ringing the little bells overhead loud as church bells on a Sunday morning.

  — THE CLOUDS AGAIN —

  Harv’s store is a cross between an old-time general store, a hardware store and a convenience store. He sells fishing tackle, hunting gear, gardening equipment and cooking supplies. Pots and pans hang from the ceiling, and Mason jars for pickles and jams are stacked willy-nilly in the corner. Miniature plastic lighthouses, lobster salt and pepper shakers, Bluenose key chains and other Nova Scotia souvenirs are displayed next to a counter where he sells fresh fish. A few years back Harv put in new stand-up freezers and now there is all sorts of frozen stuff too, like Sara Lee cakes and TV dinners and even packaged fish and chips.

  “For crying out loud, frozen fish in a fishing village, Harv, who’s ever going to buy that?” my grandmother asked him at the time.

  “Fishermen,” Harv replied. “You’d be surprised, Ida, what a treat it can be.”

  He also rents videos and video games. Then there’s the books! His is the only bookstore in the county. He has everything from the latest potboilers to the classics and Oprah’s book club picks.

  “Well, whoever heard of this—a fish store and bookstore all in one?” I heard a tourist say last year. “Just wait till I write home about this.”

  “La-di-da!” snapped my grandmother, loud enough for them to hear. “Uppity CFA’s. Nothing better to amuse themselves with than going on about how quaint we all are.”

  CFA’s stands for Come From Aways. Nana has no time for them. A friendly woman once told her how hospitable everyone was in Boulder Basin. My grandmother smiled and said, “Well that’s because we know you’re not staying.” I’ve heard my mother tell that story many times. If Nana thought for a minute anyone was poking fun at the ways of Boulder Basin folks, she’d go on a rant about “those foolish tourists who pay an arm and a leg for stinky lobster traps and strap ’em to the roof of their cars and take them home for coffee tables and planters. Now that’s what I call quaint, eh?”

  Once she wagged her finger at my nose and said, “Hope you never forget where you come from and go getting too big for your bootstraps, Minn. Just because you live in the city doesn’t make you any better than the rest of us.”

  There she was, one more time, accusing me of something and I’d never even said a word.

  As usual, Marie was doing cash. There was no sign of Harv, so I poked aroun
d in the book section. He has used books, too. My favourites. Sometimes when I opened one, the pages were so brittle, I was afraid they would crack. They were a tea-stained colour and smelled like attics and rain. Old books have such a mystery about them. I always wondered who belonged to them once. Like who turned the pages before me, drinking in all the words I was reading? I loved to read the notes people sometimes scribbled in the margins.

  A blue book on the bottom shelf caught my eye: The Collected Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. I reached for it as someone else did. I jumped. Not before I’d snatched the book myself.

  “You like poetry?” His voice was hoarse. I turned and looked into his eyes. Those eyes.

  I ignored him. I might have said, I don’t! I like, um … mystery and adventure. Novels. With endings. Poetry? It sort of leaves you hanging like you’re on the edge of a cliff or something and I don’t always get it. But I couldn’t speak.

  “You following me or something?” he said.

  I rolled my eyes and looked down at the book, turned pages like a speed reader.

  “Stop! Here’s my favourite,” he said. He leaned over me. He smelled like fresh salt air. He pointed to the title.

  “‘The Cloud,’” I read. Shivers up and down my neck!

  His hand brushed mine. I darn near fainted.

  “Min-u-et?”

  He was way more handsome than Gavin.

  “Nuh-uh,” I squeaked.

  At the till, Marie was pretending to read the tabloid but I know she was watching every move we made.

  “Do you want to know my name yet?” His whisper tickled the nape of my neck.

  I shook my head but I caved in a bit, trying to hide a smile.

  He shrugged. “See ya around.” He wandered over to the video section.

  “Gotta run!” I yelled to Marie. “Tell Harv I took a Gatorade?” I scooted out of there like a bat out of … Tuktoyaktuk.

  Minuet? Give me a break.

  “I hope you always keep your head on straight when it comes to boys.” Corporal Ray’s words echoed from out of nowhere. My head, at the moment, was lopsided. I was dizzy. So I pushed the thoughts I was having away.