Out of the Mist

by EvergreenWritersGroup

  Yet another story circulated that the house had once been inhabited by a young boy who lived there with his grandfather, a tyrant who used to beat his grandson for little or no reason. When the grandfather died suddenly, whispers drifted around the community about the young boy who, terrorized beyond reason, was driven to commit murder. The boy was sent away in the care of a distant aunt and uncle, the house boarded up and left empty. No evidence of foul play was ever discovered or reported, despite abundant rumours. Long years later he returned, not to the house, but to a little shack behind the railway station. He was referred to locally as Ol’ Man Thorburn. He was seen every week buying his bread, milk, and tins of cat food for the numerous cats living at his shack, barely mumbling five words before shuffling back down Station Road, clutching his paper grocery bag.

  Rosemary told us a third version, learned from her 98-year-old grandmother. The Acadian fishermen, who for years sailed into the bay in the spring to fish, erected simple houses to live in during the summer months. Eventually, they formed a settlement. The men dried their catch on raised pole platforms along the shore while their wives dug small garden plots for growing vegetables and hung their wet laundry on the bushes to dry. This version, and the two previous, were likely all true, given the historic timeline.

  The British drove out the Acadian families in the mid-1700s, scattering them as far as Louisiana territory. Some of them escaped beforehand in small boats, hiding in the woods farther up along the shore to the west, while others were rounded up and put on ships bound for Boston. Their former lands were bestowed on hardy souls out of Nantucket, who arrived on this rocky coast somewhat dismayed at the lack of rich soil for establishing farms. Instead, they learned to rely on the sea: fishing, boatbuilding, and trading by ship. Hence the sea captain story, which could have taken place at any point between 1767 and 1900. Ol’ Man Thorburn, of an indeterminate age given his severely wrinkled face and stooped posture, could easily have grown up in the early twentieth century, giving credence to the abusive grandfather story.

  The old Robertson house was probably around 200 years old, being of frame construction and similar to a Cape Cod style. Symmetrically placed windows flanked the extended covered entrance at the front, where the battened storm door stood firm. None of us remembered ever seeing signs of anyone living in the house. There were no curtains at the windows, no lights at night, only a path beaten down in the grass by Alfred Nolan, the elderly caretaker.

  We had long since lost interest in the house. Our list of forbidden places included the old Robertson place, which, we were warned, had an unmarked well somewhere on the grounds. I was not anxious to fall down an abandoned well; in fact, it gave me nightmares if I allowed myself to think about it. The well had been filled with rocks and other debris, we were told.

  Time passed. We were beginning to feel the cold after sitting in the car with the engine off, no matter how crowded together we were. No one had thought to bring a thermos of hot chocolate or a candy bar. It would soon be time to head for home, and we hadn’t even decided on what to do. Eddie had not returned from his spy mission.

  “We’re going to have to—” Eliza started to speak, but was interrupted by a distinct CRASH!

  We all jumped as one body.

  “What was that?” ventured Patty in a tiny voice.

  No one answered her until Rosemary said, very quietly, “It sounded like—”

  CRASH! We heard it again. Maria let out a whimper, like a small puppy.

  “That sounded like something heavy,” said Phil, “like a club or a mallet or—”

  “Or a what?” whispered Eliza.

  Another crash sounded, louder than the last.

  “Maybe it’s Eddie, playing tricks on us,” said Rosemary firmly, although we detected a faint tremor in her voice. “He’s the only one around, unless there’s someone down in the parking lot, and they’ll be too busy to make those noises.”

  At that moment, we heard running footsteps and Eddie’s face appeared in the side window.

  “Open the door! Open the door!” His tone was frantic. Maria opened the door and Eddie dived in, heedless of where he landed on us. Maria quickly pushed the lock down on the door. Eddie scrambled to sit up and catch his breath.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked, gulping and panting. “Did you hear that noise?”

  “Yup, we heard it all right,” declared Phil. “We thought it might be you doing it.”

  “No way! Are you kidding?” asked Eddie. “I was down by the parking lot, crawling up the first dune to scope it out, and this huge crashing sound came from behind me. I nearly jumped outta my skin!”

  “Behind you?” asked Rosemary, who liked to clarify things to their very marrow. “That means it came from up by the old Robertson house.”

  “But nobody’s been up there for years!” said Eddie. He paused. “Or at least, that’s what everyone says.”

  “Who is ‘everyone’?” asked Maria. “Maybe someone lives there secretly, like the old sea captain.…”

  “He’d be about 150 years old,” scoffed Eliza. “I don’t think so!”

  “What about his ghost though, the one who lives in the attic,” suggested Maria. “Ghosts don’t age like humans, they live on and on.”

  “Yeah,” said Eddie, recovering from his shakiness. “They just keep wandering around forever, until someone kills them again. Maybe the noise is from the ghost houses the French people lived in. When they were burned, the roofs would’ve collapsed and crashed in.”

  “Well,” said Rosemary, “I’m not so sure I believe in ghosts, whoever they are, or were… but that noise was very real, and I think we should find out what caused it.”

  “You’re joking, right?” asked Maria and Patty together. “Why doesn’t Phil start up the car and we all get out of here, right now!”

  “Well, we came for an adventure, so why not check it out? There are seven of us. If we all go together, and take whatever we can find as weapons, we’ll be able to protect ourselves,” insisted Rosemary.

  “I don’t know,” began Maria. “What if...we run into….” Her voice faltered, unable to put her fears into words.

  “Phil, what’s in the trunk?” asked Eliza, ready to take on the challenge of equipping warriors for battle. “A jack? Tools? Maybe a flashlight?”

  “Uh, I’ll go check.” He hesitated before opening his door, and quickly moved around to open the tailgate. The rest of us kept a vigilant watch, straining our eyes into the darkness around the car. The moon remained stuck behind clouds, ineffectual. Phil struggled with the catch on the wheel well, and finally wrenched it open.

  “A spare tire, tire iron, jack, and a small screwdriver,” said Phil, handing forward items that might be useful as weapons. He closed the hatch and the tailgate, and scurried back to the driver’s seat, locking the door as he slid behind the wheel.

  “There’s nothing else?” asked Eliza. “No boards or shovel or anything?”

  “Nope,” said Phil, “My dad cleared it all out last weekend.”

  We divided up the tools. They didn’t amount to much if effective weaponry might be required.

  “I guess I could poke out its eye with this screwdriver,” Eliza held up her weapon, eyeing it doubtfully. “That is, if ghosts have eyes.”

  “We don’t know that was a ghost,” Rosemary said, keeping her voice even. “What we are going to do is leave the car at the same time, and walk slowly up the lane towards the house. If we stick together, it will look like we’re really big, instead of one puny person who’s easy to take down.”

  I found my voice at last. “What about the well?” I asked. “How are we going to see the well in the dark? One false step and one of us could just slip in.”

  “That well was filled in years ago, and if we stick to the lane, there’s no chance we’ll even go near it.” Phil’s words were only mildly reassuring.

  “So, are we ready?” asked Rosemary, wielding the tire iron with both hands. “I’ll lead a
nd Phil will bring up the rear. If anyone sees or hears anything, grab the arm of the person nearest you and stop in your tracks. Don’t run, whatever you do.”

  “That’s for bears, not ghosts,” said Patty. “Even I know that.”

  “Oh, great,” I said. “Now we have to worry about bears, wells, and ghosts.”

  “C’mon, all of you, let’s go now!” urged Rosemary. She set off, trailed by Eliza, Maria, Patty, Eddie, and me, then Phil, so close he was stepping on my heels.

  We tried to walk quietly along the road, gravel crunching under our feet, until we reached the entrance to the lane leading up the hill. Suddenly, there was a whirring sound, which escalated to a high pitched whine.

  “What is that?” shrieked Maria, clutching the girls next to her so hard they flinched.

  “I think it’s a car spinning its tires in the sand,” answered Eddie. “Someone went parking tonight after all!”

  “Shouldn’t we go help them? Maybe we can push them out?” suggested Maria, who was ready for any diversion away from the house on the hill.

  The sound of a car engine grew louder and closer. Our eyes were blinded by headlights.

  “Watch out!” yelled Eddie, as he tried to drag us out of the way. We scrambled off the gravel in time to avoid being grazed by the careering car, clearly identified as Bud Smith’s Chev by the amount of chrome on its sides as it streaked past us. We could just glimpse the top of Marilyn’s blonde bouffant hair before the red taillights disappeared around a bend.

  “He didn’t even see us!” exclaimed Eddie. “Wonder why he was going so fast?”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth when a prolonged dragging noise reached our ears. We slowly turned around, just as the stubborn clouds broke open and moonlight lit up the front of the house on the hill. We gasped aloud. The bar on the storm door was ripped off, the door swinging back erratically. That explained the banging noises. A tall figure appeared to be dragging a big box or trunk, bent over and lurching as if it was very heavy. He was dragging it in the direction of the beach.

  Without looking at each other, we turned and ran as one, reached the car, and grabbed wildly at the door handles before throwing ourselves inside. Phil fumbled with the keys, started the engine, and turned the car towards the village, not even looking around to see if we were all there.

  After several minutes, Rosemary spoke. “Okay, that was scary. Even I have to admit it.”

  “Who do you think that was?” asked Eddie. “The sea captain? Mr. Nolan?”

  “Not Mr. Nolan. He’s too old, too short, and no way could he pull that much weight.” Phil snorted. “And it wasn’t the sea captain. At least not the one you’re thinking about.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone?” Maria’s mild voice was barely audible.

  “We can’t tell anyone, because then we’ll be in real trouble. You know that we’re not supposed to go near that place. If our folks find out, we’re all done for.”

  “Let’s just go home,” said Eliza. “I’ve had enough adventure for one night.”

  ***

  Across the bay from the beach, Mrs. Dawse was adjusting her curtains at the front window before retiring for the night, when she noticed a glint of light in the distance.

  “There’s a light on in the old Robertson house,” she mused. “That’s odd.”

  ***

  The next morning, Mrs. Dawse telephoned to make sure my mother knew about Bud Smith’s abrupt departure for Ontario to work at an automobile plant with his uncle, and about the light coming from the old Robertson house the night before. My mother repeated the whole conversation to me as she resumed her weekly Saturday baking ritual.

  Preoccupied as she was with her task, she wasn’t aware of my rapt attention to each detail. There was no mention of Bud’s girlfriend Marilyn.

  ***

  Later that same morning, Phil called. He and Patty arrived home the night before to see their father, Rev. Bob, standing on the doorstep. He was dressed in his weekday sports jacket, shirt and tie, looking at his watch under the porch light. Phil handed him the car keys.

  “Tell your mother that I have to go to the hospital, and I’m not sure how late I’ll be,” said Rev. Bob. “I just got a call from Martha Nolan; Alfred Nolan’s had a stroke.”

  Phil and Patty looked at each other wordlessly as their dad drove away.

  ***

  That Sunday afternoon, when Mrs. Crosby from the United Church took a tinfoil-covered plate of dinner to Ol’ Man Thorburn’s little house, as was her habit, she noticed that the cats were all outside the door, mewling and looking hungrily at the plate she carried. When her repeated knocking got no response, she hurried off to fetch Mr. Crosby. He quickly returned with Rev. Bob, and they forced the lock to find Ol’ Man Thorburn unconscious on his cot, an uneaten meal from the day before still laid out on the table. He was taken to the hospital but never regained consciousness, and died before the week was out. Only the minister and a handful of mourners attended the funeral. No one could remember any family ever visiting Ol’ Man Thorburn.

  The shack stood empty for a while and the cats took up residence under the station platform. Maria’s father, who was the station agent, put out food scraps and saucers of milk for them. Eventually, the town council declared the shack an eyesore, and decided to raze it. The few belongings worth saving were stacked in an unused storeroom at the railway station in case relatives of Ol’ Man Thorburn showed up to claim them. Pushed into the far corner of the storeroom was a big metal trunk with a curved top and rusting hinges. A big padlock hung off the front, and affixed to the outside were faded, barely legible labels, reading “Boston”, and “…ntego Bay”. Piled on top of the trunk were an iron bed frame, old chairs, and cardboard boxes.

  ***

  As time went on, the events of that night became less important, and our attention was focused in other directions. Our little group dispersed. Maria and Phil started dating. The rest of us, even Patty, were not welcome on their jaunts in Phil’s father’s car. Eddie’s dad was posted to another base in Quebec. Eliza and Rosemary decided they wanted to pursue nursing careers, and volunteered for the Candy Striper’s program at the regional hospital.

  In my free time, I escaped the house to take our family dog on long walks to the shore. While Trixie explored the rock pools and stalked hermit crabs, I perched on a boulder where I could gaze across the bay at the old Robertson house. My imagination invented scenarios of what might have taken place within those walls over the many years it stood empty.

  The scouring salty winds continued to batter the old house, until little of its green paint remained. Eventually, new caretakers took over, cutting down the scraggly trees and bushes, mowing the grass, and drilling a brand-new well so the house could be rented. However, potential renters didn’t stay longer than a couple of weeks, complaining that the house was perpetually cold. There were renewed rumours of odd noises from the closed-off attic.

  As was the custom, rumours and stories faded into the local lore, and many forgot the events of that early spring. Trains ran less frequently along the shore, eventually stopping altogether, and the railway station was boarded up. Ol’ Man Thorburn was remembered as a reclusive, quirky old man, but few people could say they actually knew him. His belongings gathered dust in the station storeroom, where they were forgotten until, one night, someone noticed flames leaping from the station roof. By the time the volunteer fire department arrived to hose down what remained, the roof had caved in, and little of the structure remained. Maria’s father, now retired, volunteered to help clear away the debris once the fire investigation was complete. When questioned, he didn’t remember seeing a trunk in the ruins. He told Maria a metal trunk like that wouldn’t burn up. The raised train platform looked incongruous without the building behind it, like the ghost of an era when trains thundered daily into the station, screeching to a stop to disgorge passengers and freight.

  ***

  A few short years later, I ret
urned home to visit my mother. One day, I walked along the old railway line, now bereft of iron rails and tar-blackened ties, in the direction of the causeway. At a place where there was a wide view of the bay between clumps of trees, I paused to look across at the beach. Perched atop the bluff where the old Robertson house had been stood a huge, multi-storied house, like a modern-day castle, multiple roof lines and dormers placed to catch every angle of the sun and sea breezes, no doubt with a sophisticated air-conditioning system for back-up. With landscaped grounds, neatly trimmed grass and ornamental trees placed precisely around the perimeter, it was state-of-the-art, as if whisked from the pages of a home design magazine and plopped onto the pristine lot. No signs of the old house remained. I felt a pang of nostalgia for the old house of my younger days, which breathed history as well as mystery from its every corner and cranny.

  When I returned to my mother’s place, I paused in the doorway to marvel at her fortitude; she still prided herself on remembering dates and names of people she knew from childhood.

  “I noticed a new house over by the beach,” I said, “on the spot where the old Robertson house used to be. Do you know who lives there?”

  “Let me see.” She tilted her head to one side, as if searching her memory. “I recall Melanie telling me—you remember Melanie, don’t you? Mrs. Dawse’s daughter?—about a man and his wife showing up out of the blue, going straight to that spot on the hill, bound and determined they were going to build a house overlooking the beach, and not even bothering to look at other properties. Before anyone knew it, the old house was gone, and that monstrosity sprang up almost overnight. Five bathrooms! Imagine!”