But I soon discovered it was just as boring back at the cottage when I couldn’t go near the lake, or ride grandpa’s ATV, or go through the woods to the top of the bluff. Of course, there was no television out there, and computers and phones were a long way from being today’s electronic devices. Grandpa’s old dog wouldn’t even wake up to play with me.
I walked down to the dock and gazed across the lake. I dared not go out in the boat with the outboard, but what harm was there in going for a paddle in grandpa’s canoe? I would wear a lifejacket and I was used to paddling it alone. No one would know. The sun was shining; there was no wind and there were very few clouds in the sky. It was great paddling weather.
I grabbed a lifejacket and the paddle Grandpa had made for me. I put a bottle of water and some cookies in my backpack. I had at least two hours before the family came back and, besides, I wasn’t going far.
I locked the cottage, hid the key in its usual place, and began a trip I wish I had never taken.
Once in the canoe, I had my second foolish idea. Grandpa had always said, “Never, ever go to that island just off Beaver Point.” I’d heard that said to every visitor, kids and adults, every year, at least four times a year. The explanation was that it “isn’t safe! In fact it is really dangerous there!” Grandpa said it was haunted. His stories would have you believe that the ghost of Silas the Miser, who had lived on the island for years, and who had died there, kept people from finding his hoard of money. He also claimed that the island was booby trapped.
But there the island sat: only about 200 metres away, just off the Boutilier’s property. Such an easy paddle to the beach in that little cove facing me: a place to land and pull up the canoe. What was in those trees covering the island? Perhaps somebody had lived there since Silas because there were the remains of a dock beside the beach, and a sort of path leading from it.
My idea was that this was the time to explore the small island. It was perhaps 200 metres long and less than that wide. Perhaps I’d find a clue to Silas’ treasure. Why didn’t Grandpa want me to visit this mysterious place? I was intrigued.
Two hours would give me lots of time to paddle out there, explore, and paddle back. What could be dangerous in that? Unless Grandpa or my parents found out, and that wasn’t going to happen.
It was an easy paddle to the island. I beached the canoe and then I made my next mistake. I didn’t tie it up. I was so keen to walk up that overgrown path that I didn’t bother. I scrambled through the tangle of underbrush and spruce trees until I spotted something ahead that looked like the ruins of a building. Any thoughts of ghostly traps and pitfalls had gone from my mind.
The building had once been a house, but the roof, at one end, had collapsed. There were no windows left and the door leaned open on one hinge. I wondered if it was safe to go inside and what I might find.
Then I heard something that didn’t quite belong. There were noises coming from behind the house. There was a clanking noise but, in the background, was the sound of bells. For a moment I remembered the story of the ghost. But I dismissed the thought. I didn’t believe in ghosts anyway.
So I made yet another mistake. I didn’t turn round and paddle back home. Instead, I struggled round the side of the ruin to peep behind. The noises were coming from high up in an ancient maple tree; I spotted some wind chimes and several heavy metal pieces hanging and clanking against one another in the freshening breeze. Nothing to be scared of, I thought.
It was then I noticed what looked like a stone poking above the grass and weeds in a small area that someone had tried to keep clear.
Once I’d cleared the grass and other debris away, I could see that it was a gravestone, and it had writing carved into its face—a lot of writing. It took me quite a while to scrape the lichen and moss off the stone so I could read what was written. I know what it said because, once I’d read it, I copied it down on a piece of paper crumpled in the bottom of my backpack. There were two types of carvings. The words etched crudely at the bottom, not as deep or clear as those at the top, were more difficult to read.
Here lies
SILAS CRAWFORD.
September 13th 1864 - October 31st 1953.
They say I save and never spend.
My money’s safe, you can depend.
I never gave. I didn’t lend.
I used it well. No one can find,
Though many tried, the money that I left behind.
And he that looks shall be left blind.
My treasure is for all mankind.
He lies! Silas the Miser kept it with him.
It’s here, somewhere.
Take care! He guards it still.
Even if my name had not been Colin Crawford, the tombstone messages would have intrigued me. I’d gone this far; why not use the time I had left to look farther? Maybe there was a fortune hidden here.
My errors were mounting up. The sun had gone in and clouds were gathering as the wind crept even into the sheltered, scrub crowded clearing. None of that caught my attention in my eagerness to get into that ruin of Silas the Miser’s home, to start my search for treasure.
The back door, leading into the part of the house where the roof was almost intact, also hung open. As I looked through it, I saw that daylight crept in through empty window frames as well as holes in the roof and walls. I didn’t think about what could be lurking in the shadows. There was enough light to go in and explore.
I should have been more cautious, but I wasn’t.
I stepped in through the doorway, forgetting to check the floor. Two steps in and it gave way. I went crashing into what must have been the basement. I crashed onto a hard floor, all the breath knocked from my body and one leg crumpled beneath me. Thank goodness I still had the lifejacket on. I think it saved my back and ribs.
I lay there, the light barely able to penetrate the hole I’d made above me. I tried three or four times to sit up, but I couldn’t. My leg wouldn’t let me.
When I tried to straighten it to make movement easier, it really hurt. I felt around for something that would help me haul myself into a sitting position. There was nothing, only spongy wood and some other, harder pieces. I picked one up and held it to the dim light.
It was a bone, a long bone.
I screamed and threw it away. Somehow I straightened my leg, though it was agony to do so. Then I sat up, leaning back on my elbows. Half stunned, I peered into the indistinct corners. Was something or someone moving in the darkest of them? Had the ghost of Silas brought me to this perilous situation? Was his spirit protecting his fortune from treasure hunters like me? I shivered as I tried to dismiss these haunting thoughts from my mind. That’s when I saw the first rat.
Before my imagination ran riot and created more fear, it was disturbed by a bright flash of light that showed the remains of stairs against the far wall.
Almost immediately there came the clap of thunder and then the rain. But it wasn’t just a shower. It was a sudden downpour that began to drench me, even in that half sheltered basement.
The water began to flow down the walls and in through the floor above me. A few minutes later, at the height of the thunderstorm, I realized that the water was puddling around me. The basement was flooding. I should move.
I dragged my hurting body over to the staircase. My leg was useless as well as painful. When I reached the stairs and tried to drag myself up them, I realized the steps had rotted. They would not take my weight. I was trapped. There was no way out.
But the next lightning flash revealed water flowing down a ramp from another doorway, high up in the far corner. The hatch at the top of the ramp had gone. If I could crawl there, I could scramble up that ramp, if the water streaming down didn’t stop me. As painful and difficult as it was, I had to try.
I attempted to crawl but the pain in my knee was excruciating and I must have passed out.
I came to in a pool of water.
The downpour was still flowing into the basement. Water was now ab
out half a metre deep in places. If I collapsed into it, I could drown. Above me, on the rotten steps, were rats escaping the flood. I realized that the life jacket could help me get across the basement to that ramp. If I lied down, let my legs float, and used my hands on the floor to pull myself through the water, movement would be easy. Who knows what my hands touched and grabbed on that basement floor, but I made it and dragged myself a little way up the ramp.
That was as far as I could get. The ramp, even after the thunderstorm stopped, was too much for me. I couldn’t drag myself out. It was too steep and slippery. One leg was useless and I was wet, cold, hurt, and exhausted. I must have passed out again soon after it got dark. My last thought was that this had to be the work of the ghost of Silas. I was caught in his trap.
I came to as I was dragged up the ramp and strapped onto a board. It was a backboard, brought in by the paramedics; my grandpa and father had found me the next afternoon and called them.
My family had returned from town in the middle of the thunderstorm and wondered where I was. They figured I’d been off walking and was sheltering until the rain stopped.
Mom was worried that I had been struck by lightning. Then, as the rain eased off, Grandpa noticed that the canoe was gone from the dock.
Before darkness fell, he and Dad got in the other boat, and began to look for the canoe. It wasn’t where I’d dragged it up. Instead, they found it adrift in the lake.
Everyone feared the worst. I’d gone out in the canoe, gone overboard in the storm, and drowned. Grandpa started a search of the lakeshore, and the island beaches while Dad and Mom drove round and got everybody on the lake to check their shoreline. Darkness fell and they hadn’t found what they were looking for—my body. They all thought I had drowned.
Before dawn, Grandpa woke up with a brainstorm. He realized he had forgotten to check lifejackets. He saw that one was missing and hoped that I had been wearing it. At first light they began to check the shoreline and search the islands again. All the neighbours on the lake were helping. The police and Search and Rescue had been informed. Of course, the last island to be checked was the one Grandpa had warned me about. He’d assumed that I had heeded his warning and wouldn’t go near the place.
Wrong!
But they followed my trail from the beach, through the brush, and to the tumbledown house of Silas Crawford.
They realized that someone had cleaned off the gravestone and decided to thoroughly check out the ruin. They found me lying on the bottom of the ramp: dehydrated, unconscious, and with torn knee ligaments.
I was first taken to the local hospital, then sent for surgery back in the city. I was on crutches for some weeks after surgery, until healing and the physio began to take effect. I would have been in a lot more trouble, except they’d found me alive, when they all believed I was dead.
In the hospital, Grandpa told me about the island, the house, and about his uncle Silas who had made a lot of money in the States. He’d come back, bought the island, and built his house there. He had become a recluse in his old age and refused to let anyone on his island, except his nephew, my grandfather, whom he’d befriended. All the locals thought that Silas was filthy rich, and even the family believed he was wealthy.
Eventually he died, alone, on his island, where he’d lived for the last 30 of his 89 years.
It had taken two years to find his will, which had been left in some safety deposit box in a Boston bank. During that time, treasure hunters trashed the house and scoured the island, looking for his hidden fortune. It had never been there. One of them must have carved the words on the bottom part of his tombstone some time later.
The will had revealed two things. The first had confirmed his oft spoken wish to be buried on the island, with the words I’d seen carved on his gravestone. The second had been his desire to leave, anonymously, his considerable fortune towards the building and upkeep of our local hospital. His “treasure was for all mankind”.
And why had my grandfather kept us all away from the island? He owned it, thanks to Silas’ will. But a condition had been that no one could live on, or even visit the island. Grandpa had encouraged the ghost stories, even though Silas, when alive, had been far from evil. He was crotchety, rather than scary and mysterious.
But I had visited his island. I should have asked Grandpa to explain the story and then, maybe, he would have taken me to explore—safely.
But Grandpa did have the last word. He willed me Crawford Island. Same condition applies. Nobody can visit the island, unless I approve.
And no! I never did find that bone, or any others, in that basement, when, for safety reasons, we had the old house torn down. I still paddle over there every summer, just to keep the gravestone clean.
This coming summer I plan to tell my son and daughter about their ancestor, Silas. I’ll take them to visit his island and see his gravestone. And then I’ll tell them about his ghost.
~~~***~~~
Eternal Love
Wilma Stewart-White
The view was what had drawn her to this house. Perched in the odd little dormer at the top of the house, Clare could see the heaving sea for miles and miles. The real estate dealer had told her the dormer was known as a Lunenburg bump. A funny name for her favourite spot but she could see why a sailor’s wife would want one. The view was spectacular on clear days.
Today, though, the beach was almost invisible through billows of fog. Stretches of sand appeared and disappeared. The unearthly notes of the nearby foghorn made her shiver.
“On a night like this anything could happen,” she whispered.
As she watched, she was amazed to see figures on the beach.
“Who would willingly go out on a night like this?” she whispered to herself.
Perhaps she was imagining things—but no. Once again she saw them. A couple walking slowly along arm in arm. The woman was slightly bent over and seemed to be wrapped in a long cardigan. Her companion was so thin, he was almost transparent. They seemed oblivious to the inclement weather and the damp wisps of fog wrapped around them. As she watched, they disappeared down the far end of the beach. The maniacal laughter of the loons in the pond shattered the silence. She shivered.
“It’s just a goose walking over my grave,” she muttered, thinking about that silly phrase from her mother’s time.
She jumped as her phone rang. It took a few seconds before she could pull herself into the moment to answer it.
“Hello,” she croaked.
“Clare? Is that you?” It was her neighbour farther down the beach.
“Yes, yes, I was just miles away.”
“Just wanted to know if you were ok in this first foggy night alone.”
“Oh, yes,” she answered. “I’ve been watching the fog on the beach. Tell me, who would I have just seen walking along the beach just now in this awful weather?”
“What! What do you mean? Walking along the beach now? Tonight?”
“Yes, an older couple who looked too frail to be even out in this weather,” she answered.
There was silence on the other end of the line, long enough for Clare to think the connection was broken. “Are you still there, Anne?”
A deep breath came from the phone. “How about you come by for tea tomorrow morning and we can talk about your mirage?”
“Mirage? What do you mean?”
“Trust me. The story will be better in the sunlight. See you tomorrow.” There was a sudden click as Anne hung up.
“Now there is a mystery!” mused Clare. She pulled the bright yellow curtains across the window and took her wondering thoughts elsewhere. With luck, the fog would be gone in the morning and her questions would be answered.
Just before she headed to bed, she took one last look out at the beach before her. Tendrils of fog played hide and seek with the full moon that sailed across the sky, but no figures could she see.
“My imagination?” she wondered aloud. She first picked up a mystery novel but her cat mewed at h
er. “Yes, you’re right, a good English novel is what I need. No more mysteries for tonight.”
Clare and the cat made for her comfy bed.
The next morning, the fog persisted as she walked down the little lane to Anne’s cape house. With a warm and welcoming bright red door and a plume of smoke puffing from the central chimney, it looked like a house in a fairy tale.
She was glad she had chosen this tiny community. Everyone was busy and friendly. She knocked on the door and immediately heard the welcome barking of Queenie, Anne’s rescue greyhound, at the same time Anne opened the door.
“Come in, come in," she beckoned warmly. “As you can hear, Queenie is glad for some company. I am not speaking to her; she demolished half my museum tea biscuits this morning.”
Clare walked into the open room. Anne had removed some interior walls so she could see the beach and the grey ocean swells, or even down to the small freshwater pond with its flotilla of ducks, from almost anywhere in the room.
“What a wonderful vista.”
“That and its age is what attracted us to the house. This house has watched the sea for over 200 years and has seen many storms and struggles on that beach.”
Anne handed Clare a mug of tea. Clare wrapped her hands around the heat and inhaled the fragrance.
“Tell me Anne, what did I see last night? Real or imaginary?”
Anne sat beside her. “Well, it depends on you." Anne took a deep breath. “It sounds like you saw Janet and Philip walking the beach as they have for 30 years.”
“So which house is theirs?” asked Clare.
“The house they used to live in is the grey one surrounded by rhododendrons just as you round the big curve.”
“Used to live in.... Do you mean they moved?”
Out of the Mist Page 18