by A. L. Knorr
"She hemorrhaged and died from loss of blood, which is tragic all by itself. The really strange thing is that she died before she had a chance to birth Jasher. We should have lost the wee lad too, but..." She paused. "Well, I have never seen anything like it."
"What do you mean?" The faraway expression on her face was giving me chills.
Faith put the tray of tomatoes under the broiler and shut the oven. She turned to me. "If a pregnant woman dies, the infant dies, too. Sometimes they can be rescued through cesarean, but it happened so quickly and we were so focused on trying to stop the bleeding that it caught us unaware. It was a matter of moments from the time she started hemorrhaging until she was clinically deceased - no breath, no heartbeat. But incredibly, as we were trying to change course to save the babe, Maud's body continued to birth the child." I saw a tremor pass through her. "We all knew we were witnessing a miracle. Her body continued to push for another half hour. We didn’t know what to do, since the poor wee thing was already in the birth canal by the time we got ourselves turned around. It was incredible, horrifying, and impossible, all at the same time."
We both fell silent. Goosebumps crawled up the back of my neck and over my scalp. I imagined seeing the corpse of a pregnant woman, the body straining actively with the climax of birth contractions, the eyes dead and unseeing. A round of nausea made my mouth water.
"That was a good mam, I'll tell you that," Faith said. "She loved that child from beyond the grave."
"But, how is it possible?" I took a glass from the cupboard and poured some water. "Did you ask around and see if that kind of thing had ever happened before?" I took a few big gulps and my stomach gurgled in response. I put a hand to my belly, not quite sure if I had done it a favor or not.
"Oh yes," Faith said. "We were all confounded. The hospital administrator went straight to his rolodex, asking for reports of other cases. Not a one came back. I sent a letter to one of my old friends from University, a man who attended literally hundreds of births. He'd never heard of such a thing and bade me to let it rest. Jasher's father was none too pleased with the attention it brought. There were countless requests for interviews and studies. He was against all of it. Can't say I blamed the man."
"What happened to Jasher's father?" I asked, glancing out the window into the back yard. No sign of Jasher yet.
"That's also a sad story," Faith said. "At first he seemed okay. He had to grieve of course but he took Jasher home and tried to raise him alone. What else could he do? Unfortunately for Jasher, his father came to blame his son for his wife's death. He abused the boy something terrible I'm afraid." She joined me at the back window, her gray eyes finding the horizon. "His da remembered me from the birth and he came to me a few times to ask me to take Jasher. He had no other family, and very few friends by this point. He said the boy was cursed, a child of the devil and all that nonsense."
I gasped. "What did you say?"
"I tried to talk some sense into him and when I couldn't, I encouraged him to seek council. Then, one summer, I was weeding in the garden when I heard the sound of a vehicle stop at the end of the driveway. A door opened and closed and then the car continued on. Jasher came wandering into the yard all by himself. I'll always remember how he looked that day. Both of his little skinny arms were covered in bruises and he had a black eye. He was carrying a duffle that had everything in it that he owned in the world. He said that his da told him I'd look after him."
I visualized the scene, my heart aching for that kid. "What did you do?"
"I told him that of course I would look after him. I gave him a hug and he let me hold him on my lap on the porch for an hour. I became a mother that day." She too watched the yard for a sign of her adopted son. "To this day I am so glad that I didn’t stop to think about it. The poor wee thing had been rejected and beaten by his own father, blamed for his mother's death, and then told I was the only person in the world who would accept him. If I had showed him a moment’s hesitation, he would never believe that I really loved him." She moved to the table and sat down. "My life had not been heading in the direction of motherhood. But sometimes, it seems like there are other plans in motion for our lives, whether we like it or not."
I thought about how I had not been planning to come to Ireland, but through circumstances that were out of my control, here I was.
Faith stared down at her hands and chewed her lip. A line had formed between her brows.
"That's only half of it." She took a breath. "Going back to the lassoing of hornets. When I asked him where he learned it, at first he wouldn't say. When I kept asking him, he said that an old Chinese man had showed him. He wouldn't say who the man was or where he'd met him. I couldn't make sense of it. I wracked my brains to think of a Chinese man in Ana that Jasher could have met but couldn't think of a single one. I prodded him for almost a year before I figured it out."
I sank into the chair across from her, my heart thudding. The nameless sensation shrouded me, the back of my neck prickled.
"I uncovered more clues and eventually I had enough to piece things together. I'm not sure it would have happened if it wasn't for Sarasborne. This place has been renovated and added to over the years, but it still has the same foundation and most of the original building is intact. It has its tragedies, too."
Tragedies? I wracked my brains for anything Liz might have told me and came up empty.
Faith poured herself a glass of water and took a sip. "My Grandfather Syracuse used to tell stories to your mam and me. One of them was about a young man who had been killed during the construction of this place. Sarasborne was nearly finished and the men were doing the roof. The pitch is steep and the men had to rig up scaffolding and ropes and the like for safety. One of the men, Conor, slipped and fell. He was roped, but in those days there was no such thing as nylon and the rope had no give. He was saved from hitting the ground, but the internal injuries killed him."
Conor. I grew very still. My mouth had gone dry. “This place has a ghost?”
Faith nodded and went on. "Neither your mam nor I ever saw anything strange, and believe you me, we looked. As kids we were obsessed. We'd half convinced ourselves that objects had been moved from room to room or that doors had opened on their own. But if I'm really honest I know that we never witnessed anything of real proof. But, about a year after the first time I watched Jasher put a feather on a hornet - it was late one night when I heard his voice. I thought he was talking in his sleep so I stopped outside his room to listen. I realized a conversation was going on." Faith stared past me with unseeing eyes. "I peeked into his room. It was a full moon so the room was bright. He was sitting up in bed with his back against a pillow, relaxed as you please and havin' a gas with someone I couldn't see."
My skin had turned clammy, in spite of the warmth of the room. It was just like the conversation I’d witnessed while Jasher was playing the guitar. I could imagine how Faith would have felt that night.
"I was frightened,” she was saying. “Then I caught the drift of the conversation. Someone was explaining to Jasher how this house had been built. He asked the man's name, waited for a moment and then said, "It's nice to meet you Conor, I'm Jasher."
I shook my head. "You'd never told him about Conor."
"No, never. He was too young to be hearin' stories like that. So that's when I knew that the boy I'd adopted could speak to the dead."
I was shaken, because I knew she was telling the truth.
"After that, I took my time," she continued. "Eventually, I asked Jasher if the old Chinese man who had taught him how to lasso hornets had been a ghost, and he said 'yes'." Her eyes misted over and her voice broke. "Then he looked so guilty and I told him that he didn't ever need to be ashamed. After that he seemed relieved that he didn't have to hide it from me anymore."
I absorbed everything she'd told me. While sitting around a campfire and telling ghost stories plays a part in every child's life, I always knew they were just stories. But this wasn't just a stor
y, it had happened here, in this house, to my family.
"There are those who say that Ana County is situated on a ley line, and that's why supernatural things happen here more often than other places."
"Ley line?" I'd never heard the term before.
"An undetectable matrix of energy lines criss-crossing the earth. Some say they link sites of supernatural significance such as the pyramids and Stonehenge, just to name two obvious ones. Others say that the lines were there before things like that were built, and because the lines are so rich with electromagnetic power, they attract supernatural activity."
"Whoa. Auntie," I gave her a spooked side-eye and she laughed.
"I know.” She opened the oven and the smell of broiled tomatoes filled the kitchen. “To someone who doesn't work with energy on a regular basis, it sounds kooky. But I can assure you it only seems flaky to those whose worldview is rooted in the tangible world. No one can deny that there's power in the earth - how else would plants grow or volcanoes explode? She shrugged and put the tray of tomatoes on the island to cool. "It's not so farfetched."
The lens of my own worldview was being challenged just by learning about Jasher's birth and ability. One thing at a time or I would feel overwhelmed. "Do you think Jasher sees ghosts all the time?"
"I don't know anymore," she said. "I think he used to, when he would go into town for school. I couldn't figure out why he was so thin and anxious all the time. But after I took him out and home-schooled him for a while, he was a completely different boy."
"How so?" I peered out the window, keeping watch for the man himself. I felt a little guilty that we were talking about Jasher in such detail while he wasn't there. By now I knew way more about him than he knew about me. Advantage Georjayna. So I guess I didn't feel that guilty.
Faith laughed, took off her glasses, and wiped her eyes. "Sometimes children really do know best. Homeschooling was his idea. I was against keeping him at home permanently at first; I just wanted him to do it for a year to get his health back. I wanted him to have friends his age and to receive the same privileges that other children had. But when the time came to register him in school again, he begged me not to make him go back. He was so desperate not to that I hired tutors and he surprised both of us by graduating early. He always had terrible grades at public school. But without all the... distractions... of whatever he was dealing with in town, he was a star. Not long after he graduated, he started the landscaping business and he seems to be okay doing that for now. He doesn't mention the dead anymore."
Movement through the window caught my eye. Jasher was striding across the lawn toward the house. He looked completely different to me now that I knew more of his story. He walked with a confidence rarely seen in those who'd suffered so much at a young age. There were troubled kids in my high school, and they weren't hard to spot. It was in the fearful eyes and the posture that said don't look at me. Jasher displayed neither.
"Do you think," I asked as we watched him approach, "that the circumstances of his birth have anything to do with his ability to talk to the dead?"
Faith smiled and waved at Jasher through the glass. He waved back and gave us a heart-stopping grin. His white teeth flashed in his tanned face, changing his entire countenance. I found myself wishing the grin was for me, but I knew that it was for Faith. I understood their bond now.
Faith said, "I have wondered that myself countless times. He didn't just get too close to the veil, he was inside it. That kind of beginning is bound to leave its mark."
The door to the mudroom opened and Faith went to the cupboard for plates.
Chapter 9
Second breakfast was quick and quiet. I didn't feel much like making conversation after what Faith had told me. My mental processor was already working overtime. Jasher wasn't talkative at the best of times, and Faith barely said a word either. We each seemed lost in our own wells of personal thought. We ate breakfast in the gazebo while birds chirped and butterflies fluttered through the garden.
Jasher had barely swallowed his last bite when he kissed Faith on the cheek and dismissed himself, claiming he needed to run errands. He gave me a curt nod goodbye and I considered it an improvement. Once Jasher had gone, the atmosphere eased.
"What's Jasher doing to the greenhouse?" I asked Faith as we did the dishes together. "I saw there's a window that needs fixing, but he's got a lot more windows there than he needs to do that job."
"He's expanding it," she explained. "I'm not sure where he gets his ideas from but once he's got a plan in his head, there isn't any stopping him." She looked me in the eye as she wiped down the counter top. "One of the reasons I'm so glad you've come for the summer is because I think it will be good for him to spend some time with someone his own age. I don't want to force him to go out into the world if that's not what he wants, but I don't want him to be sheltered forever, either." She put a hand on my upper arm and squeezed it. "Thanks for coming, Georjayna."
I flushed. "Thanks for having me." What else could I say? I had been under the impression that Aunt Faith took me in as a favor to Liz, but apparently that's not the way Faith saw it.
"Have you seen the greenhouse yet?" Faith asked.
"Just from the outside." It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Faith about Jasher's prickliness, but I didn't have the courage to bring it up. Faith was leaving for Aberdeen in a week, and so far Jasher and I were getting along like two wounded badgers stuck in a pipe, but I didn't want to tattle. I can't bear the sound of whining, especially my own. No, if Jasher had a problem with me, I was going to have to deal with it myself.
Faith gestured for me to follow her. We left the kitchen and went down the long dark hallway that ran through the center of the house. The parlor was an L-shaped sitting room complete with a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, and cracked paintings of rolling green landscapes.
The room was dim, so I reached for the light switch.
"There's no power to this side of the house," said Faith.
I dropped my hand. "Oh, it went out?"
"Sort of." Faith smoothly slid the handmade glass doors wide. Richly scented, humid air drifted in through the open door. I followed her into the jungle. A long narrow walkway, the neck of the key, opened up into the round room under the dome. I hadn't spent much time in hothouses in my life, but even I knew this was no ordinary greenhouse. Humans were not in charge here - plants were. Little hand-made signs populated the entire greenhouse. I still couldn't tell what was what. Everything criss-crossed in a thick tangle of green.
The floor of the greenhouse was naked earth and many of the plants grew directly from the ground. Others flourished in terra cotta pots and strawberry planters. A few plants thrived in raised beds retained by low wooden walls. Wrought iron structures supported climbing vines. The structures themselves were nearly obscured as they'd been covered in leaves.
"Did Jasher make these, too?" I asked, gesturing to the shapes.
"Yes. Lovely, aren't they?"
I nodded, admiring the curving, feminine shapes. I was having trouble reconciling Jasher with these pretty works of art. Was there anything he didn't know how to make?
Faith pointed out some of the more powerful medicinal plants, since these were the reason she'd wanted a greenhouse in the first place. She had a small worktable and shelving that was bursting with amber glass bottles, each one hand-labeled in a delicate script.
She explained that Jasher would be building a bigger workshop for her as part of the expansion. She'd been able to foster relationships with a few boutique stores and had small orders to fill for essential oils. A small distillery sat on a low long table beside her cupboards.
The sound of wings made me look up. "There's a bird in here!" I exclaimed, tracking a sparrow flitting from one branch to another, tilting its head at us. “How can we help it get outside?”
Faith was unconcerned. "Do you see the seams in the dome that run through the center in the shape of a cross?" My eye followed where she pointed.
"Yes. Watch." Faith moved the leaves aside and began to crank the handle. The ceiling of the dome opened outward like a flower opening up to the sun. The petals came to rest, folded entirely backward on themselves. The swallow vanished through the open dome.
I was genuinely impressed. I knew nothing about architecture or mechanical things. Jasher seemed more and more like a magician to me. Too bad he was such a grump. "I guess in the summer, there isn't much need to shelter all these plants."
"Exactly. It can get too hot so we keep it open most of the time. Pure rainwater is mother’s milk for plants, and keeping the roof open also allows pollinators like bees to come in. Don't worry, they don't stay," she said quickly when she saw the look on my face. "They just come and do their job and then go home." She began to close the dome again, turning the crank.
"You're not going to leave it open?" I watched the big glass flower close into a bud.
"Not for tonight," she said. "The forecast calls for a pretty strong overnight electrical storm. I don't want to wake up to a swamp in here."
I trailed after Faith as she sealed up the greenhouse, not wanting to leave. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but the place had a kind of magnetism that made me want to stay.
Chapter 10
Now that I'm looking back on everything in retrospect, the first dream comes to me as clear as water from a spring-fed stream. I know now that it was really more of a vision, and it happened sometime during the darkest part of the night.
I remember floating on air. I don't remember where exactly I was, but I remember my legs moving as though walking but the soles of my feet made no contact with anything solid. An ethereal fog blew around me as I pedaled against nothing. The soft cotton cloth of my pajamas brushed against my legs. My legs continued to stroll, my hair blew gently, tendrils kissing my cheeks. I remember feeling quite strongly that there was something that urgently needed my attention. Me. Georjayna Sutherland. Only I would do.