by E M Graham
“Hi Gran,” Alice said to her.
The old woman turned to peer at her visitor, a puzzled look on her face.
“Debbie?” she asked.
“No, Gran, Debbie’s my aunt. I’m Alice.”
“Hmm.” Gran was reserving judgement on that, and looking very suspicious too.
“Come sit, Gran,” Alice coaxed her and settled in next to her on the vinyl covered sofa. “I wanted to ask you about Nan Hoskins.”
“She’s dead.”
“Well, we hope so, but...”
“Come back, has she?”
We looked at each other in amazement. How did the old lady know?
“It was too good to be true, I knew it at the time,” Gran muttered, barely audible over the television game show.
“What do you know of it?” I approached her and asked carefully and loudly. “Why would Nan Hoskins come back?”
“Well she never left, did she? Even when she sat up in her coffin and scared the hell out of everyone, even then I could hear her cackling away, for all the doctor said it was rigor mortalization or whatever they call it.”
“She’s come back, and Benjy has disappeared,” I said.
“Who’s Benjy?” The old woman raised her voice.
“Your grandson.”
Alice reached over and turned off the volume on the TV. The silence reverberated around the concrete walls of the large room.
“Well, that’s not good then.” She looked out the window, right across town to where the lowering sun was lighting on the windows in the old tower overlooking the harbor. “Where’d he disappear to?”
“He went berry picking up to Nan’s patch, and no one’s seen him since,” Alice said softly.
“Just goes to show, doesn’t it?” the old woman said with a scowl.
“What do you mean?”
“The fairies have broken off their promises. Who’d trust them anyway? She was that arrogant, she thought she could bully them too.”
I knew it! I thrust my arm into the air in a silent victory cheer behind Gran’s back. I knew there were fairies on the Southside Hills. “Tell me more about the fae,” I pressed the old lady as I came round to her side.
She gestured me closer and whispered in my ear. “Have you got a bite to eat? They don’t feed me here. I’m starving to death I am.”
I hauled out a Hershey bar from my knapsack and quickly unwrapped it for her, looking doubtfully at the tightness of her nightie as I did so. She sure didn’t looked malnourished. “Tell me about the fairies and the broken promises.”
Gran was too busy stuffing the bar into her mouth to answer, and I realized why when a nurse swooped down on us.
“You’re not giving her chocolate, surely? Don’t you know she’s diabetic? You trying to kill her?”
This was good as a declaration of war for Gran, who screeched as the bar was taken from her hand. “They’re starving me here, haven’t had a bite since yesterday! Help me for the love of God, I’m wasting away!” She lashed out with her hand, missing her caregiver’s head by only inches.
“Now Mrs. H, you know you get a good three squares a day and more here.” The nurse ducked then grimaced at us as if we were to blame for the scene. “Come on back to your room and we’ll give you a nice pudding with your meds.”
Gran was having none of it, although by this time she seemed to have forgotten why she was upset.
“Help me Debbie! They’re going to kill me, I tell you,” she hollered as she tried to wriggle out of the nurse’s firm but kindly grasp.
The soothing sounds from the nurse did little to calm the old woman as she was slowly but surely led away from us, her protests echoing down the long empty corridor.
Alice stood up with a sigh and hitched her backpack onto her shoulders.
“We won’t get anything else out of her today,” she said. “Come on, we might as well get the bus home out of it.”
There wasn’t much conversation between us as we waited at the stop in the drizzling rain. I could tell Alice was miserable, dreading to go back to her haunted home to see what new horrors her dead Nan had in store for the family.
3
THAT NIGHT, I TRIED TO THINK what I could do to help Alice and her family. She’d reported that things were rapidly getting worse in her home. It wasn’t just the doll creeping around, now doors were slamming back and forth, and it sounded like Nan Hoskins was clomping up and down the stair in army boots all night long. Her great-grandmother was ramping up the offensive.
Despite my powers, I had no idea how to be of assistance, for I’d had no formal training in the supernatural. Unlike my fullblood siblings, my education in those matters hadn’t been deemed worth bothering about. Dad didn’t have enough guts to formally acknowledge me to the rest of the world, even though everyone knew who my parents were. In his circle even back then, mixed blood kids were deemed mongrels and a lesser species. Things had only gotten worse over time.
I knew enough to know that I didn’t know anything, and had spent the past ten years or so pretending to the rest of the world that I knew nothing at all. Most of what little knowledge I had gained concerning magic and the supernatural world had come through books, fiction mostly, and I’d found out the hard way that a lot of this wasn’t reliable.
Anything else I knew had been learned through my experience of the Alt world, through my forays and experimentation. I had told Edna none of that of course.
As I’d said to Alice, I couldn’t even turn to Maundy for help, for that kid hardly even realized she was dead. Not being a part of the Witch Kin community, I had no one to turn to.
Sasha might have helped me, once upon a time. But we’d grown apart after her mother put her foot down, right about the time Mom disappeared. My half-sister was the only one I could play magic with, back then. We used to do fun stuff, like divert the water from the fish fountain to splash over each other, levitate the garden chairs – you know, kid stuff. But there’s no way I would approach her these days for she and her friends had made it clear during high school that I was persona non grata.
So I had no one to turn to for advice. Except my father. My heart sank at the thought, for there was one thing I hated in this world and that was asking Jon for assistance of any kind. Yeah, I accepted his support cheques no problem, but that process was removed from the man himself – the money was automatically dumped in my bank account every month and I could continue to despise him and to sneer at him from afar.
I made my own money for spending of course, babysitting for Jane. She was a single mom of three who had dedicated her entire life to doing everything right for those kids of hers, and managed to do this without a boyfriend or any other visible support except Social Assistance. Those kids were all breastfed then went on to diets of organic kale and gluten free everything, poor things. But she looked after her own needs too, and that’s where I came in. Every so often, she would pump the baby’s milk into bottles and I would look after the littles while she went down to George Street, maybe looking for Baby Daddy number four.
The kids loved to see me coming because I don’t believe in childhood without chocolate, but I swore them to secrecy. She marvelled at how much they loved me.
Children need to have treats and fun in their lives. I remember how Dad used to let me find chocolate coins in his suit jacket pocket, always acting surprised when they appeared, swearing to Mom they hadn’t been there when he left his house that morning. That was back when Mom was around and we were a family in our own weird little way.
But Dad. Asking for his help meant being in his physical presence, and that prospect scared the crap out of me these days. The last time I’d seen him face to face, a few years ago when I found that book of spells hidden in our house, he’d been so furious when he swooped down to remove it, I think I still have PTSD. But that’s another story.
I needed back up, someone to hold my hand to give me courage.
“Edna,” I said the next morning as I walked int
o the kitchen. Best to get her before coffee, before her brain turned fully on. “I need a ride.”
“When are you going to get your driver’s license, Dara? Mark has offered to teach you loads of time.”
“Not this morning, at any rate.” We both looked up to see Mark stroll into the kitchen, dressed in what I call his plainclothes uniform, the suit he wore when he went undercover. Well, when he tried to go incognito, anyway. He still looked like a cop in any outfit, he couldn’t help it, but I wasn’t going to burst his bubble by telling him that. “I’m working today, but any other time I’d be happy to give a lesson or two.”
I hadn’t even known he stayed over last night. Those two were nothing if not discreet.
“Can you give me a ride out to the east end?”
“Take the bus.” Edna poured herself another coffee, and to take the sting out of her refusal, poured me one too. The morning newspaper was spread out in front of her and she prepared to dive in.
I sat across from her, eyes boring into the crown of her head. “I need to go see my father.”
One blue eye peeped through the mass of curls.
“I have a problem,” I continued.
“Financial?”
“No, it’s more...” I couldn’t tell her what the true nature of my problem was, not with Mark standing five feet away, filling a mug for himself.
Edna understood what I was getting at. She lifted her head fully and shook it. “Don’t do it Dara. Don’t give him the chance. You know how upset you get every time you see him.”
“But...”
“He hurts you. His kids hurt you. And then I have to pick up the pieces. Stay under the radar.”
Mark stepped out of the room, perhaps to give us space in what might be turning into a family argument, or perhaps for some other reason of his own. He walked lightly for such a big guy.
“But Alice needs help,” I whispered to her. “Her great-grandmother is haunting her house.”
“You know the terms of the agreement!”
Yeah, the agreement. Dad was fully aware that I had supernatural powers, that he himself had given me those powers with his contribution to my genes, and that’s why he had agreed to support my education so I wouldn’t be tempted to go halfassed into the Alt-world and embarrass him.
My side of the bargain was that I would subvert that side of myself, turn my back on my abilities and embrace the normal world.
You see, the Witch Kin of St. John’s controlled everything and had done for centuries, ever since this brand new world and its riches had been discovered. The Normals who lived outside that tightknit circle saw only the families of old-money ruling from their seats of high power in the government and church and merchant circles, and some of them tried their darnedest to break into these spheres. They didn’t know it could never be, for the Witch Kin was the most closed of societies.
Quite frankly, I figured Dad was embarrassed by me, perhaps he was ashamed of his affair with my mother which had produced this half-blood. The money he paid for my support was peanuts to him and I guess he didn’t care if he had to pay it out for the rest of my life, just so long as I didn’t rock his precious boat.
“Right, there’s always the money to think of.” Yes, I was bitter that she supported him.
“Look, Dara, I’m not saying this for my own sake,” Edna continued in a low voice. “Sure, it’s great that his money helps pay our way. But I can live without it, I could... I could get a job or something. I’m thinking about you.”
I must have looked pretty sulky, for she sighed and got up, coming over to place her arms around my shoulders.
“He’s right,” she said quietly. “You need to turn your back on all that. You can’t fit into their world, being a... a...”
“Half-breed.”
“Yeah. You know how cruel they are. If he finds out you’re dabbling in any of it, well, I’m worried about more than the money being cut off.”
She didn’t bring up Mom’s disappearance all those years ago, but I knew without her saying that that’s what was on her mind.
“You’re never going to tell me what happened to Mom, are you?”
“If I knew, I would tell you,” she said, her voice low and fervent. “You know that we never found her body. I couldn’t prove anything, and besides...”
“Yeah, the Chief of Police in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary is always one of them.”
“It’s not that way anymore, but still...” I could see her nodding in the mirror on the sideboard.
I twisted my head up to look at her. “Does Mark know about that side of the city? About the ruling classes of Kin?”
Her boyfriend Mark was not from here. Also, he was with the other police force, the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They looked after everything the RNC didn’t want to touch. The outports, the bay towns, Labrador. Mark was originally from up north and had been posted to a lot of places in the country before ending up here.
I didn’t know if Mark knew about my magical powers or the existence of the supernatural world, but I’d once overheard him telling Edna about a strange experience he’d had under the Northern Lights with a shaman when he was growing up in the Yukon. Maybe his mind was open to all that stuff, yet I still couldn’t allow myself to broach the topic when he was around. Dad had me so scared shitless that secrecy was second nature to me by now.
She placed her index finger over her lips. “It’s not something I talk about with him,” she said, then returned to her seat and her coffee. “So, that’s settled. You’re not going to go see your father.”
Mark cleared his throat at the door to the kitchen. How much had he overheard? I was beyond caring by this point.
“I, uh... I was hoping to speak with you, Dara,” he said in that very kind voice of his. “I’m glad I caught you this morning.”
He came and sat between the two of us. “There’s a lot of weird stuff happening out there, these days,” he continued, cocking his head towards the outside world. “Especially at night. At this time of year.”
“I’m almost twenty years old, Mark,” I said, beginning to bristle. “I’m not some little kid. I can take care of myself. The students are back, and they go downtown and get drunk. I can outrun anyone who tries anything on me.”
Like, really? He felt a need to give me a ‘talk’ this early in the morning. I like Mark, I really do, maybe even love him because he’s just what Edna needs, but I could do without this fatherly side of him.
“No, I’m not so worried about you,” he said, a little taken aback at my tone. “I actually wanted to ask you about it, get your take on things. You know, the weird graffiti and symbols that are appearing on the alleyway walls?”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. Yes, I was aware, and I’d seen what he was talking about. Hex signs, runes, other symbols or letters or hieroglyphics I didn’t recognize, these were all being sprayed and painted onto the more hidden of the backstreet lanes downtown and even on the older stone churches. I’d assumed they were from a new generation of defacing doodlers, ones brought up on the paranormal stories which were so popular.
“I’ve seen them, yeah,” I said. “Why? They’re in St. John’s, not your territory.”
“Normally, no,” he said. “But we’ve got a task force on the go, one working with both law-enforcement agencies in the province, and I have a feeling these are a central part of the investigation.”
Now he had me flabbergasted. “What’s going on?”
“It’s not just the graffiti,” he said. “But I have a feeling it might be tied into things. It’s like there’s some kind of ... I don’t know how to say it. There’s something wrong going on, I feel it in the air. I can’t put my finger on it.”
Yeah, I knew what he was talking about. I’d felt it too. It had been a horribly hot summer, and it was as if the endless weeks of heat had caused a rot somewhere, the over-riding humidity in the air had sparked something evil to burst its spores and spread like a dark
miasma over the city. And I had thought it was just me and my half-witch imagination.
“For example,” he continued. “This graffiti has certain religious arcane overtones to it. And that woman who opened up the so-called magic store...”
“Magic store?” This was the first I’d heard of this.
“Yeah, down on Duckworth Street. What’s her name, Zeta? What a loony tune. I have a feeling she might be behind some of this. At any rate, she’s not helping matters.”
An actual storefront that dealt in magic. I was growing excited. Perhaps I didn’t need Dad’s help in dealing with Nan Hoskins’s haunting.
Mark was still talking. “We can’t help but feel, especially in the light of other... evidence, things that have surfaced.” He was watching me closely.
“What other stuff?”
“You know a body was found the other day, over on the mountain behind Portugal Cove?”
I nodded. That had been a weird story, a body found in a small dale in the barrens up there. The newspapers had been asking questions of the police ever since the woman was discovered, but no information was given out. She had been a visitor, not from the island. One of the local radio stations had interviewed the owner of the B & B she’d been staying at, who’d told them her name was Tracey and she’d been here looking into her roots, but none of the family she was supposedly related to wanted anything to do with her.
A strange tale, and one to occupy the bored press when not much else was happening in the way of politics.
“This didn’t leak to the press, but it was the strangest thing, the whole set-up.” He leaned over to me so close I could see the little flecks of hazel in his normally dark brown eyes. “There were similar symbols chalked onto the rocks all around the site of the death. We could barely make them out, the weather has gotten to them of course. And there was no cause of death that we could find, just weird burn marks all over her body, on her hands, and her navel and the top of her head.”