THURSDAY: The Haunted

BY JUNE FLATH

Copyright is held by the author.

I STARED at the line of stones that outlined a settler’s homestead cabin. What I could see of it. The path itself was a dense tangle of brush making what had intended to be a pleasant walk on an unseasonably hot fall day a challenge. Located just along the perimeter of the small town I would now call home the trail and forested park had seemed a perfect way to introduce myself to the area. 

 I stepped closer and tripped over the brush and weeds that had grown up and over the ruins.  I reached out to break my fall and my hand came to rest on the foundation of this small home.

Suddenly the air snapped with emotion. The sparking synapses sent an electrical charge through my body jarring my thoughts. The footprint of this cabin was small but the life lived within its walls were life altering: anger had once rattled the windows, grief and weeping, tears staining the hard packed dirt floor, raucous laughter and music in gatherings of happier times, the growing and going of a family in a new and foreign land. I was left bent double, heaving for air, the pounding in my head leaving me nauseous and dizzy. 

The reaction was immediate. Unexpected. But not new.  For most, the empty air above the remains held silence, the whisper of the leaves on the trees, animals quietly scurrying past. For me this site buried deep along an overgrown trail held an echo of voices, the ripples of emotion carried forward from long ago and a hint of burning and charred wood. The historic marker claimed this was the site of the original homesteader in the area. A man who had gone on to build the stately home up the hill dedicating land for schools and a library which now carried his name.

I wondered, as I always did when this happened, why was it that I could feel emotions left lingering on the breeze from centuries before? And why did it leave me chilled?  I rubbed my hands on bare arms now covered in goose bumps.  My nose was running as if I’d been outside on a cold day, even though this day was a cool 90 degrees in the shade, with a humidity factor that left all life limp and damp. My hair clung to the sweat on my neck and I absent mindedly swatted at the cloud of mosquitoes I had disturbed. They billowed up out of the brush and begun a frenzied attack. I wrapped myself in a hug to quell the quaking.

Once I had regained my equilibrium and the buzzing in my ears had softened to a gentle hum, I patted the rough stones and sat. Waiting to see if I could make sense of the swirl of sensations.

As the flashes of emotion began I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and tried to slow their approach. I wanted to pull one vision from the churning stew and hold the others back. The most prominent and undeniable impression was darkness, deeper than anger. Danger slithered in between the logs that formed this home, a menacing mist curling up to wait in the shadowy corners that were unlit by the lamp or the fire in the hearth. 

A man and a woman sat in the confines of this simple, one room cabin. There was a sleeping loft above half of the main floor, a wooden ladder leading to the upper level, a large kettle bubbling over the open fire, candles and lamp lit to hold back the twilight of the evening.  The woman sat near the murmuring fire, her graying head bowed, needle and mending in her lap. Her husband sitting at a rough-hewn table was methodically stabbing tobacco into the bowl of a pipe. I heard the knock at the door, saw them look at each other, watched the man rise and reach for the latch.

 “NO!” I shouted, instinctively knowing the threat was no longer formless.

The bolt was lifted. The visitor at the door did not step into the room. He fired two shots from a revolver already drawn. The couple crumpled to the ground blood pooling out in a silent halo of red around them. The intruder studied the bodies momentarily then crossed the threshold and began to spread the fire from the hearth about the room watching as furniture, beams and clothing caught fire. Satisfied with the results he began to back away.

I watched momentarily struck speechless by the violence. Finally I found my voice.  “STOP!” I screamed as the flames engulfed the room. The silence of the woods absorbed my voice. My senses were heightened I could hear the river splashing past nearby, birds in the trees, a slight breeze rustling the leaves, the musky smell of damp earth and smoke all left me feeling battered. I shouted again and this time he paused as if he could hear me across the centuries. 

He raised his eyes and looking across the flames stared directly at me and smiled. He could see me. Then he turned and ran. I followed, running after him, calling for help as I pressed through the underbrush. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, weeds and branches scratching and marking my face. The fall leaves reflected the orange and red of the flames swallowing the small cabin behind me.  I couldn’t keep up. I was losing him; he was getting farther and farther ahead, slipping away, until in the end, I could no longer see him, only sense branches waving in his wake.

I kept following but my pace slowed. I tried to listen beyond the sounds of my own breathing. Then I did hear something. I paused, panting. Someone was crashing after me from behind. I stumbled forward, trying to run again but was too winded. Suddenly my arm was grabbed roughly from behind and I was yanked backwards, wrenched off my feet. I wrestled and fought but was held firm. Slowly, I stopped struggling as my attacker’s questioning tone hammered its way through my hysteria.

He rattled off his list of questions angrily. “Where were you going? Who were you yelling at? What do you think you’re doing?”

He didn’t but might have asked and who are you? Because we were strangers.

As he chastised my reckless behavior I began to realize a steady stream of cars blurred past in front of me. Right in front of me. In my blind attempt to capture a phantom from the past I had run straight toward the highway that circled the trail through this forested park.

I had no reasonable explanation. At least not one I cared to share. Startled by my close call and the experience of watching two settlers murdered, I slid to the ground shaking.

My white knight stranger knelt down beside me. I could tell he was alarmed. I could also tell at such close range that he was a tall, broadly built man, bald, with very worried brown eyes.  “It could have been bad. But you’re all right.” He paused taking stock of this crazy woman beside him. Then smiling introduced himself, “I’m Jack,” he said offering his hand.

“Emma,” I offered.

 “Can I walk you back?”

I nodded and he stood, wiping his hands on well-worn jeans before helping me to my feet. He refrained from grilling me further about my level of sanity and for that I was grateful. He did not take my elbow to guide me which I also appreciated. But he was attentive on our walk back to the main trail.

As I walked, I considered his questions. What had I seen? Who was I shouting at? Did I share? Not likely. I had learned at a very young age that confiding what I saw was not always a safe route to making friends. The first time I shared a vision was at my grandmother’s farm. It did not go well. I was reprimanded for telling tales. I had innocently asked who the old man with the white beard was upstairs in the back bedroom and why couldn’t he come down and join us for cookies. There was no old man upstairs, at least not that day, not in my lifetime either. So I learned quickly that it is usually best to keep what we see to ourselves. Or is it? Does the truth not set you free? Right wrongs? Give voice to the silenced? Or does it foist the burden of guilt on to the recipient? Did I share my vision of a murder possibly centuries in the past? What did that accomplish? Did I even know if I’d seen something that had truly happened? 

“What do you know about the park, the history of the area?” I asked as we walked.

He chuckled, held a branch back out of my way so I could walk past. “Well, you’re in luck. I teach a local history class at the community college. You ready for a long winded lesson?”

I was starting to regain a sense of balance. “How about the short version.”

“Okay, but we probably have time. You ran farther than you realize. Watch, there’s rocks here.”

I wanted to be offended at his chivalry but considering I had just about run out onto the highway in front of him and could potentially have been dead on the road or in the back of an ambulance at this very moment, I figured he had earned the right to be a little protective.

“The land in this area was given to an Admiral from the British army as retirement pay. He sold off large tracts of land to friends and family. This particular area he presented to his son-in-law as dowry to Alfred Burgess for marrying his daughter.”

Jack pulled another branch out of my way. Then continued.

 “Even though the land had not been surveyed there were already a number of pioneers living in the area. And had been for a number of years. They considered the land they worked theirs. They were not happy to learn that it had been sold out from under them. Many refused to leave. In some counties the new land owners found innovative ways of driving squatters off. But  Burgess was a well-respected village leader.” We climbed up a steep ravine I had not noticed in my dash through history.

My guide kept talking. “The family’s first home, a cabin, was destroyed by fire. They built a second house, a more substantial brick building, further up the hill overlooking the valley.”

We walked in silence for a few paces as I processed this information. I was willing to bet that a lot of the local myth was not true. I was pretty sure I’d just seen a couple of the original squatters shot in cold blood. Did I ruin that pride in local legacy? Was it my place to question the legend? Or was that exactly what I should do? Speak for the squatters. Was the time for justice gone? Is it ever gone? This reputable family had gone on to build schools and libraries, they were the local heroes. 

Did I know what I’d seen? I’d always been accused of having a lively imagination. Or was that a coward’s justification for staying silent?

As we walked the trees thinned and the underbrush gave way to a manicured lawn and professionally landscaped gardens. Late season blooms bobbed in the breeze. “Could I buy you a coffee?” He asked as we came to a café at the edge of the park.

“Sure,” I agreed wiping my hair away from my face and running the back of my hand across a sweaty forehead. Something cold and with caffeine sounded perfect.

Jack, still the gentleman, held the door for me as we entered. The room was more conservatory than coffee shop. Multi-pane windows provided light from floor to ceiling reaching an apex over our heads. Potted plants filled the room and the tables were covered in white linen and in the centre of each table a vase of fresh-cut flowers. And even on this swelteringly hot day, the smell of warm chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven was comforting. He brought an iced coffee and a cookie I set them down carefully in front of me, checking for the edge of the table.

He took a long appreciative swallow of his cold drink and asked, “So, can you tell me what you saw?”

I hesitated, bought time by running my finger down the condensation that was forming on the outside of my drink.

“Look,” he said, leaning toward me his brown eyes sincere, “I had a granny that would call and tell my mother to go up to the school and get one of us kids because we were hurt, before the school called. If you had flights booked to the Caribbean and Grandma shook her head with a shudder and said, “Don’t go,” you cancelled. So, again, trust me on this, it’s okay to share. What did you see?” 

So, I told him, the details, the colours of the quilt being mended, the cookware hanging over the fire, the hand hewn planks that held up the loft, the dirt mortar between the logs, the man at the door, the blast of his revolver, the blood seeping into the hard packed dirt floor staining it red, everything I could remember.

He listened.

At this close range from across this iron bistro table in the bright light of a garden cafe I could see him watching me, studying me as I talked.

Once I stopped talking, this stranger turned confidant thought for a moment and then asked carefully, “How much can you see? Around you? Here? Now?”

It was a polite way of asking so, “How blind are you?” but with nicer wording.

“I can see some detail up close, I can see your face but,” and I motioned across the room,  “mostly shadows and vague shapes.”

I stared at the glass in front of me, waiting. In that breath lived eternity. A long thin gossamer thread hung suspended loping between thought and words. I glanced up quickly and then away again.

His eyes were kind, thoughtful. He rubbed a hand over his face and down to his chin as if checking whether he needed a shave. Then he spoke, studying me, his eyes squinting. Reading something indecipherable. “So how is it that you can barely see what is around you but you can see the past clearly with detail and colour?”

And there it was the question that haunted me my entire life. The reality that made the  dilemma of right and wrong fade into the background. Regardless of whether I exposed past truths or left them buried I was still a blind woman struggling to live in a sighted world.

***

June has two novellas published by the UK epublisher Endeavour Press (now Joffe) and a self-published non-fiction book At the Crossroads, a history of the  village of Eastwood. She wrote for the farm trade newspaper Ontario Farmer for several years exploring the  people and histories of rural communities. She writes from southern Ontario and continues to incorporate historic themes into her work.