Out of the Mist (3 page)

We part ways at the entrance. I glance one
last time at the stunning, intriguing mansion, and thank Edith
profusely.

“
You’ll find copies of the
suicide letters and some news clippings from the time in here,” she
states, handing me a thick envelope. “I’m sure they will be of
interest to you.”

Outside, it is raining heavily. I tug my
jacket higher to cover my head, and run to my yellow Volkswagen
Beetle, clutching my bag stuffed with the documents Edith gave me
close, hoping to keep them dry.

At home, I’m alone in my house, and all is
quiet. I settle at my writing desk with a cup of peppermint tea. I
sip the warm liquid, as I read the first letter. A lone tear slides
down my cheek and lands on the page.

Mrs. Fisher’s letter
speaks of a broken heart and a desire to be with her children.
Nothing in this life seemed worth living without her babies. She
was prepared to go and hoped that she would be reunited with her
four children.

Mr. Fisher’s letter was different. He too
suffered terribly from the death of his children, but what pushed
him over the edge was his wife’s suicide. I put the letters down,
feeling a sense of dread and fear grow in my belly.

Sweet innocent voices
beckon me to turn my computer on.
It’s
time, Catherine. It’s time to write.

I feel the usual tickle of
excitement when I start writing, but it is tainted with fear. I
open a new document and write
The truth
of
Dawnbrook Mansion
as a title. I want to erase the first three words of the
title, but my fingers won’t cooperate. I wince in pain as I force
my hands to move away from the keyboard.

Write, Catherine! You need
to know what happened!
the voices
urge.

I try in vain to take my hands away from the
keyboard. Strong, invisible forces keep them firmly in place. I am
overcome with emotion and begin to weep.

Write, Catherine.
The voices are more forceful this
time.

“
No, please stop. Please,”
I say between sobs.

The voices scream this
time.
Write! Someone needs to know what
happened to us.

Tears sting my eyes. I keep fighting. I want
to stop writing, but can’t. Pain shoots up my fingers and creeps to
my wrists. Tears trail down my face.

“
What’s happening?” I cry.
“Please stop.”

You need to write,
Catherine. You need to write the truth.

Sweat beads on my forehead and neck. My
fingers fly across the keyboard.

That’s it,
Catherine.
The voice has calmed and now
encourages me.

Crying, I continue writing. The words on the
page are not mine.

Stop, Catherine,
it says, at last.

Alarmed, I looked at the words on the
screen. I feel a pounding rhythm in my head. I look aghast at the
words I wrote, the words I was made to write.

Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it.
Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn
did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it.
Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn
did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it.
Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn
did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it.
Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn
did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it.
Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn did it. Evelyn
did it. Evelyn did it.

~~~***~~~

Avast There! Belay
That!

Maida
Follini

Captain Archie Edwards was
a choleric man, a short, but muscular seaman with a red face and a
short red beard. Navigating his three-masted schooner along the
coast of Nova Scotia to ports in New England or sometimes as far as
the Caribbean, he made a good living in the early 1900s, the final
days of commercial sail. Enough to build an impressive Captain’s
Mansion at Edwards’ Neck, the spit of land north of Shag Harbour,
where his childhood had been spent in his parents’ falling-down
shack.

Some want to get away from an impoverished
childhood. Arch wanted to conquer it. Starting in his teens as a
hand on fishing sloops, he became mate on a coastal trader, and
then earned his master’s papers, studying navigation at night.
Captaining other owner’s vessels, he finally saved enough to buy a
schooner of his own.

As a coming man, he courted one of Shag
Harbour’s belles, Amelia Comstock, daughter of Judge Comstock, and
carried her off under the noses of several Halifax-educated lawyers
and businessmen. Archie had ambition. He had his mansion built
during his and Amelia’s long engagement, and handed her over the
threshold on his wedding day.

At sea, he ran a tight ship, always Master,
driving his crew to his own demanding standards. Some say he never
slept. At least he made sure his men never slept on their watch.
Berating them, harassing them, blistering them with insults when a
mistake was made, he had the reputation of a hard man, with a
temper, not one to be crossed.

He was not one to show
softness. Amelia and his mascots were the only ones he was close
to. He always had a mascot. At first it was an affectionate Jack
Russell terrier that traveled on his schooner with him. On land,
for many years he had an old Canadian gander, a large grey-backed
bird with a honking bill that would follow him down the street.
Ludicrous though it was, no one laughed at Captain Archie. After
the gander passed away (some said from overeating, as the Captain
was generous with his mascots), Archie adopted an orphaned raven,
which would perch on his shoulder like an evil genius. It flew
around his head while he did the garden chores, and learned to talk
in Captain Archie’s hoarse voice.
“Avast,
there!” “Straighten up!” “Blast your eyes!” “Belay
that!”

As for his wife, he might
be heard shouting at everyone else, including his three daughters
and young son, but he never raised his voice to Amelia. Formal
politeness covered whatever deep emotions—whether love or
anger—that lay between them. It is said that when she encountered
his first bout of temper not long after they were married, she met
it with calm disgust, and went on a very long visit to her father’s
home. He never showed his temper towards her again. She was a
reserved, some said cold, woman used to leading town society, and
not afraid to speak up, even to her father, the judge. She must
have let Archie know she could do very well without him, because he
had to come supplicating her to return to their house on Edwards’
Neck.

Something fiery must have held them
together. She never separated from him again, and they became
parents of three daughters, and finally after a gap of years, they
were blessed with a long-awaited son, Archie Edwards, Junior.

As a boy, Junior Edwards saw his father
perhaps two months out of the year, as the Captain was away on
voyages lasting three, four, or six months during the peak time of
his trading life. Junior was soon nick-named “June”, much to his
father’s disgust. He grew into a tall, gangly boy, all legs and
arms, with a knack for falling out of trees, getting stung by
wasps, and a genius for getting into awkward situations. His
mother’s darling, being her only boy, he was molly-coddled while
his father was away, and bullied when his father was home. June
rarely came up to his father’s demanding expectations.

Handing a can of paint up
to his father, who was painting the house, June managed to tip the
paint can all over himself. “Clumsy idiot!” his father shouted,
while his mother wrapped him in towels and took him inside for a
bath. June couldn’t seem to keep out of trouble. When a baseball
went through a neighbour’s window, the other boys managed to slip
away through a hedge, and June was caught. On Hallowe’en, when he
and his buddies removed a gate from the town hall fence, it was
June whom a policeman collared while the other boys crouched out of
sight in a ditch.

June was a cheerful chap,
though, trying his best, and in spite of the constant criticism, he
admired his father, and wanted to please him. When he was 14, he
was thrilled when Captain Archie decided to take him on a
three-month trading voyage on the schooner. Two weeks later, June
returned on the train from Boston. He had been sea-sick, not just
the usual couple of hours, or even a day, but the whole two weeks,
alternately hanging over the rail, or bundled into his berth. On
arriving back in Shag Harbour, June was not so much cast down as
relieved to be in his own comforting home locale.

While his father was away,
June faithfully looked after Captain Archie’s mascot, the black
raven that lived in the trees nearby and flew down to the kitchen
door each morning for hand-outs. June would still be startled by
its voice.
“Straighten Up!”
the raven would cry, and June’s spine would
stiffen as if his father were after him, even though the Captain
was away. To June, constant harassment and criticism was normal,
and he did not expect anything different.

As the twenties turned to
the thirties, the coastal trade diminished. Captain Arch and Amelia
saw their three daughters get married and leave home. The schooner
remained tied at the wharf.

One day Captain Archie
dropped down dead on the way home from an evening with his friends
at the local saloon. Amelia placed a glowing obituary in the local
paper, extolling her husband’s virtues: his faithfulness, industry,
and loving kindness. (His old crew members scarcely recognized him
from the account.) Two years later, Amelia herself passed away with
her usual calm dignity, in her own bed after a brief (undisclosed)
illness. She left June, now age 27, to inherit the Edwards Mansion,
and his share of funds in the bank.

June, in spite of his father’s poor opinion
of his capabilities, had started a successful business as a handy
man, fixer, and doer of odd jobs for the community. His
cheerfulness and willingness made him first choice when anyone had
a fence to repair, a porch to paint, or a garden to dig.

That he also had money in
the bank was well-known in the community, and in particular to Miss
Darlene Sewall, who, in her early thirties lived with her mother in
half a house, and was anxious to improve her situation. From
helping her dig her garden, to accepting a cup of tea in her house,
the acquaintance progressed to movie dates, and after several
months, Darlene was being shown over the Mansion House at Edwards’
Neck. Following the tour, Darlene lounged in a chair at the back
porch, admiring the ocean view. She was smiling, and hopefully
expecting a proposal of marriage. As a matter of fact, June sensed
what was expected of him, and he usually tried to do what was
expected. He didn’t actually kneel down, but he was leaning towards
Darlene, when a hoarse voice rasped,
“Avast there! Straighten Up!”
Automatically, June straightened his spine, looking round for
his father.

“
Nasty bird! Get away!”
cried Darlene, flapping her hand at the raven.

June laughed. “No, it’s just old Blacky,” he
explained. “He wants his hand-out.” Humming a cheerful tune, June
went into the kitchen, and came back with assorted dish scrapings.
The bread crumbs, apple parings, and bits of bacon and egg left
over from breakfast did not add a romantic atmosphere as he laid it
out on a newspaper on the porch. The moment was gone.

That night, June ruminated
as he lay in bed, watching through the window as the moon rose. His
father, he knew, wouldn’t have approved of Darlene. And he agreed
with his father. Darlene had been a little too interested in the
spacious house, the furniture, and particularly the silverware from
his late mother’s collection. The raven (or his father?) had helped
him make a great escape.

The raven continued
receiving hand-outs, sharing them with its mate and family which
nested in the nearby spruce tree year after year. June’s habit of
helping people led him into a fellowship with an old school
classmate, Jerry Neal, who was now a real estate man. Jerry took to
coming over in the evening, and passing comments about how the town
was growing. Jerry was connected to a man who wished to establish a
hotel in Shag Harbour.

“
You could go in with us,
June,” suggested Jerry. “You have an excellent site here, right on
the water. My partner has experience in the hospitality trade. And
I have some savings to invest.” June was by nature agreeable to
suggestions from his friends. A few evenings later, Jerry appeared
with his partner, Melvin. Out on the back porch they all admired
the view.

“
You have a gold mine
here.” Melvin waved his hand at the harbour. “You could have a
marina here on the shore. Add a motel wing to the Mansion. You have
a gold mine.”

June felt vaguely uncomfortable, rushed,
some unpleasant feelings in his stomach. What would his mother have
said? Or even more important, his father?

“
Avast,
there!”
A flutter of black wings, a
squawking bill.
“Blast your eyes!”
The bird seemed to be swearing at Melvin.
“Belay that!”
The yellow
eyes glowered.

Dizziness took hold of June. His father had
spoken. He was certain of that. Even the look in the raven’s eyes
had his father’s glare. “No,” he shook his head at his good buddy,
Jerry. “I can’t change the home my father built. It would be
disrespectful.”