Haunted Legends (35 page)

“A tawdry piece of business, that saga. In the mid-thirties, the bar had grown into a popular resort for the rich townies and renamed Lake Crescent Lodge, although most of the locals stubbornly referred to it as Singer’s Tavern. A few still do. According to legend, Dolly, who was Bernice’s aunt,
of course, had just gotten divorced from her third husband, Hank, on account of his philandering ways—”

“And the fact he beat her within an inch of her life whenever he got a snootful at the tavern,” Bernice said.

“Yes, yes,” Dixie said. “On the morning of the big Singer’s Christmas party of 1938, he strangled Dolly, tied some blocks to her, and dumped her in the middle of the lake. The jerk went about his way as the resident merry widower of Port Angeles until he eventually moved to California. People suspected, people whispered, but Hank claimed his wife ran off to Alaska with a salesman—or a sailor, depending on who’s telling the tale—and no one could prove otherwise.”

“Some fishermen found her in 1945, washed up directly below the lodge. That lake is deep and cold—there aren’t any deeper or any colder in the continental U.S. The frigid alkaline water preserved Dolly pretty much fully intact. She’d turned to soap.”

“Soap? Like a soap carving, a sculpture?”

“Yes indeed. The cold caused a chemical reaction that softens the body, yet keeps it intact to a point. A weird sort of mummification.”

“That’s freaky,” Lourdes said.

Dixie chuckled. “Say, Bernie, wasn’t it Bob Hall who identified her? Yeah . . . Hall. A barber by trade, and part-time dentist, matched her dental records. The young lady’s teeth were perfectly preserved, you see. That was curtains for old two-timing Hank. He was hanged in ’49. That’s just one incident. Plenty more where that came from.”

“More murders? More soap mummies?” Karla said.

“I suppose there could be more corpses. Deep as she is, the lake would make a pretty convenient dump site. Folks are given to feuds here in the hills. A lot of people have disappeared from this end of the Peninsula over the years. Especially around the lake.”

“Really? Like who?”

“All kinds. There was the married couple who bought a washing machine in Sequim and were last seen a mile or so from where we are right now. Those two vanished in 1955 and it’s still a mystery where they went. Back in 2005, an amateur detective supposedly found the lid to the washer in two hundred feet of water near a swimming hole called the Devil’s Punch Bowl. The kid got pretty excited about his find; he planned to come back
with more equipment and volunteers, but he hasn’t, and I doubt he will. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Then there’s Ambulance point. An ambulance racing for the hospital crashed through a guardrail and went into the drink. The paramedics swam away from the wreck, but a logger strapped to a gurney in the back of the ambulance sure as hell didn’t. Every year some diver uncovers the door handle to a Model A, the bumper from a Packard, the rims to something else. Bones? Undoubtedly, a reef of them exists somewhere in the deep. We won’t find them, though. Like the old-timers say: the mistress keeps those close to her heart. Some say the souls of those taken are imprisoned in the forms of animals—coyotes and loons. When a coyote howls or a loon screams, they’re crying to their old selves, the loved ones they’ve lost.”

Lourdes’s eyes were wide and gleaming. “You actually wrote an essay about this?”

“Yep.”

“You must e-mail it to me when I get home!”

“You got it, kiddo.”

Bernice was getting ready to turn in for the night when Dixie laughed with Lourdes and said, “That’s a great idea. Bernie, you in?”

“On what?”

“A séance.”

“I’ve studied the occult,” Lourdes said with a self-conscious flush. “I know how to do this.”

“Black magic an elective across the pond, is it?”

“No, me and some friends just play around with it for fun.”

“She looks so normal, too,” Bernice said to Karla and Li-Hua.

Li-Hua shook her head. “Forget about it. No way.”

“I’m game,” Karla said. “I attended a couple of séances in college. It’s harmless. What night could be better?”

“Think of the memories,” Dixie said. “When’s the last time we’ve done anything wild?”

“Yeah, but you go to El Salvador while we effete gentry glut ourselves and sail around on yachts during summer vacation,” Karla said. “Don’t the locals believe in ghosts and such? Surely you see funky goings on?”

“From a distance. I’m not exactly brave.”

“Pshaw. No way I could stomach the dozen inoculations you’ve gotta get to enter those countries. Nope, I’m white bread to the core.”

“Well, I’m with Li-Hua. I’m tired and it’s silly anyway.” Bernice stood and went out to the porch. The wind ripped across the water and roared through the trees. She shielded her eyes from a blast of leaves and pine needles. Her hair came free of its barrette and she wondered how crazy that made her appear. Getting in a nightcap smoke was out of the question. She gave up, all but consumed with irritability. Her mood didn’t improve when she slammed the door and threw the bolt and discovered Dixie, Karla, and Lourdes cross-legged in a semicircle on the floor.

Li-Hua had crawled into her bunk and sat in shadow, her arms folded. She patted the covers. “Quick, over here. Don’t bother with them.”

Bernice joined her friend. The two shared a blanket as the fire had diminished to fading coals and the room was colder by the moment. “This is simply . . .” she struggled for words. On one hand, the whole séance idea was unutterably juvenile—yet juxtaposed with her recent bout of nerves, the ominous locale, and the sudden storm, it gained weight, a sinister gravity. Finally, she said, “This is foolish,” and was immediately struck by the double meaning of the word.

Ultimately, the ritual proved anticlimactic. Lourdes invoked the spirits of Aunt Dolly and others who’d drowned in the lake, inviting them to signal their presence, which of course they may or may not have done as it was difficult to discern much over the clattering shutters and the wind screeching in the eaves. Dixie, head bowed, almost fell over as she nodded off, eliciting chuckles from all present.

Things began to wind down after that. The cabin was quite warm and cozy and the wine did its trick to induce drowsiness. Again Bernice had decided not to mention her recent bad dreams that revolved around drowning and the ghost of her aunt bobbing to the surface of the lake like a bloated ice cube, then skating across the water, her face black as the occulted moon. Dixie would’ve laughed and said something about zombie ballerinas, while Karla raised an eyebrow and warned her to lay off the booze. Worst of all, Li-Hua was likely to take it seriously.
So, you’ve returned to face your childhood demons. Good for you!
No, no, no—far better to keep her mouth shut.

She fell asleep and dreamed of sinking into icy water, of drifting helplessly as a white figure crowned in a Medusa snarl of hair reached for her. In the instant before she snapped awake tearing at her blankets and gasping for air, she saw her sister’s face.

Unhappily, so far as Bernice was concerned, they did indeed embark upon a hike along the cluttered beach directly after breakfast. The Redfield Girls had the shore to themselves, although there were a few small boats on the lake. The sky was flat and gray. It sprinkled occasionally, and a stiff breeze chopped the surface of the water. They picked their way until reaching the farthest point on the north side where a stream rushed over jumbled stones; shaggy bushes and low-hanging alders formed an impenetrable screen between shore and deep forest.

The women rested for a bit in a patch of golden light sifted from a knothole in the clouds. Bernice pulled off her shoe and poured out pebbles and sand, and scowled at the blister already puffing on her ankle.

“Don’t tell me you thought we’d let you lead us to God’s swimming hole and then hibernate all weekend.” Dixie sat beside her on a log.

“That’s precisely what I thought.”

“Silly woman. Hiking is f-u-n!”

“Look at this damned thing on my foot and say that again.”

Lourdes and Karla skipped pebbles across the water and laughed. Li-Hua came over and stared at Bernice’s blister. “Maybe we should pop it? Let me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know, to drain the pus.”

“For the love of—that’s not what you do with a blister,” Bernice said. She quickly stuck her shoe on before Li-Hua got any more ideas.

“Yeah, that’s crazy talk. You just want to try one of your ancient herbal remedies and see if it works, or if her foot swells like a melon.”

Li-Hua shrugged and grinned. She didn’t think much of Western medicine, a prejudice that had been exacerbated by complications stemming from her hysterectomy, conducted at St. Peter Hospital. Her own grandmother had been an apothecary and lived in perfect health to one hundred and three.

“My husband knew an old fisherman who lived here.” Li-Hua’s husband, Hung, worked for the state as a cultural researcher. He’d assisted on a demographical study of the region and spent several weeks among the Klallam, and Norwegian and Dutch immigrants who’d lived nearby for decades. “Job Nilsson had a ramshackle cabin over one of these ridges. After Hung interviewed him, we brought him cases of canned goods and other supplies every winter until he passed away. It was sad.”

“Yeesh,” Dixie said. She’d gone to El Salvador and Nicaragua on many humanitarian missions. “I never knew, Li-Hua. You guys are wonderful.” She sprang from her perch and hugged Li-Hua.

“Job wouldn’t talk about the lake much. He stopped fishing here in 1973 and went to the river instead. He believed what the Klallam said: that demons were in here, swimming around, watching for intruders. He said most white people believed it was mainly ghosts of those who drowned haunted this place, but he thought that was wrong. Only a few corrupted souls linger here on earth. Or a few who get lost and forget who they are. The rest go to their reward, or punishment.”

“Uh-huh,” Bernice said. This conversation brought back the creepy feelings. She was frightened and that kindled the helpless anger.

“The spirits are great deceivers. They delight in causing pain and fear. Of course, the spirits are angry about the houses, the motor boats, the trash, and seek to lure anyone they can and drown them.”

Bernice shook her head. “Last night you groused at us for telling tales. Now look at you go.”

“The cat is out of the bag.”

“Huh. Maybe you should put it
back
in the bag.”

“That it? The codger was superstitious?” Dixie lighted a cigarette and Bernice’s mouth watered.

“His brother Caleb drowned in the Devil’s Punch Bowl. Four people saw him fall into the water and disappear. The body was lost, but Job claimed to meet something pretending to be his brother a year later. He was walking along the beach and saw him lying under a pile of driftwood. Job ran toward his brother’s corpse, but when he reached it, Caleb sprang from the weeds and slithered into the water, laughing. Job was terrified when he realized the figure didn’t really resemble his brother at all. And that’s why he stopped fishing here.”

“I hope he gave up on moonshine, too,” Bernice said.

Lourdes was the one who spotted the rowboat. It lay grounded on the beach, partially obscured by a tangle of driftwood just below their cabin. The women gathered around and peeked inside. Nothing seemed amiss—the oars were stowed and only a pail or two of rainwater slopped beneath the floorboards.

“It’s a rental,” Dixie said. “The lodges around here rent skiffs and canoes. Somebody forgot to tie it to the dock.”

“I don’t think so,” Bernice said. The boat was weathered, its boards slightly warped, tinged green and gray. “This thing looks old.” Actually, ancient might’ve been more accurate. It smelled of algae and wood rot.

“Yeah. Older than Andy Griffith,” Karla said.

“Maybe it belongs to one of the locals.”

“Anything’s possible. We’ll tell the lodge. Let them sort it out.” Dixie tied the mooring rope to a half-buried stump and off they went.

They stopped at the Bigfish to report the abandoned boat and use the showers, then drove into Port Angeles for dinner at the Red Devil. When they returned a few hours later, the moon was rising. Bernice and Karla lugged in wood for the fire. Li-Hua fixed hot chocolate and they drank it on the porch.

“The boat’s still here,” Lourdes said, indicating its dark bulk against the shining sliver of beach.

“Ah, they’ll come get it in the morning,” Bernice said. “Or not. Who cares.”

“I know!” Dixie clapped for attention. “Let’s take it for a spin.”

“A spin? That would imply the existence of an outboard motor,” Karla said.

“Yes, but we’ll just use the manual override. It comes with oars.”

“I’ve stuffed my face with entirely too much lobster to take that suggestion seriously.”

“Don’t look at me,” Bernice said. “I mean it, Dix. Stop looking at me.”

A few minutes later she and Lourdes were helping Dixie shove off.
Li-Hua and Karla waved from the shore, steadily shrinking to a pair of smudges as Dixie pulled on the oars. “Isn’t this great?” she said.

Bernice perched in the bow, soon mesmerized by the slap of the oar blades dipping into the glassy surface, their steady creak in the metal eye rings. The boat surged forward and left the rising mist in tatters. She was disquieted by the sensation of floating over a hadal gulf, an insect prey to gargantuan forms lurking in the depths.

Dixie slogged midway to the far shore, then dropped the oars and let the boat drift. “Owwwie! That did it. Shoulda brought my driving gloves.” She blew on her hands. “No worries. Bernie, ol’ chum, how about ‘bailing’ us out here?”

“Dream on. This is your baby.”

“Omigod, we’ll be doomed to cruise these waters for eternity!”

“I’ll do it,” said Lourdes. The boat tipped precariously as she and Dixie switched places. “So, what do I do?” Dixie gave her a few pointers, and in moments they listed homeward, lurching drunkenly as Lourdes struggled to find her rhythm.

“We’re going to capsize,” Bernice said, only half joking as their wake churned and spray from the oars wet her hair.