Hippie House (14 page)

Bats regularly made their way into the house. For this reason my father kept a tennis racket next to his bed. It was a foolhardy bat that risked a midnight flight above his head because Dad possessed the well-developed arm of a seasoned fisherman. His swing was nearly always fatal. Even when barely awake, he could pick a bat from the air with one well-aimed thwack. I would hear the small thud as it hit the floor, Dad's footsteps and the toilet flush in the bathroom down the hall.

But it was the mice that caused the greatest problems in the house.

So when Eric and I turned at Malcolm's exclamation, we were not surprised to see him pointing to a mouse. It was sniffing around the floor by a leg of the table. Of course it was not a pleasant sight to see a mouse in our kitchen, but since it was not highly unusual, it did not cause a great amount of alarm.

Eric's automatic reaction was to reach for the minnow net my mother kept on a hook at one end of the cabinets for just this purpose. Armed with the net, he walked with soft footsteps toward the bold little creature, preparing to scoop him up. Malcolm stopped him.

“Leave it,” he demanded, shooting an arm before Eric.

My brother had been at the point of lunging forward. He was a little put off at being stopped so close to catching his prey. “Why?”

“Because—”

But Malcolm didn't finish what he was about to say. He appeared suddenly confused and, instead, looked away. He shook his head a little before pressing his fingertips to his forehead as though he might physically be able to manipulate his mind into concentrating on what was happening in the room.

“Because what?” Eric prompted.

Finally, Malcolm continued, “It will—I mean, it could upset the balance of things.”

“The balance of things?” Eric repeated. He looked at Malcolm and then over to me as if I might be able to better explain what Malcolm had just said.

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.

The mouse began to skitter across the open floor. Eric moved forward with the net again.

Malcolm insisted, “No.”

“What's with you, Malcolm?” asked my brother, now quite frustrated at this second interruption. “What are you talking about—the balance of things? It's a lousy mouse running through the kitchen where it's not supposed to be.”

“You don't know that. I mean, you don't know that it's not supposed to be here. Running through your kitchen may be what it was assigned to do. And if you catch it—if you prevent it from fulfilling its purpose, then you could screw the whole thing up. Who knows what could happen? You could be killing some innocent kid in some place like Katmandu. You could be starting a tsunami in Japan.”

If Malcolm had not looked so serious, Eric and I might have laughed. But it was apparent in his eyes that he did truly believe what he'd just said.

“A tsunami?” Eric seemed to have forgotten about the mouse and was now looking at Malcolm like he was the intruder. The minnow net dangled next to his side. Glancing at the doorway in case Mom was within earshot, he lowered his voice. “I've got
a news flash for you, Malcolm. Mice aren't assigned to do anything. They go where they can get food.”

“Oh no, that's not true. They have a purpose. All of them. Like you and me, they're assigned to do certain things.”

“Oh yeah? And who hands out these assignments?”

“The um,” Malcolm leaned closer to Eric and whispered, “You know, the ones behind this whole thing.”

“Malcolm, you idiot! Are you on something? I don't believe it, you're ripped and you drove out here like that?”

“No, no. I'm not. It's just that mouse, he's got to do what he's supposed to do. You wouldn't be doing any of us any favors if you threw him off course.”

Wide-eyed, Eric looked over to me again. The mouse was following its nose along the line of cabinets in the direction of Halley's dish.

“Hey,” I said, snatching the minnow net from Eric's hand. “Look, why don't you guys just get going. I'll finish up here. There's not much left. You can pay me back some other time.”

“Yeah,” Eric answered in a subdued way. “Alright.” And wearing an expression of complete bewilderment, he draped the dish towel over the handle of the stove. “Let's go.”

Malcolm watched me swing the net while he waited for Eric to grab his coat from the closet in the hall.

“You're not going to do anything with that are you?”

“Me?” I stopped swinging it. “Oh, no, I was just going to hang it up for Eric.”

He continued to watch me. When I realized how truly agitated it seemed to make him, I hung the net on the hook at the end of the cabinet again. “See?”

“Good. It's best just to let the little guy go about his business. That way nothing can go wrong.”

I nodded like the Katmandu and the tsunami thing made perfect sense.

Eric returned and the two of them headed toward the door. Eric held out a hand, blocking Malcolm just before they reached it. “Malcolm, give me your keys. I want to try out this torque you're always bragging about.”

I retrieved the minnow net from the cabinet as soon as they had left. I'd had my share of practice catching mice, and it was only a matter of seconds before I had it imprisoned in the web. Carrying the squirmy little animal through the back kitchen, I let it loose outside the back door just as Eric pulled away in Malcolm's car.

The following day, as Eric collected his textbooks from where he'd been working on his homework at the dining room table, I asked him about Malcolm's bizarre behavior. He didn't seem to want to talk about it and brushed it off as quickly as he could.

“He was just being a goof,” he told me. “It's nothing. He gets like that sometimes. He says ridiculous stuff just to see if he can get us to believe it.”

“Oh,” I said. I thought about this and frowned. “What's the fun in that? I mean, what if sometime he wants you to believe what he's saying? It's like crying wolf, don't you think? How do you know if what he's saying is true and he's not just goofing around?”

Eric shrugged. “It's getting more and more difficult.”

He then changed the subject, asking me if I had seen his calculator.

“Yes,” I said. “It's in your hand.”

DURING THE WINTER MONTHS
, my father spent most of his days in the workshop, where he labored on various woodworking projects. Over the years he'd supplied the county parks with barbecue shelters, picnic tables and playground equipment. He'd provided purple martins with towering apartment houses, and many of southern Ontario's Canada geese had my father to thank for
their nesting platforms. He volunteered for most of these projects, and I'm sure the various clubs and organizations he built them for thought he was a very generous man. But I knew his reasons were somewhat selfish. My father was passionate about tools and wood, and it gave him a reason to be in the workshop surrounded by both.

It was in the workshop that he discussed crops and weather with my uncle, and in the summer it was where he entertained friends who dropped by Ruddy Duck Farm to fish. This was not necessarily because my mother preferred it, but because the men preferred it. As my father explained, his friends were comfortable tipping back on folding lawn chairs with a beer in hand and their boots shuffling wood chips. It was a relaxing way to finish a day spent outdoors, particularly compared to sitting on brocade furniture with their socked feet embedded in the living room rug. In a rustic way, the workshop, with its smell of freshly cut wood and new stain, was a homey place to be.

In the winter, Dad kept a fire burning in the stove to heat the room. When we were young, Eric and I and my cousins would sit on stumps of wood around the stove and thaw our hands after sleigh rides. We didn't own a horse, but Dad would hook an old sleigh to the tractor and pull us through the fields.

It seemed my father must have owned every tool manufactured. This included two walls of neatly organized sockets and wrenches, screwdrivers, clamps and a table saw, which was the dominant feature in the room. Over the weeks, soft piles of sawdust accumulated around its base. Often, when I had nothing else to do, I would offer to sweep the floor just so I could be in the warmth of the room. While he worked, my father whistled. He did this compulsively and continuously. I was never able to distinguish one song from the other; they were just endless tunes that would be cut short by the scream of an electric tool or would start and stop abruptly depending on the amount of
concentration needed for a particular job. But it really didn't matter what he was whistling. It was a cheerful sound that told me he was close at hand and all was right on the farm.

He had a vantage point from the workshop. The building sat on a rise and through any of the north-facing windows he could see past the farmhouse to the main road. From there he was able to spot an unfamiliar vehicle even before it turned into the lane.

Following Katie's murder, when it became important that no one but my father be left alone on the farm, I did not notice it as an inconvenience. He was at home most of the time anyway. Mom would simply accompany Dad on his errands, or he would not go out until Eric and I were home from school. The only time I was aware of this new routine interfering with my father's life was when he had to forgo his annual ice-fishing trip. It was his custom to fly “north” with some buddies from Toronto for a week every February. But that year his fishing gear remained in the barn, and not until I overheard Mom insist that he go anyway did I notice that he hadn't pulled it out.

Mr. Fraser had brought over half a dozen frying chickens earlier in the morning. I was helping my parents pack them into the large freezer Dad had built across one wall of the back kitchen. In a normal year, by the end of February the freezer would also hold the fish he caught on his trip.

“Not this year, Clare,” he told my mother as they discussed the annual trip. “I'm not about to leave you alone. Not under the circumstances.”

“But I'll be just fine. Eric's here, and during the day I've got Pat right next door.” Mom was trying for nonchalant, but she was unconvincing. She called on me for assistance. “Emma, we can manage if your dad goes on his fishing trip, don't you think?”

I'm not sure why, but the first thought that leapt into my mind was waking up in the middle of the night after one of my
terrifying dreams. There was some comfort in hearing my father flush a bat down the toilet in those moments.

I shrugged.

Dad smiled and placed his hands on Mom's arms. “Alright, how about this—next year I'll make up for missing this year by going twice?”

I quickly nodded. The perfect solution. This was enough to satisfy my mother, and the conversation was dropped.

My cousin's family was in the same position. As a farmer, Uncle Pat was almost always at home. If he had errands to run, there was Carl, who, despite all else, did cut an imposing figure. Any potential murderer was likely to think twice before tangling with him. And the Frasers had always hired farmhands. While Mr. Fraser was delivering chickens or organizing his investments, Mrs. Fraser was also never alone.

It was not so easy for Hetty's family. Mr. DeSousa remained at home for two months following the discovery of Katie's body, but by February he could not avoid traveling any longer. It was a large part of what his job entailed. Comfortable with our own arrangement, it did not occur to me how difficult it was for Ruby, Hetty and her sister to be alone.

A few days after Mr. DeSousa left for Montreal, my mother asked if they were alright.

“I guess so,” I replied.

“Emma, you be sure and tell Ruby that if she needs your father or Uncle Pat—if she needs a man to come over for any reason—either of them would be happy to and she should not hesitate to ask.”

I blinked at her. It was such a vague and wide open thing to tell Ruby.

“Never mind. I'll phone her myself.”

I was waiting for Megan outside school one day when I stopped Hetty on the way to catch her bus. I asked her if she
wanted to come with us to the Dairy Bar. She said she would like to but she had already made other plans.

“I promised Mom I'd be home right after school. We've got to practice.”

I knew she didn't take music or dance lessons. I shrugged. “Practice what?”

“We have to practice in case Katie's murderer is still around.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking it a strange reason, but more concerned with catching Megan as she came out the door.

“Yeah, Mom has got a system all worked out. We just need to go through it a few times to make sure it will work.”

Megan appeared, Hetty's bus arrived and I didn't have a chance to ask anything more. By the next day I'd forgotten all about it.

A few days later I found Ruby's pinking shears in my sewing basket. I felt terrible. She had loaned them to me when mine, in need of sharpening, had chewed an uneven finish in a seam of Nancy's dress. I'd forgotten to give them back. I'd had them at least a month and wanted to return them immediately. I talked Eric into driving me over to the castle.

It was nearing nine o'clock by the time we reached the DeSousas' house. The night was very black; it had been overcast all day and snowing off and on. Eric was worried about getting Mom's car stuck in the driveway. It had not been shoveled since Mr. DeSousa had left a week before. Pulling to the side of the main road, he put the car in park and waited for me to get out.

“Make it quick,” he warned me. “I don't want to sit here all night.”

“You're nuts. I'm not walking down that lane by myself. I could get jumped by someone in those trees and dragged off and you wouldn't even see it.”

“There's no one in those trees. It'll take you five minutes.”

“No.”

Rolling his eyes, Eric pulled the hood of his parka over his head, opened the driver's door and got out. I got out as well and, leaving the car idling, we trudged up the lane. I was glad he was with me. The snow had drifted in the lane beneath the fir trees, making it difficult to walk. Eric made it easier by walking ahead of me so that I was able to step in his footprints and avoid snow leaking into my boots. Once we were past the trees we had no difficulty seeing where we were going. The castle was ablaze with light and it appeared that every light in the entire house was on. Reaching the front door, Eric slipped on the icy surface where the eavestrough dripped on the concrete, and rather than knocking gently, he unintentionally slammed the brass horsehead against the plate. We waited several minutes but there was no answer.