Winter Shadows (8 page)

As Tupper pulled me home in the waning light, I gazed across the river, striped with lengthening blue shadows. We passed a group of men and two massive workhorses draped in chains, pulling titanic slabs of ice from the river onto a sharply angled dock. I was certain that one of the men was Duncan Kilgour by his height and bulk. There was loud laughing when one of the men slipped and fell
.

On my long journey home from Upper Canada, I’d worked hard at fighting the suffocating thought of another winter in St. Cuthbert’s. The bishop’s wife, a former housemaid from England, had for years used her narrow ignorance of the world to ban anything that smacked of higher education or a social nature in our parish. There had rarely been musical, poetry, or dramatic evenings to look forward to
.

Mrs. Gaskell had suffered the nearest thing to an apoplectic seizure when I once had the temerity to suggest we start a literary society. I may as well have murdered one of my students in front of her, the way she went on about it! When she heard of an evening poetry-reading at one of our neighbor’s, her husband’s reproachful sermon blew over the congregation the next Sunday like the cold wind of doom
.

Thinking of the long days ahead and the strange girl, I suddenly found it hard to breathe. Tupper, sensing my tension through the reins, slowed and stopped. I closed my eyes. Like a swift phantom, a yellow vehicle rose behind my eyelids. As it flew toward my mind’s eye, I saw once again the flash of red hair and the small startled face. I have had this
same vision three times since returning from Upper Canada
.

Was the girl in the yellow carriage the same one I saw in my classroom today? It was, I’m sure of it. Did she recognize me? Was it really my journal she held in her hands? Did she read it? I realize how
kakêpâtis
I must sound as I write this. Papa might say I was having a nervous breakdown. Am I? I am sure Grandmother would say that these visions have a purpose
.

Grandmother told me once how she was visited by a spirit woman. It was the last time she and her family faced starvation. Her younger sister had just died, and Aggathas was breathing her last, when the spirit appeared to her. It told nôhkom to be strong, for there were still many things to do in her life and her family would need her. She recovered to marry John Alexander and give birth to my papa
.

But, unlike me, nôhkom is spiritually strong and filled with an inner calmness that radiates off her. I feel no such tranquility, for I must constantly battle my black
cakâstêsimowina.

This afternoon, as I sat in the carriole, Tupper’s breath puffing small clouds from his nostrils, I wondered if the girl had been sent as a warning to me … if my diary had somehow been left out and been found by Ivy. I clicked my tongue, and Tupper moved forward. In the distance, smoke rose from Old Maples’s chimney like a coiled gray snake. As we turned into the barnyard, I wondered how long it would be before I saw the spirit girl again…
.

The only good thing (and yet one that keeps me wondering) about this frightening day was that I found my diary still in its hiding place
.

I
sneezed hard and the book dissolved in my hands. The old woman was gone. My room was back. My fingertips tingled where they’d touched the leather.
It’s all just your fevered imagination, Cass
, my inner voice called out.
You’re sick! Forget it!
Even that niggling voice sounded panicked this time.
How could I forget?
I didn’t want to think about imaginary old women … about a fire that couldn’t possibly be lit … or a book that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere.

I paced the room. Okay. I’d held the diary in my hands. It
felt
real.
Think logically, Cass. Think clearly. What was really happening? Was this another life I was seeing? Another time? A ghost? Could a book be a ghost? What about Beatrice’s story?
Even I couldn’t make up something as real as that. If I accepted that I’d somehow time-slipped into her life or she had time-slipped into mine, then what?

I couldn’t escape downstairs; Jean and Daisy were there. I scrambled onto my bed and flopped back on my pillows, dragging the comforter up to my chin, ready to
fling it over my face. I thought about Beatrice’s life as described in her journal and realized that she was a nice person. The old woman (her grandmother?) looked kind.
So, what did I have to be afraid of?
Beatrice wrote things about her feelings that I felt too. I wanted to go over them again in my head, but I couldn’t think anymore. The soft swish of snow against my windows lulled me to sleep.

I woke up when my cell phone rang. Aunt Blair bought it for me so she didn’t have to talk to Dad or Jean unless it was absolutely necessary.

“Hi, babe,” she said. “Still on for Christmas shopping next weekend?”

“Not sure. I gotta cold,” I croaked.

“Cass, you sound
awful
. Is she giving you something for it?”

“She doesn’t know about it yet. I came home from school and went straight to bed.”

“How are your ears?”

“Aching.”

“You always get an ear infection with a cold. I’m calling their phone.”

“No – wait. Dad will be home soon. I’ll tell him. Promise.”

She sighed. “I wasn’t going to yell at them, Cass. Okay. I’ll let it alone for now, but I’m calling later. If you haven’t told them you’re sick, I will.”

Aunt Blair is Mom’s fraternal twin. They didn’t look much alike, except they were both slim. Mom had pale
floaty hair, kind of like her personality. Blair’s hair is shoulder-length, thick, and black, with strands of silver. But the lilt in her voice, the way she laughs, and a lot of her expressions are exactly the same as Mom’s. Hearing her speak is the only time I remember what Mom sounded like. And it always hurts.

I’d tried wearing Mom’s old faux fur coat, with its big amber buttons that looked like barley-sugar candies, but every time I put it on, I remembered. And I couldn’t let myself remember. There were things I just didn’t want to look closely at when it came to Mom – memories that made my head fill with darkness and shame. Knowing Blair was only fifteen miles away – and the only person completely on my side – made me feel protected.
But could I reveal to her – to anyone – what happened on Mom’s last day?

After we hung up, I lay there unable to move, my mind ticking down into the silence. Soon I fell asleep.

“Get up! Dinner’s ready!” someone shouted in my ear.

“Go away!”

“No. Jonathan says you
have
to get up.”

I opened my eyes. Enormous smudged glasses leered down at me. “You’re red,” Daisy said. “You been holding your breath or something?”

“Get lost.”

She left muttering, no doubt working out some big fib to tell Jean.

In the darkening afternoon light, a new sleety wind
moaned past my window, icy bits clicking on the panes. I dragged the comforter higher. I guess I drifted off again, for the next thing I knew, a cool hand touched my forehead. A dark-haired woman was leaning over me.
Beatrice?
I flung one arm out to ward her off.

“She’s got a temp, all right.” It was Jean. I blinked up at her.

Dad’s face hovered over her shoulder. “We should ask Peter to drop by.”

“Give her two Tylenol, and if her temperature doesn’t go down in an hour, I’ll call him. Or we could bundle her up, and you could take her to the emergency room in Selkirk.”

“I’m not driving her twenty miles in this weather, Jean. Peter’s our GP and just half a mile away. I’ll get her a hot drink. Here, take her temp.”

She fiddled with the thermometer, then thrust it at me. When it beeped, I took it out and read it.

“What’s it say?” Dad appeared behind Jean again, holding a steaming mug.

“Almost a hundred and two,” I said.

Dad handed me pills and a cup of chamomile tea with lemon honey – our family cold remedy. I took the pills and lay back, whispering, “I just wanna sleep.”

“Why did Daisy say Cass was too lazy to come down for dinner?” Dad said to Jean. “Anyone can tell she’s sick. And how come
you
didn’t notice earlier?”

“Because she came in from school as her usual obnoxious self, that’s why! I told you about the bus!”

“Who came in obnoxious?” he asked. “Cass? Or Daisy?”

“Oh, ha-ha, Jonathan!”

They hardly ever argued.
And why was I too sick to enjoy it?
Jean had blabbed to Dad about the bus. Typical. “Go away,” I croaked.

Dad’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, Jean. I’m just worried.”

“She’ll be fine. Don’t fuss.” She put her palm on my forehead. I rolled away from her. She stepped back. “See? It will never change, will it?”

“Jeez, she’s got a hundred and two temperature. Give her a break, okay?” Then he said to me, “About this incident in the school bus. Want to tell me about it?”

“I fell asleep. I woke up calling out something. I can’t even remember what it was. I guess I was dreaming. Gus stopped the bus kind of fast. One wheel got stuck in a snowbank. Kids pushed it out. We came home. He said to forget it. End of story.”

“Okay. We’ll let it go for now.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You’re not even going to phone Gus?” Jean asked him.

“If Gus wasn’t upset about it, we’ll let it go, Jean. And you can tell Daisy not to go on about it. Cass was obviously running a fever,” he said and left the room.

Jean walked out right behind him. I could hear them arguing down the hall. I sighed. I had a good dad – okay, a dad who’d say or do anything for peace and quiet, even ignore his daughter’s need for her own room back, but a pretty good dad all the same. As for Jean, not so good. And not getting any better.

The night after he and Jean announced their engagement, when she’d looked around our house with this flushed look of ownership and made a list of things to change, I knew trouble had just begun.

“This place is a pit! It really needs a woman’s touch,” she’d said.

Dad and I had done our best to keep things under control, but – I admit it – the house was pretty lived-in and the kitchen could have been cleaner. We also owned a miserable old cat named Tardy, who shed everywhere. Turned out Jean was allergic to cats. Of course. After a huge argument, I handed him over to Aunt Blair. It felt like I was handing her my old life with Mom at the same time.

Not long after, Jean started her “trimming-down” process, saying there was just too much junk in the house and that she needed room for her and Daisy’s things too.

“I want that dollhouse and these old Barbies,” Daisy had announced, holding one of my Barbie dolls to her chest and gazing greedily at my three-story dollhouse.

After crocodile tears from Daisy and pleading looks from Dad, I gave up my Barbies, which were stored in organized coded bags in my closet. But I dug my heels in on the dollhouse. “Mom and I made that together, and we collected or made all the stuff for it bit by bit. It’s mine. Mom said it’s a family heirloom.”

Jean looked at it doubtfully. “I don’t think it’s quite
that
caliber. You could at least let Daisy play with it. You don’t have to actually give it to her.”

“No. I don’t want it wrecked.”

“Don’t you think you’re being just a bit selfish? Daisy is a careful child.”

“She’s already ripped two of my best Barbie dresses by yanking them on the dolls.” I stared meaningfully at Dad, who was hovering around uselessly while my stuff was being ransacked.

Finally, he said, “The dollhouse is Cass’s. She can decide what happens to it.”

“I’ll pack it up, and Aunt Blair will store it for me.”

Jean pursed her lips and looked at me with a deep frown. Probably wondering why I couldn’t be stored away with the dollhouse.

That night, I asked Aunt Blair to take some of Mom’s stuff that I was afraid might get thrown out. When she agreed, I lined everything up on the floor to decide what to keep.

Jean walked in and laughed. “Goodness, Cassandra, you’re not taking all that old junk to Blair’s, are you? I doubt she would want it, even if she is an antique dealer.”

I looked her right in the eye. “She won’t sell it. She’ll keep it until this house is mine again. You’ve wanted rid of Mom’s stuff since you got here. Clearly, you don’t know good antiques when you see them. These are special … unique. Like Mom.”

Her cheeks went a dull red, but she turned on her heel and left. A few minutes later, I heard her playing a thundering piano piece in her music room. She did that a lot after I’d ticked her off. I grinned.

Daisy, who’d been watching everything from her bed, said, “You hate my mom, don’t you?”

“Well, she hates
my
mom.”

“But your mom is dead.”

I stared at her until she looked down at her hands, shrugged, got off the bed, and slid out of the room.

Now, as the late-afternoon light crept across my bed, the cold medicine finally kicked in, dulling the pain and relaxing me a bit. My nose felt less stuffed, although my head was still floating slightly above my pillow. I finally let it drift away into the night’s soft blackness.