Out of the Mist (15 page)

Rosemary, ever practical, dismissed this
idea. “Those barrels are too heavy, and smelly. Besides, we’d have
to heave one in the back of the car to get it here, and the stink
would be inside for weeks and maybe months. Can you imagine Rev.
Bob coming to church smelling like fish?”

Living where we did,
especially when the wind changed before a nor’easter, meant we were
familiar with the horrible smell associated with rotting fish
entrails.

“
We don’t even know if
their car is parked there,” added Patty. “One of us should sneak
down to check the parking lot.”

“
Eddie?” we all said
together.

“
I know, okay, okay, I’ll
do it. It’s always me who gets the go-fer jobs,” grumbled Eddie
good-naturedly. Eddie, slight for his age but extremely agile, was
routinely expected to scale fences and sneak into backyards on
behalf of the group.

On a knoll high above the
beach stood the old Robertson house. Cradled by overgrown spruce
and wildly unkempt alder bushes, its peaked roof was split by the
sharp point of a dormer, and un-curtained windows stared blankly
over the bay and sandy shoreline. In the daylight, the
paint-peeling storm door with its single eye of a diamond-shaped
pane was barred against intruders either human or weather-related.
The house stood benignly amongst the grasses and overgrown bushes.
Tonight, its presence was obscured by darkness. We were aware of
the house but were not thinking about it particularly.

Stories of ghostly
sightings at the old Robertson house had been absorbed into local
lore. Some said it once belonged to a sea captain engaged in
trading between the Boston states, the West Indies and the colony
of Newfoundland. He sailed away for four or five years at a time
leaving his wife to fend for herself and her children. When news
arrived that his ship was lost at sea, the widow packed up her
family and fled the island for her relatives on the mainland.
Locals said they used to see a light from the upstairs window long
after the family left. It was speculated that the sea captain had
returned, not dead after all, but back to claim his wife and
family. Grieved that he could not find them, it was rumoured that
he took up residence on the top floor, although no one ever saw him
during the day.

Yet another story circulated that the house
had once been inhabited by a young boy who lived there with his
grandfather, a tyrant who used to beat his grandson for little or
no reason. When the grandfather died suddenly, whispers drifted
around the community about the young boy who, terrorized beyond
reason, was driven to commit murder. The boy was sent away in the
care of a distant aunt and uncle, the house boarded up and left
empty. No evidence of foul play was ever discovered or reported,
despite abundant rumours. Long years later he returned, not to the
house, but to a little shack behind the railway station. He was
referred to locally as Ol’ Man Thorburn. He was seen every week
buying his bread, milk, and tins of cat food for the numerous cats
living at his shack, barely mumbling five words before shuffling
back down Station Road, clutching his paper grocery bag.

Rosemary told us a third version, learned
from her 98-year-old grandmother. The Acadian fishermen, who for
years sailed into the bay in the spring to fish, erected simple
houses to live in during the summer months. Eventually, they formed
a settlement. The men dried their catch on raised pole platforms
along the shore while their wives dug small garden plots for
growing vegetables and hung their wet laundry on the bushes to dry.
This version, and the two previous, were likely all true, given the
historic timeline.

The British drove out the
Acadian families in the mid-1700s, scattering them as far as
Louisiana territory. Some of them escaped beforehand in small
boats, hiding in the woods farther up along the shore to the west,
while others were rounded up and put on ships bound for Boston.
Their former lands were bestowed on hardy souls out of Nantucket,
who arrived on this rocky coast somewhat dismayed at the lack of
rich soil for establishing farms. Instead, they learned to rely on
the sea: fishing, boatbuilding, and trading by ship. Hence the sea
captain story, which could have taken place at any point between
1767 and 1900. Ol’ Man Thorburn, of an indeterminate age given his
severely wrinkled face and stooped posture, could easily have grown
up in the early twentieth century, giving credence to the abusive
grandfather story.

The old Robertson house was probably around
200 years old, being of frame construction and similar to a Cape
Cod style. Symmetrically placed windows flanked the extended
covered entrance at the front, where the battened storm door stood
firm. None of us remembered ever seeing signs of anyone living in
the house. There were no curtains at the windows, no lights at
night, only a path beaten down in the grass by Alfred Nolan, the
elderly caretaker.

We had long since lost interest in the
house. Our list of forbidden places included the old Robertson
place, which, we were warned, had an unmarked well somewhere on the
grounds. I was not anxious to fall down an abandoned well; in fact,
it gave me nightmares if I allowed myself to think about it. The
well had been filled with rocks and other debris, we were told.

Time passed. We were beginning to feel the
cold after sitting in the car with the engine off, no matter how
crowded together we were. No one had thought to bring a thermos of
hot chocolate or a candy bar. It would soon be time to head for
home, and we hadn’t even decided on what to do. Eddie had not
returned from his spy mission.

“
We’re
going to have to—” Eliza started to speak, but was interrupted by a
distinct
CRASH!

We all jumped as one body.

“
What was that?” ventured
Patty in a tiny voice.

No one answered her until
Rosemary said, very quietly, “It sounded like—”

CRASH!
We heard it again. Maria let out a whimper, like a small
puppy.

“
That sounded like
something heavy,” said Phil, “like a club or a mallet
or—”

“
Or a what?” whispered
Eliza.

Another crash sounded, louder than the
last.

“
Maybe it’s Eddie, playing
tricks on us,” said Rosemary firmly, although we detected a faint
tremor in her voice. “He’s the only one around, unless there’s
someone down in the parking lot, and they’ll be too busy to make
those noises.”

At that moment, we heard running footsteps
and Eddie’s face appeared in the side window.

“
Open the door! Open the
door!” His tone was frantic. Maria opened the door and Eddie dived
in, heedless of where he landed on us. Maria quickly pushed the
lock down on the door. Eddie scrambled to sit up and catch his
breath.

“
Did you hear that?” he
asked, gulping and panting. “Did you hear that noise?”

“
Yup, we heard it all
right,” declared Phil. “We thought it might be you doing
it.”

“
No way! Are you kidding?”
asked Eddie. “I was down by the parking lot, crawling up the first
dune to scope it out, and this huge crashing sound came from behind
me. I nearly jumped outta my skin!”

“
Behind you?” asked
Rosemary, who liked to clarify things to their very marrow. “That
means it came from up by the old Robertson house.”

“
But nobody’s been up
there for years!” said Eddie. He paused. “Or at least, that’s what
everyone says.”

“
Who is ‘everyone’?” asked
Maria. “Maybe someone lives there secretly, like the old sea
captain.…”

“
He’d be about 150 years
old,” scoffed Eliza. “I don’t think so!”

“
What about his ghost
though, the one who lives in the attic,” suggested Maria. “Ghosts
don’t age like humans, they live on and on.”

“
Yeah,” said Eddie,
recovering from his shakiness. “They just keep wandering around
forever, until someone kills them again. Maybe the noise is from
the ghost houses the French people lived in. When they were burned,
the roofs would’ve collapsed and crashed in.”

“
Well,” said Rosemary,
“I’m not so sure I believe in ghosts, whoever they are, or were…
but that noise was very real, and I think we should find out what
caused it.”

“
You’re joking, right?”
asked Maria and Patty together. “Why doesn’t Phil start up the car
and we all get out of here, right now!”

“
Well, we came for an
adventure, so why not check it out? There are seven of us. If we
all go together, and take whatever we can find as weapons, we’ll be
able to protect ourselves,” insisted Rosemary.

“
I don’t know,” began
Maria. “What if...we run into….” Her voice faltered, unable to put
her fears into words.

“
Phil, what’s in the
trunk?” asked Eliza, ready to take on the challenge of equipping
warriors for battle. “A jack? Tools? Maybe a
flashlight?”

“
Uh, I’ll go check.” He
hesitated before opening his door, and quickly moved around to open
the tailgate. The rest of us kept a vigilant watch, straining our
eyes into the darkness around the car. The moon remained stuck
behind clouds, ineffectual. Phil struggled with the catch on the
wheel well, and finally wrenched it open.

“
A spare tire, tire iron,
jack, and a small screwdriver,” said Phil, handing forward items
that might be useful as weapons. He closed the hatch and the
tailgate, and scurried back to the driver’s seat, locking the door
as he slid behind the wheel.

“
There’s nothing else?”
asked Eliza. “No boards or shovel or anything?”

“
Nope,” said Phil, “My dad
cleared it all out last weekend.”

We divided up the tools.
They didn’t amount to much if effective weaponry might be
required.

“
I guess I could poke out
its eye with this screwdriver,” Eliza held up her weapon, eyeing it
doubtfully. “That is, if ghosts have eyes.”

“
We don’t know that was a
ghost,” Rosemary said, keeping her voice even. “What we are going
to do is leave the car at the same time, and walk slowly up the
lane towards the house. If we stick together, it will look like
we’re really big, instead of one puny person who’s easy to take
down.”

I found my voice at last.
“What about the well?” I asked. “How are we going to see the well
in the dark? One false step and one of us could just slip
in.”

“
That well was filled in
years ago, and if we stick to the lane, there’s no chance we’ll
even go near it.” Phil’s words were only mildly
reassuring.

“
So, are we ready?” asked
Rosemary, wielding the tire iron with both hands. “I’ll lead and
Phil will bring up the rear. If anyone sees or hears anything, grab
the arm of the person nearest you and stop in your tracks. Don’t
run, whatever you do.”

“
That’s
for bears, not ghosts,” said Patty. “Even
I
know that.”

“
Oh,
great,” I said. “Now we have to worry about bears, wells,
and
ghosts.”

“
C’mon, all of you, let’s
go now!” urged Rosemary. She set off, trailed by Eliza, Maria,
Patty, Eddie, and me, then Phil, so close he was stepping on my
heels.

We tried to walk quietly along the road,
gravel crunching under our feet, until we reached the entrance to
the lane leading up the hill. Suddenly, there was a whirring sound,
which escalated to a high pitched whine.

“
What is that?” shrieked
Maria, clutching the girls next to her so hard they
flinched.

“
I think it’s a car
spinning its tires in the sand,” answered Eddie. “Someone went
parking tonight after all!”

“
Shouldn’t we go help
them? Maybe we can push them out?” suggested Maria, who was ready
for any diversion away from the house on the hill.

The sound of a car engine grew louder and
closer. Our eyes were blinded by headlights.

“
Watch out!” yelled Eddie,
as he tried to drag us out of the way. We scrambled off the gravel
in time to avoid being grazed by the careering car, clearly
identified as Bud Smith’s Chev by the amount of chrome on its sides
as it streaked past us. We could just glimpse the top of Marilyn’s
blonde bouffant hair before the red taillights disappeared around a
bend.

“
He didn’t even see us!”
exclaimed Eddie. “Wonder why he was going so fast?”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth
when a prolonged dragging noise reached our ears. We slowly turned
around, just as the stubborn clouds broke open and moonlight lit up
the front of the house on the hill. We gasped aloud. The bar on the
storm door was ripped off, the door swinging back erratically. That
explained the banging noises. A tall figure appeared to be dragging
a big box or trunk, bent over and lurching as if it was very heavy.
He was dragging it in the direction of the beach.

Without looking at each other, we turned and
ran as one, reached the car, and grabbed wildly at the door handles
before throwing ourselves inside. Phil fumbled with the keys,
started the engine, and turned the car towards the village, not
even looking around to see if we were all there.

After several minutes, Rosemary spoke.
“Okay, that was scary. Even I have to admit it.”