Apparition (14 page)

Within ten minutes we’re pulling up in front of a white clapboard bungalow in an older residential block off the town crossroads. There are a few big trees out front, now bare, and dry brown leaves lie deep
on the lawn. There’s a large middle-aged woman standing in the front door, and she opens the screen as we get out of the car.

“Morris!” she shouts, a big smile on her face. He’s up the porch steps in moments and getting a bear hug against her very large bosom. “It’s been years,” she says. “Oh my goodness! Is this little Kip? No way! The last time I saw Kip, he was a chubby twelve-year-old. Now look at you, looking down at your old man. How’d he get so handsome, Morris?”

“Recessive gene,” says Morris.

Kip smiles at her a little painfully and holds out his hand. “Hi, Emily. Nice to see you again. This is my friend Amelia.” He puts an arm around my shoulder, pulling me toward him. I feel myself stiffen a bit, but I nod and say a polite hello. His arm stays around my shoulder longer than it needs to, then he slowly lets me go. I feel his fingers brush my back as his hand falls to his side. Then he slips both hands into his pockets. Wow! Snap out of it, Amelia. I’ve got to keep Kip from messing with my head. I tell myself to take a deep breath and calm the hell down. I mean, does Emily actually buy it that I could be his girlfriend? She gives me a friendly smile and ushers us through her front door, then we all crowd onto the entrance mat, taking off our shoes and trying not to step on each other’s feet. I’m super-aware of how close Kip stands. I can’t help it.

“Let me take your coats,” Emily says. “Dad’s in the back room, watching TV. I told him you were coming over for a chat.”

We follow Morris down the hall and stand at the entrance to the little room, a kind of den. It has a television in one corner and a sofa opposite, with Mr. Telford sitting at one end. On either side of the sofa is a chair, and there’s a small coffee table in front. On the coffee table is a plate of cookies.

Mr. Telford looks scary frail. His thin frame is stooped forward. He raises the remote in a trembling hand and points it at the TV.
The screen goes black. Then he raises his hand to Morris. Morris walks over and clasps it in both of his, shaking it warmly. The old man has an artificial eye that stares into space, but otherwise he doesn’t look as insane as I’d expected.

Morris takes a seat on the chair closest to him and quickly introduces Kip and me. Mr. Telford nods a polite hello and gestures for us to sit down. Morris and Emily start in with a lot of small talk about people they both know and family news and stuff. Mr. Telford seems distracted, or maybe it’s just that he’s hard of hearing. Emily has to repeat a lot for him. Then Morris asks about the 12th Line farm. He’s playing dumb, asking if they know anything about its early past. Who built it, and that kind of thing. They don’t know much. After a bit more chat, Morris asks if they have any plans to move back in. Mr. Telford shakes his head, pretty hard. Emily jumps in, explaining that when he’s feeling better he’ll meet up with a real estate agent to put it on the market. He’s been planning to sell it for a long while.

“The barn was supposed to come down first,” Telford says, moving around in his seat, all agitated. “It has to come down.” Morris looks at him, nodding sympathetically. “I tried to keep it locked up.” He gets a twisted expression on his face. “But it was no good.”

“The barn’s always been a source of pain,” says Emily, “since Paul’s death. He’d only stepped back into it after all these years to show the Sorenson boy the job. I’d heard about Matthew from a cousin down in Guelph. That he was real good at lowering barns. That he worked with a Mennonite crew and they thought of him as one of their own. Really level-headed and responsible. So I told Dad about him. It was just terrible, what happened.”

It’s so strange to hear her talking about Matthew in the past tense, having no idea what he means to me. Morris isn’t letting on that he knows who Emily is talking about either. He listens, nodding, then
says to Mr. Telford that it must have been a nightmare, hearing the day after meeting with him that Matthew had died in the barn.

Mr. Telford’s looking down at the carpet. “I should never have brought him into it.” He takes a shuddering breath. “The Devil’s been holed up in that barn all these years, waitin’ for his next victim. Now I know for sure.” He looks up at Morris, his head kind of bobbing. “I suspected. I suspected it. But it’s been thirty long years. I thought it would just come down.”

Emily smiles and pats her father’s knee. “Now, Dad, don’t be saying things like that. You know it’s all just bad luck. A terrible coincidence, is all. Paul and I used to sneak into that barn all the time when we were kids, through a loose board at the back. Never did us any harm. And even after Paul died, my kids used to play hide-and-seek in there sometimes. I had to go in to find them more than once.”

Kip speaks up. “Interesting. So you never felt spooked by the barn?”

“Of course not,” she says. “I mean, any old barn can seem spooky at night. That barn’s nothing special. Now …” She seems to lighten up. “Tea or coffee, anyone?”

“Oh, tea sounds good, Emily,” Morris says.

While she’s gone, Morris tells Telford that there’s something he’s been meaning to ask him. Why did he keep the door padlocked? Even before Paul’s tragedy, there used to be a padlock. What made him do that?

Telford says he had the steel shed on the property, all the storage space he needed, so he had no real use for the barn. “And even back when we bought the farm, there were already rumours about that barn, you know.”

“Rumours?” Morris asks. Emily’s come back with a teapot and cups on a tray. Everyone watches as she places it on the coffee table. “What kind of rumours?”

“Oh, talk. About something bad in the barn. The fella we bought the farm from, I only saw him once. McCleary was his name, I think. Thomas. It was what happened to his son. That’s why they sold the place. His teenage son got into drugs. It was the sixties, right? My old neighbour on the north side, Munro, he said the kid got up to something awful. Found dead. Mutilated, eh? In the barn, he said. Suicide? Like hell.”

Morris makes quick eye contact with Kip and me. “No kidding?” he says. “Jeez, Hank, that’s an amazing story. I’ve never heard that before. You mean that when Paul died, you … you knew he wasn’t the first? My God! What was going through your mind?”

Telford looks at him with his one good eye, like he’s frustrated at having to keep repeating himself. “That barn. That barn is cursed.”

Emily raises her eyebrows as if to say
Poor Dad
. She starts pouring tea, asking how we take it. She offers cookies and we each take one, but Telford passes on both. His body seems completely stiff now, and he’s leaning forward awkwardly on the sofa.

Emily speaks up. “So, Morris, you can see why we need to pull the barn down before we put the farm on the market. Otherwise this guy”—she points a thumb at her father—“is going to be scaring all our potential buyers away. Dad, how are you going to get your money out of that place if you go on talking like that to whoever will listen?”

So that’s what’s bugging Emily—resale value. Now she changes the subject. She asks Kip what he’s up to these days and he gives her the highlights—living with his mom and stepdad. A year at the University of Chicago. Taking time off to figure some things out. Hanging out with his dad. He grins at Morris, who smiles back, almost shyly.

“Say, Emily,” says Morris, looking slowly around the room, “I’m just curious. Do you have any pictures of Paul back in the day? I don’t have any old photos myself. Lost my school yearbooks, even, in a fire.”

Emily jumps up and leaves the room. She’s back in thirty seconds with a framed photo of a young man with brown hair and glasses. She hands it to Morris and he lingers over it for a bit. Finally he looks up, reaches out and hands it to me. I get the feeling he wants me to have a good look. I do, trying to memorize Paul’s face.

While Morris and Emily chat some more, questions start plaguing me. What happens to Matthew if the barn is taken down? Is it possible he’ll just disappear? Or cross over to some afterworld? It’s something I don’t really want to think about. It would feel like losing him all over again, and I can’t go through that twice.

Fifteen minutes later, I suddenly realize that they are all getting to their feet, and Morris is thanking Emily and Mr. Telford for their hospitality and time.

“Now, you’re not gonna write about this in a newspaper, are you, Morris?”

“No, no. Not at all. This is just some personal research, that’s all. I do have one last question for your dad, though.”

“What’s that?” Telford says from the sofa.

“Mr. McCleary, the man you bought the farm from in the sixties. Do you remember anything else about him or his family?”

“Not much. Just his face. Big bald guy. Yeah. With a big red beard.”

“Red beard?” asks Morris.

“That’s right,” says Telford. “Red.”

I
’m sitting in the living room on Saturday night, with Ethan playing a loud video game beside me on the sofa. I’ve got my eyes on the road outside. My bottom lip is starting to hurt from biting it all day. I have no idea what this is going to be like. It could be such a disaster. Finally I see car lights turn into our driveway, and I’m already standing at the front door when he knocks. I open it a little too quickly. Embarrassing, really. I don’t want him to think I’m desperate, but I’ve been ready and waiting for a while. He’s right on time.

“Hi … um, would you like to meet my grandmother, Joyce? She’s just in the kitchen.” He removes his shoes, and I whisper as he follows me in his socks, “Warning—she bites.”

Joyce has been standing outside the back door of the kitchen. It’s already dark, and she’s got the porch light on—a bare bulb hanging from the roof. She’s taking one last drag on a dying cigarette. She looks up at us through the door window, stubs the cigarette into a small ceramic ashtray on the railing and comes inside, her arms pulling
a large grey sweater around her for warmth. It’s mid-November and a chilly evening, even for cold-blooded Joyce.

“Joyce, this is my friend Kip Dyson. You know the local history columnist, Morris Dyson? That’s Kip’s dad.” And I look back at Kip. “Kip, my grandmother, Joyce Stewart.”

“How do you do, Mrs. Stewart?” He holds out a hand.

“Hello, Kip. Joyce will do.” She reaches for her half glass of red wine on the kitchen counter, then holds out her other hand to shake Kip’s. She peers at him through her bushy eyebrows, squinting slightly in the harsh kitchen light, and gives him a fast scan up and down.

“You aren’t from around here, Kip, are you.” It’s her prosecutor voice.

“No, I’m from Chicago, but I was born in Hamilton. I’m just taking a break from school for a year, staying with my dad for a change of scenery. I’m working in the Grey County Archives office.”

“School?”

“University of Chicago.”

“Ah, that’s nice.” Her voice is a little chillier, probably because she’s figured out that he’s a few years older than me.

“So how did you two meet?” She keeps her eyes on him over the rim of her wineglass as she sips.

I’m scrambling for an answer to that one when Kip replies easily, “At the Halloween party a few weeks ago, at Brad’s. If you can believe it, we were wearing identical Bob Marley masks. So you could say it was fate that brought us together.”

Joyce looks genuinely amused at that. “Ah. Amelia hadn’t mentioned you. Two Bob Marleys at one party in Owen Sound? That does sound like fate.”

“Yes, and … that was also the night of Jack’s accident. Hopefully he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Yes, well, time will tell.” She is now leaning against the kitchen counter, peering at us. She’s got this look on her face, like she’s wondering about something.

“Well,” I say, “I guess we should be getting on our way. We’re just dropping in on a party at Brittany’s. You remember Brittany, Joyce?”

“I do. Not one of your favourite people,” she says.

“Oh, she’s okay. I get on better with her these days.”
Thanks for embarrassing me, Joyce
.

“Well, that’s nice.” Sarcastic, I’m sure. She looks at Kip rather sternly and gives him one last broad sweep with her radar. Finally she smiles. “You two have a good time. I’m assuming you’ll get a ride home? From a sober driver, I mean.”

“I think we can manage that,” Kip says, placing his arm around my shoulder and leaving it there as we head for the door.

“That was a pleasant surprise,” I whisper as we put on our shoes and head out.

“What do you mean?” he asks, opening the passenger door for me. Old-fashioned but nice.

“She really went easy on you, that’s all. I thought she’d give you a hard time, considering that to her this must look like a date.”

“Ah, a date.” Kip gives a little shiver, like the very idea is creepy. He focuses on the rear-view mirror as he backs out of the driveway, but his eyes have narrowed, like he’s trying to figure something out. “As opposed to what?”

“Pardon?”

“As opposed to a date?”

“I don’t know. Our little charade. You know. Your dad’s idea. To throw people off the ghost-tracking path.”

“A charade. Right.” After a minute or two, he turns on the radio and starts scanning through the half-dozen available FM stations.

“So …” he begins, then pauses. The silence feels a little awkward. He starts up again. “I passed up going to Toronto this weekend for this little charade.”

“Really?” Why is he telling me this?

“Yeah, I have a few old friends who live there. Been bugging me to check out some new clubs in town with them.”

“Oh.” I try to sound casual but I feel crushed. I should have known this was a bad idea.

“I wasn’t really up for it.” He smiles as if to reassure me, but he looks disappointed.

“Must have been tempting, though,” I say, trying to stay cool.

“Oh, I’m always tempted.”

Something about the way he says that bugs me. I can’t tell what’s up with him.

“Seriously, you don’t have a girlfriend?” Maybe it’s none of my business, but I find that hard to believe. I need to know if he’s just the two-timing flirt type of guy.