Haunted Ground (9 page)

The Present

The last hint of fuchsia faded from the summer sky as darkness finally settled on the meadow, thousands of stars shimmering in the clear velvety sky.  A half-moon that looked like a slice of a juicy apple hung just above the treetops as it slowly began to ascend into the starlit expanse above us. 

I stared into the leaping flames, mesmerized by the orange and crimson tongues that darted between the bits of wood, licking, caressing, and ultimately devouring everything in its path.  The wood crackled, sending a shower of sparks into the night and making my face feel suddenly hot.  Only a half hour ago, I could still make out the shape of tables and dressers that Aidan’s men had dragged to the hill, but now the individual pieces were indistinguishable from one another in the pyre.  I’d spent the better part of the day administering red stickers, and now the house looked strangely empty after room after room had been cleaned out entirely.  I did come across a few nice pieces which I decided to keep, but most of the late Mrs. Hughes’s possessions were consigned to the flames. 

I could see the dark outline of the house against the navy-blue sky, the twin peaks of the pitched roof solid and symmetrical in their beauty; the numerous windows currently dark, the square panes of glass reflecting nothing but the nighttime sky.  I’d run out to the shops while the furniture was being removed to get something for our bonfire picnic.  It was my first solo foray into the village, and I walked up the street, looking at storefronts which were already closed for the night.  Thankfully, the grocery store was still open, so I ducked in, grabbed a shopping basket and quickly tossed in some bread, cheese, ham, fruit, and some breakfast essentials.  My next project was to clean the old stove and start cooking for myself.  I couldn’t live on canned food for long.

The woman at the counter cast curious looks my way as I made my way down the narrow isle and finally arrived at the cash register with my shopping, tossing in a couple of bags of chips that were prominently displayed by the counter.  How could I have forgotten chips? 

“Will that be all, dear?” she asked in sugary tones.  “Always a pleasure to see a new face hereabouts.  I always tell my husband, “There’s not a single person I don’t know for miles around.  I never forget a name or a face.  Never.” 

The woman was close to sixty, with wiry gray hair and a spherical shape that was displayed in all its rotund fullness by a sweater set in an unfortunate shade of canary yellow, paired up with a skirt of brown and beige plaid.  Her dark eyes were lively as a young girl’s and nearly devoured me with undisguised curiosity.  Her gaze travelled from my pony-tailed hair, over my face, down to my lime-green V-neck top and my jeans and flats, snapping back up to my face as I answered.

“Yes, for now.”  I normally enjoyed talking to people, but this woman was appraising me as if I were a brood mare, no doubt collecting vital details to be shared with other patrons about the newcomer to their village.  She was likely the village’s premier gossip, so being rude was not a good idea.  It would just feed into the notion that all Americans were ill-mannered. I smiled brightly and introduced myself.

“I’m Lexi Maxwell,” I ventured.  “I just bought the old Hughes place.”

“Don’t I know it?!” she exclaimed.  “Such a shame that no one wanted the house after Eleanor died.  But, it couldn’t have turned out better, could it?” she said cryptically.

“In what way?” I asked, confused.

“Well, it’s been in the family for generations.”  She made this statement as if she were telling me something obvious, but I had no idea what she meant.

“And you have Aidan MacKay doing the work, I hear?  Recommended by Paula Dees?” she asked with a look of naked disapproval.  “Thick as thieves, they are, but he does good work, or so I’m told.  Frankly, I have my doubts about him.  He’s a Scot, a Highlander, and you know how they are.”  She gave me a meaningful look, but I really had no idea how Scots were. Did she expect him to charge down the hill wild and barefoot, waving a sword and shrieking, his face painted blue with woad? Or were those Picts?  Clearly I had my barbarians confused, but I wasn’t about to share that fact with the erstwhile shopkeeper.  I could only imagine what she’d make of Aidan and I having a Midsummer Bonfire, but I wasn’t about to enlighten her.   

“Ah, thank you,” I mumbled as I grabbed my shopping and stowed it in the canvas bag I’d brought along.  I had to dash if I were to make sandwiches before sunset. 

“It’s Mildred Higgins, dear,” the woman called after me as I left the store. 
Mildred Higgins
, I thought,
a perfect name for a busybody
.

***

I handed Aidan another sandwich and watched him swallow it in two bites.  He’d been quiet for the past few minutes, just staring into the flames clearly as mesmerized as I was, the pyre reflected in his clear blue eyes. 
No sign of the wild Highlander
, I thought, as I took in his pensive expression.

“Are many people lighting bonfires tonight?” I asked, less because I wanted to know and more because I wanted to draw him into conversation.

“There are some.  Mostly young people.  They don’t really care about tradition, just like the romance of a roaring fire on a summer’s night.  It’s still celebrated in Cornwall and Wales, and of course, Scotland since it’s the week of Beltane.”

“So, it’s a Pagan tradition then?”

“It used to be a celebration of the summer solstice, but the Church decided to appropriate it, as it did the winter solstice and turned it into Christmas.  They made June 23
rd
St. John’s Eve, since supposedly John the Baptist was born on June 24
th
.  It used to be a time of merriment and feasting, but the Church wasn’t pleased with the pagan elements of the celebrations and demanded that June 23
rd
should be a day of fasting instead.  They sure know how to ruin a good time, don’t they?” he said with a grin. 

“So, not a churchgoer then?” I quipped, hoping he’d tell me more about himself.

“Well, I come from a long line of sour-faced Scottish Presbyterians, but I like the old ways when people were less concerned with religious dogma and more in tune with the world around them.  I guess I’m a Pagan at heart.  What about you?”

“Lapsed Catholic.  I haven’t been to church since my confirmation.”

To be honest, the last thing I wanted to do was discuss religion.  I was curious about his fiancee and why he hadn’t brought her to the bonfire, but it seemed too forward to ask.  Our relationship, technically speaking, was a business one, and although sitting here with him felt more like spending time with a friend, I was loathe to be the one to cross the line, but I hoped he would. 

“So, why England?” Aidan asked as he took a sip of his beer and reached for another sandwich.

“I wish I could explain it, but it’s something I’ve wanted since I was little.  I used to draw all these pictures of a house that looked much like this one with a river behind it, telling my parents that’s where I wanted to live.  In my imagination, it was always in England.  It used to drive my father mad.  He didn’t like England for some reason.  One year for Father’s Day, I gave him a drawing of him, Mom, and myself in front of a house flying a Union Jack.  Let’s just say he didn’t put it up on the fridge.”

“Do you have British ancestry?”

“No.  My father’s family settled in New York in 1842.  They’d survived the Potato Famine in Ireland, and left as soon as they could manage to pay for their passage, only to lose two of their children during the crossing.  Their name was McCormack, but they changed it to Maxwell, thinking it would help them avoid prejudice directed at the Irish in those days.  But the name change hadn’t really helped.  You can take a man out of Ireland, but you can’t take Ireland out of the man just by changing a name.  They struggled for many years, living in some tenement on the Lower East Side.  I believe it was called Five Points then.  It was a brutal place, run by brutal people.  Few families survived intact.  If it wasn’t the disease that got them, it was the crime.”

My father liked to tell the story of his family, painting a vivid picture of life in Five Points and the hardships the McCormacks endured.  It took two generations for them to finally leave and move to Queens where they lived still.

“My father often spoke of the plight of my ancestors, which made him all the more proud that his own father, having come back from fighting in Europe after WWII, pulled himself up by his bootstraps and started Maxwell Paper Products, which he bequeathed to my father, who hoped, despite all my protests, that I would take over the company when he retired.”

“Does he still think you will?” Aidan asked, his eyes straying to the dark outline of the house down the hill. 

“My father died of a heart attack nearly a year ago, and I sold the company soon after.  He would have been heartbroken, but I just couldn’t bring myself to devote my life to selling boxes and file folders.  I felt a crushing guilt, but that just wasn’t my dream.”

“Well, we all have our dreams, don’t we?  My own father is actually a doctor, but my granddad had been a carpenter, so I probably take more after him.  I like to work with my hands.  There’s nothing like the feeling of satisfaction when you see the direct result of your work,” he said, as if feeling the need to explain why he chose to forsake his university education and do something else. 

“I know a few famous carpenters who left a mark on the world,” I replied with a smile.

“Are you comparing me to Jesus?” he asked in mock horror.

“I wouldn’t dare,” I giggled.  “I was simply making a point.”

“And what of your mother?” Aidan asked.  It pleased me that he wanted to hear about my family.  It wasn’t often that people took a real interest, and I could tell that he genuinely wanted to know and wasn’t asking simply to pass the time. 

“My mother’s family is originally from Italy.  They came over after the war.  My grandfather had been a Communist for about five minutes, but my grandmother knocked that out of him pretty quick, or so the story goes.  She said he had to turn in his party membership if he expected her to marry him, since she wasn’t about to marry some penniless upstart.  They opened a salumeria in Brooklyn, selling the finest sausage and cheese anyone had ever tasted, or so my grandfather claimed.  He loved telling tall tales.  My grandmother took to the new country like a fish to water, but my grandpa always pined for the old world.”

“And do you pine for home?” Aidan asked.  “Was it easy to leave?”

I assumed he was asking whether I left someone special behind, but the answer to that was a resounding no.  I had been single for some time, my last relationship having ended when after three years of dating, Greg informed me that he wasn’t sure he loved me and needed to sow his wild oats before he could even consider settling down and starting a family.  Truthfully, once I got over the hurt of the rejection, I realized that maybe I hadn’t loved him either, and just talked myself into staying because of the comfort and security the relationship provided.  In retrospect, I’d never felt any great passion for Greg or the few men I dated before him.  Sex was something that was expected and given, but it never made me feel as my friends seemed to feel.  My best friend Sarah always seemed to be in a state of slow burn, something which men responded to like moths to a flame, but although I felt a degree of passion during the lovemaking, I never felt the all-consuming desire that seemed to rule Sarah’s life.  There was no urgency and no overwhelming need to feel Greg’s touch or feel his lips on my own.  I secretly worried that there was something wrong with me, but Sarah said that I just hadn’t met the right man. 

“Sex is not cerebral, Lexi.  It’s pure animal instinct between two people, fanned by attraction and affection.  Greg is a nice guy, but deep down, you were indifferent to him and ultimately, that’s what drove him away.  You didn’t hunger for him the way he did for you, and on some primal level, he knew that.”  I nearly burst into tears as Sarah laid it out for me like that.  What if I never felt that way about anyone?  Sarah seemed to feel animal attraction with just about every guy she met, and there I was, Miss Prim and Proper, talking myself into liking someone and ordering my body to comply.  I could never admit it to Sarah, but I’d never experienced an orgasm, and once Greg even called me ‘frigid’ in a fit of frustration. 

Sarah said that love was like an insatiable hunger.  You were never sated for long, always wanting more, needing more.  It made you feel alive and rejuvenated the colors brighter and the perceptions more acute – the lifeblood that kept you from becoming old and hard.  I had yet to feel anything like that, and I secretly prayed that I had the emotional capacity to experience even a fraction of what Sarah seemed to take so for granted.

“Lexi?” Aidan was watching me, clearly perplexed by the emotions that flitted across my face as I considered his question.  No, it wasn’t easy to leave, but not because I left a love behind.  It was hard because I tore myself up by the roots, but sadly, my roots didn’t grow very deep because my soul was always searching for a place to call home.

“It wasn’t easy to leave.  I miss my mom and my friend Sarah, but we talk on the phone daily, and email and text, so I don’t feel as lonely.  I wish they were here though, but I’m a big girl and it’s time I followed my star.  “Be the leading lady in the story of your life,” that’s what Sarah always says.”