Out of the Mist (17 page)

The “dancing tulip” was a well-loved symbol
of the early settlers from Germany. They were also occasionally
seen on some of the earliest slate gravestones. They were rare and
were similar to ones found in Lancaster County Pennsylvania whose
settlers were also from small villages along the Rhine. Links
between Lunenburg and Pennsylvania were rare. This carving was well
executed and very delicately done.

“
Oh,” she gasped. “How
lovely.”

The gnome smiled, showing his very unlovely
teeth. He seemed pleased with her response. “Yah. His land, his
house he built and his farm from the beginning ven ve all came from
the old country. Even though ze tried to push him out. Tried to
scare him avay. Vild horses at full of moon.”

What on earth was he
talking about,
she wondered.
Wild horses?
Then she
remembered the rest of Martha’s spooky tale. The settler family who
had lived there told stories of the house being haunted by a troop
of marauding Indians. Many people, though, thought the ghosts were
settlers in disguise trying to scare the inhabitants
away.

“
Alvays a full moon zey
ride, zey whoop—but I not afraid—iss my home alvays.”

His eyes strayed to a small door beside the
hearth. The door was very narrow and low, almost too small for
anyone today. In fact, it looked perfect for the gnome. She looked
at it more closely. An ancient, hand-forged latch was well worn.
His eyes followed.

“
Does this door open?” she
asked

“
Nein
, always locked. Zere iss no
key. Opens by itself ven moon is full and horses come. Staircase
goes down to old cellar below the earth. No one ever goes
zere.”

“
So the door goes to the
cellar?”

“
Nein
, much deeper”

His eyes slid away from hers—evasive and
secretive.

This sounded highly implausible. She began
to wonder what was actually going on here. She knew it would be
wise to leave this curious place. “I think I should go. Could I
take a picture of your lovely tulip carving?”

He screwed up his eyes, then reluctantly
said, “Yah, ok but yust tulip.”

“
Thank you.” She smiled
and snapped a few shots, wishing she could also capture him and his
funny door.

“
How long have you lived
here?”

“
Many, many years. Not
many people come. Iss sad house with many bad things zat happen
here. No one else vants to be here.”

“
It is a lovely property
with such a big barn that sits so high on the hill. You could see
for miles,” she said

“
Alvays dying in ze
barn—sheep vont go in.”

This was getting too creepy. She edged to
the door. He slipped past her and opened the outside door a tiny
bit. She had to edge past him to get out.

She looked back at the ancient door and saw
above it another carving. It was round and had strange markings on
it. Suddenly, she realized it was a rare, old country hex symbol.
They were put above doorways to protect against witches and evils
unknown, even in the new world.

She stood under the symbol for a moment
feeling a sense of its power and hesitated for a moment, but the
urge to move propelled her on. The strong odour of earth and
mustiness wreathed around him. He leaned back against the door and
peered at her with curious eyes

She could feel him looking deep inside her
and she shivered. All around the old door latch were deep
scratches. She looked again at his curled hands with the long
nails.

Tiny bottle-glass panes of the windows,
aglow with stray rays from the setting sun, gave the house a sly
look. The landscape around was darkening, shadows were lengthening.
The barn seemed afloat as a slight mist rose from behind it.

There was no sign of any other person

“
Do you live here alone?
You are a long way from the main road.”

“
Zere iss only me. I live
here always and alone. But tonight I vill haff many visitors. It
iss the full of the moon. Zey will be here soon. Do you vish to
see? You could some back and see?”

His fingers curled and his eyes gleamed.

“
No. No thank you. You
have been very kind.”

She hurried back to the car and, with
difficulty, turned in the yard. The barn loomed behind her. The
evening mists were rising still higher. Through her rear window,
she could look right through the open barn doors at the moon just
beginning to rise. Were her eyes playing tricks? She could see
figures in the higher levels of the barn.

“
Oh, God,” she
whimpered.

The figures were hanging from the beams,
slowly twisting. The gnome moved slowly towards the car. She locked
the doors and quickly shot down the yard.

Suddenly, he appeared and swung the gate
open with a horrible screech

How did he get here so
fast?
she wondered.

She had almost reached the lane of trees.
Just before she entered, she looked back over her shoulder. The
full moon hung higher in the sky, but the house and barn had
disappeared. She heard and faint pattering of horses’ hooves and
weird whooping calls. She shot down the lane as fast as she could,
disregarding the tree roots and grabbing branches. Behind her, the
trees swallowed up the dirt road. You couldn’t even tell it was
there.

Her digital camera glowed and flashed a
tantalizing rectangle of light from the passenger seat.

Did it hold the secret tulip within?

~~~***~~~

Graveyard Study

Tom Robson

Before leaving school one
October afternoon, Ms. Williams, the Grade Four teacher at my
school, sought my approval for yet another of her excellent
teaching ideas. “Mr. Robson, I’m thinking of taking my class to do
a graveyard study.”

She hesitated, perhaps looking for signs of
disapproval or trying to anticipate my reaction.

She went on to explain how
it fitted with the study of pioneers and settlers, and how the
graveyard she had in mind had some interesting turn of the
twentieth century markers.

She did not know that I enjoyed graveyards,
especially those which served small, rural communities such as the
one she was describing. I knew they could reveal a wealth of
information and pose questions which students of all ages could
research.

If she’d known of my interest she would not
have been concerned. I approved her trip instantly and asked if I
could accompany her and the class there. A date was set and the
plan was put in motion.

It was surprising that I
had never stopped to investigate the particular cemetery she wanted
to visit, even though I drove past it twice every working day going
to and from school. It looked too small and insignificant to be
interesting. The white and black trimmed, wooden church it
surrounded was no longer in regular use. Ms. Williams had told me
about the graves of the local, landowning family who had built the
church, and of the large number of memorials to children. She had
pricked my interest.

Later that same afternoon, I pulled into the
small driveway at the church to wander among the gravestones. There
was much that children could learn from these markers and I decided
to make some notes of things they could focus on.

It was October and there
was a fall chill in the air. I spent longer there than I intended,
deciphering fading inscriptions and reading about the landowning
family, whose exploits were written on their memorial stones. Not
only had the family built the church and given the land for the
graveyard more than 100 years before, they had also employed many
of those buried there. Though I knew that children’s graves were a
sad feature of many cemeteries of this era, this one seemed to have
far more than its share: too many dating from the 1918 flu
epidemic.

Dark clouds, a strengthening breeze, and an
awareness that I was late heading home, sent me back to the car. As
I passed the church, set on the edge among some trees, I tried to
identify an indistinct noise I could hear in the wind. It seemed to
be coming from inside the church, though I knew it was locked and
seldom used since the consecration of the new one, a few miles down
the road. I stood and listened, but could separate nothing from the
sound of wind in the trees.

Over the next few days, I did some research
on the church. I discovered that the landowner had been involved in
immigration in the 1870s.

Records showed that
General Laurie, who had his town house on Morris Street as well as
his estate at Oakfield, had brought out three families of
“agricultural labourers with their 17 children” on the SS
Hibernian
in August of
1873.

He was also responsible
for the placement of 76 “destitute children” arriving on the same
ship, brought from Mrs. Rye’s emigration home in England by a Mrs.
Birt. In April of the next year, the same lady arrived, again on
the
Hibernian
,
with close to 80 children, ages four to 16. General Laurie had the
responsibility of “distributing” these “Home Children” to families
throughout Nova Scotia.

He discontinued this work
soon after, possibly because of the criticism that annually, in
Halifax, there were “at least 50 little ones dying from starvation
in the hands of ‘nurses’.” A writer in the Halifax Evening Reporter
urged that this problem be addressed rather than using our
resources on imported waifs and strays.

Intrigued by this additional knowledge, I
wanted to revisit the graveyard to verify some inscriptions. I also
wanted to look inside the small church, where, I was told, hung
some plaques commemorating the general and his sons. I arranged to
borrow the key from the caretaker and stopped by on my way home
from school.

Again it was a late afternoon, darkened by
overhanging, threatening clouds sent scurrying across the sky by
chilly winds. I sought the information I needed from grave markers,
hurrying to beat the threatening rain.

I closely checked two
family markers. On each were recorded the birth and early deaths of
four children. I confirmed that these eight children were likely
those of estate workers brought to Canada by the
general.

When the storm began and the rain came, I
sought shelter, and further information, inside the church. I
unlocked the door and, as I stepped into the entrance way, I heard
the same noise that I thought I’d imagined on my previous
visit.

Someone was definitely crying, and it was
coming from inside the church.

Nervously, I peeked into
the chancel. There were about 12 rows of carved, wooden pews.
Towards the front sat a woman, head bowed and body racked with
sobs. Between the sobs I could hear her anguished words, “Why? Why?
Why?”

I knew there had been a burial in the
churchyard the previous week. I thought I must be intruding on
someone’s private grief at that loss. Without making my presence
known, I retreated. I felt so sorry for the woman and would have
liked to help, but couldn’t. It didn’t seem right.

As I discreetly closed the
church door behind me, I heard more words punctuating the cries. I
could only distinguish, “my babies, my babies....” as the wind and
the rain muffled the voice.

I got into my car and sat there a while,
wanting to allow the woman privacy for her grief, but needing to
return to the church before I had to return the key. I wondered why
the caretaker had not warned me that someone else had borrowed a
key and might need some private time.

While I waited, I rewrote my scribbled
notes. Through the rear view mirror I saw the door from the church
open. Through it stepped the woman. In the shadow of the dark
doorway she was being consoled by a tall man. With his arm around
her shoulder, he led her to the back of the church. I knew a path
wound through the woods back there, towards the large house where
the general’s descendants still lived.

In the brief moments before the couple
disappeared round the corner and into the trees, I got the
impression of a long dress beneath a black bonnet. The man seemed
to be wearing a tweed suit of a different style. But the rear
window was running with rivulets of rain and my glimpse was
fleeting.

I returned to the church, completed my
research, then closed it up and left.

As instructed, I placed
the key in a hiding place at the caretaker’s house. Later, I phoned
to make sure he had found it. I told him of the lady who had been
grieving, and of the man I hadn’t seen inside the church, but who
had escorted her as she left.

There was a long silence on the other end of
the phone. And then, “You’re the only person who has borrowed a key
today.” Another pause before, “Perhaps you saw the general?”

This time, the silence was
at my end of the phone. It was broken when the caretaker spoke
again, somewhat nervously: “They say that he felt for all those who
lost children, and, whenever he could, he’d visit the parents to
help them. He lost his own daughter when she was only 16. He felt
responsible for so many he’d brought here, so far from
home.”

He continued, “You’re not the first to hear
and see that mother crying. And nobody will walk that path between
the church and the big house after dark. Years ago people used to
talk about the Church Path ghosts.”