Dead of Winter (23 page)

“Get out! Get out!” he yelled.

Pounding at the door. “Andre, open the door!” called Father Xavier.

Andre snapped his eyes open. The twins were gone. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, wearing his robe. Three oil lamps were still burning. He released a breath of relief. Another dream.

The knocking continued.

“I’m coming.” He checked his watch. Midnight. After pulling his robe closed and tying it into a knot, he opened the door. Father Xavier was standing in the hall fully dressed in his cassocks and holding his black case. “I heard you screaming.”

“I had a nightmare,” he said, breathing heavily. “The twins tried to seduce me again. I know who they are now.” Andre shared a story of when he was twelve. He had entered the houseboat where his twin cousins lived. It was a brothel full of women sitting on the laps of sailors and dockworkers. The twins took him back to their room and molested him. He felt so ashamed. “Tonight, in my dream, they turned into demons.”

Father Xavier began flicking holy water on the door and walls. “Get dressed and prepare for a long night of ritual. As I’ve suspected, Andre, you are being stalked by a pair of succubae.”

Part Nine

Illusions

83

Another week passed without an outbreak of the cannibal disease. Since the canoe brigade left for Montréal, Fort Pendleton had remained locked down like a prison. No one had left the confines of the fort, nor was anyone let in. The Ojibwa had migrated to the south end of their reservation. The snowstorms had stopped. The woods remained quiet. The pack of hungry beasts seemed to have moved on to other feeding grounds.

Relieved of his detective duties, Tom had passed the time holed up in his cabin. The hermit life had become a quiet haven for healing and staying out of trouble. He played countless hands of Solitaire, ate, slept, and whittled. He already had his own collection of odd-shaped figurines. None of the animal totems looked as finely crafted as Anika’s, or even like animals for that matter, but Tom was still developing his skills. “Whittling takes patience,” she had told him. “Let the spirits teach you, and you will get better.” He didn’t believe Anika’s talk of woodland spirits and manitous, but he did like the way whittling occupied his mind, and especially the way he felt after finishing a piece.

He returned to the rocking chair that had become his whittling chair. He sat facing out his back window at the spiked fence that surrounded the fort. The twilight, made pink by the setting sun, was fading into another night. For the first time in three years, Tom wasn’t afraid to face the night sober. Something had changed in him since he started whittling. His mind was clearer. His willpower was the strongest it had been in years. He was physically stronger too from chopping logs daily, even though he had enough wood to whittle for months to come.

Holding his knife, he wondered what animal he could whittle next. He did as Anika had suggested last week,
First ask yourself what you would like to give away so that it no longer burdens you. Then ask the wood what spirit it would like to become.

He contemplated what burdens he wanted to give away. He felt into the pain inside his chest. It didn’t take long to connect with the sadness. He missed his wife. Even though she had been gone for over three years, her ghost was still with him. “I wish to release the pain of missing Beth.” Announcing the intention flooded Tom with emotions. Part of him didn’t want to let her go. He searched a crate of sticks for the right piece of wood, but none seemed to call to him. Then he felt a sudden urge to go into his son’s room. The feeling was similar to the hunches he experienced when doing detective work. He entered Chris’ room. At the back wall was a shelf displaying animal totems that the boy had whittled. All of them were finely crafted. Chris really had a gift. Tom wished he could have appreciated it when his son was alive.

Why am I in here?

And then he saw it. The flute that Chris had been whittling the night they got into a fight. Tom picked up the flute. Several holes were unfinished. Half of the shaft was intricately carved with a buffalo locking horns with an elk. The rest of the hollowed out stick was blank. Tom felt a familiar tingling in his hands. This was the stick.

He sat back in his rocking chair, clutching the flute to his chest. “I wish to release the pain of missing Beth. What spirit would like to appear in this wood?”

As he said this, he heard a hooting sound. He looked out the window. The snow owl that he’d seen a week ago landed atop the stockade wall. Tom laughed. “I guess I’m supposed to whittle an owl.”

With his knife, he began shaving off small splinters along the shaft. He tried not to think, to just let the blade guide him. He hollowed out two more holes and blew out the shavings. The flute made a sound that was much prettier than before. Smiling, he turned the instrument over to the end opposite to the sparring buffalo and elk. He began carving a pattern into the blank wood. All of Tom’s sadness rose to the surface. Tears welled in his eyes as he saw what the blade was carving. It was a woman’s face. Beth’s face.

84

Tom awoke the next morning to the sound of an angel singing.

Am I still dreaming?

He rubbed his face. Gray light filtered in through the bedroom windows. He felt lighter, peaceful. Last night he had whittled well past midnight. He had cried for hours as he carved his wife’s visage into the flute. He had spoken to her ghost, as if Beth were there in the room with him. He reminisced about their happy times together. Then something amazing happened. His cravings to drink went away. He slept straight through the night.

Today was a fresh new day. As he stretched in bed he heard the angel singing again, along with the sound of pots banging in the kitchen.

Tom sat up. Someone was inside his cabin! Was Anika back? If he had been stone-cold drunk, he might have made the mistake of sleeping with her again. But last night he had gone to bed alone.

He climbed out of bed and pulled on his trousers over his red long johns. The floor was cold, so he slipped into his boots. He opened his bedroom door to the smell of frying bacon. He froze. There in his kitchen, cooking at the stove, stood his long-dead wife.

85

Propelled by a paddlewheel, the steamboat rightly named
Persistence
trudged up the Ottawa River. Father Xavier walked along the upper decks. Snow flurries speckled his heavy coat and Russian mink hat. He kept his hands warm in his pockets. His fists clutched around a metal cross and flask of holy water that he now carried with him everywhere.

After leaving Montréal a week ago, the vessel had crossed over from French Quebec into British Ontario. They might have reached Ottawa sooner were it not for the sheets of ice that floated over the surface of the river. There was only a narrow channel of open water, and oftentimes the ice raked against the sides of the boat. The steamer had gotten stuck once, but the ice chippers jumped into their dinghy and broke it up.

Today there was a crowd of onlookers up on deck. At the corner rail, a couple was feeding bread to some seagulls. The passengers were a mixture of Brits, Scotch, French, Irish, Danes, Americans, and even a Chinaman. It seemed the farther west they traveled, the more Canada was becoming as culturally diverse as Europe.

Father Xavier spotted Andre at the bow, leaning over the rail. He wore his flat-brimmed hat and a heavy, gray coat over his cassock.

“
Bonjour
, Andre. How did you sleep last night?”

“Peaceful, Father. I haven’t dreamed of the twins since the hotel.”

Andre had a healthier complexion to his face. Father Xavier almost lost another apprentice to the dark forces. Last week at the hotel, Andre had faced the demons of his past and summoned up enough faith to fight them. Father Xavier spent that entire night performing a ritual to keep the succubae at bay.

“You should feel great confidence in yourself, Andre. Female demons can be the most challenging for a man to conquer.”

“Looking back on it, it was a relief to finally face what happened with my cousins. Their abuse when I was a boy tormented me for years. I feel different now. More awake.”

“Splendid.” Father Xavier grinned. “Then tell me what you’ve learned in your reading.”

Andre paused to reflect. “Hmm, an exorcist must not easily believe that a person is possessed by an evil spirit. He should be able to distinguish a possessed person from someone merely suffering from a physical illness.”

“And what are the signs of a possessed person?”

“He speaks or understands unknown languages, like Aramaic. And he can show physical strength beyond what’s normal for his age and build.” Andre scrunched his eyebrows together. “Father, how do you know if an exorcism is successful?”

The boat dipped with the rapids, and Father Xavier gripped a rail. “That is often hard to tell. Sometimes the evil spirit goes into hiding and appears to have left the body. An exorcist must always be wary that the demon may be tricking him. You must follow up with the recovering person to see if they show any more signs. You must learn what words agitate the demon out of hiding. Only time can tell if the person is free and clear of the evil spirit.”

They paused to take in the beauty as the forest landscape transformed into the wood structures of an approaching river town. Along the shore stood a mill where logs floated. Lumbermen worked along the shores, guiding the logs. Steamboats, York boats, dinghies, and canoes all competed for space in the icy harbor.

“We’re finally reaching Ottawa,” Andre said. “I’m ready to stand on still land again.”

“It would be a delight if we could find a place to have breakfast.” Father Xavier looked down the starboard side. The steamer was paddling toward a dock. Seagulls flew by, cawing toward a dinghy where fishermen were carrying buckets filled with this morning’s catch. Several wood buildings lined the pier. “Ah, I see a tavern up ahead. Perhaps they’ll have some coffee and eggs.”

The steamboat’s captain yelled at the crew as the vessel bumped against the docks.

“We’re halfway through our journey, Father. But the river ride only gets harder.” Andre pointed toward a group of voyagers packing two long canoes.

86

Tom stood mesmerized by the miracle he was seeing.

He was somehow back inside his Montréal house. In the kitchen, Beth Hatcher hummed as her powdery hands prepared breakfast. She was wearing an apron over a long, green gown with buttons that went up the front to a lacy collar. It was the dress she often wore when they went to mass. She turned away from him, pulling a tray of biscuits from the oven. The side of Beth’s face seemed to glow in the morning light. Her blonde hair, not yet fastened into a bun, dangled over her shoulders.

If he were still dreaming, Tom didn’t want to wake up.

He entered the kitchen, his legs shaking. Warm feelings sparked the core of his heart, reigniting an old flame. The angel hummed a beautiful tune, the melody of a woman in love. She scraped eggs off the iron skillet.

He stood directly behind her now, breathing slow and deep, inhaling her perfume. Lilacs and orange blossom. The scent took him back to a time when the love between two young newlyweds was in full bloom. Tom and Beth had married in France, where Tom was working at the time. On their honeymoon, they traveled the countryside visiting several small villages. As they were riding an open carriage on a sunny day, the air became filled with the aroma of citrus. The landscape changed from vineyards to orchards of orange trees blooming with white blossoms. Entering a Provence called Grasse, they passed a sign that read,
Manufacture de Parfum
.

Beth’s blue eyes had lit up. “Oh, Tom, can we stop there?”

He checked his pocket watch. “We need to keep on schedule to make our train.”

In truth they had hours to spare before they needed to leave for Paris, but Tom had no interest in touring a perfume factory. Beth pleaded him, winning him over with her infectious enthusiasm. She had used this tactic to talk him into visiting art museums, old cathedrals, a chocolate factory, and a dreadfully boring night at the opera. Once again Tom acquiesced and instructed their horse buggy driver to turn down the dirt road that wound through the orange trees. The tour of the perfume factory turned out to be the highlight of their trip. The stone buildings, set in the center of the orchard, had once been a monastery. The factory workers who brought in baskets of fresh-picked flowers were smiling and laughing. The perfume makers were an elderly French couple who bickered in a playful way. The man had tufts of white hair spiking from his cheeks, and the woman was tall and slender with a youthful gleam in her eye. The older couple took the newlyweds on a private tour. In an open-air room where flower petals were poured into glass vats of boiling oils, they described the process of making the perfect fragrance.

At one point, while the ladies sniffed scented gloves, the old man escorted Tom off to one side where they had a view of the purple fields of lilac. “
Messier
, I must say, you have selected a beautiful blossom.”

Tom nodded and looked across at Beth. She made eye contact, smiling as she held a white glove to her nose and listened to the talkative woman ramble about rose petals. Tom’s chest swelled. “I feel like I’m the luckiest man.”

The old man waggled his finger. “You know, the secret to making the perfect perfume is mixing just the right ingredients. Some say the rose is the scent of love, but I say the pathway between two hearts is lilac.” He went to another sun-kissed window that had no glass, but was merely a square portal bordered with honeysuckle. Beyond stretched the orchard of orange trees. The old perfume maker inhaled deeply then released a long, drawn-out breath. “The citrus scent of the orange blossom adds a touch of sweetness.” He picked up a purple bottle off a shelf. “This is a fragrance I call
Embrasser de Paradis
. The Kiss of heaven. I made it for my wife when we were young and I was just learning how the power of a woman’s love can enrich a man’s life.” He handed the bottle over to Tom and winked. “A wedding gift. May your marriage always smell as sweet as mine.”