Haunted Harbours (14 page)

The art of telling tales is a little like that old-fashioned game of telephone. You know the one, where the first person writes down a one-sentence story and then whispers it to another person in the room, who whispers it to a third, until the last person in the party retells the sentence out loud to see how much has been lost or gained in the translation.

This is a tale that was told to me by my wife, Belinda. She heard it from her sister Barb, who says they've been telling this tale a hundred different ways up around Wittenburg, Nova Scotia.

This is how I like to tell it. If you'd like you can tell it to someone else the best way you know how. I won't be insulted if you should happen to misquote me; I'll just blame it on a bad connection.

Tamsen was a wandering child. Anywhere she wasn't supposed to be was where you'd likely find her. And finding her was often the greatest problem. Every time her mother or father called her, Tamsen decided it was a fine time for hide-and-go-seek.

“You can't find me,” she'd call. “You can't find me.”

She was right about that, for Tamsen was the best of hiders. She could hide in a shadow, behind a root, or under the mossy edge of a rock. She could hide in places you would never think to look.

“A yonder-girl,” her grandfather called her. “That Tamsen is a yonder-girl. Wherever you look for her, she's gone yonder.”

It was true. Tamsen always wondered what was behind each tree, where each road led, and what lay over the distant ridge of the Wittenburg Hills. Tamsen would play tag with the clouds, chasing them through the fields, trying to catch them. She jumped for birds and whistled for squirrels and hunted after the river endlessly.

“That girl is up to no good,” her mother said, shaking her head sadly.

But her father, who had been a long-distance trucker and had worked the railroad line, understood the secrets that were hiding in Tamsen's heart. She was a yonder-girl and dreamed of being somewhere else.

Then one bright November morning, Tamsen wandered too far away.

November is a tricksy month. A day will start out as bright as springtime, but by the afternoon the chill will snap the air and you'll see your breath painting pictures on the wind.

Tamsen set out early that day trying to track the sun. She figured if she followed it far enough, she'd find out where it went down to bed.

Only the sun was faster, and when suppertime came and Tamsen hadn't shown up, the townsfolk went out to look for her.

They wandered the hills of Wittenburg, hunting far and wide for the little girl. They carried lanterns as the night fell on, calling for her, turning over rocks, poking through shadows, and nosing beneath whatever tumble-down log they could find. Caves and nooks and crannies were turned out and over.

Some swore they heard her calling in the distance. “You can't find me, you can't find me.” Others claimed they saw her flitting through the darkness, as elusive as the will-o'-the-wisp.

Those who heard her couldn't find her, and those who saw her couldn't catch her.

They searched for three whole days and on the evening of the fourth, they gave the search up as hopeless as an early frost set in.

Not all of them gave up: Tamsen's father continued to search the Wittenburg Hills night and day, carrying a lantern and calling out “Tamsen! Tamsen!” until his voice was hoarse. He searched for weeks, only coming home once in a while to eat.

Then one night he wandered off in his hopeless search and never returned.

They buried a small white casket in the Wittenburg grave-yard, under a small, round, white marble stone with a picture of a lamb engraved upon it. The casket was empty, of course, but Nova Scotia folk, living as close to the ocean as they do, have long grown used to the notion of burying an empty casket.

Later that week, when Tamsen's mother went out to the graveyard, the stone was gone. At first she thought that her grief-stricken mind was deceiving her. She brought the sexton out and he looked at his graveyard map; indeed, Tamsen's round stone wasn't where it was supposed to be.

They searched the graveyard until they found the missing stone three sections over, in the sheltered lee of a leaning gray willow.

“Teenagers,” the sexton grumbled. “Pranks and horseplay. No telling what they'll be up to next. I'll move the stone back to where it belongs.”

“No,” Tamsen's mother said. “She's buried here. I can feel it.”

Now the sexton had dealt with many a grief-stricken parent before this. He spoke to her as gently as he could, letting his words fall down around her as softly as the gentle autumn leaves.

“You have to let her go,” he said. “Your daughter's dead and buried and it's time for you to move on. I'll dig the stone up and move it back to where it belongs.

Tamsen's mother would have none of that. She snatched the sexton's spade away from him and hefted it like an axe.

“If you don't let me dig up my daughter, then I'll stave your head in with this little rusty spade and you can dig one more grave for yourself.”

The sexton didn't pause to see if she would make good on her threat; he stepped back and let her dig her grief out. The distraught mother set to digging. Once or twice the sexton made as if to help her, but she spurned his help, snarling at him like an angry mother wolf. Within twenty minutes she'd dug down far enough to come to her daughter's coffin, the small, white, painted box that they'd buried three lots over.

Tamsen's mother stared up at the sexton, dirt on her face and hands. The sexton could only shake his head in bewilderment. This went far beyond any mere prank. The entire grave had up and moved overnight.

“Shall I dig her up and place her back where she belongs?” he asked.

Tamsen's mother shook her head.

“No sense in that. She'll only get to wandering whenever the mood strikes her. She's her father's daughter.” She looked up towards the far-off hills. “Perhaps she's even looking for him.”

So they let Tamsen lie, but she didn't stay put for long, and she hasn't yet.

The people of Wittenburg still talk about the wandering grave-stone that moves from place to place and is never where you expect it to be. They'll tell you how people have sat up nights watching it, and sometime during the night between a blink and a nod the tombstone will move. They'll tell you that some days you can't even find it. You might think you see it, that small round white marble stone, and yet as you get closer, it seems to move or change shape or just fade away.

There's some that'll tell you about the phantom light that's seen wandering the bogs and woodlands about the Wittenburg Hills, the ghost of Tamsen's father, still wandering in search of his daughter. But none of them dare speak of the sounds you hear in the Wittenburg graveyard when the November wind is whispering soft and low through the fallen autumn leaves: the high-pitched giggle of a wandering girl and her soft, haunting call, “You can't find me; you can't find me.”

LAST WORDS

I'd been storytelling for hours, like I was caught in some kind of a spell. I looked up, and except for me and the old man, the upstairs of the Archives seemed empty.

I cleared my throat. “I've talked a spell,” I said.

Garnet nodded his head with a soft ghost of a smile.

“Now that's a fine string of stories,” he said. “Fancy and imagination, a wink and a grin. A hint of magic and the merest bone of fact. Yes sir, you are a story-teller, and I take my hat off to you.”

He tipped his hat and bowed, and then the lights dimmed in the Archives. There was a soft flicker like a bit of heat lightning, and I felt a chill run barefoot across my soul.

The old man was gone.

“Sir?”

I looked over at at the voice calling me; it was the young clerk, whom I'd seen earlier, bustling by with a rack of books.

“The Archives are closing, sir. You can't stay here. We're shut-ting down for the night.”

“Of course,” I said, feeling all at sea. “I lost track of the time, talking to Garnet.”

“Who, sir?”

“Garnet —the old man who was up here. I was talking to him the whole day.”

“Yes, sir. You were here the whole day. I saw you several times, leaning on the map case, gazing off into nowhere. I figured you were thinking, or maybe just reading.”

“I was talking to Garnet.”

“You were alone, sir —alone all day.”

I looked around me. There was nothing but shadows and the shelves loaded with stories.

“Of course,” I said. “I was just daydreaming.”

We took the elevator down to the main floor. The woman was standing by her desk, eager to be off to a tavern or perhaps a Halloween movie.

I looked at the clerk one more time.

“Are you sure I was alone?” I asked.

“All alone, sir.”

I stepped out into the Halifax evening air, and they closed the door behind me. The wind whispered softly about me, sending a chill through my bones. I could hear the hush of traffic whisking past, the call of a distant seagull, and the laugh of an old man.

I found my way to an honest tavern, where I listened to a gui-tar, a tin whistle, and a bagpipe. They sang the old tunes, and a couple of fellows sat and talked with me of the day and the weather and the sports— nothing of consequence.

Just once, I thought I saw Garnet, sitting in the shadows and laughing at my confusion, but when I looked again, there was nothing but shadow and a mystery.