Out of the Mist (25 page)

But there the island sat:
only about 200 metres away, just off the Boutilier’s property. Such
an easy paddle to the beach in that little cove facing me: a place
to land and pull up the canoe. What was in those trees covering the
island? Perhaps somebody had lived there since Silas because there
were the remains of a dock beside the beach, and a sort of path
leading from it.

My idea was that this was
the time to explore the small island. It was perhaps 200 metres
long and less than that wide. Perhaps I’d find a clue to Silas’
treasure. Why didn’t Grandpa want me to visit this mysterious
place? I was intrigued.

Two hours would give me lots of time to
paddle out there, explore, and paddle back. What could be dangerous
in that? Unless Grandpa or my parents found out, and that wasn’t
going to happen.

It was an easy paddle to the island. I
beached the canoe and then I made my next mistake. I didn’t tie it
up. I was so keen to walk up that overgrown path that I didn’t
bother. I scrambled through the tangle of underbrush and spruce
trees until I spotted something ahead that looked like the ruins of
a building. Any thoughts of ghostly traps and pitfalls had gone
from my mind.

The building had once been a house, but the
roof, at one end, had collapsed. There were no windows left and the
door leaned open on one hinge. I wondered if it was safe to go
inside and what I might find.

Then I heard something that didn’t quite
belong. There were noises coming from behind the house. There was a
clanking noise but, in the background, was the sound of bells. For
a moment I remembered the story of the ghost. But I dismissed the
thought. I didn’t believe in ghosts anyway.

So I made yet another
mistake. I didn’t turn round and paddle back home. Instead, I
struggled round the side of the ruin to peep behind. The noises
were coming from high up in an ancient maple tree; I spotted some
wind chimes and several heavy metal pieces hanging and clanking
against one another in the freshening breeze.
Nothing to be scared of,
I
thought.

It was then I noticed what looked like a
stone poking above the grass and weeds in a small area that someone
had tried to keep clear.

Once I’d cleared the grass and other debris
away, I could see that it was a gravestone, and it had writing
carved into its face—a lot of writing. It took me quite a while to
scrape the lichen and moss off the stone so I could read what was
written. I know what it said because, once I’d read it, I copied it
down on a piece of paper crumpled in the bottom of my backpack.
There were two types of carvings. The words etched crudely at the
bottom, not as deep or clear as those at the top, were more
difficult to read.

Here lies

SILAS CRAWFORD.

September
13
^th
1864 - October 31
^st
1953.

They say I save and never spend.

My money’s safe, you can depend.

I never gave. I didn’t lend.

I used it well. No one can find,

Though many tried, the money that I left
behind.

And he that looks shall be left blind.

My treasure is for all mankind.

He lies! Silas the Miser kept it with
him.

It’s here, somewhere.

Take care! He guards it still.

Even if my name had not
been Colin Crawford, the tombstone messages would have intrigued
me. I’d gone this far; why not use the time I had left to look
farther? Maybe there was a fortune hidden here.

My errors were mounting up. The sun had gone
in and clouds were gathering as the wind crept even into the
sheltered, scrub crowded clearing. None of that caught my attention
in my eagerness to get into that ruin of Silas the Miser’s home, to
start my search for treasure.

The back door, leading into the part of the
house where the roof was almost intact, also hung open. As I looked
through it, I saw that daylight crept in through empty window
frames as well as holes in the roof and walls. I didn’t think about
what could be lurking in the shadows. There was enough light to go
in and explore.

I should have been more cautious, but I
wasn’t.

I stepped in through the doorway, forgetting
to check the floor. Two steps in and it gave way. I went crashing
into what must have been the basement. I crashed onto a hard floor,
all the breath knocked from my body and one leg crumpled beneath
me. Thank goodness I still had the lifejacket on. I think it saved
my back and ribs.

I lay there, the light barely able to
penetrate the hole I’d made above me. I tried three or four times
to sit up, but I couldn’t. My leg wouldn’t let me.

When I tried to straighten it to make
movement easier, it really hurt. I felt around for something that
would help me haul myself into a sitting position. There was
nothing, only spongy wood and some other, harder pieces. I picked
one up and held it to the dim light.

It was a bone, a long bone.

I screamed and threw it
away. Somehow I straightened my leg, though it was agony to do so.
Then I sat up, leaning back on my elbows. Half stunned, I peered
into the indistinct corners. Was something or someone moving in the
darkest of them? Had the ghost of Silas brought me to this perilous
situation? Was his spirit protecting his fortune from treasure
hunters like me? I shivered as I tried to dismiss these haunting
thoughts from my mind. That’s when I saw the first rat.

Before my imagination ran riot and created
more fear, it was disturbed by a bright flash of light that showed
the remains of stairs against the far wall.

Almost immediately there came the clap of
thunder and then the rain. But it wasn’t just a shower. It was a
sudden downpour that began to drench me, even in that half
sheltered basement.

The water began to flow down the walls and
in through the floor above me. A few minutes later, at the height
of the thunderstorm, I realized that the water was puddling around
me. The basement was flooding. I should move.

I dragged my hurting body over to the
staircase. My leg was useless as well as painful. When I reached
the stairs and tried to drag myself up them, I realized the steps
had rotted. They would not take my weight. I was trapped. There was
no way out.

But the next lightning
flash revealed water flowing down a ramp from another doorway, high
up in the far corner. The hatch at the top of the ramp had gone. If
I could crawl there, I could scramble up that ramp, if the water
streaming down didn’t stop me. As painful and difficult as it was,
I had to try.

I attempted to crawl but the pain in my knee
was excruciating and I must have passed out.

I came to in a pool of water.

The downpour was still
flowing into the basement. Water was now about half a metre deep in
places. If I collapsed into it, I could drown. Above me, on the
rotten steps, were rats escaping the flood. I realized that the
life jacket could help me get across the basement to that ramp. If
I lied down, let my legs float, and used my hands on the floor to
pull myself through the water, movement would be easy. Who knows
what my hands touched and grabbed on that basement floor, but I
made it and dragged myself a little way up the ramp.

That was as far as I could get. The ramp,
even after the thunderstorm stopped, was too much for me. I
couldn’t drag myself out. It was too steep and slippery. One leg
was useless and I was wet, cold, hurt, and exhausted. I must have
passed out again soon after it got dark. My last thought was that
this had to be the work of the ghost of Silas. I was caught in his
trap.

I came to as I was dragged up the ramp and
strapped onto a board. It was a backboard, brought in by the
paramedics; my grandpa and father had found me the next afternoon
and called them.

My family had returned from town in the
middle of the thunderstorm and wondered where I was. They figured
I’d been off walking and was sheltering until the rain stopped.

Mom was worried that I had been struck by
lightning. Then, as the rain eased off, Grandpa noticed that the
canoe was gone from the dock.

Before darkness fell, he and Dad got in the
other boat, and began to look for the canoe. It wasn’t where I’d
dragged it up. Instead, they found it adrift in the lake.

Everyone feared the worst. I’d gone out in
the canoe, gone overboard in the storm, and drowned. Grandpa
started a search of the lakeshore, and the island beaches while Dad
and Mom drove round and got everybody on the lake to check their
shoreline. Darkness fell and they hadn’t found what they were
looking for—my body. They all thought I had drowned.

Before dawn, Grandpa woke
up with a brainstorm. He realized he had forgotten to check
lifejackets. He saw that one was missing and hoped that I had been
wearing it. At first light they began to check the shoreline and
search the islands again. All the neighbours on the lake were
helping. The police and Search and Rescue had been informed. Of
course, the last island to be checked was the one Grandpa had
warned me about. He’d assumed that I had heeded his warning and
wouldn’t go near the place.

Wrong!

But they followed my trail from the beach,
through the brush, and to the tumbledown house of Silas
Crawford.

They realized that someone had cleaned off
the gravestone and decided to thoroughly check out the ruin. They
found me lying on the bottom of the ramp: dehydrated, unconscious,
and with torn knee ligaments.

I was first taken to the local hospital,
then sent for surgery back in the city. I was on crutches for some
weeks after surgery, until healing and the physio began to take
effect. I would have been in a lot more trouble, except they’d
found me alive, when they all believed I was dead.

In the hospital, Grandpa told me about the
island, the house, and about his uncle Silas who had made a lot of
money in the States. He’d come back, bought the island, and built
his house there. He had become a recluse in his old age and refused
to let anyone on his island, except his nephew, my grandfather,
whom he’d befriended. All the locals thought that Silas was filthy
rich, and even the family believed he was wealthy.

Eventually he died, alone,
on his island, where he’d lived for the last 30 of his 89
years.

It had taken two years to find his will,
which had been left in some safety deposit box in a Boston bank.
During that time, treasure hunters trashed the house and scoured
the island, looking for his hidden fortune. It had never been
there. One of them must have carved the words on the bottom part of
his tombstone some time later.

The will had revealed two
things. The first had confirmed his oft spoken wish to be buried on
the island, with the words I’d seen carved on his gravestone. The
second had been his desire to leave, anonymously, his considerable
fortune towards the building and upkeep of our local hospital. His
“treasure was for all mankind”.

And why had my grandfather kept us all away
from the island? He owned it, thanks to Silas’ will. But a
condition had been that no one could live on, or even visit the
island. Grandpa had encouraged the ghost stories, even though
Silas, when alive, had been far from evil. He was crotchety, rather
than scary and mysterious.

But
I had visited his island. I should have asked Grandpa to
explain the story and then, maybe, he would have taken me to
explore—safely.

But Grandpa did have the last word. He
willed me Crawford Island. Same condition applies. Nobody can visit
the island, unless I approve.

And no! I never did find that bone, or any
others, in that basement, when, for safety reasons, we had the old
house torn down. I still paddle over there every summer, just to
keep the gravestone clean.

This coming summer I plan to tell my son and
daughter about their ancestor, Silas. I’ll take them to visit his
island and see his gravestone. And then I’ll tell them about his
ghost.

~~~***~~~

Eternal Love

Wilma Stewart-White

The view was what had
drawn her to this house. Perched in the odd little dormer at the
top of the house, Clare could see the heaving sea for miles and
miles. The real estate dealer had told her the dormer was known as
a Lunenburg bump. A funny name for her favourite spot but she could
see why a sailor’s wife would want one. The view was spectacular on
clear days.

Today, though, the beach was almost
invisible through billows of fog. Stretches of sand appeared and
disappeared. The unearthly notes of the nearby foghorn made her
shiver.

“
On a night like this
anything could happen,” she whispered.

As she watched, she was amazed to see
figures on the beach.

“
Who would willingly go
out on a night like this?” she whispered to herself.

Perhaps she was imagining things—but no.
Once again she saw them. A couple walking slowly along arm in arm.
The woman was slightly bent over and seemed to be wrapped in a long
cardigan. Her companion was so thin, he was almost transparent.
They seemed oblivious to the inclement weather and the damp wisps
of fog wrapped around them. As she watched, they disappeared down
the far end of the beach. The maniacal laughter of the loons in the
pond shattered the silence. She shivered.

“
It’s just a goose walking
over my grave,” she muttered, thinking about that silly phrase from
her mother’s time.