The Possession (2 page)

In books you always read about these moments. Crickets clicked, or birds called, or someone’s watch ticked, marking time. Maybe all three.

In real life, the only thing you really hear until you recognize that person is your own heavy breathing, that being indicative of the fact that you are in the middle of nowhere with no possible help nearby.

“Your aunt sent me.”

The pruners remained hoisted. My legs folded gratefully. My butt hit the ground, relieving the pressure on my arm from holding my whole body in the air, as his outstretched arm dropped to his side.

“I’m Zach. You’re starting at Sarah?”

My eyes flashed around the graveyard then to the small stone. I pulled my knees up and rested my arms on them. “She’s just a baby.”

When I turned my gaze back to Zach, his eyes were on me. “It happened. Times were tough.”

As though he’d been there from the start, he retrieved the bag and began to stuff my cuttings into it.

“I’m Daphne.”

“I know.”

His eyes flicked over to me. The flash of a grin revealed he knew he was being a pain, and I could barely keep my own lips from giving me away with a smile. I hurriedly snipped some more overgrowth and tossed it toward him. It disappeared into his bag.

We worked side-by-side in silence, clearing Sarah’s resting place and spreading outward from there. Her mother’s stone sat beside hers and we tidied that. Her dad’s seemed to be missing.

“What do you suppose happened to Mr. P.?” I asked, needing to hear Zach’s voice again, wanting more conversation.

“He wasn’t allowed here. Christians only in church-blessed ground, you know.”

I stared at the mother’s stone.
Dorothea. Devoted mother.

“Who says he wasn’t a Christian?” For some reason I felt defensive.

“He wasn’t.”

I stared at him, considering his words. Mostly, though, I just wanted to make him think I was thinking about them, to give me more time to check him out. His hair, straight, near-black and shiny, was pulled back from his face into a ponytail that brushed the base of his neck. His skin was brownish, like a tan but not really. Besides, it was too early for that. His eyes were almost almond-shaped, but not quite, in a not-quite round face. He was tall and thin but not gawky like a lot of the boys I knew.

I think he was older than most of the boys I knew.

He had very nice lips. They were starting to smile.

My face went beet red, I could feel it. Busted! Damn.

“Where do we go from here?”

My heart started hammering, but he pointed up toward the gate, then down along the back fence.

“Th-the back,” I managed to stammer—so smooth. What an idiot.

He walked away. He must think me such a baby, such a fool.

Zach retrieved my canvas bag from near the gate and brought it to the back of the cemetery, gathering his yard sack along the way. As he passed me, he cocked his head toward the back row. “What, you need an invitation? It was your call!” and tossed my canvas bag to me.

Two hours later we packed it in. The sun sat low enough to indicate the time and our watches confirmed it. Zach walked me back to the lighthouse but mostly because he had to. Once he got me to admit I couldn’t do it on my own, it took both of us to lug the filled waste bag over our shoulders.

“I’m sorry if I scared you.” He huffed as we neared the tree line, the lighthouse lawn stretching just beyond the border of trees.

“I don’t scare easy,” I exclaimed. “If the gate was proper, I’d’ve known you were there.”

“Proper?”

“It used to have a brass bell on it. A ‘blessing called to sea’ every time a loved one went to pay respects. Everyone in the cemetery is tied to the sea, you know.”

His dark eyes studied me, taking in the lesson.

Zach said goodbye and left after we dumped the bag at my aunt’s trash corral. I caught sight of him, though, just inside the tree line, hovering until I closed the door.

What my mom and aunt would call a gentleman.

Me? I wasn’t so sure.

Aunt’s potatoes weren’t good. Watery and too little salt. I would have eaten a bucket of them, though, to keep her at the table tonight. Instead, I blurted a question I knew would glue her to her seat, after-dinner chores forgotten.

“What’s a dirty Indian?”

My aunt’s fork snapped to the tabletop beside her plate, her version of a polite placing of the utensil when something upset her.

“Why do you ask?”

I placed my fork beside my plate with gentle care, swallowing the last of the pasty potatoes in my mouth without facial expression, so as not to insult her. Then I looked directly into her eyes.

“That’s what Gary called Zach. You know, the kid with the grass seed in town. The one you sent to help me out at the cemetery.”

Aunt Dwill studied me, obviously wondering about the reason behind the question. If she’d sent him to me, she evidently thought him okay. If she thought him okay, I should think him okay. And I had stuck up for him in town without even knowing anything about him.

I wanted to know about him.

“Zach isn’t dirty, Aunt.”

“No, he isn’t, Daphne. That isn’t meant as a factual statement. It’s a slur. Some people need a way to make themselves feel superior, and insults top their list.”

She rose, taking my plate on top of hers, and headed to the sink. I gathered the glasses and placed them beside the dishes as she wiped a cloth across the kitchen table.

“That’s kind of lame. Why dirty?”

Aunt Dwill rinsed the dishes. “There’s a history of poverty for the Indians here. It’s meant as a double slam; not just untrustworthy, but too poor to wash up, and too ignorant to care about it.”

A thought occurred to me.

“What do they call me?” I took the dishes and placed them into the dishwasher.

She turned to me, surprised. More, I think, because she assumed I had heard it, not that I’d never voiced the question before.

“The town kids call you
vacationer
.”

I had to clear up her misconception.

“No, Aunt. What would the Indian kids call me?”

She hesitated but a moment. “I don’t know,” she answered, “except maybe a pain in the ass if you were one.”

With a quick grin in my direction, she turned from the sink and slapped her leg. “C’mon, Rowdy. Time to go check the lights.”

Her bullmastiff leapt to his feet from his mat in the corner. It always surprised me that such a large dog could move so swiftly. He loved to prowl the lighthouse keep after dinner and after dark, making him the perfect dog for my aunt, considering her occupation.

Aunt nodded toward the sink. “Finish up the dishes, Daphne.”

“Sure.”

She hustled from the kitchen.

I finished the dishes then put Rowdy’s food and water out, so he’d have his meal when they returned.

Showered and changed, I intended to greet Aunt Dwill and Rowdy at the kitchen door. I entered the kitchen to find my aunt letting Rowdy back in. She spotted me and called, “I’m going to go gas up the truck, Daphne. I’ll be right back.”

Rowdy ignored me, heading straight for his dish, but stopped suddenly a foot away from it. He cocked his head in my direction. Whining, snapping with a woof at the air beside me, he refused to eat from his dish. His head tilted, he growled.

I glanced over my shoulder. “What’s the matter, boy?”

When I turned back, he’d lowered his head, not in submission but in a threatening kind of way. I moved away from the area of his bowls. He put his face to them, but not without one eye in my direction.

He’d never acted this way before. I moved slowly, quietly to the kitchen door and slid through, into the front hall. My hands, pressed against the door’s wood, trembled.

Hopefully, Aunt Dwill would hurry back.

*    *    *

It was nearly noon by the time I headed out to the cemetery. Though I hadn’t slept well after the Rowdy incident, I’d still risen early. Today, we cleaned the lights, no small task. Aunt and I did not believe in cutting corners. Once breakfast was finished, we applied ourselves to the task as though fuel still burned, residue clinging to the glass. No ship would go down on our watch.

Satisfied with our work, we stored the cleaning materials and Aunt Dwill sent me on my way.

The cemetery gate stood proudly at attention, scraped clean of old paint and with a new first coat. As I pushed it open gingerly, I heard the low hum of a motor.

I dropped my canvas bag of tools at my feet and scanned the forest in the direction of the sound.

Zach rumbled into view. He rode a narrow, old fashioned tractor, pulling a small flatbed-type contraption behind him. His hair hung down today, a rolled bandana headband keeping it from his eyes and face. He pulled up beside the gate.

Once he’d climbed down from the tractor, he smiled. I discovered the meaning of a smile lighting up the place. My heart banged oddly in my chest.

“Work as hard as you want today. We don’t have to carry it this time.” Then he finger-slapped the visor of my hat. “Smart.”

I watched him take a small bag from the tractor before I turned to head to the back corner of the cemetery, where we’d left off yesterday.

Zach called out, “Daphne. Hold on.”

I’d never been overly thrilled with my name, but in that moment I loved the sound of it.

I turned back toward him, and he motioned me forward with a wave. As I stopped beside him, he lifted something from the bag he held and presented its content to me.

The small brass bell shone brightly in my hand. When I grabbed it by the top and lifted it to eye level, the crisp tinkle sounded through the woods.

“For the gate,” he said.

I turned to the gate and for the first time noticed a small S-link hanging from the center scroll. My eyes returned to the bell and the hook-eye at its top telling me it’d be a perfect fit.

I hooked the bell onto the gate.

Zach pushed it open then pulled it closed. The bell sounded in both directions. He turned to me, dark eyes unreadable.

“Blessing called to sea,” he said.

My heart swelled, though I wasn’t sure why. A sea-tinged breeze ruffled my hair. “For Sarah,” I replied.

He returned my smile when it broke through with a nod of agreement. “For Sarah.”

We both bent to retrieve my canvas bag, but Zach’s arms were longer. I led the way toward the back of the cemetery and the cracked stone in the second-to-last row that had been our stopping point yesterday. Zach passed behind me when I stopped.

Say you’ve missed me
.

I spun in his direction, confused by the half-whispered comment. “What?”

Zach knelt beside the canvas bag, pulling my work gloves and garden tools from it and placing them on the ground by our feet. He never looked up.

“Why did you say that?” I questioned, my mouth dry and heart shooting quivers across my chest.

His head came up with a jerk, perhaps due to the tone of my voice.

“Huh? Say what?”

I went to repeat the words, but a sudden heat in my face prevented it. “You know,” I responded instead.

“No, I don’t.”

He looked sincere. Still, I had heard the words. Maybe it embarrassed him that I’d caught him? My gaze fell away from his face. Maybe I’d just imagined it. Aunt thought I’d over-dramatized the whole snapping Rowdy incident.

“Never mind,” I mumbled.

With a shrug, Zach finished emptying the bag. I knelt beside him in the leaves and twigs as he handed me my gloves. He pulled a pair from his back pocket for himself, tugged them on, and began to yank the larger plants growing haphazardly around the headstones. As they released their grip on the soil, he tossed them into a pile near the still-folded lawn bag. I dug into my own work, ignoring Zach’s curiosity and his attempts to catch my eye.

As the afternoon passed, I gradually shook the uncomfortable net that had settled over me, and Zach and I talked. He’d graduated this June and waited to hear on scholarship applications for the Fisheries and Wildlife degree he wanted to pursue.

I was impressed, and reluctant to admit that I was a junior and still uncertain of my future. He had gone to an uncle’s house in Nova Scotia every summer since Sophomore year, having won the right to participate in their Native Youth Fisheries and Wildlife Program. He’d won a work study scholarship in the pilot program with the Mi’kmaq Mi’kmaq Fish and Wildlife Commission.

“Their goal is to introduce Indian teens to the field of wildlife conservation. It’s a six-week program, running three days a week. On my other two days, I worked in a stable for my uncle’s friend.”

He never broke his work stride and I could imagine him well-thought of on both sides of the border.

This thought warming me, the bell on the gate suddenly rang out.
Ting-ting-ting-ting-ting
.

Zach and I instantly cranked our necks in that direction. The bell swayed, coming to stillness after such a ringing. The gate remained closed. The breeze barely stirred a leaf.

Our gazes shifted, locking on each other, then back to the gate. Instinctively, we moved closer together, closing rank. Zach’s hand reached toward mine, but he stopped. I flipped my hand palm-up and reached for his.

“The town kids would crucify you.”

My gaze flicked back to his face. Though his blue-black eyes scanned the trees beyond the gate, I knew he watched me. I reached again. He pulled back. My eyes narrowed.

“It’s bad enough you spoke up in town, Daphne, to that group. Really. You have no idea.”

My face flushed.

“I don’t miss much.”

Then he turned his eyes toward me and smiled. It was sad and sweet and inviting and invigorating.

I grabbed his hand firmly in mine. “I don’t care much what they think.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, but his fingers closed over mine. Together we rose as one to our feet.

Nothing.

We turned slowly, back to back surveying the woods beyond the cemetery borders then shoulder to shoulder and facing the gate once more. Something odd tinged the air.

I felt enclosed. Suffocated. Before I could speak, I saw a blue-white flash and started to fall.