The Tale of Halcyon Crane (24 page)

In one corner, I spied several boxes, trunks, and suitcases. Success! The boxes were clearly labeled: toys, clothes, coats. I found photos in one of the trunks, album after album, clearly marked and organized. I was about to sit down and begin going through generations of photos when I saw a box labeled noah and next to it, one for hallie. This stopped me in my tracks. My original reason for exploring the third floor forgotten, I sank to the floor and opened my father’s box,
finding his things neatly folded and stacked—a few clothes, books, ties, and other personal items—and, what interested me the most, two albums of photographs.

I held my breath as I opened one of them, an ache of longing and loss filling me as I saw my mother and father together for the first time. He looked younger, certainly, but it was the joy in his eyes that struck me most. I flipped through the pages, seeing the two of them on a picnic, at the lakeshore, posing arm in arm at the Grand Canyon (their honeymoon?) and she, in her youth, looking unsettlingly like the reflection I saw in the mirror each day. They had been happy then, in the early years of their relationship. These photos didn’t lie.

I pushed my father’s box to the side and held my breath as I opened the one with my name on it. A stuffed purple skunk gave off a vague scent of lilac and I knew that was his name, Lilac. A Raggedy Ann doll lay next to a white stuffed dog, who, like the Velveteen Rabbit, had become real as a result of all of the love I had undoubtedly given him during my childhood. His name came to me: Puppy Dog. I unfolded a tiny white sweater and a long white gown that I must have worn on my baptism day. I found a plaid jumper, which evoked the sense of autumn and sharpened number 2 pencils and a walk down the hill, lunchbox in hand, to a kindergarten class. I took a few books out of the box:
The Little Mermaid
(the Hans Christian Andersen version) along with
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates
and an entire boxed set of
Little House on the Prairie
books, their bindings still stiff and unread. All these things had been mine.

Here, too, were photographs. I had never seen any of my
early childhood—me as an infant and a toddler, happy and laughing and playing. Birthday parties and Christmases and summer celebrations. But as I flipped through these photos, I slowly realized that something seemed a little off; the images weren’t entirely happy and carefree. As I aged, the pictures began to evoke a slightly ominous feeling. Guilt and secrecy and even a bit of fear were hiding behind my eyes.

Faced with the artifacts of my forgotten childhood here in this house, things my grieving mother must’ve put away in remembrance of the husband and daughter she believed to be dead, I was overwhelmed. No wonder she kept that third-floor door locked, I thought. Better to shut away those painful memories.

That’s what I wanted to do then, too: get out of the dusty past and back down to the part of the house that lived in the present. I grabbed one box of old family photographs; I’d take them down to the sunroom and look there for the proof I was seeking. At the last second, I stashed Puppy Dog under my arm as well. I locked the hallway door behind me and made my way down the stairs, feeling a little lighter with every step.

I spent most of the the weekend going through those photographs. If it was proof I wanted, I certainly got it. I came upon a grainy shot of a young couple standing on the cliff, her long hair blowing in the breeze, his hat placed at a jaunty angle on his head: a handsome couple. But what struck me about the photo was the fact that I recognized Hannah and Simeon.
I knew their faces
. It hadn’t been my imagination,
then; I had actually seen them when Iris was weaving her tales. How? I had no idea.

I carefully picked up a small photo of a young boy and immediately knew it was Charles. He was lying in the barn with some animals around him, but I couldn’t make out exactly what sort of animals they were. I squinted to get a closer look, and all of a sudden it was as though the photo itself enlarged and opened, pulling me into its black-and-white world. I watched as Charles gathered up his books. “Let’s go!” he called to his menagerie, his sweet, cheerful voice filling my heart. I followed as he trotted out of the barn door, putting one foot in front of the other until I saw him again, this time sitting at a desk by the window in what looked to be a one-room schoolhouse. I noticed birds perched on the windowsills, dogs curled up outside the school house door, deer standing ready in the woods.
They’re really guarding him. It’s all true, then
.

The scene shifted and I saw children in the classroom teasing Charles—”The Pied Piper’s animals are here again!”—and Charles, undaunted, running happily outside into the midst of his mismatched flock.

A flurry of animals—bats, raccoons, squirrels—swept into my vision and out again, and I saw the children, the ones who had been taunting Charles, running home, crying all the way, a squirrel chasing one, a bat diving into the hair of another.

I took it all in, mesmerized by the black-and-white images of my grandfather as a boy, a small Dr. Dolittle. I held my breath hoping the scene wouldn’t fade, but soon enough it did, the barn dissolving and re-forming into a church, filled to the last pew with mourners. There was Hannah, dressed in black with a black veil over her face, sitting in the first pew,
a dashing and grown-up Charles by her side, and I knew I was seeing the funeral of my greatgrandfather Simeon.

In an instant, I was in this house, standing in the kitchen. There, I saw Hannah in her nightdress, her hair wild, her eyes searching, her lips mouthing words that found no sound. I stood at the window, watching her wandering outside in the rain, rubbing her hands together as though washing away blood.

Finally, I saw her stride purposefully toward the cliff:
No, Hannah!
I screamed it out, running toward her, but of course she couldn’t hear me. I wasn’t part of these scenes, I was only observing them. I could do nothing but watch as she stood on the edge of the cliff and simply leaned forward, falling in slow motion and hitting the ground below with a thud, a slumped and broken form, limbs splayed this way and that, lying in nearly the same spot where they had found her girls, years earlier.

I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the chaise in the sunroom. I sat up and shook my head, trying to make sense of what I had just seen. Photos were strewn about; the box I had been exploring was on its side on the floor. Had I fallen asleep? Had I dreamed everything?

Later, over dinner with Will, I opened one of the albums. “My grandfather,” I told him, showing him a photo of Charles with his animals.

He studied it, a slight smile on his face. “You know, I remember him quite well. Of course he was much older than this.”

“He was still alive when we were kids?” This hadn’t occurred to me.

Will nodded. “Everybody on the island trusted their horses to your grandfather, in addition to their household pets and livestock.”

“Iris said he had a knack for relating to animals, even at a very young age. Apparently he didn’t talk until he was five years old, and then one day he just started speaking in complete sentences.” I left out the part about the cougar.

Will took my hand. “You’re really enjoying hearing all of these stories about your family, aren’t you?”

I nodded. He didn’t know the half of it. “It means the world to me.” I closed the album, then. I could languish in my ancestors’ pasts with Iris, but with Will, I desired nothing but the here-and-now.

M
onday morning, after breakfast, Iris appeared at the back door.

“Will Archer says he knew Charles,” I announced.

Iris nodded. “Of course. Everyone on the island knew him. But Charles was an old man by that time. There’s much more to tell about his life up until then.”

With that tease of things to come, Iris set about her cleaning. I knew the story would have to wait until her work was done, around lunchtime, so I pulled on a jacket I found hanging by the back door and made my way outside and down the back stairs to the barn. I hadn’t yet been inside it. The horses were still with Madlyn’s neighbors; I had felt I had enough to deal with without learning the particulars of caring for horses, too. Now I pushed open the side door, and as it closed behind me I found myself nearly overcome by the sweet smell of hay. The barn was dark, but light was streaming in through the windows above the loft, illuminating the dust floating in the air this way and that. In the corner sat a woman’s bicycle with a basket on the handlebars: a few years old,
but not ancient. It must have been my mother’s, I thought; the tires were still inflated. What a perfect way to get around the island! Deciding to take it for a spin, I wheeled it outside into the sunshine, hopped on the seat, and pedaled out to the main road.

I didn’t feel like going down into town—the climb back up the hill to the house would be daunting on a bike—so I turned the opposite way and set off. The houses grew farther and farther apart until they ended altogether, and I found myself riding through the countryside. I love all seasons, but late fall is especially beautiful to me—the leaves have already said their spectacular goodbyes for the year, trees stand ready for the chill to come, everything else is browned and yellowed and dry. It is the time before the death of winter and the rebirth brought by spring.

Soon I rode into a forest of enormous cedar and red pine trees, towering high above my head. I spied an overgrown dirt path leading from the road deeply into the woods and remembered Iris’s description—was this possibly the way to Summer Glen? I steered my bike onto the path and pedaled slowly through the sweet-smelling trees, sunshine stubbornly poking its way between their great limbs.

The path opened up into a grassy field ringed by enormous ancient trees and covered with unlikely wildflowers: lupines, daisies, poppies, and tangles of wild rose bushes. What were they doing in bloom here, at this time of year? I noticed overgrown low-lying foliage I couldn’t identify, smelled the heady mixture of their perfumes as I set the bike’s kickstand on the ground to explore the area on foot. I
saw the crumbled remnants of an ancient fireplace, on what seemed to be the flat clearing for a house, and suspected I had indeed found Summer Glen.

This is fantastic
, I thought, as I held my breath and walked gingerly through the glen, not wanting to make any noise to stir up the memories that surely resided there. I closed my eyes and tried to use my “gift,” as Iris called it, and almost immediately I saw before me the images of wealthy society ladies sneaking their way here, cloaks covering their faces, each hoping Martine would work her magic for them. I thought of my great-grandmother, so desperate for a child that she’d turn to witchcraft to conceive one. My eyes grew wide as the thought hit me: None of us would have been born—not Charles, not my mother,
not me
—if not for the concoction Martine had given Hannah, right here on this spot.

I heard a voice, whispering in my ear:
Children conceived out of witchcraft are witches themselves, as are their children and their children’s children.
I thought of Charles’s otherworldly way with animals; was that his form of witchcraft? And what about these “visions” of mine?

Suddenly, I felt as though I wasn’t alone. Something—no, a lot of somethings—swirled in the air around me, brushing at me, nudging me. It was as if I were in the middle of a tornado of spirits. I ran toward the bike, but the rosebushes grew up to block my path, reaching and grabbing at me with their gnarled branches. I pushed my way through the brambles, the skin on my arms and legs tearing on the thorns until I reached the bike, hopped on, and pedaled
away as fast as I could. When I was safely inside the cedar forest, I braked to look at my arms and legs, which I assumed would be ripped raw and bleeding from the thorns. But I didn’t find so much as a scratch.

I pedaled toward home, wondering what, if anything, had happened in that glen.

Y
ou’ve been to the glen,” Iris stated, pulling a chicken-and-broccoli casserole out of the oven just as I burst through the back door.

I nodded, bending low to catch my breath. My leg muscles were throbbing and my throat was parched. I filled up a glass with cold water and drank it all in one gulp.

“You mustn’t go back there, not yet.” Iris had a stern look in her eyes.

“What is it about that place, anyway?” I asked, filling my water glass again and brushing the wet hair from my face. “I felt like . . .” My words trailed off. “I don’t know what I felt like.” I eyed the casserole, suddenly famished. After what I had just been through, I wanted only to immerse myself in the safety and familiarity of one of Iris’s tales. I settled into my chair, took a bite of the steaming casserole, and listened as she cleared her throat and began to speak.

“After Hannah’s death, life went on here in the house. We had a very companionable existence for the next few years.
Charles built a thriving business while I ran the household, supervising a staff of three. I’d have breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table for Charles every day. He had grown into such a fine man.

“Of course, he never stopped mourning his beloved mother and father. I believe that’s what drew him to Amelia, the woman who would become your grandmother. I thought she bore a striking resemblance to Hannah; they had the same fiery eyes.

“Amelia’s parents—a wealthy Irish couple from Chicago by the name of Fister—had built a vacation home on the island several years earlier. Charles had a bit of contact with the Fister family over the years; he had seen Amelia once or twice and never thought much about her. But the year Hannah died, Amelia came to the island with her parents. Her father, no fool, hoped to interest the handsome, rich, and single veterinarian in his daughter, so he arranged a party where they could be introduced.