PROLOGUE


“Noooo!” Lady Glynis wakes with a start, gasping for breath. Her scream brings her handmaidens running from the adjoining alcove. They move with haste to the Lady’s bedside where she’s sitting up in disheveled bedding, panting and grasping at the coverlets with boney fingers, her dark hair wild and tangled.

“My Lady what has happened?” Annalisse grabs her thin arms shaking her as her gray eyes stare into space. The Lady’s bedclothes are damp with her own sweat. It trickles down her neck bringing a chill and a shutter.

“Quick Gerta bring a blanket.” Annalisse looks wide eyed at her companion who rushes to the chest in the corner, the lid creaking open, as she pulls a wrap of white yarn from it. The old chest lid shut with a bang as she races across the space with the spread trailing behind her, her green gown rustling softly as it brushes against the stone floor.

“Was it a bad dream, my Lady?” Annalisse sits on the bed wiping the oracles face with a soft cloth dampened from the basin on the chest. Glynis moans, beginning to come around as they drape the coverlet over her frail shivering form.

“I’m alright now. Please I must get ready for the celebrations.” She feels weak from her nightmare and finds it hard to push the maidens’ aside and stand.

“Just sit my Lady. You’re dazed and must rest. We have time to get your bath.” Annalisse keeps a firm grip on her arm as she signals Gerta to bring forth some watered wine.

“I’ve seen my own death. The winds of change will blow.” Glynis speaks solemnly keeping a rigid grasp on the goblet with both hands so as not to spill it. Shaken by the experience and not prone to nightmares, she slowly gains control over herself again. She must accept the fact she’ll come to the same end as her mother. This thought frightens her greatly as she remembers well caring for her mother the last years of her life.

“Tell us my Lady. What was your dream?” However, the handmaidens know she will not speak about it and look fearfully at each other wondering what kind of change is coming and when. Who’s to rule the Isle if the Lady dies?

“Where’s Meriona?” The Lady’s voice interrupts the maiden’s silent contemplation. Startled Annalisse looks over at her companion for the answer. She knows Lady Glynis is seldom wrong in her predictions and this thought scares her. Whom will they look to for guidance if she meets her demise as she predicts? There’s no one trained to step into her place. A pensive expression crosses her face.

“She sees to preparations for tonight’s feast.” Gerta’s words were hardly out when they heard the commotion out in the commons. Peering across the vast grassy area, she could make out the men as they struggled to lay the large bonfire for the coming celebration. The clang of pots shattered the silence in the lady’s quarters as the village women wrestled with the large containers and the tables as children frolicked about.

Shaking her troubled thoughts away Annalisse reaches for the lady’s hand. She would give this some thought later. All the activity on the grounds signaled there was no time to waste.

“Do you think you’re strong enough now to prepare?” Annalisse and Gerta help Glynis up, then down the passageway to the bathing room. The sweet smell of lavender permeates the small space as it wafts in curls of steam from the vessel. A blue gown and veils adorn a lounging bench nearby.



Lady Glynis sits in a trance gazing into the crystal pool. The skirt of her long blue garment spills over the rocks that sit like sentinels guarding this sacred place. Thick and jet-black, her hair tumbles over thin shoulders to form a curtain over her face as she rests her lithe body beside the boulders propping herself up with slender pale arms.

The Isle of Tiernay De Ochern is heavily wooded with abundant streams and cascading waterfalls. Rugged boulders in shades of gray and brown lay throughout the countryside, which lies in a veil of mists most of the year keeping it hidden from the rest of the world. The Isle sits alone surrounded by water and only accessible by boat once the brave adventurer has made his way through the rugged mountain trails to the bank where a boat is available.

Raised to be an oracle, Lady Glynis is a leader to her people. She stepped in without question to fill this position when it was time to do so. Her job is to oversee preparations for and to preside over the festivals and feast days as well as to watch over all the inhabitants of the isle. The villagers bring their disputes before her and they seek her guidance for the perplexities in their lives.

Glynis has always been thin and pallid. She looks even more so now against the rich backdrop of the massive trees and boulders. Water trickles from some unknown source above her head making its way over the bumps and crevices and into the pool. The water is so deep it appears black and bottomless. Small ripples spread outward where the stream enters the pool across from her perch. Here an endless supply of round rings spiral away to the edges where it falls silent against the rocks and reeds that grow there. A frog croaks nearby and a brief rustling in a bush that grows on the bank signals some small animal going to its evening rest.

As twilight falls, a crescent moon ascends over the mountain in the eastern sky. Stars begin to take shape in the darkness and as if by magic, they appear in groups and patterns twinkling and blinking in the night sky. A gentle wind ruffles her hair and clothes but she doesn’t stir keeping her gaze fixed upon the water looking for the prophecy to come.

The faint ringing of a bell on a distant hill pierces the stillness. Ragged strips of cloth tied to the rowan tree above the pool flutter in the breeze, all the wishes and prayers from the people in the village who venture here to ask for blessings. Glynis can smell the smoke of the numerous bonfires as it drifts up to her.

Ah, the celebration of Candlemas has begun. She shifts slightly and lets thoughts of the ceremony fill her soul. She feels such joy that her people have survived another winter and it’s time once again to welcome the sun back to warm the earth. Her lips curve up gently for she has always loved the spring best of all the seasons. The celebrations on the Isle transcend time and centuries as the traditions pass from one generation to the next.

Her gray eyes glow like mercury as a picture forms in the water before her. Two daughters will be born to a peasant couple in the small village of Amesby On Tor. The youngest and fairest one will receive the medallion cast in the finest silver. She will be kind and brave and possess the strength of leadership. Her parents will be people of the old ways, though there will be hardship they will raise this child well, and she will endure for she will be resilient and full of hope. Glynis sees the newborn infant in swaddling clothes and resting in the grasp of a loving mother.

The water ripples again and she sees famine and starvation. Many lives will be lost as the people struggle to get through yet another winter. Food and medicine will be scarce and living conditions grow crowded as people move in together to help each other and save on supplies.

The next vision is two sisters playing in a mountain meadow and running through the forest. Their laughter brings a smile to her delicate lips. Then her face grows still and serious as her eyes stare into the rippling water once more.

She sees bandits with swords. The flames of numerous fires crackle amid clouds of black smoke, consuming the village. It falls to the ground in an echo of many crashes.

The picture before her fades and another takes its place. She sees a young girl struggling alone, her face sad but hopeful.

The image in the pool begins to flicker and is gone. Once more Glynis looks down into a black still pit. She stirs and a young maiden in the green robe of a novice comes soundlessly from nearby to help her to her feet. Reaching down with small slender fingers, she clasps the Lady’s hands to pull her up; long red curls tumble over her shoulders hiding half the freckles on her young face as she eases her arm around Glynis’s small waist to help her to the footpath where they start down the steep hill together.

“You have seen, my Lady?”

“Yes Annalisse. I have seen.” Her voice is hoarse and she speaks barely above a whisper as she stumbles, weak from the experience. They walk in silence down the path that meanders through the trees and boulders as it makes its way back to the village at the base of the hill where the bonfires crackle and spit red sparks into the night air.

The men sit in groups on the grassy knolls while the women busy themselves with setting up the feast on trestle tables. Children dart around chasing each other, their reflections casting ever-changing shadows on the ground. All activity and chatter stop as Lady Glynis comes out of the forest and into the clearing. The children hang on the garments of their mothers and everyone stands at attention waiting to hear the prophecy.

~ CHAPTER ~ 1


A cold wind blew and it rained steadily, leaving everything shrouded in a misty veil, the day of the funerals. It was an unusually wet September in New England with one storm after another battering the area. The marble headstones emerged from the fog to stand in streaky shades of gray and pale pink as they rose out of the neatly trimmed grass in the Ravensdam Cemetery. But this wasn’t a funeral in that pristine, orderly cemetery where loved ones were laid to rest in peace. It was a funeral for three in the Haversham family plot deep in an age old forest; a place some three hundred years old set on uneven ground and covered now with thickets and briars. This was an unkempt graveyard behind scrolled iron gates rusted and creaky from the elements; a resting place known only to a few although rumors of its existence persisted in the towns and villages nearby.

The only mourner at this funeral was the brother and uncle of the deceased. He was a well to do business man from Boston. This was apparent in the custom made suit and top hat he wore. A long black trench coat with the collar turned up against the rain hung almost to his polished imported shoes. He stood somberly looking down at the graves of his sister and his niece and nephew as the vicar said a few words over the plain wood caskets.

The gravedigger, a well muscled black man, stood back in the thickets his forearm resting on his shovel; as he mopped his face with a soiled white handkerchief. He wore faded jeans with holes in the knees and frayed at the bottom. His wet shirt hung over a nearby gravestone. Rain ran down his muscled chest and fell onto the ground. His eyes were huge in his face with whites showing all around as he looked over his shoulder wishing for a speedy service so he could be on his way. He could feel the spirits hovering here causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end.

The rain came down in a constant cold drizzle and didn’t let up the entire time. It seemed a fitting day for a place such as this where it was incessantly quiet as the excess water gathered in the low spots forming muddy pools. The only sound was the splashing of the rain as it hit the standing water. Mist hung in the trees and around the old markers adding to the dreariness of this painful ordeal. Merrill was in a depressed mood having lost the last of his relatives.

As the vicar finished speaking and stepped back, Merrill cleared his throat and threw three white roses into the new graves. He had decided he would sell the three hundred year old mansion, located on these grounds that had been erected by his relatives in the sixteen hundreds. He would not be coming back to Haversham Hill, letting the legacy and all the legends die with his sister and her children. For years he had tried and was successful in separating himself from the spirits that lingered here and from the lifestyle his sister lived. So this was the last of it then.

Slowly he stepped away and back to the forest path, pulling his coat closer against the wind as the gravedigger finished his work. He didn’t look back when the gates clanged shut behind him but he heard the shovel make a dull scraping sound as it dug into the mounds of dirt.

Stepping quietly he maneuvered his way around the pools of water and back to the house, his shoes tapping gently as they touched the packed wet earth. His intention was to dispose of any personal items that would cause needless family embarrassment and brand his sister for what she was. He wanted to make haste back to Boston and wouldn’t be coming this way again.

The gargoyles looked at him knowingly as his shoes clapped across the wet boards of the old porch. Their evil faces glared down as the wind sent a shower of fall leaves skittering by. Merrill pulled the collar tighter around his neck and ducked his head down against the chill as he reached the door, pulling it open to reveal a different world than his own. This was a world of dark evil forces that seemed to hang thick in the air around him.

He worked quickly, his thin frame moving easily through the darkened rooms, as he pulled books and papers on magic from the shelves and cupboards. His long fingers removed jars of unknown items along with implements and candles that his sister used in her craft. All these items came to rest in a pile on the wood plank floor. Going from room to room, he worked gathering things to join the pile that was getting higher as the afternoon wore on. He was hoping the weather would clear so he could carry out his plan of burning everything that could link the family to witchcraft.

It thrilled him when the rain clouds lifted and he was able to light the fire at dusk. He stood huddled against the chill with his overcoat held snug as he watched the flames flicker and dance in shades of orange and yellow. Satisfaction filled him. It was a job well done as the pile was gradually being reduced to black ash. Little did he know he didn’t find the things in a secret hiding place deep inside the house.

I heard a noise coming from the lake behind my house. The small lake appeared to be swelling with unusually large waves. Something was rising up out of the water and it was massive.
I stood at my patio door listening, watching, and waiting. Whatever it was, it was coming fast. Suddenly they erupted from the water. There were many of them and they rode on horses. They weren’t human; their faces were half man and half animal of some kind. They had great power and raised their swords to the sky.
I feared for my life but knew their power was greater than anything human. I called for my son who came to stand by my side. The closer they got the more mesmerized we were by the sight of them and found that as much as we wanted to run we couldn’t. There was no hiding from them. I held my son close to me as though I could protect him. Their swords pointed towards us as they approached.

Strange Happenings is available at www.publishamerica.net

PROLOGUE

4578…Zhandarian Calendar

In the pre-dawn of the Zhandarian desert, Gaylin paced the rotunda. One of the room's iron doors opened and his fourteen-year-old son, A'ven, stepped in, carrying a leather bag. The emperor stopped pacing and stared at the child. Like all of his people he had dark hair, pointed ears, high cheekbones and lips that were neither full, nor thin. The eyes alone stood out, large, ebony and compelling. The Zhandarian emperor motioned for his son to approach; the boy obeyed.

“Son, have you ever noticed that people judge what they don’t understand?”

A’ven squeezed the bag until his slender fist turned white. He lifted his chin. “Yes, Father, I have.”

Gaylin touched the corner of his son’s eye. “What one man sees as beautiful, even holy, another may call evil, but that’s just it. They are only men. Some of us are more. It’s our duty to rule over them, to guide them.” He took A’ven by the shoulders. “I have lived over a century. In all this time Toan has kept me young and strong, but the energy required to keep this body in perpetual youth has become too demanding. I’m not disappointed. I shall be rewarded with immortality as he enters a new host.”

The boy searched his father’s face. Gaylin knew what the youth saw. Although the emperor had a square chin and straight nose that made him look strong and serious, there was a furrow between his low brow, and he was beginning to gray at the temples. His age meant that Toan, the dragon, could no longer maintain full
strength.

“But who is it that survives, Father? You or the dragon?”

“There is no longer a difference. My thoughts are his now. We are merged. As long as Toan lives, I live.”

The adolescent averted his gaze, tightening his grip on the bag to the point that his nails cut into his flesh.

“Son, you mustn’t fear me. Toan is a birthright, available to the chosen, and he has chosen you…above all your siblings.”

The boy looked up. “I do not fear you, Sir. Since I was small I have feared one thing, that Toan would choose another. When I heard you had summoned me I made sure that could never happen.”

Gaylin straightened. “What have you done?”

“I tore their hearts from their bodies while they slept. From Mother too, so she may not give you another heir, and now I offer them to Toan.” A’ven drew open the bag, showing his father six hearts, still warm and wet. “Father, I love him. I want him to love me, too.”

The man dropped to his knees, tears forming in his eyes. He dipped his hand into the bag and lifted out a small, bloody lump. His words were choked with emotion. “Toan does love you, and he could not have chosen more wisely. I am proud to have provided such an heir.”

“Father, I’m grateful Toan has chosen me. I will do well, and I will make this desert bloom like a flower. One day I will give Toan the world he lost, starting right here with this city. Zhandari will be the center of the world when I am finished.”

“You, my son,” Gaylin whispered. “Shall be a god.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Never forget that gods need followers and enemies.”

The boy nodded. “You have taught me well. Followers to rule and enemies to eat.”

Gaylin embraced his heir. “My beloved son. There are those who will try to judge you, but they have no more right to judge you than the moons have to judge the sun whose destiny it is to shine brighter. We are what we are. It is not right, nor wrong. It is just the way of things. Only the strong survive, and you are the strongest.”


CHAPTER 1

4658--Nintuian Calendar

A’ven mounted his throne, a silver dragon, rising up from an ebony chair, and staring into the dim light with red eyes, a physical representation of the way Toan wished people to see him. The emperor waited until a temple guard opened the rotunda door, letting a shaft of light and heat slice the shadows. De'az, a brawny, bald temple servant, stepped through the door. He approached with his head bowed.

“You have a count for me this morning, De'az?” A'ven's voice was musical, soft, spellbinding.

“Only one.”

“One?” A’ven chuckled and shook his head. “What is the world coming to when there is just one problem to solve?”

“Sir, there is a little girl. I told her that you were a busy man and didn’t have time.”

“Send her in.”

The guard nodded and slipped out of the room. Moments later, a girl of about ten stuck her head through the open door. Her curious, brown eyes widened as they peered into the dim-lit rotunda.

“Come in, child.”

The trembling girl obeyed. She cradled a long-haired beige kitten, marked with brown at the ears, feet and tail, in her arms. The emperor’s gaze fell upon the animal. How could a child come to possess such a rare creature as a tame cat?

A’ven smiled. “Now, what problem is so great that your village governor couldn’t address it?”

“The….there…is no problem, Master. It’s just that….The child held the kitten at arm’s length. “My mother raises these rare creatures and she says this one is rarest of all.”

“Your mother makes a living selling cats?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Does she do well?”

“Not really so many are born sick and die before they get weaned. There are some rich people in our village who’ll pay for them, like the governor.”

“So you came to sell me a cat?”

“N…no, Master, not sell, give. Mother says this one is of the rarest kind. It’s the only marked as such. She wants to offer it to Toan, so that I may one day find favor in his eyes.” Though her head was bowed, she peeked up at him. “It has blue eyes, My Lord.”

A’ven studied the child. With black hair and almond eyes, she looked no different than most of the sunburned children of the desert. Yet, there was something about her spirit that reminded him of his own lost daughter. “What province are you from?”

“Prog, Sir. I’m from Prog.”

“Prog? How did you get here all the way from Prog?”

“I walked, My Lord.”

A’ven squinted. “You walked? Through the desert? A small girl like you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you not realize there are bandits in the desert?”

“Mother says any child brave enough to walk through a desert and keep herself hidden from bandits is worthy to serve The Great Dragon.”

“I see.” A’ven descended from the throne. He noticed that the child stood straight despite her fear. “Your mother is right of course. Any child who could not only hide herself from bandits, making a weeklong journey through the desert, but also feed herself and a kitten, should indeed have a future in the service of Toan. Now, let me see the cat.” He took the animal and cradled it in the crook of his arm. “What is your name, girl?

“Xhani.”

He knelt on one knee so as to be at eye level with her. “Well, Xhani, tell your mother that I thank her for this rare and precious gift. Also tell her that Toan has chosen not to use it as a sacrifice but rather to serve him by catching mice in the temple. Therefore,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out several coins, “I will pay her for the cat.”

Xhani’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened as he placed the coins, enough to feed her family for months, in her small hands.

“Now, go home, Xhani.”

The child nodded and hurried out the door.

A’ven took his cat and sat on the throne. He tickled the kitten’s belly making it angry. He laughed as it grabbed his hand and bit at his fingers. His laughter faded as he remembered a day long ago when he had bought a kitten for his child. The kitten was long gone and so was his daughter. He turned his eyes away from the animal. “Damn you, Ky'n,” he whispered. “Damn you.”

De'az stepped through the door. “My Lord, Captain Krell is here. He waits outside the temple with several of his men. He says it is urgent that he see you.”

“Send him in.”

Krell entered, his black uniform torn and dust-covered. He kept his bushy head bowed.

“Well….”

The emperor stood, spilling the kitten onto the floor. The cat landed on its feet with an arched back, hissed at some unseen terror then scurried out of the room and into the corridor.

“Where is he?”

Krell kept his head bowed. “There was a storm.”

“A storm?”

“A firestorm. Some of my men lost their lives.”

A’ven balled his fist but his voice was still soft, calm. “You failed me. I trusted you, and you failed me. Worse than that, you failed Toan.”

“But I can find him. I just need more time.”

“Josef hurt me, hurt The Dragon. I want him.”

“Yes, Sir, I know. Please, I beg Toan’s forgiveness, your forgiveness.”

A’ven studied the captain. He knew that this man, like most Zhandarians, believed him to be a god. And they should have, for he was as near perfect as any human could be. Well, past the prime of his life, A’ven had incredible muscle tone and flawless skin. He was as beautiful as any of his concubines and as strong as three men. He was as close to a god as ever walked the mortal realm.

“Krell, look at me.” A’ven spoke with two voices, one thunderous and deep, the other soft and musical.

Krell shook his head. “I can’t, Master.”

The emperor cupped Krell’s bearded chin. “Look into my eyes.”

Krell flinched. Those eyes. No one wanted to look into their sifting patterns of red and black, into their alien stare.

“I am a god, and you are a flawed human. It is my job to watch over you, to guide you. Therefore, Toan and I will overlook your weakness, this time. What happened?”

“We located him in Kordo. He was alone just as the informant said he would be.”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“He had the ring, the living stone, you spoke of. It had to be him, unless there’s another….”

“There is no other. Go on.”

“We surrounded him. He fought us.”

“Yes, I would expect no less.”

“We whipped him, had to beat him half to death just to hold him. I was holding my knife to his chest when the storm hit.”

Krell threw his hands up and his eyes filled with remembered fright as his voice took on a higher pitch. “My Lord, fire fell from the sky. It fell on buildings, on our horses, on my men…I was thrown off balance. I fell forward, sinking the blade to the hilt in his right shoulder. He was wounded, yet in all the confusion and fright, he escaped. We trailed him east of Mandi. That’s where we lost him.”

A’ven removed his hand. “Oh, I see. You mean near the Forest of Chandali? So, you’re more afraid of mythical beasts than of your god?”

“N…no, Master. It’s just that people don’t come out of there. He may already be dead.”

The emperor laid his hand over his heart. “He’s not dead. His energy is still in this world. I can feel him. Bring him to me.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

A’ven motioned him away with a sideways nod. The captain turned and walked toward the door, his boots clanking against the stone floor. “Wait, Krell, one more thing.”

The soldier turned around. “Yes?”

The emperor’s eyes flashed vibrant red. “If you fail me this time, I will tear out your heart.”

Chapter 1
Once realized...

Further up the road narrowed into a country lane. He passed a weathered brown sign shaped like a fist with a hitchhiker’s thumb overlaid in yellow by Rustic Road. A smaller sign below it read R29 Next 3 Miles.
The old macadam strip winded down into a glen thick with hardwood trees, the leaves speckled crimson and gold. Up ahead the deserted road ran flat toward an undulating horizon, faint in the muted afternoon light.
He shifted his gaze to the passenger seat floorboard where a pair of canvas hiking boots spilled out over the edge of a backpack. In a side compartment, a folded newspaper with part of the masthead, THE WALL STR, revealing itself. On the passenger seat, a faded wrinkled postcard lay next to a grainy picture of a boy holding a string of fish in front of a stone cabin. A blurry image of that boy and a man fishing on a lake stirred in the back recesses of his mind.
He reached for the postcard and cupped it in his hand in front of the steering wheel. A pair of tour boats with striped awnings loaded passengers at a dock. In the background, a line of trees formed a dark outline over the water, and the ghostly reflection of a boat’s white hull and oak trim seemed to languish on the shadowy surface. On the bottom of the card in small print was Boats Landing in Coldwater Canyon. Upper Dells.
Up a ways, the road widened, the woodland giving way to farmland with pastures of grazing cows and long stretches of tall stalks of corn with shiny green husks. Past a fallow field, two mounds of ashes smoldered by the side of a barn with a silo looming over its rear.
With one hand on the wheel, he rubbed the back of his neck. The fatigue of driving all day with one stop for gas and a pee now flushed over him. He felt tired and old and used up, as if coming here was some crazy lark.
He spotted a rectangular sign: Wayfarer Diner ½ mile on right. Below that, Good Eats. Up ahead on the right, two railroad cars welded together with a shingled façade and striped awning over a double door entrance came into view. Jutting away from the gravel parking lot, a rutted strip of dirt wound around to the rear of the diner, disappearing into the washed-out shadows from a thicket of scrubby trees.
The crunching sound of tires on gravel shot little shock waves through him. He parked at the vacant end along the road, backing up to a string of railroad ties, below it a shallow drainage ditch. He turned off the engine, the silence screaming in his head. Now, in this life, he was at a fork in the road — nebulous and shapeless and shrouded in mist and fog — far from what he used to call home.
The thought sent a hollow shudder through him. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, took a deep breath, and got out. A creaky stiffness ran down his back into his legs. He raised his hands over his head trying to stretch out the jangled apprehension ransacking his body.
It was a typical American diner, but distinct in its own way with russet-colored vinyl booths, a gray and white tiled floor in tiny triangles, and the counter face with four-inch tile squares of white and mauve. Over the griddle was a chalkboard with daily specials and on each side in wood-framed glass was the menu in black highlighter. The place smelled of strong hot coffee and bacon and eggs.
With newspaper in hand, he took a seat at the half-full counter of men dressed in flannel and denim. He flapped the front of his polo shirt to air himself then removed the C section, Money and Investing, folded it bottom up, then right under left and placed it on the counter.
A skinny waitress in her forties handed him a menu. “Coffee?”
“Do you have decaf green tea?”
She made a little face to indicate no.
“Lipton is fine.”
“Decaf?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He began scanning down the listings of Biggest 1500 Stocks. He stopped at FidelityNtlInfo ran his finger across the closing price and net change. He then resumed the process until he stopped at GenuinePart.


After finishing his tuna on whole-wheat, he took the check from the waitress and reached for his wallet. “How far to the Wisconsin Dells?”
“Let me guess.” She tapped a finger twice on the counter, her eyes questioning him. “Family reunion?”
He paused before saying, “More an adventure ... you might say.” He had tried to sound cheerful, but couldn’t maintain the enthusiasm, each word dying a little more.
The waitress drew back and cleared her throat. “Head north into the next county.”
“Anyplace around there with stone cabins?”
She handed him a list of resorts and lodges from under the counter. “You might find what you’re looking for in here.”
He paid and motioned for her to keep the change.
An hour later, he passed a motel and then some rental cottages. Farther up, he pulled over and studied a wooden sign, Pas’cal Cabins. Something about the name he liked: the apostrophe in the middle?
“Pas...cal,” he said drawing out the name. He turned down the gravel drive.
The place had the look of an old campground with A-frame log cabins facing a tree-lined lake. The first and largest cabin had a good-sized L-shaped porch deck that led to a detached small rental office with Pas’cal Rentals chiseled out and painted red across a stained pine board over the door lintel. A vacancy placard stapled to the porch railing appeared permanent. Off to the right of the rental office an old pickup with its hood up sat half way out of a dilapidated garage.
The lonesome uncertainty in his gut for the last five months raced through his body, up the torso into the shoulders, down his arms, and into the hands locked frozen on the steering wheel. He had washed up in the middle of nowhere.
Flickering in his mind was a grainy memory of two coffins one after the other lowered into the ground, his knees shaking, his heart ripped apart. Keep going, he said to himself as he got out of the car and made his way up the porch steps.
After getting no answer at the rental office, he went to the cabin door and knocked. A woman in a plaid shirt and jeans answered.
The woman, around forty, with chestnut hair slung back in a ponytail said, “Lookin’ for a cabin, Mister? Two hundred a week.” Her eyes, the color of her hair, with a hint of the wilderness in them, searched his face.
“Well...” He scratched the back of his neck and took her in; her features quick and pretty, all right, with skin browned from the sun, a country girl familiar with hard work. His eyes lingered a tic too long on the curve of her bosom that gave shape to the shapeless shirt. This was the kind of woman a man would not see every day. “I am passing through, how much for two days?”
“Where you from?” There was a wild, untamed quality to her bold gaze as she eyed him up and down as if sizing up livestock.
“Chevy Chase, Maryland.”
Chevy Chase?” A crook of a smile formed in the corner of her mouth.
“It’s outside Washington, D.C. How about...” He fumbled for his wallet in his back pocket, “I’ll pay for a week.” He handed her two one-hundred dollar bills. “Ain’t seen one of these in awhile,” she said, tucking the bills into her shirt pocket. “Name’s Trudy Pas’cal. You’d be?”
“Bill Ennis.”
Come on over to the office, Mr. Bill Ennis and register, I got just the cabin for you.”
Bill stepped back as she came out. “What town are we in?”
“Oscala, and that little lake,” she said pointing toward the body of water, “And the bigger one past the two points are one in the same, Lake Oscala.”
“This place around in the fifties?”
“Not many like it left.”

Bill sat on the edge of his bed stretching out the sleep. The reassuring warmth on his back and neck from the morning light splintering through a window offered strength and encouragement to the cold, distant regions of his viscera that his decision to come was a good one.
He stood and stretched again then headed to the bathroom in the rear of the cabin. After a quick brush of his teeth and a splash of water to his face, he took in his living quarters. Not much, but it would do: Along the wall adjacent to the bathroom were a walk-in closet and a stone fireplace with a brick hearth. A queen bed and a small drab dresser nestled into a corner near the front door that faced east, and on each side of the door were two sets of four-paned windows with peeling green paint on the wood sashes and sills. The space also included a small kitchen with a refrigerator, stove, and a cast iron sink, and an island countertop with a bookshelf stacked with dog-eared paperbacks. Anchoring the dining area off the kitchen was a well-crafted mortis and tenon pine table pegged and wedged with hardwood dowels, and six side chairs with wicker seats and slat backs. This furniture although rustic was many grades above the rest of this roughhewn wooden box with planked floors and paneled pine walls.
Inside his storage trunk that he’d stored in the closet, he got out a calendar and a packet of decaffeinated green tea.
He scrounged around the lower kitchen cabinets and found a teakettle that he filled half way and put on the stove.
In the bathroom, he unscrewed a wall hook, twisted it into the wall next to the front door, and hung the calendar. He crossed out August 28. “Seven is the limit,” he said aloud. He turned as the whistle of the teakettle drew him back to the kitchen.
At the porch railing, he blew over his tea, took a sip, and repeated the ritual, all the while taking in his surroundings. Orange light splayed out from the sunrise, casting shadows and stretches of light through the trees and over the last remnants of morning mist rising from the lake. The chirp of birds and the smell of morning, pine, and water offered hope.
He looked over to his left and took in the grounds. Trudy Pas’cal’s cabin was nearly twice the size of the others that had small porches with a roof that her larger porch deck didn’t have. Starting with Trudy’s cabin nearest the narrow gravel drive, which winded up an incline cutting its way through the tall conifers and hardwood trees, the cabins arced in a half moon around the perimeter of the property that was surrounded by woodland save a grassy rise behind Trudy’s cabin. Bill’s cabin was the smallest and at the far end. Between the cabins and the lake, the ground was a mix of gravel, weedy grass, and dirt.
He stepped off the porch, went to the passenger seat of his car, and got the old photo of the boy in front of the stone cabin. The faded picture didn’t show the detail of a shiny, silvery facade of rounded rocks that he remembered, and it struck Bill how safe a child could feel in those tight little fortresses. Though there was a faint memory of once being very afraid inside one, maybe a bad storm, or maybe just a bad childhood dream. It was a long time ago.
He looked at the pine siding of his cabin then the others, all covered in an aged patina of silver and gray. He shrugged his shoulders, probably not the place from those many years ago.
He put the photo in his shirt pocket, opened the back door of the car, and grabbed a guitar case and two black 8x11 photo albums with frayed edges.
He leaned the guitar case against a chair on the porch and went inside. He placed the albums on the pine table and took a seat. He stared at one book then the other. He started to open one and stopped, letting the cover close with a soft poof. He wanted to look inside, but not now, not here. For here, he was after something different, and it would hurt too much to look back at the boy and even her.
Bill gathered up the albums, and stored them in the closet. Back on the porch, he took the guitar from its worn leather case and took a seat. He ran his fingers up and down the neck, picking out the melody and frets. It had been a while, but the vibration of the strings on his fingers returned to him like an old friend. He strummed an old Appalachian folk song. The music stirred him as the fingers worked in unison — it had been a good long while. He started to sing out the words.
Chickens a-crowing in the Sourwood Mountain,
Hey ding dang diddle all the day,
So many pretty girls I can't count them,
Hey ding dang diddle all the day.

The rhythmic simplicity of the words brought a confluence of grief and happiness — rousing flickers of joy mixed with pangs of heartache. He sang on.
My true lover lives over the holler,
Hey ding dang diddle all the day,
She won't come and I won't call her,
Hey ding dang diddle all the day.

He stopped playing when he saw Trudy Pas’cal come out of the rental office cabin with a boy about twelve holding what appeared to be a Baitcaster rod and reel. A surge of melancholy flushed through Bill as the boy walked toward the lake. A confluence of memories of a boy fishing with his father, and then that boy as a man fishing with his son, jumbled together in a blurry haze by time, that great distorter.
Trudy said something to the boy that Bill couldn’t make out. The boy turned back and hollered with mild aggravation, “Mom, I know.”
Bill looked back to Trudy who leaned over her porch railing, her eyes on the boy. He began strumming the melody to the folk song. In a low voice he sang, “So many pretty girls I can’t count them.” He paused, for a moment then continued. “She won’t come and I won’t call her. Hey ding dang diddle all the day.” He put down the guitar and stood.
Trudy smiled a welcome as Bill approached. From the bottom step, he said, “Where can I pick up some groceries around here?”
She raised her chin in the general direction of the gravel drive. “Zastrow’s Store about six miles north of here in Oscala. I’ll get directions from inside.”
“Thank you.”
Bill watched the boy push off the dock with an oar. He secured the oar into the thole and began rowing. Trudy returned and handed a paper with typed instructions to Bill.
Bill turned his attention back to the boy. “He appears to know how to handle a pair of oars.”
Softening her gaze, Trudy looked toward the water, revealing a vulnerability, which suggested hardship along the way. “His grandpa taught him to row and fish almost before he could walk.”
“Where’s he heading?”
“Out past the point to the right is a cove.”
“What’s his name?”
Trudy’s expression blanched, as she seemed to go inside herself, as if saying don’t go getting nosey. “Hanson ... Hanson Corbett.”

With Trudy’s directions on the passenger seat, Bill drove up the gravel drive and onto the paved road. There wasn’t a house or farm in sight — nothing but stands of jack pines and the pale blue horizon in the distance.
As long as he could remember, he had wanted to do just this, roam the country with no responsibilities, travel and see where the road took him from one town to the next. Meeting people along the way then saying so long. And when asked where he was heading, he would respond, Wherever the road takes me. Freedom away from other people’s expectations and demands. But what a price to pay, he thought to himself.
A few miles farther on, the forest thinned out and a smattering of small plain houses appeared. They were little no-frill white boxes shelled in aluminum siding. Most had a garden of some sort and one a small patch of corn as if the owner grew up on a farm and couldn’t let go of the past.
At a four-way stop, Bill turned right. To his left, a dirt driveway ran straight between two plowed tracts and led to a gambrel barn. Set off from the barn was a large white house with a wrap-around porch. On the side of the house away from the barn, a garden teemed with green plants and tomatoes entwined on bamboo stakes. A magnificent crop of corn shining in the sunlight stretched across a field behind the house and barn.
Even from a distance, Bill could tell this was a farm of order from the straight burrows cut into the fields to the well-kept house and barn both looking freshly painted.
After a few more miles and a couple of turns, Bill slowed as he entered the town limits of Oscala. He inched along steering clear of potholes while he took in the town. The heaving, cracked sidewalks and boarded up businesses gave the place a sense of a ghost town.
He passed an antique shop, a warehouse with a fenced yard filled with old battered trucks, Pas’cal Automotive-he wondered what the connection was to his landlady Trudy Pas’cal-and then up on the right, his destination.
Bill pulled in front of a gray clapboard building that sat on a rise. A long set of wide wooden steps, with a landing halfway up and black iron railing running the span on one side, cut through the terraced slope sectioned off by railroad ties.
A mixture of shrubs — rhododendron and azalea, Bill recognized — and ground cover grew on the terraces. A white, rectangular sign with green lettering, Zastrow’s General Store, hung over the porch eave. At street level and to the side of the store was a detached double garage with gable dormers.
Entering the store was like stepping back into the fifties. The place had the smell of dry goods fresh out of the box. An old-time Schlitz beer cooler, frozen foods, and dairy goods ran along the wall to the left of the front door. The rough-cut pine floor felt rock-solid underfoot as he approached the front counter filled with meats and cheeses on display. Off to the right ran rows of canned goods, clothes — flannel, corduroy and the like — buckets, tools, fishing rods and reels, and such.
A bony man in a flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows ran a pencil down an inventory list. He raised a sprouty gray eyebrow in need of a trim toward Bill. “Yes sir, may I help you?” The man’s voice was slow and creaky, like a grandfather clock in need of winding.
“Do you know where I might buy the Wall Street Journal?”
“No one around these parts sell it.” The man straightened up deliberately from his paper work. “I have a subscription. If you’re gonna be around for a while, I’d be glad to save them for next time you come in.”
“Thank you, yes, I’d appreciate it.” Bill scanned the store. “Do you have any shopping carts or baskets?”
“Tell me what you want... and we’ll get it for you.”
Bill looked around the empty store. “Well, I’ll wander around and get back to you.”
The man brought up a notepad and pencil from under the counter. “Most folks write down what they want.”
With his list of items, Bill returned to the counter where a woman with stalks of gray hair spilling out from the edges of a floppy wide-brimmed hat opened a carton of canned goods with a utility knife.
“Coffee?” The woman asked, not looking up. She removed cans of string beans from the carton and began filling a wire basket with a handles.
“No thanks.”
She stopped, peering up at Bill; there was a reclusive distance in her rounded gray eyes: intelligent, probing eyes that hinted at resiliency and said to a stranger, not too close.
She went to the storage room in the back and returned with a large red wagon with wooden slats on the sides. Taking Bill’s list off the counter, she proceeded down the first aisle.
Bill watched, fascinated, as she went from aisle to aisle, using a step stool when needed, never raising her arms above her shoulders. He imagined her round-around- the-edges body once lean and strong. After placing the stool into a dadoed slot in the side of the first aisle, she began bagging Bill’s groceries at the front counter.
After Bill paid, her gaze steadied on him as if ready to meet opposition. “I only help those older than me get their groceries down the steps.”
“No problem.” Bill scooped up two of his six bags and made his way to the front door.
After putting the last bag in the storage area in the back of his SUV, Bill caught his breath after three trips up and down the long wooden steps. He counted the first steps — seven — up to the landing and then seven more up to the porch. No wonder the woman inside, who appeared around seventy-five, only helped those older. He wondered how someone her senior managed them. Bill closed the back hatch and looked up one end of the silent street then the other where off in the distance the wind stirred through the trees.
Heading back to Pas’cal Cabins, Bill slowed as he approached the four-way-stop. A man driving a tractor with a bale of hay in the bucket drove toward him. The man, in his forties, was marked with the look one has when consumed in work: the face set tight, the eyes focused ahead. But when the farmer passed, the eyes smiled and a hand came off the steering wheel with a generous acknowledgement of a stranger, Bill. Then the face returned to the business at hand.
Idling at the stop sign, Bill watched from his rear view mirror as the man turned into the dirt driveway. He put his arm on the passenger’s seat and turned for a better view of the tractor bouncing along until stopping at the barn.
The man stepped down from the tractor, opened the doublewide doors, and drove the machine into the barn. On the way to the house, he paused and glanced around as one does when they think they’re being watched. His gaze settled on Bill’s car. The farmer gave a two-fingered salute before entering a side door to the house, which Bill figured was the kitchen.
“Hello there,” Bill said.
Inside that grand old farmhouse, Bill saw in his mind’s eye a family sitting around a large oak table for Sunday meal with steaming platters of fresh vegetables and chicken in the pot. He saw them folding their hands and bowing their heads during grace, and the farmer saying amen and then the platters passed around. It would be a large family, the boys dressed in flannel shirts, cleaned and ironed, and the girls wearing dresses with flower patterns and frilly collars, a family of good people sharing a meal and so much more.
Bill shifted back around and paused for a moment as a gnawing emptiness stirred inside him. He saw himself sitting at a table with her and the boy with a smile that always stirred his heart, a smile he now saw in his dreams. He placed his hands on the steering wheel and for a moment let his mind drift into that twilight place of nothingness.

As Bill came to the bottom of the gravel drive to Pas’cal Cabin, the boy walked toward the rental office with a string of fish in one hand. Bill waved as he passed, and the boy raised his other hand holding his rod and reel-it was a Baitcaster — his expression blank, save an inquiring glimmer in his eyes.
These are reticent people in these parts, keeping to themselves. They are whom they are and seemed to say through their silence, take us or leave us. And at this time in his life that suited Bill Ennis just fine.