CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 21 news of my writing, free read_3508 word count

I reached 50K+ today on the current novel, begun March 1-The Haunted GreenHouse.-50,797 words. That makes me at 55,330 word count for March 1-21 (I completed the earlier novel on March 11). I'll soon be finished with THG and on to Book Three.





Today's free read:

Chapter 11

                   The Chevy roared past the actual end of the drive, tossing divots of sod out from under the wheels, then executed a 360-turn and headed back down the drive. Just before it reached the back corner of the house, the headlights flashed on and then off and it roared away. I flinched, leaping back from the window, and myself raced back to the front curtain, which I pulled aside ever so slightly so I could watch it nearly upend turning out of the driveway and on to the road, headed toward-Knox. Suddenly I realized that most or all of the horrors of the day centered around, not just me as observer, witness, and perhaps target, but around the tiny village of Knox, just down the road from me:


three had come at me from the direction of Knox, and behind it, The Big Forest; two had driven toward Knox, and I knew the pulp-wood cast-offs truck had parked by the General Store there. I didn't as yet know to where the flatbed with the incinerated gangster sedan had disappeared. Something had to be connected to Knox AND The Big Forest both-and somehow, apparently to me.





         All this definitely bore some serious and diligent thinking, but I was too distraught to do it right now. The persistent pound of the storm's precipitation on my roof, and the roaring Chevy engine as it tore up and down my drive just now had conspired to produce the onset of a migraine. I decided on another cup of coffee-very strong-to see if that would alleviate some of the tension in my skull, and the biscuits were ready, so I quickly fried up a stack of pancakes and wolfed them down with maple syrup and hot buttery biscuits. Hmmhmm. Food doesn't cure all ills, but it sometimes does help with my headaches, and it provided a momentary distraction from anxiety and fear.





                   When supper was finished, I realized the rain had diminished to a smooth steady roar. My near-migraine had calmed itself too, so I poured myself another cup and sat down to the table I had just cleared, staring out the back kitchen window through the water spots. Now that I could see the drive, I realized what a nasty job that old pickup had performed: I would have to regrade it myself once the weather turned clear and the mud finally dried. Not a pretty nor pleasant job, grading and smoothing by hand, but necessary before the next rainstorm, or worse, ice storm in the late fall.


         


                   I would have to drive down to Collins Junction and rent a grader from the hardware store. It suddenly occurred to me a trip to the city soon could serve a double purpose. I needed to find out more about the property Mamma's folks had deeded to her and Daddy when they wed, the land that they lived on when I was born, and their little house where I came into this world. I had thought earlier this afternoon about that piece of property, and now it occurred to me to wonder why that had not been included as part of the estate-or maybe it had, I really had not taken care or effort to look through all the paperwork provided me by Mamma's attorney, Jerome S. Jones of Urbana, nor to sort through the papers and certificates I had emptied from her desk and boxed up to go through later, when my grief subsided. I decided now I probably couldn't wait on that moment-if it ever came-so I would need to go through it, and I cudgeled my brain to remember what I had done with that box. I really hoped now that I had not packed it away with her furniture and clothing, which I had stored in a rental garage in Champaign till I could bear to sort through it. The elderly lady who owned the garage never used it, and I knew she needed the little extra income. A regular customer at Joe's Garage, I had serviced her old Buick and kept it running crisply. She was happy to let me store Mamma's possessions for as long as I needed to alleviate the grief; she once told me she well remembered her pain at losing her own mother, quite some many years back.





         {Think, Rory!) I admonished myself. (Has your brain gone to mush what with all this spooky, scary, stuff? Be a man. What would Dad do?) Well, since Dad had been brave enough to face off with the Huns-and before them, a couple decades working for Testament Logging Corporation-I knew he would tell me to be brave. I knew I must-no matter how I acted, these events weren't going to stop on their own. If I wasn't going to turn tail and run, or hang myself from a garage beam (but I hadn't built the garage yet) then I would have to take action and find out all I could on my own, and then act on the new information. I surely could not live like this. If Daddy's being killed in action in the War didn't destroy me, if Mamma's dying too young to suit me of that old bone cancer didn't wreck my soul, if Leill's running off mockingly for a blackjack scum didn't ruin my life, well by golly, neither would these missing drivers-burnt husks-dead men driving going to stop me either. I would live my life, and live it well, despite them all.

Chapter 12





         





         Despite the spooky and frightening events of the previous afternoon, despite the direct attack on my property resulting in the temporary destruction of my driveway, despite the eventually diminishing storm, I actually slept peacefully and soundly, I thought even dreamlessly. If dreams there were, I remembered none, for which I considered myself thankful. I woke before dawn, plans and goals tumbling through my head. I would not rent the hand grader just yet, unless the muddy drive was sufficiently dry. Thankfully, due to yesterday's storm, I had parked close to the back of the cabin, so I could probably avoid most of the new driveway ruts developed by the old Chevy truck. I'd make that decision in a little while, after breakfast, when I readied myself to leave. Meanwhile, I had to start breakfast-another quick pile of flapjacks, skipping the biscuits because I was in a hurry-and after eating, I'd hunt out the box of Mamma's papers I'd been wondering about last night. Sometime during the night, in my sleep, I seemed to recall I had brought that box along with me, keeping in the trunk of the Merc while I stored her whatnots, clothing, coats, and furniture and dishes in Miz Hazel's garage.





         After Mamma died of the bone cancer, the year before Leill and I met and married, I had not tried to sort through her papers. She had told me after she went in hospital to call her attorney, Mr. Jones (I had not even known she had been to see one) and he would take care of the death duties and the paperwork for her small estate (that was her adjective, not mine). Then she reminded me that I would be grieving, and not to concern myself with sorting out her papers and diaries while I was sad; all that could wait till later.

“Box everything up, Rory,” she had told me. “Do what you wish with the furniture and clothing; the Goodwill would surely be happy to take them-or you could sell it all. It won't matter to me when I'm on the Other Side, now will it?” she admonished me with a small smile. “Do what you want with that, and just put my papers away till later. Eventually you'll feel like going through them. Call Mr. Jones and he'll walk you through the funeral arrangements and show you all about the land your Daddy left to you.”

         All that was news to me, for Mamma had never talked much about the Northern Woods region: not Knox nor Rennald nor Collins Junction, nor about the land she and Daddy homesteaded from the time they married, nor about her folks' land or lives, and never, ever, about The Big Forest. When she talked about Daddy, she told about his work for Testament Logging Corporation, all his travelling and so forth, how some weeks he hardly ever was home, but what a good provider he was, working so hard and so many hours a day at that job just to keep their roof intact and keep Mamma and me fed and clothed. To hear Mamma tell it, Daddy was a hard-working, diligently striving saint, and I guess maybe he was-I never had call to think otherwise of him.





         Breakfast seemed to speed by, and I quickly washed up the few dishes I'd used, setting the fry pan to soak. I turned down the kerosene lamp and went in the front room to hunt for that box. Without a shed or garage or attic, I lacked hiding places as well as storage spaces, so I kept a small metal safe containing my land deed, discharge papers (I had spent my own quality time overseas during the Korean Conflict), paycheck stubs from my tenure at Joe's Garage in Champaign, and Social Security card; and oh yes, the marriage certificate to, and final divorce decree from, Leill.

Chapter 13





                   My unconscious mind had directed me aright: the box of Mamma's papers proved to be on the high shelf in the small closet I had built in the back corner of the living room, to hold coats and boots (our winters up here are long and ugly). The metal safe of my important items sat snugly on the floor in the closet's corner, away from trouble, but I had apparently placed Mamma's box on the shelf just in case of damp or mold. I didn't remember that planning, but I must have done it just the same, because there it sat, just awaiting my perusal. I pulled it down and carried it toward the armchair beside the front window. Although the day had dawned brightly, for some reason  I decided not to open the curtain. Instead I lit the little kerosene lamp, and started sorting through the box in the chair, while I stood beside it.





                   This wasn't the time to read through Mamma's diaries, nor to sort out her accumulated tax litter. I hunted only for property deeds, foreclosures, bills of sale, escrow forms, closing papers, and so forth. I was nearly to the bottom of the box, stacking her numerous diaries in the chair and setting the loose papers and tax forms and stubs on the table, when I turned over a tax booklet from 1944 and found what I sought:


a big manila envelope, the kind you find in bank loan officer's files or at attorneys' offices, with Daddy's name first-crossed out, then Mamma's-also crossed out, but looking to have been done later, as the ink on Daddy's name was nearly flaky; and below that, my own name: Rory Donald Lewes. 





                   The packet was full and felt stuffed. I almost feared-no I did fear-to open it. I turned it over and over in my hands and then took the cowardly option: I stood up, tucked it under my arm, and piled everything else I had emptied out back into the box, which I then replaced on the shelf. I pulled out my jacket, pulled on my boots, and picked up the car keys from their hook on the kitchen wall. After checking that the wood stove was out, I let myself out the back door and locked it behind me. Strolling around the corner of the cabin, I gazed in either direction. The ruts the pickup had torn up were much worse back of the house, toward the end of the drive. That would definitely require fresh grading; but between the back of the cabin and the road, the drive appeared fair for now. I'd pick up the grader while I was down in Collins Junction and could probably start on the drive this afternoon.  I hopped in the Merc and headed down the drive, turning east on to the highway headed for the Rennald turnoff. After yesterday's speeding excursion to outrun the oncoming threatening storm, I needed gas before proceeding to Collins Junction, and I wanted to take a quick peek at the packet, and to make a phone call to find an attorney in Collins Junction who could take care of incorporating my proposed Plant Nursery as a business. I knew I would need a license but not what all else, and I thought a lawyer the best way to go.

Chapter 14

                   The drive to Rennald was remarkably uneventful and I was pleased. Earlier when I was digging through the box of Mamma's papers, I thought I had heard a rusty engine snort out on the road but I had been so absorbed I ignored it; in any event, it didn't stop but proceeded on so I decided not to worry. At Rennald I stopped first at the Gas 'n' Go to fill up, then walked next door to Todd's to see when he might next need me. As it turned out, he was prepared to schedule an entire weekend of diesel mechanic work for me, and I heartily agreed: the more I earned, the faster I could set up the Plant Nursery I had my heart set on.





         After Todd's I stopped in at the butcher and asked him to hold two trout for me for later along with a slab of bacon (he bought fish on consignment from some of the young farm boys with time on their hands) and then I went in to the Post Office to check my mail. Oddly enough, another surprise of sorts was waiting for me there. Inside the box was stuffed about half full with sale fliers, a end-of-fiscal-year notice from the County Tax Assessor listing my properties on which taxes would be due in February of next year in conjunction with my birthday, and an envelope addressed to Rory Donald Lewes, Esq., at my former Urbana, Illinois, address. I had not lived there since February, three months earlier, but apparently the Urbana Post Office was faithfully performing its forwarding duties. Really odd was the fact that the return address was in Madison Mills! It was too thin to contain a packet of papers, but it surely was addressed correctly-or would have been had I remained in Urbana. I noticed it did not say, “Mr. and Mrs. Lewes,” but only my name. Interesting.





                   I tossed the sales papers in the nearest provided receptacle and headed out the door, jumping in the Merc and pulling down the street past Todd's Garage, then turning the corner and parking in the alley between the back of his building and the vast vacant lot that once had housed the textile factory, now just a broken-windowed shell on the far side of the lot, a block farther away.





                   I ripped open the lawyer's envelope first. It was headlined in fancy script on expensive cream stationery, listing an Attorney Richard Layles Carnathy in Madison Mills,  State of  Algonquin. Over to the right-hand side in slightly smaller letters was the phrase:


“Counsel for Testament Logging Corporation.”


Uh-oh! How did a company that had not been heard of (by me anyway) in almost two decades-or its attorney of record-have anything to do with me, Rory Lewes, itinerant mechanic and cabin-building homesteader in the Northern Woods? I read on into the body of the text:





                   In re the Estate of Maggethe Edna Calhoun Lewes, you are hereby requested to contact Attorney Benton Squires, Civil and Estate Practice, in Collins Junction, at your earliest possible convenience.” Here a Collins Junction telephone number was appended, but that was all. No thank you, no goodbye or sincerely yours, no signature line nor name. Odd-very, very odd.





         Well, I had been given a tiny bit of information, a name, and a telephone number, so I would make what use of this I could. I was headed for Collins Junction anyway and would save the long-distance telephoning cost and look up this attorney when I arrived,before I went on to the hardware store for the hand-grader.





         I was about to put the transmission in gear when I remembered the tax notice. I stopped to open that envelope and received my second-perhaps third, actually-surprise. My name, the post office box number, and my birth date were listed accurately. But I was noted as owning three plots, not one. According to this, I owed property taxes (or would when my birthday rolled around in February 1958) on the land on which I had just recently constructed my cabin and would soon begin building my proposed Plant Nursery business. That plot I expected to find listed. I did not expect two additional plots, neither of which I recognized, listed ahead of my land. One had an address of “Knox,” the other one read “Euphonia.” “Euphonia”? What-or rather where-was that? If that was a town, city, or village, certainly I had never heard of it.





         The tax notice was stapled, and I had assumed it held simply a carbon copy for my records. That much proved to be true, when I turned over the first page, but below that it contained a second page, with its own carbon. The second page caused my heart to leap into my throat. Listed next to each of the two formerly unknown properties-one at Knox, one at this mysterious “Euphonia,” was typed:

“Under current lease to Testament Logging Corporation, Madison Mills.”

Chapter 15

         My mind just closed all this off at that point, folding up the paperwork, stuffing the attorney's missive and the tax assessor's notice into the packet of Mamma's papers, after I had opened up that taped-shut envelope. I very carefully omitted pulling out any of the contents of her envelope-now mine, I guess-because I had overloaded on emotional and psychological stimuli and for the moment could not bear any new, additional, data. I put the Merc in gear again, rolled on down the alley, and turned off on to the street leading up to the highway I had come in on.





         Once on the highway I had another 20 miles to drive, and now I decided I would take care of my other errands first. So when I arrived in “the big city,” I headed on to the hardware store and rented the hand-grader and a few other appropriate tools. I also ordered up a selection of lumber, as I had decided sometime during the drive, unconsciously, to start on construction of the Plant Nursery. To that end, I entered into a conversation with the store clerk, who of course had queried me about the sizeable purchase of lumber.





         “What're you going to build, Rory?” he asked now. After the job of building the cabin, he and I were on a first-name basis, though I continued to call him Mr. Oakes.





         “Goin' ahead with the Plant Nursery I told you about, remember, back in February when I first moved back up here.”





         “Sure enough, I do remember, Rory, and a good thing it'll be. How soon do you think you can get it running? Will you be needing some help on the construction? My two nephews are looking for summer work, starting in a week or two.”





         “They would be an enormous help, thank you. I also need to ask you about business licenses-did you go through an attorney to get yours? See, I've never been self-employed before, not exactly sure how to go about this.”





         “Ayeh, used Benton Squires over on the Square, in that two-story white stone building on the corner, in the block past the Courthouse. Has the whole upstairs there for his office. Downstairs has an antique store and rare book dealer. Here, I'll give you his telephone too,” and with that Mr. Oakes produced a charge slip, pulled out the wooden box in which he kept index cards with customer information, and wrote down a name, phone number, and address. Handing it to me, he asked,





         “Shall I tell Wayne and Davy you'll be needing them, then, Rory?”





         “Absolutely, tell them to come on as soon as they can. I'll be grading tomorrow, maybe later this afternoon, and on the weekend I'll be at Todd's Garage in Rennald. They can call over there then, or either stop by, and let me know when they can start working with me.”


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