CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

June 28 RIP Sen. Byrd-JulNoWriMo-etc. 2285 wc

Remembering Sen. Robert Byrd, who has passed at age 92. No matter one's political viewpoints, this man carved his own niche in U.S. History and will not be forgotten.





Yesterday I signed up for JulNoWriMo, another off-season version of National Novel Writing Month, like MarNoWriMo, for which I am very grateful. It's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment for me and very appealing to my emotional stability to concentrate on writing 50,000 words in 30 days (or in this case, 31). I'll be working to complete both the Environmental Fantasy Novel Finding The Abandoned Child which I began June 6, and the Novel I worked on March 23-31 during MarNoWriMo, putting it aside for April Script Frenzy, Child-Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation, Book Three of The Testament Logging Corporation Series which may or may not be the final book. Likely not: I have an intution that the hero of Books One and Two and one of the heroines may well marry and their child will then become the heir which The Testament Logging Corporation will so intensely endeavour to destroy. Well, we shall see.





Finding The Abandoned Child





Chapter Ten





                   “Fenrich, we must indeed have a talk. Let us get these items to the new home, and then we shall have to conference before your appointment at the Treasury. I preferred to wait until this evening, but I am afraid that now we must have our discussion before your statement to the Constable's office.”





Lifting a hand as if she expected me to be about to speak, which indeed I was, she continued:





“No, child, do not attempt to tell me right now. I shall summon Pastor Janns and we shall all meet together at the new compound and lay out our plans. He can bring the nephews with him and they can play out in the yard.”





         I forbore to remind her that “the nephews” were eleven and twelve, and so not much given to playing in the yard any longer. She would do as she saw fit, and as permanent head of the household, I would not be the one to brook her.


         We continued on in silence, leaving Denguer Road to walk North on Palm Highway, a narrow residential avenue which was far from being a highway, but like Swan Street to the East, extended from North to South, ending at the Harbour, just a bit Westward of the Wharf. Several of the fisherfolk houses had been located at the bottom end of Palm Highway-until the tidal waves had completedly destroyed that end of our fair city: homes, wharves, fish, fishing boats, ship's chandlers, shipbuilders, and equippers, gone into the raging Sea along with the piers, docks, and anything unlucky enough to be in range, inanimate or animate-all was gone now.





         Small houses snoozed on either side of the street, as we turned right from Denguer Road's end at Palm Highway. No one stirred here, nor had we seen anyone on Denguer-other than the silent infant I had discovered, and later Constable-in-Training Peggott Larrs.





         We had paused for a moment to gaze South down to the end of the street, where the fisher folk housing had been. Before the night before last, small homes, cabins, and a long building which Pastor Janns once told me served as The Lodge of the Order of the Golden Manitou, dotted the near side of the wharf. Now only a few scattered timbers lay around, and I could see a fireplace partically standing where the Lodge had once been proud. As I turned to go right, some of the boxes with which Mamma had burdened me started to shift out of my arms, so I paused to look down and straighten them as best I could. While my attention was so occupied, I heard Mamma mutter, “A wagon! Why didn't I think of that?”





         By the sound of her tone I knew she was moving away from me and headed up Palm Highway to the North. Once we reached that end of the street, we would be at the edge of Mohltrissen, a tiny suburb of the City of Mellaigch which crouched almost like a buffer between our City itself and Golden Heights, the conclave housing all the wealthy, the shipowners, well-to-do merchants, and many of the faculty and all of the administration of the Apothecary College (only the newest instructors, the lowest-paid, lived at or near the College). When I finally got my packages underway and turned myself, I looked farther up the road past Mamma, now some distance away, and saw her staring at the very woman and young boy whom I had encountered in the alley immediately after my discovery of the naked abandoned infant, and whom I had asked to call for a Constable and Healer.





         Mamma had ceased to just stare and begun to walk toward them briskly. They were maybe three blocks farther North, possibly headed in the direction of Mohltrissen as were we, but they could have been moving toward one of the quiet houses along Palm Highway on either side. Although silent here as well, the lack of sound was still much more viable than on Denguer Road; one could feel that folks still lived here, even though they might all be inside, or away for the nonce.





         I tried to speed up myself, and started calling out to Mamma, when I realized that she wasn't just in a hurry to reach our new compound in Mohltrissen-she was actually trying to speak to the woman and young boy. Well, hopefully she only wanted to ask if they had an extra wagon to spare or knew where she could acquire one for our move; but very possibly (certainly by the time I reached them) the woman would mention my discovery. Well, I could stop still where I was at, thereby making a fool of myself as well as disobedient; I could disappear into thin air, but had not yet been taught that particular mode of sorcery; or I could just keep trudging along, knowing that I would not reach Mamma before Mamma reached the Denguer Road alley woman and her son, nephew, or servant.





                                                 Chapter Eleven





         I estimated that I might have been four houses farther South than Mother, both of us on the left side of Palm Highway, when she caught up to the woman from the alley with her boy. I had stopped yet again to adjust my load-one of the boxes seemed ready to fall, and I was surely ready to set it down and continue on without it-when I looked up to see Mamma reaching for the woman's right shoulder. Before she touched her, the woman turned around and looked up at Mamma (for she was perhaps four inches shorter) full in the face, solemnly. Yet I heard Mamma exclaim, “Jah-leeahl!” I startled: Mamma's late sister, mother of my cousins Natay-lee and Jahro, had been named Ja-lil-ah-but she had died more than a year ago, in a drowning accident off her fishing boat, after which her sons had come to live in Mother's compound.  No, Mamma had not called out “Ja-lil-ah,” but a similar name. I bent to pick up the box I had set on the sidewalk and when I stood up, saw that Mamma was motioning me forward, and that the boy was taking Mamma's packages and loading them in a spot he had rendered empty toward the near side of their wagon. He worked a lot faster than I moved, for I was still halfway distant when he ran back to me and took up most of my load, returning to add it to the wagon. Mamma continued to frown at my dilatoriness, so now unburdened I sped up and reached the three.





         “This is Fenrich,” Mamma announced, pulling me forward by a shoulder.





         “Na-tay-lee and Jahro are in the household, of course, but currently remain at the Gymnasium in shelter, where Fenrich should have been,” she glared at me.





         “You know of  Ja-lil-ah, of course,” she said to this strange woman, who still held silent.


         Finally she spoke, turning from her contemplation of the street (she had made no attempt to help the boy finish loading) to look at Mamma again.





         “No.”





         After fifteen years in her society I was accustomed to Mamma being silent mostly; Pastor Janns, the constant scholar, spoke more than did she. I tended not to be too talkative myself. But this woman seemed more to resemble a clam than a human creature.  After that one word she fell silent again and returned to staring at the ground, then spun around and watched the boy rope down our possessions and motion him to push the wagon forward. Even Mamma looked perplexed at this strange reaction, but continued nonetheless.





         “OUR sister  Ja-lil-ah passed in New Season, more than a year ago, in the March month. She drowned off her fishing boat, in an unexpected tide. Her sons came to live in our compound: Na-tay-lee and Jah-ro. Twelve and eleven. Fenrich-my child-is fifteen. And yours?”





         The woman turned slowly around again, this time not looking at Mamma.





         “Jarr-o. Fifteen.”





         Then she turned her back on both of us and started following the boy-I guess her son-up the road. Mamma and I stepped up to the sidewalk and followed as well, Mamma determined to discuss the housing situation with this strange oddity, me just thankful no one had mentioned my recent discovery of the silent naked abandoned child.





Chapter Twelve





         The City of Mellaigch had existed for nearly a millenium without quakes, volcanoes (there were none nearby on our island), tsunamis, tidal waves, forest fires (we had forests, but mostly on the other side of the island, and lightning had never struck there sufficiently to commence a fire), or any other natural disasters. Nor had Mellaigch ever been subjected to invasion, civil war, or much crime.





         But our sense of entitlement, adventure, and security had all dissolved now. Our peace in our surroundings, our trust that just as sun follows night follows sun, one day would turn into another unendingly, had collapsed. Now we knew nothing for certain, except that nothing was certain. Anything now could happen, and already had:





         a tidal wave had washed away our Harbour and our fisheries and our shipbuilding enterprises and equipment installers,


         I had discovered a naked, silent, abandoned, infant in a spot which had been empty when I first passed,


         I had an aunt-another sister of my mother-of whom I had known nothing, and a cousin I also had not known, and it was this unknown aunt to whom I had unwittingly appealed for help to contact the Constable and the Healers.





         Anything now could happen-and yet one more example was about to present it to my astonished eyes.





“Jah-leeah, have you a place?” asked my Mother, who seemed not at all astonished to have discovered her missing younger sister.





The woman turned slighty, but did not meet Mamma's eyes.





“No, not as yet.”





“Where were you living?”





“On Denguer Road, where I met your daughter.”





         Now Mamma turned to me with astounded gaze.





         “Fenrich? When did you meet Fenrich?”





         My new aunt turned toward me, where I walked in the  center of the street, while she and her son Jantho walked at the edge of the street where a curb ought to be, and Mamma strolled up the sidewalk like the General in charge. Aunt Jah-leeah gazed solemnly at me (I had not yet seen her expression change even once, from the time I had first encountered her on Denguer Road Alley earlier today) and she seemed simply to be waiting for me to take up the tale. I refused-or at least I would continue to refuse until Mamma pressed me. Once Mamma's interrogation began, I would of necessity tell all. I thought, though, that Mamma would be willing to wait until we reached our compound, and possibly until we were settled in. I decided to sidetrack the conversation at once.





         “Mamma, how much more do we lack of moving?”





“All of the contents of Pastor Janns' study are being carted to our new compound even now. I have brought with me that which was of most importance and which did not need to be exposed to others.”





She waved a hand lightly toward the wagon, which now contained ours as well as Aunt Jah-leeah's possessions. Surely she and Jantho could not have brought everything of theirs?





“After the men unload and install Pastor Jann's study in the new compound, they will return to our former home and pack up all that is left and bring it to us. Our home will be ready completely by this evening. Then no unpacking will be left to be done. And Jah-leeah, I do appreciate your allowing us the partial use of your cartage as well; I fear Fenrich was feeling burdened down.”





         No response was given to that, so Mamma continued.





         “So, Jah-leeah, you do not have a place?”





“Not as yet-I adjudged that our former home might no longer be safe or suitable. We do not know how much more destruction is to come. And even if none-well, the fisherfolk must themselves move, those that are left, and I think that is all of them, and they will need to relocate as close as possible to the sea, I suppose. All of the houses on our street are empty now at least.”





“So you lived where all this time, without me knowing?”





“Jantho and I resided on Denguer Road-"