Authors: Janice Kirk,Gina Buonaguro
"How do you know all this?" she asked with genuine curiosity, her fear forgotten for a moment.
"There’s a book on the subject," he said.
"On my ancestors?" she asked with surprise.
"That's right." He left his station by the tree and walked down to the beach, careful not to get too close to her. He picked up a smooth, flat pebble from the beach and expertly skipped it across the water.
"Like so many settlers,” he continued, “Alexander and his wife were not prepared for the hardships. The first winter they nearly starved. They had arrived late in the fall and had to live on the food they had brought with them, which wasn't much.
“When the ox they bought for clearing the land died of cold and starvation, they ate it. Other more established settlers gave them what they could spare in the way of flour and sugar, and Alexander himself was able to hunt with some success. At one point during the winter, a Mohawk man travelling in the area stopped by their cabin with a brace of rabbits.”
Rain stopped to look at a shell he had found among the pebbles before continuing. “The next year was little better. Alexander wasn't a farmer, he was a soldier. Back in England, he had been led to believe that the land in Canada was so fertile that one only needed to drop seed on the ground in the spring to enjoy a bountiful harvest in fall. What a shock he must have had. Forest and rock – that’s all there was. The land had to be cleared of trees, stumps, roots, and rocks before anything could be planted. And remember, they had already eaten the ox. That year, he barely grew more potatoes than the seed potatoes he planted.”
Emily looked around, thinking that despite “progress” in the form of roads and farms, how little this part of the country had changed. It was still trees and rock.
“That fall they had a baby boy named August,” Rain went on, looking out across the water, as if he were seeing the country through Alexander’s eyes. “Alexander decided that the only way they could get through the winter was if he went to work trapping for the Hudson Bay Company. So, in early November, off he went, on foot, to find the Hudson Bay Company, promising his wife he'd be back by Christmas.
“Two weeks before Christmas, it got very cold. The baby was sick, and Alexander’s wife
was worried about him getting a chill. She built a big fire in the fireplace, and the wooden chimney caught on fire."
"Wooden chimney?"
Emily asked in surprise. “That sounds dangerous.”
Rain started in surprise at her voice. He had become so absorbed in his own
story,
he had almost forgotten he was telling it for her benefit.
"Yes. They often built wooden chimneys.
Although they must have known how dangerous they were.
It was easier though, given the scarcity of materials."
"Did the house burn down?" she asked with genuine interest. She had never given much thought to her ancestors, but Rain was making them seem so real, she couldn’t help but be curious.
"To the ground,” he said with a sigh. “She saved the baby and a few blankets from the bed, but not much else. Fortunately, the little food she had was stored in the root cellar dug into the cabin floor. She took the baby and their meagre belongings she had saved into the cellar, closed the trap door over her head, and stayed there with the baby in the dark and the cold, virtually buried alive, with nothing to eat but potatoes."
"And they survived?" she asked incredulously.
Rain smiled inwardly. He was pleased with himself. He couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction. A few minutes ago, she had been hostile, but now she was animated and friendly. He decided to push his luck. “I’ll tell you what,” he said casually as he skipped yet another pebble through the water. “If you let me take you out for dinner tomorrow, I’ll give you the next instalment of the story.”
“Dinner?” she asked with obvious surprise.
“Yes.
Why not?” he said, already wondering if it was a mistake.
He was pushing his luck again....
“Okay, sure.” she said. Rain looked at her, and for a moment their eyes met. He gazed into them and wondered if he hadn’t been too presumptuous in thinking she was impossible to reach. But just then, the guarded look returned. It was as dramatic as a cloud passing over the sun. She looked away, stood up, and without a word started along the shoreline.
The eastern end of the lake ended in a high cliff along the top of which ran the eastern boundary of the farm. It was a steep climb from the shoreline to the top of the ridge, but generations of
Alexanders
had smoothed the ascent by clearing a path and building rough stone steps in the steepest spots.
Emily pushed on ahead, with Rain following behind. He came here often – it was a good place to think. He also liked to keep the path free of debris. It was an old path, and it seemed respectful to those who had built it to keep it maintained. He stopped and pulled a branch from the path, making a mental note to come back with a saw and clear back the encroaching brush. It would be a good job for a sunny winter day.
The trail emerged onto a large flat circular rock. It was surrounded with trees except for the lakeside, which overhung the water like a theatre balcony. Someone, a long time ago, had placed a row of rocks along the edge of the cliff as a precaution against the sixty-foot drop to the water below. Emily was already seated on one of these rocks, her feet inches from the cliff edge, when Rain emerged from the woods. Her back was to him, and the wind, stronger here, lifted her hair. He stood still, not wanting to disturb her. Perhaps the magic of this view would touch her, as his story clearly had, and make her change her mind about this beautiful piece of land.
And about him.
Emily heard his footsteps on the rock behind her. “Do you still dive from here?” She remembered lying face down looking over the edge of the cliff, the sensuous feeling of the sun-warmed rock beneath her. Rain, his hands and arms outstretched like wings, had seemed to fly from the cliff. She could still see the sweeping arc of his body silhouetted against the clear, summer sky as he drew his hands together over his head and started the descent into the deep water far below. He had entered the water cleanly, coming up moments later, shaking the water from his eyes, laughing, smiling up to her where she too laughed and smiled back.
Over and over, he would climb back up the path, drops of water still glistening on his tanned skin, and jump again.
He was surprised by the question, surprised that she would bring up this shared experience from when they were young and in love. He sat down, careful to leave a rock between them. “No.” He had stopped diving after Emily left. He had stopped a lot of things after she left. Just living took all the strength he had. Out loud he added, “No one to show off to, I guess.”
To his surprise, she looked at him and laughed. Her expression flashed a mischievous sparkle. It seemed to Rain that the sun had just chased the clouds from her eyes. “I’ll hold your coat,” she said with mock seriousness.
Rain laughed with her.
“Can you imagine what Mom and Dad would have done if they’d known?” she asked.
Rain was even more surprised to hear her mention her parents so lightly. “Your mother,” he answered firmly, “would have been furious, but how much do you want to bet that your Dad did the same thing when he was a kid?”
“No, really?!” she asked incredulously. “How do you know?”
“Oh, he let it slip once.”
“That’s so hard to picture,” she said quietly as she turned her gaze back out over the lake and sky. Rain thought he could see her eyes becoming guarded again. Moments of candidness were few with Emily, and he wished they didn’t leave him hungry for more. It would be better if she stayed angry with him all the time; it would save him the useless hoping.
They sat for several minutes, each absorbed in their own thoughts, the silence between them softened by the tranquillity of the scene before them. To their right lay the neat rectangular fields of Maple Tree Farm with their straight borders of sugar maples, while on their left was the dense forest of the crown land.
Except for the cedars and pines, the trees were bare. But still, they had an ethereal beauty of their own. High overhead, its distinctive outline silhouetted against the heavy grey of the sky, a hawk glided on a breeze. A mist began to roll off the lake below them. Ancient and unspoiled, it had remained unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. It was this ability of the Canadian landscape to defy taming that made it so magical, Emily decided. She would not have been surprised to see a canoe paddled by one of the island’s ancient inhabitants emerge from the fog. The eerie, mournful cry of a loon floated on the breeze, and Emily involuntarily shivered.
While Rain did not know the reason for the sudden change of mood, Emily did. Being up here, hearing Rain’s stories, had made up her mind. Rain would be shocked, but by the time he learned what she had done, she would be a long way away.
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Chapter 4
On the way into the village to put her new plan into action, Emily stopped at the Blue Church. So named because of its startling robin’s-egg blue colour, the little church was one of the village’s oldest buildings, its size determined by the meagre resources of the village’s original inhabitants. To the less devout inhabitants, the spending of time, money, and valuable materials on a church must have seemed a folly when there were homes and barns to be built before the vicious winter cold set in. Emily didn’t know the history of its unusual colour, though it occurred to her that Rain might. She would ask him later.
She pulled into the gravel drive and parked her car behind the building. Situated on a hill, the church overlooked the surrounding fields. Sloping down toward a small creek, enclosed by a faded white picket fence, was the cemetery. It was the cemetery that interested Emily. She pushed open the gate and walked between the stones until she came to the corner where the
Alexanders
were buried.
She’d come here as a child with her parents to leave flowers at the gravestones of her grandfather and grandmother. She’d liked it here, so peaceful and cool under the soft branches of the weeping willows. It lost all its peace for her, however, when her mother died and took her place among her husband’s family. Emily hadn’t been back since the day of the funeral.