Stones (12 page)
“Oh, they all left the area long ago. Most returned to the U.S. You should read Elizabeth Maitland’s diary. She and her husband were the first to take up land near where the church came to be built. Maybe she mentions it.”
“Where can I get it? The library?”
“Don’t you remember? It’s part of my estate-sale purchase. In fact, you were holding it in your hands not long ago. It’s badly damaged, but a lot is still legible. It’s a genuine historical record.”
I remembered the box of books I had tucked away when the delivery was made, and the musty old volume Dad had showed me that day.
We ate in silence and Dad made a pot of his killer coffee. I brewed tea for Raphaella. While we sipped, a thought came into my mind.
“Dad, you said all the blacks left the area. Why? Too cold up here in the great white north?”
“I doubt it. Most came by way of Ohio and returned there. They have winter there, too. No, it’s a mystery. Nobody really knows why they left.”
After dinner the next day, I met Raphaella at the library. I found her on the second floor, sitting at a large oak table, a small stack of books before her, making notes from a volume that looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day for a century or so.
I stood and watched her. Her raven hair hung straight, hiding her face. Why is she so closed in? I wondered for the thousandth time. I knew she liked being with me. Things like that you couldn’t fake. And why would she? Nobody was forcing her to hang out with me. I knew she liked the physical side of things, too. Not that there was much. Kissing, hugging, holding hands. She wouldn’t go any further, not even when I felt her heart beating against my chest and her breath quick in my ear. She would stop and push me away.
She looked up and saw me. “By the pricking of my thumbs …” she said.
“Um, okay.”
“Something handsome this way comes.”
“I get the feeling you’re misquoting someone. Again.”
“Shakespeare. The Scottish play. One of the witches.”
“Ah,” I said knowingly. I didn’t have a clue. “Find anything useful?”
“Lots, but it’s all background. Let’s go to your store where we can talk. I’ll fill you in.”
At the store we made ourselves comfortable in the office. Raphaella opened up her notes and began.
“Okay, we go back a long way here. Two dates to keep in mind for the time being. After 1793, no one could be enslaved in Upper Canada — or any other British colony, for that matter. People who were already slaves remained so. After 1833, slavery was abolished altogether in Upper and Lower Canada.”
“Which really bugged the Americans, I’ll bet.”
“Keep your eye on the ball here, Garnet. We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Speaking of the Americans, relations between them and Britain hadn’t improved after
the Revolution, in seventeen whatever. You know where Penetanguishene is?”
I put on a stupid face. “Duh, a town up there on Georgian Bay?”
“The British were always afraid that the Americans would control the Great Lakes with their navy, and poor little Penetanguishene sat up there on the water, almost totally isolated, so the Brits got the idea to build a land route there from Barrie. That way, the port could be supplied and defended more easily. Remember, back then this whole area was nothing but wilderness criss-crossed by Indian trails.
“In 1811 a guy named Samuel Wilmot surveyed a road.”
“Old Sammy. What a guy.”
Raphaella sat straight and rolled her eyes. “No wonder you were in trouble at school all the time. Be quiet and pay attention.”
“Did I ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you take control?”
“While Wilmot was at it, he surveyed parcels of land on each side of the road for settlers. Why? you might ask.”
“I might, but I won’t.”
“Because settlers could grow food for the
soldiers at the fort and, if necessary, they could defend the road.”
“All this is really fascinating, Raphaella, but I don’t really see —”
“During the War of 1812–14, the Americans did gain control of the lakes — for part of the war, anyway — so the government of Upper Canada knew it had made a wise decision. They decided to survey the whole area and bring in more settlers.
“The governor of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Maitland —”
“Who would name their kid after a falcon?”
“May I continue?”
“Sorry. Proceed.”
“Maitland decided to grant some of the land to blacks.”
“Hey! Just like Dad said! And Maitland, that’s the name of the pioneer who took up land near the church.”
“Couldn’t have been this Maitland. He lived at York — that’s Toronto. Your Maitland must have been a relative. Anyway, here’s the rest. Maitland was an abolitionist, and therefore sympathetic to blacks, almost all of them ex-slaves from the U.S. Between 1819 and 1826, twenty-one land grants were made to blacks. Nineteen
located their grants, meaning they filed for them, but only eight families actually settled. You had to clear a certain amount of land and build a dwelling before you got ownership.
“Between 1828 and 1831, another forty black families bought land in Oro at a special price. After 1825 the area was opened up to Loyalists and military men, and in 1831 it was opened to what they called indigents — poor people — and a hundred or so white families settled.
“Stop fidgeting — I’m almost done. Between 1831 and 1871, the black population remained steady, but by 1900 they were all gone.”
“And nobody knows why they left.”
“Exactly.”
“How did you find all this out in such a short time?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. I get books. I read.”
She tapped a photocopy of a map. “This shows the survey of the township. The shaded areas are the lots granted to blacks.” She picked up her notes and aligned the sheets. I looked at the map.
The Penetanguishene Road, now Highway 93, was clearly marked, and so was Wilberforce
Street to the east of it, named after the Brit whose law emancipated slaves in British territory. It was the first concession settled by blacks.
“Hmm.”
“What?” Raphaella asked.
“Look. The lots along the Penetanguishene Road are twice as big as the ones on Wilberforce Street. Old Peregrine was sympathetic toward the ex-slaves but only to a point. Seems he was
against
slavery but not
for
equality. Anyway, now we know why there’s an African Methodist church in Oro,” I said.
“Right. Although the first generation or two of African slaves apparently hung on to their old beliefs, eventually they adopted the religion of their masters.”
“Christianity.”
“Yup. Baptist, Methodist and so on. Mostly Protestant. They’d have been Christian for at least a generation before they came here.”
“Well,” I said, standing and stretching, “all this has been very informative, but it doesn’t explain the voices.”
“True.”
“So, tomorrow we’ll go to the township offices and search the title to the land around the church and Silverwood. We need to find
out who used to live there.” I had a thought. “Hey! Wait a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I dashed into the workshop and over to the box of books I had temporarily stored in a corner by the door. I picked up Elizabeth Maitland’s diary and took it back to the office.
Placing it in the middle of the desk, I explained to Raphaella what it was.
“Great,” she said.
The stained and flaky brown leather cover was intact at the front and along the spine, but the back cover had been torn off. The pages were rippled in places, indicating that the diary had gotten wet at some point. It gave off a dry, musty odor.
I opened it at random and flipped a couple of pages. The paper had a yellow tinge and the ink was a sepia color. The handwriting was spidery and difficult to read. On some pages Elizabeth had made line drawings of wild flowers and other plants. Raphaella, to my surprise, recognized all of them.
“She really knew her stuff,” she said.
“Maybe this thing will tell us something,” I suggested.
“Yeah. It’s going to be heavy reading, though.”
“I’ll start on it tomorrow. Tonight I wait in the bush to see what I can see.”
“You mean,
we
wait. I don’t want to miss this —”
“Are you sure? The woman doesn’t come until midnight. Your mother will kill you.”
“I’ll deal with my mother later.”
W
e were ready by eleven-thirty, about fifty feet off the trail I had checked out before, the one I was pretty sure the woman was using. It was a mild night, with a touch of breeze. The sky above the treetops was dusted with stars.
Anybody who lives outside the city knows that, at night, the forest is anything but quiet. Added to the faint whisper of the wind in the treetops is the rustle of small animals in the undergrowth, the birdlike chirp of frogs, sometimes an owl’s
whoo-whoo
— all of it amplified by the dark and, at least in my case, the imagination.
Raphaella and I didn’t speak. We sat down and leaned against a thick maple tree, facing in opposite directions so we covered the trail both ways. I felt foolish — what if she turned out to
be a real live woman? — and uneasy at the same time. The bush at night is eerie, and I knew that if I wasn’t careful, I’d let the creeps get hold of me. I may have been in techno-mode the day before, but not now.
I jumped when I felt Raphaella’s fingers enclose my wrist. Leaves rustled quietly as she got to her knees. I felt her breath in my ear when she spoke.
“She’s coming. From your direction.”
I peered south along the trail. “I can’t see anything, or hear.”
“She’s approaching. I can sense her.”
In the distance, a faint moaning floated out of the dark. Gradually, the sound grew nearer, fuller, rounder, recognizable — the heart-wrenching weeping that was, by now, so familiar to me.
In the darkness, I detected a faint movement. The sharp pressure on my wrist told me Raphaella had seen it, too. I knew in an instant that the woman who slowly came into view was not of this world. I saw her, clearly and distinctly, but at the same time I saw
through
her. She possessed shape and form but no substance.
She was wearing a kerchief, a loose coat open at the front — a man’s coat — a long
dress under an apron and ankle boots that, like the coat, seemed too big for her. As she walked, a pendant hanging from a cord around her neck bobbed in and out of sight. She was a black woman, with a broad nose and full lips in a face that, if it hadn’t been twisted in grief, might have been kindly. She came on steadily downhill toward us, one hand at her chest as if she was holding a bunch of flowers, but her fist was empty. And with her came the cold.
The full weight of her grief fell upon us like a heavy cloak, and her sadness crept into the marrow of my bones, an aching sense of loss so powerful I had the urge to cry with her. Beside me, Raphaella knelt on the dry leaves, her shoulders shaking.
The woman stopped. She stood straight and still, and silent. Slowly, her head turned and she stared at us. I could feel my blood stop in my veins. We’re in for it now, I thought.
But, tentatively, she moved off the path. Her footsteps raised no sound as she skirted our position, glancing our way repeatedly, until, once past us, she rejoined the path. The moans rose up again as she continued north through the trees and out of sight.
Without hesitation, Raphaella and I followed her at a distance. I could guess where she was going. We crossed the creek on the fallen log and, after a while, came to the edge of the trees.
The churchyard was brushed with a faint silver light from the moon. I scanned the open area but didn’t see the woman. Raphaella tapped my arm and pointed to the right along the broken-down rail fence that bordered the graveyard. The woman was kneeling on all fours, crying harder now, her hands splayed on the ground.
“Jubal,” she crooned. “How could you leave me?”
Her voice was strong and rich despite her grief, with an accent I had never heard before.
“I can’t take any more,” Raphaella whispered, choking back her sobs. “Let’s leave her alone.”
“Okay.”
I led her along the rail fence to the gravel road. The air was noticeably warmer. Somehow, the road was comforting, offering security, normality. I put my arm around Raphaella’s shoulders. She was trembling. So was I.
“Come on,” I said, and we walked along the road to Silverwood.
To my surprise, Raphaella was more upset than I was. As we had walked, the oppressive burden of the woman’s mourning had lessened, but in the trailer, at the little dining table, Raphaella was pale and shaken.
I made some tea and we sat at the table, hands cupped around our mugs.
“I wonder who she is,” Raphaella said finally. Then, “Were you scared, Garnet?”
“It’s strange. I was really scared, until I saw her and when she stopped and stared at us. Then I was more …”
“Unbearably sad.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know how you’ve put up with this, night after night.”
“It was spooky, but somehow not real. Until now.”