Are You Haunted (part fifty-five)

Are You Haunted

(part fifty-five)

When April arrived, she would stop in town, have tea with Mrs. Wolter and John, bring her basket with the knitted cap and scarf and bed-shawl, her winter gifts for them. But under these, pack a few travel things.

John would wish to walk her along the shops, but by then she’d have done him justice, visiting, and could spare no more. Dennis knew his way to Boston; he had been by train to buy them passage, first class, on the Lisbon-bound Italie…at the cost of her mother’s emerald collar.

God willing no further storms, and with her husband she would sail in a month.

They sat on the front bench, a row of respectable Drybrooks: Papa, Davis, Lettie, her older sister Wilda. She was hemmed in by propriety. If anyone supposed Letitia Drybrook to have spent the last clear day being driven in a borrowed rig, wrapped with Dennis Tovey in the same blanket, making no secret of her choice, the sight of these straight-backed, soberly-dressed pillars of the community, would give him cause to doubt his eyes. Her father might think so.

She had not panicked, none of them had, when the first snow whirled up, and gusts began to rock their carriage. They had a mile or two to go, hours surely before the road could be lost.

They glided into the barn. Davis and Papa helped their man Tanner unhitch the team and bed them in their stalls. Lettie and Wilda climbed to the loft and forked down straw.

They filled the feed racks with hay; the storm blew like a boiling kettle, and Tanner, crushed at the door, said, “Got to go.”

Smug, as though he owned those things predicted by his barometer, Davis said, “Could rage on like this two or three days.”

And Lettie, with contrition, wondered if her thoughts towards her father had been fair. He was taking solicitous care of her, his pet, positioning her before him on the path, telling her, “Hold tight, Letitia, do not let go.”

Tanner took a carriage lamp ahead, Davis the other behind. Lettie saw little but snow. In a grey light, the belly of the storm sagged over them. It was not yet noon.

They stalled, after a weary time, in confusion…

They were no closer to the house. Tanner’s lamp went, and Davis, cloaking his, struggled up. Lettie could see a flicker of yellow at the hilltop, and another, lanterns hung to guide them. But only Mae on her couch, and the girl Theresa, who dusted and fetched, were at home.

She heard shouting. The men had dug out the dogleg, their landmark that restored their bearings. She squeezed her father’s hand, before her legs buckled and she floundered.

And then, she felt his grip relax and drop away.

“Papa!” she called. “Papa, I can’t see you!”

She could see, though. Just the skirt of his overcoat, and she had clutched at it, swimming in snow, her feet so numb she had no feeling for earth.

If earth were below her. She saw for a moment the last of his dark shape.

Lettie, sinking, fought a while, and felt herself slide into the streambed, snow cascading down.

54

Haunted
Are You Haunted (part one)

(2019, Stephanie Foster)