A woman was shouting over the din of a washing machine.
“Laura, you get back here! Laura?”
Her husband touched her arm, a calming gesture,
“Karen, let her go. She’s growing up. She needs to win some of the battles.”
“Some? Are you kidding? She wins all of them and right now we really do need some help here.”
“I know, I know. Give her time to cool off. She’ll help. She’s a good kid.”
“I know she is, but she could do with some discipline.”
“Oh, come on -”
“No Jack, she’s gotten so headstrong and,” she searched for the word, “argumentative.”
“And who do you think she gets that from?”
He gently touched the side of his wife’s face.
“I’ll go speak to her, OK?”
Karen merely shrugged.
Jack put down the basket of washing and wiped his hands dry on his jeans as he climbed the basement stairs. His daughter was in her bedroom, prostrate across the bed, crying passionate tears into her pillow. Jack sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the tears to subside.
“Laura? Laura, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I wanted to finish reading Wuthering Heights and then I wanted to go see my friends.”
“But we do need your help, Laura.”
“You always need my help. I never get to do what I want to do. I don’t have any life here. And Mom won’t let me go see my friends,” she gulped dramatically for air, “She doesn’t want me to have any friends.”
Jack let his daughter get all this out and then spoke quietly.
“Now Laura, you know that’s not true. Your mom’s happy you’ve made friends here. And who was it drove you to the mall last weekend when she had a real bad headache?”
Laura couldn’t really argue the truth of this; it was usually her mother who drove her into town. But she still felt aggrieved, so she half-heartedly persisted with a final question
“Then why won’t she let me go see them now?”
“You know why. Like she told you, we do need your help here today. We’ve got to finish making up the beds and cleaning the rooms before lunchtime.”
Laura knew she was beaten and that she’d been acting selfishly. Her parents really did need her help and they didn’t pull this ‘all hands’ routine very often. They really weren’t so bad. If only her mom would relax and not get uptight over the least little thing. Dad often said she and her mom were alike, but Laura couldn’t see it.
She decided she would help out her parents now, then one of them would be able to give her a lift into town later and she could still meet up with her friends at the mall. She wiped away the hot tears and sniffed. Her father smiled indulgently at her, encouraging her.
“That’s my wonderful girl,” he said tenderly, proffering a handkerchief, “Now, will you help me make up the beds?”
Laura and her father worked together for several hours.
When all the beds were made and the rooms finally finished, Laura and her father went down to the kitchen in the basement for a Coke and a beer. Jack called up to Karen to join them. She came into the room looking exhausted.
“OK, that’s everything ready, at last,” she said, collapsing into a chair.
“Laura was a great help, Karen,” said Jack, smiling at his wife, “She cleaned the top floor all by herself. No way would I have had the rooms finished without her.”
Karen knew when praise was due and Jack was right, they were lucky to have such a great kid.
“Thanks Laura,” she said, getting up from her chair to give her daughter a gentle hug, “and I’m sorry I lost it earlier. You do know it’s the worry of our first bookings, right? I’ll be OK after this week. I’ll be back to my old, easy-going self.”
Both Jack and Laura laughed out loud.
“What?” said Karen, with feigned indignation, “Are you saying I’m not easy going? Heck, back East they used to say I was one cool, laid back chick.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” asked Jack.
“People,” she smirked.
“People who’d never met you, maybe.”
“Hey, I don’t have to stay here and take this abuse,” she looked wounded, “ Heck, I could - ”
She stopped mid-sentence at the sound of the bell on the reception desk.
“They’re here! They’re early! And I haven’t had a chance to freshen up.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll go,” Jack said, straightening his collar and smoothing his hair. He took a deep breath. “Do I look OK?”
“You look just fine,” said his wife, “Go get ‘em.”
Laura suddenly spoke up.
“What about my ride into town?”
Her father looked apologetic.
“Sorry, Laura. What can I say? They’re early. I can’t leave now and your mom’s got to make the midday meal for the guests.”
“But Dad!”
The bell jangled again, insistent. Jack looked anxious, torn.
Karen felt her temper rising.
“We can’t take you now,” she said firmly, “Don’t you get it, Laura? This is how we make enough money to live, so you can have the stuff you need. We’ve got to make this work. We can’t just take off and be your cab ride whenever you want.”
“But you promised.”
“I didn’t promise anything,” Karen snapped.
The bell rang again, louder and longer than before.
“I’ve got to go,” Jack said, “I’m sorry Hon. Explain it to her, will you Karen.”
Laura was furious. She watched her father leave the room and was overcome with the injustice of her treatment. She had worked really hard all morning and this was the thanks she got.
“Laura?” her mother started.
“Oh forget it Mom. Why should I get to do anything I want? I’m just the help.”
“Laura come back.”
“I’m going out.”
“It’s too far to walk into town.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know. Of course it’s too far; I’m a prisoner here. Stuck out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but trees, trees and more stupid trees as far as you can see.”
“So, why not stay here with me? We could do something together if you like.”
“Yeah, like getting the food ready?”
Her mother’s face was pained. She knew how hurt Laura must be feeling. In so many ways she saw her own younger self in her daughter’s tempestuous and gregarious nature. Karen remembered her own teen years. How important it had been to be ‘where it was at’, to be one of the ‘beautiful people’ back then. They had all seemed wonderfully exotic; the way they dressed, even the expressions they used were so new and exciting. But for Karen it had seemed that the world was changing for everyone but her. She wasn’t in that world; she had to stay in and do schoolwork. She couldn’t listen to the music she wanted and she would never have dared to try any drugs, even if she had known where to go to get them. How easy it had been to imagine everyone else was living the new age of Aquarius, while she had to stay home and do chores. Karen ached for her daughter; they were so alike. But, right now, there really was work to be done and the mall had to wait. Karen tried conciliation.
“Well, Honey, I do have to make a start on the meal soon, but we could maybe spend some time together first. Just you and me. If you’d like.”
Expecting anger, Laura was touched by the tenderness in her mother’s tone. She looked up, saw the love in her mother’s face and felt her own anger begin to melt away. She didn’t want to be the cause of that distress. With depressingly familiar regret, she wished she had perhaps not said some of the things she had. She never meant to get mad, but it seemed to happen too easily and too often. Many times, she found herself in the middle of a heated argument, usually with her mom, without any clear idea as to what had sparked it off. In more lucid moments, when she could view the problem calmly, she would resolve to curb her temper and be more patient, especially with her mother, because she understood something of what her parents were going through. She knew how difficult it had been for them to start their lives over. Her father had lost his job in the city and her mother had quit her part time job so they could sell up and move here. They had put everything they owned into this place. Harsh necessity had forced her parents to leave behind everything they had known since childhood: family, friends and the neighbourhood they had grown up in.
Of course, Laura had also had to deal with the change and upheaval, but, for her, the sadness of leaving behind old friends had been offset by the thrill of adventure. To her mind, with an imagination fed over the years on a diet rich in romantic historical novels, she and her parents were off to start a new life out in wild frontier lands. Initially the remoteness of the small hotel they had bought, and the long journey to it, following dark and mysterious forest roads, had been a source of huge excitement to her. Exploring their area of forest and discovering the river flowing close by had been magical. To a dreamer like Laura it had seemed that she was a living character from one of her novels.
It was only with the familiarity of passing days and weeks that the wonder had begun to dull; the deep, majestic presence of the forest gradually diminishing, to become merely a backdrop to the family’s domestic routine. Then Laura took to wishing that something would happen; anything, to break the monotony of their backwoods existence. Only the swirling pools of the cataracts along the river retained their deep fascination; casting a spell over Laura, with the waters’ endless, eddying dance soothing and calming her frequent hot-headed outbursts. The long forest road into town no longer seemed magical. It now represented only a barrier, delaying her getting to school or to the mall to meet with her new friends. But Laura had to admit to herself that her mother and father had, on many occasions, dropped what they had planned to do in order to drive her to town. And had then made the long round trip again to pick her up when she was done.
Laura again looked into her mother’s face. Full of remorse, she hugged her mother close. Her parents had both worked so hard to get the hotel ready and today was the big day, the start of their new life; the first guests had arrived. And, instead of helping willingly, instead of recognising that anxiety was the cause of her mother’s short temper, she’d behaved like a spoiled brat. She turned away.
“I’m so sorry Mom.”
Her mother put out her arms and drew her daughter back.
“Hey, Honey, it’s OK. I’m sorry too; I get a bit crazy sometimes,” she hugged Laura, rocking her gently and stroking her hair, as she had when Laura was a tiny child afraid of the dark. “This has all been so hard on you, hasn’t it; leaving your old friends and starting over? And being a teenager is never easy,” she looked at Laura intently, “Believe me I do understand, really. And we will make it up to you. We love you so very much.”
“Love you too Mom.”
They both wiped away some tears, laughing at their own sentimentality.
“So,” said Karen brightly, “are we gonna have us some quality time?”
“Thanks, Mom, but I think I’ll go down to the pools, if that’s OK. That’s if you don’t need me to help you with anything here for a while?”
Her mother shook her head.
“Thanks, I won’t be long.”
“No problem. But please don’t wander too far. We can go explore more of the woods together next week, when this lot check out, OK? Till then, don’t go any farther will you? I’m sorry to play the over-protective mom, but what can I say? I’m typecast for the role. Can’t help myself.”
“It’s OK Mom,” Laura smiled, “I’m used to it.”
“Great. So you won’t mind putting this on?” Karen handed her daughter a garish sweater from the pile of dry laundry, “It can get cold in the shade of those trees.”
Laura pulled a face, but then acquiesced with good humour and a drawling Southern accent.
“Why I’d simply adore to, Honeypie. And not just on account of how it’s you asking,” she pulled the fluorescent yellow sweater over her head, “but also ‘cos this shade so closely matches my oh so beautiful eyes.”
Laura posed with a radiant smile, batting her eyelids like a Hollywood starlet. She was rewarded with her mother’s laughter.
Karen shook her head, this daughter of hers was the most amazing kid; a real joy. As Laura walked across the clearing, she turned and waved to her mother standing, still smiling, at the kitchen door.
“Bye Mom. See you later.”
Karen hugged herself in the warmth of her daughter’s affection and waved back.
“Love you.”
From the clearing, Laura followed the narrow path and was soon in deep shade. Out of direct sunlight, the temperature had dropped appreciably and she was thankful for the sweater, though it glowed a rather incongruous neon lemon in the dim light under the trees. Laura looked around her and smiled; she might long for the faster pace and modernity of the town, but this place really was special. The dreamer within her imagined a welcome in the cool stillness here amongst the trees, as if the forest was protectively hugging her to itself. She loved the soft bed of needles and dried leaves underfoot which cushioned her steps and muffled any sound. And she loved the dusky twilight that wrapped itself around you even on the brightest of days.
There was peace here.
The path drew her towards the river. Laura had walked this way with her parents, exploring, on their first day here. And they had all been dizzy as kids at Christmas when they discovered the waterfalls and pools just over the rise. In the months since then, Laura had made this walk whenever she wanted some quiet time to herself. This was her special place, the perfect retreat. She had spent many hours sitting on the rocks reading, or simply watching the water tumble over the falls and swirl in the pools below. The never-ending movement would cast its spell; carrying away her worries and freeing the imagination. It induced an almost trance-like calm.
The stream’s course through the forest was accompanied by a thread-like break in the tree cover, which allowed sunlight in to sparkle on the clear, fast-flowing water below. Laura topped the rise and saw the ribbon of sunlight twinkling through the trees ahead. She scrambled down onto a large, flat rock which overhung the stream as it left the plunge pool of the second fall. The rock had been warmed by the sun and Laura stretched out lazily, like a cat on a sunny window ledge. She let her hand slip into the water and gasped in shock at the icy cold. But she persisted, lifting a cupped handful of water into the air, to watch it sparkle, falling back into the racing stream.
She was totally absorbed in this way for over an hour, her mind roaming freely and her body completely relaxed. Eventually though, she drifted back to reality and decided it was time to head back home. Her mom could probably do with some help now; clearing away the meal and resetting the tables. With slow, reluctant movements, Laura got to her feet and was about to turn away when something caught her eye. Something small and pale had just tipped over the rim and dropped down the face of the first fall. Intrigued, Laura waited for it to come spilling out of the first plunge pool and over the second fall. And there it was. A small figure.
A doll.
It seemed to be made of wood, but it was being dragged under and around the pool by the rolling currents. Laura strained to see it in the churning water. She wanted to get it out, but it was almost impossible to predict where it would surface next. Too late she decided to concentrate just on the water leaving the plunge pool. She crouched low over the exiting flow just in time to see the doll being swept past her under the surface, its blank eyes staring up at her. With a cry of irritation, Laura jumped back to her feet and set off along the bank of the stream, scanning the water, searching for the doll. She ran alongside as the stream widened and the flow gradually slackened, but she couldn’t see it. Eventually she stopped and was about to give up on the chase, when the tiny figure suddenly bobbed back up into view. It was now being gently rolled over and over, bumping along the pebbly bank on the opposite side. Laura grabbed a fallen branch and heaved it across the stream, poking at the doll, trying to drag it towards her. She succeeded in hooking it on the branch and pulling it away from the bank. But the stronger current in the middle of the stream tugged the doll free and began to carry it further downstream. The branch was too heavy to carry any distance so Laura threw it aside and ran, following the now floating figure, further and further down into the forest.
As she approached some impressively roaring water falls, a clump of dense, overhanging trees made it difficult for her to stay near the water. She had to scramble further up the bank to get around the thicket and by the time she was able to come back down to the water’s edge, there was no sign of the doll. Laura paced back and forth looking for it, but to no avail.
It had disappeared.
She kicked a stone over the falls in frustration, then, resigned, sat down on the mossy earth to catch her breath before beginning the journey back upstream. Calming, as her breathing slowed back to normal, she began to feel rather foolish. What had possessed her to chase a doll - a kid’s toy and a scruffy, roughly-made one at that - this far into an unfamiliar area of the forest? Best not to tell mom, she decided.
Getting to her feet, she dusted herself down and frowned, realising that the return journey would be uphill all the way. She clambered back up the bank, around the densely growing trees. Glancing to one side, her eye was drawn to a pool of sunlight a short distance to her left. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, in her haste as she scrambled downstream, but she saw now that there was a scrubby clearing, fringed with dark pines. Leaving the roaring of the falls behind her, to take a closer look, she could now make out a very decrepit shack, slumped in the centre of the open space.
When Laura and her parents had first moved here, they had been warned to keep the clearing around their new home cut low, in case of forest fire.
The old timers who sat outside the general store all day, watching the world go by, had nodded sagely as Mr Bowen, the storekeeper, explained to Laura’s parents how they might have need of that fire break one day. Of course, old man Bowen might just have been selling them a line so they’d buy the scythes and cutters they needed from him, but her father had taken no chances. He had followed the advice dutifully and kept the clearing around their new home very much under control. But the clearing here, surrounding this desolate shack, was under three or four foot of new growth, with taller, spindly saplings jostling for sunlight and air. There couldn’t have been anyone living here for years. Laura was intrigued. She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t too late. If she ran most of the way back, she would have time enough to check out the ruined shack first.
Laura stepped a few paces forward to the edge of the trees and looked about. There was no sign of life. Hesitating a moment, feeling both nervous and excited, she then stepped out into the glare of sunlight in the clearing. As soon as she felt the warming sun, her spirits lifted, the tension was broken and she started to run through the waist-high scrub, laughing. She stopped in the shadow of the listing shack and shivered, feeling suddenly chill in its shade. The decayed, bleached wood seemed incongruously lifeless at the centre of all this vigorous, green regeneration. There were gaps between some of the planks of its walls and tangled clumps of dead leaves and grasses had become wedged in the cracked and shattered panes of the grimy windows. The whole was hung with an air of sorrowful desolation that put Laura in mind of the gothic haunts of her beloved victorian literary heroines. Letting her mind wander, Laura imagined with sadness the person, perhaps the patriarch of a pioneer family, who had first carved out this clearing in the ancient forest. Why had he and his family chosen this place? And what had become of all the enthusiasm and ambition, the hopes and dreams that must have fired them? Had they been happy living here, or was the sorry state of the clearing perhaps eloquent evidence of difficult times and hard years spent in fruitless labour? Laura’s was a romantic notion of pioneer life and she touched the grey wood of the shack as if to connect herself with its past. Feeling the bone dry, aged planking, she could almost summon up a glimpse of those early settlers building this, their new home, in the wilderness. The sun would have burned down on them too, as they toiled, backs bent, to clear the land with no more than axes and long, two man saws. Their task would have seemed almost overwhelming and the effort exhausting. Laura sighed. The empathy she felt towards these long dead hopefuls was such that her imagination could almost reach out to them across the years of lonely dereliction here.
“Hey you!”
Laura leapt as a man’s voice rang out across the clearing. She spun round and saw a stocky man standing at the edge of the trees.
“What you doin’?” he yelled.
Still stunned, Laura opened her mouth but no sound came out.
In her many trips into the forest, she’d never met another living soul and she was shocked to have done so, this far from home. She simply stared at him, breathing deeply, trying to calm her rising panic. Although she knew that only about fifteen acres came with their hotel, Laura now realised that she had come to regard the whole forest as private to her. But maybe this odd looking man owned this place. Without intending any wrongdoing, she might now be trespassing on his land. And he didn’t look like the understanding type.
He was wearing a greasy, misshapen leather hat pulled down low. His barrel-like chest strained to burst out of a dull-coloured check shirt and he had an axe resting over his shoulder. Laura gasped as a notion flashed through her mind that time might somehow have slipped. Was it possible that the history of this place was still alive and just a breath away from the now? Could this man be the pioneer who had first cleared this land? If so, who was out of time? Was he a ghost in her time, or was she an echo of the future in his? Laura had wanted so much to glimpse the past of this place, but now she was afraid.
Be careful what you wish for.
Her mind was moving fast. She had to get back in control. Shutting her eyes she turned back towards the shack. She forced herself to reopen her eyes and was hugely relieved to see not a newly built cabin, but the same decrepit grey shack in its forlorn state of collapse. Reality fell back into place. This was now; 1978, her time, not the past. She looked back. The man was still there, but now it seemed to her that he looked very much alive and far too solid for a ghost. She began to relax.
Then the man said something strange.
“You real?” he asked uncertainly.
‘Real?’ Laura thought, ‘What sort of question is that?’
She frowned, then nodded.
The man stayed at the edge of the clearing, making no attempt to come any closer. He looked uneasy, as if he didn’t want to come out of the shade into the sunlight.
“What yuh doin’ here?” he shouted, “This ’ere’s private property.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was only looking.”
“Come here.”
Laura stayed where she was.
“I said come here.”
Still Laura kept her distance. It was strange that the man seemed so reluctant to come into the bright sunlight of the clearing. Laura fought off another irrational notion that he might be a vampire, but vampires were rarely this rotund and, though he might be unwilling to come into the light of the clearing, vampires were never as suntanned as this guy already was. Laura made a mental note to stop watching the late night horror movies. No, this was just some loner who probably lived out here in the forest because he liked his own company and wanted to be left alone. And, if he was living a solitary life out here, her sudden appearance had probably given him a greater shock than he had her.
Laura felt in control now and moved a short distance towards the man while remaining alert and ready to run at the first hint of any danger. She wasn’t frightened exactly, after all, she was thirteen, young and fit whereas this man was middle-aged and, though obviously strong, was clearly not built for speed. She was confident she could outrun him if the need arose.
“What do you want?” she called.
“Just wanted to get a good look at yuh. Yuh don’t belong here,” he frowned intently at her. “This ’ere’s private property.”
He tilted his head and she glimpsed the round, ruddy face beneath the rim of the misshapen leather hat. His skin was leathery and lined and, as he screwed up his eyes the better to focus on her, he displayed an amazingly uneven set of tobacco-darkened teeth. It was impossible to guess the man’s age from his appearance. Prosaically, he could simply be prematurely aged by the hardships of an outdoor life, but alternatively, he could be an old, old man who had walked this land for decades, centuries perhaps, heedless of the passing years. Naturally, Laura decided on the latter.
All of this was going through her head as the man stared at her. Just as she began to feel irritated by this scrutiny, he suddenly shrugged.
“OK, yuh can go. But don’t yuh come back here. This’ ere’s private property. I see yuh round here again, I’ll get my dog and I gotta gun. Now get!”
Offended by his tone and determined not to appear afraid, Laura turned slowly and began to walk away across the clearing.
“I said get!” the man bellowed.
“I’m going, I’m going,” said Laura, utilising the innate ability of teenagers everywhere to irritate their elders.
She smiled, not needing to turn back; she could easily imagine the irritation he must be feeling at her leisurely departure, but she felt he deserved it. She was annoyed at his rudeness; she had given him no cause to speak to her in the way he had. Her trespass had been an honest mistake and, he needn’t worry, she didn’t want to come back to his part of the forest ever again. Still smiling, she paused to annoy him further by stopping to pick a single weed. She snapped the stem and held it lightly, twirling the tiny flower head slowly with thumb and forefinger.
She could almost feel the man bristle with fury.
But there was another observer of the scene. Hidden from her view, at the far side of the clearing, a dark figure watched Laura with a cold, hungry intensity.
“Get!” the old man shouted again, his patience near its end.
Laura made no move to hurry; she was going to drag this out until she felt he had paid for his rudeness.
“I’m going, I’m going,” she drawled.
She walked with a lazy swaying motion, sauntering as if out enjoying the warm sunshine without a care in the world.
This was too much. The man had had enough and he moved with startling speed for a man of his build. He didn’t cover much ground, but the sudden noise of his charge was enough to make Laura scream. She bolted, running as fast as she could, as if her life depended on it, crashing into the cool darkness under the trees bordering the clearing. She kept on running even as the man’s raucous laughter rang out behind her.
Slowly, making no sound, the dark figure moved from its hiding place and began to stalk Laura, a smile of sharp, white teeth terrible in its thin, sunken face.