| |
As we head up the Pali Highway, I’m desperate for a logical explanation. “What else could have killed Noodles? Besides a vengeful spirit?”
“A heart attack? Something frightened it? Even too much love from Sage?”
A quick online search reveals that new bunnies are vulnerable to sudden death from stress.
“That house is full of stress,” I say. “But Hudson is convinced it’s the ghost at work.”
“His stressed mind could jump to that conclusion. Or there’s something else he’s not telling us.”
When we arrive at Waipunalani we’re not the only visitors. Dr Lolana Kelekolio is pulling up in the driveway that’s empty of work vehicles for the weekend.
“Hello, Selkie,” she says. “Derek, isn’t it? You know the Coopers? You may not be able to visit this morning. They’re not ... very well. It’s why I’m making a house call.”
“We don’t want to intrude,” Derek says, “but Hudson phoned us early this morning.”
“How do you know him?” Lolana asks.
“He emailed me yesterday,” Derek says. “I run the Surreal Deal website, where people share their encounters with ... unexplained phenomena. Since the tattoo incident, Hudson’s been having strange troubles with his leg at night.”
“And let me guess, he’s wondering if this house is haunted?”
“Let’s just say we’re researching the history of the place. To see if there’s a reason for a disoriented spirit to loiter on the wrong side of the ethereal veil.”
Bloody hell, DD. “I don’t know anything about this stuff,” I say. “I just came along to ... help.”
Lolana smiles. “I hope I can help too.”
The front door opens and Gracie comes out with Sage at her side. As I look for signs of Sage’s distress and wonder what I can say to comfort her, she gives me a smile and a wave.
“Thank you for coming, Dr Lolana,” Gracie says. “Please go in. Through the curtain at the far end and turn right. The third door. He’s a little calmer now.” As Lolana enters the house, Gracie turns to us. “I know Hudson called you. He’s ... resting.”
“Daddy’s sad,” Sage announces. “He found Noodles in her hutch. She’s dead.”
Gracie chooses her words. “Daddy was moving Noodles to a shady place when we came back here this morning.”
“I told him it’s OK,” Sage says, “because Noodles is playing with Roxie. That’s when Daddy had a meltdown, didn’t he Mommy?”
Gracie cringes at the term that Sage must have overheard. “Let’s just say he got a little upset, darling. He’s been working hard and getting tired, so he’s gone to have a sleep. Like the big sleep you had last night.”
“And the doctor will make him better,” Sage says.
Gracie’s eyes are warning us not to join the conversation. We stand awkwardly, wondering if she wants us to leave.
“Perhaps we could wait over there.” Derek points to an outdoor table and chairs on the lawn at the side of the house. I know he wants to look at Noodles.
Gracie seems to understand. “Yes, do that.”
But Sage breaks away from her mother and runs across the lawn to the trees. “Noodles is over here! She looks like she’s asleep, but she’s gone to be with Roxie.”
As we hesitate to follow, Gracie murmurs. “She’s not upset that Noodles is dead, because she thinks the rabbit is playing with her invisible friend.” She starts walking towards her daughter.
“I had one of those when I was her age.” But she didn’t have a name.
“Please don’t ask Sage about her. It’s why we bought Noodles. To distract her. Now this.”
My stepmother was afraid of my invisible friend too.
We’ve reached the shady area under the trees, where Sage is standing beside a hutch. A ball of white fur is lying inside. At first glance, there’s not a mark on the rabbit.
“You can look if you like,” Sage says to us. “Noodles isn’t here anymore, so she won’t mind.”
As she opens the door of the hutch, I’d love to ask her about her friend. The invisible Roxie must be soothing her loneliness from moving to a new place – and she’s an obvious comfort over losing the rabbit.
Derek reaches in and gently rolls Noodles over. “Noodles had beautiful white fur. And it’s still white and fluffy.” Meaning it wasn’t ravaged by anything.
“That’s because Noodles was a rabbit!” Sage turns to me. “Sel-kie, you can say goodbye to Noodles.” She’s remembered my name. “She liked you. Say aloha. It means hello and goodbye. Then you won’t feel sad.”
Her wisdom brings tears to my eyes. Is that how she’s dealt with her own sadness? I need to use aloha to farewell my old life and embrace my new one.
“Aloha, Noodles.” My voice catches. “I hope you have fun and lots of grass wherever you go.”
Satisfied, Sage turns to her mother. “Can we bury Noodles near the pond, Mommy?”
“Let’s decide that a little later, sweetheart. Noodles is safe where she is for now. Look, there’s Dr Lolana.”
Obviously welcoming the diversion, Gracie take Sage’s hand and starts walking back to the house.
As we trail behind, Derek murmurs, “I need to know where the hutch was last night and if they have surveillance cameras.”
On the front porch, Lolana says to Gracie, “Hudson told me about what happened this morning. We did a short relaxation exercise. He’s sleeping now. Would you like me to chat to ... anyone else?”
Gracie understands. “Sage, this is Dr Lolana. She’s helping Daddy to feel better.”
“With a real licks ocean ... surprise. Is it a kind of ice cream?”
Lolana smiles. “The relaxation exercise? It makes you feel good, like ice cream.”
As Lolana sits on the front step, Derek and I exchange a look. Time to go. “Goodbye everyone,” he says. “We’re just a call away if you need us.”
“Thanks for coming,” Gracie says.
As we turn towards Derek’s car, Lolana says to Sage, “We need a stick from the garden to make a talking stick. It’s a fun game because the person holding the stick does all the talking and everyone else listens. Can you find a stick for us, Sage? About as long as your arm. It can be bendy or straight. Choose one you like.”
As we get into the car, we see Sage race off along the side of the house and disappear around the corner. We’re buckling ourselves in when she comes back to Lolana, brandishing a long piece of wood like a trophy.
Derek has started the car, when Gracie and Sage come towards us. He turns off the engine.
“Sage found this in the building behind the house,” Gracie says.
“It’s a sort-of talking stick,” Sage says. “See the words?”
Gracie holds up what was once a rectangular wooden sign, now split in half down the length but the words are still legible.
“This is old,” Derek says. “Paint’s been sprayed across a stencil of cut-out letters.”
I lean over and decipher it: SHORELINE CONSTRUCTION CO. INC.
“Hudson told me you were asking about the history of the house yesterday,” Gracie says. “Does this help?”
“Possibly. And I have a couple of quick questions when Hudson’s up to it.”
Gracie blinks her agreement. “Sage, Derek needs to borrow your stick for a while. We can find another one to play the game with Lolana.”
“OK,” Sage says, “but I want Selkie to hold it.”
Gracie passes it through the window and I take it. “I’ll look after it for you, Sage.”
As Derek starts the engine again, Sage says to her mother, “Mommy, Selkie’s name starts with ‘s’ like mine.”
“Yes, it does.”
“She talks funny but I don’t mind.”
*
After a silence on the drive back, Derek says, “You’ve won a heart there.”
“Sage? She reminds me of my five-year-old self. Because Gracie reminds me a little too much of my stepmother. Maybe Sage is picking that up.”
“The connection looks mutual to me.”
“Why don’t they like her imaginary friend? It’s probably just a family under pressure, but I can’t help feeling there’s something odd going on behind the scenes.”
“Trust your feelings,” Derek says. “If there’s something there, we’ll find it.”
I google Shoreline Constructions and Derek shrieks when I discover they’re still in business. Their website boasts a long history of satisfied customers over sixty years.
“But anyone working there in 1961,” I say, “will have to be pushing eighty now. They’ve probably sold the business. Retired. Even ... died.”
The word conjures up Noodles’ motionless white fur. Is a tragic death behind the mystery hanging over this house? What if a construction worker died while working there? It might explain why the renovations stopped. But could an ill-fated accident tie a person’s spirit to the property? What about a murder?
When I voice my thoughts to Derek, they remind me to share Wanda’s theory about a more recent death, such as a squatter.
“All possible,” he says, “but we have to start somewhere and things are pointing to 1961. It seems pretty clear there’s a spirit attached to that house. Origin unknown.”
“What is the evidence of that, DD? Hudson’s ankle? And now Noodles? I’ve been carried along by the theories but the proof of a spirit seems thin to me.”
“I’m not convinced a spirit killed Noodles,” he says. “But an animal could pick up the presence of a tethered spirit. I’m not sure about rabbits but dogs are pretty intuitive.”
“It appears Noodles had a heart attack. Something frightened it. But even if it was something less tangible, like the stress surrounding the house, that doesn’t automatically point to a supernatural force. The more I think about it, the more the death of Noodles makes it likely this is just a household under pressure, causing Hudson to have hallucinations – in the tattoo parlour and the house. Then he found the dead rabbit and jumped to wild conclusions.”
Derek’s response surprises me. “You’re keeping our perspective in balance, Selkie. I like to think I’m an open-minded guy, but I’m inclined to get carried away with anything woo-woo.” He concentrates on the traffic for a moment. “Let’s finish the leads we’ve been granted – leave a message with Shoreline and do some more digging in the newspaper pile. After that we can decide if there’s any reason to keep searching, or to leave the Coopers to work things out for themselves.”
A text from Meg keeps my own perspective in balance. A photo this time. A window with the curtains closed. Andrew’s bedroom at the front of the house, snapped from her place across the road on Sunday morning, Sydney time. It’s a blackout curtain to keep out the morning sun and we always closed it on the weekends. I hope this ‘evidence’ that Andrew has a girlfriend means Meg can now rest her case. Aloha, Meg!
On our way from the carpark to the office, Derek and I pick up a couple of pizzas to get us through the afternoon.
*
There’s a mobile number on the Shoreline website and an online form to make email contact. Derek leaves a message and fills in the form.
The old newspapers are all dated over a two-week period in early March 1961, but they cover events all over Oahu.
“Any tragedy early in March will probably be covered,” I say, “but if something happened on the last of these dates or just after, especially an event that caused the work on the house to stop, we won’t find it in these newspapers. This could be a time capsule that won’t include what we’re looking for.”
“We’ve assumed the work on the kitchen flooring was completed back then. And Hudson is now ripping it out. We could get lucky.”
Just then Hudson calls and Derek flips his phone to speaker.
“Sorry about this morning,” he says. “I was pretty paranoid when I found Noodles ... just lying there. She was large as life yesterday. The timing seemed ... sinister.”
“Understandable,” Derek says. “How are you feeling now?”
“Calmer. Dr Lolana taught me a relaxation exercise.”
A real licks ocean surprise is what I’ll hear from now on, with visuals of a cone dripping with snowy ice cream. I’ve never been interested in children but Sage has found a chink in my chainmail vest.
Hudson continues, “Just stand and shake my body. Like, tremble all over for five minutes. Don’t try this at the bus stop,” – he actually laughs – “but it works like magic. She says to do it before I go to bed. To see if it prevents the paralysis.”
“You told her about the ... pressure,” – Derek avoids the word ‘presence’ – “on your ankle?”
“Yeah. A classic case of sleep paralysis, she says. That’s what it’s called. Well-known by the medical profession but not completely understood. Your mind’s awake but your body’s asleep so you can’t move, something like that. Brought on by stress. And people who suffer from it are almost always convinced there’s some phantom or ghost involved. They see it or sense it. It’s part of the syndrome apparently – delusions of a supernatural force in the room with you. Usually pressing on your chest, but she doesn’t rule out ankles. I can’t tell you what a relief this is. It’s just ... my mind.”
Derek’s eyes widen as if he’s not convinced, but he rushes in with the response that’s needed. “Good to hear. Let’s hope all that trembling does the trick.”
“I’m confident. Gracie said you’ve got some questions, but they might not be needed now.”
“Just a quick one. Surveillance cameras. I just wondered if you had one and if it might have picked up any intruders near the rabbit hutch last night.”
“We do have a camera. There used to be squatters here – they left piles of rotten pillows and blankets full of rat skeletons – so we got a small surveillance system. But with the place always swarming with builders, we’ve never had any trouble and I haven’t had a reason to check it.” He stops to think. “When I saw that Noodles didn’t have a mark on her, I thought it was something otherworldly. Seems crazy now. I didn’t even think of an intruder. Let me look and call you back.”
Derek and I look at the piles of newspaper sorted into dates. By unspoken agreement, we do nothing until Hudson rings back.
Derek’s phone pings with a message. A series of short videos from Hudson’s surveillance app.
The camera is pointing along the side of the house. Noodles’ hutch is visible, sitting undercover on a few bricks on the wide porch that overlooks the lawn. A dark shape appears from behind the camera, moving furtively and hugging the ground at the side of the house. The tension in its body language makes me hold my breath. Then a movement-activated light suddenly illuminates its muscular shoulders.
Derek whistles. “A cat. A feral cat.”
Unable to exhale, we watch it creep up the stairs, attracted by Noodles’ white fur. When it reaches the hutch, the cat lashes out with its claw, pounding the side of the cage in a frenzied attack. Safe inside but not knowing it, Noodles jumps around trying to avoid the talons. Now the cat circles the cage. It leaps on top and starts swiping at the catch, snarling and hissing, then rocking it almost off the bricks. That’s when Noodles begins to tremble. It lasts for several seconds before the rabbit goes completely still. Over two more videos, the cat continues the relentless barrage before finally giving up and stalking off.
We’re both shaken to the point of tears. We’ve just watched a ruthless predator frighten a defenceless rabbit to death.
The phone rings. Hudson’s voice is trembling. “I’ve just checked. There are thirty-five thousand feral cats on this island alone. I thought the side porch was a perfect place for our bunny. Safe in her hutch, under cover, with a view of the garden. But she didn’t survive her first night in this house. By putting Noodles out there, we ... killed her.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Derek says. “You’re malihini, new in town.”
“If I’d checked the camera footage over the last few weeks, I might have seen that prowling monster before we got a rabbit.”
Derek waits a moment before saying, “The videos are very confronting, Hudson. Even for us.”
“I know. I’ve deleted them. Sage won’t ever see them. And I won’t have to look at them again.” He takes a couple of deep breaths and blows them out. “Look, thanks for everything you’ve done. Both of you. I feel like an idiot involving you in this ghost-busting debacle when it’s all been so easily explained. Malihini is right. Total rookies.” He pulls himself together. “We owe you our gratitude for responding to our call for help. When we’ve got the place liveable, I hope you’ll both come up for some drinks and a barbecue by the pond.”
“We’ve heard about the pond,” I say. “Sage likes it. Is it her special place?”
“Yeah. There’s a spring in the garden, hence the name of the house. Sage knows what Waipunalani means. She used to sing the folksong with my mother before she passed away. She misses her gran. Now she’s helping me collect rocks for a circular wall to catch the water. It’s not much more than a puddle at the moment but it keeps her entertained and out of the way of the builders. We’ve promised her a fish.” He gasps. “Poor Noodles has sent us a warning about that.”
“We hope this is a turning point for you all,” Derek says. “And count us in for that barbecue.”
After Hudson hangs up, we’re both not sure what to do. We should feel elated that the Coopers can now put the grief of losing Noodles behind them and get on with their lives. And Lolana’s diagnosis should be ushering in waves of relief.
Instead, something heavy is hanging over us. More than the disappointment that the adventure has ended abruptly. Something else.
Derek does an online search for sleep paralysis and confirms it’s a medical condition. An online forum collects personal experiences – hundreds of them.
“Listen to this one. How about waking up and feeling someone standing behind you? It’s like 2pm – ’cause I just worked night shift and fell asleep on the sofa accidentally. I opened my eyes and looked at the door to my third-floor apartment, thinking how could someone get in? No way, I’m imagining it, so I rolled onto my back to carry on sleeping, eyes closed, and this person jumped over my head towards my body. I braced myself and the thing landed on my chest. It was trying to get in, that’s all I can say, and I was fighting it off by clenching. Then I decided I wasn’t going to put up with this, I was going to get up. But I was pinned at the ankles.”
I gasp. “Like Hudson.” I hadn’t quite believed it.
“There’s more. I kept telling myself it was mind over matter, there was no-one there, still trying to get up, fighting it with everything I had, until a voice said: ‘Don’t fight it.’ Then in a flash it vanished. How can it be sleep paralysis if I just woke up and was able to roll from my side onto my back, then close my eyes and the assault happened?” Derek stops and thinks. “It’s like alien abductions. The people it happens to know they’ve been abducted. No amount of therapy convinces them it’s psychological.”
“But not Hudson,” I say. “He grabbed at Lolana’s diagnosis and didn’t question it. He’s relieved it’s his mind. Case closed.”
“True. And I hope she’s spot on and he sleeps like a baby for the first time in weeks.”
Sharing an unspoken feeling that we’re not done with this strange story, we decide to leave the newspaper stacks where they are, even though they cramp Derek’s already limited floorspace.
He sends a few messages to find out where there’s a party going on. I’m not sure I’m ready for a full-on social event with a crowd of strangers, and it’s been a big day for both of us, but it’s Saturday night and he insists this time. After dressing up in my new red top and sandals, I’m going to my first luau.