Orla’s first thought was that it was happening again, the thing that seemed to suck him away from reality right in the middle of an ordinary moment. Not ordinary, but whenever we have a heart-to-heart. Could that be it? Some bizarre reaction to their intimacy? It had happened in the living room the night he’d gotten lost, and again tonight. A nightmarish spell where, for a moment, he was far away, afraid of something that didn’t exist in her own conscious domain. She scurried over to his side of the bed, half expecting to find him on the floor and convulsing.
But no.
Squatting there, book in hand, he looked deliriously happy.
“I got it right!” He sprang up and bounded back onto the bed. “Holy shit! I got it spot-on perfect!”
“What are you—”
He flashed her a page from the book, a black-and-white photo. “This is the chimney—look! And the cabin I painted—it looks exactly the same!”
“Are you serious?” Shaw didn’t want to give up the book, but she tugged it her way long enough to see the page. He’d painted a nearly identical version of the cabin in this…what was this book? Orla squinted at the washed-out title on the spine: The Settling of Saranac Lake Village.
“This is the chimney I found.”
“It’s gotta be a coincidence. I mean, you did the research about what it might look like, but that can’t be the literal building that was on our land.”
Shaw mumble-read, “‘The 1880s…before the establishment of the sanitarium…’” And then, loudly and triumphantly, “‘Called cure cottages in the surrounding’—that’s it, Orlie, that’s what I found. That’s what I painted. I’m dead serious—that is our land!”
Finally, he turned the book all the way around, jabbing a finger on the picture. Now she saw it: the towering tree—healthier then than now, even in black-and-white, but by all appearances the tree behind their house. In the foreground, much closer to the camera, half a dozen wan, grim women stood in a line beside a mustachioed middle-aged man. A couple of the women looked quite young, teenagers perhaps, and they all wore simple, but corseted, Victorian garb. Behind them was a log cabin–like structure with a stone chimney—and it did look like Shaw’s painting.
“This is real?” In spite of her shock, something was starting to align, and it felt right.
“It was a tuberculosis-cure cottage—they had these cottages around the area, I guess, before they built the big sanitarium.”
“What else does it say?” They were both on their knees now, excited.
He quickly scanned the page with the photo and the next page of text. “Not much…I guess people came from New York City. Other than the caption, it doesn’t say much about the cottages themselves.” He got lost for a moment, reading.
It was a remarkable bit of incredibly local history, and Orla was starting to fit jigsaw pieces together, but was she crazy for what she was thinking? “Can I see it again?”
He handed her the book. The caption identified only the man, a doctor, and didn’t state a specific location. But with the tree…
“This could be it, Shaw.”
“I know!”
“No, I mean the reason for everything.”
“That’s what I mean too. People came here and died of tuberculosis. In our backyard.”
She might not have ever believed such a thing before, but it seemed possible now: “Maybe our land is haunted by people who died here?”
They sat with that for a moment. Orla wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Of all the things she’d considered, a haunting hadn’t been one of them. Although maybe that was because of the variety and magnitude; a haunting translated as one entity, in her limited experience, not many.
“Maybe, somehow, they’re showing us…some part of them, their souls or who they were,” she said, thinking on the odd and beautiful things she’d seen.
“They showed me this.” He pointed to the picture again. “I understand it better now, this wanting I’ve felt—they wanted us to know, somehow, that they were here. They wanted me to be aware, to see.”
“It almost seems plausible,” she said, not fully sure what she was talking about. “And they don’t seem like…bad spirits. They’re not poltergeists, rattling around the house. But it’s still kind of horrible.”
Shaw laid the book, more gently this time, on the floor and flopped back against the bed with the relief of a man who’d successfully purged a demon. “It’s not the house, that’s the thing, it’s the land. And when they sent people here for the good-weather cure—how hilarious is that, clean air, I guess—they had nothing else to offer, medically. It’s so sad. And I know that part is horrible, but…ever since we got here there’s been this weird—”
“I know.”
“Feeling. This energy in the air. And this, we can work with this. Maybe they’re lonely, or…if their souls are unsettled, maybe they’re looking for some sort of resolution.”
Orla saw where he was going, but she wasn’t quite as ready to contemplate the next step, the how-tos of soothing the spirits in their woods. But it felt like progress. With this new possibility, she wanted to think back on everything that had happened, whatever its category—scary, awesome, confusing, maybe even coincidental—and examine it through this new lens. “I need to think about this more, look at every—”
“Tomorrow I’ll get online and see what else I can—”
Eleanor Queen’s wail interrupted him. “Mama!”
Orla scooted on her knees to the edge of the bed, facing the hallway from where the cry had emanated. “In here, love!”
“Papa.” Eleanor Queen slipped in, wearing a tortured frown and fuzzy fleece pajamas covered in rabbits.
“What’s wrong?” Orla lay back and lifted the covers so her daughter could crawl in beside her.
“Bad dream, Bean?” Shaw asked.
“Uh-huh.” Orla held her tight against her body, and Shaw leaned up on his elbow and rubbed his daughter’s back. “It was very, very, very scary.”
“Shhh.” Orla rocked Eleanor Queen as she cried.
There’d been a time when she was prone to nightmares, frighteningly real scenarios that often involved getting run over by a taxi. Eleanor Queen would claim she felt it crushing her bones. She’d scream out for help. It had been hard for Orla and Shaw to promise her such a thing would never happen in real life, especially when they’d had several close calls with aggressive drivers over the years. Even as savvy, fast-walking city folk, they couldn’t always defend against a car making a fast turn to beat out the swarm of pedestrians.
“There are no busy streets out here, so you’re safe,” Orla said.
“It wasn’t about New York, it was about here.” She snuffled a bit, and her tears subsided.
Orla and Shaw exchanged glances. “What happened, Bean?” he asked.
“The house…” Her eyes went wide as she looked at them, and then her face crumpled again.
“You’re safe in the house,” Shaw said. He sounded confident, reassured now that their troubles were “only” the unfortunate result of their home being too near a cure cottage that had offered no cures.
Eleanor Queen shook her head. “There was ice, like a river, surrounding the house. And the house was breaking apart, falling into the water. And we were inside, all crammed together, and we were gonna…the ice was gonna crush us, or we’d fall in the cold water and freeze to death. Tycho was crying. And then Papa fell through the floor!”
She couldn’t speak anymore and Orla held her tight.
The fine hairs on Orla’s arms and neck flagged their alarm. Eleanor Queen had always had such realistic nightmares for a child, but what was this about their house? And ice?
“It’s okay,” Shaw said in a soothing voice. “It was just a dream.”
“It was real,” Eleanor Queen wailed.
“It just felt real—that’s the way dreams are.” But Orla wasn’t feeling as convinced as before. Maybe their daughter was tapping into the lingering energies of people from long ago, but if they could still give her nightmares, that was a very real and immediate problem.
“You know what? I had a dream kinda like that a couple of nights ago.” Was that true? “But in my version a big boat appeared, and I helped you all climb in—”
“I don’t want us to die.” Though Eleanor Queen’s voice was muffled by blankets, the plaintive desperation was clear.
“We’re fine, you’re—”
“There’s a British saying,” Shaw said, overlapping Orla. “‘Safe as houses.’”
Orla was pretty sure the expression had something to do with financial investments, not the physical safety of actual houses. But this was even worse than when they’d try to reassure their daughter about the taxis, because her words were so chilling. The taxi threat forced them to be extra-vigilant, and they always made Eleanor Queen aware of their extra caution. “See? I’m looking Mr. Taxi Driver in the eye and he’s letting us cross.” What could they possibly tell her to dispel her fear of being crushed to death in their new house? She wasn’t sure if Shaw was telling the truth about his own dream or simply trying to do right in the moment and comfort his daughter. But she preferred his version, which at least included the possibility of rescue, of them all making it out alive.
Finally Eleanor Queen drifted toward sleep.
“She’s sensitive to it too,” Orla whispered. “How do we explain this? It isn’t fair—”
“I know, but we can figure this out now, now that we have a better understanding. I’m really feeling more hopeful. Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll get online. We’ll figure this out, Orlie.” He kissed her cheek and then Eleanor Queen’s before inching up to switch off his lamp.
It was too much to say she felt heartened, but having Shaw back in true partner mode would surely help. She shut her eyes when he spooned beside her, solid and warm in the dark. Until his warmth made her think of his nightmare, a seeping chill, a heart stopping—and Eleanor Queen’s fear of them all dying in this place. She lay awake for a long time holding her child, counting Eleanor Queen’s breaths. It worried her more than she’d ever allow herself to say.
What if they couldn’t figure it out?
What if they couldn’t keep her safe?