CHAPTER 3

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“MAYBE WE COULD go inside first? He might be in there.” Elena desperately wanted to know what lay behind the walls that made Mamma lift her nose up and hurry by.

“No, he’ll be around the back.”

“But what if we just check inside first ...”

Logan was already making his way through the side gate, NO FEAR stamped on his t-shirt and his neon green baseball cap on backwards. Elena’s hair was pulled back in a scrunchie of the same shade. She followed him around the building and into the sprawling mess of Frank’s yard. They had to tread carefully to avoid the metal bones of long-lost machines.

At the far end of the yard, a rickety saw rigged to an old generator moved mechanically back and forth, rocking its wooden frame and cutting a perfect line through a large boulder. It wasn’t like the industrial equipment Elena had seen at construction sites, or even the shiny blades that Dad fixated on at DIY stores. This contraption reminded her of the time Dad tried to temporarily repair the coffee table leg with gaffer tape. She teetered forwards and backwards beside the blade, mimicking its motion.

She didn’t notice Frank until he leaned down beside her and his knees cracked. There were oil stains on his jean shirt. The pale blue truck he’d been driving when Rob tried to hitch a ride with him was parked just behind them, its hood propped up and its guts littered on the grass.

“Y’know what that rock is, kiddo?”

She paused for a moment, remembering Mary’s story about the Chinese miners. “Is it jade?”

Frank grinned. “You’ve seen this before,” he said, impressed. She hadn’t seen anything like it before but nodded anyway. She couldn’t tell the difference in the cut from one motion to the next—the blade didn’t appear to be making any progress.

“The water running off the rock is keeping the saw blade cool. Jade is harder than steel. It’s very tough to cut through it. You make yourself that tough kid and life will be easy.”

Elena drew her eyes away from the motion. Frank had been watching her as she’d been watching the blade. Even as she stared back at him now, he didn’t look away.

“Eventually, the rock will split into two and we’ll see the face of the jade. Unlike people’s faces, if you polish it up enough, you’ll always get a stunner.” Frank winked.

“Where did you get the jade from?” she asked.

He pointed to the foothills. They looked blue because they were so far away. Frank leaned forward, cupped his hands at the base of his back and stumbled around as if he was lugging something incredibly heavy. “I carried it down here myself,” he said in a deep voice. “I had to fight off five grizzlies, and I almost dropped it when I tried to scratch my ass.” The kids laughed and Logan had to jump out of the way before Frank lurched into him.

Frank fumbled in his pockets and produced two tiny jade turtles. “Got something for you. Made them myself. They’re good luck.”

Logan stuffed his turtle straight into his pocket, but Elena studied hers, the lines of the turtle’s shell; its four stumpy legs. It must’ve taken ages to carve a perfect little turtle out of such a hard rock.

She turned it over and examined its belly. The tiny print read: MADE IN CHINA. She looked up at Frank.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

She read the little letters again. It didn’t really matter, did it? He was just trying to do something nice. She wrapped the turtle carefully in a tissue before tucking it into the pocket of her jean cut-offs.

“Uncle Frank,” Logan announced in a serious tone, “we’re going to find out if there are ghosts in the Chinese Cemetery.”

“Awesome!”

“Can you help us?”

“Sure! What do you need?”

Frank was very enthusiastic about being their ghost tour guide, but Elena knew sooner or later he’d ask if Mamma was okay with it. “She already said yes,” Elena mumbled as soon as he brought it up. It was her turn to be dishonest. Frank pulled a surprised look but he accepted it and moved on.

“The Inn is haunted y’know. By two restless souls. People like to say Stapleton is a quiet town, but it was different when my great-great grandfather established this inn. Back then you had to be tough to survive.”

Logan bounced on the spot in his black sneakers. “Tell her about the ghosts.”

“Two brothers were murdered in their beds. They haven’t left that room since.”

Frank pointed at an upstairs window. The ghosts didn’t appear behind the glass to wave or stare back, but Logan pointed too and muttered: “I heard them once, making the floorboards creak when no one else was in the room.” Elena could picture them in the darkness beyond the window—long ghostly faces shadowed by their broad-rimmed hats.

Stapleton would have been a row of wooden shacks back then, surrounded by miners’ tents. Elena had seen photos in the museum. The Inn stood out with its name painted large in capital letters above the long veranda. Whenever Frank talked about the Stapleton Inn, his face lit up and he pulled his shoulders back and Elena thought about how grand it must have been.

“The brothers were looking for their uncle when they arrived in Stapleton,” Frank said. “Some miners told them typhoid killed him on the journey up, but those boys didn’t buy it. Their uncle was bringing up supplies to build Stapleton’s first general store. The brothers got close enough to the truth of what happened to him to end up dead themselves. The general store was built and the owner made more money than most of the miners. Those brothers are so angry about it, they still won’t leave the Inn.”

“Uncle Frank even had a priest in there who couldn’t chase them out,” Logan said proudly because he knew his uncle had all the best stories.

Elena thought about the hanging tree that still stood by the river, a short walk from the Stapleton Cemetery. Local legend held that the bodies of criminals and a few rebellious Natives swung from that tree during the Gold Rush. Elena thought it was the spookiest thing around and always hurried past its gnarled old limbs.

“Did the murderers get caught?”

Frank shook his head. “The brothers didn’t have people out here who knew them, who would fight for them. That’s how life was in those days.” Frank looked at their rapt faces. “Sometimes it still is.”

“Can I hang out with Logan tomorrow?”

“Where? What time?”

“At the park.” Elena hesitated. “At night.”

Mamma put down the salad spinner. Rob always complained about having to eat lettuce and Elena would pick out the croutons, but Caesar salad remained a summer staple in Mamma’s kitchen.

“Why do you two want to go to the park at night?”

“To look at the stars.”

“Be back by 7 pm.”

“But it won’t be dark ...”

“7 pm. That’s my best offer.”

Elena nodded and slipped around the corner into the living room before Mamma changed her mind.

“Stop blocking the TV.”

Dad didn’t even turn his head. She hopped onto the sofa next to him as orange chests and tight white legs sprinted down the field and crashed into their opponents. The football commentary came out of the walls in surround sound.

Dad had bought the big screen and fancy speakers a few months ago. He and Ken spent half a day setting it all up, Ken smoking, Dad drinking and the pair of them taking it in turns to decipher the manual. When they’d finished, Elena, Rob and Mamma were allowed to come in and admire their handiwork. Dad said the BC Lions were going to take home the cup this year; that’s why they needed the big TV. Mamma said it made the room look smaller.

When Ken left, Mamma and Dad fought about money. You could hear everything in their little home. Elena hated hearing them fight.

The commentator announced a touchdown. Dad rose from his chair and roared at the screen. He sank down into the sofa again, his face split in a grin.

When the ads rolled in, he turned to Elena, finger pointing. “I told you. This is our year.” He kissed her head and asked her to get him a cold can.

Frank pulled out a flashlight but not to help them see. He put it under his chin and made a wavering “ooooooh” sound that was supposed to be creepy. Enough daylight remained as the sun gradually sank towards the horizon. Logan had been disappointed when Elena told him about her curfew, but he agreed 7 pm was better than nothing.

Broken branches marked the path Ken and Rob had carved out a few days earlier. The dry summer had turned the grasses and leafy plants brittle and brown. The sagebrush smelled sweet and comforting.

“There’s a lot of strange happenings in these parts,” Frank murmured ominously from behind them. “The Natives got a lot of stories to tell. But I want to know what you two found out about these ghosts.” He cast the flashlight around chaotically, to no effect, before switching it off.

“They’re called hungry ghosts, and they come out from hell at this time of year,” Elena explained.

“Why’s that?”

“Because nobody’s been feeding them.”

“Is that right? Is there no food in hell?”

“There is, but it’s gross food.”

“Gross like human brains?”

“Yeah.”

The bushes grew thicker on both sides of the path and sewed them into single file. Elena wore the most inconspicuous clothes she owned; a dark purple t-shirt and black leggings. Logan marched ahead in a bright red Chicago Bulls shirt. It wasn’t as if they would actually see anything worth hiding from, but the anticipation gripped her just the same. Something scuttled through the leaves. Frank wailed faintly but he didn’t scare her.

The trail opened up again by the headstones. The markers stood in silent rows, casting long shadows. Elena and Logan approached the first graves together, cautiously. Logan touched one stone very delicately, as though a firm push might tip it over and wake the dead.

They looked across the empty cemetery, neither of them wanting to rush ahead in case there was any truth to Mary’s tale. The river rumbled through the quiet. No sign of ghosts.

Logan turned to her. “Where were you when you saw something?”

An eerie cry, higher than the river’s noise, echoed across the cemetery. Logan giggled, then spun around to see if Frank was responsible. Frank was behind them, plucking sagebrush leaves and inhaling the scent.

Something was out there, in the gloom that cloaked the far side of the cemetery. Elena took a few steps forward because they were supposed to be investigating but she didn’t really want to find out what had made the sound. Logan matched her move, crunching gravel and long grass.

They both saw it. Creeping through the bushes that blocked the river. White eyes, tiny at first, glowing brighter as a shadowy body emerged. The creature hissed, deep and low. Logan’s body slipped backwards out of the corner of Elena’s eye, but she couldn’t move. Fear gripped her so tightly she couldn’t even turn her head. It slunk closer. It looked like a large person, except for its long neck. Elena’s entire body went cold, as if she’d jumped in an icy lake and her toes couldn’t find the bottom.

“Whatcha lookin at?” Frank bellowed behind them.

The figure shrank back before vanishing into the foliage. Frank pushed Logan further forward, but he grabbed Frank’s sleeve and spun himself around so his uncle was between him and the gravestones.

“We saw something ... over there.” Logan pointed at the bushes by the river’s edge.

“Probably just a coyote.”

The children looked at each other nervously.

Frank leaned towards his nephew. “D’you think it was a ghost?”

“Mary said if the ghosts see you, they’ll put a curse on you,” Logan whispered.

Frank chuckled. “That’s nothing. I heard a story about this one guy who saw a ghost out by Emmet Lake ...”

“... We should go,” Logan said, interrupting. “Elena has to be home by seven.”

“We’ve got a few minutes.” Frank checked his watch. “But I guess if you guys are too chicken ...”

“... We’re not chicken! We’re here, aren’t we?” Logan said.

Frank shrugged. “I gotta get going anyway. If I leave the regulars to run the Inn for too long, it’ll be a lot scarier than this place when I get back.”

The kids rushed back to the truck as though the path was too hot for their feet to touch the ground. The truck’s engine roaring to life was a welcome sound but Elena couldn’t begin to relax until her mom opened the front door.

“How was the park?” she asked. Elena stuttered: “Fine.”

Dad wasn’t home. The house wasn’t properly warm until he came home. After her experience at the cemetery, she couldn’t wait to see him. He would crack open a can, relax on the couch and remind her that ghosts only existed in movies. She waited for the sound of his key in the lock and the stomp of his boots on the doorstep as he kicked off the dirt. Mamma hated dirt in the house. She could see dirt where no one else could.

They all heard the bang. It felt close and yet sounded distant, like thunder. They peered out of the windows but there was nothing to see except shadowy houses in the twilight.

Others heard it and stepped out onto the street. The adults waved at each other. Nodded. Crossed the road and chatted. No one knew what it was or where it had come from. After a couple of minutes, they headed back inside and closed their doors. Rob returned to his shoot-em-up game and Elena curled up beside Mamma, who was watching her favourite cop show. Elena couldn’t follow the drama. Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t stop thinking about the curse.

There was a sudden burst of knocking on the door. Maybe Dad lost his keys. Elena dashed into the hallway, opened the door, ready to propel herself into his big arms.

A heavy young man filled the doorway. The whites of his pupils popped eerily against his skin, powdered with ash that also covered his clothes. He coughed violently, and with each gasp his body began to droop slowly in on itself. The stench of burning filled Elena’s nostrils.

She knew the man. He had come to the house before, although he never came inside. He lived on the reserve and drove Dad home from work once when the truck broke down. Elena had opened the door on that occasion too. He’d smiled at her then from his truck, a warm smile that spread across his face. His name was Brandon.

“Brandon,” she squeaked. He didn’t seem to hear her.

He unfurled his fingers. They were burnt and blistering. She followed the march of his receded jacket sleeve with her eyes. It was charred up to his elbow, the skin beneath it seared red. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. She watched a tear slip away from him, unattached, as if he wasn’t aware that it had left his eye. Another tear followed and she realized her own eyes were stinging.

Elena touched his wrist very gently; the red, raw skin. She wanted to see if he could feel anything. He didn’t even flinch. She took his good arm and led him into the kitchen. The water from the kitchen faucet ran ice cold; that would be good for him, she thought, but he wouldn’t drink. She pulled a bag of ice out of the freezer, wrapped it in a tea towel and tried to present it to him.

“Elena, what are you doing ...?” Mamma was in the doorway. Her words emptied out when she saw Brandon. “Go see your brother.”

“But ...”

“... Now! And tell him to get off the phone.”

Rob threw his dirty socks at Elena. He didn’t like to be interrupted when he was talking to Ashley, his girlfriend. Even the sound of Elena’s voice in the background embarrassed him when he was talking to Ashley. Elena tried to tell him about the burnt man, but he wouldn’t listen. Then they heard the chop-chop of helicopter blades passing over their thin roof. Rob raced through the hallway and into the kitchen. Elena scuttled after him. She could hear Brandon coughing.

Brandon was speaking very softly when they entered. “Curtis was ahead of me and then he disappeared ...”

Elena felt certain as she watched them, Brandon in shock and Mamma trying to reach out to him, that it was the curse. It was real. It had torn through the mill, and now Dad was missing.

“What do you mean he disappeared?” Mamma panicked. Brandon started coughing again and Mamma looked desperate enough to grab hold of him and try to shake the words out. Then she spotted Elena in the doorway and picked up the phone to call an ambulance.

Loud voices disturbed the quiet road. Sirens grew until they pierced their paper-thin walls. Elena put her windbreaker and sneakers on. She had to find him. It was all her fault.

Elena slipped out while Mamma helped Brandon drink some water. A few neighbours were standing on the street again, listening to the little planes coming in overhead, the kind that dump water on forest fires. No one seemed to notice as she ran past them and headed up the steep adjoining street.

Logan’s house was the second in a row of blue-grey town-houses. His bedroom window faced the street; it had a skateboard decal in the bottom corner. She knocked on the front door, and then again, louder. Logan opened the door enough for her to see his frightened face. He was thinking it too. The curse. She opened her mouth to speak, but he slammed the door shut before any words came out.

She didn’t want to cry on his doorstep, so she ran up the hill and past the houses. Mary would know what to do, but she didn’t know where Mary lived. She didn’t have the courage to return to the cemetery and face the ghost alone.

Her name echoed from the bottom of the hill; Rob yelling, his voice scraping. He’d seen her. She couldn’t go back, not until she’d figured out a solution. Mamma and Rob wouldn’t understand about the curse. She caught her leggings on barbed wire as she disappeared into the long grass.

Clouds hid the moon and there were no lights in the fields. Darkness was descending quickly. The ground was uneven and it forced her to move slowly. She stepped in something soft; fresh cow dung, she guessed. Cows grazed up here sometimes but there was no sign of them now. Maybe they had somewhere else to go at night. She was supposed to be at home. Facing Mamma’s anger was better than being alone out here. The stillness was starting to frighten her. She looked around and could no longer see the lights of her community. Behind her had to be the way back; that was the way she had come.

After a few minutes, she reached an old barn where a barn should not have been. There were no structures of any kind when she walked into the fields. The walls of the barn were made of wooden boards that supported a v-shaped, thin metal roof. Elena had played at the top of Logan’s hill before but she’d never come this far. She doubled back, certain this time that home had to be behind her.

She took small steps to make sure she was travelling in a straight line. The grass was longer in some areas, short in others; shaved thin by animals. It smelled like manure. The lights on Douglas Street did not emerge from the darkness.

Stars appeared and disappeared as the clouds shifted. The night got cooler. She zipped her jacket up to her chin. Her legs grew tired, her eyelids heavy. It felt as though hours had slipped away as she stumbled onwards through the cold air.

In the distance was a barn. The same barn.

There had to be a way back; why couldn’t she find it? In the blackness that surrounded her she imagined the white eyes she’d seen at the cemetery. She was in the semi-wild now; the space between the community and the wilderness, and she didn’t know this place. The night was hiding her home, and it could have been hiding other things, cursed things.

The wind picked up and howled through the eaves of the barn as soon as she shut the door behind her. Hay was packed up at the back but she couldn’t curl up on it for fear of discovering a rats’ nest. Dad had told her once that vermin liked to make their homes in hay. He should have come home with Brandon.

Had Dad heard the bang? Had the flames licked at his arms and peeled away the skin? She found a corner near the door and tried not to think too much. She brought her knees up to her chest and rested her head against the wooden wall, eyes half open until they had to close.

It was a long night. Her neck ached and it gripped her shoulders like long fingers digging under her skin. Every time she drifted off, the wind broke through the quiet and startled her awake. Distant noises drew closer. Ferocious creatures disturbed her erratic dreams. Bears, cougars, hungry ghosts. She worried her breathing was too loud. She tried to breathe more softly. If she moved an inch she’d give herself away; her presence would be revealed to whatever might be lying in wait outside.

Scraps of dreams and the sounds of the night were hard to separate. Elena thought she’d heard voices too, and vehicle engines, planes, tires rolling over dirt, but she couldn’t be sure. Dad said ranchers were hard-working but he never said they were kind. They had guns; she knew that. Dad had told her stories about hunters shooting other people by accident. They could mistake her for an animal in the darkness. She was too afraid to do anything but wait for morning to come.

The hanging tree had a distinctive twist. There was a knot in one of the upper limbs where the dying left their sins in an attempt to get closer to heaven. That’s what people used to think, according to the little plaque positioned in front of it for the tourists that never came. The tree was down by the river, near the new cemetery, but at that moment it was also outside the barn door. She could hear the knotted limb creaking in the wind. If it broke, all the rottenness that was inside it would fall down on her and the curse would never be lifted.

Her neck was in the noose and many people came to judge. The people of this town. They all knew what she had done. She had released the curse. She had ruined everything. The rope tightened and the tree creaked and her little legs kicked around in the weightless air and nobody came to rescue her.

Daylight broke through the barn door. Elena woke with her head resting on the floor where the rats could crawl over her and chew her long hair. She sprang up and brushed her hands against her head, swatting away imagined vermin.

Fog spooled across the fields like lost clouds. She pulled her cold hands up inside her jacket sleeves and moved quickly through the dew.

There was a small log house nearby with a green roof. She hadn’t spotted it was when she stumbled into the barn the night before. The front door was open a crack and it was dark inside. She didn’t know whom she might find, out here in the semi-wild. She sprinted to the nearest fence and spun around to make sure she wasn’t being watched.

With the sunlight to guide her, it didn’t take long to reach the top of Logan’s street. She was so relieved to see it that she propelled herself out of the wildness and onto the top of the road in one quick burst. She half-walked, half-skipped down the asphalt, but there was a strange kind of quiet around her; the kind of stillness she sometimes sensed when she’d fallen behind on hikes in the forest. It was exactly how she felt when she was completely alone.

By the time she laid eyes on their little house, it hardly mattered that Mamma would be furious. Elena opened the front door and tiptoed inside, readying herself for Mamma’s tirade and the joy of seeing them all again. Dad would be home, too. They would’ve found him by now.

“Mamma?” she called out. “Rob? Dad?”

The house was quiet. No one was in the living room or the kitchen. The bathroom door was open and the light was off. She peeked into her parents’ bedroom. Empty. Rob was not at his desk armed with his game controller. The emptiness rattled her but she knew they were out looking for her, worried sick.

Her stomach was so empty it hurt. Two strawberry yoghurts and a leftover slice of Hawaiian pizza helped. She splashed water on her face, changed her clothes, brushed her teeth and hair so at least she would look presentable when Mamma saw her. She intended to go straight to Ken’s café because he would know where they were, but she sat down on the sofa for a second, curled up and fell asleep.

When she woke she checked the clock on the mantelpiece—11 am. Everyone would be awake now, and the café would be open. Ken was probably worried, too, but he would be kind. Maybe he’d help her explain things, make Mamma understand that she ran away because she was scared.

Elena pulled her bicycle out of the shed and sped to Main Street. The wind had picked up again and it pummelled her so badly that it felt like she was merely steadying herself against it instead of moving forward. Not a single car drove past her. No one strolled by and said, “Mornin’,” the way people in Stapleton always did.

She tried the handle on Ken’s café door three times, but it wouldn’t budge. Through the window the interior was dark, the tables empty. She hammered on the glass, but there was no answer. The wind barrelled down the street and it carried a smell that made Elena shudder. Smoke.

Fear of the curse filtered back into her mind and the more she tried to ignore it the bigger it got. The supermarket was closed. So was the pharmacy and the restaurant. The lights were off in the salon and the doors were locked. Sunlight touched the curved metal of the machines behind the large windows, but nobody occupied the chairs beneath them. Elena looked closer and caught what might have been a shadow pass by a doorway in the back. She struck her knuckles against the glass, but no one was there.

She began knocking on doors: politely at first, and only houses of school friends or family acquaintances. Then, more frantically at the homes of strangers. THUMP. A fat tabby descended from a fence and crept across someone’s yard.

“Hello!” she shouted down a deserted street. “Hello! Is anyone there?”

A historic house stood on the corner with beautiful hanging baskets on the veranda, and beside it was a row of newer homes with tan sidings and cedar hedges. Every window and door was closed. Her calls echoed down the lanes that shot off Main Street in neat rows.

She circled back and rolled her bike down the middle of Main Street, waiting for a car to honk. Then, because it was better than crying, she sat on the white dotted line, stretched out her legs and pushed her feet into a large pothole. If anyone saw her sitting in the middle of the road, even a Stapleton road, they’d come and yell at her.

It was the worst kind of nightmare because there was no one to go to for help. They were all gone. She wiped her arm against her eyes. The hungry ghost was supposed to take her, but instead it took everyone else.

“Grow up, Elena,” Rob would tell her. “Stop crying.”

She stood up and threw her bike against the tarmac just to hear it clatter against the quiet. She wanted the ground to rumble, faintly at first and then louder. The rumble would bulge into the squeals and hisses of the freight trains that crawled past Stapleton at regular intervals, day and night. She hadn’t heard them all morning.

The low rumble of a vehicle approaching should have been a happy sound. A relief. But who would travel through a cursed town?

Elena slipped behind the church fence and sent up a quick prayer. “Dear God. I’m sorry. Amen.” He already knew the rest. Rob and Dad didn’t think prayers worked but Mamma did. She hoped Mamma was right.

Through the cracks in the fence she could see a truck approaching, not the kind of truck that usually rolled through Stapleton. It was muddy green and rugged. She expected it to rumble past her down the street but it stopped right there in front of the church. She slipped along the fence and into the bushes beside the church.

Doors opened. Boots hit the ground. Footsteps coming closer. A clatter; the spinning of her bike tire. That’s why they stopped. They had seen her bike from the road. Movement by the fence. The church gate opened with a rusty squeak.

“Elena?”

They knew her name.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re not in any trouble. We just want to get you back to your mom. She’s very worried.”

She could’ve seen his face if she’d dared to look. A snap of a twig and they would hear her. Footsteps entered the neighbour’s yard. “Elena,” another voice called out. She was surrounded. Two more men lingered on the sidewalk while the others moved around the grounds. One went inside the church and repeated her name as he scoured the space between the pews.

The men on the sidewalk were close enough that she could have reached out and touched their heavy boots.

“Do you think he took her?” one asked in a hushed voice.

“Guys on the run don’t take their kids with them. She’s just scared. She’ll show up.”

She fought the urge to abandon her hiding spot and demand to know what they were talking about. They wouldn’t tell her anything. Adults never did. They must have been referring to Dad, which meant he was hiding from them, too. She wished there was a way she could reach him.

The soldier in the church came back out again and stretched her name out in a long, low call from the front steps. “Eleeeeeenaaaaaa.” She wanted to tell him to stop using it. He didn’t know her. Another soldier picked up her bike and threw it in their big truck. Then they all left, as suddenly as they came.

Elena stayed in the hedge for a while, scrunched up with her legs cramped. When it hurt too much to remain there any longer, she crawled out cautiously. She hadn’t counted them. One could easily have stayed behind, lying in wait like a hunter tracking a deer through the forest. She stood up to full height. No one charged at her. No trucks flew down the street towards her. She didn’t trust those men, but they knew where Mamma was. She had no choice. She had to go where they had gone.