That which usually lifts the most downcast of souls, the approach of spring, did very little to console Lucien in the wake of his private sorrow. The budding leaves and the pungent smell of moist, green grass, in fact the whole awakening of the island to new life was all in sharp contrast to his countenance.
Lucien’s heart remained steeped in winter. He‘d lost his wife and daughter to Departure Bay and two years later he still sat with his dog Shilo wondering how there could be happiness and a love of life around him though not within him. He still thought about Anson Minor, dreamed of vengeance, but how does one kill a ghost? How does one catch a shadow?
The pulsating burst of seasonal life was all happening under a sky still somewhat bright pending the gathering of clouds from the west. And immersed asg he was in the sadness of his memories Lucien failed to notice, in that moment on that particular day, the ghost or shadow that did actually glance across the mouth of the boathouse.
The day wore on, grew old and the storm broke on the far side of dusk. As the rain teemed down Lucien put the last log into the tin heater and shut the damper practically all the way. Even before turning away he was jolted by the violent sound of a window blowing open and shattering up on the second floor. The wind wasn't THAT strong. His body shook involuntarily with fear or the sensation of fear being transmuted into alertness, readiness.
As he wound his way up the stairs he tried to clear his head. Then he stopped. Seized by a sudden idea he ran down and out into the rain. There were no concrete signs of anything wrong other than Shilo barking and the chickens screaming until the horn of his four-by-four ripped through his consciousness. With his torch in one hand and a club-like log in the other he made for the barn. No one was there, nothing to see, just the horn blaring, the dog barking, the chickens screaming.
Lucien lifted the hood and disconnected the wires. He tried the engine but it wouldn’t start. He knew he was sort of reliving the tempestuous night that sent his beloved wife and daughter running terror-stricken into the boat in order to cross the bay to the safety of the town. He‘d always felt that the storm alone wasn’t enough to cause them to run out onto the water. No one knows exactly what happened. He’d been off tree-planting. But there was the shattered door, the broken window and the legend of Anson Minor.
Lucien wasn’t going anywhere. He was not that guy. He made his way to the boat and the engine turned over easily, only he quickly found the loosened thwarts. It’d sink like a rock within minutes. Enraged, he half turned just as he was clubbed solidly from behind. And when the black mists lifted a few moments later he was cold, wet and racked by a pain in his head. Through his lingering fog he felt himself being lifted. He swung wildly and though it may have been a surprise it missed its mark and he was thrown backwards into the boat. A merciless hand, definite and steady, re-started the motor, locked the steering into place and set the floating coffin out onto Departure Bay.
Probably it was the bitter cold of the water that shocked Lucien to his senses. Lord knows what would’ve become of a lesser man. Be that as it may, as he emerged he instinctively grabbed a gunnel just as the boat rolled. He took a breath in the air-pocket, shuddered as a tremendous surge of adrenaline rushed to his head filling him with a primordial desire to live. There were no feelings apart from the tremendous upward surge of determination that exploded in his chest and in his head as he plunged down impervious to the cold.
As he surfaced again this time he saw the dark expanse of land against the dark expanse of a storm-filled sky. The shore wasn’t so far, only considering the temperature and the ache spreading through his body it wasn’t so close. He kicked away his shoes and swam. It seemed like he merely bobbed up and down with the waves but soon he was near enough to hear Shilo barking, the sound of it ripping through the night. It was more a howl than a bark and it actually gave him a boost, enough to get him the rest of the way home.
Sitting on his porch, Shilo lying beside apparently glad for a return to normalcy, Lucien listened to the sound of jumping flames in the stove, rain on the roof. He was deep in thought, warm again on the outside, cold very cold within. It all seemed endless and futile. A human lived until their seasons’ passed, as the nights passed, as his family had passed. Something seemed seriously missing: the vastness of the universe without any apparent beginning or end, so incongruous beside all these limited, fragile, tenuous lives. Surely there was some sort of peace to be made with eternity.
He bobbed along on the waves within his mind all night: life love God hate struggle fate, words that ultimately he didn’t understand. And yet he felt a love of life he hadn't for a while, in spite of everything, in spite of questions and mysteries and immediate dangers. And as the new day dawned he even felt hopeful. He was glad for it, cherished it as the rain continued to wash the land.
Unique to that part of Vancouver Island and especially to that very tract of land, originally known locally as Minor Manor, was a tragic story of the farmer. Anson Minor fell under his plough one day while working his fields. Mangled badly on the left side he was rushed to the Nanaimo hospital. He was a huge man with red hair, a florid face. He never recovered full use of the left side of his body, apparently including his brain. And his wife eventually had to send old Anson to a sanitarium in Coquitlam, on the other side of the island.
The story was that he escaped, returned to Minor Manor where he either found his wife hanging in the barn or he hung her there himself. Nobody ever knew and nobody ever saw him again. They say he roamed the farm at night, but it was just a story and a long time ago.
The place was eventually sold by the bank, run as a summer camp for a while. During those three years there were odd happenings but during that last year the whole Anson Minor story changed. It wasn’t funny, no longer a fire-side ghost story. It had become a little too real, too freaky. A tool-shed was trashed twice. Horses were let loose. They didn’t go far, but a maintenance worker did. He ran barefoot in abject terror to the town, some seven kilometers away. His feet were pretty well shredded and he couldn’t even say what the heck happened. And he never returned.
The final straw however was during an evening program. An eight-year-old kid returning from the washroom was grabbed and hurled unceremoniously through the main window of the dining hall landing in a splattering of his own blood. He escaped relatively unscathed but the camp was done, finished. And for a period of just over a year the land remained vacant, supposedly.
Lucien Morreau had come west from Lachine, Quebec, with his young family to settle without having been told a thing about the history of the farm he’d purchased. Would it have mattered? The price was good and Lucien was not easily intimidated. A solid six feet with long dark brown hair, somewhat unreadable brown eyes, he was the sort who might’ve actually bought the place anyway. Well that was then, much before that night.
Reverend Horsefield had been the one to tell Lucien about Anson Minor, adding his opinion. His opinion was that his old neighbour had always been a good man, didn’t have a mean bone in his body. The reverend was smallish, about fifty-odd years at the time with a perpetually stiff neck and head always slightly bowed. His wife was a bit taller than him, perhaps because of posture. He left the church as a result of conflicting views on fundamental questions, became captain of the ferry. His sixteen-year-old son Adam mostly took care of the land. Later on Horsefield found out Minor Manor was actually going to be worth a helluva lot, way over its poor market value. The government was planning a terminal there.
Meanwhile, that part of Departure Bay may never have seen so many uniforms at one time as that afternoon following Lucien's brush with death. Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Regional Police all combed the area. They were no strangers to the land, had been over it regularly. In fact, there’d even been patrols, each incident bringing a greater wave of concern. It wasn’t a simple slice of land. Full of pine, poplar, birch, there were fields, open meadows, crags and gullies. It had been searched and searched and that day it was searched again.
The papers presented the human interest angle, the political angle or the horror angle. To Lucien it all felt a little unreal. He described the incident a few times, the boat was found in the afternoon washed ashore and still the searching continued.
Flora poured coffee into a mug for Lucien, another for herself. They were sitting at the table, not saying much. Ok they liked each other and Lucien was really feeling it after the night he’d had and the way she looked. The only small problem was his tree-planting partner Jody happened to be her husband. They chatted uncomfortably while Lucien warmed his hands on the mug, until Reverend Horsefield walked in. His son Adam was right behind and handed Lucien the letter. Lucien was quiet while he read, while they looked on.
"Bad news?," Horsefield finally asked.
"Nope. My niece is coming. I'm all she's got now." Still looking at the letter he gave a sardonic sort of laugh. “Seems she’ll be here tomorrow, all of fourteen-years-old.”
“Jeez,” Jody had come in. “Pretty crappy timing.”
Lucien shrugged. “It is what it is.”
Storm clouds gathered slowly again through the day. Lucien was in truth not ok with the added responsibility. And the Rainbow Planters had a contract starting in a few days. But Marie’s mom, Lucien’s sister, had passed away rather suddenly, cancer, and the dad had never been in the picture. What could he do? He could move to Victoria, of course, probably would once the farm got expropriated for the new ferry terminal. He’d be pretty wealthy at that point only he didn’t know when it was gonna happen. Jody had offered to buy the place more than once over the past couple of years but at the price it really wasn’t worth selling.
Marie arrived pretty messed up. Lucien was pretty messed up too, until he saw her. She came through the glass doors teary-eyed, lovely, precious. Her hair flew across her flushed face as the doors swung apart. She looked upset of course, kind of angry. He took her up in his arms which was ok even though she didn’t exactly hug him back. It had been an unbelievable time and with her so young. After a while he held her at arm's length. They looked at each other unsmiling, unspeaking. There was no need. It was a quiet hello perfectly full of understanding.
And Marie hardly had time to unpack before Lucien had to leave. He didn’t want to but Flora volunteered to stay at the house with Marie who flatly refused to shift to town. Still Lucien was uneasy all the way to Nanaimo Lake and after. He only planted for half a day as his uneasiness persisted and grew. He just had to get back.
Throughout the whole drive Lucien had a sense of foreboding, beat himself up for having left those two. The rain subsided but his mood didn’t as he drove along the coast faster and faster until he got stopped by a twenty-foot pile of fallen rock. So Lucien trekked the rest of the way, a couple of miles, running harder the closer he got. As he approached the house his sense of urgency increased and the name of Anson Minor repeated itself within his head.
Shooting up the lane he tried to slow down but his momentum carried him through the door with sudden force. Marie screamed. For a long moment Lucien and Flora stared at each other. She was holding his revolver with two shaking hands. Flora was first to speak, actually holler. “I COULDA GODDAMN KILLED YOU!”
Lucien was quite breathless. "You know how to use that?”
Without answering she threw the gun on the table and reached for Marie. "We kept hearing noises outside. Something was definitely out there. Shilo was barking."
Lucien walked over and hugged them both, the first time he ever touched Flora and it was chemical.
"Anson Minor was here," Marie said.
"How do you know? Did you see something?" Lucien asked.
“No, I just know."
After they all settled down Lucien took Marie up to her room. As soon as he went back into the kitchen Flora grabbed his arm. He stood there, uncertain, conflicted as she pressed up against him. They kissed. He felt her shiver with passion. He pulled her in and they kissed again, deeper.
“Flora.”
“No,” she said quietly. “You don’t know, Jody and I, we’re done.” She was correct about that: he didn’t know. “He’s just not right, for a long time. I’ve tried, really. And I don’t want to go back there. If you want me to leave I’ll leave but I won’t go back there.” Of course she didn’t leave, he didn’t want her to leave, but they didn’t... Mostly they just talked, fell asleep eventually together on the old sofa.
By morning the rain began again. Lucien went to make coffee. He was moving towards the kitchen when the front door flew open and Jody was there, a rifle in his hands. Lucien spun round and Flora screamed. Marie sleepily was coming down the stairs. Lucien grabbed her. No shot was fired, no words spoken.
Jody slammed the door but remained on the threshold, silent. By then Flora joined Lucien and Marie.
"Put the gun down Jody. Let’s talk. Nothing happened here."
Jody laughed then. “Like I care what you’re doing with my wife. You three are dead," he said in a frighteningly clear steady voice. "I don't talk to dead people. I just put them in the lake."
A veil of ignorance lifted from in front of Lucien's eyes. In that moment of awakening he saw everything. He must’ve turned beet red but he didn't move. All he said was “Why?” But Jody didn’t answer.
"Let the girls go Jody."
Jody took a few paces forward saying, "In the boathouse. Now. In the boathouse!"
Lucien glanced his revolver on the table, too far. He edged Marie behind him. Jody motioned for them to go towards the door. They began to circle round until Lucien was near enough to kick out sideways into Jody's stomach throwing him against the wall. But as he lunged Jody clubbed him heavily with the butt of the rifle, laughing manically. Flora and Marie both screamed. Flora didn’t even try to reason with Jody. She threw herself at him but he punched her squarely one time and she fell back against a railing. Blood trickled from the side of her mouth and she was weeping. Jody approached Lucien's slumped motionless form, stood over him with his rifle pointed at his temple.
At that precise moment, however, the door blew open again and a mountain of a man stood there. Jody froze in sudden terrified recognition. The man lumbered forward. Yelling "No! No!," Jody pumped two shots into the chest of Anson Minor at point-blank range. But by then Anson Minor had his huge hands in a vice-grip around Jody's throat. And as he slumped to the ground he dragged Jody with him, pressing harder and harder until the life had left both bodies in a macabre embrace unto death.