Who Is Frances Rain? Read online

  I was just putting in the lines of her shirt sleeves, when she put down the book and stared out over the lake in the opposite direction to the way Frances had gone. I craned my neck to see what she was looking at. A speck on the horizon was moving steadily in our direction.

  She dropped her book and ran into the cabin, coming out almost immediately with Frances’s binoculars. She stiffened. When she lowered the glasses, her eyes had the frozen stare of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Leaning into the wind that had suddenly picked up, she looked in the direction that Frances’s freighter canoe had gone. For some reason, her figure became clearer then, as if in her fear she had taken on new energy.

  As the vessel moved closer, I recognized the twins at either end. They wore the same blue shirts under matching mackinaws. Their canoe cut through the deep waves like a well-honed cleaver. In the middle, between the twins, wearing the same coat and fedora, sat the Toad Man.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE Toad Man levered himself onto the dock, stood up to his full height and adjusted his coat on his shoulders. He started up the path to the cabin. I looked around. The girl was gone.

  Wide grey shoulders suddenly blocked my vision, and like an animated character on a movie screen, he shimmered past me and up the path. I ran beside him, calling out, “Frances will be back soon. Wait for her. Don’t take the girl yet. Frances doesn’t know!”

  But he didn’t hear me. He plodded on, relentless as a chain saw cutting through a slab of pine.

  In my rush to help her, I forgot that although the path would be clear going for them, it wasn’t for me. My foot slid under a hidden root and I was flat on my face, my sketchbook landing in the undergrowth beside me. From that position I watched him walk into the cabin.

  By the time I reached the door it was shut. The handle dissolved under my hand. I ran to the side window and peered in. The girl stood staring at the man as he flung things into her old suitcase. Finally, she ran to him, pulling on his arm, but he brushed her off like a pesky mosquito.

  When he was done, he looked around to make sure he had everything, then pulled her coat off the peg and handed it to her. She shook her head, her arms stiff by her sides, her chin in the air. He shook it at her and said something, his frog lips barely moving. I saw a row of small pointed teeth. She shook her head and said something back, something that must have shocked both of them, because they stood face to face like statues. Then, he raised his huge hand and slapped her.

  When he turned away from her, I saw anguish on his face at what he’d done. Yet he hunched his shoulders, set his angry expression and faced her again, towering over her like a monstrous reptile. Slowly, without a word, tears running down her face, she put on the coat.

  He lunged out of the cabin, leaving the door swinging on its hinges. A splash of sunlight fell on the girl. She was tying on her hat with shaking fingers. I was sure I heard her faint sobbing in my head. I smelled wood smoke and looked up to see it pouring out of the tin chimney. The wind dragged it over the roof and tumbled it into the nearby trees.

  The girl was walking around the room, touching first a little vase of autumn leaves, next a wooden rocker and a small bed in the corner. I strained towards the glass. The bed was exactly the same as the one in my room at Gran’s. It was my bed!

  Before I could wrap that discovery around my brain cells, the girl knelt down and pulled something out from under the mattress. It was a small, flat shape, wrapped in what looked like soft chamois. She was heading towards the small blue table by the front window when the Toad Man burst into the cabin again. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her outside.

  As I stumbled after them down the path, I could hear the ghostly murmur of the long-ago wind that tore at their coats, propelling them towards the canoe and waiting men. The poor girl was trying to tell him something; she kept pulling back and waving the parcel with her free hand. He kept shaking his head, dragging her along with him. The two Indians watched with closed faces.

  The girl leaned her weight back and away from the Toad Man, but her feet skittered down the rocky slope. When she fell forward with one final pull of his strong arm, the parcel dropped to the ground. She tried to grab at it, but in the scuffle, the Toad Man’s foot kicked it, and it disappeared over the sharp edge of the rocks.

  Overcome, the girl was led to the canoe and lifted in. The big man followed close behind, the canoe dipping under his weight. The girl fell back against the thwart, her face covered by her hands.

  As they pulled away, I ran to the shore and cried, “I’ll tell her! I promise. I’ll tell her what happened. I promise!” But she didn’t look up.

  The canoe with its gentle prisoner rode into the haze of the autumn sky. While I cried, the summer visions of my own world grew stronger, blotting out the pale shimmering yellows of her past.

  I don’t know how long I sat with my arms and head resting on my knees. The past few weeks crowded in on me. How much more could a person stand?

  My mind was in such turmoil, it was like a roar of wind in my ears. Then, under the roar, came the faint far drone of the motor. Confused, I looked in the direction the big canoe had taken.

  In the distance, skimming past the island, was a small boat, and in it were two people, one a tall thin figure wearing a wide straw hat. The other was Alex. He was driving Gran home. It took me less than a minute to climb into the Beetle and push out into the sun-dappled water. I waved, using both arms. When they waved back, I felt my heart swell. I figured I could stand a bit more after all.

  Chapter Thirty

  ALEX stayed for lunch and somehow ended up playing poker with Tim and Evan afterwards. Mother sat reading Tim’s mystery, peering over the top of it like a private detective in a hotel lobby. Need I say that Tim and Evan had loudly different rules to the game? I could hear the squabbling from the veranda, where I was sitting with Gran.

  “Humph!” she said, tossing aside the diet sheet Doc had given her. “I baked that chocolate cake yesterday because it’s my favourite. This diet business if for the birds.”

  “It didn’t look too bad,” I said, encouragingly.

  “Humph.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine. Just fine. Don’t fuss, Lizzie.”

  I sat down on the end of her lounge. “Just fine? Oh, yeah? Let’s try that again. How do you feel?”

  “Lousy. Tired,” she muttered. “Old, worn-out and cheesed-off.”

  “That’s about normal, isn’t it?” She gave me a beady-eyed look. “Did you sleep okay at May’s?”

  “You know, Lizzie, it’s the funniest thing ... silly, really ... but when I was a young woman, I used to have these funny dreams. And last night I had them again. Could be the pills I’m taking.”

  “You mean, funny ha, ha, or funny weird?”

  She leaned against the cushion, closing her eyes. “Funny weird.”

  “Me too. I had weird dreams, too. What were yours about, Gran?”

  Her voice was husky with tiredness. “Just very strange. It’s always the same. It’s like I’m standing off a bit watching. A girl is standing at the foot of my bed and she’s looking at everything in the room. And in my bed is another girl. Not me. Or is she? I want to talk to them, but I know I can’t. They don’t see me. I have something important to tell them. Then I wake up and I can’t remember what it is. Funny.” Her voice faded into a whisper, and she was asleep.

  I held her long bony hand in mine and did some hard but frazzled thinking. Wasn’t this the same dream I had had the night before? Except she didn’t mention Frances being there. Why would Gran have a dream so much like mine? I laid her hand gently over the other one and tiptoed into the cabin. Alex was in the kitchen getting Cokes.

  “Alex. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  He put his arms on my shoulders, a Coke can in each hand.
“About time. Thought I’d developed halitosis of the worst kind. Don’t frown. I’m just kidding.” He aimed a kiss at the proper spot, but I turned my head and it missed.

  “Alex. I’ve got to talk to you!”

  He looked around. “Is there a parrot in here? Or an echo?”

  “Alex! I’ve —”

  “I know, I know — talk to me.” He walked to the door. “Hey guys, deal me out. Elizabeth and I are going for a walk.”

  “Jeez, Birdface, real poker players don’t leave in the middle of the game, especially when they’re winning,” called Evan.

  “Yeah, Bird. Get in here and deal. My luck’s changing,” growled Tim.

  “Sorry, fellas. I’m out.”

  “Deal me in, then,” said Mother from behind her book.

  “Women can’t play poker,” sneered Evan. “Especially mothers.”

  “We’ll see who has the most matchsticks at the end,” she said.

  “Me, too, I’ll play too,” chimed in Erica from the floor where she’d been colouring. That was followed by an elaborate groan.

  Alex and I walked out the back door.

  “One big happy family, eh?” said Alex. “Think it’ll last?”

  “Who knows?” At that moment I didn’t care if they attacked each other with axes. “Listen, I have to tell you something.”

  “No kidding,” he said, laughing.

  I pushed him and he grabbed me and we walked along the shore hand in hand. I told him as clearly as I could what had happened the night before, and on the island that afternoon, and finally about Gran’s dream.

  “That’s kind of spooky, Lizzie, eh? You both had the same one?”

  “Sort of. But mine wasn’t a dream,” I insisted. “I woke up, put on the glasses and that’s when I saw them. But I’m sure that Frances and the girl didn’t see each other. And I’m sure I didn’t dream it. So you can stop looking like that.”

  “Could you somehow have connected into your gran’s dream? Or she into yours?”

  “I didn’t dream it!”

  “Okay, okay. Did you look for this parcel that the girl dropped?”

  “The parcel!” I cried. “I never even thought to look! I was too upset. We’ve got to find it!”

  “Hey, Liz, wait.”

  But I was running to the dock. “I’ve got the specs in my pocket. That’s all I need.”

  When we landed on the island, Alex said, “What if Frances already found it? I mean, sixty years ago. Cripes, I’m talking like they’re here now!” He pulled the nose of the boat onto shore. “Or it could have fallen into the water and rotted away.”

  “On the other hand,” I called over my shoulder as I ran up the slope, “it could still be here.”

  There was a fairly steep drop on one side of the landing rock. The rock itself had split and cracked into layers, and the sheared-off blocks and slates were lying in a jumbled mass down the slop and in the water below.

  Little secret ledges lay one on top of the other, some deep and dark, others shallow and glowing with brightly coloured moss and berries. My heart sank. “I saw it slide over here. It probably landed in the lake.”

  “Which side was she standing on?”

  “She wasn’t standing. The big bully was dragging her, and she dropped it right where you’re standing. It went on an angle when he kicked it. That way.” I pointed to his left sneaker.

  “It could have fired into one of those ledges, then,” he said, getting down on his knees and leaning over the edge.

  I ask you. What more could a person ask for? You tell a guy that one of the ghosts you’ve been watching for a couple of weeks — through a pair of antique specs, no less — dropped a parcel, and he helps you look for it.

  I hopped and crossed the jagged stones, feeling their sharp edges through the soles of my sneakers. All around the rock face were dark holes, broken ledges and tufts of moss with little green ferns growing out of them.

  “Here’s a pretty deep crevice,” I called back. “Seems to go straight in. Darn! I wish I had a flashlight.”

  “Flashlight?” asked Alex, who was lying on his stomach, chin on arms, peering down at me. “Got one in the boat. I’ll get it.”

  I peered anxiously into the dark, flat hole, and waited. A few minutes later, a flashlight dangled before my eyes on a thin stretch of fishing line.

  “You could have handed it down,” I said, laughing.

  “I know. But the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew would have been hanging over a two hundred foot drop looking for treasure and someone would lower a light to them. On a rope. Just wanted to get into the spirit of the thing.”

  I untied the flashlight. “Very funny.” Just beyond my reach, the dim glow of the flash picked up a blackened block of something. “Hey! Wait! Get down here.”

  Alex’s reach was just long enough. He brought it out, dragging dirt and leaves with it.

  “She sure liked to wrap things in leather,” I said softly.

  “My God, Lizzie,” he said, “you really did see her drop this all those years ago. Let’s get up there and open it.”

  I was out of breath after clambering to the top and sat down with a thump. The day was warm and sunny, but the little parcel felt cold and heavy in my hand.

  “Maybe whatever it is will crumble away when I touch it,” I muttered, turning it over in my hands.

  “Will you open the stupid thing? The suspense is killing me.” He fell back, making death rattles.

  I slowly unwound the blackened leather thong that held it together. The buckskin was dark and stiff and held its shape. Under it was a layer of oilcloth. I pulled it away. I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. Was this the same flat sketchbook I’d seen her drawing in? My heart was beating hard and fast.

  “It’s just an old sketchbook,” said Alex. “See? There’s a long fabric loop with a pencil still in it. Hey, nice pencil. Gold, I bet. It isn’t even rusted. Do you think the lead still works?”

  I wasn’t listening. I opened the flap. Inside was a slender pile of yellowed pages, water-spotted and covered in fine writing and delicate drawings — some in pencil, some in ink, and here and there the faint blush of water colours.

  It was a picture and word diary of the girl’s stay on Rain Island. The cabin, sketched in ink, the lake painted in soft spring colours, a pencil sketch of dark thunderclouds, were all surrounded by writing, a kind of recording of each day’s events. The last entry had been made the day before the Toad Man returned.

  Frances is going over tomorrow to set up a place for us in a small cabin she has on Form Lake. We’ll leave in a day or two, just in case Papa decides to fool us and come early. When the snow lies deep on the lake, we’ll return to our little home on the island. I can hardly wait to see Rain Lake under the safe cloak of winter. I have two more pages to fill and then I will give this little book to Frances. She worries that I’m lonely here. She’ll see how much I truly belong here. With her.

  I turned the pages as if they were made out of butterfly wings. If only she had gone with Frances, chances are she would have stayed clear of Papa, the Toad Man. When I was about to close the cover, I saw an inscription. It said, “To Frances Rain, my mother. A New Beginning. Lovingly, from your daughter, Teresa, 1925.”

  “Her name was Teresa,” I said wonderingly. “Finally I know her name. She wasn’t Frances’s sister or niece, but her daughter!”

  “So the man Teresa calls Papa is really Frances’s father?” suggested Alex. “Papa must stand in for Grandpa.”

  I looked at him. I’d forgotten he was there.

  “But didn’t Frances Rain die in 1925? Isn’t that what Harv said?” he asked.

  “That’s right! And the sketchbook is dated 1925.”

  Alex thought for a moment. “She must ha
ve died soon after Teresa left.”

  I nodded. It was so much to take in at once. My senses seemed to go into shock, then reorganize themselves until I could think, and then my skin felt hot and cold at the same time, and then I couldn’t think at all. Something was screaming at me to take notice. It was Alex who brought everything to a grinding halt.

  “What was her name?” He gripped my arm. “What was the girl’s name?”

  “Teresa,” I said, as if in a dream. “Teresa Rain. Maybe it wasn’t Rain. I wonder if they called her Terry That was the moment when everything slid into place. Gran.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “I THINK that your spirit girl and Terry, your gran, are one and the same, Lizzie,” Alex said. “What did Frances find when she returned? Nothing! Not even a note.”

  “The Toad Man kept looking at his watch,” I remembered. “While he was pushing her along. He must have had someone waiting to whisk them away. The trains used to come as far as Poplar Hills Station, and I’ll bet those guides had a fast way out. I wonder if Frances planned on following her back east? Maybe she thought Teresa had deserted her? No note ... no nothing. How did she stand it?” I held his arm. “How did she die?”

  “She didn’t, remember?” Alex said quietly. “She’s still here. Put the spectacles on. I’ll go wait in the boat.”

  “I ... can’t ... I

  “Put them on, Lizzie. Or you’ll always be wondering.”

  He was right. I was afraid, but I had to finish this.

  Alex touched my cheek with his fingertips, then turned and walked away.

  Clutching the book against my chest with one hand, I used the other to put on the glasses. As I walked up the slope and into the pines, I felt the change. It was completely different.