Who Is Frances Rain? Read online

  I looked out the truck window, only half seeing the trees as they blurred past. He was right. Dinner had been another rotten meal — Mother and Tim silent and grim, Erica tired and weepy, Evan growling over his meat. Gran had looked pretty wiped out by the time dishes were done and hadn’t come with us after all, saying she had a headache. I was worried about her.

  “She looked pretty tired, didn’t she?” I said finally. “I wonder if she’s been sick this winter and didn’t tell us?”

  This time it was his turn not to answer.

  “Well, was she? She always writes that she’s fine.”

  He hesitated. “Well ... when I was helping her around the place this spring, she seemed out of breath a few times. And she was sort of a funny grey colour.”

  I felt something squeeze my heart.

  “I told Aunt May and she promised to get her in to see Doc Lindstrom. Doc gave her some kind of pills. Don’t know what they are, but May said she’d be fine.” He gave me a searching glance. “Still, if I were you, I’d tell the Munsters over there to let up a little. I don’t think she can stand the strain.”

  That made me mad. “You and May knew my gran was sick and you didn’t bother to write? What if she’d got really sick? In the hospital? Would you let her die before telling us? God! You’d think she was your family, not mine!”

  “She is like my family. Besides, Terry told us not to tell you,” he snapped.

  We drove along in black silence for a while.

  The evening sun was pouring orange light into the cab of the truck. I held my hand over my eyes to shade them. It gave me time to gulp down a few self-pitying tears.

  “Next time, I’ll write. No, I’ll call. I promise,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “Sorry. I’m always yelling at you.”

  He grinned. Sunlight warmed his skin to a mellow bronze. “Hey, forget it. I haven’t seen your whole family together for ages.” He paused. “About your dad. I’m sorry about him leaving. I didn’t say anything last year — Evan kept saying he’d probably be leaving for Toronto to stay with your dad for good.”

  “You can see how that promise came out,” I said bitterly.

  “Yeah. When I saw Evan this year, I didn’t know what to say.”

  “You? At a loss for words? Spare me.”

  “Funny.”

  “Nothing much is funny, really.”

  “But what’s happening anyways?” he asked. “Or am I poking my big schnozz in where it’s not wanted?”

  I rolled down the window and let the cool breeze whip my hair around my face. I told him everything — how my dad left so suddenly, how we got short cheery notes and big birthday cheques and that was about all. And I told him how Tim had walked into the mess about three months before.

  “Does your mother always act like this?”

  I shook my head. “She’s always been busy, but at least she used to be interested in what we had to tell her, you know? Now, it’s like she’s walking around on broken bottles. She always seemed so cool and organized.”

  He nodded. “So she’s been acting strange since your dad left?”

  “Yeah. But you know what’s really weird? She and Dad hardly ever saw each other. I don’t think they were ... you know ... in love, anymore. He used to be away for days at a time just before he left. Mother called them business trips, but we knew different.”

  “And then he went to Toronto?”

  I nodded. “I guess it hurt her a lot. Evan misses him the most. I don’t. I guess I’m strange.”

  He flicked me a quick look. “Do you think she loves old Tim?”

  “You know what? I bet she does. She seemed happier when they got married. He’s so different from Dad. He’s always around. He’s crazy about her. He used to tease her and make her laugh. That was a new experience, believe me.”

  “And you? Do you like Tim?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do — like him, that is.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You should try talking to your mother.”

  “Are you kidding?” I scoffed.

  “No harm in trying.”

  We rode the rest of the way in silence, but by the time we rolled into Harvey’s yard, I’d made up my mind. He was right. There was no harm in trying. At least I’d find out what she was planning on doing about Toothy.

  Harvey was waiting in his rocker on the porch of his shack. A gust of wind lifted the edges of its mismatched shingles and swirled the smoke from its chimney into the trees above. Harv rocked two or three times to get enough momentum to pop himself out of the seat and lurched down the dirt path that cut through a yard full of rusting motors, dead and gutted trucks and cars and piles of corroding junk. He pulled his baseball cap out of his pocket and dragged it over the dandelion fluff on his head.

  I’d only been inside the shack a few times. All I’d seen were rows and rows of piled magazines, newspapers and books that stretched up to the wood ceiling, with hemp ropes and silky strings of cobwebs holding it all together. Harvey claimed to have read every word of those millions of pages and couldn’t bear to part with one of them.

  I remember seeing a mouse’s head pop out of the middle of one of the dusty piles the first time I was there. He’d looked around with pink eyes before disappearing, probably to get on with his reading.

  Alex and I rolled down our windows. It was usually a good idea to have fresh air around when Harvey got into a closed space. His galvanized bathtub, hanging to one side of the front door, rarely got a working out. I shifted closer to Alex to make room. His arm, which had been resting along the back of the seat, dropped around my shoulders. I relaxed against it until Harvey creaked his way into the cab, but then the arm was needed to shift gears.

  May greeted us with two huge pies, oozing dark sweet juice. We ate in the kitchen, around the big worktable.

  “Say, Harv,” Alex said, finally changing the topic from blueberry pies and fishing. “Elizabeth here has been poking around on Rain Island. She found some remains of a cabin. Wasn’t that some woman prospector’s place?”

  Harvey swallowed a slug of coffee, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny neck.

  “Why that would be Frances Rain’s place.” He leaned back and picked his teeth. “Haven’t thought about her for years.”

  “Did you meet her?”

  “I hung around with a boy whose father owned one of the large silver mines. I’d just come over from the old country. A kid myself. This boy’s dad was always after Frances Rain to sell her claim on Pebble Lake, ’bout ten miles straight north of here. Thought she was an amateur at first. But she wasn’t no dummy. She’d been trained by Rudy and Pearl Pepin. A better pair of prospectors you’d never find. I guess I musta been about twenty, twenty-one when Frances died. I’ve made and lost a few fortunes since then, eh, May?”

  She laughed and said, “From what I hear, you still got a pile stashed away in that bank in The Pas.”

  “Well,” he said with a secret smile, “I ain’t gonna starve before I die, eh?” And then he chuckled. “Now, this Frances Rain you’re talking about, she must’ve made money in her day. Most of us worked with partners. Not her. She was a mystery, that one.”

  “Do you know where she came from?” I asked.

  “I heard she was a teacher in The Pas for a while. She got to know the Pepins and came out prospecting with them. The last ten years or so she stayed out here all year ’round. Built that place of hers with her own two hands. Kept herself to herself. No man dared go near her or she’d of blowed his head right off. The Pepins were her only friends and their base was ’way over on Braid Lake. People said this Frances Rain got a bit queer as time went on.” He spun his finger beside his temple. “Nutty.”

  “Nutty? You mean crazy?”
I remembered the black-haired woman I’d seen. She hadn’t looked crazy.

  “Not all that uncommon around here in them days, my lovely,” Harvey said, digging into a fresh piece of pie. “Fortunes lost and found ... long dark winters. She was a city girl, I heard. Not used to the loneliness. Course, I don’t believe she killed herself.”

  “Killed herself?” I cried.

  “So the gossip has it. No, I figure she died of exposure or pneumonia or something. The Pepins found her. Family claimed the body and that was that.”

  “What family came to get her?” I asked.

  “Some big shot out west, if I recall right.”

  “So you never met her,” I said, feeling let down.

  “I didn’t say that. I just didn’t know her, but then no one did. I met her a couple of times, but I only saw her cabin inside the once. Books lining every wall. Don’t know how she got them there. Place was full of books.”

  “You should talk,” said May. “One day, I’ll clean your place out.”

  “You do and you’ll answer to me,” he growled. “No, she told me, that one time, that reading took the place of madness on long freezing days and nights. She was right. She had a whole set of Dickens I’d have given my eye teeth for. ’Cept I didn’t have any then, neither. Reading’s my only pleasure now. That and blueberry pie.” May gave him another piece.

  “Can you describe her?” I held my breath and waited.

  “Frances Rain? Let’s see ... Tall. Black-haired. Bony — I like my women with flesh on ’em — and two of the bluest eyes you’ll ever see. She had a look about her ... it was like she was burning inside with something. Guess that’s why people thought she was odd. She made you uncomfortable.”

  “I’ve been on her island a couple of times,” May said. “There’s a strange empty sadness there, as if it’s waiting for someone.”

  I took another deep breath. “Did she ever have a sister, or a niece visit her? A younger girl? Say about thirteen?”

  He frowned at the table. “You know,” he said, chewing slowly, “I do recall a little lass visiting her once. A sister, I believe it was. Can’t remember exactly.” He pointed at me with his fork. “The girl was sickly. Frank Noble over at the company store said that Frances came in now and again for special things for the girl. Said her appetite was poor. Funny you should know about the girl. I’d forgotten all about it. How did you hear of her?”

  I shrugged. “By the way, do you recall a couple of Indian guides from around here at that time? Identical twins?”

  He peered at me through his wild eyebrows. “Now, how do you know things I’d forgotten years ago? Sure, they worked around here. The Macdonald twins. Best trappers in the district. You’re something, you know that?”

  “How long did the girl stay?”

  The baseball cap’s peak waggled back and forth. “No idea. Summer’s prospecting time. No one hung around.”

  “Did you ever see her?”

  “No. Can’t say I did. Just heard about her from Frank Noble.”

  “Do you know when Frances Rain died?”

  “Now that I can tell you. Same year as my partner Len and me sold our first big claim. Yep. The year she died, we hit the big time. It was nineteen hundred and twenty-five.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I SAT stunned. How had I been able to see a woman who’d been dead for more than sixty years? I’d seen her and she’d seen me. May’s clattering in the sink finally woke me up. It was time to help with the dishes.

  Alex got up and grabbed a tea towel. I saw him looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “You okay?” he said quietly.

  I nodded.

  “Never mind with those dishes, Alex,” May said. “I want you to check out the new Evinrude. The Rossmonds over in cabin two are having trouble with it. Would you drain it and put the proper mixture in? He’s been using straight gas again.”

  Alex looked at me and then at May. “Well, that’ll take some time.”

  May cocked her head and looked at me. “Lizzie won’t mind, will you, Lizzie?”

  I felt a flush creeping up my neck. “Why should I mind?”

  “I’ll give the kid a hand,” said Harvey. “Your girl will still be here when you’re done. Don’t you worry none, Alex.”

  “We’re gone,” said Alex, backing towards the door. He tripped over the door ledge and out into the night.

  “Let’s play backgammon, kiddo,” May said.

  I hate it when adults get secret smiles on their faces.

  We played until around eleven o’clock. I was tempted to talk to her about what I’d seen on the island, but I couldn’t. It seemed too private to share with a grown-up. She may understand, but then again, she could just as easily screw up her wrinkled little face and laugh. I couldn’t take that chance.

  Alex came in just as we finished a glass of lemonade.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He was covered in grease and not happy. “Don’t ever allow those stupid Rossmonds on this land again, or I quit. He won’t even admit he used car gas in the damn thing.”

  “Don’t worry,” said May. “When I caught their kids stealing chocolate bars from the shelf I figured this was their last wilderness adventure in this lodge. You better get Lizzie home, eh?”

  Alex dropped Harv off first. We drove along the moonlit road to Rain Lake in horrible silence. When the truck ground to a halt in front of the trail down to the lake, we sat staring out into the dark bushes with silver-edged leaves. The air vibrated with the chirrups of crickets and galumphs of frogs.

  “Hope you brought a flashlight,” Alex finally said to the windshield. “You’ve got a lot of lake to cover.”

  I leaned against the door of the truck, one hand on the door handle. “I’ll be fine. The boat’s got running lights. Besides, you can see better at night without a flash.”

  “You’re right. In the daytime, too, I hear.”

  I smiled out the window. “Won’t take me long. Look how quick we made it from Gran’s. And I was towing you.”

  That ended that exciting conversation. I was about to open the door when he said, “So, did you learn anything about Frances Rain from Harvey?”

  I shook my head. “But what I did learn was that I really saw her on the island. It was her all right. Harv described her perfectly. And he says there was a girl. And he knew about the Macdonald twins.”

  “It’s really incredible. I wish I could see them. See? You’re not loony after all. She must have been an odd one, eh?”

  “He says some people thought she was a nut. But I think she was just different. And she was smart. And a woman who didn’t need a partner to survive in the wild. Put those three together with a cabin on an island and you get some people calling you crazy.”

  “Was she good looking? Beautiful?”

  “Not really. A strong face. But her eyes were blue, blue.” I thought a minute. “I guess some people would call her beautiful.” I leaned my head back against the seat. “I’m never going to get married either. The way my parents hashed up their time together, I don’t see why anyone would bother.”

  “Next thing you’ll be saying is that you’re going to live on an island, too.”

  “Maybe I will. I’ll be a famous writer. Or an artist. I’ll sell my stuff through your lodge. All those rich Americans. I’d do all right.”

  “Well, you may not be loony, but you’re sure different from any of the girls at school. Maybe you’ll be the next Frances Rain. You’re different. You’re smart. And you’re a girl. You’re not even bad-looking. Better than last year, that’s for sure.”

  “Thanks for the compliment,” I said sarcastically. “You don’t weigh ten tons anymore, so you’ve improved somewhat, too.”

  “Yeah. Ken and Barbie.”

  We both grinned at t
he windshield.

  “Well, I gotta go. Gran’ll be worried.” I opened the door and stepped down.

  He followed me down the path. From the ridge of rock, the bay below looked like molten silver. The mosquitoes that had chased after us were blown away on the breeze off the lake.

  “Hey, get a load of the stars, eh?” he said, sitting down on the rock.

  I sat down beside him and looked up. The sky was a wide dark cloth covered with silver dots.

  “Sorry about my dear Aunt May.”

  “Why? I had fun.”

  “You know. About the ‘if Lizzie doesn’t mind’ bit. As if you were my girlfriend or something.”

  I shrugged. “That’s okay.”

  We sat staring at the stars, thinking that one over. At least I was.

  “I guess I’d better go,” I said, but I didn’t move.

  He didn’t answer. His face came closer and we looked at each other. His eyes came in and I felt my own face shifting closer. The kiss was short. Some might argue that it wasn’t a kiss at all. Then what?

  “So, I guess I’d better go,” I said. I thought I’d already said that. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The next kiss was a little longer and could be seriously judged as a real one. I was surprised our noses didn’t get in the way.

  We walked hand in hand to the boat, barely aware of the mosquitoes who’d caught up to us while we kissed one more time, me in the boat and him kneeling on the dock. That time our noses definitely got in the way.

  The motor started on the first pull.

  “See you,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah, see you.”

  I turned the boat around and cranked up the motor. I turned. He waved wildly as the boat skimmed over the moonlit water. I waved just as wildly back.