CHAPTER 18.
I missed the fall beauty of Rhode Island and asked my pupils to decorate the classroom with “leaves” made from colored scraps of paper. We carved pumpkins and had an apple bobbing contest. I sent them home with bags of popcorn and homemade cookies.
The end of October was the happiest time of my life.
And it would be the last.
Shortly after the first of November, one of my pupils disappeared while out hunting. A strapping sixteen-year-old boy who often helped me with Tommy, he vanished into thin air one morning, leaving his parents to conduct a frantic search.
He was never found.
Some said he ran off after his father took a strap to him. Others, that he joined the Army.
I think Anjuli knew what happened to him and she wasn’t telling. Small searches continued, with even members of the local reservation volunteering to help.
Macha told me the land was haunted when she dropped by a week before Thanksgiving. “You’re early,” I said, surprised at her gift of frybread. I led her into the kitchen, where I had already begun preparations for a small feast. “It’s just me this year,” I said, feeling the loss of my mother just then. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes.” She sat down at my drop-leaf table. I was proud of that find. I found it in a small antique shop when I was in Chicago and had to plead with the owner to ship it to me. Macha glanced around my small kitchen. “This is nice. Much nicer since the last time I was here.”
“I’ve been redecorating.”
“Not you,” she said with a knowing smile. “When Hannah was here.” Macha accepted a cup of Darjeeling with a sprinkle of sugar. “She needed a cleansing, too.”
“Really?” I sat down, intrigued. “My ghosts or hers?”
“Neither.” She took a ladylike sip, puckered her mouth, and set it aside. “I much prefer jasmine.”
“I couldn’t find it.”
“Be sure to get me some the next time you’re in London.” Macha smiled. I thought I liked it very much when her eyes crinkled. It reminded me of my grandmother. “Hannah was very bitter over her husband’s death. She carried this bitterness wherever she went. That’s why she used a ruler on her pupils.”
“Did the parents complain?”
“What for? It is as common as the grass beneath your feet.” She gave a little shrug. “The parents could never do it themselves. They were grateful.”
“Indeed?” I sniffed, inhaling my second cup of Darjeeling that day. I had made samosas and offered her one. “Try it with the apple chutney. I couldn’t find mangos. I tried pumpkin, but it wasn’t the same.”
“Samosas? Does she like them?”
“They were her favorite. With mango chutney. Her maid used to bring her a plate every morning. She was sad when she couldn’t find someone to make them when she moved to England.”
Macha was a keen observer and commented on my new earrings and hair. “You give her too much,” she chided. “You must set barriers.”
“Oh, I do. I refuse to wear the sari.”
“She wanted you to wear it?” she cried in alarm. “Whatever for?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
Shooting me a warning look, Macha scolded me as if she were my mother. “Do not, under any circumstances, try on that sari!” She leaned close, took a whiff, and instantly recoiled. “What is that you are wearing? It is vile!”
“Patchouli oil. I only use it on special occasions.”
“As if today were a special occasion,” she retorted. “I advise you to stick to lavender or rosewater. You’ll live longer.”
“It pleases her.”
“What about you? What pleases you, Anne?”
I glanced up sharply. It was the first time I’d heard my name in months. Living with Anjuli was stripping me of all I held dear. Including my sense of self. “Lots of things please me,” I said lightly. “Letters from my sister, leaves in the fall, and my students.”
“I am talking about what makes you happy,” she snapped. “Don’t you ever worry about yourself?”
“That would be rather selfish, don’t you think?”
“It’s not selfish to take care of one’s soul. You will cease to be Anne if you allow this to continue.” She helped herself to a samosa, took a tentative bite, and spat it out. “I hate chickpeas!”
“I adore them, actually.”
“See?”
“About Miss Ellis,” I prodded, not caring to speak about how much Anjuli controlled my life. “Did it help?”
“In a way. She set her ruler aside and gave them those ten timers.”
“Ouch.”
Macha laughed despite the gravity of the situation. “She died in her sleep. In case you were wondering.”
“At least it was peaceful.”
“Unlike your… friend.” She emphasized the word ‘friend’. “Has she told you how she died?”
“No. Since the cleansing, I have not spoken to her.”
“Good.”
“But that doesn’t mean I won’t find out, eventually.”
“She will tell you when the time is right.” Macha accepted another cup of tea and took a generous sip. “I suppose you are curious about the man I warned you about.”
“More than curious.”
“Are you afraid, Anne? He means you no harm. Which is more than I can say about the other.”
I nearly dropped my teacup. “There’s another? I thought there was only the one!”
“I wasn’t certain. I only see things when the spirits see fit to show me. I saw only one.” She smiled sheepishly. “Be wary of one and cling to the other. That is what I advise.”
“Cling to him?” I snorted. “Why would I want to do that?”
Macha gave me one of her knowing looks. “You will marry him.”
I spat out my tea. “Marry him? Over my dead body!” I raged, leaping from my chair. I had seen what marriage did to Anjuli and wanted no part of it. “I will die a spinster!” I swore. “I will swear on a stack of Bibles!”
“It won’t be that kind of marriage.” She gestured for me to take my seat. “Let me explain.”
“I don’t think I want to hear it,” I grumbled, listening to her softly persuasive voice tell me the man would propose marriage as a way of protecting me. “He will be your friend, not a lover.”
As if that made it better.
I shook my head. “I can look after myself,” I insisted. “I’m learning how to shoot.”
“And you missed the target by several feet, if I recall,” she pointed out dryly, even though she was snoring halfway across the plains on the reservation. “Better to have your husband wield the weapon.”
“I will not let him wield anything!” I sputtered. “Look at me! Do I look like a bride?”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” she quoted with a wan smile. “Why do you focus so much on appearances? Anjuli does not.”
“Anjuli likes me to wear my hair in a bun and jingle this bracelet,” I shot back. “And she’s one to talk. She was stunningly beautiful.”
“You do him a great disservice,” Macha scolded. “He is more than worthy of your affection.”
“Is this the same one you didn’t like because he was hoity-toity? Or am I missing something?”
“He’ll love that sharp tongue of yours, Anne.” She wagged her finger. “You will have a sparring mate for life.”
“I don’t want one. I’d rather get a dog. One of those large mountain dogs with the rum in those little barrels.”
After an awkward pause, I wanted to know where Prince Valiant and his squire were. “So, where are they? You said one was on his way. Are they together?”
“No. Separate. They do not know the other.”
“Oh, that’s relief. I thought I’d have to kill two birds with one stone.”
Macha chuckled and performed another cleansing. This one was for preventative measures. She had also brought a white feather she said had been blessed by the tribal elders. She gave it to me to hold on to. “Keep it close and never let it out of your sight. It will keep the shadows at bay.”
I walked her out. “How will I know these men?”
“I cannot say,” she huffed, climbing up into the wagon. “All I know for certain is that you must be always on your guard. They will reveal themselves when the opportunity presents itself. In the meantime, go about your daily activities. Go to church. Pray. And do not slide in your faith.”
“That’s it? Don’t I get descriptions or something?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “one will try to get you alone. He is no gentleman!” She spat over the side of the wagon. “He is a vile, slithering creature. Avoid being alone with him!”
“I will.” I handed her the reins. “And the other?”
Macha patted my hand. “You will cry in the night, and he will come.”
“I do not wish to marry,” I said again, watching the play of emotions upon her weathered visage. “I don’t want to belong to anybody.”
“Then don’t.”
“But you said—”
“Just because I say you will marry doesn’t mean the end of Anne,” she replied gently. “Marriage is what you make of it. You take the bad with the good. There can only be compromise.”
“Not for Anjuli,” I said. “Michael neglected her shamelessly. She was lonely.”
“Was his brother any better?” Macha urged the team forward. “I cannot tell you what to do when the time comes. I can only give advice.”
“And what would that be?”
“Watch and listen.”
I wasn’t happy with that. She made it sound as if I had no choice in the matter. After the dust settled and wheel tracks scarred the earth, I wandered down a dirt path that led to a ramshackle pair of chicken coops. Miss Ellis had bred chickens and when she died, there had been no one to take care of them. They were either sold or doled out to her neighbors.
I wonder if that was how Anjuli felt when she married. She belonged to Michael, yet he abandoned her when she needed him the most. Then, to fill the void, she allowed Joseph to fill her head with romantic notions of castles in the sky.
Swearing that wouldn’t happen to me, I returned to the house and helped myself to a piece of Macha’s frybread. I made a pie. Mopped the floor. And took my cup of tea out to the porch, where I stood listening to the wind.
Two weeks later, I received devastating news.
Macha was dead.
It was her heart. There had been no warning, no indication she had been ill. Her son said she was as healthy as an old pack mule. “Did my mother say anything to you the last time she was here?” he asked, his eyes red from weeping.
I don’t know how much she told him about our conversations, but erred on the side of caution and told him we talked over tea. He nodded sadly, handing me a small package wrapped in brown paper. “My mother wanted you to have this.” He tipped his hat and drove away.
It was the last time I saw him.
A little hurt I hadn’t been invited to the funeral, I grieved in my own way and lit a candle for her the next time I was in church. I set the package aside until I was ready to open it. Days passed, then weeks. The shadows returned without Macha’s preventive cleansings and though I did what I could, there was nothing to prevent them from terrorizing me in my own home.
By the time the first snow fell in December, I was at a loss at how to deal with the haunting. I began looking for another place to live, thinking if I changed locations, the shadows would get confused and haunt someone else.
But things were never that simple.
Though it pained me to do so, I had to leave the little schoolhouse and my students. I was replaced by a man who did not eschew punishment. I was sorry to go, but I knew I could not stay. I took the sari with me, unwilling to foist angry spirits upon another, and ended up back in New York, where I got a job in a secondhand bookshop. The pay was abysmal, but sufficient to put food on my table.
The sari I placed in a leaden trunk I purchased at an auction and stowed away at the foot of my bed. I had two padlocks on it. I never opened it and in time, learned to live with my shadows. They left me alone… most of the time. I was so preoccupied with carving out a life for myself that I did not notice I was being stalked.
And just like Macha had said, there were two of them.
