Setting: Robert Werner’s house, 1 June 1992, Monday 7:15 AM
Scene: After sleeping-over at Robert Werner’s house, the gathered-together are waking up and will soon be coming into the kitchen-dining area. Robert has switched out the music for 5 Chieftains CD’s (4, 5, 6, 8 & 9). It plays at a slightly higher volume in the background than did the overnight music, energizing the morning ambience. He is making blueberry pancakes and frying beer brats, with some potato hash as a side. His mother, Evelyn, dressed in a light-green morning-gown and with her long graying brunet hair still wet from her shower, is cutting apples and grapes into fruit-bowls.
Lori Ann, first of the night-guests to enter the kitchen, walks up behind Robert at the stove, where he is turning the brats in the skillet. There she carefully reaches her arms around him and gives him a morning hug, her face resting for a moment in the nape of the Poet’s neck.
“Morning Lori,” he responds with warmth.
“Good morning,” she replies, releasing him, seeming refreshed. “Morning Evelyn.”
“Morning, how’d you sleep?”
“Wonderfully! Vincent will be out in a few_ he’s just finished showering. … Invigorating music,” she says, gesturing like she’s going to step a few steps on the linoleum floor.
“Chieftains,” Robert elucidates.
“I know them_” Lori Ann says, “they’re in the repertoire the kids in Llewellyn Rock listen to_ and play!” She gets herself a mug out of the cupboard, knowing where they are kept, and pours herself hot tea from the pot that is quietly steeping on the stove, to which she then adds sugar and a bit of cream. “It was great hearing that other music all night.”
“Clannad_ I think music facilitates sleep_ just playing very low,” Robert affirms.
“This is music I want to dance to!” Lori Ann says, setting down her mug and doing a few steps.
“There you go!” Evelyn says and – stepping back from the counter – makes like she is going to step to the music as well, turning toward Lori Ann. After ‘kicking up their heels’ a bit, Evelyn laughs delightedly and goes about setting the fruit bowls on the table at each of the placemats.
For the next few minutes there is a quiet communion betwixt the three of them; no one speaking—just allowing the music to help waken them. Then_
“Morning all,” Vincent announces as he appears from the hallway. He and Lori Ann give one another an affectionate embrace, after which – having exchanged knowing glances with one another; Lori whispering, ‘give Robert a hug’ – Vincent walks over to the Poet and repeats Lori Ann’s greeting.
“Oh-thank-you Vincent!”
“Anytime, man,” Vincent says, holding onto the Poet tightly for a few seconds, arms stretched around the Poet’s chest, before letting go.
“Here we are,” Geoffrey says as he and Octavia enter the kitchen-dining room.
“Glad to have you all here, this morning!” Evelyn says graciously, noticing the woman she is unacquainted with. “I missed you all last night!”
“Hi_ I’m Octavia,” Geoffrey’s friend says, stepping over to meet her host’s mother. “We’ve not been introduced.”
“A pleasure,” Evelyn says, smiling, as she shakes the professor’s hand. “Are you at the college, like Geoffrey?”
“I am_ I teach philosophy and social history.”
“Interesting subjects,” Evelyn says. “I’ve never studied, but I’ve learned a lot about philosophy and other such things from Rob.”
“_And from Karl and Kevin, too,” Robert adds, smiling, referring to his two closest writer-friends, at which mention Evelyn smiles, nodding agreement.
“Were you at the railroad opening yesterday?” Evelyn asks.
“I was,” Octavia affirms, sighing, remembering the day with pleasure.
“She’s the reason we’re all here,” Robert explains.
“Oh_ how’s that?” the mother asks, curious.
“She started asking us questions about our being friends, the Four of us,” Robert says.
“Yes, I suddenly found myself at table with the ’Four Friends’ Geoffrey has mentioned _ and being interested in ‘social constructs,’ I just started asking questions!”
“As you do,” Geoffrey says appreciatively of his friend.
“And we obliged by telling her our stories,” Robert returned.
“At the railroad?”
“Yes,” Geoffrey answers, “John and the others were good enough to invite us to have supper with them.”
“Vincent, how are you?” Evelyn then queries the man who is now standing by the stereo console by himself, listening to the Chieftains and trying to keep his tea from spilling from his mug-in-hand as he is swaying to the invigorating rhythms of a reel.
“Great! I haven’t slept like that for a while, Ms Werner.”
“Oh please_ Evy, or at least Evelyn.”
“Okay_ Evelyn.”
“Hey guys,” Vincent then says, pointing to something over the stereo, “here’s us!”
“What is it?” Lori asks.
“It’s that picture of us_ you know_ the one Llewellyn sent us.”
“Of you four?” Octavia asks.
“Yep, from 1949_ Summer_ just two months before the Fire_”
“Oh_ I have to see this,” Octavia avers and strides in gentle anticipation over to where Vincent is stationed at the stereo. “Look at that!” she says, taking in the old black-and-white image.
“We’re on the front porch steps of the Whittier House,” Vincent explains.
“We each have that print,” Robert then says, walking over to where a touchstone of their past is enshrined. “I don’t remember who took it, but maybe Llewellyn’s father?”
“I’d think so,” Lori Ann agrees.
“Look at you, Robert,” Octavia says, “you were so thin!”
“I’ve always been a bean-pole, more or less. _A little more these days than less_ ha!”
“And your hair looks like it was being blown in a breeze,” Octavia observes.
“There was a breeze_ look at Lori Ann’s hair_”
“Oh Robert, why’d you have to draw her attention to that!” Evelyn politely reprimands.
All the gathered-together smile and laugh politely.
“My goodness, that is an interesting image,” Octavia avers.
Together, Octavia, Geoffrey and three of the Four Friends look at the old photo, transfixed in a rune of collective memory, until Evelyn says_
“C’mon now_ We’re almost ready for breakfast.”
As the gathered begin to step back from the icon above the stereo -- having a vivid impression of the moment it recovers and preserves in their Minds and Hearts -- Robert steps away to lift the brats and hash. “Pancakes are ready to come out of the warmer,” he says. Lori Ann, accepting the invitation, steps up to the stove to do the honors.
“I love the smell of all this food,” Octavia praises, turning from the fascinating picture; an artifact of the friendship she has been exploring.
“Where’s John? Shall we wait for him?” Evelyn asks.
“Right here!” the old engineer says, entering the kitchen-dining room and exclaiming appreciatively, seeing food laid out, “all-ready to put on the ole feed bag! _Oboy!” John is still damp-haired from his shower and is in the fresh set of clothes Robert had been saving for him. He steps over to put the plastic bag with yesterday’s clothes in it down by the recliner in the next room where he’d slept, Lori Ann turning towards him and directing him to the picture above the stereo.
“There we are,” he avows, smiling at the familiar image and then coming to the table.
Lori Ann and Vincent take their places beside the old engineer, to one side and the other, each throwing an arm around John; a gesture he returns. Geoffrey and Octavia move to stand opposite the three friends, beside Evelyn, who is standing behind the chair where she always sits, next to Robert who is at the head of the old steel-legged and yellow-linoleum-topped table. “Okay,” Robert says, “_eat to your hearts’ content.”
Each breakfaster eagerly takes their seat, soon passing plates of pancakes and a large bowl of brats around the table, freely taking all they wish. “A sumptuous break-fast,” Octavia opines. All the gathered-together begin eating, thanking Robert and his mother for the morning feast. “Here comes the hash,” Evelyn says, passing it down her side of the table.
Her guests talk about their day at the railroad, giving Evelyn vivid images of the Opening Day festivities and the role John played in it all. “He was so composed,” Lori Ann politely praises her friend, “standing in front of that engine yesterday morning during the Dedication.” After this they each share with Evelyn some of what they talked about at supper.
“Oh_ I remember all of you from those days,” Evelyn says. “John, you knew my son before the Fire, and you visited Rob afterwards. And I first met you both” – referring to Lori Ann and Vincent – “at Yule dinners at the Whittier House.”
“Quite so,” Lori Ann affirms. “Perhaps at other times, too? In town_”
“And while you and I have gotten together, Lori, I don’t think we have, Vincent_ except maybe once_ since the Reunion?”
“I regret you’re probably right,” Vincent agrees, “though we four’ve been here a handful of times.”
“I know_ I just wasn’t here_ or up_ Hm_ like last night,” Evelyn acknowledges. “What I miss! _Well I’m certainly glad to be breakfasting with you all.”
Thanks go around again, and then Octavia asks, “so_ if I may include you in our conversation?”
“Oh certainly!” Evelyn allows, glad to participate, though not knowing what the professor might ask.
“I’m curious_” she says, cutting up a brat on her plate, “What did you think of your son – at that young age – hanging out with three people rather older?”
“Dive right in, Ock! Here we go,” Geoffrey says appreciatively, giving Octavia a slight nudge with his elbow.
She smiles, as everyone laughs appreciatively at the jibe.
“I’m fine joining in on your discussion,” Evelyn acknowledges. “But now_ I just don’t know what to say to that_ give me a minute.” She puts her fork down and then brings her hands together in an almost prayerful gesture, tips of index fingers to the bottom of her chin, and then says, “I’ll digress first, if that’s okay?”
“Sure,” Octavia allows.
“Taking ‘the long way around,’ as Robert would say! … Well _My husband’s parents and the Whittiers were friends; as you’ve indicated—they weren’t just employers and employees, as you’ve said you mentioned last night. And yes, they had actually been invited to build their house here on Deer Hill. My maiden name was Sacco. I was from Tannersville, and I’d started work on the Christmas Tree farms. That’s where I met Carter_ and we married within about two-months and I moved into “Werner House” on Deer Hill. _Where we lived with his parents and grandparents, his two sisters and his brother. _Okay? I’m getting there.”
“Was that your first experience with a three-generational household?”
“It was, and it took a bit of getting used to! But I came to love it. Then, as we were both early risers and often on-site at work before the other tree trimmers, planters and cutters, we got to know Huson and his wife Morganna, who were co-managing the tree farms at the time. Carter’s parents were often down at the Whittier House for dinners, and he would oft go fishing with John Cabot_”
“As did I,” John recollects, almost to himself. “Wonderful man.”
“_I found I was just included in the friendship that already existed between our two families. I was accepted at once! _But it goes even deeper than that.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, my husband, having been born at our house there on Deer Hill_ he and his brother and sisters used to play with the Whittier kids in the ‘30s. He and Ned and Mary Igraine were great together and remained so long after the Fire. _And then_ now I’m coming ‘round the mountain_ Robert also hung-out and played with the kids down at the House in the 40’s. That’s where he met the three of you. _As you’ve said you already knew, Octavia.”
“Do you remember the Fire?”
“Oh yes. That awful night. Rob watched it from his bedroom window, after Carter woke him up.”
“I wanted to go down, but they wouldn’t let me,” Robert laments. “I knew Lori had been there_ I was afraid for her.”
“I could tell_ getting back to your first question, Octavia_ that Robert was under a very positive influence from Lori Ann and Vincent; the way he talked about them_ and how happy he seemed to be after spending time with them. He talked of you, Lori_ almost as an older sister, or something_” she pauses, and then says “_no, that’s not right, is it?” looking to her son for confirmation.
“No_ it’s not,” Robert gently agrees. “I don’t know if I understood my ‘relationship’ with Lori Ann or Vincent at that young age, by any common term. I just ‘knew’ them, I think is all I can say.”
“So true_ as you’ve told me_ I was wrong to put a familial term on it. Nothing fits, y’know?” Evelyn says, looking past Geoffrey to Octavia, who nods agreement. “They weren’t ‘older playmates,’ and I would not have called them his ‘sitters,’ at least not after that first Yule dinner, where I saw them all talking together for the first time.”
“That would have been in ’45,” Geoffrey offers, remembering their discussion of the night before.
“It probably was_ and by then John had already come into the picture, y’see? I admit I was a little concerned, at first, but again saw what a change came over Rob after spending time with the ‘engineer from the Wickersfeld Railroad,’” she said, gesturing in a friendly way toward the man across the table, who beamed a bit at the affirmation. “And there was a Yuletide dinner, I think where you, Rob, sat at the long end of the table with John?”
“That would have been in ’46,” the Poet affirms, again remembering the event, saying “We talked about that last night, too.”
Evelyn continues, “I was there_ and there was this bright-eyed converse going on between them_” she explains to Octavia, “They were ‘shining’ in each other’s presence! I could see it from where I sat_ and marveled_ at my talkative eight-year-old holding his own with a man in his twenties.”
“Ha,” John laughs reflectively at the description.
Robert smiles broadly in recollection.
“Everyone at that table saw you two talking down there at the end, smiling and enjoying each other’s company,” Evelyn affirmed, looking appreciatively at John. “There were comments after the dinner, after you all went out for a hike or something_ in the snow_ saying what a good thing it was for John to be ‘so good’ to our young son. I just knew it was a good thing, Octavia. So did Carter. We remembered the Yuletide dinner the year before, where we first saw our son sitting with John between him and you and Vincent, Lori. There were comments that year, too, about the affection and ‘connection’ we could all see emerging between the four of you.”
“You could see it?” Lori Ann queries.
“Certainly!” Evelyn affirms. “It was obvious. The youthful energy and respect we could see growing between you – and with our young boy – was something that gave us joy.”
“Did you ever feel that John was in ‘competition’ with you for the affection of your son?” Octavia asks.
Evelyn looks at Robert, then at John, and says simply, “I don’t know if I know what you mean.”
“Well, he was with another adult_ and enjoying it. Did you ever feel jealous of John?”
“Oh no, never, not at all_” Evelyn says, speaking a truth she didn’t know she harbored, “I don’t think that would ever have entered our Minds_ much less our Hearts. John seemed a decent young man, and, if anything, Carter and I would have liked to have gotten to know him ourselves.”
John almost blushes at the thought.
“That’s interesting,” Octavia muses. “Many parents experience a kind of – perhaps latent or subtle – jealousy when a young child of theirs is befriended by another adult, at least, when it wasn’t something they planned to have happen.”
“Nothing like that,” Evelyn affirms, “In fact, we both talked about inviting John to dinner some time,” she said, looking the retired engineer in the eye, affirmatively, “but never did. Perhaps we thought that might be horning-in on Rob’s friendship with John.”
After a few reflective moments, everyone eating, full of Heart_ “Did my parents ever say anything to you about us?” John asks.
“Hm_ let me reflect for a moment. … I’m not sure, but I knew they of course deeply appreciated the friendship that Cordelia had struck up with you. On the other hand, I don’t gather they knew quite what to do with you and your ‘young’ friends.”
“How do you mean, Evelyn?” Octavia asks.
“You see, being befriended by the Whittiers was a strike in his favor, for them, Octavia. They hoped it would come to some good for John; perhaps some advantage. His parents were also becoming friends with some of the Whittiers of their generation and loved going to the dinners at the Whittier House. I don’t know if they knew what to make of John ‘hanging out’ with Vincent and Lori, though, much less being so friendly with a boy of 8 years. … What ’advantage’ could that be to John’? _may have been what they were thinking.”
“I see,” Octavia says.
“That fits my sense of it,” John then says. “Mother once asked me if I was dating Lori Ann, or if I intended to? And wasn’t Vincent her ’boyfriend?’ So_ what interest could I really have in her?”
“Oh my,” Octavia says, understanding the social expectations all-too-well.
“I just told’em I liked’em and that we were friends. _That may’ve been the first time I ever said that to anyone else,” John admits, pausing and musing on the fact for a moment. Then he says, drawing on a deeply impressed moment, “My father said, one time, ‘so long as my being friends with them didn’t interfere in my trainin’up as an engineer,’ he wouldn’t ‘say any more about it.’ And he didn’t. We had a good’nough relationship, though, dad and I, and we worked well together at the yard and on the trains. _He was proud that I had taken up his profession and would follow him in the railroading life.”
There is a quiet appreciation of John’s confession for a few moments, after which Evelyn continues, “As to Robert_ he grew up in your company, John, very well, and Carter and I were both quite pleased that you three had befriended him. … Vincent, I remember you walking little Rob back up the lane to our house after the nights he spent there with you three, staying late down there at the House_ Sometimes way past midnight! I saw you one time_ it was in the winter, and the snow was falling_ and Rob was holding your hand as you two trudged up the lane. They were laughing and being playful, Octavia.” As the bowls of potato hash and brats get passed around the table again, Evelyn continues, “I remember Rob telling me how you, Lori, and John both gave him ‘piggy-back rides’ when out on walks on Deer Hill and elsewhere.”
“They did,” Robert says with a fondness in his voice. “It was a common thing in the first year or two. It was sometimes for fun, but other times because I just got tired-out. They took me on some long walks!” he reminds his mother.
“I know_ And I remember you telling me, Rob, that, one night, it must’ve been in the late Spring, you and your friends had sat out on Willow Creek Bridge_ in the moonlight?”
“Possibly mother,” Robert says. “But I don’t recollect the context just now.”
“I think I do_” Vincent avows. “Perhaps it was closer late May or early June; we were out there until 1 or 2 in the morning!? _If I’m thinking of the right time? The Whittiers had come back and, telling us how beautiful and clear the night was, we went and walked_ I’m not sure where_ probably around the Hill somewhere_ but came at last to the bridge. It was still warm from the day’s sun shining on it. _And we sat down; the night had cooled off_ and we sojourned there, talking for the longest time.”
“That’s right!” Robert now agrees. “That was the night_” he pauses, thoughtful, eyes turned up toward the ceiling, waiting.
“The night what?” Lori Ann asks, expectant, fascinated by the memory beginning to glow within her own Heart and Imagination.
“O_ I don’t know; I apologize_”
“No problem,” Lori Ann allows, still wondering.
“But I can feel it,” Robert continues. “You three were sitting cross-legged. I think Vincent had his back up against one of the wood posts that supported the railings along that side of the bridge_ I was stretched out_ on the bed of the bridge – on my back – with my head resting – cradled – on John’s crossed ankles, looking up at the sky_ and I saw_ Oh! I saw a very large shooting star! That’s what it was!”
“O now I remember! It was a meteor shower!” Vincent exclaims, his memory being jogged by Robert’s account. “That’s what happened!”
“O my_ yes_ there were dozens of them_ and we stayed to watch,” Lori Ann agrees.
“I leaned back, supportin' myself on my hands,” John remembers, “propping myself so I could look up and not disturb Robert with his head ‘cradled’ on m'crossed ankles_ as he said; and saw a bright blue meteor_”
“They were different colors?” Octavia asks.
“Yes,” Vincent says, “I think so_ some of them _maybe.”
“It was like Nature’s fireworks, shooting across the sky,” Robert suggests.
“I laid down on the bridge, too_ on my back!” Lori Ann remembers, “to watch the show!”
“We waited and waited until they were coming at longer intervals,” Vincent explains, immersed in sudden remembrance, “until we were sure it was over. … Then we must have walked home?”
“You and I probably walked back the tracks into town,” John suggests, not really knowing, “_and what? Lori, you walked Robert up home?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember.”
“No_ I did,” Vincent avows, “I know it was that night, ‘cause I now remember how enthused Robert was_ he almost danced the whole way home, he was so full of joy at seeing the meteors.”
“Now that’s what I remember,” Evelyn then asserts. “Rob coming home and telling me all about a meteor shower! He woke me up to tell me! Until you started telling the story, I had gone and forgot that the memory of him being out on the bridge with you-all was connected with the meteor story!”
“He was so happy,” John affirms.
“Especially when he was around you,” Evelyn avers, speaking of his three friends. “You all increased his joy.”
“As he increased ours,” Vincent interjected.
“_You helped him become more aware of life and the world. _I believe that the three of you aided in Rob becoming what he has become_ a Poet.” She smiles at this affirmation of her son’s calling, relishing it, looks Robert in the eye and then continues, “We didn’t know how to get him there_ even if we’d understood such a vocation to be possible_ but somehow, he found his way. And then the ‘four’ that you had been was no more_ he was alone_ Carter and I worried a bit about him _after the Fire, as he was so sad, but then we all were_ and well_ Rob recovered over the next year or two, and he also started writing more seriously. It was after the Fire that Carter and I really understood what direction our son was probably going to try and take in his life, if you glean what I mean?”
“It had revealed itself_ his vocation? His creative ability?” Octavia asks.
“Yes, though of course we wondered what he would do with it. I mean, to support himself. What parent doesn’t have that concern?” she muses. “But his talent for storytelling and such was evident from a very early age, and while he liked working with us at the tree farm, I don’t think he would have stuck with it, if he could’ve done what he wanted_ which was writing and creating things out of his imagination and his experiences. We didn’t ‘expect’ him to succeed; I suppose—but believed he could,” she says, once again laying a hand on her son’s, seated to her left.
“Our friendship, and then the Fire, made me a Poet, I oft think, looking back,” Robert then confesses, sincerely, touched by his mother’s affirmation. “_As I said yesterday.”
“We knew from the stories you started telling us, in those first years after the Fire, that you had a real knack for it!” Evelyn avows, looking her son in the eye again, with a devout wonder and deep affection.
“What were those stories?” Octavia asks. “Can you remember any?”
“Well, he was eleven going on twelve by then, and he was filling up whole notebooks we got him with the strangest tales. They differed from his earlier stories in being less fanciful; more_ they had a ‘darker edge,’ I think we would say today_ but nothing as dark as what Daniel has written.
“He had been traumatized by the Fire,” Octavia suggests simply, “and thus saw there was more to life than he had yet dreamed or even allowed?”
“That’s probably a lot of it, Ock,” The Poet agrees. “I’d experienced loss_ and death.”
“Had you been ‘awakened’ to the fact of mortality, perhaps?” Octavia asks.
“I was_ Looking back_ … yes, that’s what happened,” Robert admits.
“Rob, do you remember any of those early stories?” Evelyn asks.
“From the year or two after the Fire? No_ not off hand.”
“Let me see_” Evelyn tries to recall, “some of them were about ghosts – trying to find their way home – I think.”
“Yep_ probably so_” Robert acknowledges, and then, to those gathered-together, “lots about home-going, and home-lost-ness_ and images of strange hearths where mythic creatures gathered. And me in their company_ trying to find a place in my life to be at-home.”
“There were plenty of tales about imaginary creatures and characters he believed were roaming – and living in – the woods on and around Deer Hill,” his mother then explains.
“I’d gotten a book on British mythology,” Robert then remembers, “from Cordelia. She gifted me with it a month or so before the Fire, and I read it devoutly – because it was a gift, I think, from her, and became fascinated with the stories. It was my introduction to mythology. I began creating characters of my own that were like the gods, goddesses and heroes in that book. … I don’t remember my earliest stories; so can’t tell you much in detail—only that I was in an almost constant reverie of imagination and often told my parents my tales-of-the-day at the dinner table each night.”
“O my yes, he certainly did,” his mother avers, looking to her guests with a mock-teasing smile. “He would sometimes leave the house right before supper, then knock at the door_ and come back in when we ‘answered’ it_ in character!”
“Ha_ha!” Robert laughs. “Yes_ I’d stay in character throughout dinner, wouldn’t I?”
“True to the letter,” his mother avows, remembering his suppertime performances. “We had to guess, each night, who he was! Imagine!? He would sometimes announce himself, but oft as not it was a game of ‘who are you?’ and ‘are you so-and-so;’ and we’d try and name some character maybe we’d heard of!”
“Of course, I knew the tales of ‘Nicholas and the Elves,’” Robert continues, “as I’d been at the Whittier House during Yule, like, since before I was born, I think! _Because mother was there while carrying me! I would sometimes play at being one of the Elves in the Legend. _That story was told and retold every year, just as it is now! As a result, the names of the Elves and the stories of their experiences and adventures were also in my mind, giving me positive imaginative avenues down which to stray, in my own way. _Alvid and all the rest!”
“We’d gotten Rob started on the Christmas Tree farm but knew – y’know – that he wasn’t going to stay there; not ultimately,” Evelyn explained again with a finger to the side of her nose. Everyone laughed lightly, understanding. “Though he did work with us up through the late 60’s; and he worked hard – he wasn’t afraid of physical labor – until just after he published his first book. Back in the ‘50’s he was writing furiously in his spare time and studying the Great Poets. I remember a collection of Frost’s poetry, and a volume of Poe’s and maybe Whitman’s lying around the house?” she suggested, querying her son with her eye.
“I was reading poetry all the time, in those years, and trying to write my own. And yeah_ those were among my favorites. They mentored me.”
“The ‘Song of Myself’ is one I’ve read,” John admits, “Whitman, right?”
“Yeah! _I gave you that paperback of Whitman after the Reunion,” Robert pleasantly remembers.
“You actually read it?” Octavia says with a curious surprise.
“I did_ though I didn’t quite know what to make of it!” John quips, apologetically.
“Who does?” Vincent jests, remembering his own first reading of Leaves of Grass.
“In time, you get it, I think,” Robert professes, encouragingly. “It’s an affirmation of life; it’s a revel in life.”
“I enjoyed it, though, really!” John avows, “the stuff about Abraham Lincoln was great!”
“When did you start publishing, Robert?” Octavia asks.
“Not until the mid-sixties. I wanted to write something I really thought was going to stand before starting to submit to poetry mags and such.”
“When he did,” Evelyn says with pride, “he got noticed fairly quickly. He was soon being queried by other magazines and newspapers to make a submission.” After a moment’s reflection, she then added, in a sadder tone, “That was after we left Deer Hill.”
“When was that?” Octavia asks.
Evelyn paused, looking down at her plate, Robert then saying, to fill the void, “19-59. It was after my two surviving sisters died, as I mentioned yesterday. Lesley_ died back in ‘45, right?” he states, looking to his mother for confirmation, who nods, still looking at her plate. “She was never in good health, from her birth. Brenda left us in ’56, and then Rachel went in ’58. It was horrible losing them. Mom and dad abandoned our house in the summer of ’59. They decided to leave because Deer Hill had become so lonesome and forlorn after the Fire_ and then_ unbearable after my sisters’ deaths.”
“We couldn’t stay. We were all-alone out there. We needed a new start, for Rob as well as for ourselves,” Evelyn laments.
“At that point I was in college, studying all kinds of things. I went to Springborough University for a year_ didn't like the writing program much. I was at St Mark’s for a while, and also here at WC sometimes_”
“You never took a degree, did you?” Lori Ann prompts, knowingly.
“No_ but I almost finished three majors and a minor! Ha! You see, Poets have to be wide-ranging,” he says to Octavia. “We’re ‘jacks of many trades,’ as a Poet-friend of mine used to always say. I was focused on poetic creation. All the courses I took in college had something to do with my interests and my emerging ‘vocation,’ which I didn’t know it was at the time.”
“Today, Robert, you could pursue a ‘vocational degree,’” Octavia then suggests, “which would be guided by a director and would allow you to get a degree with all those courses.”
“That wasn’t an option in those days, though.”
“No_ unfortunately. Regrettably, for you,” she says, mulling over the idea that the Poet had finished so many courses with no acknowledgement.
Robert then continued, after a thoughtful pause, “I was grounded in lonesome-ness. _I missed our house, and I missed the Whittlers and their house. ‘THE’ House! I sometimes took a walk out the tracks to our old house and would linger near the burned-out Whittier House for a while before coming back-in to town.”
“As did I,” John says. “’Tis a wonder we never met-up.”
“It is! I remember a later walk I took out there in 19-74 with two friends of mine: Tom Arland and Peter Houston. We had an experience_”
“Oh_ what was that?” Octavia asks.
“While at the remains of the Whittier House, a deer came running down off the Hill, fleeing something! Which we then saw_ a Bobcat was chasing it and nearly on its hooves!”
“O my!” Vincent exclaimed.
“O yeah_ and the deer came leaping right past us_ we were standing within the ring of Oaks that surrounded the old house_ intending to go in, possibly_ but then the stag came and ran past us, raging for its life_ I fell back on the ground_ and it jumped over me!”
"O-for-goodness-sake," Lori Ann exclaims.
"And then the bobcat came_ swerving, its paws throwing up grass and such, as it made the turn around the corner of the house – following the deer – and trying not to run into us either!”
“It’s a wonder the cat didn’t decide to give up on the deer an’ pounce on one’a you!” John exclaimed.
“That’s just what we were fearing in the moment_ I had fallen on my back on the ground_ the bobcat jumped right over me_ Tom and Peter froze and stood like statues ‘til it passed by and went down the gully that leads along the railroad tracks; down past where that spooky old tunnel goes under the railroad tracks, emptying into Willow Creek!”
“Spooky tunnel?” Vincent asked.
“Oh yeah_ you probably don’t know it. But us kids used to go down there, back in the ‘40’s_ and crawl through it_ under the railroad tracks_ to a little beach along Willow Creek. It was some kind of run-off tunnel. I mean_ the water coming down off Deer Hill would collect in that gully and would then be channeled down under the tracks and into the creek. _It was built back in the 19th century, I’d bet. It was only big enough for us kids to go through. But of course, it was full of dangling tree roots and moss and fungus_ really scary when you’re a kid! – and if you were in there when a train went over, you would feel the whole structure vibrating and shaking_” Robert says, holding up his hands and shaking them in imitation, “you’d swear the whole thing was going to collapse with you in it!”
“Hm_ never knew about that,” John says.
“Well_ I couldn’t exactly take you ‘adults’ down there, now could I?” Robert explains, then laughs, his friends smiling knowingly. “You’d never be able to get into the pipe!”
“I know where that is, Robert,” Geoffrey then admits.
“See_ I didn’t make it up!” the Poet says, reassured, holding a mock finger up for exclamation. “You could see the bridge over Willow Creek from it, but you couldn’t go very far up or down the creek, because it was all stones and small boulders, right there.”
“Did you ever see ‘the ghost?’” Geoffrey asks a bit hesitantly.
“The ghost?” everyone else exclaims, nearly in unison.
“Yes, on a couple occasions, actually,” the Poet avers. “Or what we thought was a ghost_ Usually at dusk, floating above the water, downstream about thirty feet or so from the exit from the run-off tunnel? We thought it was ‘a woman’_ but it may just have been fog or steam from the creek when the temp was changing. _I don’t know.”
“That ‘ghost,’” Geoffrey then explains, “or whatever it is, has been seen off and on since our family moved onto the Hill in the 18-90’s_ and even earlier. It is always thought to be a woman, hovering over the waters at a certain point. The earliest reference I know is from Jonathan Whittier’s journals in the 18-80’s. He and his father Jacob were riding – on horseback – down Willow Creek, just below Deer Hill_ when they saw ‘an apparition of intense sorrow, being a woman in despair,’ is how Jonathan put it in his journal.”
“Interesting,” Octavia says, puzzling about it and the matter-of-fact way in which the account was being related.
“Sure is,” Evelyn agrees, pondering the story and its possible reality.
“I’ve never seen it, though,” Geoffrey confesses.
“Do you remember the time we were on Bear Ridge, coming down from a hike, and saw a ‘ghost’ there?” Lori Ann queries her friends.
They reflect for a moment, and then Robert says, “Was it walking up the firelane, toward us, at dusk?”
“Yes!” Lori Ann confirms.
“I recall that, too,” Vincent says. “We thought it was a woman, walking, and we were making all kinds of noise, as it was late Autumn – in about 19-82 – the ground that day had been covered ankle-deep in dry leaves.”
“So we stopped,” John then continued, “to try’n’hear if the figure was makin’ any noise __for we sure were! She wasn’t! Everything was silent. And then the figure began disappearing and re-appearing!”
“It did!” Lori Ann agreed. “And quickly we realized it – or ‘she’ – had left the firelane and was walking down the hillside there, toward Maple Street Extension.”
“What? The disappearing and reappearing,” Octavia beginning to discern what had happened, “was this ‘ghost’ passing behind trees between you and her?”
“That’s what we thought,” Robert agreed. “We watched her go down the ridge until she was out of sight. And after ‘the event’ was over, we all stood there and talked about it for a few quiet minutes. The thing was, we all said we could see ‘through’ the apparition_ like it was translucent!”
“An optical illusion,” Octavia suggests, “created by the Twilight illumination, played tricks on your eyes.”
“Possibly,” the Poet allows.
“That reminds me of something else,” Vincent says, with a tentativeness in his voice.
“What?” John asks, curious.
“_The time we were at that old ‘factory’ or something? Up above Tannersville?”
“Hm_ do’ya really want to bring that up?” John asks, pensively.
“Uh_” Vincent pauses, registering the reason for John’s hesitation. “But now I’ve brought it up_”
“Yes, gentlemen,” Octavia coaxes, “don’t leave me in the dark!”
“Well, this was after the Reunion, too,” Vincent begins, putting the story in-situ, “we used to walk, in the early 80’s, out along the old foot trail that wove back and forth across and under the railroad tracks, north of Wickersfeld. We’d walk all the way out to Tannersville, get lunch or supper – depending on what time of day it was, at that waystation for the train; the little diner—which was still open?”
“I remember this_ guys,” Lori Ann says, beginning to be on-edge at Vincent recounting this story, “we’ve gone over and over this_”
John nods agreement. “We were out walking, Ock, and came upon a ruined house.”
“That we did,” Vincent concurs, “but then_” he hesitated, beginning to feel the full impact of what he was about to relate; an experience that had haunted them all_ and which they had discussed so many times, together, over the intervening years!
“We had,” Robert says to Octavia to give Vincent pause to allow him time to figure out how he wanted to relate the experience, “become fascinated with old ruins.”
“Oh really? I love that, too!”
“As do I,” Geoffrey agrees.
“Dear god!” Robert exclaims. “That old structure_ whatever it was_ a house? _and there was another, like a factory?” Robert remembers. “We were drawn to it from a dirt road we were walking up, Ock, out beyond Tannersville_ by a light flashing on a hillside, above the trees? _It seemed like a ‘signal’ of some kind.”
“But it wasn’t,” John clarifies, “at least there was no sign’f it at the top of the ridge where those buildings were_”
“And we went to investigate,” Lori Ann added, feeling the trepidation again.
“Yes, we went off-trail and hiked up to the top of the hill_” Vincent continues, “it was fairly easy going; despite it being high summer.”
“This happened not long after the Reunion,” Lori Ann affirms. “In ’82.”
Vincent continues, “We had gone to a new ‘antiques’ – that is, ‘junk people no longer want’ – place out in that area somewhere, in the morning? Remember? And then later we’d decided to go walking.”
“At Eagle Rock State Park_”
“Exactly, John_ I never like remembering this,” Vincent confesses. “And we took an old dirt road at the top of one of the hills that embrace the park_ a road we’d never walked before.”
“We walked and walked,” Lori Ann says. “And then we saw that ‘flashing’ light atop the next hill_ from the gully we were making our way along_!”
“We did!” Robert exclaims, recollecting himself in the memory.
“What was it?” Octavia wanted to know. “Something scary?” still thinking about the ghost she had just heard about.
“We got into some ‘trouble,’ somethin’ happened.” John says, close to the chest.
“Let me tell it_” Vincent pleads with his friends, his friends agreeing with quick nods. “We decided to hoof it up the hill; thinking it might be an old ruin or something_ The flashing could have come from sunlight flickering on an old windowpane or stray piece of glass. It was intermittent, and then would start up again. There were no signs of ‘human residency’ as we climbed, nor at the top. No fences, no signs_ “Keep Out” and such_ We came out into a clearing and found old structures. We were glad to have found another local ruin we could explore! _But not for long! Part of the structure – perhaps a separate building – looked like a ‘factory’ of some kind. _Not huge; just house sized, maybe_ There were large gear-like pieces of iron and an old, decaying iron superstructure within that building, which was constructed of cement and concrete block. The other ‘structure’ was unlike it in terms of building materials and aspect, and seemed to us to have been an old country house; two storeys and built of plain stones and large, unevenly forged bricks_ very ugly_” Vincent says and pauses.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be telling this story,” John cautions, “given what happened.”
“You don’t mean the old Deverson place, do you,” Geoffrey asks.
All eyes turn to Geoffrey.
“You know it?” Vincent asks, seeming stunned, as if Geoffrey’s confession made the story seem suddenly more ‘real.’
“I’ve been up there. The place used to be a bakery, at one time, and then someone tried to turn it into a mill for grinding grain; they tried using a gasoline engine or some such thing to power it, but that didn’t last long.”
“The stupids,” John exclaims. “You can’t run a mill on a gasoline engine!”
“Originally it was a farm, back in the 19th century,” Geoffrey continued. “The Deverson family – the original owners – had a nefarious reputation; they were thieves and burglars, as it turned out—preying on their neighbors, and may have been involved, in the early 20th century, in the disappearance and murder of three young women. Three or four of the family died violently in a gun fight with the police; others being arrested and jailed. I don’t know much more. I’ve been meaning to research it.”
“We should,” Vincent says to his Historical Society co-worker.
“Perhaps we will,” Geoffrey allows, tentatively.
“What happened to you four up there, if it’s not too hard to relate?” Octavia asks with a deep sense of consideration for her interlocutors, given the memory of fear she sensed now subtly transfiguring the faces of the Four Friends.
“Can we tell this?” Lori Ann asks her friends. “We've discussed it so many times_ and I just try and forget it.”
“Me’s’well,” John said.
“I’m going to tell what I remember, if you’ll agree to it,” Vincent then vowed.
“Alright,” John allowed. “But we’re here for ya if’ya need us.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Robert said to Octavia, “_not sure I do?”
“We may have just barely made it out of there alive,” Lori Ann confesses.
“What_ what was it?” Octavia asks. “Local hoodlums?” she laughs nervously, “Wild animals_ another ’ghost’?”
“We don’t know,” Vincent assures her, taking up the reins and getting ready to tell the story. “It started as we got to a doorless doorway leading into the hulk of the old house, which was only about thirty feet from the old ‘factory.’”
“There was an awful smell,” John then recounts. “It wasn’t of a dead animal_ we all know that smell_ but surely some kind’f decay. _Funguses, we thought, maybe?”
“There were Skunk Cabbages in the muck over by that first building_ but it wasn’t that; we hadn’t stepped on them, I’m sure,” Robert says to clarify John’s observation.
“And that wasn’t the smell,” Vincent says. “Anyone who walks much off trail in wooded areas may get the opportunity to ‘know’ what Skunk Cabbage smells like.” He pauses, and then continues, “I had this sense as we crossed the threshold, entering the interior, that we weren’t ‘alone.’ We got quiet and listened to the place. I was thinking ‘squatters’ or ‘addicts,’ maybe … After a minute, trying to convince myself that it was probably safe and really abandoned, we stepped in, across the threshold, and started exploring, indulging our ‘fascination with ruins,’ but there_ in that place_ we experienced a strange undercurrent to our usual experience of an abandoned or lost place.”
“What kind of experience?” Octavia asks.
“When visiting ruins,” Robert interjects to diffuse the tension for a moment, “we always relate to them as lost places of human dwelling. We enter them with a kind of poetic respect and a willingness to recover memories, if, as sometimes happens, we find a remnant artifact of the life that had been lived there.”
“But that’s not what happened that day,” John says, with a sense of dread in his voice.
“Let me continue, please,” Vincent asks, and when everyone concedes, he says, “we’ve talked about this experience before; processing what happened. _But I think, like we said last night, being led in our remembrances as we’ve been by you, Ock, we’re coming to things in a different way; from another ‘angle’ – and not just ‘again.’”
“‘Again for the first time,’” Octavia says. “It’s how my interviewees sometimes characterize their experience of remembrance and recollection during our interviews. _Go on, please_”
“Well_ there we were, walking about the interior of the building – the house? – which was not much more than a shell; a hull – like of a sunk ship, I thought – and then all the debris of the interior of the structure on the ground under our feet_ I think Lori Ann, you said something about how it felt like ‘death-dying.’”
“I did, I remember that feeling,” she says. “Like we were in a carcass_ very unpleasant.”
“The gaping holes where the windows had been seemed to me more ‘ominous’ than at other ruined houses we have visited since the Reunion. There was very little noise, and I kept wishing there had been some_ there were sounds of birds in the distance, way out beyond the property_ but the space around us seemed like a ‘vacuum.’”
“That’s a word we’ve often used of that place,” Robert assures Octavia.
“It was ‘tremulous,’ too, somehow,” Lori Ann added. “Is that a good word?”
“You mean like it was ‘shaking’,” Octavia asks.
“Not literally,” Vincent said, “but I agree_ It was like an elderly person subtly shivering; quivering as you talk with them_ just sort of normal for them at their age, y’know? And this structure around us was_ ‘quivering’ _it was un-steady.”
“You mean like it was going to collapse around you?”
“Something like that, Ock,” Robert allows. “I clearly remember thinking we should ‘get the hell out of there’ as quickly as possible.”
“We should have,” Vincent agrees. “But we didn’t; not fast enough. Something ran around the building on the outside_”
“O dear god!” Octavia exclaims, caught up in her interlocutors’ tension.
“And just as we were all about to ask each other ‘what was that?’ there was a crash,” Robert says. “We looked, and Vincent was nowhere to be seen! He cried out then, and we quickly moved to where his voice had come from_”
“I’d fallen through the floor!” Vincent declares. “I fell about 10 feet, onto a pile of old musty lumber_ and thought immediately about nails and such, but on examining myself quickly as they all came to the top of the hole above me, I realized how lucky I’d been. They called down to me; it was fairly dark where I was, and then I heard Lori exclaim something in fear.”
“I had just seen something ‘run’ past the windows again_ something large and fast_ like before_ and I yelped at Robert and John, who turned_ but too late to see what I saw.”
“I think I’d felt somethin’ – like a small rock? – hit my back as Lori ‘yelped,’” John says. “I think I saw somethin’, too, movin’_ back in the as-yet unexplored area of the house, beyond the crumbling remains of what would’ve originally been an interior wall.”
“What? _A person? An animal?” Octavia asks, maintaining her calm exterior, as she often had to do during interviews when something happened that distressed her interviewees.
“Didn’t know,” John says, “but as we started calling down to Vincent – to our relief he was okay – I was feeling watched.”
“Definitely_ we all did,” Robert agrees. “There was something with us; and it moved unlike any person – or animal – I’d ever encountered!”
“O dear Robert,” Evelyn says, “What was it?” Robert’s mother was sitting in suspense beside him _and he reached for her hand to comfort her.
“We don’t know, mother,” he says, “we just don’t.”
“Just then,” John begins, “Vincent cried up at us that there was something ‘breathing’ down there, near him_ and could we find a way to get him out? We looked around for anything_ a rope, an old ladder_ or something, but there was nothin’ useful, and besides, the edge’a the hole down through which Vincent had fallen wasn’t safe! I thought it would collapse further under our weight if we stayed too close! We were at a loss, ‘til Robert walked over to one of the window-holes and noted that our floor was a good eight’r’nine feet above the ground on that side’a the house; the ground around the house bein’ higher in the front than in the back_ ‘And there’s an old door down there,’ he said. I told Vincent I was coming to get’m, but Robert was out the front door-hole before I could even tell Vincent what we’d found. I told’im to go toward the back of the house and see if there was a door.”
“I was terrified,” Vincent then says. “I could hear that ‘breathing,’ it seemed to be coming out from beneath the wood beams and other debris on which I was standing. Just then I heard Lori Ann scream above me.”
“You did_ I was looking for rope or something useful over near the other ‘half’ of the building we had not yet had a chance to explore, when ‘something moved’ within about five feet of me, just beyond the remains of that crumbled interior wall.”
“I told Vincent I’d be ‘right back’ and went quickly, carefully, over to where she was. She said_”
“It’s right there, I said,” Lori Ann says, as if back in the moment. “I can still feel that sense of strangeness_ mixed with danger. John peered into the area behind the wall where I was standing. There was about a five-foot-high remainder of a room-divide in-front of us, so John stepped up on some debris to get a better look over it. From back where Vincent had fallen, we heard voices.”
“I’d found the exterior door,” Vincent explains, “and was clearing away rotten wood and rusted debris. _With my bare hands! It was disgusting to touch! Robert was outside, trying to yank the door open – or apart – as I got it cleared from within_ and then we both tried to get it to open.”
“There was a growl,” John then says, “from t’other half of the ground floor_ inta’which I was peering, tryin’ to see what the fuck it was that Lori had seen_ I couldn’t see it! But then something flew over us!”
“Flew?” Octavia says, nearly incredulous.
“Yes, we saw_ felt_ the shadow of large wings going over us, it might have been no more than fifteen feet above our heads!”
“Are you’re sure it wasn’t a cloud?” Octavia asks.
“We’re sure_ clouds wouldn’t’ve moved that fast on a such a clear, calm summer day.”
“Just then,” Vincent continues, “the old door broke apart and I crawled through. Just in time for Robert to report that something had ‘flown’ over the house. Something very large; larger than a Bald Eagle!”
“Really?” Octavia questions the storytellers.
“We’d all seen Bald Eagles,” Robert avers, “with a wingspan that stretches across nearly the girth of a country road_ and this was bigger_ whatever it was. I was speechless. _And just as I helped Vincent up out of the basement, I, too, heard what he calls the ‘breathing’ sound. It was almost as if the floor itself of that cellar were ‘inhaling’ and ‘exhaling.’ I thought, possibly through some process of decomposition?”
“Could’ve been,” Vincent allows against the fear. “The debris underfoot seemed to heave up and down, just enough for me to notice it. I was too freaked to ‘rationalize’ it! Then, as we came around the front of the building to rejoin John and Lori Ann, they were coming out of the door-hole through which we’d entered, Lori Ann saying, ‘there’s something in there!’”
“There was, I swear there was!” Lori Ann says, obviously reliving the experience.
“I saw something, too,” John allows. “Eyes lookin’ out at me an’_ I don’t know what else!”
“What kind of eyes?” Octavia asks.
“I couldn’t place’em as belongin’ to any animal I knew_” John declaims.
“It was like we were being ‘watched’ from that area beyond the room partition,” Lori Ann explains to Octavia. “That’s where the ‘feeling’ of being watched stemmed from_”
“That area,” John explains, “was full of fallen debris and wood beams that once supported the second floor, and an attic, too, prob’ly. We couldn’t have ventured into that area even had we’d wanted to_”
“No one wanted to!” Vincent exclaims.
“And just as we started to leave the property – which was all grown up – and head into the woods around it,” Robert says, “there was a noise_ back inside the house_ of stuff moving_ debris and such it sounded like_ this is going to sound stupid, Ock_ but all I could imagine was a big gorilla, throwing things around and growling_ but it was unlike any vocalization I’d ever heard_ and I’ve studied the Great Apes. And_ of course_ they don’t usually ‘visit’ western Pennsylvania on a regular basis, y’know!?”
“That’s a good way of describing what we heard,” Vincent agrees, almost shaking, Octavia could see. “It brings the sound right back to me!”
“Could’ve been a bear,” Octavia poses.
“Yeah_ that’s possible,” Vincent allows. “But we were too spooked to think about it at the time. Could a bear throw things about like that?”
“What I saw the silhouette of was no bear_ or person_” John insists.
“And the ‘what’ that went over,” Octavia suggests, “could well have been a small plane or glider passing between the sun and the ground, at an altitude that cast a large shadow.”
“We considered that, in the days and weeks afterwards,” Vincent allows, “trying to find a rational explanation for our experience.”
“What was the ‘big fast thing’ that zipped around the house then?” Robert asked.
“A dog, probably,” Octavia says. “Or a stag_ They can run very fast. Another Bobcat?”
“But we saw it flash past one of the empty window frames_ probably 8 to 10 feet above the ground-level behind the house,” Lori Ann argues for the strangeness of it all.
“A large bird, then, perhaps a hawk having come down for prey and then was swooping by_ seeking an updraft to get it into the sky again.”
“I wish I could rationalize it away,” Lori Ann says, “I wish_ I wish_ but that’s not what we experienced at the time.”
“You spooked yourselves,” Octavia says compassionately. “I know what that’s like_ I’ve done it myself; when I’m alone and I hear a noise and think someone has come into the house_ and I go to get my pistol out and check the door and windows, just to make sure they’re locked_ I get it!”
“It is possible,” Robert allows. “Everything you’ve proposed we also tried to tell ourselves as we sought a way beyond the uncanniness of that day. I don’t know what the truth is_”
“Geoffrey?” Octavia says, turning to her friend who, in the course of the story being told, had pushed himself away from the table, his chair now being pressed against the kitchen wall, a full chair length back behind Octavia and Evelyn.
“Goodness, Geoffrey,” Evelyn says, “you’re shaking.”
“That was_ qu-quite a story,” Geoffrey stutters out. “O don’t mind me, I always get this way when I hear a good ‘preternatural’ story.”
“It’s alright, man,” John says from across the table, “you’re just shakin’ enough for all’f us.”
Robert gets up and goes to get Geoffrey a glass of wine from the cupboard and, taking it to him, winks as if to say, ‘You know I understand.’
‘I do,’ Geoffrey nods back as the Poet turns to offer a drink to anyone else at the table, the others wondering at the exchange they’d just witnessed, but not asking for an explanation.
“Whatever it was, that day,” Lori Ann says, “I will never be free of the memory of the experience.”
“Me either,” Vincent says.
“And I don’t spook easy,” John avers, looking Octavia in the eye with a frightened sincerity expressive of shaken bravado, “not’a’tall.”
Geoffrey seems to recover as he slowly sips the wine, taking a couple deep breaths. Taking the bottle, passing it around the table, the Four Friends pour a small amount of the libation into their juice glasses, and then imbibe it in one gulp, as the table becomes a quieter place again. As they finish their wine, Geoffrey pulls his chair up to the table and says, to Octavia, “I’ll be alright,” to which she quietly responds “good” in a comforting, tentative tone, clearly concerned for him; laying a hand on his leg closest to her.
“I’ve never heard you tell me a story like that before, son,” Evelyn confesses, relieved that it was over_ and that there could be a naturalistic explanation for what happened.
“O sure you have,” Robert says, smiling comfort at his old mother, “don’t you remember all those ghost and monster stories I told you way-back-when?”
“Of course,” his mother says apologetically, “but they were never things that happened to you.”
“True enough,” her son allows, understanding her concern, leaning over and kissing her lightly on her cheek.
“Wow_ okay,” Octavia says, to break the spell of the story, “have any more spooky tales?”
The Four Friends laugh cautiously, and Robert vows “No, that was the one.”
“The only one,” Lori Ann professes, until she thinks, “well_ only if you don’t count what we experienced down at the Old Mill on our first real walk, back in ’46, or_ the scare we had after leaving the Old House on our walk that night in ’79.”
“Hm,” Octavia says, “I’m fascinated with your fascination with ruins_ ruined houses, especially.”
“O here it comes!’ Robert laughs.
“I mean it, you lost the Whittier House; your touchstone_ your ‘sanctuary’_ as you called it. And now you love going out and finding ruins to explore? _Am I right?”
“We still do, and we did,” Vincent admits.
“It’s all Robert’s fault,” John quips.
“Oh is it?” Robert laughs, and then admits, “well yes, I am fascinated with human dwelling and the loss of it. It’s one of my main poetic themes. I’ve written numerous essays on the subject_ and poems, too, starting with “Returning to the Past,” as I think dwelling is something so intrinsic to being human that I want to understand it better. And yes, our losing the Whittier House and then having it rebuilt and being able to return to it, as friends of the family, is certainly a deep spiritual and emotional touchstone for me. _Did I actually get us going out to ruins in the first place?” he asks his friends. “Was it me started it?”
“I think it was,” Lori Ann says, “but we all fell-into-it freely, and with enthusiasm!”
“But because we had been fascinated with ruins, too, Robert,” Vincent says. “I think I had an interest in old, abandoned places before the Reunion. Possibly_ I might allow now, because of having lost the Whittier House. But it’s also because of mortality.”
“How’s that?” Octavia asks.
“Because we’re mortal; we’re all going to die someday_ and a house in ruins – abandoned – is a kind of icon of mortality. Ruins, ‘returning to the Earth,’ as Robert and Geoffrey would say_ they became a touchstone for us; for our meditations on mortality.”
“Wow, that’s refreshing to hear you say,” Octavia says. “Most – many at least – people live in denial of death; right up until it happens_ But I agree with you; to be aware of your mortality is to be – ‘more’ human, in some way. I don’t mean ‘better’ than other people; nobody is_ but ‘more self-aware’ than you were before the realization hits you.”
“We are mortal beings,” Robert affirms. “If you don’t accept that you are going to end someday, can you possibly live life to the fullest? Momento mori.”
“Amen,” Evelyn then says to acknowledge her son’s view, so succinctly expressed, reflecting on it and looking back and forth to her guests around the table.
“Hm_ such an interesting story,” Octavia says, thinking about it. “I don’t think I have anything in my experience at all comparable to what you all went through that day_ and what you’ve gone through in the aftermath; trying to come to terms with it—so maybe that’s why my first response was to rationalize it. _As you called it? I’ve never believed in supernatural things_ not even ‘God’ – whatever that would be; I’ve been a rationalist and a naturalist since I knew what that was_ because it allowed me to think-my-way out of strictures my world was putting on me; expectations it was ‘expecting’ me to bow to_ because I was a girl_ and now a woman. But that doesn’t mean I’m closed to possibilities.” After taking a deep breath, she continues, “If I ever encountered anything truly paranormal or supernatural – whatever that would mean – I would have to accept it. _I’m thinking, what would I have experienced had I been there at that house that day? What might I experience if I went there today?”
The gathered-together at table with Octavia nod, sympathizing with their ‘interviewer,’ appreciative of her openness and her willing confession.
“Your family, Geoffrey,” Robert says, “curate stories of ghosts.”
“Family ghosts, yes_ Jennifer’s from the 19th century, Evelyn’s from the early 20th_ there were stories of them and ‘sightings’ recorded in our family’s journals. But whether we actually ‘believe’ in ghosts, I’m not sure_ whether we think they are ‘real’ or whether they are – as I’ve long thought – ‘glyphs’ of mortality; like what you said, Vincent – being an imaginary projection of a remaining connection with those who are gone.”
“That’s a very interesting idea, too,” Octavia now allows, intrigued.
“We never had any ghosts at our house, did we mother?”
“Nope_ our house was free of any such ‘lingerers,’ as your grandfather oft called ghosts and their hauntings.”
“Geoffrey, you know where that place is, right?” Octavia now proffers. “Perhaps we should go out there some day and see what we experience?”
“Hell no!” Geoffrey mock retorts, everyone around the table laughing at his seemingly put-on fear; though he himself fears more than he lets on.
The Four Friends remain quiet at the thought of returning to that place someday, Robert saying, “It might be a good palliative,” to which his friends give skeptical looks as they ‘hem and haw’ a bit.
“Now,” Octavia posed, “to lighten the mood and return to more ‘normal’ topics_ about your house, Robert? You left it but did you sell it?” She looked at Robert and then around Geoffrey at Evelyn for an answer.
“We didn’t sell,” Evelyn said, “we rented it. Off and on through the sixties, and a good part of the seventies.”
“Rob or someone had said yesterday that it has been ‘kept up.’ This was because you had renters?”
“We did, Ock” Robert avowed, “though there were years here and there when it stood empty. Since the Reunion, it’s been used for a number of things. When Daniel holds his Horrorfest each Fall, some of his guests are always billeted at our old house_”
“I’ve read his Ghost Town Trails,” Octavia admits, “which just came out this Spring. Very spooky. His last one, The Den of the Luciferians from ’88? _a bit unnerving! Wow.”
“I agree with you on The Den, Ock, I haven’t had a chance to read the new one yet,” Robert went on, “and as for the use of our house, I’ll say the same goes for the “Victorian Novel” weekends Susan Jean hosts. We also occasionally offer it to professors from colleges around as a place of ‘retreat’ on their sabbaticals, usually for when they’re writing.”
“Is it occupied right now?” Octavia asks.
“No, it’s empty,” Evelyn says.
“I’ve walked past it,” Octavia says, “when Geoff and I are ambling ‘round the Hill on the road, but I’d love to see inside it sometime.”
All eyes turn to Robert, who says “we could go sometime,” sounding game.
There is a fecund hesitation; everyone around the table seeming to be thinking the same thing.
“I could go today_” Vincent suggests. “It’s a ‘touchstone of memory’ for me, too, Robert, to borrow one of your phrases. All our talking has reminded me of how I used to walk you back up home after we’d been sitting the Whittier kids.”
“I wasn’t exactly suggesting today,” Octavia apologizes, “but_ I’d be game.”
“Mother, what’d’ya think? Wanna go over to the old house?”
“Hm_ not today, hun, but you-all can go, surely.”
“We’d love to have you along,” Lori Ann offers, her friends all nodding their agreement.
“I know. But it’s gonna be a scorcher, and I think I would just enjoy being here by myself in the house, ‘til Sheldon, Veronica and the kids get back tomorrow. _Rather than going out into the heat.”
“We understand,” Robert gives-in with sympathy.
“John are you game?”
“Sure_ it’s a ‘touch-stone’ for me, too, Lori.”
“Alright! Let’s clean up and go!” Robert says.
At this prompt, they all start getting up from the table and begin carrying dishes to the sinks, the ‘overflow’ going on the sideboard until the first round can be washed and dried. There is a sense of togetherness tethering each-to-the-others as Evelyn thanks her guests for breaking-fast with her, they in turn thanking her again for hosting them. There is a warmth between Vincent and Robert as they do the dishes at the two sinks. Lori Ann and Evelyn chat informally as they wipe down the table together. John finishes the fruit in his fruit-bowl and then heads to the bathroom.
After the dishes are all cleaned up, dried, and put away, and after everyone has made a bathroom stop, they gather up their bags of clothes from the day before and say their thanks and farewells to Evelyn, who waves at them out the front door as they climb into their cars, turn keys in ignitions, back up and then turn about, heading off_ exiting the driveway and retracing their trek out the half-mile lane to the Tannersville Rd.
As they drive into Wickersfeld and then down through town to Route 1-91 South, there is a sense of pilgrimage in the Heart of each traveller. Four cars journeying ‘together;’ staying in a line like a small procession. Though they are in different vehicles, each passenger senses that they are in communion with the others, as if in a caravan transporting embodied memory, leading back to Deer Hill—a place they have all been gathered to – together and separately – over the previous 12 years since the Whittier Reunion, but never to the house to which they are now going.
At Deer Hill Road they turn in and go down and across the bridge over Willow Creek, first crossing the old defunct P-R-R tracks on the near side and then the reanimated W-R-R tracks on the far side. The New Whittier House – dubbed ‘Nathaniel House’ – stands up to their left on the eastern-most hoof of the Hill as they pass by, always looking, Lori Ann thinks as she passes, like an big old boarding house or schoolhouse, always recalling how Angus had said, “well, we’ve built ourselves another Whittier Hotel” once he saw his plans realized in three-dimensional space.
From there the road then gradually carries them on around, bearing right and then on up Deer Hill’s northern flank. Half-a-minute later they are pulling-into the drive at Werner House.
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