I’ve given up trying to engage the ferrywoman in conversation. I’d value the distraction of talking to her, anything to relieve this sense of apprehension and impending disappointment but she hasn’t spoken a single word despite my repeated attempts. A glimmer of pity flickered in her eyes once, but then she turned away to concentrate on her task of guiding us safely to the Isle of Ancestors.
I’d so love to see Beverly again. We had a joyous visit. With so many loved ones who’ve gone on before, why do I have this feeling of dread?
“You’re not wanted here.”
I come empty handed. What do you bring when you don’t know who you’ll meet? When I reach the orchard I’ll pick some apples. Last time they turned to dancing slippers. The thought makes me smile.
“Thief, fortune stealer !”
I shiver in the night breeze and wonder why it’s so different this time. Live in the present, I think, as I struggle with the inner flaw that always threatens to split my mind in two like the San Andreas Fault. The past is gone, let what will happen come to pass.
” It was mine, not yours. to take.”
The water’s like ink, the shoreline barely discernible, how the ferry woman finds the shaky dock is beyond me. I know the path will wind through the orchard and lead to the cave; there’s no chance I’ll get lost, still, I step off the boat but go no further. “I’ve changed my mind, take me back,” I say, aware of the pleading in my tone.
She shakes her head. Her weathered face seems carved from stone, but a tear slides down her cheek as she bars my way with her pole when I try to climb back on board. “You will survive,” she says brusquely and pushes off. Within seconds the blackness envelopes her and she is gone.
Thin clouds veil the moon blurring the outlines of the dirt road that leads to the orchard I remember so well. The trees sway, as though daring me to pluck their fruit, as I hurry past. I stoop quickly when I reach the end of the grove and gather two windfalls, then run the last hundred yards to the cave. I am inside before I stop, grateful to find a torch to light my way down to the main chamber.
The flame crackles in the dank air, offering neither a welcome of love nor acceptance this time, only mistrust and hatred. Shadows assault me, my legs grow heavy with fear and I continue only because the light ahead, despite what it will reveal, is less terrifying than the dark.
A cloaked figure sits, back to me, crouching near a blazing fire in the center of the room. I approach and wait in resignation and submission.
“So. One of you has finally come.” The voice is old and bitter and cracks like parchment.
“Forgive me Ancestor, but do I know you?”
“Forgive!” she roars, “Well you should ask for forgiveness, but you won’t get it from me.” Her ancient eyes spill such hatred, I take a step back. The apples fall from my hands and land at her feet.
“An offering of apples. You steal all I own and offer me apples?”
“There’s been a terrible mistake. I’ve never taken anything that didn’t belong to me.”
“Nothing from Nelly Porter?”
The name cracks into my brain like a whip and I drop to my knees. “I’m so sorry. Oh, Nelly, we didn’t ask–it just came. My parents were both ill and they took it with such gratitude.”
“It was meant for David,” she said, her mouth a grim straight line. “He helped me after Chester passed. He was a fine young man, like a son to me.”
“I’m sure he was. We knew someone was contesting, but we never learned who. Aunt Martha needed George’s share for a car. It was totaled in the hospital parking lot while he was recovering from a stroke.”
“Who are you?” she asked sharply and for the first time looked me in the face.
“Barbara.” My name meant nothing to her, so I tried to explain. “Walter’s daughter. My grandfather was your cousin George, and grandpa’s mother your Aunt Mary.”
“Aunt Mary was your great-grandmother? The money traveled three generations?” she asked in disbelief.
“It was an old will, you must have forgotten to make a new one,” I said gently. “Great-grandma died, then grandpa. Then it got split among the three brothers, at least on our side,” I added, “I didn’t know the others.
“I remember now, I left it to three, but I meant to change it,” she said.
“It was divided among almost twenty.” It was some time before she spoke.
“I hated you. I meant it for David.” Then as if remembering a bad dream, “he cursed me, you know, when he didn’t get the money. I saw him walking through my house swearing, damning me to hell for all the time he’d wasted helping me.” She began to cry and I reached for her hands and held them. “He hated me and he shouted and threw things and said my Chester would call me a fool.”
“Hush, now, it’s over, Nelly. I’m sure Chester loved you. He wouldn’t be angry.”
“How long have I been here?” she asked with a start. “When did it happen, how long ago, what year?
“It must be thirty, no thirty-one years, I think.”
I have never heard anyone wail before. The cry she made pierced my heart like a sword and all I could do was keep holding onto her and telling her it was going to be all right. She cried all night. How we knew when the dawn came, I don’t know, but we both did.
“Come, Nelly, you need to leave this place.”
She shook her head. “Too late for me. Go.”
“We each get a question, you know, that’s how it works.” A flicker of a smile cross her wrinkled face. “You asked my name; now it’s my turn.”
“I am a foolish old woman who spent thirty years hating others for my own mistakes. What more can I tell you?”
I try to think how to buffer the harshness of it, but all I can do is ask the truth. “Do you want to see Chester again?” Her face nearly breaks from the pain of it.
“Yes.”
The apples still lay at her feet. I pick one up and place it in her palm. Red fades to yellow, the round fruit withers and flattens into a ferry ticket with today’s date.
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