1
An open letter to the people of F—
I will openly state for the record that I had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Elena Clover. Despite our differences, no one could be more shocked by what happened to her than me. I had known Elena since we were girls, and though we later grew apart, she always kept a very special place in my heart.
I honestly think it is completely unfair that I’m being accused of this, as I have never been anything but an asset to this town, giving freely of my time and energy, especially in regards to the town archive and my extensive historical research. To have this taint to my name is a disgrace, and you should all know better! Don’t think that I don’t hear your whispers, or feel your eyes upon me as I venture the streets of F—. I know what you are saying. I hear it like a snake in the grass, a quiet slithering, barely there, but lethal all the same. You should all be careful. We have a sorry history when it comes to gossip and rumors in this town, and we should all have learned our lesson by now: not a single wagging tongue is innocent when the witch goes down the well.
In the spirit of full disclosure, and in the hopes of stopping the rumor mill, I have opted to write this letter with the aim of sharing all that I know about Elena’s return to F—, and what happened between us over the summer. I swear I won’t hold anything back, and feel confident that you too will be convinced by the end of it that the villain of this piece (if one there must be) is Elena herself, and not me. Even if things got a little heated and a smidge out of hand between us, that hardly leaves me with any responsibility for what happened to her later. I will tell you what I know, and then I hope the accusations will be firmly put to rest.
The story is a long one, so I will post it in installments here on my Facebook page and on www.ilsbethclark.com. I’m also in discussions with the editor at the F— Daily, in the hopes of having a shorter version of the account printed there. As I said, I have nothing to hide, and it is truly heinous that I’m even forced to take these steps, but no one is safe when the rumors spread—just look at poor Ilsbeth Clark! It is a shame that it has come to this, but I see no other way of quenching this unpleasantness. It is unfair to Elena’s memory too, as she’s no longer here to have her say, but I’ll do my very best to be fair in my recounts, and tell everything just the way that it happened. I will prove to you all that my hands are clean and that Elena’s death has nothing to do with me.
If you would like to read more about the terrible consequences of rumormongering, I suggest you read my novel, Ilsbeth in the Twilight, available from the bookstore on Main Street, at the town library, or from my website: www.ilsbethclark.com.
Signed copies are available on request.
2
As I mentioned in the first installment, I had known Elena Clover for years. The first time we met, I was a girl of ten, and Elena was one year younger. It was the same year that her uncle, John, bought the summerhouse that’s situated on the grounds where Nicksby once sprawled with its many acres of land.
I know the summerhouse is much admired in town, some of you call it “the castle,” but I assure you, it is not. It is an architectural anomaly with its multitude of widows of various shapes and garish tints, its gross tower and tasteless spire. How John decided upon that ghastly shade of arsenic green for its outer walls is anyone’s guess, I suppose.
Elena always claimed that her uncle was an artist, but I never saw him do anything remotely artistic. Mostly he spent his days by the lake with his fishing rod or in the kitchen with his old radios, tinkering with their innards, hoping to bring one to life. Elena’s paternal grandfather came from money and was a judge before he retired, so I guess “Uncle John” could spend his time thus without having to worry too much about the bills.
That first summer, Elena had arrived with her mother and brother to help John get the house in shape. It had stood empty for a time by then, and the walls were rotted through in some places. The paint (a simple white at the time) was flaking, and the plumbing left much to be desired. I remember they had to pee outside for the first three weeks of their stay.
As most of you already know, my father’s farm was located just a five-minute walk from the summerhouse, with the properties separated only by an old wooden fence that grew a multitude of lichen. While Nicksby still existed, cattle had been crazing on the land between us, but since it burned, the woods have taken over, and there’s a stretch of dense forest there now, rife with pine trees, oaks, and firs.
And the well, of course. The well is there too, badly neglected and almost forgotten, a silent witness to history.
It didn’t take many days from the summer guests’ arrival before the sounds of other children playing had me venture through those woods to investigate. I was at that time a lonely child. As most of you are aware, both my legs needed surgery after a car accident when I was eight. This required me to stay in the hospital for long stretches of time, and move around on crutches. I didn’t spend much time in school and didn’t see many children, besides my older sisters. The only other girl my age who lived in our neck of the woods had sadly disappeared the same year, likely kidnapped by her biological father. I had not been very close to Flora, but felt her absence all the same. That summer was also the first time since the accident when I had neither casts nor steel screws spiking out of my legs, having just recovered from the last procedure. Though I did not walk well yet, I managed to move around.
I remember being restless, and eager to experience something else. Something that was not the farm with its squat little house and a barn filled with lowing cows, the endless wheat fields, or the reek of manure. I wanted to see people who were not my mother with her tired face and drab clothes, my father with his dour expression, or my tittering sisters, already halfway through puberty by then, with glossy lips and ridiculous clothes, not at all concerned with a little thing like me. People who were not doctors, nurses, or physiotherapists with insistent and hard, kneading hands.
I think I was hungry for joy.
Elena had that in abundance. Back then, she was a coltish girl with golden skin and a freckled face. Her hair looked like wheat that had ripened in the sun, and every time she washed it, her mom helped her braid it so it later fell down her back as a crimped sheet of gold. The first time I saw her, she and her younger sister, Erica, were out on the unkempt lawn drinking raspberry lemonade from straws. They had brought out a set of wrought iron furniture that had once been white but had since turned a shade of pale yellow. The chairs and table rested on some flagstones under a gnarled old cherry tree, and the girls sat on seats of iron leaves with the pitcher of lemonade between them on the table. The sun was very bright that day, blazing from a pure, blue sky. Elena wore denim shorts over a red swimsuit, while her sister had donned a blue T-shirt and jeans. Erica had a purple bucket hat perched upon her head, hiding most of her chestnut curls from view.
I remember that I thought the two of them looked glorious, as cut from a Botticelli painting, for no other reason but that their newness gave them a special shine. These were city kids for sure; I could sense it just from the way they sat, or the way that they laughed, all loud and carefree in the wildflower-studded grass.
I didn’t dare to approach them. I was scared stiff by the worldliness of those two. When Erica whipped out a handheld game console, I thought that I should die. My parents could never afford such luxuries. I stood among the blackberry brambles that edged the garden and just drank in the sight of them until their mom, tall, slim, and freckled like Elena, came out and called them back inside, tempting their bellies with spaghetti. Then I limped back home again.
I never told Elena I was there that day.
That same night, I remember staring at myself in the cracked mirror over the bathroom sink for a good long while. I wondered why my hair looked so drab and lanky while hers was such a halo, why my skin was pale and not blessed with any freckles but just some unflattering splotches of red. I remembered her long, lean legs under the shorts, and thought of my own: weak and marred by angry scars. I don’t think I felt jealousy, per se; it was more of a reflection on how unjust the world could be. I didn’t think badly of Elena because of it, rather I was powerfully drawn to her, and the next day I went back to the summerhouse. I wasn’t merely curious anymore, but it seemed vitally important to connect with this girl. I’m not sure why I felt that way, but I did.
Perhaps I wanted to see if some of her dripping beauty would transfer onto myself, as if just by being near her, the golden sheen would coat me, too.
I found the sisters working that day, or pretending to, anyway. Erica pushed the lawnmower around. It was an ancient thing with no engine; rust bled through the green paint. Elena stood by the table, emptying dead greenery from old flowerpots into a black plastic bag. She had tied a kerchief with a strawberry print over her hair to keep the draft from playing with it and blowing it into her eyes. She wore a pink T-shirt over the denim shorts that day, it was a nice one with puffed sleeves and heart-shaped buttons running down the chest. I immediately wanted one, and tried to picture what it would look like on myself.
The weather was cooler that day, though still warm, and the sky was a pale shade of gray, yet Elena still seemed to shine before me, and I remember thinking how unfair it was from my spot among the brambles.
It was then that she saw me, standing there in my blue plaid dress among the monstrous growth of blackberry, and to my own utter delight, she didn’t squint her eyes with disapproval or put up a cold face, but rose her hand in greeting, while a lovely smile appeared on her lips.
“Hi,” she called out. “What’s your name?”
“Cathy!” I called back, while my heart beat fast with excitement.
“I’m Elena!” answered Elena. “Come over here!”
I thought that I should die then, from happiness, but worry too, for what if this wonderful girl didn’t like me? I still did it, though. I went to her, slowly made my way across the lawn, barely even noticing the discomfort in my legs.
When I arrived at the table, she offered me a chair.
“I just have to finish this,” she motioned to the row of metal flowerpots bursting with things long dead that stood waiting by her feet. “Then we can play if you like.”
I most certainly did want that, and we were friends ever since. Every morning that summer, shortly after breakfast, I laboriously climbed the rotting fence and trekked across the stretch of woods to be with Elena. Sometimes I even had dinner there, grilled cheese sandwiches or chicken salads hastily thrown together by Elena’s mother or uncle. Sometimes I slept over too, sharing the queen-sized bed in Elena’s spacious room up on the second floor. It looked as if an old woman had lived there before, with a crocheted white bedspread and a flower-patterned wingback chair.
Everything in the summerhouse smelled like fresh paint that first summer, as John and Elena’s mom, Susan, were at it in every neglected room, bringing new color and life to “the castle.” Even if I lived close by, it was as if I woke up to a whole other world when I was there. The light that came pouring in through the widow every morning was brighter, and the air felt somehow cleaner. The grown-ups were attentive and laughed a lot. Elena told me early on that her father had died from cancer, but that it was a long time ago so I didn’t have to feel sorry for her. That was a relief to me, because I would have had some problems feeling that way about her. To me, she did not seem pitiful at all.
It was as if bad things couldn’t touch her.
Though my legs were in poor condition, Elena’s were in excellent shape, and she ran more than she walked. She was rarely ever at peace but sprinted across the lawn while chasing a ball or some such, or to the lake when we went swimming. Elena was the one who taught me how to do that. I had found that it was easier to move my legs under water, and so she decided the time was right for some lessons. By the end of that first summer, I could do breaststrokes and float on my back. To me that was a breathtaking victory after all the damage, and I had my new friend to thank for all of it.
So you see, I truly did love Elena.
I don’t think her shine ever truly transferred to me, though. I looked much the same every night in the mirror, but it felt like it did. It was as if when I was with her, I could do anything; I was stronger, faster, and more daring than I had ever been. If we were playing outside below the cherry tree, draping the furniture in sheets to make tents, exploring the hot attic crammed with old furniture, or roaming the woods surrounding the lake, I felt a sense of freedom that was new to me. Elena never pitied me or asked about my legs, she only accepted things as they were and slowed down her pace so I could keep up.
It truly was pleasant back then.
Too bad it had to come to an end.
3
Elena Clover’s journal
April 28
I really hate being back here. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do. I’m disappointed, too, that this is how I feel, as I had been hoping that being here among Uncle John’s things, in a place that he loved so much, would be soothing somehow, but it’s not. Instead, it only reopens the wound. I just miss him, a lot, and there isn’t a place in the castle that doesn’t hold memories of him. I even catch a whiff of his cologne from time to time, which only goes to prove my point: he always wore too much of it, but I even miss his vehement denial whenever I mentioned the fact.
Who’d think that such a strong man had such a fragile heart?
There’s a lot to get through, though, before the castle can go up for sale. It’s really pretty amazing how much junk he kept here. I haven’t set foot in the castle for twenty years, and the clutter has built impressively since then. The realtor thinks we can sell the house furnished, which certainly helps, but what about all his fishing gear, or the vintage books and radios that take up a whole room each?
I’ll say this for my beloved uncle, he knew how to nurture his hobbies and went all in, no matter the cost. Clearing out his apartment in the city was nothing compared to this. I really shouldn’t have come alone. I should have at least brought Erica.
Strangely enough, my old room is uncluttered. I remember Uncle John telling me once that he’d left my room ready for when I chose to come back to F—, but I never took it seriously. Shame on me then, because the room is just how I left it at eighteen, even the magazine stack on the bedside table is the same, though slightly more musty and yellow. I just can’t believe that he kept that room for me.
The kitchen is in good shape too. He always had that weird thing about old food, so everything is empty and clean, but there’s plenty of canned food in the pantry, and I stopped at the grocery store on my way here to stock up on perishables. It just won’t be the same being here without his poor cooking, though. I’ll desperately miss those sooty hotdogs and greasy salads he made. I’m sure this house has never before seen a smoothie, which is why I brought my own blender from home. I also brought plenty of black bags and cardboard boxes, remembering only too well the chaos when we cleared out the apartment, and how heartbreaking it was to crate his paintings.
Hopefully, he didn’t leave many of those out here. I just don’t think I can take that kind of heartache again—all those glorious colors packed away and sent to storage. There are a few, of course, hanging on the walls downstairs, holding his blood and breath in the brushstrokes, but mostly this was his place to refill the well and soak up the woodsy energy. His place to do things other than paint, like building radios and fishing in the lake.
I really wish we could have kept his haven, but neither Erica nor I will ever use it. It still hurts bad to let it go, though.
It’s the first time I’ve been here all alone and I have to admit it’s not entirely comfortable, with the woods growing so dense and thick just a stone’s throw from the house. I’m not sure if it’s me being too used to city living, but I really don’t like not being able to see what’s hiding inside those woods. I also think the woods have crept closer, somehow, over the years, but that could just be me remembering it wrong. What I do know is that wildlife is still rife, as I was repeatedly disturbed throughout the night by some keening sound from the woods—very likely a fox. Every time I fell asleep, the sound came back and had me sitting straight up in bed, heaving for breath. I even went downstairs at one point to rummage through the cupboard for chamomile tea. Not that it would have helped much, but I’ve been trying to cut back on the sleeping pills. I also tried some light breathing exercises to calm down both body and mind, but in the end, I just gave up and took a pill anyway. It left me sluggish in the morning, but at least I could sleep.
The fox was still keening when I drifted off.
This morning, however, the sun was bright and flooded into the kitchen through the windows, revealing plenty of dust on the counter and the ornate carvings on the oaken cupboard doors. I’m so happy we’ll have professionals in to do the cleaning, as Uncle John didn’t spend much time worrying about practical things. While eating, I went through the house and looked through the windows, reacquainting myself with the “castle grounds.” The old cherry tree is still there, though Uncle John told me once that it doesn’t carry fruit anymore. It’s ancient by now, dark in color and tilting to the left. The leaves are still budding, though, so there is still life. I wonder if it’s a hazard, somehow, if it’s soft and rotting on the inside. It seems to me an aging queen kneeling on the lawn.
Everything must come to an end, I suppose.
I snapped a picture and posted it. #thewisdomoftrees
Today, I’ll start working in the living room and go through the contents of the bookshelves. I have no illusions that I’ll be done in there today, and there’s also the makeshift library upstairs. Had he been any other man, I could have just crated the lot and donated the books, but he kept some rare ones and first editions, so I’ll have to go through it all.
Copyright © 2022 by Camilla Bruce
