The Shades of Willow’s Creek
by Wayne C. Peake, Jr.
part 1 of 2
My black crow quill scribbles out these lines reluctantly, the ink flowing out over the parchment in symbolic futility for no language written or spoken can capture the true horror of what I have experienced. Just as shadows on the wall only convey a dark reflection, a silent mockery of the living, breathing beings who cast them, so my words like shadow puppets act upon the pages of my tale, giving only a semblance of life, of experience, but not their true substance.
My mind has not yet fully recovered — I doubt it ever will. A merciful numbness has settled over me; like a child shielding its eyes from shadows in the dark, I dare not see or face a reality so unwholesome and dismal. To dwell upon it could only invite madness.
I watch with fascination as the flames ebb and flow eerily over a candle’s blackened wick. The candle, once firm and graceful, has been oddly distorted over time, devoured by the enveloping heat of the flames. My mind lingers in meditative contemplation of candle and flame, by their crude resemblance to body and soul. From the open window comes a chilling breeze that makes the flames dance and flutter, struggling to remain alight, just as fate makes a man struggle and falter upon the unrelenting stage of his life.
But I have forestalled the dreaded task too long. No matter how much I should like to forget the tragic events at Willow’s Creek, the story must be told, if only to relieve the terrible burden of guilt that weighs so heavily upon my weary shoulders and causes me to suffer such bitter pangs of grief and deep regret. I must gird myself, strengthen my resolve, and dredge up those painful memories. And at last set pen to parchment and write.
Chapter 1: The Exile
I’d vowed never to return to my father’s house. Our bond had never been strong, and with my decision to enlist in the militia that bond had been severed forever. I’d been away for nearly ten years, but the pain and bitterness I felt was still as fresh as the day I left. Those years away brought me my first real taste of freedom and the hope of a life far from Willow’s Creek.
If not for a letter from my dear sister Amelia, I would never have returned. A lonely teardrop stained the rose-scented envelope. Her despair flowed with the ink over every graceful letter, imbuing every word, every line, with hidden depths of melancholy. She wrote that our Mother was dying, just barely holding on, and praying to see me one last time. In the postscript she added that Mother would probably not live to see another spring and if I wanted to see her, I had to come soon.
How could I refuse? I am a proud and stubborn man like my father before me. But unlike him I am not a reptile, not a cold-hearted snake. I’d adamantly refused to return for his funeral. I could not feign grief, nor could I so easily go back on my word; for me it would have been a sacrilege. But I could not leave my dear sister alone to face the burden and grief of our Mother’s death, nor could I abandon her again or willfully disregard my Mother’s dying wishes. I felt I had absolutely no choice.
My only companion on this journey was Sweet Medusa, an aging black quarter-horse. Her hooves clopped in the soft mud as we road slowly along the deeply rutted and overgrown trail. Solemn tears fell from the dreary clouds that somehow seemed to share my own gray mood. The wind softly whispered a warning in my waiting ear, or perhaps it was only a vague premonition from somewhere deep within me.
Medusa and I trod the lonely miles together until at last we came to a fork in the road. I turned her head down a once-familiar path. It led to a secret place where I had often gone to be alone, to hide after a cruel beating or to escape one. At the end of the path was a clearing overlooking the valley. From the ledge one could see Willow’s Creek as it wound through the marshland and disappeared into the tangled wilderness beyond.
I dismounted and stood on the edge, listening closely to the wind rustling nervously in the trees. Water ran over the ledge in ever-deepening channels exposing the roots of old trees. The roots grasped the earth, holding on for dear life like gnarled arthritic fingers.
I filled my pipe and smoked as I watched those dismal clouds move slowly across the eastern sky. Then, tapping out my pipe, I reluctantly mounted Sweet Medusa again and we resumed our journey. Higher and higher we climbed into those densely wooded hills until at last we reached the rocky soil of the winding path that led to Willow’s Creek. I looked up from the trail and it loomed over me, dominating the landscape, the highest point for miles around.
Willow’s Creek had seen better days: tall weeds grew around it, the gray paint was peeling, and the wooden slates on the exterior hung loose and disjointed. Oaks had been planted there long ago, to form a barrier against high winds and to lessen the effects of erosion on the ancient foundation.
Like almost all houses built at the turn of century, it had a roofed front porch wide enough to accommodate a swing. But in my thirteenth summer the swing had fallen from the rafters and been burned in the great pit behind the house.
Somehow the house gave me a strange impression, as if it had been waiting for me. Watching from its many high towers and windowed gables. I’d been drawn back as surely and inevitably as the pale moon draws the rising tides to shore.
I tied Medusa to the scarred old hitching post before the porch. My heart beat heavily within my chest as my riding boots thumped loudly on the wooden planks of the steps. The sound somehow strangely exaggerated in the dwindling twilight. I stood there like a lost man.
Then summoning my resolve I knocked. I heard muffled footfalls coming quietly towards the door. It flew open and without a word my sister Amelia threw her arms around me. She smiled deeply at me with tear-streaked eyes, sparkling lambent green. My senses were filled with her sweet warmth; the soft innocence of her embrace, and it touched me deeply and made me regret the foolish pride that had kept me away so long.
“I knew you would come, I knew it,” Amelia said.
Breaking my vow, I stepped across the threshold into my father’s house. There before me in the hallway stood the ancient long case clock of polished black walnut. I remembered it tolling the hour both day and night. The familiar smell of the old house brought back painful memories I had tried so hard to forget.
To the right was the once-elegant sitting room, a fire crackling softly in the hearth. Above it hung a portrait of my father: tall, hard and wiry, his features sharply chiseled, his eyes burning with an almost feral intensity. The artist had captured him well.
“Let me get those wet things off you, you must be freezing.” Amelia took my coat and hung it there in the hallway. “Would you like some coffee?”
“That would be wonderful.”
Amelia brought the coffee and we sat down on the red velvet loveseat, hardly speaking; it seemed to be enough that we were together. “Come — you must see Mother. She’s been waiting so long.”
Amelia lit a lantern and led me up the narrow, creaking stairs and then down the long darkened hallway to our Mother’s room. She looked up at me, nodding her head, encouraging me to enter. When I hesitated, she slowly opened the door for me.
There on the bed lay Mother. The light of the kerosene lantern played softly over her round, womanly features, drawn now with age and pain. Her skin was pale and the veins showed through in unnerving shades of blue and red. Her eyes were closed, and she was barely breathing.
I sank into the chair next to her and slowly leaned over. “Mother?” I whispered.
Her eyes opened gradually, and kindled like a flame when she recognized me, as if all the vitality left within her danced there in her eyes. “Son,” she sighed. I held her dry, yet velvety hand and looked into her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said softly.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“Yes there is,” she said, insistently squeezing my hand. “Say you forgive me.”
“I forgive you.”
“You don’t know what your father was like. When I first met him he was as gentle and honorable a man... until his dreams crumbled around him. Life has a way... and he took the loss of our first-born so hard, and it was fear of losing another that made him so harsh and unyielding with you.” She stroked my hair, and whispered, “Son, son. Don’t hold onto your anger.”
The long case clock tolled dismally and I dropped my head into her lap and began to weep. “There he is. He’s come from purgatory to see us. He says he is sorry now and we’ll be together soon.” I sat with her till Amelia said to leave her be; Mother needed her rest.
As we left Mother’s room, my sister noticed the look in my eye and said, “She’s been talking that way ever since one of those mediums came through town. We had a séance here.”
“In God’s name... Why?”
“Whatever you may think, brother, she loved him.”
I took Medusa to the stable, unsaddled her, and dried her with a blanket. The conversion earlier that night had left me strangely uneasy and I found some forgetfulness, some solace, in caring for her.
But when I returned to my room I was still agitated and couldn’t sleep. The tolling of the long case clock was nearly unbearable. I lay there reliving my past and brooding over my fading hopes for the future when suddenly I heard an anguished cry.
Tossing the heavy quilts aside I scrambled from the warmth of my bed, threw on a robe, and ran barefoot down the hall. I thought Mother was in dire need, but the voice I heard when I reached her door stopped me cold.
“It’s my shame that I never stood up to you in life, but this time — this time! — I will stop you.” I could hear no other voices in the room and could conclude only that she was suffering from delirium.
I was so terribly upset, something in her words struck a deep somber chord within me and my hands began to shake. Not wanting to disturb her in the midst of an episode, I quietly returned to my room.
As I climbed into bed, I caught a fleeting glimpse in the rain-splattered window: a reflection of my father’s face leered obscenely. But when I turned back again, it was gone. I told myself it was only an illusion, my mind playing tricks on me, distorting and painting the oak outside my window into the image of the father I had feared so much in life.
I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish the lantern beside my bed. I cursed myself for being irrational, superstitious; but no amount of intelligent reasoning could match the blood-quickening fear coursing through my veins.
Copyright © 2009 by Wayne C. Peake, Jr.
