Out of the Mist Read Online Free PDF Page B

you
OK?”
    You attempt to explain, wanting
to say, “Yes , thanks, just a bad dream,”
but no sound comes forth. Unable to communicate you try the door.
The handle won’t turn. Is it locked? Puzzled, you push. Now you are
outside the room slowly moving along the hotel corridor. Guests
scream and run. A priest blocks your path. He is holding out a
crucifix at chest level. “Be gone, be gone foul creature ! ”
    You try to tell him that he has
the wrong person, and turn to point at the wraith in the room’s
interior but the door is closed. You feel faint , objects are blurring. In the distance you see
a bright light.
    The commanding voice of the
priest asks, “Who are you ? What is your
name? ” Somehow his question s demand a response and they power your voice.
    “Matthew.” It sounds laboured
and strange.
    “Matthew, you no longer belong
here. It’s time to leave, to pass on. Have courage. Now, I command
you , Matthew, enter the tunnel. Go to the
light at the end.”
     
    ~~~***~~~
     

 
    The Skeleton without a
Skull
    Maida Follini
     
     
    I fought for family and for farm
    Against the French when they did swarm.
    Now here at home my bones do rest
    But where my head is, who can guess?
     
    Living next door to a
graveyard may seem gloomy to some, but for Marjory, the Old
Cemetery in Dartmouth was her familiar play yard from her earliest
years. She loved to walk among gravestones that stood high above
the harbour, looking out to sea. The oldest burials were not
marked. A tablet remembered, “Many Mi’kmaq and early settlers are
buried in this place.” Later graves had a variety of tombstones.
Marjory petted the marble lambs on the children’s graves, and
looked up into the eyes of carved angels whose wings spread
protectively over family plots. Some of the plots contained tombs
like small stone houses, with pillared porches, where Marjory could
play house, picking flowers to decorate sombre pillars. Other plots
contained English settler families, with tall stone blocks for the
parents, and a row of smaller stones for the children.
    The quiet children under the sod were her
friends, and she brought wild flowers to decorate their graves, or
special things like a blue jay’s feather or a shining white
stone.
    Sometimes Marjory wandered over the mossy
turf, reading the inscriptions and trying to make out the meaning
of the carvings and mottoes on the stones:
     
    Praying hands and “Be Thou Also Ready”
    “ Rest Eternal” and “In
Peace”
     
    One inscription presented a mystery:
     
    “ I fought for family and
for farm
    Against the French when they did swarm.
    Now here at home my bones do rest,
    Where my head lies, none
can guess.”
     
    Often and often, Marjory
returned to this stone, one of the oldest in the cemetery. She had
brushed the moss away to read the name:
     
    Henry Ainsworth
    Born Norwich, England 1720
    Died Dartmouth, Nova Scotia 1749
     
    Marjory imagined the bones buried six feet
under the earth: feet, legs, ribs, arms—but no head! What had
happened to Henry’s head? Suppose he woke up on Judgement Day, and
found he had no head? Marjory wondered if a headless person could
enter Heaven. How would St. Peter know it was Henry?
    On the thirtieth of
October, Marjory gathered especially large bunches of goldenrod and
purple asters, and placed them on Henry’s grave. Tomorrow night was
Hallowe’en, when ghosts were supposed to walk, and spirits rose
from the grave to have one night when they could range about and
celebrate before returning underground. And she wanted everyone to
know that someone cared for Henry Ainsworth, even though he had no
head.
    “ There, you’re not
forgotten,” she said to Henry.
    “ Who are you talking to?”
A boy’s voice startled her.
    Marjory stared. “What are
you doing here?” It was Ned, a buddy from her fifth grade class.
Ned lived the next street over from her and their mothers were
friends.
    “ Checking out the graveyard,” said Ned. “Some of