heads,” Dad said. “Legend, rumour if you will, has it that you can see galloping headless horses in the night sky over the Roman Line every February 4.”
“Wow!” Jennifer and I said at the same time.
As I studied the ghostly clouds drifting across the bleak sky, one of the blackest shapes veered across the hood of the car and momentarily blocked Dad’s view of the road. As the vehicle bounced in the snowdrifts and spun in a full circle, the countryside flashed before our eyes and we hurtled helplessly across the road into the ditch on the opposite side. When the car hit the ditch, a wall of snow covered the back window. Dazed and confused, we all started to talk and move at once.
“Sit still!” Dad ordered. He seldom raised his voice, and when he did, he always got everyone’s attention. Slowly, he opened his door and stepped into a knee-deep drift. “We’re stuck!”
“Stuck! But, Tom —” Mom said, beginning to panic.
“Easy, Ellen,” Dad soothed. “We turned on the Roman Line about two kilometres back. My dad’s place isn’t far. See! There’s Rob Salts’s place, the old Donnelly Homestead. We’re nearly there.”
“What was that shadow?” Jennifer asked, shivering. She had moved from her rear seat.
Dad chuckled. “The Midnight Lady, I imagine.”
“Who?” I gasped.
“Thomas Kelley’s Midnight Lady. According to him, she rides every February 4 on the Roman Line, seeking revenge for the Donnellys.”
“Really?” I’d heard more stories about the Donnellys in one day than ever before in my life, even from Granddad.
“Let’s go, Jason!” Dad said. “We’ll walk to Granddad’s and get his tractor to pull us out. Ellen and Jennifer, you stay here.”
“But, Tom!” Mom protested.
“It’ll be better for you and Jennifer to wait in the car and keep warm,” Dad said. “We’ll be back in a jiffy. I promise.”
Dad and I began walking. Smooth, wind-sculpted snowbanks stretched everywhere I looked. Some tapered into the surrounding open spaces, while others filled the road’s width.
“Dad,” I said after we’d struggled about halfway to Granddad’s, “do you believe those stories you told me?”
“What stories?” he said as he laboured awkwardly through the snow.
I knew he had other things on his mind, but I wanted an answer. Besides, I figured talking about the Donnellys might help us keep our minds off the storm. “Those ghost stories about — never mind.”
Dad turned and faced me, blinking away some swirling snowflakes. “No, I don’t really believe in ghosts. I’ve heard those stories ever since I was your age. Most people around here don’t like to talk about the Donnellys at all. Those that do seem to add to the tales with each telling. Even Rob Salts doesn’t put too much faith in some of the stories he hears.”
“But I thought he was a trance clair ...”
“Clairvoyant,” Dad finished. “That’s right. He’s a professional and has studied the issues extensively. But at the same time he’s quite serious about the history of the Donnelly family and won’t accept anything but the facts. He offers a great tour of his farm. We should go someday this spring.”
Plodding headfirst into the storm, we nearly missed Granddad’s lane. The snow was piled almost as high as the posts marking his laneway. We climbed over the drifts on our hands and knees until we reached my grandparents’ back door. Dad pounded heavily — Granddad was slightly deaf and his eyesight was blurred. After about the fifth bang, we heard footsteps shuffling across the kitchen floor. A loud crash erupted, and Granddad muttered a curse. Soon the flowered lace curtains parted from the window on the back door.
“Who’s there?” Granddad demanded.
“Dad, it’s Jason and me! Open up!”
“I’m not opening to anybody! Not on a day like this!”
We both heard a metallic click.
“Back off and go away!” Granddad barked, pointing his shotgun through the window.
“For heaven’s sake!” A small grey head with a round hair bun at the back peeked over the windowsill. “Put that gun down, you old fool!”
I laughed. Grandma might be tiny, but she sure could make Granddad obey.
“But, Mother!” he protested.
“Mom!” Dad called. “Let us in!”
Grandma glanced through the frosted window, and her eyes bulged. “It’s Tom!” she cried. “And Jason’s with him. Open the door for them.”
“Tom?” he huffed. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
The door jerked open, and we both stumbled in. Grandma hugged me and shook the snow off Dad’s neck and shoulders. After hanging our coats on the rack near the wood-burning stove, she hurried to plug in the electric kettle.
“Not now, Mom!” Dad said. “Ellen and Jennifer are stuck in the drift at the end of the line. Tom and I will just get warm and dry out a bit. Dad, can we borrow your tractor?”
Granddad didn’t answer. Instead he buried himself in the utility closet and muttered a soft curse as his shotgun thudded on the floor. Finally, he emerged with his eyeglasses skewed crookedly over his face, grey tufts of hair spread in every direction, and his scarf drooped around his neck. “Give me a minute to fire the tractor up!” he told us as he tugged on his knee-high winter field boots.
I looked at my dad, who smiled, shook his head, and raised both eyebrows.
“We’ll be back, Mother!” Granddad said. “Keep the kettle warm. Let’s go, Tom! You, too, Jason!”
Dad and I put our coats back on and tumbled down the back stoop and out to the barn. “He sure doesn’t change, does he?” I said to Dad, and we both grinned.
“Wait there!” Granddad ordered. He trudged through the snow blocking the lane to the barn. Dad and I started to follow him when we saw him struggle with the barn door, which was stuck in the snowdrifts. “Stay there!” he commanded, shoving one last time. The door skittered along its roller track, and Granddad toppled through the door but quickly staggered to his feet.
“Granddad!” I called. “Are you all right?”
I relaxed when I heard a string of swear words and saw him angrily brush the snow from his coat collar. Then he climbed onto the tractor, a 1948 Massey-Ferguson, and pulled the choke out to three-quarters full — no more or it would flood, he’d always warn. Next he twisted the key to the on position and pressed the starter. The engine coughed, and a black puff of smoke belched from the exhaust pipe. Then nothing more.
“Come on, old girl!” he coaxed. “Just one more time!”
Again he stamped on the starter button. This time the engine
