a wet season, and the piles of leaves were starting to decompose. After my recent brush with death, the smell was more than appropriate. It made the breath catch at the back of my throat, and as I was a pack-a-day smoker, my breath as I ran was not coming particularly smoothly.
I kept my ears open for snufflings or gruntings, but made it all the way there without meeting a soul.
There was smoke trickling out of the chimney of the sprawling bungalow, and Carla Schreier’s old Dodge was in the driveway. There was no sign of the pram, but the Schreier place had a wide front door. Now that I was out of the woods, so to speak, I slowed down. No sense in arriving out of breath, especially as I had bad news to impart, and ought to deliver it with some semblance of decorum, as Aunt Susan would say.
The Schreiers, Carla, Samson and their son Eddie, were members of an obscure Christian sect whose purpose included the gathering of souls. Shortly after I arrived in the area, I was approached in a slightly nervous, albeit friendly manner by Carla Schreier in the A&P.
She was very pretty, with soft, shoulder-length hair which curled around her face. She wore too much make-up, but it was applied with skill. Her flowered cotton dress was all flounces and ruffles—rather young for her—and from a distance you might mistake her for a woman in her twenties. Up close you could see the slight sagging around her neck, indicating that she was probably closer to forty than twenty.
She had been staring at me while I was squeezing avocados in the produce section. I didn’t know who she was, then. She was just a woman who was dressed for a party when there was no party in sight. Her eyes and the way she was trying to get my attention made me nervous. She came bouncing up and touched my arm.
“You’re Susan Kennedy’s niece, aren’t you?” she said. (Susan is my mother’s sister.) The woman’s voice was breathy and child-like, the kind that makes people get all protective.
“Yes,” I said.
“I thought so. You look just like her.” This wasn’t true. Susan is handsome, dark and strong. I’m plain and weedy.
“I heard you’d moved here from the city,” the woman said. “Your aunt’s a good friend of Samson’s—my husband. We get all our feed from her, you know.”
“Really. That’s good of you.” Later, Susan had some less than friendly things to say about Samson Schreier, but I won’t mention them here.
“Well, her prices are a bit higher than the new place on the highway, but her stock is always fresh and she delivers.”
“I’m sure she does. Well, nice to meet you Ms…?”
“Schreier. Missus. Carla. And you’re Pauline, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.” Something made me not say “call me Polly,” and I soon found out what it was.
“Well, Pauline, I just wanted to welcome you to the community and to ask you if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal saviour.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I just know you’d be interested in coming to our meetings. We have them every Sunday in the Chapel of the Holy Lamb, which is really not that far from where I hear you are staying.” She was so enthusiastic. Reminded me of Lori Pinkerton, trying to get me to join the cheerleading team at Laingford High.
“Well, actually, I…”
“Oh, don’t give me an answer now, Pauline. I know you’ll want to think about it, but I want you to know that we would truly love to have you come and be a part of the glorious mystery of the love of our Lord. Ten o’clock sharp. See you on Sunday!” She retreated, trotting on her little patent-leather heels and making a quick left into the bakery section. She had pressed a tract into my hand and I looked at it, dazed.
“ARE YOU WANDERING, LOST, HUNGRY FOR MEANING?” A miserable-looking young person gazed heavenwards. There were little rays of light coming out of the clouds. Very artistic. “JESUS IS THE ANSWER,” it said. I sighed.
When Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons came to my door in Toronto, I’d just usually tell them I was a witch—a Wiccan—but it didn’t seem like a good idea to do that in Cedar Falls. It would get back to Susan, who would be derisive. Either that, or the zealots would burn down my cabin. The fact is, I’m not big on organized religion of any kind, and it’s taken me a long time to shake off the residue of guilt left by my blessedly short career as a child-Catholic.
I shoved the tract deeply into my pocket and headed down the tinned vegetable aisle. I met Carla Schreier again in Dairy and she gave me a radiant smile. It was all I could do not to bare my teeth and hiss “six, six, six” at her.
I had never come face to face with her again after that. Although she was Francy and John’s nearest neighbour, the Travers and the Schreiers were not friendly. Carla and Samsons son, Eddie, was interested in cars and liked to hang out in John’s shop, but he did so against his parent’s wishes. Francy had told me once that the Schreiers thought their neighbours were “ungodly”.
“Probably because we show that kid a bit of fun once in a while,” she had said, bitterly. “Carla’s a bitch, and Samson’s straight out of the Old Testament.” Francy’s venom was perplexing. Carla hadn’t seemed like a bitch to me. A little over the top, maybe, but fluffy and warm. Just not my kind of warm.
Meeting Carla again after three years of careful avoidance was going to be tricky. I rang the doorbell and ran though a few opening lines in my head. A curtain twitched at a side window.
“Hi, Mrs. Schreier, remember me? The lost soul you tried to recruit a while back?”
“Hi, Carla. Can Francy come out and play?”
I had no proof that Francy was there, but where else could she be? I was convinced that she was hiding, that she knew there would be trouble. But would Carla Schreier be the kind of woman to harbour a fugitive? It seemed unlikely.
The door opened. Eddie, looking guilty as sin, stood there with his mouth hanging open. He was tall for his age, which was sixteen. His body had run away with him in the past year, growing so fast he looked perpetually astonished by it. He was six-foot-two in his socks, his elbows and knees protruded from clothes which could never hope to keep up, and his feet were enormous. His hair, blonde and baby-fine, was cut fashionably short, which was imprudent, considering that his ears might have been happier with a little camouflage. His eyes were blue, his face tanned from outdoor work and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a hamster caught in his throat.
‘Oh. Hi, Polly. How are you?” he said. He made no move to let me in.
“Hi, Eddie. Is your Mom at home?” This threw him.
“Uh, yeah. Yes. She is.”
“Do you think I could talk to her, please?”
“Sure. I guess. Let me check.” He backed away from the door and only just managed to keep from closing it in my face. Eddie was normally very polite. It was one of the things I really liked about him. Something was definitely up.
“Mom!” I heard him yell. He hadn’t moved far away from the door and was calling over his shoulder. “It’s Miss Deacon, Mom.”
“Ms.”
