with fresh air and sun before spending the rest of the day in a dark, dusty attic. I returned to the cottage, expecting to have at least another hour before Marie arrived. I didn’t. She was sitting on the porch, her still form all but lost in shadow, with Sergei’s muzzle nestled in her lap.
Usually, she was full of energy, impatient to start work. This morning she wasn’t. She sat in silence, hunched over her coffee. Her fingers played with the leather pouch she always wore around her neck.
She didn’t move when I approached. No sound, not even her usual greeting of “Mornin’, Missie. You lookin’ good today. Great mornin’ for work, eh?”
Only when my footsteps echoed on the wooden floor did she look up. Although she tried to keep her face in shadow, when she turned towards me, I discovered the reason for her silence. The left side of her face was swollen red, her eye puffy with the beginning of a dark purple bruise.
“Bastard,” I whispered. I should have been prepared. But with the news of the gold mine and Gareth’s phone call, I’d forgotten about Louis.
Marie shrugged her shoulders in mute acceptance and continued the slow nursing of her coffee.
Damn the bastard, why couldn’t he leave her alone? Twice before I’d seen her this way. Each time just before Louis headed back into the bush, almost as if he had to remind her who was boss before leaving her on her own.
“Has he gone?” I asked.
She nodded yes.
“Let me take you to the doctor.”
She shook her head. She’d refused my help those other times too.
“Then let me top up your coffee, and we’ll just sit here and enjoy the morning sun.”
I also brought out a cold pack to help with the swelling. There was nothing else I could do. The only solution was for her to leave him, and she wouldn’t do that.
But who was I to talk? It had taken more than a Janice to force me to finally admit to the truth about Gareth. But although I could admit it, I still couldn’t face up to it. I returned to the kitchen to retrieve the vodka.
“You need some of this,” I said, holding the opened bottle over Marie’s cup. She pushed it away and watched silently while I poured a good measure into my own coffee cup.
“Don’t worry, Missie,” she said. “Kije manido says gonna be okay.”
“Pardon?” I asked, not sure what she meant.
Instead of answering, she smiled and patted my hand as if consoling a distressed child. Then she resumed nursing her coffee.
By the time both of us were smiling, the sun had disappeared behind a layer of cloud. We retreated to the attic as the rain began to fall.
My pulse quickened at the sight of a lifetime of stuff crammed into every inch of space in the large room. Surely buried somewhere in here was something that would tell me whether Aunt Aggie ever owned Whispers Island.
Trunks filled one side of the room from the floor to the steeply slanted ceiling. Wooden boxes, newspapers and who knew what else were piled one on top of another. Furniture spread from one end of the room to the other. A thick blanket of dust mixed with cobwebs, dead insects and mouse droppings coated everything.
The smell of old wood and dead air made us cough. I opened the closest window and flooded the room with a fresh scent of pine, while from outside came the sound of rain tapping on metal.
I looked across the lake to Whispers Island, a dark hump against the backdrop of golden hills. Something moved. Another group of dots, this time yellow, were scrambling over the rocks. Once again a line of boats littered the northern spit of land. They reminded me of yesterday’s strange demand.
“Marie, why did you want me to tell those men to leave the island?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“But you were so insistent.”
“For ancestors.” Marie clutched the amulet hanging from her neck by a thin leather thong. Although it was probably once a fine example of Algonquin workmanship, its deerskin had worn down to a fragile thinness, and its decoration was missing too many coloured beads to be a recognizable design.
“Yes, but why me? I’ve got nothing to do with your ancestors.”
Marie pulled her amulet so hard I thought the thong would break. She stared out the window, then back at me and said, “You got the boat.”
It seemed a plausible enough reason, but I didn’t believe her. She knew how to operate the motor boat as well as I did.
However, realizing from past experience that it would be a tough battle to move her once she’d dug her heels in, I decided to ask her another question. “What do you know of Aunt Aggie’s connection to Whispers Island?”
“Who tell you that?”
“Eric.”
“He blowing in the wind.”
“Are you saying that Aunt Aggie had nothing to do with the island?”
“I know nothing. You want help, let’s get started. I got lots other work to do.” She picked up some empty metal tins lying on the floor.
“Marie, if you know something, tell me. It could stop a gold mine.”
“Know nothing.”
“Tell Eric then, if you don’t want to tell me.”
My answer was a loud clatter as she threw the tins into one of the boxes we’d brought up.
I gave up. Marie had a stubborn streak in her. I’d discovered the best approach was to leave her alone and hope she’d loosen up as her attention became caught up in her work. Sometimes she would relent as the day progressed.
I looked around, wondering where to begin. “What a mess. You’d think Aunt Aggie would’ve gotten rid of this junk long ago.”
Marie continued to ignore me. She touched the swollen side of her face. And then she answered, “Mooti told me Miz Agatta never come up here.”
There was that strange word “Mooti”. When I’d first heard it, I’d assumed it was Algonquin for “mother”. I’d since learned from Eric that it wasn’t, just a special name Marie’s family used.
“Miz Agatta keep Mooti away too,” she added, which reminded me of the time when Aunt Aggie had caught me sneaking in here.
I must have been about twelve or thirteen. I’d found a key labelled “attic” and couldn’t resist the temptation to go exploring. She was very upset and lectured me for what seemed like hours on sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. Next day she changed the lock.
“Mooti said she scared of something,” Marie continued.
“Maybe
