“I feel like we have to applaud or something,” Pam whispered to Joanne as the haughty coach finished his sermon of rules and warnings. Joanne just smiled, hoping he would not detect his two female colleagues’ ridicule. The students dispersed lazily, lugging their bags along to their designated rooms. Mr. Spence did not utter another word. He just unpacked his macho vehicle before the midday hike they would soon embark on before dinner.
As the cold hand of the imminent evening took hold of Lac Seul and its surrounding natural beauty, the trees began to whisper over the small group of visitors from Labrador City. They moved swiftly, challenging each others' nerves or fitness according to the intimidating loneliness of the forest. At the helm were the more athletic students, followed by Mr. Spence. Behind him, Nathan and the other less capable movers slouched along, chatting and taking pictures. At the tail-end the two ladies, Miss Parsons and Miss Earle, strolled, discussing dinner.
“Only up to that valley entrance, you all, and then we have to turn around and head back to camp!” Mr. Spence commanded reassuringly. “There is a nice meal we still have to prepare and we still have to make the fire for it.”
“Why the rush, sir?” Lisa asked, looking at him over the edge of her Galaxy, still sounding of the shutter.
“Didn't you hear the coach?” Nathan panted as his plump legs ached under him. “The bears are hunting.”
Rolling her eyes at Nathan's repetitive joke, she dismissed him and took another picture. It was a stunning photograph, she reckoned, capturing the panorama of emerald foliage and distinct tree bark to their left. “Wow,” she said as she composed the picture just right for a snap. She could hear Mr. Spence answer her, “Because we cannot be in the woods after dark, Lisa. And if we don’t turn back now we won’t make it back before sundown.”
“Okay,” she smiled at him, and proceeded to zoom in on an especially lavish patch of ethereal greenery that reminded her of a perfect kingdom of fairies from those old obscure books of folklore. “Now that is a perfect picture,” she mumbled as her fingertip wavered, waiting for the high definition screen to sharpen. “Pink blossoms among the ferns this time of year? I bet nobody has even noticed.”
Lisa zoomed in some more so that she could identify the type of flower, but what she thought were pink blossoms were nothing of the sort. She frowned. Her senses changed. Some, like her hearing, dampened considerably, leaving the group's chatter behind in a distant hum. Her sight sharpened to confirm her suspicion of what she thought she saw, while her physical sense of touch assimilated into her intuitive sixth sense. Erect on her arms and her neck, the hair tugged at her skin in waves of disbelief.
“Miss Earle?” she stammered, discovering that even her speech was out of place. “M-miss…Miss Earle! Miss Earle!” Her lids fluttered as she whispered weakly, “My nightmare, it has come true.”
“Yes, Lisa,” she heard somewhere far away in a dream. Lisa's nostrils sucked in stiff tufts of air, becoming dangerously rapid as her eyes affirmed more and more the grisly vision in her phone's viewfinder. The young woman's heart started to race as, one by one, her senses revealed the truth. Around Lisa the world began to spin. Her ears hissed and she felt the ground under her soles neglect her, sinking and rocking. With her last bit of strength she pushed out her breath in a cry.
“Miss Earle!”
“Yes, Lisa!” Joanne's voice suddenly sobered her. The teacher stood right behind her, grabbing her by the arms to steady her. “My God, child, what is wrong? What is wrong? You are white as a sheet! Are you okay? Pam! Lisa is fainting!”
Slurring from the confusion of her hissing brain, Lisa tried to explain. Her body felt like an anvil as she leaned hard against the history teacher. “Miss Earle, I–I think…just…look at the picture. Look at my picture, will you?” she almost shouted in fear of passing out before she could point it out.
“Alright, alright,” Joanne soothed her, and she took the phone from the girl. By this time Mr. Spence and his athletic followers had joined the gathering where Lisa first stood to take her picture.
“What is it, Pam? Joanne?” he asked as he craned his head over Joanne to see the image.
“Jesus!” Joanne exclaimed in awe and terror. She held up the screen to the other two teachers. “Please tell me that is not real.”
On scrutiny, Pam inhaled sharply and looked away. Mr. Spence winced, “I hate to be that guy, Joanne, but that looks pretty real to me. Let me go investigate. Stay here.”
Wading through thick forest growth and thorn-bearing branches, he braved his way towards the pink fabric that was decorating the ghastly collection of bones under the umbrella of low growing plants. He stopped short of the scene and turned to the reluctant audience who waited for his verdict. Jacques Spence just nodded contritely, marking the spot until Joanne reached him. She had instructed Pam and the students to go back to camp and contact the local authorities.
“Oh my God, Jacques,” Joanne said softly as her eyes surveyed the skeletal remains of what appeared to have been a woman. What was left of a pink and white blouse strained over protruding white rib bones, the material ripped and disintegrated by decades of weather and elements.
“She must have been here for ages,” he remarked. “Look. See how brittle her bone structure is, porous? She has been lying here for a very long time, and it is no wonder.” He pointed to a nearby pond in the moist forest floor. “Looks like she was underground, mostly, until the annual sediment shifts over every winter's thaw scraped the earth away.”
“It is true, then,” Joanne nodded quietly, kneeling beside the poor woman's remains. “All secrets are eventually unearthed. Nothing stays hidden from the truth forever.”
The handsome swimming coach stared at the history teacher with a measure of admiration.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just… you didn’t strike me as the poetic type.” He shrugged amicably.
Joanne looked back down at the unfortunate and forgotten corpse as she heard the camp administrator and local law enforcement arrive. As Jacques relayed to them what they had discovered, she saw something very peculiar in the mummified tissue of the chest that gathered up under the protective bone stockade of the sternum. Checking that nobody else had noticed, Joanne quickly inspected the tangled corpse for any other traces of strange objects, other than the mud-covered golden medallion she’d found inside the dead woman's tissue.
With no time for further examination, the history teacher scooped up the artifact and slid it into her hoodie's front pouch. No sooner had she done so when Jacques turned around to point at the horrible find without noticing Joanne's keen sleight of hand in procuring the ancient trinket.
Chapter 6 — Oban's Organist
Nina's nerves had been rattled by the preacher's revelation, of that there was no doubt. After she’d assured him that she would not go home without reliable company, she drove to the market for groceries, as had been her intention before Father Harper had showed up. Yet, she could not conduct her business in a relaxed and collected way. She forgot half of the stuff she was supposed to buy for the house just because she was so preoccupied with taking note of every single person she encountered.
Could it be this one? Or that one? Is this the one Father Harper saw? Her eyes darted up every now and then to briskly examine those close to her, those on the other side of the shopping center, and anyone even looking in her direction. The paranoia was overwhelming, so she elected to go home where she could hide, a place where she would at least see him coming, whoever he was.